Think you are being a bit disingenuous. Almost doubling the price of this kind of topper (by this kind I mean similar to their Deadpool, Beatles and Iron Maiden toppers) and beginning the practice of making customers pay cash for extra modes is worth discussing on a pinball forum imo. If not, what is?

As someone who bought a NIB JP Premium and was looking forward to the topper for no other reason than I think they're fun, I am disappointed with these changes and feel it is a shafting of the home collector market. Not looking to burn anything down, so feeling pretty sane, still think it sucks.

I do agree, "Buy or don't" is it in a nutshell, just not sure why Stern seems to want to push more buyers into the "don't" group with stuff like this.

All this goat talk has me intrigued.

I think its the fact they are going to start charging for modes, regardless if they suck or not. The topper is irrelevant to me, i dont own JP.

At the end of the day Stern (and other companies) will do this sort of thing until such time as their bottom line is affected. That’s the normal behaviour for a profit seeking enterprise.

When a sufficiently large proportion of their customers don’t buy the next pinball they release, because it’s gone up $X in price, or some addon they sell that was probably conceived early in development, like the Stranger Things UV or this topper, and held back from the LE, that’s when they’ll take notice, not before.

There is evidence on here and elsewhere that people who complain about this stuff still go on to buy the next thing. drfrightner has been one of the most outspoken on this thread, yet by his own admission he bought Stranger Things LE, got burnt by the UV kit addon, but then bought Jurassic Park LE anyway. Not exactly the most logical strategy to make your point about nickel and dimeing customers...

Stern are beholden to their investors. They are not duty bound to “do pinball owners a favour” and give them things they appear willing to buy for more money. That is market forces at work. The only way that will ever change is if sufficient numbers of people actually DO stop buying their products, not grandstanding on forums, particularly when these principals seem to last until the next theme comes along.

Gary Stern is pushing 80. He has one goal, and thats to make as much $$$ in as short amount of time as possible. What the customer wants or feels is fair is secondary.

Amen. Stern could have made twice as many toppers with the mode, sold them at a reasonable price, and everyone would be happy. This simply feels bad to many people. How much is Stern going to make off this topper? Was it really worth it? Why can’t it be a win/win?

One of the best pinside posts ever.

Thanks.

I Dont get it.
Someone has issues with pricing on product and strategier for selling them.
Someone steps in with an attack on personality level and this get all upvotes?
Is this pinside or just another internetsite for bullying?

So many posts to quote and not sure which lol. I am not a fan of buying a topper after the game is released, however a topper that interacts with the game in some way is awesome. The #1 that sticks out to me is Dr. Who. Anyone that has ever been to any show that has pinball (LAX, Chicago Expo, Replay, etc.) will completely agree that YOU KNOW when someone is killing some Daleks lol.

I can't wait to see the Munsters topper in action personally, as a Raven giving you crap sounds amazing.

All of that being said, I think this is the first where the topper actually unlocks another mode in the play of the game itself (which technically not DLC btw, but not taking that argument on. I mean it is not like it is downloading the feature real-time), which I applaud for Stern thinking out of the box and giving something extra to the topper buyer people. Worth $600? I don't think so, but I am not a topper purchaser either. However, collectors many years from now looking for the Complete JP2 offering? I can see that too.

I just hope the people that bought this game still love this game no matter if they bought the topper or not. It has so much to offer without it. Enjoy it. Especially if you are lucky enough to have the game and can play it during a pandemic

No or yes, yes and no? I know one thing, when I come to pinside, I try not to be so sensitive...

On a forum where Bully-posts get all the upvotes, that's probably a sensible thing.

Well...I am out on this topper.

$600 for a bunch of goats that you can’t even make faint! They should have at least included goat shots that you could shoot and the goat would faint. Or maybe fainting Dino’s?

To me, the goats are just laughing at you. Baaaaaa baaaaaaa You can’t make me faint. Baaaaa baaaaa You suck.

