Never thought the Jersey Jack Pinball name needed improvement. Pretty original and catchy if you ask me.

Isn’t there another pinball company named after its founder?

I guess Amazon and Budweiser should also look into “improving” their brand names.

Would you allow Fats to shoot pool outside Minnesota?

Twilight Zone.

Twilight Zone - mechanical issues galore. Many locations got tired of trying to keep them in service. Widebody did not serve that machine well. Standard body could have been sooooo much better, but we will never know. Look at JJP machines on location. Mostly out of service much of the time. Ask any operator the nightmare they are to maintain. Stern’s keep on truckin all the time on location. JJP fanatics hate to hear this.

Again, this move for JJP is going to hopefully be a new beginning and good times for JJP in most all aspects. New owners are getting it on the right track I hope. We need for it to be good competition for Stern. Makes them better too!

Sttng

You may not like the pinball industry pay cut. Plus tolls, city stickers for your cars, higher gas prices, higher sales tax, higher state income tax, city income tax (select cities) etc.

Pat overloaded Dialed In to a ridiculous degree though.... It and Wonka, both standard bodies, weigh in at 350 pounds a piece....

So surely these games are heavy for reasons other than being widebody games, right???

I was just going back to Pat's development of a widebody machine. Now George made a widebody version of The Addams Family going the other direction of your TZ suggestion.

https://www.pinballnews.com/learn/mods.html

Yes, they are so heavy for numerous reasons.
1. Old heavy PC parts and equipment being used instead of a small Spike 2 board that is light as can be.
2. Old Williams parts being used that are quite heavy in and of themselves.
3. Old much heavier lock down bar. Hold a much better designed and efficient Stern lockdown bar in one hand and a JJP lock down bar in the other hand and you’ll see a difference.
4. Inefficient heavy back box design, with heavy 27” screens that do not really add anything over the size of Sterns, Spooky’s or AP screens, because our eyes focus on the screen and unless side by side, the brain feels and sees little difference after a few minutes, because it adjusts.

The reasons for how heavy JJP machines are go on and on. They use old heavy pinball stock parts for another reason. Again, the back box alone is very heavy. Look at how slim and much lighter a Stern back box is. A top efficient expert in pinball engineering George Gomez has been setting these new standards all the time. Look at the new shooter rod design he just came up with, which is also lighter. Stern’s design is always factoring in pinball machine weight. JJP has not given much thought to that at all. I do like all the mechs JJP puts in a machine, but there are more efficient ways of doing things and still have a packed looking machine. Look at the brilliance of a Keith Elwin designed machine. JP2 looks packed, but not near as heavy as a JJP machine.

(You JJP fanboys hate the truth...you may now begin the downvoting, since it makes you feel better)

Hmmm. I disagree significantly with the above.

Is it possible that a bad batch of coil stops were produced and were not caught? It is not the first time a company got hit with a bad batch of something.

Several years ago a bad batch of capacitors were shipped to Apple and Dell. I don't know about the PC makers.

Also, a bad batch of nutplates without the correct corrosion coating were sold to Boeing Seattle. It was a supplier screw up. Boeing did not catch it. That was a costly error for Boeing. Hundreds of these small size nut plates had been installed and buried by all of the later parts that installed. They all had to be drilled out and new ones installed.

The supplier was banned from ever selling to Boeing again.

shopping (resized).png

I have heard some talking about bad coil stops but know nothing about them. Is it possible that Stern ordered "correctly" and the supplier sent out junk? And the problem was not made manifest to Stern until they started breaking in the field?

I don't know. I'm just asking.

Is the J for Jerry?

Enlighten us why you do.

To me this is the most likely scenario.

Maybe the time on the tax breaks expired.

Jersey Jack was his nickname forever. I bought my first NIB game from him (LOTR) when he had a distributorship in Chicago back in 2004, and the name of his distributorship was Jersey Jack Pinball.

Possibly, don’t know the laws of the economic zone. I will say it’s not a real convenient area.

Is that kind of like when Stern got rid of the shooter lane strike plate when the ball ejects? That kind of weight factoring?

Wait, you're giving props to stuck-in-the-past-designs Pat Lawlor while decrying the use of old tech? Talk about ironic.

Stern cabinets are splitting, playfields are cratering, scoop welds are breaking near the top prematurely, switch legs are falling off in the first few months, coil stops are breaking after less than 100 plays, Stern pins no longer include power cables for the bill validator...because of excessive Stern COST REDUCTION. It has nothing to do with "weight balance" targets. Your whole post is a Stern apologist's wet dream.

What are you smoking?

I suppose Sterns are so light as they are made out of carbon fiber!

Ok, but I'll be brief and only draw attention to one aspect. You wrote

Pat made Road Show (which is awesome). There's no ball meandering. It's also a widebody. There's also the little known Pat game Twilight Zone of which I've never heard anyone complain "the ball meanders all over the play field".

I would use ignore... but i gotta see just how deep this hole can be dug. This is historic level stupidity

Sure but that doesnt excuse stern continuing to use the know bad parts for a year plus.

There is no excuse anymore - they knowingly were shipping defective parts. Just trying to burn through them rather than purge them.

Sounds like the smart move. Why not be in the hub. Come on JJP Robocop JJP#6 feels right.

