Wow. I haven't read the MMR stuff since September. Did something happen between then and now that people are looking to cancel in droves? I mean, if Stern is making the games, and they have a production run test machine, and are waiting on UL, I'd think they're not that far away?

I dunno. I trust Stern as a manufacturer. If PPS was doing this on their own I would be more worried, but Stern has the capacity to churn out games, and the reputation of getting them out the door.

Disclaimer: I do not have an MMR ordered.

Isn't it just the mechs? Aren't coin mechs like $25? If I am going to blow $8K on a pinball machine, $50 worth of mechs, mostly unused, wouldn't sway me. The thing that would sway me is years of waiting. JJP was 2+ years late with WOZ... and most people hung in there. If I recall correctly most of the cancellations were due to game design (ie. stop and go vs flow).

THIS. I mean, do we know what kind of factory Dutch Pinball, or any of the other boutiques have? I just don't get it. I mean, I sympathize, $8k is a lot of money and it sucks the game is late. But I think the timeframe originally was ambitious and executing a pinball machine in 1 year for mass manufacture is pretty friggin good. 6 months is late, but its not 2 years late. And there's lots of evidence that most game issues are resolved and its just creating the games, right? Am I missing something?

HA! This is the same hobby that loves Steve at the Pinball Resource, who was grossly rude to me, two years ago, as a newbie trying to order Gottlieb parts. I was trying to buy stuff and the dude ripped me a new one for having broken a post and not having a part number.

I dunno. I've been reading the PPS blog and there's a lot of info. If people had bad CS experiences with Rick, that sucks, but its MM! it's the #1 pinball machine of like, all time, man. I dunno. If I had an $8K bonus at work and had no other financial commitments on the horizon, I'd have already written the check.

None of these companies have shipped a single game to a paying customer. Dutch has proven they can produce a kickass prototype. Lots of custom pinball makers here on this forum have also done kickass custom machines. Ramping that up to a repeatable manufacturing process that requires hundreds of workers, millions of dollars of capital, expensive tools and facilities, etc etc etc... that's the real challenge in Pinball. Doing it profitably is incredibly hard. Why do you think Williams got out of the game?

Gamora: I'm a warrior, an assassin. I don't dance.
Peter Quill: Really? Well, on my planet, we have a legend about people like you. It's called Footloose. And in it, a great hero, named Kevin Bacon, teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that, dancing, well, is the greatest thing there is.
Gamora: ...Who put the sticks up their butts?