Nice sleuthing! Looking forward to seeing this game.

So long as "what did you do ray?" is a callout, take my money.

That is a cool rumor on the Marshmellows, lol. All this official speculation is the best marketing of all. Get the fever built up!
I don't think they will announce or release GB at CES next week. It does make sense, I mean the theme would kill with the tech sites and bloggers and whatnot. But, then again, maybe the thought is -- the theme alone will carry the pin whether it is released at a show or released through Video teasers like GOT was. Just look at how many sites picked up that translite leak / rumor.

I think it will be GoT and possibly a SMVE at CES this time. Looking forward to be pleasantly surprised though!

As for the LCD. Two schools of thought here. There are plenty of licensed Ghostbusters scenes in the IGT Ghostbusters Slot machine. It would stand to reason if IGT could make such liberal use of clips for that machine, Stern would have no problem getting licensed video sequences for a pin.

That said, I think it will be dots and I'm totally cool with that. If there is any truth to that leaked translite - it will be dots. I wouldn't expect a full art translite on a machine with an LCD. I would expect that to be more like a Mirror-Glass Logo + LCD. Personally, I'm okay with Stern not rushing to adopt LCD backboxes -- it will significantly slow down new game development and code updates.

Either way I'm stoked about this theme, if the game is good I'll definitely be getting one as well - I'll wait to see the playfield before ordering though.

That might be cool but I think the realities of supply chain for an LCD or LED Panel is, you are going to get a standard aspect ratio panel and the typically DMD slot is too wonky of a size.

Arcade Parts Suppliers have been fighting that for years, cramming 16x9 aspect ratio panels into 4:3 aspect ratio holes in arcade cabs. If Stern puts an LCD in the backbox, I don't see it being a custom size. Much easier (ahem: cheaper) to design the backbox around an available display than to re-engineer a display for the backbox.

16" fits nicely between the speaker grills but would make for a 9" tall monitor, just doesn't seem to fit / look right.
I still say GB will be dots. Maybe colored dots at best but probably.. not.

Then again, I'm usually wrong at least twice a day.

See.. now I have to buy this pin just to change the rom so that this plays during whatever Wizard Mode or hard-to-achieve multiball might exist.

I didn't think we'd get a Stern LCD (the smaller, DMD sized one you mentioned) on this game a couple days ago but with Dwight on code, I think we might. I'm wondering if what happened was originally GOT was to be an LCD backbox and at some point, something happened and it got pushed instead to GB, which would have had Dwight straddling the two projects, basically getting the originally-intended-for-GOT LCD-based backbox code switched over to GB assets and the GOT code back over to dots.

Didn't Wrestlemania get released at CES 2015, to show off SPIKE? (not that I disagree with your core point, I think it will be GOT promotion, mostly this year at CES - a GB teaser video at best in January)

A 960 x 540 black screen. qHD resolution. Maybe someone uses a crappy feature phone @ Stern to upload to facebook.. Or is 960 x 540 the resolution of the forthcoming LCD screen? Tin-foil-hat: engage.

I agree! - in fact there is risk. If they don't get the LCD right, it could easily steer some folks away. A poorly implemented LCD could alienate both the "give me new tech, now!" crowd and the red-dot-lover old school "get-off-my-lawn" types.

When they do it, I want them to get it right. (and I think they will)

I figured out the whole black screen thing on Facebook. Someone at Stern got one of those, "Set your Cover Photo to <blank> and Zuckerberg might send you some money" chain letters.

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I know it won't be there but I really want this insult in the game.

Some rumors of tease / announce today for GB floating amongst some retailers and distributors with varied opinions on certainty.

I think it was kind-of-assumed there would be one at Texas Pinball Festival in March. Walking back from there in a typical timeline, you'd have a good month of production-ramp up stuff, preceded by the obligatory 'tease' period. Which would put us in prime 'tease' timeframe now->feb.

