Yep, Munsters had the coolest car.

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Borg has the same problem with layouts for the last 10 years. In a serious rut. Hopefully Elwin's freshness embarrassed him into doing something actually new.

Lyman's code ultimately made TWD awesome, but he as a track record of super-polishing code over time, while Lonnie has a reputation for mediocre "good enough" software that doesn't get much (any, sometimes) attention from him after release.

Where's your Stern outpost, the Arctic? That's awfully bright for 12:30am...

And, how bad is the ant problem there? Gary too cheap to get it sprayed every 60 days so you don't need traps everywhere?

It's not just software time, but design time for new playfield layouts, too. Borg has recycled and mirrored essentially the same layouts for about 10 years now. That's very little PF design work and a lot of "same-y" pins. He and the other designers need time to actually work on significantly new layouts instead of just reskinning or mirroring existing playfield layouts.

At least Trudeau was always trying new designs at every outing. He had more failures than success as a result, but he was always pushing things and more successfully achieved the "world under glass" ideal more often. If only he wasn't a pedophile...

Hah! Great minds think alike. I told Borg that staircase ramp had better have a trap door.

After Mr. Ed.

GoT rules with Borg action and Franchi art? Sounds pretty great to me. I just PRAY that Borg has really come up with a NEW playfield design instead of another reskin or mirror of his existing designs.

Deadpool's looking like a lame duck.

We'll see if it can break out of the Gomez-designed machine low-resale value prison all his machines (except Batman'66, recently) have been in for the last 15 years.

Pretty sure my graph would show Gomez has a disproportionate amount of low-resale value pins in the last 15 years compared to other designers. Some went almost straight into the toilet.

Every designer is allowed one or two fails in that wide of a timeframe. Gomez has more than one or two - the last 4 he did before Batman'66 were duds, objectively, using the resale marketplace values. The only thing that saved BM'66 is Lyman's software, the whole first year was Gomez clunk. And if you go back to 2000, he had one good design (LotR) and 5 duds (if you count Playboy, I'm not sure where the division of labor was on that). That's a bad record if you're looking at spending a ton of cash to get a new Deadpool.

You need to stop, you're making me want to graph this, and NO ONE WANTS MORE OF MY GRAPHS.

Nope. You can't spread the merely good resale value of LotR over 5 duds and keep the average resale respectable. And besides, people buy machines, not averages. Do you want to gamble when the odds of getting a good design with decent resale from a Stern Gomez machine are 1 in 5, or 20%?

Unfortunately GotG got the stink of a bad game due to poor software and now kind of has X-MEN-itis. XMEN LE is a pretty great game now, but prices never recovered because people only remembered it sucking for so long before they fixed it.

Eh, I'd give Gomez credit on LotR, for sure. It's his best-shooting Stern game by a mile. Nothing else he's done at Stern comes close.

You're pretty close to alone with that assessment, I think. But that doesn't mean you can't like it.

Whoops. Deadpool is back to Stern's trend of incomplete games shipping. 0.81 at launch. SURPRISE!

Good to see Stern finally bought the theming clue and has the polished brass coin door matching the polished brass armor on the LE. Who originally leaked the pics accidentally on Facebook? Franchi? Stern? Anyone know?

LE Coin Door is polished brass. That was surprising. And welcome.

But lack of a Pro picture makes this feel like a KaPow thing, and if so, bend over, here they come again. If it's more KaPow pricing, no way I'm recommending it for the route I help with.

Like I said, surprising, and welcome. I think they'll do it. It's about time, especially for what they'll likely charge for the LE.

Also, there likely IS a Pro. If you look at the Premium, there's the right edge of a shooter rod on the left side of the Premium pic. Stern displays pins from left to right, Pro to LE in their promo shots. So likely the Pro was in the set before it was chopped up. It just wasn't leaked.

Gotta make cuts somewhere to keep the price increase to only $150-$200 more than the last Premium 2 months ago.

This one was on facebook briefly, so anyone could have seen it while it was up.

Pricing is the only real question mark. That LE looks very cool, and it's nice to see the coin door has joined the armor theming - finally.

