The reason the tv analogy does not hold up, is you can take a tv back to the place of purchase and it can be 100% blemish free. It doesn't even have to have any scratch at all. You can claim you don't like the picture and actually have buyer's remorse. Watch the tv for a week and turn it back in for a refund. Some places have restocking fees, some places like Costco don't. Some give a store credit 1 to 1. Read the online reviews and see how common this is. Audio/videophiles are anal, and probably take their hobby to a whole new level of being picky compared to pinball collectors.

Try putting 200 plays on a machine then going back to a distributor and asking for a refund because you don't care for the flow.

Just pointing out the analogy is flawed as you don't need any reason, valid or not, to return a tv.

Proving my point, I see more and more comparisons to home furnishings, like tvs and refrigerators versus commercial equipment like air hockey tables, kiosks, or vending machines. As more machines go into the homes, for better or worse, you will see more threads like this.

I had a cabinet decal issue with my GoT LE and Stern took care of it right away.......They seem to address legitimate issues right away....Scrapes on the edge of a play field? eh......doesn't seem like a legit issue.

I don't think money grows on trees for most of us. However you put something like this in the Pinside forum many of the responses are going to be to you liking and many are not. I've had NIB issues and I deal with them privately. To each his own. Good luck. Peace.

Rick offers "PPS Playfield Assurance" for $50 - I'm surprised Stern hasn't seized the opportunity to offer "Stern NIB Assurance" for an extra couple hundred bones.

A Canadian who doesn't agree with free lunches? That's like Pinside with no more "This new KISS code sucks" threads.

Pick up the phone and call them, that way you won't be "waiting for a reply".

Kind of off topic, but that $50 is worth every penny and more. I was looking for a replacement LOTR playfield, and PPS sent me pics of the playfield they had, and even pointed out the problems. I decided not to buy it, but that experience made me a big fan of PPS.

Some scrapes on the side
Out of sight

No big deal, don't loose sleep over it,shit happens

When a manufacturer starts marketing things to collectors as "collectibles" (and doubles the price over what they used to cost when they were "vending appliances"), and in the process drags the smoking-crater remains of an industry into the ashcan with them (e.g. JJP) they are the ones who set the expectations and both can and should be held to that standard.

I've bought two NIB machines (SW:E1 and RFM) and neither had anything material wrong with them OOB. And that was when they were sold as "vending appliances" too.... at a "vending appliance" price. Both are still in my collection with ~3k plays on them and -- surprise -- have had their small set of (expected) issues over the years, which I have fixed as required. Indeed, my SW:E1 has a different mobo in it and both just got new power supplies as they were both getting a bit flaky and after 15 years and for the ask from Newegg Business for the AT power supplies (50% uprated from what the pin shipped with as well) going through and re-capping the power supplies was not worth it.

Manufacturing a pinball machine is not the same as a high-end car or appliance. It's purpose is a commercial gaming machine largely built by hand. That's why they ship all games with coin mechs. True, home buyers are becoming more common and Stern may need to change their focus soon. If Stern does ramp up production qc and reject more parts, I get the feeling prices will go way up. Higher prices mean greater scrutiny and higher expectations. Everything will be an LE and few will be able to afford them. It would be nice to see qc improve and costs go down but those two do not go together.

the warranty reflects that.

If QC is done correctly costs should not increase.....the cost of poor QC and correcting defects are what adds costs and can put a company out of business. It's about implementing Zero Defect capable process from start to finish....until the defects affect profits enough Stern will only be reactive regarding QC and not preventive.

It would have been the end of story if he did not post it on a public forum. He did, so now he opened the door to hundreds of both reasonable and absolutely asinine responses.

And at the end of the day, nothing will change with Stern or the people who buy NIB games.

It would increase cost.

To improve quality (very simplified here) you identify issues, develop procedures and conduct training. Effective training is expensive.
For this "quality issue" (scrapes on the side of the playfield) how much will it cost Stern? My guess is zero because they probably will not do shit about it. So: increased training cost to save no money would increase cost.

You could say bad publicity will hurt future sales but this post is what? One of hundreds of negative post about Stern here? It will get lost in the noise just like the others. Stern probably produces 5 to 10 (or more) games for every 1 game of all their competitors combined. They own the market. And the reality is their competitors have quality issues too.

