NJ is no stranger to gambling.

http://www.usaonlinesportsbooks.com/states/new-jersey.html

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-walking-dead-shelved-for-kiss

When I wrote this I was thinking about larger classic licenses, like Mustang, an old time rock band pin or even JJP and their flagship game; WOZ. Could there be plans in the works to acquire these iconic licenses well in advance of actual game production. Or could a generic playfield be slapped with any theme at the last minute? Like shrek/family guy (never played them, but hear their the same machine.)

No. No.
Bad Tom. Bad!

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That thread was started by Wayne in Australia to try to confuse everyone.

FG was not a generic playfield, but designed to be FG. According to an RGP post by Steve Ritchie from 2008 or 2009 FG sold pretty bad initially. Apparently Stern built 700 FG's but had ordered parts for 1200. Their solution to use these parts was Shrek. Eventually there was more demand for FG and more units got built. Converting FG to Shrek was not done like a last minute job. It took actually way more time than anticipated.

As far as I know no generic playfield are being designed to be themed later on.

Sometimes a game is started as one theme but then changed mid-way to be another. X-Men was originally supposed to be Men In Black. People have said that Dracula was supposed to be Alien.

Barry Oursler has stated this was the case, so I take that to be a fact.

And Police Force was originally intended to be Batman. But these were not generic playfield that got theme later on. These were playfield that were designed to be a certain theme and later on got re-themed. The question was about generic playfields.

Thanks for the information. You really know your stuff, that's why I read the magazine. Im waiting for #3 to come out. (Is it soon?)

How cool would that have been?

MIB would have been cool.

Running on an 0-fer-2 streak, IMO.

Yup. I believe Theater of Magic started out as a David Copperfield game.

Tell me this: How does 2 brand new titles help build the hobby more than 3?

Correct.

Here's some pics I have.

Original plan was to have a magnet wand mech (a'la Capcom Pinball Magic) but they couldn't get it to work consistently.

Also had an operating spinning saw.

Cab art looks colourful, but could do with a spell check.

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Theatremagicwand.JPG

" Border Patrol" pinball machine with a "Operation Fast-and-Furious-GunWalk-Multiball". Think of it, Illegals can sneak in from the southern/northern borders via "Tunnels and shoot out of a VUK on the American side.", with toys that include "Safe Houses", and/or a "Train Rail Car" opening up dumping illegal multiballs for Safe-House/Train-Rail-Car Multiball (Think Stern Indiana Jones Ark Multiball)l", and an interactive "Border Agent at the border (Think Hulk other Super Heros, IM, XMEN, SM). Or an interactive Border Patrol Jeep with Agent (Think NGG Golf Cart modified - size of Mustang with Agent(s), but interactive).

The objective could be to capture illegals from different countries across the world and put them in local detention, but with the members of ISIS, Taliban and Al Queda put in Guantanamo Bay. Think of what "Guantanamo Bay Break-Out MultiBall" could be!! The ultimate achievement at wizard mode is for the Pope to exist the Vatican and speak in Latin allowing the destruction of ISIS. Then all hell breaks loose....on the DMD of course.

Please Mr. Stern......Border Patrol Limited Edition with a MIRRORED GLASS and installed shaker! Back it up with excellent Stereo rock and roll music consistent with the theme and all integrated play-action RGB lighting. fourth and fifth speakers on the cabinet sides soon? Open invitation to Mr. Stern to visit me in Phoenix for a tour of the naturally occurring elements for "Border Patrol" pinball. BBQ and cold drinks on the house, packed with Sterns.

Pinball Magazine No. 3 is turning out to be a lot more work than anticipated. I doubt it will be printed prior to Expo, but I may bring a b/w testprint to the show. I'll be doing a small seminar as well which will include progress on Issue 3.

Jonathan, I would really like to see a testprint of no. 3 at expo! I have been looking forward to it! Thanks!!

Pins have to be realistic. The game you describe is completely opposite because there are no more illegals, just immigrant "kids" coming here for a better life. So in reality, the Border Patrol is actually feeding and clothing the kids, and doing paperwork. Also, you would never be able to drain a ball, cause there is no going back, it would be an endless game, with one ball.

As Fullblown mentioned in page 1 of this thread, I was there last week. Stern is building a ton of ST Pros, a few Mustang Pros, a ton of Iron Man VE, I saw one or two ACDC LED Pros, and I did see and play MET Pro with all LEDs in their showroom (there's a photo of it on my blog, that Fullblown linked). It had the same head style as before, not the new one. Next to it was ACDC LED Pro which I played (and yes the bell is very simple, it uses the target, no optos, no code change).

http://pinballaficionado.blogspot.com/2014/08/stern-factory-visit.html

Oh, and Jody Dankberg is a massive TWD fan, he's got giant zombies in his office, life sized and standing, official models, heads on the desk, posters, artwork, dunno if that equates to a license deal, it might, who knows?

Just more confirmation that WD is next!

.....maybe something different.....Gary is in China.

You thinking what I'm thinking...Great Wall of China pin? O

He's going to buy a load of The Walking Dead figurines for the games

Maybe its time to outsource and cut pin prices drastically.

I cant say......