So many rumors about this thing though, who knows. Hoping we start seeing some movement soon - exciting theme with tons of great potential. Personally, I hope it is awesome and soon: I have a spot set aside for it, if so.

Same here guys. I really wish they'd just go ahead and announce the details of this worst-kept-secret ever, so I can go ahead and mark "Ghostbusters" on a stack of cash or something else. Personally, I get a little antsy about having the cash earmarked for a pin that I haven't seen when there are so many other great pins out there I haven't owned yet. The potential of this one seems worth seeing what they come up with. Just wish they'd get around to it already or quit leaking stuff.

Here's hoping we'll get.. something.. this week...

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With (only) 349 Pinsiders participating in this thread and the bulk of the activity being a handful of those..Many of which are either a) in the know or b) have a sad need to appear as if they are in the know, I'm sure LE's aren't already sold out for a game that isn't even for sale yet. Some distributors are keeping lists of folks who are interested in the next title, some might even take deposits or payments but that doesn't mean those distributors' orders are entered with Stern yet. Because.. you know.. there's nothing to buy yet

I do think the LE's will go quickly on this one, though but I don't believe for a second there won't be a Premium model, Stern's not leaving money like that sitting on the table. Premium tables have been going very well for them.

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Just a thought: Announcing or shipping on Feb 24th with a thoughtful in memory of.. Harold Ramis from Stern would be totally okay with me. A nod to an acting-comedy great would class up the joint.

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That is the whole problem with Aliens, you just can't trust em'.

He created a joke account, Kylo Ren to troll people with, he and Robin had a heart to heart apparently afterwards b/c .. that's a no-no.

So back to speculating about speculation...

Given this 30 years of Stern thing, I wonder if they are going to count down to the full 30 (they did 1988 today on FB), then do the announcement for GB at the end for 2016's year.. That seems like plausible speculation-ness...

For those that have seen this game.. Can you name another game that the play field reminds you of with respect to shots, ramps or layout? (Personally, I was hoping for something CFTBL- Like )

I watched the Classic Game Room review of Pin2k Ep1 last night:

-Where I learned "Lando" is an adjective.

So what are we speculating these days in terms of an announcement timeline? Is Stern going to make it through 90+ days of the whole every-game-they've-ever made info-cards (which I'm enjoying reading) and then a GB reveal?

(That would be sometime in May if they only do the info-cards on weekdays)

Seems like announcing prior to TPF would be more likely but maybe I'm suffering from a case of uncharacteristic optimism.

It definitely has style points.

Aerosmith summer, Jurassic World w/ an LCD in the Fall and Star Wars w/ an LCD @ CES 2017 -- then maybe that Jimi Hendrix next summer? I don't know anything about anything, just riffing based on all the rumorings...

(Fingers crossed that this is how it plays out..)

He is Vigo! Our speculation is like the buzzing of flies to him

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(not the best photoshop but I felt it needed to be done, and this conference call I'm on won't end....)

Is that a thing (actual rumor), - GB emulating P3 in some way? That would surprise me.

Modders out there: give me a little refrigerator that pops open occasionally like the POTC chest. Instead of LED letters that are hard to read, put in an OLED screen and show this scene:

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and have the matching Zuul audio, ZUUL Multiball. (take my money)

..and he was in Pixels. Heck, he'd probably do it just to get one of the pins.
Never met him but I've heard from folks that have that Dan Aykroyd's a good dude, he'd probably do it just for coolness points!

Let's hope!

Yep, it sure is. I consider it the same, anyway. I like me some hologram effects but I hope that doesn't mean we are getting another pin w/ some special-piece of play-field glass that is going to be a pain to source over time.

(like pin2k's polarized mirror-tint-unicorn-tear-glass)

Stage magicians and Disney and my neighborhood halloween enthusiasts get pepper's ghost on regular glass, so here's hoping that happens here too!