If they were having games returned because of issues like this (scrapes on sides of playfield) or they had some real competition that produced higher quality games then the quality issues would be hurting them. In the current climate, not so much. In fact, you basically acknowledged this, reread your post starting at the word "until".

Oh, come on. This is more like a scratch on the inside of the back cover. You don't see this in use, only during maintenance. I understood the ghosting of the inserts, but this thread is pushing it.

I never have and probably never buy any machine NIB(nativity in black). But if I paid what they were asking for this overrated overpriced junk you would think you would get better than that. Just like the world, no one gives a damn anymore as long as they can make thier f#@!'ng BMW, Porsche, or Mercedes payment.................

Not sure I see your point of view, seeing as how the game plays 100% as it was intended, sounds, and looks 100% perfect, unless you have the pf raised, which typically only happens a handful of times per year for maintenance only.

i Agree with people and stern if they do not wish to address flaws which you can't see. COSMETIC FLAWS ONLYnot mechanical (Stern Shall warranty Mechs) that you can not see to be clear.
However ones on the playfield which you stare at the whole game is not acceptable Period. And i see no problem with them offering either a discount or an apparel/add on ect to calm the buyer and to make up for the Already inflated NIB price that the END buyer pays NOW and seems to be rising like a price gouging rate. That is just good business.
Why is it to hard to input that in the human mind either at STERN or Pinside . Car/tv/Stereo whatever / such is business 400-25,000 Dollar amount means nothing Nada

? wha.....

100% on this... The knee-jerk "take it to the airwaves" reaction that some people have makes me wonder how those people are interacting with their distributor and Stern. I had a couple of very small cosmetic issues with a recent game purchase... Stern was flat-out awesome and fixed everything after one very short conversation.

If I were Stern and connected the dots on this little bash/b***ch-fest it would be really tempting to tell the OP to go pound sand.

I get the OP's frustration. But take a deep breath and attack this problem without going straight the Internet.

I think the Op is probably starting to realise the posting of this thread hasn't entirely gone the way he has wanted it to.

I will never buy NIB Stern's.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Yep. As a seller I would bend over backwards to make you happy - regardless what you paid. But if you go bad mouth me publicly first, I have no longer got anything to lose. At that point you'd be on your own to fix your problem. And I wouldn't sell you anything again.

It's a brave new world gentlemen. Stern should just assume that *everything* they ship will appear on the internet, good or bad, and do their best to make sure there's a lot less bad than good. Somebody at the Stern plant saw this and thought, whatever, it's Friday. Now you think that they have a right to withhold support because their customer had the audacity to express his disappointment with their product publically? That can only hurt them further. Hopefully Stern is run by professionals and not pentulant little boys.

They should do something to try to make their customer happy quickly, win-win. Then the internet sees that they will stand behind their products, and it turns a bad story into a good one.

Otherwise they lose this customer and probably more, at least eventually as they develop a reputation for not only shipping flawed products, but worse yet not standing behind them when they do.

I dry-brushed my Sparky helmet with black and various metallic paints. I'm not a fan of the "plastic" look.

Doubtful. More likely it wasn't there when it left and when they found out about a cosmetic defect that's only visible during maintenance they decided it's not worth investigating.

OP, did you check your boards carefully? Some of the component label lettering might be scratched. Also look over the wiring harness for insulation damage and extra kinks in the wire. Might as well get everything replaced at once while it's being worked on.

I know you forgot the "sarcasm" tag but you raise a valid concern. With the machine arriving with these known issues, I would worry a bit about what else might be wrong with it, it was obviously subject to some rough handling at some point.

This guy started a thread called "stern nib never again". The customer is already lost so no point helping him further.

This is a definite possible cause. My last modern Stern has a very tight playfield in conjunction with the cabinet.
You have to fandangle a little to get it fully in the down locked position without forcing it, as the tolerances were very close.
However, my AGC games have even tighter cabinet dimensions, and vary from game to game, not just from each manufacturer.

Excellent use of "fandangle" in a thread

I;m completely on what you say! I'm buying my second nib Stern. A GB/pre,and if i have any issues with it,it will be my last nib pin!!

Or I'll buy them and they won't deliver them! Still waiting on GBLE and all I hear are crickets.

