This is it right here.

Stern would absolutely love nothing more than to be able to sell everyone their machines, including your Elvira, but the reality is that they are swamped between 3 but factors:

1. Pandemic
2. Supply chain issues
3. Resurgence in pinball’s popularity

But Spooky and Jersey Jack and American Pinball and some kid working on a white wood in their parents’ basement are all subject to these factors.

It’s easy and quite understandable to be frustrated. Hell, I feel you personally because every day when I look at my Elvira with the topper, shooter rod, art blades, I’m extremely thankful I got it when I did, and not one day later. I was contemplating preordering like you, because I heard about that December run too… glad I ended up nabbing a HUO. Paid less than MSRP too.

You can find these deals, because not everyone is trying to flip. You just have to be vigilant and patient. The single biggest factor in pinflation is FOMO. Full stop. But people just love blaming anything else in order to justify their addiction to politicizing uncontrollable factors.

Remember, this is the same person who started the “F U Stern and your price hikes” thread, and then literally got caught flipping pins well above msrp

So last year, I was *this* close to pre-ordering an Elvira, but nabbed a used one instead. Feel like I dodged a bullet.

My wife and I were discussing the possible reasons new Elvira machines keep getting delayed, and she made a good point: Elvira seems like one of the most easy-going licensing deals Stern has, so it makes sense to pump out the other titles that have expiry dates on them first, and build a big backlog of demand before doing the next run.

Oh goody, the "What's on the line at Stern" thread is now another avenue for Pinmonk to trash Lonnie Ropp.

You were in Karl's streaming bitching about Lonnie
You are up in the James Bond hype thread bitching about Lonnie
You are in the Bond SLE thread bitching about Lonnie
You were in Joel's podcast chat, bitching about Lonnie

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If course you do. How else will you 3D print a clip to resell $3 pc fans? Mans gotta eat.

Oh, I thought the subject was clearly "it sucks to have your work publicly trashed"

Lonnie has done some legendary machines, some not so good machines, and some fine machines. Let's give the guy a chance to get it to 1.0 before you clog every fucking pinball thread and stream chat with your Lonnie hate-boner, shall we?

I’d rather replace a solenoid than a board *shrug*

OH MY GOD 18 DOLLARS ON A $9000 MACHINE HOW WILL I AFFORD TO LIVE

2 sets of tibetan breeze $260
4 pc fans on Amazon $10
literally 26x more expensive
Your money *shrug*

https://www.amazon.com/Brushless-Cooling-Speed-Appliances-Replacement/dp/B07ZJ47Z2J/ref=asc_df_B07ZJ47Z2J/

Noise? Really? 40mm fans under 2cm plywood with speakers and coils firing and you think fan noise is an issue?

You sell a product mostly for people going out of their way, looking for problems. I’d wager less than 5% of the people who buy flipper cooling fans come anywhere near games long enough to warrant them.

Like the dual-firing pops on Bond, I seriously doubt anyone would notice the difference on a four flipper game between your $260 fans and Amazon’s $10 ones. I would absolutely love to see a real-world controlled comparison of the actual demonstrable and noticeable difference between 2 of the same machine with people trying to guess which is yours and which are the $10 fans.

But the point I’m trying to get at here is this hypochondria of pinball. “Oh no, pops are tied!” Anyone who watched Deadflip’s reveal stream saw plenty of pop action. More than most, to be honest, especially for only two pops.

I’m sick of seeing you everywhere bond is being discussed, bitching about pops, bitching about code.

I’d argue that many more people are biased with old pins and nostalgia.

Old games are great for shallow fun, but newer games stomp all over old ones in terms of depth. Kinda apples and oranges though. I bought a No Good Gofers with the intention of flipping it, but I fell in love with its simple theme and ruleset - sometimes it’s nice to have a simple game of pinball. I own Judge Dredd and Shaq-Attaq for the same reasons… but they just don’t hold a candle to newer games.

In terms of depth, strategy, options, and each time you start a game, it feels different, then there isn’t even a comparison between Godzilla and TZ or IJ. Code on Godzilla is absolutely sublime. Makes those old games feel extremely 1 dimensional.

I still love video games like final fight and double dragon, but I know they’re just shallow fun mixed with nostalgia. New video games simply shit all over em.

It’s Star Wars.

I’m convinced Disney could film a literal pile of dog shit for 2.5 hours and the entire fan base would flock to see it.

George Gomez talked about how toppers and pins share similar parts, so he was like “do we make more pins, or make more toppers? Easy call if you ask me”. Or something to that effect.

The reason they designed them this way was to keep cost down and streamline logistics. Obviously the state of things these last few years caused that plan to bite em in the ass