October announce at the very least. If Stern messes up a Halloween tie in for THE MUNSTERS, then all is truly lost.

It looks more like polished brass and not that grey poupon mustard-colored WWE LE crap. Hopefully it holds up better than Elvis LE did.

Even though it was briefly on facebook (allegedly) and that's public, I guess it was a mistake and Stern doesn't want them posted because of all the deadpool sales they'll lose. <--my guess

Me too. I only was told that's where these came from. Stern PR? Stern mistake? Franchi? Borg? No idea...

EDIT: Kaneda leaked it. No idea why anyone trusted him with the pics unless Stern wanted a leak to slow down CGC MBr.

Uh, Wonka pics? That's before Toy Story...you're slipping.

You can see a shooter rod on the left side of the Premium pic, so there is a Pro, it just wasn't leaked for some reason. Kaneda can't even leak right.

If you're a current pinside supporter, you might have an easier time...

Haha! This thread is turning into one of the more successful Pinside membership drives...red hearts popping up all over!

I'm actually cool with the red band. Makes it more coffin-like, which is clearly what they were going for on the LE. As long as it's art and not that crappy red adhesive vinyl they used for BM'66 SLE, I'm down with it.

Thank Kaneda, if you dare. He apparently leaked them. Maybe he was given them on purpose to leak to slow down CGC. We'll never know.

But both the leaked versions do look good. Now I'm ready to see the PF!

Possible, but unlikely because the pro wouldn't be to the left of the Premium with the machines slanted away and there's definitely a chopped-off pin to the left of the Premium in that premium picture. Maybe Kaneda can get his leaking act together and try again with all of them!

But, the fact that the Pro was left out and only the Prem and LE that compete price-wise with the CGC Monster Bash remake were leaked really makes me think it was a sanctioned "leak" to steal momentum from CGC.

If you saw it when it blipped on at Pinside, it should still be in your browser cache to save locally.

Pretty strong contender, but pricing will determine that.

Borg on Design and Dwight on software for Munsters - that's a strong, one-two punch that should finish off contenders. We'll see...

Think if it more as a pre-emptive strike on Monster Bash, which will be revealed any time now, and Stern has zero control over the spacing of its reveal after Deadpool so this is the best diffuser they have available under the circumstances.

Of course! Lonnie was gracious enough to model for it.

"chicken" from the non-pinside supporting, anonymous location member? Ironic.

The last one was TERRIBLE. I hope they do a LOT better if they're trying another Munsters TV show again...

It's weird that Kaneda went to the trouble to leak it, but then left the pro version out, that was clearly in the original that was chopped up.

And what's "the largest podcast listening base" a few thousand people at most? It's a niche of a niche of a niche. Hardly anything to get to puffed up about.

$3k 1990 dollars is about $5700 in 2018 dollars, and Stern is charging $7500ish for mechanically inferior (to B/W build quality) Premiums, so if that was the Williams metric, Stern's break even is probably under 2000 units.

Aren't we all. No one outside Stern is getting the real numbers so all we can do is estimate sales relative to other titles ("Better than Metallica" or, heaven forbid, "Worse than WWE LE").

I told Borg if there's no mid-ramp trap door, he's failed.

No one? As an absolute statement, it's likely wrong (but no, I personally don't want to see that).

"No one" is right.
"No-one" is an uncommon variant form. It’s best to stick to the two-word version.
"Noone" is wrong.

So in either case/form the statement is wrong.

SW Pro is DEFINITELY lacking. AC/DC Pro is lacking the least. GoT Pro is right in the middle.

Heil. HEIL.

I know. I KNOW.

No question. Premium on Ghostbusters. Pro is severely lacking.

Munsters team is the second best case scenario. Borg, Franchi, Dwight, and it is a BFD, indeed. Only swapping out Dwight for Lyman could make it perfect. But this is a very, very strong second. I expect great things from this machine, and the leaked cabs are not calming the hype train fuel.

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GoT is his best so far IMO. But I'm really looking forward to whatever he does with Munsters. SO much potential.

