They haven't done that though. I'm not sure what you're referring to.

im guessing he is talking about service rails in pros starting with IMDN?

Did somebody say beef?

Depending on what you mean by beef up.
They added some things they took away before, raised the price.

Great job I guess...nothing really out of the ordinary.

Maybe they should beef up security around the WOPR.

Not from me. Bring the pricing back down below $5K and I’ll show em a little.

Putting back what you took away before isn't worthy of praise.

How about being the only company selling full-featured commercial pinball machines for under $6,000, while putting out several new games a year and not stealing anybody's money?

Man you are a tough guy to please. In a "pinball is hard" world, Stern is the only one not drowning in a sea of beef. You know first-hand how hard it is to make ANYTHING in pinball - remember your beefy adventures with Shadow plastics back in the day? - yet Stern makes it look EASY.

Come on bro...how about just the faintest...slightest "BOOM!" from you. You can whisper it in my ear and I won't tell anybody. It'll be our special tender little boom, between only us. PM me.

I feel like they are the modern day Bally/Williams cranking out consistent fun machines year after year.

Everything these days is not manufactured with the same quality it was 20-30 years ago and that is unfortunate but reality.

Levi has transformed into a talking point regurgitation bot, and it's super weird.

I've been saying that for AGES because it's true.

It's absolutely silly when you think about it to compare what Stern does to what all the pretenders do. This isn't exactly news. It's been this way since B/W closed up shop.

The only real difference in my posting is I trash everybody else LESS, but I guess you haven't noticed that.

No way in hell BoM went up from Ironman. The cabinet and backbox are much cheaper and more rickety. Pfs are certainly more prone to damage (implying cheaper). The LCD will be a lot cheaper than the DMD - certainly that of 8 years ago. Spike / Spike2 are WAY cheaper than SAM. Both the boards and the massively reduced wiring.

Plus they're building way more games now, and have far better purchasing power.

Other costs may have increased, but most assuredly not BoM.

If you think he's wrong, why not explain yourself instead of calling him a "regurgitation bot"?

Oh come on now, let's stop crying about how it's never good enough. Stern has produced some of the greatest machines in pinball history! We are all very fortunate to be a part of this activity that the majority would refer to as our hobby. The artwork has improved, the layouts are enhanced w/ variation & the rules keep getting better & better. Yes, $5000+ is a decent amount of money, but you get what you pay for. If you're not satisfied you can always lean towards a system 80. Of coarse there's no comparison, but to each his own.

Some folks got nuthin' to say.

I suppose he could "regurgitate" complaints about "build quality" and being mean to Spooky?

Let's face it not a whole lot of "new" stuff gets posted here on a regular basis, anyway. We live in a Greatest Hits world here on Pinside, lucky if the longbox has a sticker promising "Two New Mediocre Tracks!"

I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm saying it's super weird that like 90% of his posts are "Stern pinball does X, pretenders can't do X" posts. Like, it's super weird because the posts have become so similar across so many different threads.

One more post of the usual suspects minus Panzer what a bunch of clowns

im just glad im priced out of NIB games these days so i can just play them on location .50/$1 at a time

I think DI and TNA are my last NIB games. I love them, but man, the prices are nutty. We could use a few more locations. It's getting to where at least one of the new title will show up within 30 minutes of me or so, but I still have to hunt around. It would be nice to more easily track these games down and have more than one option.

You mean the one where I made the first fully-complete plastics set ever that included all the plastics in the machine from all assemblies and sold them as one set for a price less than one in-demand plastic was going for? Yeah, that wasn't super-easy, but I got it DONE and it also taught me enough to know firsthand that Stern's BoM is way less than anyone outside dreams. Then when there was a crackling problem with the inks (same problem CGC had on AfMr recently, BTW - guess they didn't learn from me 15 years ago) I replaced them all out of my pocket and STILL squeaked out a tiny profit.

