Quoted from cooked71:I've ordered a LE, but I can see both sides of this.
On face value the game, especially the pro, looks incredibly stripped down. All the shots are safe, with almost no randomized action. The pops are so contained and rarely used, they really have no purpose. There's no true interactive toy that "fights" back. As per the deadflip stream, it looks like a good player who can make shots on demand, can dominate the game.
On the flip side, the Star Wars theme, the music, the animations (ok they're not perfect yet), the sound effects, the apparently deep code, and the speed draw me in. And I'm hoping the hyper drive and exploding Death Star give the game the missing "wow" factor.
But on the pricing argument, I really question the notion that Stern are overpricing NIB games. How many competitors have been able to enter the market and successfully undercut them? Recent history is littered with companies who thought they could do it better and cheaper, but have failed. Chinese production aside, you might be able to do it better, but definitely not cheaper. NIB pricing is the way it is because that's what it costs to produce AND make a profit from an incredibly niche product that is very complicated to build, and is by definition still mostly "analogue" in nature.
You can argue that at current prices you can't justify or afford NIB games, but you can't argue Stern's mission is to fleece the market. I'm sure their mission is to be a profitable and sustainable pinball manufacturer. The 2 "competitors" have a long way to go to prove they are either profitable or sustainable.
Stern already has the infrastructure in place which negates any establishment startup costs. There are going to be very few startup companies able to undercut an established company which holds 95% of the market share and an effective monopoly on all the traditional supplier/distribution channels.
Unless that is you were prepared save costs in other areas such as moving your operations to a third world country and paying your assembly line the equivalent of slave wages (by Western standards).
Anyone who thinks that a bit of powdercoating, some leds and a colour display equates to a $4000 increase clearly has no idea because apart from that all the basic elements of a traditional pinball machine are still present with little change from the last 25 years.
They have no clear succession plan in place, their upper management are all past retirement age and their manufacturing philosophy is controlled by a third party entity with ROI as their primary objective. Of course milking the market for as much as they can and riding the wave while it lasts is the primary mission.
As long as Stern keeps throwing out the cheap grade birdseed and preaching to the aviary that this is the A grade product there will always be a percentage of parrots all too eager to keep squawking for more at ever increasing prices and ever diminishing quality standards.
FireShot Screen Capture #351 - 'Big Bang Theory's Mayim Bialik, the Coolest Stuff at Lucasfilm, and a New Star Wars Game Reveale
Alexandria, VA
