That Gary Stern does not feel the heat breathing down his neck from Heighwey, J.J.P and a few others who have shown they are now seriously in the competition is beyond understanding.. Whatever market lead they recently had with total monopoly short post y 2000 is being eaten up, and fast... The actions taken to do something about it and increase the lead again cannot be considered anything else but self-sabotage. I decided long ago thanks to all horror stories presented, never ever to purchase a NIB Stern machine with their current attitude towards the private home-owners..... Of course the competition is here smiling when reading the negative feedback and taking notes what not to do to accumuluate a possible flying sh*t storm against themselves in the future... A fully service minded company that wants to stay in longterm don't need notes though as it should be well embedded in the management gene-pool, well cemented by now that focus is to keep the HUO dudes happier than ever as it will be vital. Somehow Stern thinks it's still 2003...

Star Wars should be priced at $15,000 and not Batman. Duh.

That's your choice. Enjoy your three machines. But what's your point? Stern has plenty of others, with deeper wallets, willing to buy their pins.

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Dude they don't have to sell the machine. If it's still making money then keep it in there. If it's not sell it and recoup your investment - which can be done. What to put in there upon selling? Who cares? What was there before buying the machine? That has nothing to do with break even. The break even point is not the entire price of the game new. That's super silly. If you pay $5000 for spending that's worth $4500 now, your break even point is $500 not $5000.

My point is that I was a diehard Stern fanboy and if their actions can change me then there are likely others who are rethinking buying new Sterns. If they keep up their actions (poor quality control, raising prices, etc) then eventually they will loose enough customers that it will start hurting.

stern are doing great, giving people what they want. people complain about the quality of the machines and if you take out the play field issue (which I agree is very bad) but will be sorted I don't see much difference between any of the manufacturers. JJP had the light board disaster, Highway - I don't think I've seen their machine actually on and working in the two places that have had them here in the UK. Whereas Stern's machines are flying off the shelves. Everyone is whinging about one special boutique title, Batman66, which nobody has played yet so for all we know could be worth twice its value. Ghostbusters is the best machine for years and Stern haven't had to do any more titles this year because its so good. I think Gary and co are good guys who are trying to make a living in a very difficult segment.

Competition you say JJP announced WOZ in Jan 2011 Highway announced Full Throttle 2012 three games in six years competition I don't think so

You sure about that? beyond the playfield issues:
slimer mech doesn't work out of the box for most
switch on ramp doesn't always register
left scoop can bend back and short against flasher, causing board damage (there's already a service bulletin)
Inlane walls are too short so you have ball hop unless you add aftermarket plastics

As a game being fully packed with features and great art sure, but not without it's issues.

Theres only so many pinball dollars to go around, especially at todays crazy NIB prices.

JJP I think has estimated to have sold 3000 WOZ's. Let say that 2000 Hobbit have been sold as well. Now take 5000 x $7500 as a conservative estimate between all models. Thats over $37 million in sales that didn't go towards a Stern game instead. Thats competition.

you're forgetting hobbit, dialed in and aliens, so 6 actually. Plus every new startup company takes time to ramp up (generate base code framework, source parts, generate CAD models, build a factory, etc etc). You think Stern started out of the gate making 10k pinballs a year? No, Depending on where you want to start in the stern electronics history:

They started out making conversion kit playfields for existing early 80's bally / stern pinballs (PINSTAR) in their basement

If you go by the start of data east, then it's laser war (which sold roughly 2600 games), and most of the parts were borrowed from a williams road kings (not from scratch) with far less complexity than today's pinballs.

Don't joke, I already had the thought that Stern might try their luck with SW and sell it as another one of these "limited collectors" priced games like BM66, although with the possibly a pro as added to the line, as Id imagine if there was one theme ops would want out on route that could bring in some serious coin its SW.

I got back into pinball because of Woz. Paid $6500 for a WOZECLE.

Subsequently, I've purchased a LOTRLE, AC/DCPRE, TWDLE, GBLE and now BM66LE from Stern. About $37,000

Maybe Stern owes JJP some kind of royalty.

GBLE is a phenomenal pin. Love my Stern purchases. I like Woz too.

That's a kick ass collection Iceman and those are all amazing pins, good choices my man

I think the whole anger towards BM66 and Stern has washed over the fact that "a lot" of us love Sterns games, yeah they make some turds now and then but on the whole they make some damn "fun" games and that's what we all want from pinball, deep rules are nice, nice artwork is easy on the eyes and lightshows and toys are cool, but a pin can have all that and if it isn't fun then its missed the mark.

I think a lot of the anger towards Stern & BM66 is because more people would like to be able to either - 1. afford one or 2. be able to justify buying one.

I am sitting on the fence with my feet dangling over #2, I am trying to justify buying a BM66 mainly because I love the show and at 30 I know none of my other friends are going to jump in on this theme and that crane was awesome in BDK so I am lined up as a buyer and I have had a lot of NIB sterns. It pisses me off too because I know if it was $2k cheaper I would have jumped off the fence with both feet planted and that's why I am sure there are a lot in those 2 camps above.

IMO Sterns biggest issue is not their crazy pricing, its there lack of care or respect for their customers, code is a HUGE area Stern need to improve, if code was better and updates where regular they would probably shift even more in terms of sales numbers which is certainly better for them in the long term yet they seem to be only looking short term which is a shame because as frustrating as Stern can be non of us can possibly want them to go under cause that would just suck for pinball as a whole!

Stern damn near bled out in the 2008 ish general time frame and sold only a few hundred NBA and CSI pins. They're now selling games faster than they can make them, with months long backlogs of orders on several titles. They're also experienced and better positioned to survive the next downturn than anyone else. So, I don't think Stern is losing sleep over the great whine noise coming out of Pinside since their BM66 anniversary boutique game was announced and promptly sold out of LEs and SLEs. Despite the torches and pitchforks in this thread we might even see Star Wars rival AC/DC for their overall sales champion next year.

I had a comp last weekend .... most played game.

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No I did not forget TH I said 3 games 6 yr as for DI and Aliens they have not shipped . You call 5 & 6 yr a startup I don't think so

Maybe we'll get an American History X pinball machine with call outs by Edward Norton.. Curb Stomp multiball would be interesting

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