That's a relief! I guess for Pepper's Ghost to work and not be able to see the image source / subject, it would have to be down in or around the Apron, kind of like how Star Trek's Laser Projector is tucked in.

(Unless they've invented a micro-short-throw-projector -- which I mean- high fives all around if they did that)

I guess a small LCD in the Apron at a 45 degree to the playfield glass might work?

In keeping w/ the 10x innovation claim or speculation...

On my wishlist for this game for that to be fulfilled, includes an ESP game video mode that shocks me through the flipper buttons when I guess wrong. Also - detect the gender and hotness of the player and adjust game rules accordingly.

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also.. if the lockbar button triggers a trap to trap a ghost, someone partner with Star_gazer from his sketch on page 11- and make that pedal a reality

Patterns..
Game of Thrones Teaser video announcing game of thrones. (The one that showed the silver ball rolling around Westeros)
- September 4, 2015

IGN posted photos of the machine on September 8th

We started getting occasional quick clips of the playfield on September 10th. More quick clips trickled in through September 20th.
The Deadflip / Ritchie broadcast of gameplay was on September 29th.

One was @ expo Oct 14

The first Pinsider, (that I could see) posted a 'It's Landed" thread on 11/30

So... 26 (business) days from first photo reveal to first show appearance.

Assuming a similar schedule w/ TPF as the anchor (which may be an unreasonable assumption) - that would put the reveal timeframe @ Feb 11-12th. Maybe even by the end of this week (feb5)

56ish days from reveal to meaningful shipping. So, your pre-pre-orders could be in your homes and you can be hard core Ghostbusting in your game room by the end of April.

If we were guessing based on all of these inside sources, are we going to see a reveal of this puppy in February?

Dream theme. A designer with tons of potential. Off the charts artist on tap. The recipe is there for Stern to make a great pin to honor a great theme. I hope they at least announce/reveal sooner than TPF. But, I guess good things take time.

I stand corrected. That leak has sprung -- Thanks Lordloss!

Looks cool! Can't wait to see the real deal, should be rad.

Love me some Stern, Love me some JJP. Love me some [anybody making cool pinball-y things go here]. I don't want to see any of them suffer for internet shenanigans..

I don't see anyone getting fired over this. I mean, it's wholly disrespectful to scoop their stuff on them and release the images prematurely but honestly, this thread crossed the respect-for-Stern's release cycle a *long* time ago with folks trickling in details as fact / having already seen this stuff.

This seems to have a lot of potential, seeing it in a CAD-Mockup versus the final product, with artwork in place - are going to be different things. This getting out wasn't respectful to Stern (and, yeah, I agree that's not cool.) but it won't be damaging to them either. Not even a little.. They are going to sell the crap out of this game and good-on them for it!

Mood slime. That's what this thread needs.

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If you boys don't be nice, Gary Stern is going to have to hook an NES Advantage Controller to the Statue of Liberty and walk on some cop cars. (she's tough, she's a harbor chick)

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That would be an awesome nod to the movies but I don't think they will release on a Sunday. Have they done Sunday releases before?
Just means the world is going to end before we actually get to see the final pin..

(hand raised) Yep, should be a great title for Stern. Should be appealing for both operator and game room folks.

playing devil's advocate..
I would contend that making Pinside a hostile environment for pinball manufacturers isn't good for anyone.
(The site, players, manufacturers, etc.) .. and sharing leaked photos and other intellectual property openly (including descriptive - "i've seen it" - details) doesn't exactly make Pinside a less hostile place for them. Why would the number 1 pinball community / site on the web want to position itself to be openly hostile towards the small handful of businesses actually making pins we love? What benefit does that do anyone?

(..and yep, I'm a hypocrite in this line of reasoning because I jumped right over and looked at those pics too.)

