If everything is an LE, then nothing is, right? Can something even be an LE if there's no lower tier for it to be above?

Despite the media frenzy, the current inflation is not as scary as it looks. Remember it's quoted in year-over-year numbers. Economic numbers for the first half of 2021 were artificially low because demand for everything was still suppressed from the pandemic. The first-half 2022 numbers are really being compared to the artificially low 2021 baseline. What's really happening is mostly that we're processing a backlog of inflation from pent-up demand that didn't happen during the pandemic year-plus.

As for pins, it's all supply and demand. Pricing will calm down for anything that had new production runs where Stern cleared out the backlog of demand. Pricing will never drop for older pins where there will always be demand but never any more supply.

This is what Stern did with the home-pin line, and everybody around here dumps on those.

The compulsion to show off status by having the best bling is far stronger than any compulsion to be economical.

It's probably possible that someone could make a $4000 pin designed for low materials/development/licensing costs, and clear a profit of a few hundred or so per unit.

But nobody is going to do that when they could make $8000 or $10000 pins instead and profit multiple thousand per unit.

Heck, for JJP, $10000 isn't enough, they've decided they profit more at the $12000 price level.

Stern's home-pin line probably has most of what the market wants in the $4k-$5k price range.

If you're pointing to AFM and MM as successes of non-licensed themes, you're cherry-picking. The absolute best of the best non-licensed titles can succeed, yes. But by and large, non-licensed themes are less popular and more forgettable. For every AFM and MM, there are loads more forgettable non-licenses like Champion Pub or NGG or whatever. You just don't remember them so they don't enter the discussion.

It's a bias of selective perception - you only notice the few successes, you don't notice the duds - but the company's balance sheet certainly does.

This is all true... for Medieval Madness in particular, and not at all for nonlicensed pins in general. MM is a wild outlier exception, not a rule that any other nonlicensed pin can expect to follow. For every MM, there's a dozen nonlicenses like say BKSOR or the American Pinball titles that went completely unnoticed by the public.

Godzilla is the highest production, but also the highest demand. It's an outlier, not a baseline.

Probably the best comparable for high-prod high-demand is Star Wars. Prices on that haven't been crashing.