How about stern can ship parts orders placed a year ago! Less to move.

I don't want to work. But when I see the latest Stern price increase, I say, "Ah, f**k...I guess I'm going back to work tomorrow..."

Back to stern.

I think we will see great things with a production expansion. Possibly 5 releases a year?

Boring.

I just read another member mentioning a “Wednesday” pin. If that show continues on with popularity and gets into the zeitgeist of tv I could see this being a really good theme for a stern pin.

Popular shows really crush on location. Stranger things is the most played game I’ve ever seen.

My dear lord the sensitivity on this site… you all are my daily train wreck. Muchos gracias.

Sure. Whatever keeps them from delivering current releases in a timely fashion. New orders only 6 months out? Way too close for comfort. They'll finally have the backlog capacity unlike anything we've seen before!

Sorry, but it is 'muchas gracias'.
Carry on.

I dont see how a bigger facility will help them. The supply chain is still messed up. They cant even get EHOH out that people ordered a year ago. Now these people will be charged more because they raised their prices.

Maybe at the new factory their mini line for accessories will actually be capable of making toppers in quantity. Maybe even actually released when the game is? Nah, that's crazy talk...

Que Lastima! La sienta!

Do you mean "Lo Siento"? The vowels are tricky en espanol.

Am I the only one bummed about 2 cornerstones in 2023? Or have y'all not heard the news? That just ain't enough Stern goodness in one year.

Not really. NIB pinball is out for me, so ill keep tabs, but theme announcements really arent as exciting as they were.

Imagine when your BTTF is $22,500 in a few years 2025 book it.

Where was this?

Gomez on the Marco stream today.

He said until they are "caught up" so it's not definite how many they will release in 2023, but it does seem unlikely that there will be a new game announcement in January, at least.

On tonight’s stream Jack basically implied that his cornerstone is completed. So his must be up next.

Been Eddy's turn for a minute.

Hoping to see one more before the end of the year. I think Eddy, Danger, Borg then Elwin is the release schedule. Gut instinct alone, also the last call for "pin" line has me thinking.

Watcha thinking brother? Talk to me.

Ay carambo!

I have zero inside information. I hear what everyone else hears. I'm just going off designer rotation.

I think Eddy then Danger too but then I’m hoping Elwin before Borg. At 2 cornerstones a year though we could be looking at 2.5 years between GZ and Elwins next cornerstone, which seems crazy for their most popular designer. Guess they just make the big bucks off his Bond instead.

Eddy FTW

Stumbled across this Nudge article,
Fun read, worth a go

https://www.nudgepinball.com/articles/put-some-respect-on-brian-eddys-name

I wish Mr Eddy awesome Pinball success and his next game with Stern Pinball will make my modest collection.

Oh and thanks Nudge pinball, nice work man !!!

This is what I dont get. "Caught up" means flooding the market. Supply and demand so the secondary market drops. Then the NIB prices skyrocket and quality drops.

[begin rant]
you may want to tell this generation's workers that. fact is, they don't seem to have the drive that past generations did. the whole #metoo, #cancelthis, #cancelthat and other garbage that people are leaning on isn't going to get them anywhere in the business world. I partially blame participation trophies for some of this.

plain and simple fact: you will won't always be a winner. teaching our youth that goes a long way on how they can cope will handling defeat later in life. failure to do that early on, is basically setting them up for failure.

when people can't even take the time to count out the correct change (and their cash registers tells them how much to give out), then we have larger issues. the best is the "deer in the headlights" look that you typically get after they've pressed $20 in and then you add a few more coins after the fact to make the change that you're returned easier to manage (as well as ridding yourself of a pocket full of change), they are literally dumbfounded and don't know what to do.

when even fast food joints can't get help at $15+ an hour (which is over $30K a year) for an unskilled labor position, where is this overwhelming desire to work?

unfortunately, these aren't just isolated occurrences.
[/end rant]

Monthly reminder: Next Stern Pin Cornerstone due out 30 January based off of previous releases. See quoted text above for logic.

