When everyone heard it was limited, all the flippers and prospectors ordered one. There were people who tried to order 10 of them. Demand was so great that distributors stopped taking orders and people were pissed at Rick they couldn't get them.

So, then Rick announced the standard the next day so he could fill the crazy demand. Unfortunately, a lot of demand was from investors and speculators so a lot of orders got canceled because they couldn't make money.

It's not Rick that was greedy. I'm not sure how selling something to someone who wants to buy it is greedy anyway, especially since he said from the initial presentation there would be standards at some point.

Every LE that Stern makes, they make an "unlimited" number of non-LEs as well. Plus Rick left the door open from day one that standard MMRs could be made if demand was there.

neither the surprise nor the outrage over that decision has ever made any sense to me.

quadruple??? i don't think there is a market for 4000 AFMs regardless of price.

Assuming there would be 1000 AFMr sold at $8k... which seems extremely unlikely.

LOL, AFMr at 8k wouldn't even sell 100... still plenty of MMr LE's left at 8k so no way they sell any other remake at 8k. Especially since so many are now beginning to see the light and getting glimpses of the new stuff coming.

I dont think there is a market for 1000 AFMr at 8k just like there is obviously not a market for 1000 MMr at 8k

Sell 200 AFM at 8k (200 is even high IMHO)
Sell 800 AFM at 6k

Lets imagine BOM is 4k (probably closer to 3k in reality)

800,000 profit vs 1,600,000

Seems like a no brainer to me.
Anyone that thinks MMr is expensive to make is flat out crazy. Has to be the most profitable of all the new games coming out, which also means the best ability to reduce price and still have a healthy margin. I am still suprised that Stern has agreed to make them as in the long run it may hurt them more than the $$$ they are paid to make them. Everything about these bigger companies seems to be all about the short dollar.

i don't think that has ever been the plan.

Wow.

There's a lot of money in developing their new system to run the games - which I don't really care to argue if that was a good idea or not - I'm just saying at least for the first title, there's that cost to absorb. With that set in place for future titles, THOSE would be higher profit margins, I would think anyway.

Cost to develop a new system is not really cost for the game in my understanding of business. I guess it is if you expect to recoup all business long term costs with the very first game?

With you and teekee projecting terrible sales for MMr and a cloudy future for other remakes, I should think you'd agree that good business would dictate covering all expenses on the first game in case there is no second one.

Good business for short term, but that is pretty shortsighted.

I see many flaws in the current model and think the greed will be the ultimate thing that either needs to change or will lead to failure. The current remake model and price point is far from realistic or sustainable. Sure is nice as a business to try and recoup costs ASAP, but you can also kill your own long term market with poor pr and pricing practices.

An Le and a standard with the exact Same playfield is dumb. They should have removed the moat, sealed up the castle gate so all you can do is bash it. Then have no castle destruction.. And Merlin would yell "you should have bought an LE!" Then Sell it for 4750.

LMAO

Anyone who thinks AFMr or MBr would be any less than MMr, I think you are in for a surprise. Why on earth would he lower the price point given the sales record of MMr? "I sold out at $7,995. Guess I'll drop $1500 just to, what? oh yeah Spite the haters on Pinside." LOL .

$7,995 looks like the established price on the remakes. That's still less than some of the boutique pins anyway, right? What about TZ though? With all the stuff on the playfield I wonder if it would cost more. Not likely target for remake anyway I suppose.

if $8k is the list price on AFMr & MBr, i'm out and am perfectly cool waiting for the "drive off the lot" price loss a year or 2 later.

it sounds horrible saying that, but the price-points are just silly now.

Given that the poll, accurate or not, shows a 50% drop rate on "sold" - I'd say they're nowhere near sold out.

given that pretty much every distributor seems to have plenty of them available I assume they are far from sold out?

selling out a huge percentage of the games before they're even manufactured is still a huge accomplishment, whether it's 50% or 80% or whatever. in terms of games #2 and #3, a lot will depend on how these games are received once they arrive in homes. If the tech holds up, and PPS is responsive to what problems arise, and follows through on the colorDMD software update, etc, then that will go a long way towards reducing the perceived risk that is currently holding some buyers back.

I would rather the game go down often and be fixed right away than go down and stay down. Look at WOZ, it goes down and stays down until parts can be ordered and delivered. Stern has reliable board sets, proven. Rick has early development boards, no where near the money, backing and knowledge of Stern to back his product. I am just giving an opinion from someone that is still in with two MMr from early on, however after reviewing the actual game, its just not something I want to deal with. Hopefully I am wrong and it goes smoothly because I would like a BBBr or CCr.

No, economies of scale for such a small company would not allow him to make any more money. Also at 5750, there isn't much money to be made.

John, not directed at you but just a general statement:

All the backseat business owners here always want to guess at what the cost to produce one of these games is. They are wrong. Stop picking magical numbers from thin air and running profit scenarios. There are so many expenses related to overhead it is sickening. I have yet so see someone take taxes, shipping, r&d, salaries, etc into consideration. People it takes a lot more to run a successful company than just marking up the cost of the parts and labor to assemble an unit for sale.

Yes, Yes it is. But I think

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I'm fully paid- and still in.

But I don't see myself buying another repro at $8K again. I was excited about this one, but simply don't have the cash if the subsequent ones come out at $8K.

I would wait to buy it used- and/or just go back to my old William's until the repo's hit the secondary market in a couple of years.

