Well, I guess you got a whole plan on how to do better so please share that with us. Otherwise your rant is just another example of the way pinside has become these days. Users shouting what they want without something relevant or contributing to this site.

Sales figures aren't accurate though as the sales were higher in the 90's. Personally I think the top 100 is a fine example of how it should be and I find myself always reading the comment. Especially the negatives (except the ones which only state "bad game / hate it / what a turd").

PEOPLE, lets not forget why we're here. We're here for the sake of pinball, our hobby, the way we get by, the way we spend our time in this great hobby. Lets not fall back on insulting each other.

I read reviews so I can learn what is what with the game before I buy it.

Helps me be informed when buying.

Don't really care about the ranking.

I think they all should get a "B+"

It seems to me like you have different priorities than a lot of other Pinsiders when it comes to what you like in a game, which gives me an idea. Currently you can create your own top 100 filtered by things like the manufacturer, how recent the reviews are, what years the games are from, etc. It would be cool though if you could also sort by giving different aspects of a Pinside review more weight. I'd be interested in seeing a top 100 that gives preference to the games with the highest scores in sound and music for example. Maybe you'd like to see a top 100 that gives preference to games with the best scores in theming and game rules.

Here's how the top 100 is working:
I have a TZ that worth 7000$, i will rate it 10/10 to save my investment
I don't have TAF, i rate it 3/10 because i don't care this machine and want my TZ to be more valuable.

Yeah pinside to 100 is a complete joke.

TZ was a total flop in the arcade back in the 90's, many arcade bought this machine because of the very limited choice for them, same for TAF. Those machines are completely alone when i assit arcade owners meetings. The more popular titles are always Stern more modern pins and classic Bally 1979-1983

The real 'tops' only count if they've been out for 5+ years (or more probably) and have staying power. Just because they flopped at release doesn't mean people don't grow to appreciate them later, or when they find their crowd. No different than other entertainment. This is why you see so many 90's games at the top. The only reason new Sterns even break the top 100 is because of the way the Pinside calculations work. They need more time to settle. There shouldn't be ANY games released in the last year that are in the top 10....at least for another 5+ years.

Also, as for Munsters, which seems to be OP's big concern, it is pretty widely panned here. I wouldn't expect it to be high, since even many Stern fans dislike it.

The Pinside 100 has some machine ratings with a statistically significant amount of replies/ratings and some that do not have enough ratings to be statistically significant. It is what it is. For the machines with 1000 ratings or more, I'd take that as more believable than a new machine with 100 ratings. That said, I'd put Medieval Madness just where it is, at the top. I only own 2 machines, #1 and one outside of the top 100, NBA Fastbreak. I really enjoy NBAFB regardless of its rating.

That said, in 2016 when I was considering my first pin, I did look at the Pinside 100, IPDB 300 and discussions on Pinside. I played MM on location with a bunch of other pins at Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, NH (RIP), then picked MMR. You guys were right about that MM/MMR, it was and is a fantastic pin. PWA also got me interested in NBAFB and IJ IPA, ironically all 3 were located next to each other at that location.

Two of the best selling, most beloved games of all times were flops? Ok... got it.

Most games shoot to top with new owners ranking it a perfect 10. Others seem to be bothered by that and then rank it lower, perhaps figuring that where the machine should average is somewhere in the middle. Then both sides start flagging each others rankings as bogus. I really don't think it has anything to do with trying to affect the price. Both extremes seem to balance each other out once you get a few hundred rankings.

Luckily now that people have the ability to flag someone's review they don't like the top 100 is all but fixed

Can you point to where the bad Top 100 touched you?

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LOL, Thunderbird points to wallet, in regards to Munsters ratings.

A perfect rating system that everyone agrees on does not and will not exist (ever).

I just use it as a tool and read the reviews to see what other players think.
There’s actually a ton of good information in the reviews about strategy, game play, how to make certain shots etc.

Go play the games for yourself and make your own decisions.

I do think all new games shouldn’t be top 100 eligible for 1 year... Weed out some of the honeymooners ,pumpers, dumpers ,haters etc.

i think you should start a podcast !

You know what’s really a joke? 911

They are probably alone because most pinballers have played the hell out of those classic titles over the years and want to try something different...

OK, now this is funny

If this was true the rating eventually is related to the number of pieces sold per title. Then the topic wasn't as dumb as it was on first sight.....

You're overthinking things. The topic really is that dumb.

Top 100 is fine as it is. The fact that some people are using it wrong doesn't mean that it should be out of order or what ever.

When people are trying to reduce a price for example when they want to buy your pin and in order to achieve that their argumentation is the fact that your pin is not listed to top 100, who is to blame? The potential buyer or the the top 100 list?

Top 100 should not be used for pricing and ofcourse it should not be used for buying decisions.

At the end of the day, Who cares? You just like a game or you don't.

