Has the new Stern of the Union newsletter been released yet? I'm one of the guys hoping for more Ghostbusters news.

Hope new Star Wars code!!

It's there:

http://www.sternpinball.com/community/stern-of-the-union-address-february-2018

Congrats to New York's own Tim Sexton on joining the Stern team. Hopefully this doesn't take too much time away from his duties at Never Beef Productions and the New York City Pinball Championships, but I think there's enough Sexton to go around. Nice to see that Stern is committing to code by bringing in more talented software engineers!

Jesus, that was a weak update.

Really? Beefing up the software team with THREE talented additions, to address the single-most bitched about thing when it comes to Stern (software), isn't enough for you?

This is the seed from which a mighty oak will grow forth!

Copy and past on code updates. That's getting old.

I've been accused of being a Stern fanboy on here, but it's hard to be with those kind of updates.

They hired three new people for their software department. Much bigger news than if they had added a mode to KISS. Biggest news they've had in a while, actually.

Code update is a joke. Terrible. Where is GB!!??

That is excellent news.

GREAT NEWS on 3 more software hires!!!!!!!!!!!

Love seeing that!!! That is real action to show they know that they are behind the 8 ball on code issues.

Stern should go back to silence, because they tried and all everyone does is still bitch.

I think this great news! Haters will hate, but I like the communication. More coders = quicker updates in the near future.

When has throwing people at a problem helped much? You've obviously never led a software development project.

It isn't speeding up that Star Wars topper either.

I've stuck up for Stern longer than most around here. My patience is getting thin.

For me (since you're not asking), it is. For anyone that does software for a living I don;t think it will because more people won't help anything get done faster...so they keep telling us here

EDIT: As i was posting no less!

Until Stern has updates ready to go they should probably remain silent.

The new additions to the software team are great, and I love seeing a UI/UX guy on there. Hopefully this doesn't just improve code frequency, but sees that games are shipped with much better initial code. It would be amazing if Stern was working on better tools to improve their code development atmosphere, and these hires point to them trying to do just that.

Stern has what appears to be a big backlog on code.

No, I've never led a software development project before. I guess I'm wrong in assuming more people can help them get through that backlog quicker?

I don't really care, just trying to make everyone feel better. I see a little part of their souls die every time a new Ghostbusters code update isn't announced. )-:

Wow congrats to Tim Sexton great news to read.

Announcement says that the Star Wars side blades and armor are for sale but I don't see them on their site. Anyone have a link to the product?

Edit: just saw this thread:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-wars-side-art-and-armor-now-available-from-stern

Here, here. That's a ballsy hire by Stern.

#SternBalls

Great news..

Congrats Tim! I always enjoy listening to his podcast appearances. He has a great knowledge for rulesets and ways to improve them. Excited to see what he brings to Stern!

Listening to pinsiders ( ) whom work in software it would seem you are. Strange to me as well.

In that case they should fire all their software guys except one and get this stuff done REALLY fast!

It is good news that they have hired more people to code games.

I just hope they make good on their promises on KISS, AS and GB in that they are all decent updates.

I really want to buy Iron Maiden and the only thing stopping me will be the code - everything else should be good enough.

Few people, a lot of people....I have my doubts whether it will make a difference.

I’m sure with the new hires we’ll see Kiss, GB and Aerosmith updates out in first half of this year. Folks just need to be a little patient. Congrats to Tim!

I’ve done more than lead a software project, I’ve build and sold a highly successly software company, so while I lack credibility in many aspects of life, this isn’t one of them.

You need developers to pump out code and there’s a practical limitation for each resource. ”Throwing bodies” at a problem isn’t the same as increasing staffing to meet new challenges, increasingly complex code, evolving buyer expectations, and a steady stream of new machines.

Customers have limited to no visibility into platform maintenance and overhead associated with the “back end”.

I’m not a fan of the Stern product there isn’t a single unit among my seven pins. That said, Crazy Levi is right, Stern is investing and that’s a good thing. Three new FTE’s is a big deal for a company of Stern’s size.

Good for Stern and good for the Pinball ecosystem.

Here is a copy and paste of the important part.