So no, Stern will not get a "BOOM" or even a "boom" for putting back something they ALREADY DESIGNED, IMPLEMENTED, AND STRIPPED OUT OF THE MACHINES YEARS AGO, then cost reduced the crap out of the cabinets, playfield, electronics and mechanisms and STILL raised the prices - again. I have enough experience with overseas manufacture and sourcing to know that they're playing the community for chumps and the price increases have more to do with profit than costs.

If they have a good machine, I'll still recommend it for the route, and I'll still keep them in top shape, but don't act like Stern is doing ANY of us a favor. They're in it to squeeze as much out of the market as possible before the next crash, just like everyone else. They're just more nakedly taking advantage of the market.

So that’s a soft “no” on that BOOM! then?

I hope stern fixes the Iron Maiden cabinet speaker problem. My alarm clock has better sound.

For now. What is DP.....$5800?

Two releases from it happening. Next year this community is shelling out $6000 for a pro.

Putting that into perspective, I paid $6200 for TWD Prem, in 2016.

Mmmmmmmmm, that shit sandwich is going to taste real good soon .

It's a metaphor D:.....!!!!

I buy B/W games that didn't have a rigged 3 tier system where today's Premium is 2003's LOTR.

Except for very few exceptions games are still lacking on real toys that interact with the ball, magnets etc. They are basically selling the same stuff that they have been selling for the last 20 years a higher price....Glad that zombie yeti and fanchi are on board so the same stuff looks now different.

What shit sandwich? Levi isn't wrong about the value of Stern games, even if they creep above his $6000 price point.

Nobody is matching Stern on the value you get for a Pro game.

I think some people are forgetting a few things about Stern’s pricing.

- their insurance costs go up every single year.

- their payroll goes up every single year.

- they have over 50 employees, therefore, they must provide healthcare to all their employees. Obamacare makes health insurance very expensive.

- their utility bills increase every single year.

- look at all the high priced talent they are bringing in. Between 1 extra designer, the artists, and extra programmers.

- I didn’t even include the costs for materials. They go up every year.

We all make financial choices in life. We are not entitled to NIB machines at price points we want.

Think of Stern like Disney. Disney keeps raising the prices of admission every year...and every year, park admission increases. As long as Stern keeps increasing their sales, and their costs increase, they will keep raising prices.

All true, BUT the biggest factor to the bottom line is that their FEDERAL INCOME TAX has been reduced substantially in 2018 and going forward. And Stern is using part of those savings to invest back into the business via programmers, great artists, designers, etc... Which is a great thing.

Much of the reason the LE's have climbed to new pricing heights is purely taking out "flipper profit". A function of the high demand on a lot of these LE's and Stern simply grabbing 100% of that profit. Can't blame them.

It's the PRO pricing that really takes into account all of your points above.

The sandwich is what you're paying for what you're getting. When you consider 4 short years ago, a NIB was $4200-$4400, dude, I dont know the ins and outs of the craft, but I fail to believe BOMs are going up that much that fast.

You are REALLY ready to pay $6000 for the basic, baseline, feature cut version of a game?

Sorry, I'm happy buying the older games with many more features for less.

Hmmm. I’m not so sure about this trend...

That was my spot. 5000. I had set a hard line there, but then they announced AC/DC Pro VE and I went to $5100. I was boiling like a frog. But then Iron Maiden came out and the best price I could find was $5600. And then I hopped out of the pan. Stern had found the price where I wouldn’t buy a Pro game. They can include service rails and other junk they removed to try and win customers back, but I’m not paying that. Not even for dream themes.

I didn't claim the BOM was going up. The value is certainly going up though, at least for me. BOM isn't the only cost in manufacturing a pin. Look at Deadpool, the staffing costs for that were probably astronomical compared to other games. That adds a ton of value to the game for me, and it doesn't have a single thing to do with how many coils are on the game or what kind of support rails they use.

Stern is making really solid, fun games. I bought my first NIB a couple of months ago and the quality is fantastic. So much so that I'm probably going to make my second NIB pin Deadpool.

If you have a problem with Stern's "BOM" and the cost they sell games for, you must have a real problem with all the other manufacturers?

