Rick and Morty was my first NIB. It was a dream theme, looked beautiful, and was made by someone whos only other game I loved (Danesi-TNA).

Ultraman/Haloween was the next Spooky pin. Didn't care for the theme, was really innovative, looked beautiful, and was made by newcomers (Spooky Luke and Bug). I am a Spooky fan, and put some games on it seriously considering it, but absolutely hated the gameplay, and had issues with both examples I tried crashing close to the majority of the games I played.

Scooby-Doo is:

Plus side:
1. Beautiful
2. Decent to good theme
3. Full of toys
4. A widebody
5. A two level machine (plus for me)
6. Full of assets from what I can see

Negative side:
1. The only other pin made by these designers is not fun from my personal experience.

Other factors:
1. Economy/ my money is tied up in a Weird Al. Everyone is ordering games now with a 9+ month lead time, and that tied up money is staying out of the current market.

I would absolutely consider buying one of these down the road, but only after I've played one and know for sure the gameplay is great. I'm hoping one of these makes it to Allentown and depending on how it plays may trade for one down the line.

Nostalgia sells games but who is nostalgic for when they were 7?

I don’t miss having a forced bedtime nor having pretty Much every aspect of my life controlled by my parents. Nor do I miss watching cartoons. It was fun when I was 7 but I’ve moved on to more mature pursuits; like owning fools on Pinside from my mother’s basement. Still I felt
The same way about Turtles and that was a “dream theme” for some so no accounting for taste.

I’ve never been a spooky NIB buyer so Im purely an interested bystander.

Pretty much everybody who bought a Halloween / ultra lost money on it so I’m curious how sore everybody still is about that and how long
Their memories are.

One thing’s for sure: if you like upper playfields, you should buy every spooky game, every time.

Gameplay video is a must. With 1969 as a production number there is no reason to impulsive.

Double level double fan layout...?

The layout and what they've done intrigues me, but I will pass until I've had a chance to play it and the code mature. It's just not a must have theme for me, and nothing about it really spoke to me so far. Listening to the call outs it is just too..kiddy..and I don't have kids.

Not saying I won't ever get it, but I can wait. I don't have the issues with 'flow' and 'upper playfields' that many do. I like odd games, and I try to choose games for my own collection that are pretty different from each other, so if this ends up being fun and different, I'll look into it. I do think given the state of pinball right now, if they knock the code out of the park the price is pretty good for what you are getting.

Easy pass. Not a company I would buy a machine from again. Love their passion for something different and their great customer service, but Spooky games don’t seem to be made as well as other companies - something just felt off with the Halloween that I briefly owned last year. All my buddies agreed - I’m sticking with Stern or JJP going forward. There’s my 2c - hate on me if you need to, but I’m just being honest with my past experience.

I would never go thru Spooky ordering again.
As with any machine I could end up loving it and buying it later.

Too much bling and yet another upper playfield as the main feature. I guess being a wide body will make shots easier for folks which is cool.

For me, it’s gonna take at least a couple other releases from them that have fun / balanced scoring rules, killer shot geometry and a proven track record of reliability before I jump on another Spooky game. They got me with Halloween, they won’t get me again anytime soon.

It sounds like this will be another FOMO sellout for them and I love the family / friends spirit of the brand, so very happy for them and wish them all the best!

I love the theme, but I'll wait to see how it plays and shapes up. I'm fine with waiting on the secondary market (I generally am).

I want to like this game. I also really wanted to like R&M and Ultraman. R&M turned out pretty ok with a lot of tweaks. It's still not a great shooter, but everything else about it works. I don't have faith in Ultraman being drastically improved at this point.

Losing money on NIB will the new normal going into 2023/2024.

Just like it used to be normal before an insane amount of money got printed and thrown into the system!

Losing $2,000 on a “pre order deposit spot” was never normal.

Regardless, I suspect nothing has changed. This game will fomo “sell out” within a couple days, a few enterprising folks will scalp and make a few bucks the first week, and six months from now people will literally be begging people to buy their “pre Orders” at large discounts.

Pinball is a very predictable ecosystem.

