Not to mention that distribution went to nothing, and they sell more games than ever, even in the face of blatant piracy. No, they are not hurting by any stretch of the imagination. The ones getting screwed are the developers, but that is between them and the corporations they work for. It's no different than hollywood saying 'we didn't make any money' to avoid having to pay royalties to screenwriters etc. No, we as the consumer have every right to be against anything that can be manipulated, because it happens all the time. It isn't some tin foil hat conspiracy theory. It's the natural progression that happens when you allow things that are anti-consumer to begin with. If they want to cut costs, maybe not spend hundreds of millions on advertising.

No one complained about expansion packs back in the day, there's reasons for that. People started complaining when it was obvious games were being planned around making people pay for more content from the very beginning.

These games are not the most expensive... they are CHEAP by arcade standards. They cost less up front and operate royalty/commission free.. unlike many other operator pieces these days.

Updates like AC/DC got years later... updates like the Ghostbusters one (vs just bug/balance fixes).. updates like the TWD one.. the GoT one.. Those were feature releases, not simple maintanence. They didn't have to do it.. but they did. We all benefit from it (and hopefully it paid off in customer sat to Stern as well). That's the free ride... getting new and enhanced functionality long after the game is 'done'. People don't want to see that converted to a pay model because they get it for free today.

I get it.. you can't separate your concerns about 'incomplete games' and the idea of future enhancements on a pay-for-play or recurring fee model. But your lack of objectivity does not define the market.

Well, they KIND OF DID have to do it for Ghostbusters, since a FEATURE advertised on the FACTORY rule card was simply NOT IN THE GAME. Took them 3.5 years to deliver the base features on the rule card.

But, generally speaking, carry on.

Game development is riskier now more than ever. Top tier games take tens or even hundreds of millions to produce, sometimes years of time, and then take huge costs to operate and maintain. You do all that what if the game isn't a success? All while trying to compete with others willing to basically give their product away in attempts to seed and develop a microtransaction economy. It's a market people can't navigate without huge assets... so like the Movie industry, consolidation happened.

Costs just shifted - they didn't go down. The complexity of projects increased, the time and resources to make them exploded, and their # of titles decreased. Sure people got away from paying Nintendo their blood money, but that was simple per unit costs on games that they could still afford to pump out many and hope to find a hit. That evolved to fewer, but bigger (and hence riskier) projects. And now instead of simple per unit royalty fees, you have to build an infrastructure to distribute your content or run it... or pay royalties to others to do it for you (apple, steam, EA, etc).

The elimination of media and ROM costs was most certainly significant at the time.. but in the bigger picture we are talking about it's just a bottom line cost that really isn't significant compared to what came after it.

Not significant? Just rom cost to publishers in the SNES/Genesis days were around 50% of the wholesale cost publishers charged retailers AND there were huge upfront order requirements to even get to market. You couldn't just make what you wanted since the lead time was like 3-4 months to get more. You could pave the Golden Gate bridge with the unsold Bill Laimbeer Combat Basketball carts due to those giant initial order requirements and no demand at launch. Those costs dropped to less than 20% of wholesale price in the CD era. That's significant and gave publishers lots of running room until the 2000s when production costs became the big threat to profitability/viability.

As the topic of DLC is continuing I just want to say I’m not in any way pushing for paid DLC. It all depends on the numbers and the product. I don’t pretend to have any knowledge of Sterns costs or financials. Free DLC or subscription based service can be far more lucrative than charging for updates. If you can afford the upfront cost, long term it’s the way to go. Most companies aren’t willing to take that risk or have that ability to carry the debt. All I was trying to share is that DLC works and Stern would be smart to look into it. There is no reason for all this drama and negativity. In its infancy it’s gone wrong but it’s maturing and no one that wants to stay in business fucks over their customer base. When I use the term DLC I kinda assumed everyone knows what it means. It’s Downloadable Content, it’s not patches or bug fixes or code updates. It’s direct to consumer new media, new features, new modes. It would be like adding a season of A show not available in the original machine. I tried to use AC/DC as example with a new mini wizard mode that does not have an insert or any reference in the original machine. No one is for or trying to push Stern to just rip everyone off.

PCB's cost $18 to manufacture in bulk?? You sure about that?

I'll never forget getting SF2 for the SNES; $84.99 at my local Electronics Boutique...My mom happily plunked down her VISA for that one.

As a publisher, you weren't paying COST. You were paying a package price that included royalties to the console manufacturer (well, unless you were Accolade...). It was very expensive with a long lead time. With CD the media cost to the console manufacturer dropped so low that the price to publishers became almost purely a royalty.