I'll be foolishly altruistic and say that maybe there is an underlying hope that if we were collectively less-dickish to the manufacturers, they would consider coming back here and engaging (directly) again. Right now, it seems they really can't do anything to satiate the mob. They'll get crucified by art styles, perceived missing features and / or code, not being cheap enough but not being built sturdy enough or by not shipping on time or by not including the voice talent we want or.....

But yeah, maybe somebody lawyered up, who knows. It was interesting how quickly everything disappeared from instagram, reddit, etc. Somebody spent some time (trying to) remove those posts, so I guess they weren't ready for us to see yet.

I thought the same thing. Saw the thread float to the top and the activity counter and my hopes were up that something was happening over at Stern, announcement-wise.

Yep, sad, I guess that lady followed that Alien back his room at Holiday Inn, Paramus for nothing. I'm starting to think he (the alien) may have had other motives.

.. The next chronological date I've seen knocked around was 2/17. I don't think there was any particular inside info backing it, I think it was based on being 1 month out from TPF and the obligatory announce, tease marketing and factory prep run up with TPF as the anchor date.

Humorous exchange on Stern's FB page from over the weekend around GB and the Feb14th speculation.

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Thanks for making the new thread. I hope folks use it

Yep, I agree / I think the LE of this game will be the next Tron LE in terms of second-hand sales w/ over-inflated 'value' unless the game is just a complete bore or they make more LE's than usual. Someone told me they thought it would beat TAF in terms of units-produced but I don't know that I agree with that, the current pinball resurgence and that of the 90's are different. But they will sell a ton of them. I imagine whenever they do dedicate an assembly line to this pin, they may loose that line (availability-wise) to this pin for awhile, if that makes sense.

I really hope this pin is great. I've passed up on a TOTAN, A LOTR, A Scared Stiff and a Monster Bash in the last 2 months that I normally would have bought and restored.

(Not solely out of speculation around this pin, mind you but the not-knowing on the release of this pin, didn't help. )

What pins have you guys passed up waiting for the second-coming-of Tron LE that is rumored to be GB?

May 20th? (weekdays only and coming title editions, unless i miss-counted). Makes sense, though.
(Hope it is sooner. Probably be in March unless they are just that far behind on production.)

HA! I think I'm actually more excited about 2)

... I just can't bring myself to drain the thread, I want to see it die a peaceful, natural death..

Well, Harold Ramis passed on February 24th. The wiring diagram in the factory tour had a codename 'Harold'. The 24th is a Wednesday. Stern favors Wednesday reveals. I'd speculate if they don't announce this Wednesday that is safe to assume something didn't go as expected, shipping delays or whatever..

If they do it on the 24th, I hope they class it up with a nod to him, he was a comedy great in my book.

That's actually the aspect I'm most 'meh' on. I really don't want those to be just gimmicks, I hope there is some ball interaction associated with it (like the ACDC cannon) but I just don't see how there could be from that leaked stuff.

Stern, trolling Pinside? I would be sad to not see GB happen but I would have to respect the hijinks of that kind of move. I think the love of money wins over the desire for pranks on this particular one though.

They said SMVE started production on Feb 22. There is usually a week+ of teaser videos before real production starts on a game, so there is probably room for them to reveal GB, production-wise. Unless the lines are just backed up on those other games..
(which is possible and consistent w/ rumor)

Well if they are out in the factory experimenting w/ live-streaming to the FaceSpace, it would seem no GB reveal is coming today.. bummer.

Tell him about the Twinkie.

Politico was Game of Thrones, Harold is GB

I don't know if I heard Bill Murray yet. Hopefully they will have him -

The live stream from yesterday: The ECTO-1 siren sounded incredible and I think it sounded excellent overall. I was a little disappointed to hear they used Ernie's voice for some obviously-meant-for BillM callouts.

(Nice shootin' Tex, I'm testing the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP Ability, etc)

Ernie's cool, glad they got him I just don't like that cross-over of one character mimicking another character's lines.
I wonder if BillM didn't even allow them to lift his audio from the movie? (Hope not.) Does pinball browser work w/ SPIKE?

