True. I can’t even imagine being able to buy IMDN nib, so many years after release. FF pro and IMDN pro sitting side by side for $14k would be a perfect entry into pinball ownership. If budget allowed for a third pin, a HUO JJP could scratch that itch for $8k. Pinball has never been so cheap

edit - realizing most people consider buying a brand new pinball machine for $2k as stupid and if they learn you paid $10k they think you’re a fool.

I really feel like it has to do with how long the license is good for really. Cause if the pin keeps selling out without issue, they have no reason to stop making it. Folks keep saying how does Star Wars keep getting made, but like it still sells just fine, and if their expensive license allows them to make more, they have no reason to stop. Every distro around here has sold all their Star Wars they got on their last runs, and they had plentiful stock ordered too, the big distro around here had rows of them NIB from last time. All sold, all the while the local dealers are sitting on unsold LZ and TMNT units still from before Star Wars' last run. Game running for 5 years now and even with a healthy supply, the local dealers moved them fairly easily.

Iron Maiden is a highly rated game, and sells well every time cause of it's popularity in the pinball community. As long as demand is there, really only reason to stop making the pins is if the licensing contract is expiring or reaching a set limit of production.

Pinball Map occasionally publishes most popular games on location and Star Wars crushes it

There are probably so many Star Wars sitting in homes without any other pins, shoved into a corner with the other typical "gameroom" stuff that only occasionally gets used after the first month.

Star wars is such a popular theme, Stern or JJP could release another new design pin and it would also crush sales, they could even do an individual movie like Empire. I do like that the current Stern has all the original movies.

I said "one of the". I have no doubt Star Wars is higher. GZ might be the most produced game in 20+ years when its done though. In just a year and a half they've made at least 7000 i'd guess

I think there's two reasons they stop making pins:
low sales, license requirement
and two reasons they keep making pins:
good sales, license requirement.

I'm curious if they actually HAVE to keep making a pin sometimes, despite there not being too much demand.

Your local dealer may be sold out of star wars, but you can see even here on pinside, some dealers are still sitting on it 6 months after the last run. Compare that to deadpool/iron maiden which have been out a similar amount of time but probably have their next runs almost sold out already. So why run Star Wars again instead of even more JP/DP/IDMN if you're trying to cash in before licenses expire? (or GZ because GZ) Maybe they have to.

Glorious Green: https://twitter.com/sternpinball/status/1644386918874898432?s=46&t=Nu7xtfnUIHFoLdV0GcVeYw

LE’s on the line. Can’t wait to get mine

Stern make building pins look easy. Their workforce is highly-skilled and well-trained. It also shows me when an LE is on the line, each pin is earning Stern $10k of gross margin.

FF is one of the few titles I’d consider paying this money for an LE. Alas, even it can’t convince me. At least the employees tend to acknowledge the LE’s lofty price and take good care of them.

Isn’t this true of anything? If you don’t like mandrills you will hate Grand Lizard.

If dealers are buying the machines and still selling, I think it's a matter of getting their money's worth as well. Star Wars probably cost them a ton to lock up for pinball, they are gonna milk it as much as they can. I know in tabletop from folks who worked on the IP in the past, there was not requirements on units sold, but merely time based, and because of that the company went nuts with Star Wars game releases, slapping the theme on every single theme and releasing as much product as possible till the last minute cause of said time limit. How the contract for the pin is of course who knows, but if it's selling fine, then I can see them trying to just maximize their sales cause of their time constraints, whereas other pins with maybe less demand aren't as time sensitive and they can take their sweet time.

And some of it I imagine has to be with timing of planning of parts and delivery of said components which would take ordering far in advanced. Like they probably expected Bond to have sold better, almost every dealer is sitting on unsold stock, yet we got more being run soon? Seems like they had planned in advance expecting this to have sold better, so they just timewise are kind of stuck with incoming parts. Why not move back stuff? Well space is always an issue in manufacturing too, so if they got parts for a ton of machines laying about, it's gonna be messy. Course we can only speculate on alot of this but it's also the nature of the beast when your running manufacturing on several product lines at once, which most pinball companies aren't doing, stern juggles far more product than anyone so theres going to be mistakes and problems along the way.

Played a number of games on a FF Pro today at ULEK arcade here in Michigan. I really enjoyed it. As most have noted, it's fast, flowy and fun shots. Looking forward to my LE even more than I was before, I came away from today liking everything about it.

I don't remember if it was mentioned here or the Owner's thread (or both) but the plastics at the top of the two ramps are apparently prone to failing. David from ULEK has replacement pieces for both made from PETG. They were in the Pro I played today and look like factory parts aside from maybe a little less polished edges. Yes, Stern should fix this but in the meantime it sounds like he's had really good luck so far with the PETG replacements on location. I grabbed a set for my incoming LE while I was there.

good to know he has some in stock there. I'm planning to pick up a set too but I haven't been able to make it down to Monroe for a bit

Just got done at Tilt llit same exact feelings as you on this FF never played a game that just makes me happy shot after flowing shot. So fun. Tank game was mindless fun.

I wanted SD to work so bad, that huge upper playfield and hate to say the purple dongs um me no likeee.

Couldn’t agree more, Foo premium on the way

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Got some plays on FF, and the machine I played was woooorked. Heavy left lean, plunge would either half ramp the center ramp or surprisingly go around the upper loop. All my drains were out the left lane, no rubbers and the sdtm kick targets made it feel like ghost busters with an upper flipper. Tilted trying to unstuck the ball from behind the van ramp, and not one of my kafooms went up anything. Regardless of all that put in 15 bucks and played for like 2 hours. Amazing sign if it's limping and lurching and still cant stop playing it!! Would have spent 20 if I wasn't trying to not bogart the pin.