I think a large number of NIB buyers in the past are getting to this point I know I am near that point buying HUO no more NIB

Finally, we can start talking about the bubble bursting again.....

If the cost were astronomical they wouldn't have done it. Simple as that.

I have never been displeased with any pinball manufacturer......If I dont like the game for whatever reason, its gone.
Whitewater is just as fun as it sits next to IM and next to Dialed in.....Yes, they are differently different in build quality,
But I do feel all manufacturers are trying to make the Best Adult Toys they can, within budget.
Nothing is anywhere near perfect, but I tend to focus on all thats Good, not whats bad.

Much of this has changed for me in retirement, but can see that others would think otherwise.

well, with these prices they definitely make it feel like an adult toy is getting rammed up your... ahh, never-mind.

A very large adult toy at that BOHICA

If you buy a Pro, if it will be a "shit sandwich" later on but the LE's that i've bought at $8700?

I've already got the peanut butter and jelly standing by to make it go down a little easier!

I have an idea. How about people buy whatever the F*ck they want to since its their money that they worked hard for and earned? If you like old games the best then buy old games, if you like NIB games the best then buy NIB. The anger toward people buying a new pinball machine and sterns price increases is F*ing childish and stupid as hell. I got six new Sterns and im hoping The Munsters will be my 7th new Stern. Anyone who doesnt like that can eat a Dick! Its my money and i work my ass off for it and i will buy whatever i want to. Im not happy about Sterns price increases and the cost of NIB games either, and they just about have me priced out so i wont be buying many more NIB games, but im not on here crying about it constantly like some people are either. It is what it is, some people need to get a life and mind their own business. I just love it when people tell me how i should spend my money, good grief!

If you buy any new Pinball machine and expect to get more than 80% back when you sell you’re nuts. The market was working that way for a bit, but that just reflected a supply/demand imbalance. That’s corrected now and it’s like other luxury goods, price drops significantly when you drive it off the lot.

Not sure why some of you get so upset about this stuff. Hobbies cost money, in this hobby you can at least get a good % of your money back at anytime. Don't like the price? Just don't buy them anymore.

Some of you are so obsessed with buying new games that everything gets blown out of proportion. You act like the manufacturers are holding you at gun point. These are luxury adult toys, none of this matters.

Oh yeah and when i bought my first new car when i started driving they were about 10k, now they are 30,40, and 50k for an average car.......waaaaaaaaa! I could buy food alot cheaper back then also.......waaaaaaaaa, houses were a fraction of the cost back then too...........waaaaaaaaaaa. Stop the crying and man up!!!

Iron Man was a “cheap BOM” game...but it does have 2 magnets, a kickback, and the Monger up/down physical bash toy mech. It was also $3800. Now that Pros are about $5500....mmmm, yeah I dunno if they’re really “packed”. They’re still pretty bare bones. That being said, if they’re fun, that’s all that matters. When IM & Tron came out, a majority of the hobbyists hated them due to their “cheapness”. The perception of IM led to Jersey Jack starting a company because none of his home buyer customers wanted Sterns anymore!!! Times have changed, people are praising $5500 Pros that are kinda sorta just as cheap, and hating on JJP for making widebodies.

I don't know, I think Pros are holding up well.

Exactly.....i like all pinball games personally but i tend to like the new ones better. If i wanna go buy a 600 dollar EM then thats what i will go buy and if i wanna fo buy a 6k stern pro then I’ll buy that too. It’s my money and I’ll buy whatever i want to and i dont give a crap what anyone thinks about it. If you buy an EM for 600 some people will say you’re an idiot and that you wasted your money, if you buy a 6k stern pro people will say your an idiot also so you really just cant win no matter what. For me personally, if im gonna spend 3-4k on an older used game, id rather throw in another 1500-2000 and get a brand new game that is more fun and has a deeper rule set.

Show us on the doll where the bad man touched you and told you how to spend your monies

Sorry, i just get sick of people’s obsessions with certain things that they cant seem to never let go of, especially when its none of their business.