That's a valid point

You do know that Stern is getting paid to build these, right?
Easy money. No R&D, no cost of goods, just gettin paid for doing what they do.

Yes I would buy one, if the price is right..

That's the best reason I've heard to scrap the LE model and go all Pro.

Nope. LEs bring in instant millions. Pro sales are just gravy till the license expires.

And exactly what game(s) with Premium model has impacted the # of LEs sold?

You're saying if they only came out with the Pro model Stern wouldn't sell enough games?

Unless that price drops significantly, I won't even consider buying a NIB again. no matter what it is.

Maybe over the course of time....but why wouldn't they go for insta-cash now? In a week they'll sell 600 LEs to distributors. Just spit-ballin' numbers here - lets say they profit $4k per LE. That's 2.4 mil. They've said it costs 1 mil to develop a new pinball machine. Bam. Development costs covered, plus profit - money to pay the bills, employees, R&D for future projects....perhaps Mustang dragged them down a bit - this puts them back up for the year.

LE is the surefire way to get instant sales before anyone even plays the game or sees videos of it being played. Why on earth would they abandon that ever?

Please post this 50,000 more times. We're not quite sure of your feelings on the matter.

Good, because eventually Stern will stumble upon one of the threads and might get the hint.

Speaking of hints, here's one for ya: Stern ain't going to lower their prices because they read one of your 10,000 posts complaining about their prices.

They will only lower their prices when it makes business sense to do so. I.e., people stop buying them at the higher prices.

Stern did just fine selling games before the LE model... in other words they didn't then and don't now rely on the LE to pay for development costs or profit. People will buy the new game and Stern will have an initial backlog either way, but we clearly see the tendency to purchase the more full featured game. The main benefit of the LE over the Pro is higher profit margin for the same amount of work, which also applies to the Premium. Why on earth would Stern want to abandon a higher profit per game model that has never cannibalized the higher profit LE sales, only the lower profit Pro?

They do grow location pinball with the pros. Keep in mind out group is a very small number compared to the people that will at pinball on location. Stern picks Liscensed themes and pro games which are less complicated because they appeal to the general public. Our small group of pinheads that care or even know that le and premiums are out there is a very small percentage of the people playing these games, and the reality is that our group will either purchase our own or play a friends.

What are you talking about? Stern was doing just fine? You do realize that an investment company saved stern pinball and purchase half of the company and provided the influx of cash to keep the doors open only a few years back, correct?

Also I really wish people could stop complaining about not getting to play or see a game before they have to purchase one. That is NOT sterns fault in the slightest. They sell to distributors, distributors sell to the market. If you want to get pissed off at anyone, thank your local friendly distributor who Allows customers to purchase a game prior to release. Oh and by the way stern does not approve of or endorse distributors selling the games prior to shipment, it creates a lot of headaches when they decide to sell their products overseas instead of here in the us. This all those people upset at stern for ac/dc le being pulled from us distributors. If distributors would learn to take orders as they get machines in, we wouldn't have this problem. So again please start blaming your friendly distributor and not the manufacturer who has nothing to do with the distribution arm of the industry.

Oh, if they only had YOUR hint, they'd be able to have a thriving business!!! Oh wait, they have that already...LOL... they're doing fine without you.

You forget what shaky ground they were on. Doors almost closed forever. One designer & one programmer making every game for a while. Business plan changed. LEs with extra features and higher price kinda saved the company. They've grown and thrived and now are able to employ 3 designers + George as VP, 5 or 6 programmers, marketing, etc etc etc.

THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING.
They don't need armchair businessmen telling them what they're doing wrong when they've never been more successful.

Because the Premiums haven't been selling well!!!

Solid business plan:
LEs SELL OUT = quick cash
Pros @ lower price sell for 3 years = high volume, steady cash
Premium = seems to be not worth it at the moment

That's why we have an LE instead of a premium. Stern may have estimated sales at 600 units for a full featured game and by calling it an LE instead of a premium gets them another $1000- $1500 gross per machine.

Bingo! ...and they sell out instantly instead of people waiting to play it or hear about code and whatnot.

Oh that's rich. Stern not building premiums will lead to the decline of location play. Okay.

Out of over 100 locations and 250+ machines in the twin cities area, I count a grand total of 3 or 4 premiums and maybe 2 or 3 LE's. Are the other 100 locations total crap because they don't have premiums or LE's? Or do most of the ops that have premiums out not put them on pinball maps, so as as to decrease wear and tear on their games? Please elaborate.

Please.. stop this"Vault"word you guys are using. It was an Iron Man thing... nothing more, nothing less. It's just dumb now.

*inflammatory post removed*

Not saying it has, just saying I can see how it might.

How 'bout a game with complete code huh? The ultimate edition. I'll take one of those please.

Thats exactly why I picked up a HUO STLE today!

No

I would buy a Premium. The pro has come a long ways but I hate the plastic apron.

the LE's are sold out here...
a premium would be welcome...

Oh, you mean when stern was laying off all their staff, or when Gary had to reach out to investment firms for bailout money? That fine?

Or the damage they did recently to resale values by making a zillion pros AND premiums, with 800 LE's? Took distro's long time to sell STLE stock, so distro demand on next title was weak.

Two flavors. Sell pro, less features, cheaper price, less profits, less distro markup.

Sell LE. Full features, full price, improved distro margins, but limited numbers.

Yes, a premium for me please. I don't care about limited/plates etc... but I do about what's on the playfield.

Do you think AC/DC Premium-Luci or Met premium haven't been selling well?....