Stern family grows:

Stern is excited to announce several new members to our software team. Tim Sexton, an avid competitive player (currently ranked 45th in the world), joins us with several years’ experience as a firmware engineer at IBM. Rick Naegele also joins us, bringing nearly two decades’ worth of experience as a software engineer for publishers Midway Games and Electronic Arts. Lastly, Brett Rubin brings over a decade of experience as a software engineer in the video game industry working in tools development, graphical user interface design, and workflow streamlining. Tim, Rick, and Brett are beyond excited for this opportunity and will be working with the talented programming team to push more content and updates out for released and future titles. Welcome to Stern, Tim, Rick, and Brett!

Tim, Rick, and Brett are beyond excited!!!!

Thanks for the support, everyone! Hope to deliver some great code to you guys!

WHERE IS IT, TIM?! WHY HAVE YOU JUST BEEN SITTING ON PINSIDE ALL DAY? GET ME NEW MODES.

Still no final AC/DC code.... that s*cks.
No question, the code is great at the momentary state, but still incomplete (cannon inserts) and there are so many poissible improvements ( lower playfield in conjunctiosn with upper playfield for example) that it would be a shame do not release another update.
But what is most confusing to me: if "I" would release a vault edition of a game, i would do a huge code improvement for sur, because so, the owners of the "original" machines would NOT sell theirs and new customers come in.

Well, maybe thats "german" thinking.

Hey look. It's a Stern employee posting on pinside! Haven't seen that for a while!

Congratulations good luck. Hopefully GOTG and GB code soon.

So I'm pretty sure the UI guy was hired for Spike menus at a minimum. They are currently using DMD-era menus and dots. This is great, as long as they realize this is second priority to actual game code.

Tim get them to make kitchen knightmares and property Brothers Pinball like we talked about at OBX lol. Again congrats on getting the job.
Aleksander

It sure would help sales of AC/DC vault to release a final update.

The game is done, let it go. There will never be cannon modes, Lyman has said there were an idea and they weren't fun and he scrapped them.

The answer is, it depends.

There is an entire book dedicated to the phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

I had to read it in college; it was almost 20 years old at that point. 25 years later and now a manager as well, it's just as true as it was 40+ years ago.

I don't expect anyone will actually pick it up and check it out, but the summary is it's complicated because it involves ramp-up times, additional integrations, more cooks issues, etc. etc.

3 FTEs is a great step forward for Stern.
Let us hope that this does not lead to price increases again to recover the costs associated.

I was really looking forward to Jurassic World, but it appears this is not due out this year.

Stay Tuned, Right?

But its also the justification of why 'a few super heros' (or control freaks..) carrying most of the load is bad because they become bottlenecks and you can't scale... even if you want to. Breaking those dependencies is the responsibility of the leadership so that you do become more scaler and adaptable. From past commentary, it would suggest Stern is classically throttled by choke points due to under staffing... not just 'we need to figure out how to double productivity' (which is the usual application of the fallacy of more people = linear gains).

I mean, it takes time to enable others so you don't all go through the same choke points... but I mean it's been since Gomez revamped the team around x-men timeframe right?

Realistically, you don't know the licensing costs and hardware BOM costs for this game, so how can you state it was a disaster?

Rob

It doesnt take a genius to look at that thing. and realized stern thought these things were going to sell like hot cakes due to the license alone and to compensate for th bs alone they offered le buyer the 3 backglasses. Not to mention taking out the shaker...i could go on but its been hashed out in other threads

So the original idea wasn't fun, but I don't think that means it is ok to just leave the inserts unused then. I bought the game (when still in production, before code was 'done') expecting something fun to be done with those inserts, not for them to just be useless. Nobody is criticizing Lyman or Steve, but I don't think it's not unreasonable to expect the special inserts on a game to have some purpose, and within a reasonable timeframe not running into several years of silence. But, it is what it is.... It would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath....

Rob

Yeah the price sucked... But for me I wanted the game so I ponied up the change. I would not do it for many other games. I'm happy with my game so that's what matters to me.

Rob

I have a blast playing my premium. I'm sorry that some of you guys count the cost of each part so much that it doesn't even allow you to enjoy new games anymore. Dwight killed the code on SW.

Keep in mind that this is the same person who recently complained about Walking Dead code.
Some people just dont like Stern games. What can you do?

Great news ! Can't wait to see the next NIB price hike to "make up" for the new hires...