Quoted from brad808:You seem to be forgetting about the artifact you receive that is worth how much? And potentially how much more when you hit FF? All for doing what? Absolutely nothing. 100% zero risk, 209 million reward. Plus much much more when you hit FF billion. Worst of all it's guaranteed every single time. It's the exact same sequence...every...single...time.
it's a decent chunk of change but it's not like you can do it over and over. you have to hit the beta quadrant ramp an increasing number of times to activate it. it's not remotely imbalanced compared to a decent Borg Multiball. yes, it's a memorizable video mode that's boring once you memorize the pattern, and sure it's worthwhile to go for, but it's not imbalanced score-wise. you can't repeat it over and over unless you are flawless at repeating the beta ramp dozens of times.
edit: went and looked it up. here are the number of times you have to hit the ramp to light the video mode: 3,9,21,27,33,39,51,57,63,69,81,87,93,99
so to get a billion out of the video mode (equivalent to a good Borg Multiball with a little bit of a jackpot built up) you have to hit the beta ramp 51 times. if you can make that ramp 51 times in one game, you deserve to win. yes, it grants you artifacts too, but those are only beneficial if you actually manage to go through all seven primary missions and make it to Final Frontier, which is certainly not an easy thing to do even if you are timing out the modes. if the strategy you are employing requires making it to the Final Frontier wizard mode, i don't think that counts as an "exploit".