Hard face palm ‍♂️

Yes, guns n roses CE is overpriced.

It's because Stern can manage to produce sufficient quantities of its most desired titles. JJP has still not solved that problem yet.

Although EHoH is creeping up there.....

It's truly a dark night for Stern!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-dark-night-for-stern

Meanwhile in Gary Sterns office...

63286FB5-2977-4CE5-9233-3F9D31B6FB51 (resized).jpeg

Nope, still prefer Stern. Cheaper, faster with more flow.

So YOU are the reason prices keep going up!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-dark-night-for-stern#post-4016809

This is such a dumb thread when you consider that SUPREME blows POTC out of the water when it comes to stupid aftermarket prices.

SUPREME takes a supreme dump on the lowly POTC.

It's red, it's white, and it's pooping all over this dumb thread!

DataEast became Stern or at least Stern owns all their assets now right?

King Kong is worth more than 20K.

TBL commanded over 20K for awhile...
That settles it, Dutch Pinball is the greatest manufacturer ever!

If it's rare, loaded with toys, breaks all the time, and sucks, Pinsiders will propel it into the price stratosphere!!!

Honestly, maybe Jpop wasn't too far off the mark with Magic Girl.

This is so dumb,even coming from you.

and both companies together cannot reach the numbers that Bally/Williams had in their peak

U see this is what happens when Fuckfacitis spreads. Now the JJP fanboy club will always bring up "Stern army" or "Stern Fanboy" the most ridiculous line however is still "U must work for Stern" but to my knowledge there are very few if any threads started by these so called "Stern army" guys like this. U also do not see the terms "We", "Us" people bringing up awards and machine value, looking at collections and making assumptions as to a persons financial situation or pin history. What u have here is a bunch of usually older, not very good players who love their slower playing, badly themed box of lights and toys. That's fine but if its so great then u wouldn't need these threads and all the JJ Police/Fanboys constantly letting u know. It would be common knowledge and quite apparent as JJP dominated the industry. Oh wait...............................

That's brilliant.

U think maybe that's cause arcades are dead?

Pinball companies should take advantage of this fantasy war and start selling male cheerleader outfits with their logo on it. LE hand numbered of course, for that extra sense of validation.

Let me chime in because I’m a HUGE JJP fan. So I will agree but disagree. Depending on how you measure success no pinball company is better than Stern. Stern manufactures their games faster, they release more titles, and at the end of the day no one can make more pinballs in a day than Stern. Oh and not to mention no one makes more money. Stern is the king and probably will be for some time to come.

Now on the other hand if you want to say who makes the best overall games, well its JJP by 100 miles. It’s not even fair to compare a Stern LE vs JJP LE much less a JJP CE. When even the biggest Stern fan says something like ‘yeah well I wish JJP would have done Star Wars’ you know they know. Everyone wants their DREAM THEME done by JJP and I mean everyone. Why? Because they want their dream theme to have a themed world under glass to go with an amazing pinball design.

Here is where it gets interesting and why Stern should start to put more effort into their games. No pinball company has pushed Stern to move the needle NOT JJP not anyone because Stern releases more games in a calendar year than all other suppliers combined. NO other pinball company has the network of distributors like Stern. Lastly most suppliers have shown no ability to compete with Stern on volume of games.

But hold the phone because it appears at least me that JJP is way past the teething phase and seems to moving into a new direction. JJP has entered the music pin business, JJP is poised to release a second game within a twelve month period. JJP has moved into a bigger facility and to Chicago where there is more pinball talent than New Jersey.

Last but not least JJP has the hottest designer in pinball... Eric has shown both the he ability to do layouts and theming something many Stern designers struggle with. JJP also has maybe the best overall pinball designer in history MR Adams Family/Twilight Zone himself Pat Lawlor. JJP is on the move that’s for sure but Stern will continue to be the leader in sales but who knows JJP might just catch them.

One more note if American Pinball to Pinball Brothers and all these other companies start making more games people want to buy, that combined with JJP skyrocketing that could pinch Stern by giving buyers more options more often.

Stern should get really serious about upping the game. So as of today I agree but don’t agree. But to your point yes JJP games seem to hold their value better than Stern and or raise in value by a lot more than a stern.

Wow is this ever a load of shit. Don't get wrong the entire post is crap but lets focus on this.
Couldn't be happier that Star Wars was done by Stern and that's who I would prefer handle my "DREAM THEME" 's. I guarantee u I'm not the only one. Can't it just be that I'm as disappointed with JJP gameplay as the fanboys are with Stern quality and lack of PF toys/mechs. I'll take gameplay.

"I mean everyone"

Nope sorry, A Stern at 5799 delivered is a better value than a JJP SE at 8k....

Games like TNMT, Deadpool, Jurassic Park, Iron Maiden, AIQ, are all SPECTACULAR at the pro level.

When JJP can actually sell a game (and pocket the margin) for 20k, I'll be impressed. Unfortunately, they still need angel investors to keep the lights on.

Just because flippers have found some folks with deep pockets to buy a limited production game isn't all that interesting. For me personally, I don't care what the model, GNR2 is a 10k game (max). No way I would ever cough up 20k for this game.

Remember that car enthusiasts are currently coughing up 20k premiums to buy the new Corvette. That's right, 20k of pure profit for dealerships.

This whole us vs them pissing contest that afflicts this country is effed up. I like them both.