Did it play great? I heard mixed reviews! I'm hanging in barely at the moment...

originally I did not think it played great, however after moving on to the next machine I saw that the first one was not set up level or even close to 6.5. On something that everyone is going to play and judge with a fine tooth comb you would think setting the game up properly would have been an easy win.

I was in in the first hours, and bailed when I saw the design with that massive board on the bottom with fixed LEDs and the driver boards mounted to the playfield. Looked like a maintenance nightmare. Decided the ride wasn't worth the cost.

For the price had it been closer to a traditional design, I would probably have stayed in.

Redesigned for cost like it was, I might have stayed in 2K lower in price.

So true. If they would have just remade the game part for part, I think it would have done well sales wise.

it also would have cost $15,000.

Only issue I had with MMr is the shading on the displays didn't have much contrast.

That is, the 4 shading levels of the simulated dots weren't distinct enough.

Other than that, bring on the giant PCB's and Surface mount LEDs!

I don't doubt rick is not making money. I think he is doing well. However I don't think he has the ability to be selling these on a large scale. So there for hit a price point to maximize his current production rate.

You seem to be forgetting about the competition from all of the other pinball manufacturers that have come out of the woodwork in the past few years. We have a lot of new games being made and on the horizon, with lots of interest and money tied up that wasn't previously. Even without MMr, I doubt that restored originals would be going for $15k+ now. Probably not for what they're going for now since the announcement, but definitely not $15k. Kingpin and BBB are the only two I can think of that would sell for that due to rarity, and even those are starting to dip. It is a reality check on the entire market. If suddenly all manufacturing of new games stops, they'll undoubtedly go up again. The competition and production has more of an affect.

I'd bet that's fixable if word gets to Doug. The tearing/scanline whatever when things flash really fast on the display though -- not sure if that's fixable with the hardware they're using.

I bailed a couple of weeks after pre-ordering. And I am sure glad I did! I am not the kind that gets caught up in hype normally, but I thought I might want another MM after having owned a very nice one.

I realized though that it was way over priced, and knew that a bill would come due that I would have to pony up on when the time came. I wasn't sure if I would be able to.

The changes that have been made to the machine were not to my liking, and questions arose about the actual quality of the reproduction parts that would be used.

I cancelled since I already own a MM and didn't see how an unlimited run would make an investment in a remake sensible, especially since they are due to remake AFM and MB, which I do not own. Plus, we have TBL on the way.

That said, having seen MMR in person this past week, I can say that anyone who has ordered one will be getting a very well-built machine.

The poll on this thread is flawed. Let me clarify one of my previous posts. The answer I want to know is how many people backed out since the deposit was "locked in". There is no way possible it's about half. NO WAY!

No offense, I don't care about anyone who cancelled before the lock in date. Those people had multiple reasons why they preordered in the first place. Maybe they wanted to flip a machine, they knew deposit was refundable, etc...

The important information is who backed out after the lock in date and why.

It's interesting that people posting here seem to think they can still get a refund. Has anyone actually done this? JJP is apparently not refunding deposits until they sell the game you had originally reserved.

Apart from threatening legal action to get your deposit back, as suggested by some (and I'm not even convinced that this is a viable/realistic option), getting a refund does not seem to be an option.

I still have a deposit in. I have not heeded the call/demand to PIF, and am still on the fence as to how to proceed.

I'm still in and staying in. MM is a great game. There are two on location near me and both always have problems. I am not buying it to make money. I'm buying it to have a fun game in the collection.

If I have to liquidate down the road and lose a few grand I'm fine with that as years of fun for family and friends is worth it.

A year ago, beater MMs were going for the cost of a remake. It was a no brainer at the time.

I'm not sure I would go the remake route again at $8K. There are many other options out there now near that price point that look pretty good with really cool technology.

I personally think remakes should be priced around the stern pro range to get me to buy more.

not true, why would stern take more than one of their lines away from their own production? Also stern does not warehouse the parts for them, so Stern assembling them does not have anything to do with the number of games he can produce.

Don't think this is correct. Rick went out of his way to try to make sure MMR would get to collectors and not speculators and the "warranty applies to original purchaser only" policy helped. Yes, there were people that tried to order 10 - but those orders were denied.

I disagree with how Rick has communicated, but I give him props for doing what he could to stop/slow down those that were only interested in MMR as an investment or profit making opportunity.

Rick's mistake was either (a) announcing the standards at all or (b) announcing them at the same price point (really don't know which was worse).

As I mentioned in another thread, PPS pricing needs to be in the $4k-$5k range for future titles or they just aren't going to have enough sales volume to sustain multiple titles.

As for the poll, I think it's silly to say that it's close to 50/50 because some people have an agenda. I know of 7 preorders other than mine and 3 have dropped out.

Agreed, it was my mistake saying it's flawed. I doubt anyone will put time into the new poll I just created, but I'm more interested who lost their deposit.

i agree with this as well. if pps is going to the well again asking 8k for the next remake it will be a complete flop.

I could see why people say AFM won't sell for $8K. It's my favorite pin and I wouldn't pay that. But to say MB is only worth $6K doesn't seem accurate to me. I think they could sell a decent amount of those at $8K. I don't even think it's that great of a machine, but still believe it would sell at that price. With the license required I really can't see them selling that particular title any cheaper.

if they are not a lot less, then no spendy-spendy from me.

how much was the original Monster Bash when it sold NIB? Think that license really is "that" much? naaahhh...
i don't see a lot of global demand for the mummy, frankenstein & Dracula right now.
they'll be happy to get anything.