LOL

On the other hand, I am not in favor of DLC for a pin. It will only expand from there, just like video games did. I won’t buy a pin that I have to buy DLC years down the road for. Another manufacturer will get my monies.

If people are rushing to buy a $50 piece of plastic with a crappy goat mode for $600. Why wouldn’t Stern keep churning stuff like this out. I don’t agree with this but obviously it’s working for them so why would they stop?

Do we have any clue how many have been sold?

Sweet Topper ! Looks better then White water
Fish Tales , Attack from Mars LE

Cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap

I agree. prices are growing so much that pinball folks no longer perceive the hobby in the same way. Many of us can’t follow this race and can’t afford nib games anymore.
So It is not just a game or a toy like any other material good, it is the limit of a financial investment, and then loosing money when you open the box is not accepted any longer.

However, many people are buying toppers for 200-300$ in the mod market
Stern is not stupid, lets add 300$ more and you have one more mode.

And maybe this topper with its goat mode is just a test and in the future we'll see better modes you can buy with add-ons.

It takes balls to do something like this during such rough economic times. Stern is a very greedy company that doesn't give two shits about their customers.

who are you to despise this person so much?
who are you to say that this person deserves to be in the hobby or not?

It really has nothing to do with the economy....they know the same person that will spend 6k-9k on a NIB pinball machine without even thinking twice about it can surely afford and will buy a $600 topper.

To delete.

Some imaginary napkin math. Let's say the topper costs $200 to make.

Scenario 1: MSRP $300, sell 200 units, $2,000 profit
Scenario 2: MSRP $600, sell 100 units, $4,000 profit

Math are little different here in Europe
Scénario 1: 20000$ profit
Scénario 2: 40000$ Profit

I've received a few PMs over the years from people too ashamed to make their case publicly, or who want to continue some petty squabble well past its expiration date. In either case, if you can't say it to the whole class, don't waste my time.

Yancy, for my information, what was the selling price of JP LE in the US tax included?
Thanks

No idea.

Dr Freightner is an acquired taste. You can check his stats pretty quick and see not everyone gets along with him , for whateverr that's worth. Beelzeboob I think has rep as a pretty nice stable guy so the whole European bully angle is a bit off IMO.

Thumbs Up 2,252 - Down2,383 - Ratio48.6%

But maybe, like Jerry Lewis, he's big in France?

This opinion, that people only obsessed with the resale value of machines are a strain on the hobby, is a common one and been around for a long time. At the very least, it's a super boring ass angle.

I've dabbled in several hobbies in my time, and the collectible/rarity/resale-obsessed dorks ruin every one of them. YMMV.

Maybe it's a language barrier thing. If you guys really think that what I said is bullying, we have differing ideas about what bullying is. I said that my opinion was that he was in the hobby for entirely the wrong reason, and that I don't like to be around people like that because they ruin the hobby for other people (like me) who are in the hobby because they love it...not for financial gain. But if you STILL think that's bullying, then I'm glad that there's an ocean separating us geographically, because there seems to be one idealistically as well. If either of you actually knew me personally rather than judging me from one Pinside post, you'd feel like a complete jackass for seeing how wrong you were. And that statement? Also not bullying.

Thanks to TheLaw for being the voice of reason.

I would ignore as your post was perfectly fine....some people don't like hearing the truth

First, I think they would more than double sales if it was only $300. Second, I hope it cost less than $200 to make or they messed up.

The truth is without real math it doesn't matter because we don't know how much it cost and how many they will sell. I do know it has generated enough bad PR to not make it worth a small monetary gain. It's the reason Spooky gave people a topper, their business is built on good PR and community respect.

Licensing, art, code development cost for the lightshow & new mode, etc. It adds up.

Does Stern build their toppers and accessories in house or do they outsource? That could make a difference too.

The art and code were already done best I can tell. The mode is just the Nedry mode but with goat noises for all the switches from the looks of it. Licensing isn't free but I'm sure they worked it into the deal and they could have just done dinosaurs and paid them nothing as the logo is on the translite.

