(Topic ID: 175129)

What is the fascination with the new Stern Games?

By Robl45

7 years ago


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  • 73 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 7 years ago by markmon
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    #14 7 years ago

    People talk more about the newer games because they are new. We've had almost 20 years to discuss anything that Bally / Williams did, and for the most part we've discovered it all. The Stern stuff is new.

    I have for the better part of those 20 years debated anyone who said one type of machine is better or worse than any other. It's all about taste. A lot of collectors when I started loved the B / W games because they were the most likely to be found on location when they were falling in love with pinball.

    In today's market, a lot of people who are buying games are buying because they remember how much fun pinball was, but they want the reliability of a new machine, so they are buying the Stern games. And, Stern has been deliberately targeting this market, something that B / W never did (nor did Gottlieb, Sega, Data East, Alvin G, or Capcom, for that matter), and it turns out that people love that about the newer games. If you want to spend more and get something with extra bells and whistles, you can!

    #23 7 years ago
    Quoted from dmbjunky:

    I wouldn't say never. It's a great equalizer if you're coming from behind and you need a miracle. Alien Star was routinely picked in the PAPA tournaments.
    Also I've seen "top level players (who have skills across all eras) playing for money against inferior opponents" do it because the inferior opponents have inexperience in early SS or EM games. A lot of competitive players are lacking in their knowledge of older games' rule sets and gameplay because they only get to practice on newer games. This is a flaw to strategically exploit.
    The top level players are usually in the classics tournaments as well as the main tournaments and are confident in their abilities on these machines despite the higher level of randomness.

    I would agree with this.

    For a few years, we used a certain game called 3 Coins at the MGC in our tournament. If you look at the game in IPDB or something like that, it looks like it is a pure random game - the flippers are like a foot apart! While a number of players avoided it, a few would pick it as their choice every time because there was definite strategy to it, and once you figured that out you could consistently score higher than people who hadn't figured it out.

    I have found the same to be true of every EM that I have played. Once you figure out how to best exploit the machine, you can consistently score higher than the other players, even though if you have a slightly higher chance of not getting as good of a score. I find this to be amazingly similar to how new games are. It's just when you walk up to them, the skills that you need to win aren't nearly as readily apparent.

    #27 7 years ago
    Quoted from Rarehero:

    I guess you've never seen a routed B/W games? Yes, Williams games were generally engineered better...but plastic is plastic, welds are welds, mechs are mechs...shit breaks over time. I picked up a Monster Bash that was completely trashed and 95% of the switches didn't work.

    Gottlieb games were generally engineered better. Actually, like, always. They just didn't earn worth a damn, so no one remembers them.

    B/W games often showed up with switches out and issues, but because they earned well and kept earning well, people kept them around.

    DE games often showed up with switched out and issues, but earned like CRAZY for a while, before they dropped off and people didn't route them as much.

    Sega games greatly improved on the reliability factor of the machines, but generally earned poorly again. And yes, I know they were DE that just changed, they just changed their philosophy at that point.

    Stern kept the Sega reliability when the company name changed again, and started working on improving the fun factor.

    Today's Stern games are the most reliable games out of the box there are. A lot of people give B/W a pass because they either were routed so of course they are broken, or they got completely rebuilt and tweaked by someone who knew what they are looking at. If you ask ops who routed all the games at the same time though, they will confirm today's games are the most reliable out of the box.

    (This has nothing to do with "flipper feel" or whatever, but is just an interesting thing...)

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