Everything I've seen makes me happy. Talking to people who have seen the final product, I'm even more happy. I already have a deposit down with a distributor, and I find it highly unlikely that I'm going to be disappointed when it's officially unveiled. I'm hoping that I can score an LE on this one, despite how much I hate the LE/Premium/Pro model that Stern uses...

I hate it, but I can't do much about it.

It's a John Trudeau game.

Guys, no. Ghostbusters threads are sacred. Take it outside.

I've yet to see the populated whitewood. I've seen all the other leaks, but I really want to track that whitewood pic down. I get why people who have it can't share, but if anybody is willing, help a brother out? Ever since putting a deposit down, my hype levels are running out of control.

You guys might have just moved up Stern's announcement. It's out there now...

Yeah, the leaks are everywhere now. Once they hit reddit, it was over. Leaks often hit Pinside that don't get moved into the mainstream coverage, but this one caught fire being posted on the outside.

I feel bad for Stern on this one. They were really close to the official announcement anyway. Now they have these older images out there, and when they officially unveil the game, they have to compete with the images already floating around. Image searches for the game will bring up mixed results.

This leak was not intentional. Don't kid yourselves. These are fairly old pics, and Stern's marketing plan would not involve showing off early images of a game that won't line up 1 with the actual product. Beyond that, Stern is still trying to move GoT and SM VE machines, and that's all they want to talk about until they're ready to move GBs.

Good dot art is way better than LCD hi-def video clips. Look at Metallica, TWD, AC/DC, and some other games that don't use dot video clips. The original dot art is way more entertaining than video clips on The Hobbit or WoZ. Get some high quality dot art, and nobody will complain. AC/DC and Metallica looking AMAZING with a ColorDMD. I really hope they don't use FMV in dot form. That would be a bummer. If they use original dots, I'll be more than happy.

I love that picture, but I'm sad to see them together without Harold Ramis.

I have this poster framed and ready to hang next to where Ghostbusters will be sitting in my pin lineup. It's a huge poster, the same size as a movie poster (40x27) and it looks great.

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Ghostbusters 2 isn't terrible, but the first one was going to be impossible to top.

We have the box set DVDs and when it changes to Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters, the quality takes a massive nosedive. It's not so much that they focused on Slimer, they just drop in quality across the board from writing to animation.

At this point I'm not sure what Stern is waiting for. There must be some sort of delay with production or finalizing some aspect. I doubt they're worried too much about GB interfering with SMVE sales. It's had plenty of room to breathe.

Come on Stern, give us the goods.

Nah, I think something pushed it back, like later than anticipated GoT shipments or something. There's no way that they haven't already firmed up their license and marketing considerations. Stern road maps that stuff pretty far out.

Today's speculation, actually.

Games get bumped back often with Stern. WWE came out later than expected and it rearranged some other release plans.

I want to go LE, but Premium might be the best looking machine in the end. I'll wait for final art and actual pictures and video to make that call, but I'm prepared to go LE if it proves to be the best looking machine.

Yeah, red or blue powder coat fit the Ghostbusters feel more than Slimer green. Slimer is iconic, but red is a basic Ghostbuster color staple. Even the yellow that appears on the traps could work, but I'd prefer red most, blue second.

Good dot art looks much better than a video clip. There's no charm or art to a 4-second video loop. I would like color displays, but I don't want video clips. Those suck.

Mustang is great. WWE has some good ideas, just didn't come together well. Trudeau is a very good designer. He'll knock this one out of the park.

I dunno. I think TBL looks great, but I'm not too impressed by seeing the same video clip ran 50 times per game. Hopefully they tone the frequency that you see those clips, because they'll wear thin fast.

Video clips will look great in a sizzle reel, they'll get boring in the home. Good animations with a good sound effect is better than hearing the same quote over and over. That's part of the issue with these video clips, you're bound to the same sound effect for them every dang time. At least with animations you can vary the sound effect that you get from time to time.

That Slimer looks amazing. Where did you get the statue?

I'm as big as a Ghostbusters fan as anybody you'll ever find, and I just can't understand the hate for the new movie. We know almost nothing about it other than the cast. A cast, by the way, that includes some of the funniest people in the business. The look is right, the director is a good pick, and they seem to be trying to have fun with the franchise.

Casting 4 new dudes would have been fine too, but I don't see why it would have been any different. Dudes, women, who really cares?