Sorry, I was gereralizing. Not everyone rates this way. I was just pointing out that there is a balance of users on either side, too high vs too low, and they often cancel each other out.

My suggestion was to remove the top 5% and bottom 5% of reviews and not list a machine until it has been around for a year. This takes care of the lovers and haters. New games do not have the exposure of games that have been around for 15 years, so it is not really fair to say the new game is "better". I do not think changing around how the numbers are calculated to suit each different person is the right thing to do. You can make your own ratings how you like in your collection and ratings page.

It is fantastic that you love your new games but Pinside is a group of people and every person on here gets to have their say. Pinside have been doing their top 100 for a long time, well before you and I joined.

Analyzing the reviews games get when they are brand new is interesting.
Jurassic Park debuted at #1 when it first had enough reviews to make the list.
That was mostly owner reviews, many of which ranked it really high and slowly it settled into #6 which seems fine.
I think it's a great game, but I don't think its the best game ever made.

Stranger Things is the one that I think is kind of crazy the way it debuted in the top 100.
It had a really rough start on the list and dropped in the mid 200s for a while.
Now I think its sitting in the 210s which doesn't seem right.
I have no skin in the game either way, but I honestly don't think that thing deserved to be on page 3 of the top 100.
I don't own one, but I've played it quite a bit and think its fun when the machine is set up right.

I guess over time things settle where they settle after enough normal reviews balance out the people pumping reviews VS people dumping on games.

Wow.

Well it's important to remember that just because a game is that high on the list doesn't mean it's bad, just that there are 200 games with better reviews. As more and more great games come out, more and more good games will end up higher in the list. If 200 new pins that are all better than LotR were to come out for example, it would go up to 200, but that wouldn't suddenly mean it's a bad game.

It’s simple. Pin side should enable advanced filtering and descriptive statistics and make those available for the users. If you want to look at the rankings excluding anything that doesn’t have a comment you should be able to do it. If you want to throw out the 5% outliers in both directions you should be able to do that. If you want to look at the mode or median score you should be able to do that. And you should be able to save that view in your profile so you can see it how you want.

Stranger things is a great example of why I say not to put a machine in the ratings until after it has been out for a year. Machine is coping a lot of bad reviews for no real reason apart from Pinside need a game (any game) to dump shit on. Dissapointing for me to see this. Hopefully as people rate the game properly, ratings will improve.

Nothing new, this has happened many times in the last few years.

Except Stranger Things deserves what bad press it gets. The only ones getting bent out of shape are the ones who bought it...wonder why that is

Would love something like this! For instance, I'd like to be able to filter EMs out of the value top 100. I like EMs, but I'm not really looking to own any, so I'd love to be able to see the top 100 value SS pins. Would make finding good deals on fun pins a lot easier!

The OP

Thanks for the reminder on JP2.
Had rated it 7.xxx when I first stated playing. Just updated it to 8.3. I’m enjoying the game more now.

Anybody else?

Doubt it

Every time I see a post like this I read it as “My favorites aren’t ranked high enough therefore this top 100 is garbage” WHO. CARES.

Haven't ever seen one of these threads before

The top 100 is meant to be a fun thing...people put way too much take into it. Go play pins. Form your own opinions. There are low ranked games that I find much more fun than high ranked games. Some people may not agree with me on those specific games. The world still turns.

Except for Thunderbirds.
Everyone agrees Thunderbirds is shit.

Not sure you know how top anything works. Because all top lists are personally subjective. There are very few things in this world 100% of people are going to agree on, so no matter how you cut it someone is going to come along and start a thread complaining about how it is done.

I had to check over on IPDB but you do realise B/W made 20,000+ TAF, 15,000+ Twilight Zones, 12,000+ Indiana Jones, 15,000+ T2s, Funhouse sold approx 10,000+, there’s a handful of others that blew the 10k mark.

Let's say they change it, but it has the opposite effect of what you want? Are you going to rant about it again? The reason people are short is, you are complaining because what YOU want to be on top isn't. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter at all. It's supposed to be a fun little 'game'. It means nothing. In fact, they could completely remove it, and it wouldn't affect Pinside at all.

And as the person above me mentioned, the numbers are there. The ones on top are there for a reason and actually represent what is most likely as true as it can get on a slice of pinball that is represented by Pinside. Unlike something that was just released last month.

Your statements in the original post are incorrect (as has been pointed out multiple times), thus influencing what you think it should be.

Uh, no, they aren't.....

We know that the numbers are lower overall now. The only difference is that NOW more people are buying for home use. In the past, they sold MANY MANY MANY more to bars.

If we are lucky, yes, those numbers will exceed the past, but back then they were cranking out games like crazy.

I don't know. Your post reminded me to rate Stranger Things. I have no bias against Stern, in fact Metallica is my highest rated game. I ended up pretty close to the Pinside average with a 7.2 / 10.

No way Jose! What titles do you honestly think Stern have sold 10,000+ units of?