Note: This only goes off of previous releases of cornerstone pins. Chief Stern Designer Gomez has announced on stream they are likely only doing 2 pins per year until they are caught up (see post 34278). That is not factored in. Nor is the move to a new production line... But historically we would be seeing a launch late January.

My personal educated guess opinion on next cornerstone title would be a Venom pin. A Metallica vault would be the most likely vault if they do one (me thinks).

My "I wish they'd build this pins" are still Harry Potter or Mario (even a movie based one would work).

Oh wow, 30k a year to deal with shitty coworkers and dickwad customers. A full time job just to still be broke if you have a family… 30k a year might be enough to swing a 2bed apartment + utilities + ramen for kids (good luck paying for anything else)

People still work, they’re just doing different things because this is a workers market (for now)

You can make more driving around a forklift in a warehouse, and not have to deal with shit ball customers who want to complain that their $4 hamburger is shitty.

You got to remember that it costs well over a million dollars to develop a new game. At this point the demand for Sterns back library and vault Editions is through the roof, so why not leverage all of those great past titles? Two cornerstones + a vault Edition, recent titles and or some sort of old game updated to LCD seems like a good plan to me.

I largely agree with this but... Stern has to take action to keep people ON pinball. The type of Pinball person buying the LEs and Premiums from Stern is always after the next "New Shiny". At the same time, I think they are competing with themselves having machines on backorder for so long. People won't buy Bond if they are still waiting on their Godzilla. I don't know the solution, but I think it is in their best interest to keep churning out new games regardless of demand to keep focus on new pinball. Things really quieted down after Bond was announced which was a title lots of people were clamoring for. I'd argue that Rush, which fewer people really wanted (I know it was dream theme for some), had more buzz and excitement around it simply because they could get their hands on them quicker.

I don't know what the solution is, but Stern needs to keep cranking them out and have the flash to bang on new pinball purchases shorten.

I dont care what stern is making, they are trashing our investments. And yes when you pay 10k for an item, its an investment.

Words that should be taken to heart by CGC ... they can't get a remake done in 2 years not including shipping them!

Counterpoint: An hourly rate which equates to $30K/year to be a high schooler with no established skillset or completed education ain't that bad. Flipping burgers at McD's isn't supposed to be the foundation of a family income. It's part time work for kids who want money for gas, weed, and Mike's Hard... and $15/hr offsets those costs fine.

Not enough people understand economics anymore. Im young but I was taught old school. Its a workers market yes but how do you like inflation and rising interest rates? Milton Friedman was correct and now Ill spend the next 20 years of my career trying to reimplement that methodology after the federal money drop for revitalization. Which was necessary.

My Uncle in Law just "retired" from working at Wendy's for over 30 years. He was hit on his bike by a car (wear your helmet) and had to basically relearn everything at 8 years old. He's "Special" and could not do other work. But you know what, he could work the fryer at Wendy's. He worked and earned a solid wage for 30 years. $15 an hour was more than fair for him in the end. Married one of his co-workers with similar abilities and was perfectly happy. I'm glad there was entry level work for him.

Also, lets do the math on this. Say they sold 1000 Rush LE pins at 12k a piece thats 12M in revenue for a 1M investment plus they still have the Prems and Pros to cash out. Take that BS somewhere else.

You do realize driving a fork lift is also unskilled labor right? And those jobs are 22-25/hr these days. Just pass a drug test and show up.

And you can say that fast food jobs are meant for "kids" (which is kinda fucked up if you think about how we're saying it's ok for kids to be exploited for non-livable wages), but I don't know which fast food places you go to...it's a lot of middle aged and older people in a lot of these jobs.

But whatever. It's dumb to argue about this stuff on a forum where people debate spending 9k on a luxury toy, or splurging and spending 13k. This is a dumb place for any of that talk.