I'm hyped for the movie. I'm seeing it as soon as I can. I have a deposit down on the pin, I'm getting it as soon as I can. I don't understand what's wrong with being happy about two valid branches in the Ghostbusters franchise.

I'm still upset that this isn't a "spookulation" thread.

The leak isn't new, it's just smaller slices of a larger leaked pic. The larger pic looks pretty dang awesome.

I've seen the full image that those two leaked pics were cropped out of. It looks amazing, guys. This game is beautiful. Lots of purple, blues, reds, pinks, yellows. Very vibrant game.

I have a $1000 deposit down.

I'd rather not say who it's with at this point, but they're a good distributor. It's fully refundable even after the game is announced.

A fully refundable deposit on something I've seen isn't a big deal...

It's DMD.

If DMD is so bad, why haven't you guys all sold off your collections to get WoZ and on The Hobbit's preorder list? I mean if the games are so awful with DMDs, why subject yourself to such a broken and terrible experience?

RGB controlled LEDs are a much bigger deal than the display. Thank goodness they got that done. If you play an AC/DC with those dynamic lights (one of the games that does it best from Stern), it's extremely noticeable when you go back to play an older game. My favorite game of all time is TZ, but it looks dark and aged after playing AC/DC.

Oh, it's past time for DMD to get the boot in favor of LCD, but I don't see it as a valid make or break consideration. The LCD does nothing to change gameplay at all. It's purely a bells and whistles thing. A great game with no LCD is still great. A stinker game with an LCD is still a stinker. You can't put an LCD on South Park and all of sudden make me want one.

Yes, DMD is old tech and it looks old. Thing is, it doesn't matter all that much for pinball. As long as the dots are good, a ColorDMD will hide most of that old look anyway.

Eh, AC/DC has massive worldwide appeal and a lot of big hits. I'm not an AC/DC fan at all, and I picked up the pin based on how fun it is to play. But having never purchased a single nor album of AC/DC before, I was very familiar with Back in Black, Highway to Hell, You Shook Me All Night Long, Hells Bells, For Those About to Rock, Dirty Deeds, T.N.T., Thunderstruck, and probably a few more.

I know of plenty of Aerosmith songs, and again, I'm not a fan. But I think AC/DC has more loyal of a fan base than Aerosmith does.

Can you fit a Ghostbusters LE into a Slingshot? If so, put me down for both.

It's not a profit margin play. DMDs are more expensive than LCDs...

Which makes me think they'll rely on video clips instead of animations, which would be a huge bummer. I love good dot art, and trading it for video clips would suck.

I'd say that it's almost a given that they will unless there's a massive flaw discovered in the design during testing.

Friday afternoon is the worst time to announce anything unless you're announcing bad news. No announcement today, guys.

Ok, everybody give two lines that would be the best for when you hit a flipper button between games, for a credit drop, and the start button. My guesses:

Flipper button:

- Back off, man. I'm a scientist.
- Listen... do you smell something?

Credit drop:

- We'd like to get a sample of your brain tissue.
- What did you DO, Ray?

Start button:

- He slimed me.
- We're ready to believe you.

Once the code got up to snuff, Mustang became an excellent game. I'd love to own one.

We're recording an episode of The Pinball Podcast tonight. If you want to hear a grown man whine and rant like a crazed fool, tune in when it drops. I'm going to go off on Stern's marketing "strategy" with Ghostbusters. As someone with over 10 years of online marketing experience, including product launches, I can't believe how bad this particular game has been handled.

I have legit reason to be critical here. The window to announce the game before a massive avalanche of stories about the movie and new cast closes in two days. Stern will be a tiny blip on the Ghostbusters map. They could have avoided that sort of competition in the news cycle. I'll save deeper explanation and more reasons why they've screwed up for the show.

duplicate

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Stern always talks about new audiences and growing pinball. Stop burying your message and you might be able to do that.

No, they'll have less of a chance due to the sheer volume of stories about the movie from more mainstream outlets. GB hashtags will be dominated by the movie, and news feed will be clogged with stories about the trailer and new cast.

I'm not a podcaster by profession. I'm more than qualified to evaluate Stern's marketing approach.

Uh, the Game of Thrones pin saw decent mainstream coverage, but it had a poor hype ramp up. They still had coverage on visible IGN and the Wall Street Journal though.

Which is why the license holder would have wanted this announcement out before the movie trailer. Either before or well after.

Sony Pictures is the license holder.

