Update: Confirmed this isn't happening, from many sources which I cannot confirm.

I can confirm this.

I think that "middle truth" thing that Kevin Kulek was talking about is really starting to catch on!

Fact!

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When is Stern expected to complete their move? I know they start the move tomorrow, right?

I thought they already started yesterday.

I see for the most part a direct correlation between people who have owned this in the past / or currently own it with the Down votes on page one / POST one from the OP :

Down votes:

Rarehero currently owns one
snaroff currently owns one
Maken currently owns one
bigdaddy07, likely owns one being it's his number 1 game on his top 10 favorites list.
RobT owned in the past
DrStarkweather owned on in the past
Frax owned one in the past
jgentry owned one in the past
fletcherOH ? not sure but likely owned own in the past or currently owns one.

*UPDATE*... Razorbak86 down voted this post why,...likely because he owns a LOTR.

Up votes:

Me... I would love to add a LOTRVE to my collection. I'm not chasing a used / HUO LOTR one unless it fell into my lap at a great price, personally I would much rather Stern make JAWS or the New Star Wars, Jurassic World... and would also love a NIB TRON VE.. but if Stern were to release a VE of LOTR It would certainly be tempting to say the least, being it's arguably one of Stern's best titles.

Anomolie is really HighProtein owned one in the past but up voted.
QuarterGrabber wants one... & up voted
thedefog wants one.. & up voted
Spitfiren8 not sure, but likely would want to own one. .. up voted
Nintendo not sure, but likely would want to own one.. up voted.

This seems to be the general consensus on pinside, not just on LOTR but on majority of games that potentially *MIGHT* come out in a remake or vault edition sense of things... I've seen this very same trend on TRON VE and MMR talk... with likely many more games to eventually be remade it will bring the same postive / negative feedback from the pinball community. Ultimately introducing more games into the market is a good thing for the pinball hobby as a whole as far as I'm concerned.

Unless one is delusional.

Ah OK. I would honestly expect to hear something next week or so IF they intend to do another game before June.

It's hard to correlate, but I would tend to agree that some folks don't like the idea of a re-run for fear that their game MAY lose value. However, those same people could just be itching for something new entirely and really don't care about the possibility of a remake and the impact it would have on their games.

WTF is the relevance of that?

And to be more accurate, I have owned 3 of them, including an LE.

now you just need to add a VE to that list

I have 12 up-votes and 1 down-vote on Page 1, which is a net +11 up-votes, yet I own a LOTR.

So I've decided to down-vote your post, because correlation does not imply causation.

Todays FB minutes ago:
"Metallica on the line today. Sparky for days...."

One truth: Speculating on something with no information is a great way to pass the day away at work.

Buy it if you want to play it, don't if you don't. Who cares.

Hahahaha!!!

Classic.

Just saw the pic. Awesome stuff! I wish I loved MET enough to want to buy one.

IMHO..still the very best game ….but I must admit, I haven't played MM all that much. hopefully that will change soon , as a friend should be getting his …last june….last september…by years end…by early this year..by march at the latest…by april for sure…..maybe may??? lol can't wait to put some time on it when he does tho!

Makes me wonder if MMRLE's will actually hurt MM's ranking over the long run? Maybe that was PPS' ploy all along to get TZ into the #1 spot

Don't get me wrong; I love me some MM (RobT's old one anyway), but LOTR is awesomnistic! *I think I just created a new word

I've made this clear multiple times.

Let me make it clear again.

I'm not against VE...I own Iron Man VE. I don't care about my LOTR's value...I only have $1200 into it anyway & never plan on selling it. I care nothing about "collectibility" or "rarity". I want everyone to have the games they want to have. If an LOTR VE *DID* exist, I would applaud it.