Today their main problem is the huge birth of options (and # of games in general) that people have to choose to spend their money on, and free content as well.

so like I said... "but in the bigger picture we are talking about it's just a bottom line cost that really isn't significant compared to what came after it."

It was a huge cost item.. on a project that was far less costly to produce overall. Media was a big percentage of their cost due to the draconian ways Nintendo ran the model.. but in comparison to what came later to even get content created... it was a cost that was dwarfed by new costs and so never represented any big windfall for the publishers. It became 'save on X, but spend a more on Y..' so there were really no net savings and certainly in comparison of the long run. It was a nice oddity of the breakdown of the dominance Nintendo had on the market and what the upstarts like Sony did.

Nothing like filtering though BS posts about whiny giberish and DLC content... This thread is crap, start a new one that is actually about the game in the title....

In the cartridge era... after the Atari/Activision fall-out.. the cartridges were used as leverage by the platform companies to control publishing and royalties. Basically they forced companies to publish on carts provided by the platform company... hence ensuring their point of control and slice of the pie. See the 'Nintendo Seal of Quality'

In case you haven't been keeping up with current events, there's diddly to talk about. Go over to the owners thread and listen to the crickets.

Later.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stranger-things-club-join-our-party

Yup that's why against all logic the N64 still had carts after everyone else went to CD - and publishers left them in droves for that sweet $2 disc game BOM.

My pitch is games ship with a few empty spots (easy for a Stern oh snap) and you pop off the protective cap and that's where you mount the toy that comes with / is related to the future download pack. Toy has probably power, ground and an I2C / CAN bus. For STH Season 3 maybe it's the Scoops Ahoy store or Dustin's radio. GoT maybe it's the dragon arrow launcher or the Night King.

The "new season" code is included with the regular game updates but is encrypted and only unlocked with a cipher hash stored on the toy "dongle".

HAHAHAHA so evil. So brilliant.

The day DLC becomes a thing for pinball is the day I stop buying NIB machines.

Back on topic, anyone experienced a shaker motor on the stranger things pro model yet?

Pretty sure a lot of people said that when Stern announced tiered games. Look how that turned out.

As soon as pins are internet-enabled, it'll be used to create new revenue streams.

Yes played it today.

Spoilers:

The game shakes sometimes.

Playing it a bit more, it’s def in the Aerosmith,GOTG family of games. If you like that style of game, you’ll like this. If you don’t, and prefer Elwin style of games, you probably won’t.

I like the game well enough but for me the entire center is just to be avoided. Shoot the safe shots, get multiball, go through modes, get total isolation. The theme is implemented well, it’s all very stranger things. It’s fast and pretty smooth.

Bonus can also get a little out of hand currently. I had a 600 million bonus en route to a 950 million GC.

Everybody keeps comparing this to AFM
For some
Reason. Well, Afm is better, but that’s true for pretty much every game.

The day DLC becomes available is the day this thread will be about Stranger Things again

Spoiler alert, at least a dozen games better than AFM, probably many more

Yes i've owned AFM

Have you played the premium/LE? When you do, then give me the comparison.

Aerosmith/GOTG family... Ouch.

This game shoots like a dream got to put a ton of play on it last night and it shoots very nice and the sound on it is killer; keep you on the edge of your seat type of shooter

I played this yesterday and walked away feeling pretty GOTG about it.

Ouch? They are fantastic games... and just good pinball fun. Nothing wrong with being compared to these 2 cool titles.

In case you haven't noticed check the title of the thread... Nothing to do with all this DLC garbage that's filling the thread.

Actually, the whole reason that topic got brought up is because of the lack of season 3 assets on the pin. So yes, it has everything to do with it.

Never fails to amaze me how 'me me me' people are on the internet. "Don't talk about things I don't want to talk about or disagree with me, or I'll throw a fit - or be passive aggressive and downvote you even though I didn't read the whole conversation". SMH.

Later.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stranger-things-club-join-our-party

TWD had only a couple seasons in it and you don't see anyone complaining Negan and other characters aren't on it.

It's a fantastic pin for many reasons and it truly doesn't matter there's only a couple seasons of stuff on it.

This is almost exactly what’s happening with RFM. Applejuice has done some pretty sweet code updates and gives them away for free. But some of the features the code updates introduce (shaker & knocker support) require hardware purchases to get full use.

Cipher hashes and the like are not used. And the software is free/donationware. But it’s the same basic concept. DLC is not always paid. It’s not always loot boxes. some people do feel it’s worth paying for.

Official toppers with deep code integration (Munsters) are also a good example of exactly what you are talking about. The topper with the latest code really brings more to the game.

What I would really like to see is when a company truly thinks they are done with a run, code complete, and the last warrantee has expired, they open up the api/tools for folks to do home brew stuff.

