Because AAA video games have hundreds of artists working over years to make those animations and art assets. Stern has around a dozen animators trying to grind something out every six months or so.

Most of their animations in recent years are acceptable to very good. Of course you might disagree with the artistic style, like Avengers using an pseudo-animated comic book style. But most of them are pretty good, whenever the code is "finished" and the presentation has been polished.

Alice Cooper is fantastic. But Rick and Morty? I know there is some original stuff in there, but it's mostly video clips. It's not that I think the game doesn't look great, but it's animations from the show...

By having less than 25% of the output of Stern?

What a crazy idea, a pinball company that actually makes pinball games.

People can dog on Stern all they want, they make more good games in one year than most other make in their entire company history. I won't dispute that some games come out of the oven too soon, but it's been a while since Stern outright abandoned anything.

Star Wars

Oof. No thank you. The graphics aren't the issue.

Pinball video modes are tolerable at best. I came to bat around a ball, not play a basic Flash level video game. I'm sympathetic to a degree though. How much can they really do with 2 flipper buttons and the lockdown button?

If you're going to be that reductive, the LCD screen is just derivative of the DMD.

What innovation could be done on the video screen anyhow? "better animations" is not innovation or constructive criticism

There is innovation. People just don't appreciate innovations because they reduce them into simpler component parts that they sorta recognize.

"Well AIQ is just the spinning platter from Safecracker with some new velocity detection, which uses the raising mech from Cirqus Voltaire, and it feeds a subway with some old Flight 2000 mechs they probably still had laying around the factory" - some asshole

Adding those things might not be for everyone, but they certainly do add value to the product for some consumers. And many of those implementations, once broadly done, could be implemented in all their games going forward for relatively little cost.

People keep complaining about prices going up and they just want some value added. Stern putting out something like DJ Mode or whatever is a good example of this. It took a bit of work to code it, now it's relatively low effort to put into all their games, and even if it's rarely used...a few people will get some value out of this low cost addition.

Anyhow. It just doesn't make sense to me how people are so anti-online features just because they don't personally value them. Or if it is really taking up that many resources at a company like Stern.

Sometimes I wonder if Stern should make an integrated streaming topper. Just the complete package with a camera on the playfield, a camera pointed at the player, and direct audio/video out. Add a laptop and go to town.

It's not that hard to make your own streaming rig, but anyone who has been in the hobby knows that there is no shortage of people who rather just throw money at Stern.

Yet people clearly don't care. They just want to play with their friends

Saying the idea wouldn't work because Dutch Pinball couldn't get it to work isn't a compelling argument. They could barely build machines that were already paid for. It's intellectual dishonest to say that no one cared when only like 100 people had the possibility to care.

Fine there will never be a global leaderboard. People still just want to play with their friends. It's not that difficult to grasp this, but people want to keep arguing "no you don't actually want the thing you want"