So, who among us knows Seth?

Never heard of him but I don't follow that closely.

I would assume he has a similar vision as Gary.

Always love a good press release where someone discusses the details their own death.

I thought Jack Danger was going to be new president.

Seems to have the right credentials.

I figured Gomez was being groomed for this role…ouch. An “outsider”.

just keep raising prices and lowering BOM, how hard of a job can it be?

I kind of thought the same thing, but running a company is very different from running a division. So I suspect Gomez's skill set remains most beneficial to the long term vision as VP of Game Design.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't feel a bit like I just got kicked in the nuts if I were him...

I'm shocked they didn't pick Gomez, but who knows, maybe hes too valuable doing what he is doing now, maybe he even turned it down. I wish Seth the best of luck and I'm glad Gary is still committed.

With his background Stern must be thinking they will be making a large amount of money on their new connected services. Get ready for high monthly fees and micro transactions in the future…

Running a company is a very different job than running a design studio. The latter is where most of the creativity happens, and I suspect he likes that job well enough...

Seth had 13 years at Disney, wow!

That doesn't mean much. Disney has a LOT of bad executives. Just as the Theme Park and DVC members.

"Subscription based services" in combination with "disney" (milking everything)" background ...uh...this won't end well for us end consumers wallets

Nothing says customer disapproval like "stop buying".

Then I remembered this hobby and community and couldn't stop laughing at how infinitesimally small that probability is.

His experience with streaming services is pretty scary as I would think that is a potentially crappy road for pinball to walk down. I hope they don't try it because after seeing what this community does I am sure some will bite on that hook.

I reckon it will start with Godzilla..

How many monsters to battle at the moment? 4?
Pay more, unlock more to battle..

This is just the beginning..

Good luck !

Gomez or GTFO! Here comes the Stern+ subscription

It won't just be subscriptions, it'll start there but we're definitely headed toward loot boxes. 1.99 on your Stern insider app for a mystery award! Probably an IPO and an eventual sale to EA to make gambling machines. This guy is bad news, they don't teach classes at the Wharton school about artistry and passion for pinball

"Change"

A Pinside fanfiction horror story:

2022 It will start with subscriptions, then DLC.

By 2025, you will need to pay $29.99/month or your pinball machine won't turn on.

2030, they will install cameras, GPS systems, Alexa, on every machine to track your every move, and how you talk about your pinball machines in front of your friends, and if you install 3rd party art blades or titan rubbers, stern drones will track your machine down and destroy it.

BOM will continue to plummet and more invasive tech will be secretly installed.

By 2035, the shooter rods will double as vaccine needles, and you'll need to be vaccinated against liking Spooky or JJP in order to play your Stern machines.

I'm officially done buying Stern machines .... well, after my Godzilla preorder lands.

"Immediately prior to joining Stern Pinball, Seth served on the executive team responsible for the highly successful subscription-based streaming services, Disney+ and ESPN+. "

deleted

Pretty wild that people will be buying DLC for a 6k+ game...I hope people don't buy but that won't happen.

It's no coincidence they hire a guy whose main forte is a subscription based model days/weeks after they release publicly their new IC solution. Well it was a good ride I guess, not so much for me whose coming on the ride late as I guess I'm coming at the worst possible time.

That last paragraph is hilarious. Love it......

All of you guys that support this insider garbage need to wake up. Insider is literally the beginning of what will become milking season for stern and all of those that sell on their behalf. This new president just cements that vision.

The video game market is already swamped by this type of microtransaction BS and there is no turning back. DLC pinball - here we come.

Already hearing the shills explain I would buy updated code for 1k if they hired someone to work on it! Sure - that makes a ton of sense. Buy code now for 10k and then when the better code comes out, ask for another 1k. Want another mode that we didn't include intentionally in the original code so we could charge $300 later for it? Sure.

Buy Buy Buy!!!!

Rant over but seriously, get ready. It's coming and hopefully everyone begins to see what this all means down the road.

The sad part is a lot of people not only understand this, but welcome it.

BuBuBu PAYING more means we GET, uh... "more"!! And "more" is better! Right? Right.....???

Pretty sure that if offered a new mode for your favorite pinball game....you wouldn't be able to get your cash out quick enough. Take it from me, games like Ghostbusters are only half-finished. A few extra hours of code and you can add so much more fun. Same for any pinball game.

I'm pretty sure they just want subscribers to their Insider service, so any DLC will most likely be free and exclusive. Which means, every man and his dog who owns a Stern pinball machine will sign up.....eventually. Some will bitch and moan for a while, but you will all sign up. They're counting on it.

Gomez is no spring chicken...it wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't carry the same "drag my dead body out of here" philosophy and wishes to actually retire one day. Perhaps sooner than we think? He probably likes exactly where he is right now.

Suspect this is good for Stern, bad for collectors.

He does not strike me as a pinball guy or else they would have said so.

You must be new to video games.

I remember buying $80 SNES and Genesis games back in the day. Games with 1/1000th of the production, gameplay, depth, replayability as $60 games today (before any DLC or microtransactions). Oh sure, some of the classics still hold up, but most were trash compared to today's games.

Also, I'm talking $80 in 1995 money.

