I bought my Transformers LE and Star Trek LE months after they were released, from distributors. Now the LE’s are pretty much sold out when announced.

That’s how I scored my XMLE. bought it 3 years post release NIB for 5500 shipped.

If criminals ever need to find a cluster of stupid rich people, their first stop should be a pinball show or pinside.

I guess the criminals at Stern already figured this out.

After I played a Godzilla, I realized I wanted an LE….already way too late at that point.

Huh? Criminals? Yikes... Stupid rich people? Just say it, you can't afford it and you don't think that's fair... I'm sure I'll get a ton of downvotes for that but it's really childish to call Stern criminals and rich people stupid...

I can afford it. Just because I can afford something doesn't mean it's worth the money. Some people seem to be confused about that distinction.

Has anybody pointed out that this topper is yet another "slap in the face" to the loyal, loving, and always easy to get along with pinball community?

That's my favorite!

Buy one now at 1999.00 before they become rare like the ugly GB plastic topper at 4k (see e-bay).

It’s a voluntary transaction. No one is coercing me to buy stern’s products.

I can afford a new Z06.

I don’t see the value in owning a corvette at $150,000.

Ironically, people were buying the new gt500’s at the 120k range. For a mustang.

Maybe you girlfriend's daughters boyfriend could educate you with that.

LTG : )

Thanks all of the flippers and all of those people that profited from all those previous sales, thanks to those that all overpaid over the years for limited machines and toppers because they just had to have them.

The manufacturers have watched this unfold and this is what you get really expensive LE's and really expensive toppers. At least they won't have a demand issue now...

I’m guessing this campaign will be as equally successful as Nancy’s.

Hey! That campaign is a success (for my nostalgia as a youth and pan fried egg brain friends) - I wish stern would put "only losers use drugs" or similar phrases like they used to on pins and cades.

A flat plane crank Z06 can be had for $107K, THAT is where the value is. Certainly those that view $2K toppers as "gotta have's", the Z is a no-brainer.

Good luck unless you signed up early, and have an agreement that there are no “market adjustments”.

Convertible, 2LZ, black top, black wheels, aero package, etc. Adds up quickly.

I really don't think any of that has anything to do with pricing right now... I know it's easy to blame the perceived flippers and those you feel "overpaid" for things but that's really irrelevant. The pricing these days has everything to do with the fact that more people are in the hobby than ever. The various manufacturers have had a very hard time keeping up with this enormous spike in demand. In all honesty they haven't kept up. When you have more demand than your manufacturing capacity allows, price goes up. Especially when demand is so far out of alignment with supply like it is currently. The manufactures have two options, scale up to meet demand knowing full well this is likely not sustainable demand, or charge more in order to tamp down demand. To me it makes more sense to charge more to tamp down demand over investing millions in scaling up your manufacturing and supply chains when you know this hyper inflated market will not last.

I think all of the talk about greed and rich people and flippers and yada yada yada really has absolutely nothing remotely to do with the actual situation and the actual reasons why things are the way they actually are... From where I sit I don't understand the animosity towards this... A rising tide raises all boats. I want as many people to come into the hobby as possible regardless of what that does to pricing. To each their own...

Just to put things in perspective.. thou, don't really like those colors. Then again, there's that topper..
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Don't drink and respond... the struggle for me is real right now..

Because its F'n awesome..

People love to talk about how the hobby is dying. It's been "about to die" for as long as I've been in it, and that talk didn't start up when I came around.

You notice that for all the bitching—and I get it because I'm not a moron—nobody is actually pining for the days of Austin Powers. Pinball was cheaper 20 years ago, was it actually better?

You don't have to buy new in box games to have fun with pinball. You definitely don't have to buy toppers. You don't even have to own games! 20 years ago sucked more than now for location play too.

I’m a 67-68 fan myself. Second fav are the fox body 5.0’s.

There were actually some pretty good games 20 years ago like TSPP, LOTR, Spiderman, etc. Some of those games are just as good as today's games honestly. Mechanically, today's games are actually worse than games 30 years ago.

Location play is much better today. But that's only because of the current supply/demand issue, the second operators start taking losses on their machines then that whole model falls apart. 20 years ago it was operate your machine for a couple years, take a $1k hit on selling, by the next one, that's a rough business. Now it's buy an LE for route, operate it for 2 years, make more money owning the LE than actually operating it.