There's a big difference here than with a standard reveal. Stern had a big asset leak. They lost control of the marketing message months ago. They never even tried to take it back. That's sloppy. Basic marketing is to control the conversation about your product. They're not.

Our recording got a little sensitive. But here's the bottom line: the leak sucks for Stern. It does. It definitely had an impact on several things, and none of that impact has been very positive. I just wish Stern had stepped out in front of the leak, took control of the conversation, and told people to wait for an official announcement at a later date. Not sure if the show will ultimately make it to air. We'll see...

Fred Young did that for Bally/Williams for years. Stern too.

Yo, dang. Hype level 1000. Beams of hype crossed.

Peter is hyped.

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I'm preeeeeetty sure that Stern didn't intend for that print ad to be shown today. Kind of sucks for them once again.

Has it been delivered, or is this a leak from an early copy?

Yeah, it was already highly rumored, but that was the first official piece of media that was found.

This would be a good ball drain sound drop.

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Yeah, it gave me the twitchy right hand when I saw that.

I posted our episode. The discussion we had about the handling of the leak was all before the Replay ad came out today. That definitely would have put some more color on the conversation. But if you want to hear me and Don semi argue about how the leak was handled, the episode is up now.

Direct link to the post: http://www.thepinballpodcast.com/2016/03/03/episode-75-jeff-loses-it/ - obviously you can find it on just about any podcast software too.

I wish I was such a big shot that my time was so valuable that I couldn't use the time seek feature of a media player.

Obviously the game was supposed to be announced before that ad hit. I know that Stern likes to announce and start shipping shortly after, but certainly there are times when you have to make concessions and adapt to changing external factors. Now that the game has been confirmed officially unofficially, can a brother just get a little teaser? C'mon, Stern. You know you want to.

She's excited.

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Lately Stern has been announcing Premium models after the LE/Pro. I imagine that will be the case here, but you never know. I think LEs will probably sell out before we see the Premium.

I thought we had to wait a bit to see the Premium. I remember they announced that a "Winter is Coming" premium was coming, but didn't show it. Maybe I'm forgetting.

What's that LE price?

I'm happy with two threads. Heck, I'll take a Ghostbusters sub-forum at this point.

New movie Slimer agrees.

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The majority of that was probably from TheFamilyArcade...

I'm super excited for GB. I'm in. If I put the money down and it shows up and proves to be a stinker, I won't have any problem admitting as much. To lie to myself and others is pointless. I would have been so upset had I bought The Avengers NIB (I considered it when it was announced), but I would have sold it and just moved on. From what I've seen of Ghostbusters, I'm not concerned about it being a stinker, but if it is, I'll keep it for a while and then move on. It's funny that it would be so hard for some people to do the same.

Yeah, I don't really care about the value of the games I have. All that really matters to me is the enjoyment I get out of my lineup. When I got my AFM, I could have got MM at the same price. I went with AFM because I like it more. Regardless of value, I just own the games I like to play and that my visitors enjoy. I think collecting based on any other criteria is just a good way to end up frustrated.

Star Wars and The Avengers support your argument.

On the other hand, I do think that when you land a home run theme you do try to maximize its impact by pairing it with the best possible rules and design that you can. GB has been on pinheads' wishlists for a long, long time. Tron was the last game I remember being so commonly requested. Thankfully the design and rules came through.

You can't tell anything until you play it. Sometimes you can't tell anything until you've played it after a couple of code revisions.

First time I played Mustang, I wasn't too high on it. After the code got tightened up, it became a very good game. Spider-Man and TWD were the same way too.

There's a subway under the game and I'm sure it ties into the ramp in case of problems.

Listen, do you smell something?

Smells like an impending announcement.

Nigel on Stern's Facebook page: It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

Edit: That's it! Spinal Tap None More Black LE (STNMBLE)

Time to hit the commute. I'm expecting the announcement to be tomorrow, but I would love to get home and find that it all dropped while I was sitting in traffic.

"And you get to be on the LE!"

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Stuck in it now...

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I'm still fishing for words, but let me just say that I'm very, very pleased.

Really? I think GOT, Metallica, Mustang, and ST are all great Pros that don't sacrifice much.

I put my second deposit down to lock in my LE. I've never been more excited for a pinball machine than I am for this one. Now the wait begins, and boy, it's going to feel like a long one.

Yeah, it's a short wait in comparison to other manufacturers, but again, I've never wanted a game this bad.