I agree it adds up but probably still cheap. My point is not whether it will be profitable but what is the small amount of profit worth. If it does cost $200 then I would have priced it higher to make it worth the negative press and time. Consumer attitude be damned they should go for the kill as I think the people who would buy at $600 would buy at $1000.

Inquiring minds want to know how much the goat is getting paid! Goat feed can’t be cheap.

With these prices, I'm guessing they are feeding organic grub!!

I am most curious how pinside would react if one of our talented mod producers came out with an equal product for some other machine and charged $600. Has this ever happened?

I wont invoke any names, but relative to value I simply dont see it with this product when compared to what others produce for a reasonable price.

What I see on this thread is people attacking people over platitudes and creeping away from the heart of the matter. Is this topper worth the money?

My opinion is no, it's not worth it to operators and it's not worth it to me as a HUO player.

I am not arguing against people spending the money, let them. Good for the economy. Money has to have velocity to do the job it was intended to do. Just dont be surprised when a portion of the secondary market rejects your demand for value on this. Dont be surprised when the prices keep going up or the quality keeps going down.

The beauty is that you get to decide for yourself on where that threshold is... at least for now.

Cheers!

How can so many people miss the point, almost completely. Its the fact that you get a secret mode, unavailable to other buyers. Its the DLC thats the problem here.

I am including the DLC as part of the value. Sorry that I didnt specify that.

Knowing that do you have any other thoughts on my comment?

Lets say you took the topper out of it all together and gave it a value of $300. That leaves $300 for the DLC.

I haven't even spent that much money on 5 video games for myself and thise games provide 100s of hours of playtime.

I haven't spent that much money on my kid's vbucks purchases for the past 3 years of fortnite!

I like you. Heck, I don’t even know you but your dog keeps sticking his tongue out at me and daring me to buy that JP topper......So I did! Now whose man’s best friend??

Value or not, its DLC is the problem. Its easy to say meh 600 is too much, but now without it, you have an incomplete game. An incomplete 9000 game. Total bs

Only because some have this conceived notion that 'an LE is supposed includes everything'

Or are short sighted people that think "it didn't cost them anything, it should be free!!"

Q: Why does this thing cost $600?
A: Because Stern believes people will pay it

That's it. That's the bottom line. It's not about COGs, it's not about licensing, it's not because of DLC. It's because Stern believes people will pay that price for the product they are pitching.

The grievances can be summed up really easy.. and they're the same after the last accessory announcement of the Stern UV kit.

Those upset are people that...
1. think the LE should be all inclusive
or
2. think selling options or upgrades is bad -- Because we expect all things 'post announcement to be free'
or
3. Generally opposed to selling software (sorry dude.. welcome to the 90s)

Meanwhile... ignoring that selling software or locked features is something done for decades and is all around us. Stern is just late to that party. Stern has been selling accessories for years now (and doesn't necessarily announce everything at game launch).

Is stern doing these delayed launches on purpose? Highly likely!! It's called marketing!!

How do you keep your product in front of people and part of the buzz? You don't blow your wad all at once. You add to your offer... you do promotions... you do things to bring attention back to your product at a later date.

The market forces Stern is adapting to are nothing fancy. Frankly it's just Stern catching up to the rest of the world. Sure some people are going to be upset it's not the same as buying a game 20 years ago... but the world isn't the same as 20 years ago. There are a lot of new ways people monetize and sell products.

If you don't like it... just don't buy it! If enough people don't... they'll change their ways. If not... then either accept it or find alternatives. The painting Stern as some villain schtick is so childish. Just speak with your wallet. If what Stern is charging for LEs isn't what you are willing to pay... don't!

.

Disagree.
It's the DLC plus an unbelievable price for printed, laser cut plastic set.
There's actually less material in the topper here than a CPR plastic set (If I were to make a comparison).
If stern did put a node board in the topper; then they are A) lazy and B) stoopid.