So, it is the price that has you all bent out of shape?
I picked up a tidbit of speculative info. on another post. This is CPR play fields talking.
Here is the link. The relevant post is post #53
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cpr-playfield-preorders-are-meaningless/page/2
In the last paragraph, CPR is talking about royalties and license fees as part of the cost of making and selling repro play fields.
RE: " In some cases royalties and licensing alone can cost as high as 25% of the full retail value of the PF."
Obviously, I have no idea of what Stern had to pay The Beatles for the privilege to make The Beatles pinball machine. Considering the amount of time it took Apple Computer to get The Beatles songs on iTunes, plus the fact that The Beatles got hosed by their record companies (like most bands), and that Stern needed The Beatles more than The Beatles need Stern ( I doubt that Ringo and Paul were just jumping at the chance to be on a pinball machine), I'm guessing Stern has had to pony up in the 25% range; If you have another percentage, bring it.
Using 25% as constant, $6300.00 + $1575.00 (25%)= $7875.00. So, Stern does all of the work. Makes the design. Takes all the risk to produced this pin. The distros take all the risk to inventory and sell this pin. And The Beatles Store just sits back and collect royalty checks. For those of you who have called Stern greedy, what is your take on The Beatles Store? Is The Store singing "All you need is Love" like they are a bunch of hippies? Or is The Store singing "Money, that's what I want"?
Stern could have told The Beatles to take a hike, and just done a remake of Seawitch. There would be no music but the pin would still play like The Beatles with all of the 21 Century upgrades. And nobody here would even be interested in a $6300.00 Seawitch.
I just think people should think twice before they start shouting that Stern is trying to bend everybody over.