FOMO and blindly following a podcaster's advice and buying before seeing game play can be costly. I remember people saying they're glad there is no game play before the order date because Spooky deserves better.

In todays world a negative tweet can take a person down. let alone a lot of unhappy customers and bad reviews of a game.

Time will tell but this is a shit show.

Downvote for terrible math skills, but agreed a couple dozens spots being for sale doesn’t affect Spooky a single iota.

Good question. Seems all internal sourced except software who also did ACNC/RZ.
Haven’t followed as close until last few days.
Could be wrong.

In my case I never saw any footage of the Halloween pin ahead of time, I just saw one by chance at my local pinball place and played it. Turns out I really liked it so I bought the unopened one they had at that location (CE #3) so I got it really early, it's actually my favorite Spooky game. Having said that it was definitely shipped with code that was more alpha than beta, something that was made more obvious to me once I put Godzilla right next to it. Plus it is a game very much based on the ambience it creates which gets totally lost on location, that really can only be appreciated in a home environment. I still love it but then again the movie to me is a classic so there is that.

Uff in Spooky's defense NGG software is kind of garbage too...and complete

All this bitching from people that shat all over Stranger Things when it came out and are now tripping over themselves to track one down.

I'm in on a Halloween CE and can't wait to get mine

What's so good about Stranger Things nowadays?

There’s a lot of content/modes in the game to keep a home owner busy on a relatively mundane fan layout.

Home owners want a broad game with a lot of stuff to easily see, with some carrots on a stick to keep them coming back. It’s why some UM/HWN owners have been growing bored with the game… just not much to see and do (yet).

Hey now, NGG is pinball perfection.

It's really not. It's a golfing game that has no real advantage for getting a lower golf score. Its fundamentally flawed

What interests me is why do you have an Ultraman spot for sale but you won’t actually sell it?

I’ve sent you probably 10 PMs inquiring about what number your spot is and indicating my interest to buy it, but I haven’t gotten a response back for several weeks.

Is your UM spot for sale or not?

Thems fightin words.

Hence the name of the game.

Lol - it was $900 2 minutes ago. Now it’s $1250?

How is that terrible math skills? Apparently you don’t know how to get a percentage. Maybe if you did you wouldn’t make a smart ass comment. You divide total number 1250 total pins being built into 20 that are up for sale. Learn up on your math skills son and not use common core math.

In the time it took you to type that and me to respond to it 1 player got 3 Cart Attacks!

Sent you a PM with basic details inquiry…

Lol. Doubling down on basic math mistakes. You’re only off by a factor of 100.

Lol. Oof.

I can PROMISE YOU Distros did not sell them all! Also people need to stop saying the game sold out in 45 minutes or whatever that is non-sense. Distros bought these games essentially sight unseen because they need product to sell thinking it would just sell itself. Stern has backorders for months, JJP can't make games fast enough... look at AP they're selling games because people want to BUY! Dealers are buying anything they can get their hands on. BTW there is a difference between a DISTRO and a DEALER almost EVERY SINGLE person you buy from is actually a DEALER. And dealers a lot of times buy stock of Sterns from the big DISTROS for the home market. I can promise you DEALERS are sitting on several of these games and they might have to eat them, or heavily discount in the future. Keep in mind DEALERS don't get these games all at once, they get them trickled over time. Think about this as well... buyers remorse is so HIGH for this game, some dealers might have people telling them forget it keep it won't pay the balance then what? I can tell you one thing I WILL NEVER DO AGAIN give up $2k in advance of actually playing the game for a line spot. Ridiculous. NO WAY!

Code can't save this game. I don't know why people on pinside think code is the answer to everything. Will Code fix the layout flaws of LZ? How can CODE fix Halloween layout? This might be the worst layout I've ever seen. Lets take the Halloween version half the playfield is covered by either a fake knife, massive artwork over the out lanes, two upper playfields, I mean c'mon how does code help that? How does code fix the artwork which in my opinion is just not good. How does code fix the MULTIBALL insert error? How does code help the awful topper where you can see the mech moving it? How does code help with all the IT PENNYWISE balloon looking blood drops all over the playfield? Look at the CGI or the lack of CLIPS... short of them hiring a really high end professional company to create all new FX how does code change any of that? Hopefully you see my point. How does code help that pretty much the entire team who created RM left the company and they didn't hire one experienced pinball designer to replace them?

