What the hell is a cassette?!

Maybe you are reading the end upside down and it’s a 06min cassette?

Demo Tape, Someone with to much money and a lot of room.
Your not wrong!

While they aren't instant sell outs, last runs of these at the local dealers sold off in decent time. Unlike stuff like TMNT and Zep which they are still sitting on a bunch of NIB. The Mandos and SW's still seem to move at a brisk pace.

I don't think it's a matter of demand, and more of Stern trying to maximize sales of the very expensive Star Wars IP. The pins still sell well enough, they likely paid a fortune for the license, they are going to sell the most of those SW pins as they can make.

I think based on one of the interviews some licenses may dictate they produce certain numbers of units by certain dates so I’d assume there could be total numbers they’ve agreed to build also.

Looks like it's GZ and EHOH again this week

Folks been saying they haven't gotten their Elvira's in that were expected, so the one week run is apparently taking longer. My dealer didn't get them in yet either, this could be the reason.

Surprised we haven’t heard about Stern’s newest EHOH#41 with candy green trim being offered and available for $30k.

Maybe I misheard. Should be very soon though as deliveries of pros is towards the end of the month.

A dude I knew back in the day got hooked on GnR's Civil War when the Illusion albums first came out. He filled one side of a tape with that song so he could listen on repeat without rewinding. Don't question the single song tapes

Sorry, what's the logic here?
You paid $1 trillion dollars for a sw license, and $4 for a rush license. Lets say the BOM is equal. Why make star wars instead of rush? Because the license you already paid for cost more?

They are going to make whatever they can sell with the lowest bom(or assuming comparable bom they might prioritize licenses expiring soon or just very high demand games )

Yes, makes sense. ROI.

Our preorder business model is simple and it works for us.
If the game is not in stock and we are taking a pre-order we collect a $500 "non refundable deposit"

Why non-refundable? Simple because I'm guaranteeing you, you will get your game and with a deposit of an amount such as this ...they will not likely be placing deposits all over town ....planning to cancel with every other distributor they may have pre-ordered with for same title once the first one says their game is ready. I want to work with you....I want you to work with me. This is also in an effort for us to not over extend ourselves by collecting extremely low deposits and waiting lists for games that are going to keep people waiting 1-1/2+ years from getting their game. All dealers are still given a certain number of games no matter how many we order. These allocations we receive are based off our companies sales volume. It would make no sense to me to take $1 deposits and collect 200+ orders knowing I'm only going to receive less than 50 of any certain game built per year. It would take upwards of over a year and a half to fill all of those orders. It sounds to me like the $1 deposit thing while it may have seemed like a great idea at first is now working to a disadvantage to the customer.

Now there are two instances where we will refund a deposit, and this is clearly explained to the customer at the time the order is placed.
A. If the game is announced that they have pre-ordered has been cut or temporarily suspended from production. This could be said for any Rush Pro or Premium orders we had. Tentatively Rush is not on the production schedule at this time for 2023, but I had a few preorders for the game. We contacted those customers once the 2023 build schedule was announced and gave those customers the option to take the refund on their deposit or move it to a different title.
B. Price is subject to change. If an order is placed and the manufacturer has a price increase that effects the cost and price before their game is scheduled to be delivered, we will inform the customer of the new pricing. They have the option to stay the course at new pricing or take a refund on their deposit.

Now...here is clearly an example of what I will not refund a deposit for. We just received in our shipment of February Godzilla Premiums. We are reaching out to the customers and informing them that their games are here and it is now time to collect final payment and make shipping/delivery arrangements. One customer we called to inform him of his Godzilla Premium was available told us, he already purchased a Godzilla Premium elsewhere and wants his deposit back. Never once did he call us, but he has left himself on our order list all the while. I've informed him he can move that deposit to another game in stock, or place it to pre-order another game or forfeit the deposit. The deposit as collected when the order was stated as non-refundable.

I inform my customers with the information that is provided to me by the manufacturers when I believe their game will be available based off of where their place is in line with me with the allocations I've been given by the manufacturers. We fill our orders in the order they were received. Any customer of mine that orders a Stern game persay...can call me anytime and I'll tell them what # position they are in and when I believe they will be receiving their game. I'm happy to do this. I don't seem to understand why other dealers I'm reading about on here can't seem to do this. They know exactly how many they will be receiving of each make and model and the estimated month from Stern it is said to be built. If they can't give you a reasonable answer on lead time and are collecting payment up front for a game you are pre-ordering ....find a new dealer. There is no reason for them to collect payment in full, like Troy said..... however unless it's an LE as that's a whole different story.

I'm very transparent with our customers and very fair. If all that I've said above about our non-refundable deposits are relayed to the customer up front upon placing their order there shouldn't be any issues and we should both be on the same page and no misunderstandings.

Check your math…

Wish my Godzilla's clearcoat looked like the one in the FB FactoryFriday post!

Thanks for letting me know not to do business with you. I don't put down non-refundable deposits, ever. By the time some of these games ship life has a way of changing and getting in the way.

In your example above you will easily sell that Godzilla and now you are $500 better and the customer is screwed. Neat

Absolutely true and I speak from personal experience as a repeat customer. This good decision making comes from experience. Experience comes from bad decision making. (resulting in a an occasional difficult customer taking advantage of you.)