Game went to distributor, then to op, then to location. Nobody complained. Churn them and burn them.

LTG : )

Fandangle (noun): a useless or purely ornamental thing.

Which, could easily be a pinball mod (in many cases).

I think he meant finagle? )

Yes, but when the customer files a chargeback with his credit card, the distributor is going to get burned.

No, it was indirect sarcasm related to the posting.
See related verb meaning.
Some people caught the Captain Jack Sparrow moment.
Normal use would be finagle, but this "fit much better".

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fandangle

The actuator on my Frank switch snapped in half.Rather then uninstall then reinstall entire switch body.I "fandangled" a replacement actuator onto the perfectly good switch body.

Exactly. I remember a picture of Addams Family pins coming from Williams that had the side art facing the wrong way. A lot of those went to the operators. I don't know how many went out that way, but it was not an anomaly. (Example below: Most Addam's had the thing hand flicking the ball the other direction. I believe they used two right sides for these cabinets)

The good ole days weren't so perfect.

wrong_way_addams_(resized).jpg

Lloyd!!!!
Vintage arcade guy stuff right there!!!Love that

From what I understand this only happened on early games (mine is like this). One side is correct and the other is backwards this was (supposedly) due to the fact that they did not have "left side" (reversed image) art for early games so "right side" art was used for both sides.

You can also find regular TAF's with a mix of gold and blue (I think blue head, gold body). I was told these games were put together from leftover parts after the TAF gold run was done.

After the record breaking pin came down the line, all Addams after got the gold artwork.

LTG : )

I have bought three NIB Stern games (AC/DC Premium, Iron Man, Ghostbusters LE). While I understand that nothing is perfect, especially in pinball, I do think that the cheapening down of parts and the dodgy QC is disheartening. I had A LOT of issues on my GB LE. I emailed Stern and let them know in a very polite manner. I just wanted them to know that I had received the game in a pretty rough condition (I've detailed those elsewhere), and the reply was totally robotic. "If you have any problems, contact your distributor."

I fixed the problems myself. I broke out the soldering gun and the tools and fixed my problems. I didn't cry out or raise much of a stink, but I let people know I had problems. And honestly, I'd prefer not to buy new again. There's just so much risk in it. Going forward, I'll probably look to buy used until Stern re-establishes a solid record of quality.

I don't expect perfection, but I can usually find something VERY close to it by buying used. That's my route going forward.

Jar155 you're plan sounds very reasonable to me. I'm torn each time something new comes out that I like. I've owned 25 games so far and only 6 have been NIB. That is 3 Stern, 1 JJP, 1 Heighway and 1 Spooky. Having acquired one HUO stern, Mustang, the experience was every bit as good as NIB. I think it likely that I will buy NIB again, but I certainly do it with more caution and less hype.

To be fair, I've not had any major issues with my Sterns out of the box. I'm just thinking out loud about the issue.

Jar155: I like the way you simply corrected the problems and got your game running. What were the things wrong?

My point was that if that were to happen now, if Ghostbusters had reversed art on some of their pins, for whatever reason, there would be a 500 page thread. Justifiable or not, I just wanted people to remember that there has always been manufacturing issues with pins and that it is not a recent thing. With social media, higher prices, and a new targeted customer base, it seems like quality control is a new problem, when it is not.

Many other people have said exactly the same thing, and were flamed for bringing it up, or not being "diplomatic". Reality is a harsh truth when it comes to manufacturing, warranties, expectations, and technical support with these amusement devices. The regulations are not yet written with private home owner consumers being the primary market, regardless of the sway of the times.

NIB game owners without an "extended 1 year warranty" from a distributor need to be savvy and knuckle up. However, this only covers functionality, not cosmetics.

Perhaps in the future distributors will offer "NIB flaw guarantee" options, but right now it is not offered, or at least none that I know. No major distributor in the 90s offered this either. At that time, it was considered completely absurd.

Distributors could offer an extended warranty even if you didn't buy from them. May or may not pay off but might generate some additional income.

I think it is funny that all the same people that say it is no big deal it is just a scratch that can only be seen during maintenance are the same people that would go to buy this pin and then complain about that same scratch and would want money taken off because it isn't "collector" quality anymore. Too funny!

Post #200, is it time for pet pictures?