$80 in 1995 is ~ $144 today

$144 for a primitive game in 1995

$60 for a AAA video game in 2021

Video game market "crippled"... In 2020, the gaming industry generated $155 billion in revenue - bigger than music and movies... and pinball combined. I mean, what are the combined pinball sales in a year? A few million?

I sincerely hope that pinball can generate even 1% of the video game's "crippled" market, because if Stern brings all the filthy casuals to pinball, that means more competition and consumer choice for JJPs and Spookys and other innovators.

Some of y'all are so terrified of change, I'm surprised you got into a hobby that runs on quarters
snes prices (resized).jpg

Good for me that I only own B/W 90's games and 0 Sterns. This subscription crap sure won't make me any more inclined to get a Stern someday.

Also...new guy has GE on his resume. We have had a number of ex-GE Welch-era people through upper management where I work. They have all been assholes and tyrants, and none of them lasted very long. The company was worse off in their aftermath every time. Here is hoping this does not occur with Stern.

This. GE is not a good company. I know a couple people that work for them and they are basically trapped because they pay high salaries over market rate to keep you stuck in their miserable corporate hell.

I like the amount of work you put into this response (and yes, I was born in the 80s so I get it although I wasn't paying that much for SNES games - I know that for sure!)......but unfortunately you didn't understand my point. The video game industry is doing just fine. I changed the word to swamped so it's clearer - meaning consumers like you and me are getting taken to the cleaners with DLC costs and microtransactions. Games like Call of Duty, which is 60 right off the bat and yet skins/weapon graphics are $24 bucks? Games like RE and others where separate chapters are DLC which should have been in the game. Even free to play games like fortnite - $22 for skins? GTFOOO.

If you don't agree that the DLC approach is ripping people off, well, you're officially too far gone. Although Stern and the Shills selling it all LOVE the suckers.

Dude, dont know where you were buying your games....I was popping $50 a cartridge. I think SF2 or KI were the heavy hitters at $60. I think I do remember KB Toys (notorious for high prices) wanting $74.

Never saw those high prices across all games.

It's amazing, you can literally give a game away for free, and people will still complain...

Yes, some skins are $22. Tell me, what are you missing by not buying that utterly superficial skin?

Is it necessary to the enjoyment of the game, or do you just want it and feel entitled to it?

Same with Call of Duty. Take away all the DLC and microtransactions, are you telling me there is not $60 worth of entertainment on that disc?

Nobody would sell it if nobody was buying it. A $22 skin is a rip off to you. Fair enough. Then don't defend a $5000 pin from the 90s being a rip off to someone else.

.... I literally linked a flyer

Just wait for the game to come out as GOTY edition and get all the DLC packages for free. That's what I did with Fallout.

So says the guy reading a Stern news thread.

If DLC didn't exist we would have all of this content (extra chapters, skins, MP levels, etc) included in the up front price. Get ready now for stern to charge 10k, then ask for $500 or monthly fees for code enhancements that used to be free! And you're happy?

Companies have an incentive to strip out content to sell to us later. Fornite - yes it's free at first but, and get ready, after you add it all up - it's more than it costs if they just charged you the normal price.

Look - I get it. When you say nobody would sell it if nobody was buying it. In other words, suckers will be suckers. Yep - I agree. Now stern is going to push the same sucker model for pinball......and yes, suckers are ready to buy it. It just sucks to watch this unfold.

That looks like a Canadian flyer so the prices are in CAD not USD. USD prices were not that high.

Some DLC has been terrible for video games but there's been plenty that I think actually benefits the player. First off video game development costs have dramatically increased from where it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. One thing that hasn't change in years is the price of games, most consumers can't get past the $60 game price tag. Sony has recently started charging $70 for PS5 games and there's already been a ton of complaints. With today's development cost being so much higher versus years ago that leaves DLC, season passes, battle passes, and microtransactions to generate additional income. Without those items many AAA games wouldn't exist. Also, those items allow a game to continue to grow over months and years versus simply dying out when customers are tired with the base content.

Let's take a look at one example of DLC being done right in video games, and that is CD Projekt Red with The Witcher 3 and the expansions that followed. The Witcher 3 when released was a standard $60 game that offered dozens of hours of content. The two expansions that followed have been extremely well received and deserve the asking price. What the developer didn't do was hold back content from the original games launch or unlock it to sell as DLC later, that's terrible and is an example of DLC done poorly.

What we have to wait and see with Stern is if they will continue to offer rulesets as deep as we've seen on say Jurassic Park and Avengers as part of the games base cost and only then offer additional game content. If Stern goes down that path I don't have a problem with it and would happily pay for more content. However, if Stern purposely limits rulesets that come with base game cost only to sell it later on as DLC then that would be terrible and will upset a ton of customers.

Here we go again. People overreacting before anything at all has happened. If Stern does something shady, then we can all rightfully revolt. Until that happens, let's just calm down and wait. Which I know is a dumb thing to say here.

That's the flyer you used to buy your games in 1995? That's what you're telling me? Cause I asked you "where were you buying your games?" Different places charge different prices.

If not, answer my inquiry or GTFO with your smartass condescending bullshit.