Back to being insulting because truth is spoken about your precious JJP of the past? A new beginning for JJP, let it be for you too!

Have heard Jack himself say one of the biggest mistakes they’ve made is getting into widebody’s. He said although Pat made them in the past, refuses to make them now and for many good reasons stated above.

Too heavy.
More costly to make.
Does not make for a better pinball playing experience.
Much higher shipping prices.
On and on...

So since you say JJP games only weigh more then Sterns due to old tech here's how we get a couple JJP pins down to a similar weight.

Starting off with Hobbit. First the metal ramps, gotta go plastic! Metal habit rails? Gone! 11 drop targets? No no no, we replace at least 8 of those with stationary stand up targets. A moving Smaug toy that also has an interactive jaw to speak to players? That's now a hollow plastic bash toy on a spring. 4 beast pop up mechs? Are you crazy?! Those are gone completely. Various 3D molds? Too expensive, time to go flat plastics. Oh, and an actual mechanical kick back? Get that the hell out of there and have software do it.

WOZ? Get rid of those upper playfields, they just "slow" the game down. A moving witch toy? Make it stationary. 3D molded pop bumper caps? LOL, toss those out the window for standard flat pop bumper caps. A spinning house? No wait a spinning house that also has the witches legs pop out of it? That's insanity. The house is now 3 flat plastics held together with screws and doesn't move.

Finally we cheapen up the cabinets, make them standard bodies, toss out the lock down bar mechs, make the playfields a bit thinner, make the cabinet head mostly out of metal instead of wood, and make as many parts as possible out of cheaper / thinner metal.

There ya go my friend, now JJP games weigh the same as a modern Stern and only feature modern technology.

Thanks for calling me friend. I hope we are always friends. After all this is only a forum discussion and we are both in the same boat as consumers. It is actually fun hearing your views on things, when you’re being nice and I enjoy your comments much of the time. Different view points are respected by me. flynnibus I have little to no respect for as he is always putting everyone or Stern in particular down. Calling my opinions “historic stupidity” is very low class. Thank you for not stooping to @flynnibus‘s ungentlemanly manners or the lack thereof.

I apologize for my rants lol. I understand some people will prefer Stern over JJP and vice versa. Even though I praise JJP often they have had plenty of screw ups that I've complained about. I'm hoping GNR is finally their first debacle free game. Every single JJP game launch has been plagued by some issue. Hopefully GNR is different.

Thanks for that, as I too hope the best for their GNR launch. Can we all imagine how bad Stern would still be right now, if not for JJP coming into the market place??? I do want the best for JJP with this new beginning and hope they continue to up the bar for everyone. My biggest issue with JJP is their out of sight pricing (of course Stern is not much better).

This is great a new factory!

Hoping that Toy Story will be launched soon too, as this is an instant buy for me.

So you are saying every time Stern stops producing a game they are sold out even though you may buy one for the next year or two?

You want a shorter name JJP Pinball done

What time of year is this move going to take place

A little more info...

https://www.replaymag.com/jersey-jack-moving-manufacturing-to-illinois/

The move has already started and will continue during the next few weeks, founder Jack Guarnieri told RePlay. “The exciting thing is to get everybody under one roof,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll shorten up the time it takes us to develop a game.”

Since JJP sometimes has difficulty keeping dates, lets just go with "2020-ish".....

He doesn't sound too optimistic........

I’m sure that would be the case, wasn’t looking to update my resume just quite yet.

Like most things in life, there many factors and trade offs to consider. It would just be cool to be part of something I’m so passionate about. Money isn’t the only thing that drives me forward and gives me satisfaction.

This business seems a bit overwhelming over the years. It definitely takes a toll, I'd imagine.

Probably because that wasn't their main motivation for moving.

I was actually in the middle of finalizing a sales order for a bunch of parts when the news became public. Some parts require assembly but was told that the move would not impact my order timeline.

Not that it really matters or means anything, but just wanted to add another data point.

According to an article that LTG shared on Facebook ... quoting the article ...

The move has already started and will continue during the next few weeks, founder Jack Guarnieri told RePlay.

And the link in post 336 a few posts up.

LTG : )

Will have a mini-interview with Jack on TWIP on Monday about the move.

Ah yep, I just read the last couple of posts. My bad. Was just skimming through and past the JJP bashing posts from the last couple of days. Skipped too much.

You're the man Lloyd! Figured my email subscription to RePlay would come to benefit someday..!

Oooooh, really excited to read about this! Thanks for the announcement!

Great restaurants, any band that tours hits Chicago, and lots of hot chicks.

Yeah the taxes suck and government is corrupt as hell, but it ain't all that bad.

IL is a lot better than NJ any day of the week. I have stated before from my travels how IL has less tolls, less bs like pumping your own gas...not happening in NJ, roads you can not understand...a lot of roads in NJ you can not just make a left, you have to go right to make a left..so damn confusing.

Chicago pizza...best pizza I have ever had.

And the people in IL are a lot more friendly than the people in NJ in my opinion.

I am happy right where I am at. But if I had to move, and a choice between NJ and IL, NJ would never even have a second of my thought process. IL is a hell of a lot better than NJ.