My ISSUE is non-stop speculation with no basis in fact, and presented in threads with words like "CONFIRMED" and

It's not confirmed. You don't know. LOTR was re-run many many times already. A VE is just that - a re-run...whooptie-doo. The fact is there are ~7000-8000 LOTRs in existence already. They're easy to get. Prices aren't bonkers. Ops dont want them - they had enough of them already. There are a few vocal Pinsiders who only want NIB *EVERYTHING*....that doesn't mean there's a huge demand. Re-licensing LOTR is likely very expensive, and the demand doesn't justify a small run.

Iron Man had no supply, ops/tournaments/collectors wanted it. Stern already had ongoing contracts with Marvel, so the licensing worked out for a small run.

So there you go. I hope my position is clear. I'm not a value-whore. I'm logical. If LOTR VE existed, I would not care....but there is no logical reason to think it will exist. If it does one day, congrats...but do we really need 100 threads about it?

Go find a nice LOTR and enjoy it today.

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All things being equal...I don't think that picture of Gomez ended up on the Stern's Facebook page by accident.
27d3f129919791c48a0bd75a02ed8c59.jpg

...called Pinside

If that's the case get a pic of John Borg with a TRON whitewood on their FB page!

I do know that some people on here are certainly TROLLS !
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God who cares. It gets made, big deal, it doesn't get made, big deal...

There HAS to be something better to talk about, you guys all like LOTR right? Let's talk about that instead...

LOTR VE announcement when Hobbit drops...

my precious.png

Sounds like you are an expert on the hobby. I'm curious...

- How long have you been in the hobby?
- How many games do you own?
- How many have you restored?

snaroff

Lord of the Kiss

I much prefer that we crack jokes in threads like this, over someones for sale thread.

I think it is a bad move for Stern, for their collector markets sake......but stranger things have happened.

The irony of the Troll pic post.

How does this relate to his post? I agree - more games in the ecosystem means more people can enjoy the greats.

One thing is for sure, my LOTR LE that I've suped up will be one of the very last to leave, if it ever comes to them all leaving, and that is regardless of more being made, the price crashing or skyrocketting (kinda has done this) - nothing will change who I interpret the worth of MY particular machine.

The feeling that game gives when you are close to Valinor is something that has no value. My last two games I have been so close to getting there again, last game was only the start of a MB left, had all of them won already in the first DTR, and everything else completed, but I fudged it

Good games of TSPP feel the same as well, but LOTR play is just more epic so to speak. All I can tell you is: if you don’t have one, GET one, ANY one!

A company like Stern does not care about a collectors market. They care about turning profits, period. If you want to collect games, better to do so with a non-stern or non-existent companies B-games or low production #/rare games, because everything else is on the table of discussion to be re-run in the future if the price of them keeps climbing. If addams keeps climing, I wouldn't even rule that out, despite the ultra-high production numbers.

mrclean had a long, pedantic post trying to correlate what many of us own and our view on this topic. Since his profile doesn't disclose what he owns, I was trying to understand his background a bit.

In any event, I disagree that "more is better"...pinball is certainly experiencing a revival, however flooding the market with pins isn't smart. The number of people willing to fork over 5-10k on a 200-400lb toy are limited.

Stern did many runs of LOTR over the years and the supply seems just right. Unless they are going to improve it in some way, producing more doesn't make sense. As many of us have pointed out, obtaining a LOTR for a sensible price isn't that difficult. This wasn't true for IM...the demand for IM far outstripped supply. Tweaking it and doing a VE rerun made a lot of sense. I own both LOTR and IM.

snaroff

What is a sensible price according to you? That is the real question. Everyone's idea of sensible price is different. My feelings are if I could pay roughly the same amount for a NIB vs some beater, I'm gonna want NIB obviously. I have not come across one for less than $5k that wasn't routed with some issues and in need of a full shop job yet, been looking for years, and I'm in NJ and these pop up all the time. If one in that condition popped up at like 3k5, I'd be all over it. But 5k+ for a routed beat-up game is silly.

This.