Maybe I'm over simplifying this but:

Scenario 1 - Non-pinball owner walks into a bar and plays iron Man. Said person has so much fun they want an Iron Man. They walk into their local game store (remember they aren't pinheads) or go on Amazon and ask if they try to buy Iron Man. Sales person says, nope. Those sold out years ago you'll have to buy one used if you want one. Being a non-pinhead the person gives up and moves on as they don't want a used arcade game. Having the game available again brings this person into the hobby.

Scenario 2 (to me more likely) - you push out 3 new pins. All three have mediocre code and some minor playability issues. The same person above walks into that same bar and plays the new game(s). Gets fed up with the issues and doesn't have fun with the game. Person moves on.

only way more new machines helps build the hobby is if those machines are well built and finished (at least close) when they are released. Remember that building a the hobby means bringing new blood into the hobby.

Does is rhyme with: &reat &all of &hina?

ps - doesn't jk rowling's have a second home there? Ohhhhh maybe Gary is trying to get the HP licensing deal done, ninja style, and beat JJP to the party.

I dunno, to me the problem with scenario 2 is that non pin heads probably won't miss things like improperly fleshed out code. They would probably only notice major stuff like if the machine eats a loonie or if a toy literally breaks off onto the playfield

I would guess that non pinheads would mostly be attracted to bling and to themes that appeal to them..."omg they still make pinball machines??!! Xmen!? Awesome". And would not notice anything is a miss until they have it at home (and in many cases probably not at all)

XMen only used as an example of a popular license ..

What is incorrect about this scenario is that regular people are hardly thinking that they can own a pinball machine, even if they may want one. To them pinball is something you play, or used to play, on location. If Stern would start making games with fnished code which are fun to play and great earners on location, they might as well consider to mention on the game that people can own them / buy them for their home (gameroom).

Except, X Men pinball is a bad ass game.

More likely he's sourcing cheaper LEDs..

As the last line states, I only used XMen as an example.

Pretend it says Avengers or Transformers if you prefer. I personally enjoy each of those games and they would all provide licence-powered appeal imo

Hey, it was said to "bring people into the hobby". With that statement one must assume the person would be willing to buy a machine. You guys and maybe some gals are WAY to literal... Of course the average person wont want to own a pinball machine. With that said it doesn't matter if Stern makes a million different titles a year, they wont buy. We are only talking about people that could be on the bubble of buying.

what are you doing here !? cause NO ! for sure, it will not be a 8BDLX rerun !!!

It's close

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Pretty much this. I only own my MetLE because I am working over seas making some good money and frankly Metallica was my band of all time and I was hoping for Pushead to be the artist(Still love the current art and probably over works better for the game). So I did it, but normally if I was going to be spending $7500 on a toy, it would have wheels and a motor. I think that many pinsiders lose sight that this is a pretty expensive hobby. Just think of what else you can buy for $7500.. So the average person does not even think about buying a new pin, unless, like me they just have to have it. Are there many average people who actually love TWD, or Iron Man the Movie that much? I think it would be interesting to know how many new games are bought by first time buyers. I bet, not a bunch..

I bet you'd be surprised. A lot of pins are actually sold through brick and mortar places. There is a game room store where I live that sells mainly pool tables, dart boards, fooseball, pingpong, etc... They normally have the newest Stern in the pro version there. I was talking with the owner for a while as we were negotiating on a deal for me to make virtual machines for him to sell and even at MSRP he was selling machines. It's in a higher end part of town but it just proves that there are a lot of people out there making the purchases outside of pinside.

Also, we lose sight that while pins are expensive toys so are most other adult hobbies. More pro's and prem are sold than LE's so looking only at the LE price jades the conversation. Looks at min $4K for a pro. Now walk over to any car forum and start to add up the people buying supercharger kits. Those are $4K-$8K on average depending on the car. While pinball is expensive so are other toys. You may say, that is a vehicle. I'd still argue the point as it's not a necessary add on just like a pinball machine is not necessary for home use.

Thinking that only pinheads will drop the coin we do on a single machine is thinking a bit to one sided. That's all I'm trying to get across.

Anyways, I'm done with this subject as apparently we'll have to agree to disagree and RipleYYY is going to get pissed if I don't finish that 8 Ball build I still think 1 or even 2 well done games is MUCH better for the community than 3 half assed ones.

I absolutely agree with you that 2 well built games are much better than 3 half assed games. I started a thread to see how many people whos first game was NIB. So far 2 out of 20 people bought their first pin as a NIB

Where is this topic posted. I thought about a NIB as my first game but have a hard time buying without playing it as my first game and for the price. Too bad you can't test drive them but being in a pin league helped me play them eventually as a lot of the team gets the new ones out here so I am lucky.

Sterns building the next classic or the next bomb.

Whatever , you don't outsource to cut prices ,you outsource so you can afford the good hookers and cocaine .

I am highly offended by this post. Seriously, "good hookers and cocaine"?!

Totally unacceptable.

It should be "high class call girls and blow".

That sounds much better!

Sorry , I've never been able to afford the high dollar ones so I know not what they go by . Back on topic Stern is currently building awesome pinball machines .

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/simple-question-was-your-first-pin-a-nib#post-1853901

So far, 87 votes total, 15 yes, 72 no.

Now I understand this isnt a perfect poll, but it is a quick and dirty look at the prospect of new people coming into the hobby and paying big $$$$

Taurus LE, it will look nice next to my Mustang LE.

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