As a person that has supported both companies for their entirety, I am not sure what to say other than this sort of thing happens in all businesses daily.
First I want to thank both manufacturers for contributing what they do to the hobby/business as they have help me to provide my customers with some pretty cool products.
Spooky is where stern was in the dark ages when they made AMH. Game is cool, had a lot of issues and was lack luster on route. Fun and cool but hard to keep running. I will be the first to say, I liked Charlie, his passion and I wanted to support him. So I did. Every game with the exception of dominos and jetsons as they were not exactly his in house designs. And yes I think spooky has done everything right, that makes it easy to want to support them. Service, support are excellent. But back to the point of all this, is there not a new Godzilla movie or a buzz around this license for them to be in Vegas? Sucks how it went down but Stern at this point may have more to offer a licensor than spooky. I want them to compete and I want them to be here and I will always support Charlie even if I question the product choice, theme etc.
Stern makes a very good product for route guys. We have little issues, have a few hundred out there and I have read the horror stories but out of all those units I've had reliability issues with 2 games. Kiss node board failure and a strange problem with star trek that I'm still trying to shake down. Smaller issues with adjustments upon set up are expected. Some of the things said on this thread are not my experience so I'm not saying they are not true to each individual stating them but I am saying I have a pretty reasonable understanding based on what we have out there.
Back door Board room politics are part of manufacturing businesses, especially ones that rely on known IPs to develop their ideas from. I've been to licensing shows before and rarely was anyone there but stern then JJP came along (jack or an elaut rep has been there previously) but this is new to see all these other pinball manufacturers looking for licensed properties at these events. It's good too but there is a steep learning curve with all this as experience matters a lot as well as proof of product. Again, think about the experience stern has over our other manufacturers. But the smart play has been for the other pinball manufacturers to hire people with experience in these matters to make it easier on them with the process.
Any way you slice it this happens a lot. This time it comes to light but I know of other road blocks in manufacturing of licensed products that have happened in coin op perceived out of spite. The dirty part of the business does show itself from time to time.