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Link to huge one: http://assets1.ignimgs.com/2016/03/09/stern-ghostbustersle-playfield-01xjpg-19d4d4.jpg

Oh, wait, he said Pro. Sorry dude.

Yeah, the LEs are probably gone or close to gone by now. Seems like it should have been 500 just for the US and 250 for overseas, but they'll do well on premiums.

Ok.

Do you own any DMD games? If so, you should sell them because they're no longer any fun.

Nah, those types of video modes are way better than the ones where you just memorize the pattern or optimal way to play it. They become brainless interruptions to the game.

We had part of a plunger rod spring, but I straightened it.

Yo, that ramp is fast!

The game looks and sounds great.

It sounds nice aside from the pop bumper noises. The music is varied and really fitting. That multiball sequence intro was really, really cool.

Guys, the flipper gap isn't an issue. It's part of the design, and it's intentional. We've never closed the gap on other Trudeau games in the past. In fact, we often add lightning flippers to games that are too easy without them.

I believe it's going to be all LEs and some pros, then a big run of pros, and then premiums. After that it will be pros and premiums based on demand.

Stern almost always lets you skip animations with a double flipper press. I don't see why it would be different here.

I don't mind a linear experience. It just moves the variants from the modes to how well you perform on each mode. Plenty of games that don't really have modes or are fairly fixed in their progression are tons of fun. You still get to choose whether you want to focus on a mode, work towards multiball, or aim for other scoring opportunities. Something like Scared Stiff has absolutely zero variation, and it's still tons of fun because it's completely based on how well you shoot. Nothing is started at random or by chance in that game, it's all plotted out before you even drop a coin.

Sure, but compare the length of development cycle and the wait between announcement and ship date. I'd rather get my game early and let it evolve over time.

I think we're all assuming way too much at this point. We don't even know if the code they played yesterday was the newest code. Most often times demos are based on the most recent stable code, not necessarily the latest. It's way, way too early to be jumping off of preorders based on yesterday's stream or to start proclaiming that the game will be repetitive or boring. And that's just speaking for the Pro, you still have new shots and different functionality to consider with the LE/Premium machines.

What we saw was basically a sneak peak of sorts. You can't really judge it until you see the full product.

Bobby Brown is about to get a career revival.

Honestly, man, at this point I would drop your LE and wait to get a pro or premium. You seem to post more about your doubts than anything else. Why roll the dice for some green armor if you're that hesitant? Save the money and get some peace of mind and get a premium if everything shakes out well.

It really depends on the size of the magnet, the length of the pulse, and the distance of the ball to the magnet that activates. A ball near one sling might not be affected be the opposite magnet, we just don't know yet.

Guys, these magnets are going to be more expensive for Stern to implement than kickers. They involve more programming time, much more testing, and probably more material cost. I don't think they would choose to go this route if they didn't feel like they added to the game in a positive manner.

Fair enough. And yes, I do have money down. I'm in for an LE as well. Given Stern's recent track record, I guess I'm must a bit more optimistic and trusting at this point. They have been hitting some big home runs as of late.

Correct. Since the ball is not a magnet itself, it's only attracted and cannot be repelled.

One thing to remember about the magnetic slings is that they're not meant to approximate or replicate the functionality of mechanical slings. If that's what they wanted, they'd just use mechs. They're definitely shooting for an entirely unique experience.

Might not be a bad idea. I guess mylar would be the go to solution.

While I agree that the photoshop art is unfortunate and would be best if companies could avoid it, they can't always do that. The license holder often provides an art package that must be used, and all depictions of characters and key items to the franchise are fixed. The only artistic freedom that the artist at Stern or JJP gets is with how they place the assets. Zombi Yeti knocked it out of the park, and kudos to Stern for letting him do so. But even more than that, a huge thanks should be given to Sony Pictures for allowing Stern to do custom art in the first place.

Compare The Rolling Stones are to The Rolling Stones Monopoly board game. Notice the similarities? Yeah, that's what happens when the license holder gives the same art out without regard to the different mediums it will be used.

I'm sure Stern prefers custom art, it just turns out that not many license holders are forward thinking enough or their marketing departments are too worried about brand dilution or confusion by creating new likenesses of their product.

Well, GoT is on backorder and orders are in. It's doing fine. The game is tons of fun, especially the Pro. I wish people could look past art and just enjoy the game. It's a real winner.