Crawl underneath and level it up for him

Exactly what I was thinking, and I would have done it!

I've done it, should of had gloves for a dirty floor

Not when you are Hay Farmer! Wtf??

Looking forward to playing this at next level at the end of the month. They tend to take really good care of their machine's.

Yes they do, gettin our le there,,,,,,,soon I hope!

Just sad with some games on location, played Elvira 3 plays for $2 and got 2 free games however it was so out of wack I actually didn’t want to continue and left with a credit left.

I'm considering picking up the PinMonk flipper fans for this game because of how flippy rapid fire this thing plays. What's the consensus here? Are they worth it? Need it for the 3rd flipper? And if so, can I just get the kit attached to Bond or Rush or should I wait until there's one made for FF?

I bet LE's will start shipping soon because right now is literally the most inconvenient time for me to have a new pin arrive.

I am going into this with the assumption it'll help. From what I gather, that's the general rule on new sterns and I don't see this being an exception. I picked up the three flipper pack because, at that point, I may as well just install three.

To clarify, they don’t keep mod parts at the Arcade but I happened to catch David there and he was able to bring me a set. Best to order online or arrange in advance to pick them up.

My friend just wired up a few cheap computer fans for his Godzilla and it worked great, so I’m going to copy his.

Foo along with IMDN and DP will be perfection for me.

I had the opposite plan, sold my IM to buy a FF. No regrets.

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Sold Maiden to keep LZ?! Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria!

Agreed! Odd Choice. LZ is a dog imo. Booooring!

I love me some LZ .Straight pinball , no BS .I sold our prem because kids weren’t playing said “nothing to do “ . Yeah nothing to do ….minus ripping killer pinball shots and perhaps the baddest spinner in all of pinball ! I’ll get another one day .I also sold RushLE for GZprem and now MET prem for FFprem .All this while Alien LV stays here .Go figure .If you have not played a true Alien LV with all the tweaks sorted out and pitched to high heaven you don’t know what your missing ,mostly now at used pricing .Also I leave that spot (of 4 total ) for something other than a modern Stern .I’m at 4 until both kids get sorted and they’re only 14/15 .I couldn’t manage more than that now anyway .We’ll, 5 is the actual limit I was given haha

Some pins are easier to sell in a short time

While others can only be moved at a significant loss

LZ is fine, just not for the sticker price. There’s plenty of sys11 games you can find for $2-3k that are good pinball. At $6k+ I need more.

My FF will reside with DP and GZ, among many others..but to me, that’s my trifecta. Definitely IMN good call as well.

I don't mind the FF theme and thought the previews looked great. I had played a GZ pro before and was kind of meh on it.

But then then I played (both) FF, and GZ prem the same weekend and found I preferred GZ more...but...I really thought that both games were similar in play feeling. I would think both in the same collection would be way too close. Anyone else see this?

With the premiums , there is some similarity but you can probably take any 2 Sterns and find some parts that are close to each other and I’d imagine the upper PF will set them apart .If they end up being too similar one will have to go eventually for me anyway ,but I’ll cross that bridge if I ever get to it

FF reminds me a lot more of Deadpool than Godzilla. A lot of it is the rules, but you can tell that a lot of the FF design was inspired by Deadpool since that's Jack's favorite game. FF is like a 3 flipper Deadpool but with more flow and shorter balltimes. I think the majority of players would prefer GZ to FF just because it is more player friendly (much longer balltimes) and easier to progress. GZ also has more interactive toys. My preference is FF just because GZ seems like there's too much going on and gametimes are too long. I do think both games can coexist in a lineup just fine.

I see. Only played DP once a long time ago and don't remember much about it so I can't compare to that.

I’ll have FF LE lined up with Bond Prem and Godzilla Prem, which I think will be a nice lineup for variety. Long ball/game times on GZ, fun shooter with shorter ball times on Bond and FF as the flow monster music pin. Should be fun for friends and family, with good stuff to choose from.

I'm torn. I have GZ and FFle is on the way. Its been between Bond and Deadpool right now to either compliment or break them up. And I have LZle and love it. Yup super simple but just a nice break to shoot the ramps and spinners.

To all those who say LZ is boring, take a 40x ( or higher as it is limitless ) multiplier into a multiball and watch your heart rate go sky high!

Pro for my home coming on Tuesday. Can’t wait!

I would go with Bond. GZ and FF have a lot of the same type of rules as DP, just deeper. Bond is a totally different game and does shoot nice in my opinion. Just need some code

I saw a youtube gameplay video today. The guy was really gushing on the game and his buddy chimed in saying, " ...and whats neat about the wireforms is that their made of metal, no plastic." Lol, If you are reading this, thank you.

I allowed myself to play a couple games of FF pro today at Coup De Ville in Pittsburgh today...I dont want to spoil my premium arrival. It is definitely a thoroughly enjoyable game. Even better yet, my wife absolutely loved it right out of the gate and is now asking how soon the premium comes home!

We ALL are!

Happy Wife Happy Life

You bring up a good topic Zab..and I have GZ Premium (just got it!) and DP premium. Those two are completely different ‘beasts’ pun intended. So I imagine FF will be a blend of the two, like someone a few replies up mentioned. However with IM (don’t own) would greatly match with the video assets. They all have a few similarities but I will say again that GZ and DP play wildly different from each other, which is nice.

Maybe its more fun for me as I can customize the music to my liking? Probably the best music of any pin I own, hands down.