I'm kinda curious out of the 1250 Halloweens and 500 Ultramans, how many won't get built because people walked away from their deposit. I know at least one person who gave up their $2k Ultraman deposit. No idea if that spot was later sold to someone else or if a distributor got stuck with it.

Halloween and Ultraman was a mess. Hopefully Spooky shows real gameplay to see code and the pin in action. Wide body's are notoriously slower.

You can't lose with Scooby Doo. I just hope they don't design the game themselves (Halloween is bloody awful). Let a pro do it for goodness sake. Those damn pesky kids.

Me neither.

By which I mean I don't miss it because I never stopped.

If there was a choice for "leaning towards yes but waiting to see gameplay" that would be my selection.

It's seriously time to hire a professional designer.

Spooky saves money using home brewed talent as much as possible.
Games clearly sell out so hasn’t been an issue.

What's a professional designer make? Let's just say 100k per design for sake of argument. Even if they only produced 1000 games that's only $100 per machine.

I am fine with their designs. I like that they are different. They just need more QA and hopefully code doesn't take as long to get done this time around. I do feel like no gameplay before taking deposits is a questionable strategy...these days that's the equivalent to review embargos up until release day.

One of the things that struck me on R&M is that each game was a hit or miss in terms of how much needed done to it. This is sort of expected in human controlled assembly lines, but there are jobs to check all this over and make corrections. Some of these corrections should have been found before they were boxed, and some even after found, reported, and verified that they were working to fix, still never changed. That is a concern. I do not know if that changed with HWN/ULT.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. No matter what dumb theme, no matter how many times you would think people would learn their lesson getting burned, people here get excited for things that would never in a million years give me any interest.

I don't care for the theme nor does the playfield look like someone professional designed it. And yet, people were declaring spending 10k before even seeing the playfield or gameplay. I'm truly baffled.

At the rate we are going, a company could release an Alf pinball machine with just two flippers and drop targets all around the border of the playfield and nothing else, and people will drop 17k on it. One person will excitedly say that "my wife said it is a day one purchase based on the theme!!" Another will defend the lack of mechs as being a "smart business decision" There will be a half eaten cat topper that does literaly nothing, selling for $3500, and they will sell out due to fear of missing out. A few people will declare how wrong they were about the game being bad and how knocking down all the drop targets in one ball will get you "melmac multiball," and how innovative it is.

Some of you guys here... I simply don't understand.

What you're describing sounds a lot more like Jetsons than Scooby. There ended up being 100 produced and didn't sell well. The fact that you don't see the difference probably could mean that you're taking crazy pills, but more likely just means that it's not your thing, which is fine. I don't understand why folks are considering throwing big cash at Stern for the Bond SLE, but I've accepted that I'm just not in the target demographic.

I don't get it either. It looks like a fun game but I have no interest in purchasing one (barebones) at 7.7k...way too much for what you get. It seems like there are a lot of impulse buyers with plenty of cash to spend on machines they haven't even played yet! It's entertaining to watch the stages on Pinside from early hype to the cluster of resales after people get their games, or better yet, sell their presale spots.

I mentioned this in the hype thread, but I think it is partly because people have been spoiled in that they can have a game for a month or two then sell it for what they have in it or more. HWN/ULT didn't turn out that way. I don't think Scooby will be other, but it remains to be seen.

The only difference between levels of machines are cosmetics (aside from knocker, shaker, and topper).

Standard, BSE, and CE will all play the same.

Based on the poll numbers it looks like people will take there time on this one. It is a much different market then it was 2years or even 6 months ago. Time will tell.

What about CGC and AP ? Some good stuff coming in 2023.

Disapointed its the same game play concept as they did with Alice Cooper. I hate that hitting the ball into dark allies and it just comes right back over and over. That wasn't very fun for anyone and why I'll pass. However everything else on this game is awesome.

Pinside: Nobody likes a pinball machine that doesn't have an aging rock band as its theme. Everything else is for children.

Real life: (Group of people at a barcade socializing and having some drinks) I love Scooby Doo! let's play that! Followed by Stranger things, Deadpool, etc.

If someone makes a Harry Potter machine it will literally print money.

"Who moved the cheese?"

