Quoted from Chambahz:and I respectfully disagree. Pinside has gone well beyond "passionate", nearly to the point of "obsessive" or "deranged".
I honestly have come to the opinion that Stern will never be viewed positively on this website, because they cant make games good enough to fill some peoples' empty lives. To me, it's past frustrating, and now reached the level of "just plain sad".
If you're not convinced, buy any new title, and have your friends over to play it. Listen to not only WHAT they say, (love it or hate it), but HOW they say it. Now compare that to most Pinside threads. In person, people may make a few comments if they're not thrilled, but they will be respectful (should be, anyway!). On Pinside, it's nothing to insult each other or absolutely slam pretty much any manufacturer, even if you've never had problems yourself. If as much as anyone else has had issues... look out!
Sad honestly because the people that (in my opinion) are entitled to hate pinball, or think that I'm crazy for spending any amount of a machine AREN'T other owners; it's those who haven't got a clue how great this hobby can be -or understand some of the great people you can actually meet by being a part of it.
Well, we used to have the Stern fanboys that would defend anything Stern to the point of being obsessive.. why do you think we don't see that anymore? Because they have raised prices on every single release while cheapening their product over and over again. I don't care what hobby you are in, when you do that, you better at least be producing quality. They aren't, and they're thumbing their nose up at us. Add to that ridiculous pricing on toppers, aprons ($100 for a plastic apron?), abandoned code, splitting cabinets, ghosting playfields, etc., etc., and just about "everyone" on here has been negatively impacted. So you ask why "everyone" isn't happy?