I have been looking for a while now (outside of my WTB thread which has been active for over a month). In that time, I have had ONE offered to me at a fair price. I'll skip the messy details and say it was sold out under me and I haven't seen one since. I've got no problem spending $5k on a nice, clean, 100% working LOTR within a few hours of me...But they aren't out there. Maybe if I were willing to drive across the country, but that makes a $5k game, well, much more than $5k.

These VE threads are getting so old no matter which game were talking about. NO ONE KNOWS EXCEPT STERN!, please stop creating these useless discussions.

You honestly think IF a VE did happen, it would drop for Stern Pro pricing?

It would be more like a premium, if not more expensive if they did not have the design done already.

Stern has chosen to make things like the spinners on metallica a "premium" feature. LoTR would be more like a premium + game compared to today's offerings. AND you don't have to wait forever for whatever mystery code bone they decide to throw you (or not throw you...).

No I do not think it would be a price drop, I'd expect 6499 MSRP or even higher. The point is that people will want NIB games, and more games out there mean the potential for me to pick up something other than a non-routed beater for $5k becomes more of a reality. I'm not expecting a massive price fall, just a reality check to the current market that a beat up LotR with issues is not worth $5k.

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Damn it feels good to be a gangsta
Feedin' the poor and hepin out wit they bills

I agree that 5k+ for a routed beat-up game is silly. Sounds like we are on the same page in terms of what's sensible.

Here is my anecdotal evidence that LOTR demand isn't that great. I tried to sell mine on both coasts (as the result of an east->west coast move). It's single-owner, HUO in exceptional condition. I was asking 5.5k on the east coast 1 year ago. 2 months ago I was asking 5.7k with a ColorDMD installed.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fs-lotr-single-owner-great-condition
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fs-cq-lotr-low-plays-single-owner-5500

Both SoCal and Florida have very healthy pinball communities. Very recently, I've had some queries about my LOTR (I believe as a result of the skepticism surrounding the likelihood of Stern doing a VE). Unfortunately, for them, I've taken it off the market because I decided to sell something else. For many of us, selling pinball machines is more about emotion and less about money!

Bottom line: If LOTR demand was at IM demand levels (prior to IMVE), my pin would have sold very quickly.

snaroff

To be fair, LOTR is pretty much guessed to be the most likely next VE made, and is impacting the market for them. The market for IM pre-VE thought that stern *should* rerun IM, but there were posts upon posts from pinside users listing all the reasons why it would never happen, and I think most people thought it never would.

I would like a LOTR, but paying 5.5k+ for an HUO when I may be able to buy a NIB VE within the year at roughly the same price or possibly cheaper? Or wait until the VE is launched and buy a HUO original for sub 5k? I think I'll wait.

Man, when I was building my collection, if I wanted a pin, I never sat back and said, "Hmm, should I wait for the stars to align so I can save $500 or so". I said, "do I trust the seller?...do I want the pin?...is it a fair price?". If I answered "yes" to those 3 questions, I bought it and moved on...

I just don't understand the "deer in the headlights" VE waiting game. I'm more about living today and having fun. Different strokes I guess, and I hope you eventually get your sub 5k HUO original!

snaroff

I'm still saving up cash, as soon as I have the funds I'll be happy to buy any version of LOTR. The main reason I'm hoping for a VE is because this can be a difficult title to find locally. I'd likely perfer an original but would settle for a VE.

Again, this.

funny thing about this is, when I mentioned to my wife that Creature would have to be traded for me to acquire LOTR she dropped our "3-pin" limit and said... "why don't we just keep what we have and buy LOTR".

I see it like this, if you really want one, you'll find one that's acceptable and pay what the market has set for that title. If you're just dabbling around daydreaming, then you'll wait until some special event happens and then likely decide not to buy anyway. Bottom line is that LOTR is one of the best games out there, if you really want one, get it. I can almost assure you that you will not regret your purchase.

If it bugs you that much, just drain the thread.