Stern still wins

Charging $6k - $9k+ for a pin that has barely anything in it, including a plastic Zeppelin "toy" split in half held together by two exposed screws.

17e74bd639bf4983f39054804c4e2c23--a-christmas-story-zeppelin (resized).jpg

Gary's reaction

2511026-5915219837-24674.gif

The POTC that sold for 20K is the story of a wasted opportunity, that’s all. And expensive games almost always have a story attached.

JJP POTC really is the ultimate expression of leaving it all on the (play) field but it was just a little too ambitious for its moment. They couldn’t get it to market on time, couldn’t build them fast enough and ultimately missed the boat (HA!)

If anything it showed something JJP was much worse at than Stern. Getting a buildable game to market.

Prices paid for Big Bang Bar show that Illinois Pinball and Capcom were the greatest.....................

Oh never mind.

Get ready for a Stern vs. JJP fanboy cage match!

18AD1904-210D-4A4C-AD29-B187301875ED (resized).png

I think your assessment is pretty darn accurate. Like any business, you have to define what success is. Is it sales? is it the overall quality of the pin? For instance, look how Apple competed with Microsoft. Apple didn't go for pure volume and sales. It had a vision remain laser focused on quality and limited offerings. Now, Apple is still focused on quality and is slowly creeping up in volume (I'm not talking about phones).

I'm a big JJP fan as well, and always have been. My personal preference is to pay a premium for a higher quality pin vs. a less quality pin. Again, nothing wrong with someone else who's priority is greater "value" meaning a pin a relatively lower cost point and respectable quality.

So, different is good for all us and competition is definitely good for all of us.

Meh....

Exactly. Everyone should be applauding JJP for jacking up their prices. That just means their games are that much better!

Is that Ryan Davis from Giant Bomb? Man, I miss that guy....

Yup! Same here, he was great. Nice to meet a fellow Giant Bomb fan.

by this metric gottlieb and data east are the GOAT

Man I am getting old.

It doesn’t seem *that* long ago that on the RGP boards 5k for a game was crazyville. Then 5k became the norm. That led to “10k by Christmas” almost like a pinball meme of fantasy pricing.

Now for people on pinside to talk about 10k pricing as commonplace and 20k as being the next “no way” threshold makes me think 20k as a common price is probably not *that* far away. (Which is seriously some wild stuff)

Times are changing so fast. As I said, I’m getting old.

Now excuse me, I need to go yell at some kids I see near my lawn

This is funny. They're influencing the market by holding back production, so they're the best.

Nobody has outlined this in visual terms.
drake_pins (resized).jpg

...Billy...likes to drink soda...Ms Lippee's car is green...
1323d968aad4d2b555878e48ca915a7f (resized).jpg

It's true JJP puts a TON more into their games, and they are very appealing. However, Stern's manufacturing process is solid and can crank out games. JJP has yet to perfect the assemble process. Once they do, they will be a force to reckon with.

Until JJP figures out how to stop pooling and playfield art chipping off then they are not better than anyone.

i would say no on jjp being better than stern. in mind production and sales are things that matter most. they make 1 game every 18-24 months. not a dig on them, but i'm surprised they are still in business at this point. when is their next game feb 2022?

October 2021

At one title a year, every one better be a massive hit or they won’t be in business long.

You need to calm down Jaxoffalot!!

kudos to the op for starting a thread which really pushes peoples buttons ! Well done. You‘ve got some stiff competition, though...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lets-face-it-people-gnr-just-devalued-all-machines#post-5897936

Past history shows that JJP's "October 2021" is actually more like February 2022 or even October 2022.

Genesis does what Nintendon’t

...is basically what grown adults are doing here.

Ill agree if they can ever make a game with all that "world under glass" bling and playfield stuff that doesnt play like shit.

Otherwise they are in the trophy business.

Blast Processing is always better than Mode 7 yo.

bingo

Wonka and Dialed in are great players though Ill give them that.

of course those two got beat up on theme and bling so there ya go.

They have a tough job to keep the "we want more of everything" people happy and have the games play well.

I get the whole bandwagon thing, but to be honest who cares who makes a good game as long as its a good game. I have had two JJP that had issues that needed work. My Hobbit needed servo replaced on smaug and still never worked 100% and my GNR needed disc to be worked on to not fall apart and one of the Cat 5 board was not even attached to play field. My last 2 sterns were without issue out of the box. JP worked perfect from day one and required no adjustments. Deadpool same thing was perfect out of the box.

Might be luck or some other cosmic force but I still don't pass judgement from one manufacturer to the next as I anticipate a game to have some issues and it sucks but until something better comes out I am a buyer of any game that I have interest in. When you compare build quality from my hobbit to the gnr seems a big difference and could be a factor of JJP working kinks out of design to make games more profitable. I cant speak for everyone but if a manufacturer spends 100's of hours developing a game and 1000's of hours working on building them I am reluctant to dump on any of them. I may not like a layout or game but hey some games are not for everyone so more power to them. I buy what I want and strongly feel that purchasing power is more effective then trolling or at least I think it is but nowadays who knows....

And if you have issues with a Stern NIB playfield, and you bought from a good distributor, Stern will ship you a fully populated playfield ready to install in the game. If you have issues with a JJP NIB playfield, you have to buy a playfield from JJP and do a playfield swap.