I don't either. I love the fact we have more pinball companies than ever before and too bad Deep Root didn't work out. This is a great time for pinball but why does Spooky get all these free passes? They made a ton of money off RM, why didn't they take your loyalty for their company serious? Why didn't they go out to HIRE some really well known pinball guy to help the company. I mean everyone at Deep Root got fired, why not hire some of them? They lost just about everyone from the RM team, and didn't replace them with experienced designers. Who with a STRAIGHT face is going to tell me right now Spooky took a STEP FORWARD with Halloween? If you thought Spooky took a HUGE step forward with RM, what is Halloween? Spooky needs to go out there and HIRE some people, use the money and hire some real talent but do they? Nope? I don't think people should blindly support any company that doesn't at least TRY to improve.

I'm a HUGE HORROR guy so I bought Halloween sight unseen. I called the big dealer (won't mention which one) and asked if I could get a refund after I played the game. They said NO. I was like hey if you have a line two miles long to buy this game why not just switch mine to another person. Nope. Why because dealers don't want to get stuck with them either. There is the double standard, I had a friend who bought a USED Elivra LE, I helped him land that deal. He at first didn't want to buy it because he had already put a $1000 deposit on an Elvira Premium with the SAME exact dealer. Guess what that dealer said to him... man I got a list four miles long for Elvira no problem. Guess what he got his money back and that dealer was HAPPY to give him his money back and why? Because now that dealer can sell that game for $12,000 to someone else. The demand is just that high for Elvira.

But Halloween nope you're stuck with it sorry. So I had to sell the spot at a $1000 loss. Oh well lesson learned.

There are some rather salty flippers here in this thread, lol!

No lifeguards in these shark infested waters.

It’s not for sale. He’s been called out on it numerous times. And he’ll never respond to you if you mention it. He’s just a Kaneda Kid Klub mouthpiece.

Lifeguard isn’t going to save you from buying spots to flip.

NO MORE FREE PASSES FOR SPOOKY. Diapers are off with a big poo in them and now time for big boy pants.(don't sh:t them).
You want to take cash money for deposits than you need to run a company competently.

Not Spooky for sure. I have to agree on that.

You should of bought more EHOH preorders to flip. How the heck are you going to afford the hobby if you aren’t monetizing off preorders? Amirite?

People are fickle. FOMO and the momentum of publicity (first great and now poor) spurred the purchases and listings.

I’ve had 163 in house for 30 days. There’s a lot of good things…there are some bad things. Frankly, I can understand why some of the bad things would make owners ‘jump ship’. I’m not sure they can be 100% fixed. (Hate having to shoot for the house only to miss the spinners, and then wait for the ball to drop through the sanitarium to the jack o lantern and return to the flipper elevator before getting another crack. Flow killer.)

Nevertheless, I’ll be holding on to mine. The good and unique aspects are pretty damn cool and worth owning. Love the art, sound, Music, Code (except for lack of mode timeouts) and the flipper elevators are cool along with toys/gimmicks.

Although the games are nothing alike in terms of play or layout, this game brings similar emotional response from me as Ghostbusters: always brings a smile, always pisses me off, always keeps me playing ‘one more game’. …that definitely means that pros will be listed at 3x their original purchase price in 4 years.

That's like saying Caddyshack is a shitty golf movie because you never see a leaderboard with their scores. The game is unlicensed Caddyshack--it's supposed to be about mayhem caused by gophers on a golf course, not how far under par you score.

Retired at 45 After over20+years of owner operating three successful business ventures that I started from the ground up.
Yes, I sold all three companies. I am fine!
How are you doing.

This is considered by many to be "good". I disagree wholeheartedly.

Halloween is just a terrible playing game. No excitement whatsoever. This game is more for a horror movie collector who has no idea what a good pinball machine is.

And yet I can't find one for under 5.5K anymore...bah .

Anyway, people are selling because they were either speculating and now can't make money, played it and don't like it, or just want the money they have tied up in it for something else and plan to get one later. Seems kind of straightforward but maybe I'm over simplifying it in my head?

Maybe it's just not good product.
Don't think spooky's little code updates are going to save it either. Halloween troubles me more than Ultraman.

Don't be so humble...you forgot your 4th business of scalping preorder spots and NIB games.

Then lets go 5th .. 4th would have to be the property's i picked up and sold this year. Is that a flip?

6th if stocks and crypto that i buy low and sell high or short..You might considered that a business. Normal day for me.

I came here to defend Shrinky Dinks… back in the day they were incredible!! While I never had the “Halloween” Shrinky Dinks, I did have Smurfs, Alf, Mr. T., He-Man & The Masters of The Universe!

I’m going to say that the best physical / game play “Toppers” of all time are Whirlwind / Twister blowing wind at your face when playing a game followed by the latest CGC on Cactus Canyon Remake. Those physical / & interaction with the player are amazing. As for the Halloween Topper it’s a great theme integration & simple mechanic which is more of a way to display the games title in a neat simple mechanical way, and to that they perfectly hit the nail on the head.

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Ahh i can still smell them.