I was in on a preorder for a GB LE and got out to pick up a couple other pins that have been on my dream list (Scared Stiff, Monster Bash). Kinda sorry I got out now after seeing it all but at least the Premium looks like it'll be a nice offering later on when I'm ready to trade something out.

I've (also) toyed with the idea of bailing on a Hobbit SE and trying to get someone's GBLE. That said, that consideration was more around themes and my gameroom usage than these games themselves. (I guess I'm going to have to settle for a GB Premium and keep HobbitSE too: 1st world problem)

That said and not to derail the GBNess of this thread with JJPness: those little setting tweaks on JJP games are really minor. I keep my WOZ extra steep, everything waxed and fast and I noticed when I did this, the ball on the left VUK to a wireform near the ball would hop the wireform most of the time. Simple enough to just dial an individual coil up or down in settings. The folks should have done that with the back left VUK you described here. I don't know why people don't take the extra ten minutes to play a couple of test games and tweak a game correctly for it's current location, pitch and area.

I don't think that is right. I'd be surprised if it is. I asked Gary about this at a show in 2014 and he said at that time the home collector vs operator markets were "about even" but didn't elaborate. It looks like others took a stab at guessing on this about a year ago: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-pinball-machine-sales-what-private-collectors-vs-operators

- I don't know the numbers but I would be shocked if this were the case. I can drive to maybe 10 collectors from my home, each with 6+ titles ready to play. I can only put my finger on about 6 working pins in that same radius on location. Operators I have bought games from tell me they loose money on pins, with maintenance factored in (In our region anyway).

I think the GB Pros get the early treatment for export reasons (time to be delivered across the big pond) and extra development time related to those feature deltas that appear in the Premium or LE.

I think the ecto-goggle thing is a cool idea.

As for the confusion here, it is just pepper's ghost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost

The way pepper's ghost works is - you are looking through glass as a 45-ish degree angle. If something is properly illuminated at the opposing 45-ish degree from the perspective of the glass, boom - you get a partially transparent reflection. It is like the ballroom at the Haunted Mansion at Disney World / Phantom Manor at Disney Land. As has already been posted, it will work exactly the same as revenge from mars but instead of seeing the reflections on the playfield glass, you will see them on the octo-goggle disc.

So, it won't appear like the ghost is hovering on top of that disk, you will see it through the disc from the player's angle - the ghost will appear to be in that lane below the disc.

I'm looking forward to see how it integrates with ball travel in that lane.

So there is a huge discrepancy here where some are saying LE's are pushed back until July, while others say LE's are running and shipping by Early May. At this point, I think it is safe to assume that the MagnetoSlings have warped the very fabric of spacetime.
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Possibly a good topic for Peter Venkman's next episode of World of the Psychic.
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I was surprised he doesn't have any games at home. I wonder if that is a: "don't bring work home with me", thing or if Stern picking him up off the street was more towards being accurate than hyperbole. Was he on tough times? (Hope not).

At any rate, nice write up, I'm glad he's designing games and it looks like he is poised to have a mega-hit in this one.

Meh. Dwight's got this. They have a helluva start from what I've seen out there, I have no doubt it will get even better. Nothing against Lyman but I'm not with you on wishing away one dev for another.

Maybe I should illustrate. Look at Star Trek. It's a great looking game but from the Raw-materials perspective, we have very limited number of modes, a relatively repetitive center shot.. To take something like that and give it depth - was development skill, IMO. Dwight and Lonnie turned it into a super fun game. Not hard to get the Captain's Chair but they interspersed modes to give you ways to keep it fresh. Not to mention, I find myself playing against the medals system more than the core objectives most of the time - that was a great add, I thought.

I feel like there are more raw-materials to work with here on the design of GB, I look forward to seeing what they come up with!

I think the magneto-slings became self-aware and are searching, half-naked through the streets of Chicago for John Conner.

