Shit happens and you are Absolutely acting like a baby.

If you don't want to run the risk of this ever happening again, stop buying nib games and roll the dice with used ones.

I know for an absolute FACT that Williams games from the 90s - the best games ever made as far as I'm concerned - occaisionally shipped with issues. Shit happens. Sure, Stern is cheap and cutting corners whenever possible, but even with a BOM of $15,000 you'll never guarantee that you won't have an issue.

Shit happens. And didn't this guy fix it in like 20 minutes? Come on, if people could deal with the bad opto flipper switches that AFM shipped with they can deal with this.

The only thing relative is that you people are acting ridiculous...say, relative to someone who has an actual legitimate reason to melt down in this kind of fashion over a ROUTINE QC issue that was fixed in 20 minutes for zero cost.

Anybody who knows me from the old days would find it shocking that *I* - who has been whining about Stern's general chintziness since LOTR came out with flippers that went soft after 3 games - is defending Stern.

But what I'm seeing here is utterly stupefying. You have absolutely no sense of perspective.

I can't believe a pinball manufacturer is chiming in with this and justifying this petty meltdown, even if it is regarding a competitor.

Can't wait till the Heighway phone starts ringing off the hook with stuff like this. Based on the machines I played at Pinburgh you might want to get a second line.

Ah, the cargument? And a steakument? Love it.

Tell you what...find a copy of a Lexus review by Consumer Reports. Even a Lexus - a top rated car from Consumer Reports - will have "sample defects" - an issue they caught upon inspecting the brand nee car.

I love this whole idea that "if a pinball machine costs $8,000, it should be IMPOSSIBLE for any QC issues to be present, or for something happen during shipping!!!! How in God's name did this happen!?!?!?!?!

Money isn't some kind of magical cure for "shit happens." The Hubble cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and it didn't work NIB!

dp

Tell me any product, $8K for brand new, that is exactly the same thing as a pinball machine.

Name one.

Hint - it's not a steak, and it's not a car.

Also, last I checked you don't have to "diagnose yourself" a problem with a NIB Stern. They have a very well-regarded customer service department, one area where Stern has NEVER cheaped out.

No, it certainly isn't.

Apologies if true, to Heighway. I'll change it to can't wait till Hank gets his game. Chances are there is stuff that'll drive him mad, while being easily addressed with a phone call to the manufacturer.

It's a COLLECTIVE meltdown that's completely lacking perspective, not just one person.

This is what has happened to pinball. It's very healthy right now because of a massive influx of big-spending newbies, but it might just collapse under it's own weight for that very reason. Pinball, from it's earliest days, has been something for people who need a little patience and a willingness to get their hands dirty. These aren't toasters. There will never be a day - ever - when every single nib game will get to it's destination trouble-free. That's simply impossible regardless of how much it costs.

Fortunately sterns customer service is the best in pinball history, but when you have people who aren't willing to take advantage of that before publicly bashing the company, you have to wonder if it's feasible for this to continue to grow as a home customer consumer product - something it was never meant to be in the first place.

I mean, read some of the idiocy in this thread..."if it were me, I would have called stern and been EXTREMELY ABUSIVE!!!"

Is that the kind of person YOU want to sell games to? This kind of unrealistic attitude isn't just about NIB, it will filter down throughout the entire hobby.

I just bought a very , very expensive game yesterday. Brought it home and there were 2 minor adjustments I had to make to get it to play right. Should I have first called the seller out and cursed him out, and then come here to publicly bash him? Or should I just spend 40 minutes making the adjustments because...you know...it's a pinball machine, and stuff like this happens?

Hey whatever works for you, but I'm happy with the course I took.

Again with the cargument!

Pinball machines aren't cars. And even if they were, nobody is saying a Stern buyer needs to shoulder the cost of a repair. I'll bet you half a meatball sub that Stern will happily send the buyer a new $5 SD card, just like your local Chrysler dealer will repair the USB port for you.

Why does everybody always want to make a bad analogy to cars for EVERYTHING? They almost never hold up to even minor logical scrutiny.

Guns aren't like cars. The confederate flag isn't like a car. Pinball machines aren't like cars. My day old muffin isn't like cars.

Nothing is like cars. Except cars. Beep beep!

You hit a nerve. You've been around since the RGP days and I'm sure you remember I loathe carguments. They are almost always a fallacy - just as yours was. I certainly don't work for the auto industry (LOL) I work for the make some friggin' sense industry.

The example was poor. You keep moving the goal posts...first it's about expense...then it's about waiting...then it's about "drawing lines." There's no line to draw. If you buy a brand new pinball machine, there's a chance you'll have to deal with these SMALL issues that may cost you a little time, or a little $ out of pocket if you are impatient. This has been the case since the 1930s, and it'll be the case in the 2030s. The only "line" you have to draw is if you want to buy an NIB pin or not. If the answer is yes, you are stepping over a line that may lead to (GASP!) minor inconviniences or major whining on pinside.

It's your call! You have, as Devo said fairly ironically, Freedom of Choice.

That's all up to you. A "cargument" - as coined by me, many years ago, is the obnoxious fallacy of comparing everything to cars when arguing. You know, every single gun control argument gets livened up with "cars kill people...are you saying we should ban cars?"

I hate carguments. If anybody is trying to "sound smart" while using a cargument, it's the cargumenter, but to anybody who knows even the basic laws of logic, they don't sound smart.

What were we talking about again?

oh yeah...pinball machines. You can't really compare the buying and ownership experience of a pinball machine to a car because they are completely different. Most car owners will go their entire lives without doing ANY significant work - major or minor - on their car themselves. For a pinball machine, the ratio is probably reversed. The majority of home pinball buyers know and expect that in some point in the life of the product, they'll be doing their own work on the machine. There's dozens of other reasons that pinball machines are inherently different than cars, but I'll let you guys figure those out for yourselves.

Thanks Bro. I'm working on getting Sally Struthers on board as the face of my campaign.

The heighway stuff was good, but there were numerous small issues. I was assured by the Heighway dude that they've all been addressed for production. My point isn't that their machines suck, it's that all new machines will have issues, and impatient, unrealistic customers accustomed to buying simple consumer good like vacuum cleaners and irons may be a challenge for them.

Yeah!

You see, spending priorities are kind of like cars...I mean...just because you CAN afford a Cadillac doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a Chevy.

Can you somehow relate your browbeating Jalbert to cars or the automotive industry so the rest of us can understand it? Thanks in advance!

CARGUMENT!!!!!

We talkin' flaccid or ready to rock?

That's the ONE THING?

Surely there are others!