I feel exactly the same way. I bought a DP premium in 2018 was my first NIB and what a disappointment in QC the playfield was dimples galore on day 1 right out of the box and cheap switches breaking rubbers popping/breaking off and post sleeves not much thicker than paper (ok that’s a little bit of an exaggeration) but still. Shitty experience when you spend so much. I’m dreading the day a pin comes out that I really really want to buy from Stern. JP comes close but not enough.

I too look through these new Stern game threads to see the QC issues that are surfacing and it doesn’t look like they are changing their ways, unfortunately.

Right now I’m happy my next NIB will be Spooky’s Rick and Morty and I think it will be (definitely hope) it will be a better experience! We’ll see in November when I get it.

That's all we can do as a consumer is stop buying their product and hope that other consumers do the same, which would force changes. It's a shame because I love Stern games, own a couple and would love to purchase more of new Stern games.

This is my opinion only;

Stern has been riding the pinball resurgence bubble the last few years (or more) and they don't seem to care about the consumer that much anymore, if any at all. Like any other other greedy corporation they are trying to increase their profits while cutting their costs at the consumers expense. They have been giving less for more money on the pinball machines and they are getting even more greedy now with the whole mods, toppers and BS secret content if you buy their mods/add ons... I can go on and on.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens with covid and the effects that will have on business lost to Stern by arcades and machine routers.
Maybe none but if the majority of purchasers are people like us then maybe they will have to change their ways. (One can only hope)

That will never happen!

Except for now because if covid...
At least the people that don’t buy pinball machines.

item sold