They didn't pick the Munsters team at random. They wanted to make a statement. I also think Borg has something to prove after copying or mirroring his playfields for the last 10 years. Munsters is likely to be a very special, new playfield design.

That said, I don't think it will be released next month. I can see it being ANNOUNCED in 6 weeks at expo, but release of the Pros in Nov and Prem in Dec is more likely.

If? Definitely yes.

When? Less certain, but probably announced in Oct and Pros start flowing in November.

If it's a riff on Haunted House, you're pissing into the wind.

Maybe on the stripped out pro.

GoT is the most complete, I think. However it does have some pretty major bugs that should have been addressed a year or more ago, if nothing else.

Ghostbusters is his biggest mess remaining.

Until you have the benefit of perspective only time can impart, sometimes to a creator that's too close to a project, it's not clear that work you THINK is your best is not objectively your best.

I agree that GoT is his best work so far. We'll see what time says.

I'm just saying that it's human nature to give most recent "good" work you've spent the better part of a year working on the benefit of feeling it's "great" when the passage of time will equalize perception to the actual truth. Not a knock on Dwight.

That's crazy. Iron Maiden has WAY more appeal globally, and they wouldn't even go to 666 (which they would have sold). I can't imagine they'll do 1000 on Munsters. Worldwide demand isn't there.

KISS hung around for a long time in stock, WWE LE is STILL overflowing warehouses, and they were afraid of another like that, but given the huge overseas interest in Iron Maiden, anyone with even a passing knowledge knew that they could EASILY sell 666 and it actually made SENSE.

I guarantee that if they had done 666 LEs, the 666 one would have gone to the band. But then at least all the LEs could have had "xxx/666 LIMITED EDITION" on each collector plate. "xxx/500" is SUCH a missed opportunity.

Having the 666th one would be cool, but it was more about getting 666 on every collector plate because there WAS 666. Stern blew it when this pin was clearly a home run and could support 666 no problem.

Sanity prevails.

I'm hoping for something new from Borg with the three levels of Haunted house.

You can see a bit of the knob for the shooter on the left side of the Premium pic. All three were clearly part of the same picture that was cut up. For some reason Kaneda didn't have the juice to get a Pro picture for his leak. His reputation is clearly overblown.

Yep. Borg has been using the same or a mirrored layout for 10 years. Lame.

However, comments about "his next"/Munsters make me hopeful Elwin inspired him to put some effort into it.

Hahaha! Not on purpose. I answered a notification that I was quoted and I replied to that. I thought that pinsider sounded awfully rational and level-headed, but I was in the middle of a project and just quick-answered without looking too closely. I wonder why I'd get a notification about my own post?

But you're welcome for the entertainment. Remember to tip your waitress on the way out. I'll be here all week...

Lonnie is in all the games (he also does low-level system and system menu code re-used by all games), but Munsters is a BFD (Borg (design) - Franchi (art) - Dwight (software) ). An awesome combination. Second best trio you can pull. IMO. I expect great things. Triple BFD hype train on fire!
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The LOOK of the topper is great, but like most (all?) the Stern toppers it has almost nothing going on in-game. They have the ability to have it DO stuff - quite a bit of stuff, but it's just not integrated into the game well at all.

I'd love to have the car as the topper if there were a decent scale one available. 1/15th scale is the biggest I've seen and that's only 14". Needs to be more like 24".

If Munsters is truly a play on Haunted house with a more full-featured mini-playfield on the bottom level with full flippers, pop or pops, and drop targets, I'm totally down with that. I just don't want SF2/Congo/ACDC style gimped lower PF.

And actually, I'd be fine if the lower PF was an LCD and they had a devil's crush type pinball with progressive, changing environments like DC had.

I'd be down with an LCD in the playfield window since it would almost be like a very interactive video mode, and if it was as progressive as Devil's Crush with lots of stuff to work through, it would be great. But I'm not jonesing for more RfM or SWE1. Did not like pinball 2000. Too same-y.

I don't think they did it for Munsters, but it would get away from crappy lower playfields. Unfortunately, the level of software quality would have to improve dramatically for it to be cool. But, yeah, Naxat-level Devil's Crush game as the 3rd playfield would be amazing.