It's same thing crypto miners were doing with video cards, buy a video card, use it to earn a bunch of money, then sell the video card for more than you bought it for. Then Ethereum stopped using video card mining the bottom dropped out of the entire market like overnight. At some point you price too many people out of the market and they just give up. Video gaming is actually having a horrible year, the worst in a long time due to the whole thing...people just got tired of the video card prices and left completely.

It's one of these deals where as long as demand outstrips supply you're good, but the second that reverses you get Toy Story 4, lol.

The demand is red hot crazy right now, they cannot produce enough, even after rising the prices the demand is still red hot.

What do you think is next ?

Increase prices again……. Nobody is to blame, it's just the way it is for now.

You cannot stop someone with more money to spend it the way he wants. If flippers or manufacturers are jacking prices and still selling their products very easily why would they stop. There is a line of people waiting to buy.

Just because we where able to afford NIB on each release doesn’t mean it will be this way forever.

Think long run, it's not always going to be like this. If you are into this hobby for the right reasons all of this is only a cycle and it should not prevent you to have fun playing and enjoying the hobby.

The topper is cool looking.it’s out of my league.

Stern is definitely proud of what they came up with.

Stern made a nice profit on the Black Knight topper at a few hundred dollars MSRP, for what now looks like a true bargain. Not buying the charge more scenario, because demand is so high. The problem with that thinking is, times are changing rapidly and it will come back to bite Stern hard, as prices begin to plummet because of tough times coming. Consumers don’t forget and will hate on Stern for a long time to come. Good will with buyers is far more vital than a temporary fleecing of one’s customer base.

Gary has forgotten his roots of making good products for a reasonable profit. How many jokes have we heard about his penny pinching just to stay afloat. Now he’s joined the ranks of the super rich and has forgotten his long journey of being prudent and giving his customers value for reasonable MSRP costs. It’s now time that some other company steps up to the plate and takes on Stern with a value for money proposition. Even distributors think stern pricing is crazy high and products not worth it now (except the pro, remains a decent value). Bring on a new market high volume competitor! The market will be theirs!! Big volume, not small boutique pinball competition will bring Stern to their money grubbing knees.

Haha. No way there’s a company to compete with stern in less than a year. More pinball is always good though!

I was on the waiting list, but now a hard no. This is really disappointing that its 2k. If 1200, maybe.......... Waited so long to be disappointed by the cost, but love the innovation.

Any video of it from expo?

You'd think for $2000 we could get it's own release and some REAL video of this in action

$3000 Godzilla topper next

I just watched the video. Who thought putting info that high up would be usable in anyway? If I had a Mando I, this would be an easy no.

This is actually my line. DMD era game versus modern topper.

(Hey future me, reference this post to see how it didn't age well and you bought that $3000 topper anyway)

Drove my dads 87 GT in high school.. pretty sure I got a topper at least once in it...

No need to rationalize it, money is meant to be spent on what makes you happy. Enjoy the topper, it looks really cool. Who knows I may buy a $2k topper for my Rush Pro if it looks cool. I guess that makes me stupid in the eyes of Pinside and that's ok, won't stop me from buying what I want.

Did the game have the three extra modes in it ? If so were they good ?

LTG : )

I'm cool with a $2k topper if that's what you want to buy. I just think it's F'd up to buy a $7-9k pin then ask you to pay more to get additional code.

So, I've been one of those people who don't get the whole topper thing either. They're decoration and some are pretty cool (Dalek, BK, ACDC train, etc). If a game came with one, I enjoyed it as decoration. If not, I opted not to spend the money. Stern is changing this. Why?

The game changer now is new modes and features the toppers unlock. Basically, a pro or premium base unit you now need (well, don't need) to consider add topper cost to unlock "all" the features/modes of the game as designer intended. So a $9K premium is really $11K now fully featured. BS as a buyer but smart as an OEM. Why?

Many mobile phone apps do the same thing. Base game and buy in game upgrades or unlocks. Following video game industry. Our pricing in pinball is just so much more it's BS as a buyer. But for game manufacturer they're following the model consumers are paying for. I blame all of us.
But shit, it's all fun and games. At least we as buyers can choose, Pro/Premium/LE and add on or stop adding on where we like. I still think toppers are over priced, but with features it makes you pause - then we all need to decide for ourselves. Just have fun with whatever you decide.

$124 plus shipping, works for me.

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Maybe the topper exclusive modes might be a timed thing and a future update down the road could unlock it for topperless owners.

I'm not certain but I think Avengers IQ had a topper mode that was eventually included for everyone.

Dude, you have 76 pinball machines. You left me speechless.