Also this poll just seems like market research for scalpers. Let them buy and find out what the demand is when they try to flip over MSRP as their "business", thanks for your service.

Same shit dff'rent machine

I thought this was cool! Have spooky done this in the past?

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I love the Scooby theme, but what I'd really love is the ability to:
1. Read reviews and watch videos
2. Study the rules
3. Play the game myself.

This is what I do for other pinball machines I'm considering buying and it's served me well so far. Maybe Scooby is going to be an awesome game, but I can't tell with the info I have now, and the pressure is on to decide now. Given a choice between guessing with a lot of money and waiting, I think I have to wait. It's not like there aren't any other good pinballs I can buy in the meantime.

You will be able to do all of this and still find a NIB game. Just don’t feed into the day one fomo.
Spooky can’t keep website working for orders anyway so smart to breathe and give this whole production time to bake.

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I think Scooby Doo is a great theme. I can understand if you’ve had bad experiences with their predecessors. I also go by the idea of playing one first. However, in today’s market you can buy a new pin for almost cheaper than a used one. Because of cost jumps I am more reluctant to buy used.
Mainly because buying a used pin that may require maintenance sooner or is damaged at a higher price seems silly to me. I’ve owned and repaired old pin’s before and always end up spending more money than I would ever get back. I feel the market is driving people to buy new. Unless you are a collector and want a specific game no matter what the cost.

Interesting take - I had this same take 1+ year ago and started buying NIB. Ive had more issues with the NIB purchases than buying used. Ive had more defects on NIB than buying used. Maybe I just have been unlucky - but its hard to take issues at these price points.

I also think with the recent price hikes NIB is no longer the "better" deal.

Cant wait to play this game - it will likely take over 1 year just to make them all. Plenty of time to check this one out and people will get impatient.

Huh? I think their designs are great and not just another cookie cutter thing re-skined to be something else... Very odd comment and even odder you got so many likes...

I think that came out wrong. I in no way meant that new is better. I’m a crt man by hobby and feel things aren’t necessarily built like they use too.
For me buying a new pin was never a thought before. But given the market they are almost one in the same now. Excited to see how this one turns out.

The answer is it just hasn’t gotten bad enough yet.

Haven’t been enough “losses” and people coming to the realization when you buy a game today you will lose $$$ when you go to sell it.

The people that will be left are here for the hobby and understand you shouldn’t expect to buy a game and flip it later for more money.

When it happens again and again, the losses, I suspect the ecosystem will adjust a bit

I'm breaking from my normal routine of wait and see to pick up the CE version of this game. IMO the whole art package is truly stunning to look at. I hope the additional programmers Spooky added will help provide reliable and consistent updates to code (probably not). I'm excited to see what full video assets can bring, and the voice actors brought on are legit. Mostly though I believe the price is reasonable for the current market based on other manufactures shown below.
Spooky Scooby CE = $10,000
Stern Bond LE = $13,000
Stern Bond 60th = $15,000 and up?
JJP Toy Story 4 CE =$15,000

So with only 1969 machines being built I guess you can say I have FOMO. I fully admit that waiting would have been the best strategy after Spooky's recent release of Halloween and UM. But I will be optimistic that spooky fixed their QC, code, and layout issues (tall ask). I see the simple fan layout and the packed mechs and come away very inspired to play with this machine with the whole family. It's very understandably though if people are too scared to jump on this in the preorder stage.

FOMO buying, especially of Spooky products, does not equate to smart decision making. If history bares out, SD will be available at a discount for a long time to come. Price is SD’s best feature, but not low enough to buy in early. A year from now will be able to make better choices.

Sweet! A way out of your terrible purchase is included in this one.

Maybe this can apply to all those who wish they had there Halloween and ultra man deposits back.

I hope this is a great game. Will play for a while then decide

Worked out pretty great for the Rick and Morty buyers.

I don't believe that came from Spooky, rather from an individual Dealer / Rep.

You can sell your spot if you direct ordered from Spooky. Profit or Loss, no difference.

TNA and ACNC Buyers, too.

And it will work out that way for the Halloween and Ultraman machines, too. Just going to take more time.

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I suppose it could be a good way to get your deposit back...