I'm guessing maybe they are shipping things out in order of what package you picked? It seems like they shipped all of the book only orders first maybe and are now shipping the book + shirt orders. The bigger the package you got probably puts you closer to the end of the shipping line.

I think i got my USPS Priority box on Thursday. The box itself was beat up on one side but they bubble wrapped the two books all around which protected them both. I hope everyone who is waiting gets it soon. Thanks

I think it's a crime for the people they charged more money for having to use more boxes to ship while forcing them to wait to send both boxes out at the same time. I feel for the other person who was informed of the delay in their merch.

Sums up the sentiment of most crowdfunded projects.

If they had their stuff together there would be a business plan and profit involved.

Instead you get passion projects that bump up against realities like manufacturing and distribution.

At least they did produce the book in the end, that’s farther than many projects get.

From the photos posted, it appears they took most photos with the pins off and pasted Data East, Sega, or Stern logos on the DMD, except for Stones where there is nothing and Aerosmith where all 3 images show the exact same Aerosmith logo. I don't see any photos showing high scores or winners don't use drugs. On Star Trek they probably hit paste an extra time and the logo just got left there.

Ok well that is comforting. I'm critical because of all the years they spent on this but also Joe is a professional photographer. He created a professional camera for his first KS and it was quite successful which led many including myself to back this KS. This isn't his best work and I know this looking at his website. We can bitch all we want about how this project has been handled but Joe is a talented photographer, he really is, judging by his previous work on his website. https://www.josephrubinstein.com/ They talked about how they went to great lengths to photograph these pins on SAPS. I expect work and composition on the pages like "pinball photos" would do. https://www.pinballphotos.com/ Look at the main page of that website and compare it to those previous photos.

Did you get your wallpapers? Your pledge may not have shipped yet.

It does look like that. It's not that *big* of a deal but using the magic wand tool in Photoshop and cutting & pasting is likely what led to the DMD issue there. Which again leads to the rushing/simply missed it/your theory about copying and pasting the DMD.

Also less is more. The newer pins are just packed with too much on the page. A side of the game, an overhead shot, the backglass, picture of the main feature of the game. For all versions. Like Batman '66 is wayyyy too busy then you look at KISS and it's easier on the eyes. We don't need a shot of the front of the game then a 45 degree angle of the game because it's redundant. They could have used that space for other stuff like the backglass which was stuffed into the bottom right-hand corner. I'm sure Kevin O'Connor loved that. Instead we got like 9 headshots of the Gene Simmons toy. On a single freaking page.

After this book debacle and losing more $$$ on the Atari Gameband, I know I said no more backing Kickstarter projects, but the CobraPin Pinball Controller looks pretty tempting (it hasn’t gone live as yet though).

"Bob, I have the layout for machine 1 done, what do you think?"

"Hmmm. I like what I see Kevin, but could you put some more images in?"

"But there are already 12 images over two pages."

"Kevin, we are going to do great things here, not mediocre things. I want to see 12 images PER PAGE!!!"

"But it'll look . . . "

"KEVIN!!! Who's the head designer here? That's right, NOT KEVIN!"

Thanks heaps @hool10! Followed your instructions and found that my order (book/t-shirt etc) was shipped on January 9 (with USPS tracking info). It is amazing to me that it took a good Pinsider to help advise of my item being shipped. Breathtaking stuff.

Because they make more profit that way.

thanks, I had the View Confirmation on mine. I checked the USPS tracking # and it says it has arrived "at the Post Office In Canada" which is LOL

Still no news on them being sent to Europe, although a friend had his shipped to the US and then shipped onward to him in the UK.
That has arrived cheaper than PF were charging, plus before PF have even started shipping to Europe.

Would love to know wtf they are doing.

Cool. My friend Joe works there, at our only post office.