Informing customers of clearly defined sales policies sets the boundaries up front. If they don’t like them, they can easily choose another distributor with different policies.

You can disagree with the policy if you want but I will say that Craig has been very upfront and has bent over backwards for me on my Foo Fighters purchase. I’m happy and would do business with Fun! In the future.

Back to the “What is on the line at Stern Pinball” thread. It appears the Bond 60s are shipping out. Hopefully a huge pile of Foo Fighters will ship out to happy customers shortly. I’m looking forward to seeing it a the Texas Pinball Festival.

I’ve never purchased anything from FUN! And don’t know them but this seems perfectly reasonable. Everyone wants the dealers to be fair, transparent and responsible (and they should) but customers also need to be responsible. If you’re preordering something know the terms you are agreeing to and abide by them later without crying. If you’re on a preorder list that lets you cancel (even a $1 one) and you buy the game somewhere else let the dealer know so they can update their lists. Just be adults…

Totally agree with you.
I just won't put down a non-refundable deposit is all I am saying. They told me up-front their policy so I know to avoid them.

Oh, damn. Me too. I got an orange peel special. Makes me pretty freakin angry to see the inconsistency in quality.

That's not ROI. That's more like sunk cost fallacy.

examples of ROI:
Differences in BOM cost, differences in build complexity
X
Limited parts, limited production capacity
X
Market demand
(How can you make the most money right now with what you've got?)

The development cost is already paid. Spilt milk. Yes they had to think "is this licensing cost worth it" 10 years ago, but it's no longer relevant when it's time to choose which game to make.

The game sells decently still, the license cost a lot and is limited.... so yea they are going to milk that cow till it stops selling.

We also don't know what their agreements with Rush and such are for example, heck they probably have enough time to let that one sit. And really looking at their production schedule for it, it doesn't seem like Stern's in a rush, to make Rush. As well regarded as it is here, it didn't sound like it sold all that great. They can let certain machines cool off and focus what needs to get out especially if the licensing contract works in their favor

I don’t think some licenses (or maybe all licenses) are that simple. I think it was in one of the GG Bond interviews he mentioned they had to build x amount of different models by a certain date. Who knows what their license contracts stipulate. Before I heard that I just thought it was “right to build for a certain number of years”. But it’s probably much more complicated than that at least for the big IPs.

Yeah, license deals often have a minimum number of units - or if the minimum isn't actually produced and sold, the licensee still pays the licensor as if they were.

Pinball Arcade talked about this on occasion for their licenses - I remember someone saying a minimum unit count of either 50k or 80k was required for Paramount for either STTNG or TZ or both. (Wouldn't be that much for a physical machine as opposed to a software download.)

This needs to be updated I think, a lot of distributors are saying there is a 2nd run for FF of pros in July and premiums in august

I e-mailed JJ last week to see what was going on and he had said that they had the first 10 and my machine should ship in a few days. I then got my invoice on Thursday. I was #16 on the list and had ordered late 2021.

What's the point of a deposit if it's refundable? You're not really committing to buy and the dealer gets no real benefit from a deposit they may have to refund at any time.

My local guy gave my deposit back if I promised to stop calling him everyday asking if he had my game in yet.

Exactly! Thank you.

Imagine if you called a car rental place and reserved a car for a certain date for a vacation you were going on, and once you got there they said “I’m sorry, we rented all the cars out already”… oh, wait…

That was an episode of Seinfeld

You know how to take the reservation, you just got to learn how to hold the reservation is what Jerry said

Yeah, that was exactly what went through my head when hearing the conversation about deposits.

That’s ok, I just won’t do business with you. You do you and I will do me. I am perfectly at peace with that.

In your scenario you never received the product at all that you put a deposit on and a refund is in order.

In no way is that the same thing thing as putting down money towards a good that you accept has no hard and fast build date.

Why would any dealer want to to hold your item for essentially nothing down, with no legal contract on the hope that when said item is built that you will show up cash in hand to pick up?

I can’t imagine the amount of BS games dealers go through with people throwing a refundable deposit down 10 different places knowing they will maybe buy one of them and sell or ghost out on the rest. In a perfect world we are all honest and do what is said, that’s not the world we live in unfortunately.

Does anyone know when Foo LE’s hit the production line?

I’m a pretty low number LE and I was told expect it in April

2-3 weeks, but probably 2. Once the location Pros are running, you'll know the LE run is imminent.

Nope. It's apparently very similar to the Bond production, which was a change from the way it had been before. Huge wait time for most home Pros to run: 5-6 months.

Mid-Late March
Operator Foo Pros (and maybe a small amount of home ones)

Late March/Early April
Foo LEs

Early-Mid April
Foo Premiums

.



.

July-August
Foo Home Pros

They always run operator pros then the LEs then prems.

Nevermind… jokes are lost on you guys.

Depending on your dealer/distributor, you might get lucky and get one of the few home pros out of that first run. But it's a small chance. Time to get on the horn and Richie Wrench your dealer/distributor to make sure that small chance happens FOR YOU. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
richiewrench.png

In my experience, non refundable deposits lead to a better outcome because both seller and buyer are more committed (unless the seller is a crook).

I just saw it as a response to metalliks post.

No worries, I love Seinfeld. Missed the reference apparently.

Imminent: the word for today.