I really hope Stern isn't swapping Beatles and Munsters releases. Pretty sure Beatles is a mistake Stern/Kapow will regret.

Fingers crossed nothing has changed. Two duds in a row would be too much, and I'm hyped for Munsters.

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Can't say. Hope it was wrong.

Beatles would MAKE it two duds in a row. Deadpool is a shallow clunky Gomez special. Beatles I have zero interest in as a pinball machine, and it's Kapow, so it will be bend you over a barrel-time on price. So, yeah, hoping I heard wrong and Munsters is still next.

It's all fun in the honeymoon phase. Give it 3-4 months.

Deadpool - enough to recognize the Gomez clunk. Beatles - zero, but the theme says nothing at all to me for pinball, and some of the other stuff that's rumored about the machine is a big "WTH was Stern thinking with these license restrictions?"

And just to be clear, Iron Maiden ABSOLUTELY is NOT a dud. Great game.

Harley Davidson sold a LOT of pins, and Harley fans love it. It's crap. So, uh, yeah. Number of pins sold (and, BTW, Deadpool is not exactly burning up the presses), and number of people professing love (especially in the first 3-4 months) is ZERO solid indicator of a pin being good.

I pray that your source is 100% correct. I really, really, really want Munsters to be next.

No way. I'd have KISS LE again any day over any current flavor of Deadpool. (I'm not great about keeping my collection updated on pinside. Moves too much. I'm a recovering pin addict and have limited myself to max of 2 at any given time, so there's a lot of churn)

There's some real info in there. I hope it's WRONG info, but pretty solid source in the past, so we may be waiting longer for Munsters and get Kapow Beatles next. That's definitely new. Bleaugh.

And graphing isn't off the table, but it has to be REALLY bad to pull out the data points and make a picture.

Thank you.

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Kapow's website is super-sad. http://www.kapowpinball.com/home.html

The "about" page isn't about Kapow Pinball, it's about Joe Kaminkow, talking about the 1,500 games that he has intellectual property in. Then on the games page, the only thing shown is Batman'66. Survey is closed and promotion is old. So, uh...yeah.

I was responding to your mixed post about BM'66 (Kapow) and Herman not giving a phone call (Stern), which reminded me about the Kapow website with the "leave your name and Batman might call" which is still there.

WAY too small. At a pitiful 11", it would be less than half the width of the backbox. All the Munsters cars I've seen would be too small for a topper of any consequence.

100% for sure. Borg (Design), Franchi (Art), Dwight (code). The only potential problem is if they really are pushing Beatles up ahead to release first. We'll know in a couple weeks.

If Munsters is indeed THE expo reveal, definitely share pics and video! I'm pretty hyped for this one, especially after the tri-level Haunted House comparison.

But the more I think about it, with Munsters Pro launching AFTER Halloween and Prem/LE in Nov and Dec, the Halloween tie-in becomes less relevant and they might want to get Christmas casual suckers with Beatles, which is (head-scratchingly) aimed for the home market. So the "Beatles next" info I couldn't believe might actually be true.

You and me both.

Yeah, Borg seems pretty stoked on this one, which is a great sign, and I actually like both the Prem and LE art Kaneda leaked, even if they have been revised since then. Hoping to see your pics in a couple weeks!

Under US consumer law, if a company sends you something you did not order, it's legally yours to keep at no cost.

Now, if you have a zombie subscription you can't stop, I'd document a few calls, then start counting whatever keeps coming as gifts.

Did he miss it?

Spiderman home edition. <--joke, but only a little.

And some of the other rumored license restrictions are real head scratchers as to why Stern would even bother. Talk about limiting sales.

Munsters, on the other hand, should be a sales bonanza next year.

I really, really, really hope this is still the timeline for Munsters. Very much want a Premium, and mid 1Q 2019 is a long way from here.

MUSIC licensing is ridiculously expensive, especially if you want to "buy out" each song so it's not for a particular time AND home vs commercial venue playback is another layer of cost, especially when you're talking Beatles.