So I received my books and these are my thoughts. I'm not holding back after 4 years and $125 for this Kickstarter. The t-shirt has a great logo and is a low quality shirt. It's the same company that made Jackbars shirts (which I found ironic). It's not a $50 shirt but it's something nice and cool to wear at the next pinball meet. That way everybody in the room knows you are either a sucker or you have something really cool haha!IMG_20210111_173809 (resized).jpg The poster I feel could have been the LE artwork or something else. Every game is just WAY too small to fit onto that poster. Even smaller is the text saying what game it is and what year it came out.IMG_20210111_173823 (resized).jpg Everything that I mentioned on Saturday holds true for the game images including the DMD mistake unfortunately. Those are essentially scans from the book. The LE and regular edition is shown with signatures by John Borg, George Gomez, Steve Ritchie, and Gary Stern. In the years since this book was made I never thought I would ever meet these heroes of mine but I have including Gary once at Pinburgh. I'm more than positive I will fill that page up with more autographs over time. IMG_20210111_174030 (resized).jpg

Now after all that complaining and the drama that this Kickstarter has had on this thread I do have to say this book will be collectible and I do like it! Yeah I know right??? I will simply reference 2 pages from the book as an example (I have already posted far enough) which I know for sure is what Joe took. They lightly gloss over the years of Stern Pinball and Stern Electronics, through the 2008 hard times, etc. You get to learn some intimate private details about the Stern family business and they are a tight group of family and friends essentially. This isn't a Pinball Magazine which is not what this book is but at the same time, not a picture book. The book could have benefitted from a person who could have done a better job of restoring the photos because they went for an Instagram look but they don't look terrible. Joseph Rubinstein was the one who ironically made this book shine. Joe did a FABULOUS job of taking photos of the games on the line, assemblies, workers and factory life. It really showed and for a good chunk of the book are these photos. He did what he was good at and unfortunately did what he wasn't good at (overhead shots of the games, etc).IMG_20210111_180629__01.jpg

So to give this book a grade from an A to F? I would give it a C+. If they did a reprint of the book I would certainly buy it if I didn't own it but I do hope they would fix things like the DMD stuff. How would they have received an A then? Well for starters they should have reached out to collectors on Pinside for those harder to find games, Orange Photography, and Jonathan Jooston. They mentioned on SAPS they read every pinball book out there. Well they should have worked with Jonathan Jooston or even say Ron Hallet. Gene Hwang, Imoto Harney to the pinballphotos.com folk know how to photograph games PROPERLY. Sure collectors like to bling out their games but if you just ask the community "hey if I'm going to use your game, I need to have it completely stock". A person who can lay out games aesthetically on a page and color correction person. This thread has gone over and over these points over the years on communication and the needless travelling they did to even shipping the books out. Most, if not every Kickstarter I have been part of takes feedback from their backers and gets ideas from them or changes the end product due to feedback. These guys pretty much went commando after becoming shocked Gary Stern gave them a box full of moldy slides because they expected to just scan and print books for backers. They said "wow these people are toxic and have never used Kickstarter before" and ignored us which ultimately resulted hurting a community funded product. IMG_20210111_173943 (resized).jpg

Oh one more thing that I need to add. The books are heavy and are well made. They are made in Canada too.

Oh cool does he know Sam? Sam from Canada.

Oh and my book arrived today. First impressions: it's nowhere nearly as large as would need be to justify the shipping price.
Just flipping through and I found two spelling mistake right away, "dital" instead of digital, and seperately instead of separately.
Not sure how this made it through a spell check.

I like the overhead playfield photos. Maybe they could be done better? But I love having them all together in book form. I wish they were all done at a slight angle though, like the Baywatch and GoldenEye pictures are.

The highlight for me is all the great photos of the factory showing off the labourers and all the team work that goes into building these.
Great photos, brilliant colour, and it really shows off the company.
I like all the bits of prototype development interspersed with the games.

I really love when they do the 2-page spreads for games.

It's a quality book. Is it worth what I ended up spending on it and shipping? Meh, perhaps not. If it was a normal art book perhaps I'd wait and buy it at a show post-pandemic.
But I'm happy I have it now and it's not leaving. And if they truly don't print any more of these, I would guess that in a few years they'll all be fully dispersed into the hands of people that want them, and they will actually be quite hard to procure on the used market.

Finally got my book and tshirt today.

While I’ve been waiting (very very very patiently) for this damn Kickstarter book to arrive, I received Drop Target Omnibus all within a week and a bit after ordering. Oh yeah, shipping didn’t cost me $125 either.

CD3D4CAB-AF17-4EB4-8131-3A4341059E84 (resized).jpeg

As much as it's cool that we got an actual "limited edition" book with only 500 prints I'm a little bummed that for all that effort the book doesn't go beyond us. I always assumed the kickstarter was to "kick start" the book, and it would be available to all pinheads in some fashion afterwards (like an affordable trade paperback or something).