I’m not taking hacking and dissembling binaries. I’m talking the Equivalent of when id software open sourced the code to Doom.

I’d love to see more games get new/extended life and play similar to the renaissance occurring with RFM.

TWD also had Lyman.

Oh trust me, I didn't want to even mention because no doubt that he made that pin amazing.

I'm guess what im saying is that if the code can be great and the game fun, no one will care it doesn't have any S3 content. Either way this is Lonnie were talking about. For all we know it's 100% finished to him and he's just going to add a couple sounds and bugfixes then take a vacation from it for 1-2 years

Hate to say that but I think we can all agree that's the one thorn in the games side that we all know is there and is the big "What if" with this one.

The projector in STh is perfect for DLC. The fact you can change stand up targets, drops, ramps, arrows, and the main “screen” to match whatever DLC you install.

Brian Eddy spent most of his career designing software. Understandable he’d merge pinball and software for this game.

Gah! Stop giving Stern ideas. It's bad enough it takes them so damn long to finish code on games we've already paid for. I can, unfortunately, imagine the hell on earth that would become DLC for pinballs. You want to pay 20k for pinballs that should be 6k? This is how you do it.

I would however happily accept a 2.0+ release with new season content if they manage to sell a good number of games. Maybe make up for several of the code duds they've had over the years.

priah-ferguson-stranger-things (resized).jpg

I don’t think Stern need me to give them any ideas on how to make money.

Also, cleland worked his magic and brought callouts from other seasons (like Neegan) and made the game a lot better.

I actually did my own sound package for TWD as well, I think last time I checked over 350 people downloaded it from my link too. I had added the Negan whistle, new music, and a ton of updated callouts for it.

If I end up getting this game, I'll likely fire up pinball browser and do my own mix as another option to cleland's

Blah blah blah, show us the damn premium/LE already...
Pretty please?

DLC is a good thing from renewability and asset adding.
It´s a bad thing if originals are crap, and you almost need dlc content to have a viable funny game.

Good part:
If you love the beatles pin, how wouldn´t pay a 100$ to have 10 additional songs and game modes?
If you love pirates, who wouldnt pay a 100$ for the original music and clips with actors from the film?
Or a wonka with the musical music and synched gene wilder clips assisting game play?

Or even new dlc added to support new buyable additional mechs, instead of just the usual mcdonalds happy mealésque mods?

Theese are extremely expensive toy, that takes up alot of space to boot. Why not make whatever to up their enjoyment and prolonger it.

On the qc issues..... Well it´s a fucking disgrace.

If you buy a Beatles machine that is clearly labeled "includes X songs", and you can buy additional content, that's great.

If you buy a PotC machine and can buy the original music & clips... that is not great because it should have been in the machine in the first place.
Some goes for Wonka.

This is a very, very fine line.

I'd be ok if Stern would offer the possibility to add Seasons 3 + 4 of Stranger Things in the far away future.
Or a major Code update up to Season 8 for GoT.
It's more like Re-Releasing those game in a new edition and existing customers can upgrade.
Like CGC did with MMR Royal Edition, altough that is a hardware thing.

Yeah that's just creepy....

Ketchup on waffles is definitely creepy.

That’s Valentine’s Day for the misses sorted, thank you!

Think I just found my topper.

Just wait for when your $500 DLC “upgrade” fries your $300 node board that’s out of warranty.

The idea of paying for Stern code is tone deaf. This is Stern CODE we’re talking about here. So Stern continues to release games with unfinished code...and leaves then unfinished while selling updates to other, older games? It takes Stern years to code a game once, and now we’re talking about the equivalent of coding the game twice?

And wait for it....LIMITED EDITION DLC! Only 500 available!

Think of the resale market then! Especially if some of the DLC sucks. People will want hundreds more for their games, just like mods.

Bad idea people.

In regards to DLC a video game cost $60 and a season pass $30 - $40. A year later a game of the year, ultimate, or whatever edition can be found for $40 that includes the base game and all DLC. As others have mentioned DLC for video games was created in part to get around the $60 price point that consumers have been used to paying for video games for over 20 years.

A new pinball machine is now $6k - $15k and unlike video games we've seen regular price increases for over 10 years. I've always looked at the cost of a NIB pin as including a complete, deep, and unique code offering considering the high price. Would we pay $500 to enable ABS on our cars when it's a standard feature today? Hell no. DLC for a $6k - $15k pinball machine of all things would result in manufacturers including less code upfront for games and locking code for what we expect today behind a pay wall. Instead of 40 modes on Stranger Things today for $6k - $9k you will get 10 modes and several 10 mode content packs for $100 - $500 each. At today's already record high prices that seems insane.