It is pretty fascinating to see how they can re-tool the lines and run different games. Probably need to run as many different games in the backlog as they can because there is going to be alot of ghostbustin' in that factory for the foreseeable future.

Don't really see how the LE's can be out in early to mid-may at this point but fingers crossed for you guys that are on the hook for one. Qty of 500 won't take them long to push out. What is that, a week for Stern?

Overseas units ship first, because they’re sent by boat, so when the shipment gets where it needs to be the US customers start getting theirs at the same time.

src - http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2016/03/10/stern-spills-the-ectoplasmic-details-on-ghostbusters-pinball/195811/

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This. My ST Premium is a dimple monster. Doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game and looks great to everyone elses' eyes who aren't as obsessive as I am but It was odd compared to my POTC, IJ4, two friends MET Pros, and Avatar which are all (reasonably) dimple-free and glossy still, with proper maintenance.

Probably been mentioned already, this thread is too long for my ADD but there was an GBLE (and a couple of Pros) at Southern Fried Gameroom Expo, this weekend.. The thing is, it wasn't the usual prototype game, this had the number plaque and whole deal. (21 I think it was). It had someone's name on it (Thanks to John/Jane Smith for providing..) but it was at the Marco booth.

I did hear that Marco had to pull some strings to get it to the show and that it might have skipped a little QA time...

Maybe this is a sign that the LE's have been run and are in QA... ? Fingers crossed.

The GB Pro's and LE all stayed constant with plays. I'd like to have heard what the game count for the weekend was but I heard the neighboring SMVE (same booth) was about ~500 plays. Ball times were pretty short but some players had good games. I played both machines alot. They kept me coming back, even with 8-12 person lines behind them.

I was in on an LE and bailed when the whitewood leaks came out. I got back in on a Premium, recently.

Side by side - The pro reminded me of Metallica (not in gameplay but in quality) - it just seemed like a well built, feature rich game. The art was awesome. I wish I could have heard the game more because what small parts I could make out - sounded epic.

I've been one that was excited about the magna slings and just a little 'whatever' about the ecto goggles. The magnaslings worked great and I have to say the ecto-goggles well-exceeded my expectations in person. The illusion looked great and added something to the game in much of the same way the Tron Arcade mod did on my Tron.

.. of the two games, I had my best game (a mere 300 million or so) on a pro but I thought the LE actually felt more controllable (for some reason)..

On a down-note, the LE / Slimer mech - arm got disabled twice during the weekend - it was giving them problems but they fixed it both times. I know we'd all like the RL Carriers truck to pull up tomorrow with our big Red Logo'd brown boxes of fun but I'm glad Stern (seems to be) addressing issues and not shoving crap down our throats. I think they know, if they get this right, this game is going to be a smash hit for them.

Getting to play them at the show just reinforced my excitement for this game!

keep on bustin' bustin' bustin'...

I went to one in Dallas a couple weeks ago. Seemed like they were getting their GB promo on.

One thing, I did not understand the Ghostbusters arcade game they were promoting. It seemed like it might have been neat (have great sound, etc) - but then these stupid ping-pong balls are launching at the bottom of the game while you are playing, making a bunch of noise. Totally didn't understand the point of the ping pong balls in that game.

I'm being told my premium will ship first week of August. The date has slipped a couple of times but seeming to see other indicators that point to an early august premium-shipping-to-homes timeframe.

(I hope that was just excellent photoshop shenanigans..)

But..if not why do that to such a nice ride?

My SLK 350 will not be hauling pins.. ever. Rent a truck..

These Pinball Universe Upgrade kits are back in stock at pinball life: http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=4255

I wonder when the LE / Premium playfield protectors will be out..

Yep. Factory / Designer - purists minds are now blown. Interesting indeed!

Some distros have been saying they are on the line this week. Pics or it didn't happen, though - right?

Looks like GB Premiums on the line, Stern's facebook live feed..