Mine has just arrived, unannounced, in the UK.
I've been asked to write a review for Pinball News, which may or may not end up getting published, dependant on how well Martin can edit my fury!

If it's published I'll post a link, if not I'll post the full diatribe here

Can someone take a shot of the Striker Xtreme pages?

I got the your order is basically delayed to March because you bought the most items from us and we waited so long to order the jackets they are out of stock email as well. Pathetic that there was no offer to ship what was in stock now.

So was the NASCAR missing from the cover (they got the Dale Jr reskin on there) just another mistake?

Anyone with the book verify that George Takei is spelled wrong on top left of the page with his picture playing pinball? It looked like "Taki" but the resolution was low, so...

Sorry when I tried to take the photo my camera cracked and Siri said please don't.

https://www.pinballnews.com/site/2021/01/12/keeping-the-ball-alive-review/

The review is up

Wow...nice article, thanks for the review. As suspected, this is not close to being "the best pinball book ever"...

Not even close.

I'm so glad that Stern changed their minds regarding the original Spiderman villain, and instead opted for the Marvel villains.

We are not WORHTY

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16104945192437333062274618330793 (resized).jpg

Ice-Cold-FreezeOtto (resized).jpg

Still, not as brutal as it could have been...

As for spelling mistakes 'Taki' is on pg 20, by then the spelling or grammatical mistakes must be into 3 figures!

16104949880127857894151822333101 (resized).jpg

It's not like they didn't have at least months or years to proof this stuff...

“ My biggest regret isn’t backing the project in the first place, but the fact that my name is actually printed in it, so some people may think I actually endorse this book in its current form.”

OH SHIT! Is my name in this thing????? FUCK

My exact thought lol.

Great review WJxxxx . Thanks.

They also said that Avengers was the first spike game when I think they meant the home (the pin) version.

haha good one that game sure is bad right guys high fives all around

Anyway, if anyone could take a picture of the Striker Extreme pages I'd appreciate it. It was mentioned I'd receive a copy for my efforts but I'm not counting on it. Just wanted to see if it was worth getting for my contribution.

Thanks for posting. Still waiting for my book.

nice writeup. it really begs the point of just who reviewed this before taking it to press?? the way that certain things are called out would have been shot down by even freshman editors.

examples:
Indiana Jones pinball holds in one game all four successful movies dedicated to the George Lucas’ character. In fact on the playfield there is an area dedicated to each of the four episodes: one part is reserved for "Raiders of the Lost Ark", one part for "Temple of Doom", another one to "Last Crusade" and finally one part dedicated to the last title: "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull".

Which reads much better as:
The Stern machine pays homage to George Lucas’ titular character by tying together all four successful movies on a single playfield.

additionally, where they felt the need to call out ‘The Simpsons Pinball Party’ full name for 4 of the 5 image descriptors really feels like they were going for word count vs actual content.

so, how many do we think will end up on ebay?

Early The Pin machines were the first to use the Spike system. WWE was the first commercial game to use the system. I’d say it’s totally acceptable to have forgotten all of this.

??
villain

NOUN
(in a film, novel, or play) a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot.
"I have played more good guys than villains" · [more]
synonyms:
criminal · lawbreaker · outlaw · offender · felon · convict · jailbird · malefactor · [more]
the person or thing responsible for specified trouble, harm, or damage.
"the industrialized nations are the real environmental villains"
archaic
variant spelling of villein.

Thanks very much!

I think the main point of that page pic was the giant "NOTEWORHTY" heading, which is a bigger problem than the bad, 3rd grade book report writing below it.

Nice review. My favorite observation is this: My question is this; If it was the “first ever used” what “standard DMD used at the time” is it half the height of?

My new favourite quote found on the opening credits page under "Very special thanks"

"Matt Pawlak for taking time while in quarintine (sic ) to help proof read every single page of this book!
Jody West for her incredible attention to detail and eye for proof reading to make every page pixel perfect!"

It's the gift that keeps giving.

That reminds me how I proof read my professor book in college and he managed to screwed up my name in the acknowledgement section in the printed edition. Duh.

...you're kidding.

Shouldnt it be....."your Kiding"?

LOL omg it's actually true, I checked my copy. WOW.

If I am not mistaken I believe proofreading is one word.