The market has grown and so new pinball companies are popping up to profit off the demand.
Stern is in business because they make profit so we don't owe Stern or any new company anything for keeping a market alive for them to profit from. The last few years has seen a hype over pinball to a degree that we have been taken advantage of.
Increased costs for Stern games while decreasing quality/production costs with unrealistic cost spikes for LE's and Premiums aimed directly at the collector are an abuse of the market IMHO.
Firing games out without completed code is acceptable for Stern because we continue to buy them, leaving their focus to the next overly-hyped game in line to sell rather than completing their games. Sadly, much of the over-hype is found and snow balling here in this forum.
Keep in mind most of the electronics found in a pinball machine today are far less expensive than they were in the 90's and that boards and components have been simplified and that smaller production runs do not require the massive production overhead Williams had back in the 90's.
Most electronics and home entertainment devices have come leaps and bounds since the 90's and are less money today: the playstation of the 90's is the same price as todays PS3, a 28" tube television of the 90's is the same price as a 60" LCD screen today, VHS to Blue Ray and the list goes on but pinball despite lower manufacturer costs struggle to even deliver something as good from the 90's and at more than double the price. Rather than refusing to pay Stern for their games as an effort to force them to provide better games and value, we complain but keep on buying and signing up for more.
As mental as the idea of paying for something in full, sight unseen is, we made it possible for JJP and the extremely priced Jpop business ventures to enter the market with an unrealistic approach of taking our money in advance on concepts and beyond crazy to a worse extent of taking more of our money to fund their next concept without completion of their first.
Stern learned the market was prepared to pay more so they started stripping their games calling them Pros and then jacked the cost up on a LE or Premium, while the LE or Premium was the game we should have been getting all along at the Pro cost. Have we cut our own throats?
I think we have been getting screwed by all these guys as the value for the dollar is not happening.
Let's not use Pinside to over-hype games as it drives up market demand. We are the market.
(Topic ID: 38605)