I think the perfect solution would be 2 models:

Premium - full game
LE - low production run, higher cost for those that want the collectible title that will increase in value

1 software version for all

The Premium cost would have to come down a bit to be affordable to OPS and those that usually buy the PRO, so increase the LE price to cover the difference

Having seen Gary do a bunch of interviews now, I've heard the point made many times that the #1 thing is scheduling that factory, keeping it operating, keeping the line going. The only way they can do that is with actual sales, not hopeful sales.

I think we're seeing a change to their biz operation, and its quite possible the premium is done, as it just doesn't work with their factory line. They are better selling out 600 LEs, making them, and being done with them and making the next sold out thing.

They are running a business, they don't want to leave "money on the table", but I'm wondering if that money comes at too high a cost to them (logistics, inventory, factory scheduling/downtime), so it just becomes impossible.

Maybe they didn't have to do a premium run this go around to keep the line busy because they are making more money assembling MMr.

Wouldn't that be ironic.

that all depends on price, gameplay and what else might come up for sale beforehand.

It occurred to me, that MMR may be delaying the premium announcement. MMR is going into the factory, they can't do premium runs till after MMR. They aren't going to announce a Premium today if they won't be available for months later.

A TWD LE would've been an automatic for me a couple years ago, but the joy of unpacking a NIB with all the bells and whistles gets outweighed by the uncertainty if/when they will ever complete the code on their machines. Not to mention after tax and shipping it would cost me over 9k CDN to get one here.

So if there is no Premium I am out on this one because I don't want a stripped down version. I agree with many here that it is looking doubtful that there will be a Premium at this point as it hasn't been announced at all, not even in fine print.

The only way I would be able to experience the full game is if it bombs and LEs start getting dumped by early adopters. Of course I probably wouldn't want one then

_{Post edited by paul_8788: typos}

maybe stern is just being smart and not announcing the premium before the le's are sold out. I never thought it made much sense to release the LE and the premium at the same time. If the LE's don't sell, they just won't build a premium. two cents right there.

Lots of products have mulptle badging levels all selling concurrently. People will buy what they want/can afford.

Part of the intended appeal of the pro models is they remove the more complicated/more likely to break mechs in an attempt to make them more robust/reliable for route operators. Having every game have all the same mechs removes that angle.

Wow, really?

Guess I just get tired of the constant "It's just a rip off of..." everytime a new pin comes out.

.

Nailed it.

What are you talking about? Stern was doing just fine? You do realize that an investment company saved stern pinball and purchase half of the company and provided the influx of cash to keep the doors open only a few years back, correct?

Also I really wish people could stop complaining about not getting to play or see a game before they have to purchase one. That is NOT sterns fault in the slightest. They sell to distributors, distributors sell to the market. If you want to get pissed off at anyone, thank your local friendly distributor who Allows customers to purchase a game prior to release. Oh and by the way stern does not approve of or endorse distributors selling the games prior to shipment, it creates a lot of headaches when they decide to sell their products overseas instead of here in the us. This all those people upset at stern for ac/dc le being pulled from us distributors. If distributors would learn to take orders as they get machines in, we wouldn't have this problem. So again please start blaming your friendly distributor and not the manufacturer who has nothing to do with the distribution arm of the industry.

Also an FYI, stern does not sell their games one at a time to distributors. They take an order for x number of games a distributor requests. They get paid right then and there for those games, they don't wait for the game to be sold to the end user, so the concept of les selling out to end users and that stern does it to get an influx of cash is wrong.

Also people complaining that stern wants to get pinball out there for people to learn about, play, and enjoy is being hurt with not having premiums is ridiculous. The only group of people who care about premium, pro and le are us. We are a very small percentage of the customer base. The average person wants to walk up to a pinball machine and recognize the theme most importantly and second be able to play a simple game that they can walk away from wanting to play again because they didn't suck at it. Average people want simple codes, simple toys and easy to understand concepts and rules. So by having a pro they are appealing to the broadest range of customers out there. The premium was done for us pin people just like the le. Guess what premiums don't sell enough to justify a run of them because the average person could care less about the differences. I see it first hand with premium, pro and le models on location. I can have a ac/dc pro and premium and the pro gets more play than the premium because of the location in the bar. I have people play tmnt more than they do mm, or mb because it's simple and they love the theme. Premiums were built for pinheads, now that stern realizes we aren't purchasing enough of them to make it worth it they have moved on to a better business plan, needed up pros and for is pinheads a few le to fight over.

Pros are not stripped down versions, they are the regular version and the les have more toys. It's all in how you look at it. It's like your saying that stle and st premium are the same games. Unfinished code? Please tell me of a pinball machine that has been released in the past 20 years that came with finished code. God that argument is just obnoxious.

If I ever own a WD (heck, when I even play one when it's out!), I want it to be an LE or (if it exists) Premium. SPI took too many features out of the playfield in the Pro. I don't care about the limited runs, oh-so-special number, glass translite, extra (and dirt-cheap!) LEDs, etc. I want a full-featured game to play, with all the mechs and ball action. Period.

100% wrong. Look at what's on an LE/Premium in recent titles. This is what USED to be on a 'regular' pin title, from the 90's onward. (I'm talking game features/mechs here, not cosmetic crap like a special number or spurious LEDs thrown about.) The Pro games ARE stripped down, removing gameplay features like drop targets, moving ramps, kickers, etc. (Look at ST Pro for an example--fewest mechs and features of any game in recent years.) I'd be OK with the LE/Premium as a product differentiation for the "collectors" (a la JJP), but the Pro option is 100% stripped-down pinball lameness.

Can't answer yet. Not out yet. Ask again once I've played it 50 times.

TWD is one of my dream themes, but I must play it first.