Quoted from Blindseer:
As an arcade owner I was in the market for our next pinball machine this past week and was considering Monster Bash, Ghostbusters and Jurassic Park. Rick and Morty is a great IP and one of the most important things to consider for an arcade ( for example south park does well and I think the game is way too shallow) We generally like to see the games in action and usually want to find another location that has the game before we buy.
The FOMO style of this game being rushed to market and even after it sold out there is no long play showing the game is a deal breaker and we decided in Jurassic park since ghostbusters wasn't available.
That being said it didnt feel like Spooky cared about operators with this game. This game is way too hyped and at least with stern reveals there is at least a good 2-3 hour stream showing off the beta code to make some kind a of a decision. Spooky in the past would show off gameplay which is why a red flag was raised in my mind.
I don't preorder a $60 game for myself without information so why should i make a $7500 blind purchase?
I don't get how you say Spooky doesn't care about operators. Did you see the new easy access door to the back box? Charlie also addressed 3 things that are the only issues I've had with ACNC in his very short video and how they addressed them to improve the design. I haven't seen any other companies improving games for operators by continuing to decrease build quality (example clear coat issues right now...which Spooky doesn't have). Plus based on my conversations with local operators, simple games with great IP do better from a profit stand point than anything else.