Easy. Kaneda keeps using this term FOMO and after RM sold out the same day (to distros) everyone jumped on this game without actually playing it. I feel like people felt Spooky was going UP after RM and it appears by the reaction of the new game its backwards. Then the game end up at some locations and people played it. People had buyers remorse and wanted to sell. The problem is a lot of people had buyers remorse and wanted to sell at the SAME TIME driving down the price. If only a few people had second thoughts the price wouldn’t have nose dived the way it has. Right now there are people GIVING away their spot for NOTHING just pay the rest. I see some going for $500 OBO. The lesson here is STOP buying games without actually playing them. Forget the word FOMO and have some patience’s.

I personally do not like the layout, artwork, cgi fx on screen, this game isn’t for me, but for someone else it could be magic under glass. To each their own.

But stop buying things without giving it a second to think about it or at the very least play the game. Spending 10K on anything you should put just a little more time and thought into. Just my take.

Funny, but has long term damage been done here? Do you honestly think those people who are dumping the game left and right will repeat this mistake the next time around. Several distors who goggled up these games can’t sell them. Will they go all in with Spooky again? Spooky needs to hire some talented designers, engineers, and computer animators with all this money they just made. Otherwise will people buy again sight unseen. I doubt it when the price is 10k. NO WAY! So swim in the money today but what about the LONG TERM? It’s a good question.

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.

At 71 and falling fast. Don't forget there is a lot of people out there trying to ditch this game. They want to SELL SELL SELL and those same people PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE this game. But if they praise why sell? LOL

The game will eventually fall out of the top 100 and maybe out of the top 200. The game just isn't good. I wish so wish it was because I got overjoyed when I heard the words HALLOWEEN PINBALL!

Maybe they can license Friday the 13th or Evil Dead but make amends by hiring a top notch pinball designer and artist. I can only hope!

Palmer I can only say this to you. To each their own if you love Halloween I say I'm happy for you! Some people hate Ghostbusters but I think its fun as heck. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not here to tell you what games to buy, I'm only answering to why I think so many people are ditching the game, as in jumping out of the airplane without a parachute. Halloween being ranked 71 and FALLING is a sign this game is not going to last. Most new games find their way into the top 20 and stay there for a while. But does it matter if you love the game and want to keep it for an eternity? No not one bit!

Are pinball games all about how much money they're worth? No not at all. I have games I wouldn't sell for any price. Its not about price its about loving the game, collectable, muscle car, toy collection, baseball card, whatever. You can't put a price on everything if you love it you love it! Period.

My biggest gripe with Spooky, is RM seemed to show maybe this group was breaking out of the homebrew and into the mainstream. Then they lost about everyone at that company, didn't use that money from RM to hire some serious talent then comes Halloween. I think Spooky let down their biggest fans but not trying to move the company FORWARD!

I mean who over there thought powder coating a game based on Halloween GOLD? I mean like for real GOLD on a game called Halloween. Maybe Black or Orange but GOLD? From there it just goes downhill.

But again to each their own.

This company in my opinion is back to being a HOMEBREW company with Halloween. They really started to fall into place with RM, then all those guys left the company, putting them back to square one. At some point an alarm bell should have gone off there after looking at their bank account... hey we can hire someone to improve our games on EVERY level? But no they went a different direction with someone who had never designed anything. One step forward TEN steps back. I honestly think Spooky has severely damaged their company, brand loyalty, and their ability to collect up front deposits on their next game. Even their biggest fans will be like maybe I should play it first. Spooky in the past was smart in only offering 500 games total, which created a quick demand. But now they're offer 1,250 games, this creates the option of maybe I should wait and see. Whatever the next title is from Spooky they probably need to go back to the 500 title, or make a HUGE announcement of hiring KPOP, or some of the top guys from Deep Root, or stealing a designer from another company.

Who is honestly going to buy another game designed by the exact same group who did Halloween? People really need to STOP saying 'CODE' can fix the game... ahhh NO! This group thought to powder coat halloween game GOLD nothing else needs to be said.

I'm going to say something here that a lot of people probably never considered but here it goes... because SPOOKY only makes ONE TITLE a year or every year and some changes the games get drudged thru the mud a lot more than a Stern.

Let me give you an example... LED ZEP is not a great layout, great theme not a great layout. Stern didn't give you long to drag it thru the Mud here comes MANDO! Again Mando honestly isn't that great either, but that's okay because here comes GODZILLA which is awesome. In the span that Spooky released the disaster Halloween, Stern more or less released Led Zep, Mando, Godzilla now Rush. You can't dwell on one thing, because they bring the excitement before a lot of people can figure out Mando just isn't that good. Spooky on the other hand has their conversation focus on the SAME THING for MONTHS AND MONTHS and MONTHS... while they're still trying to make game number 600, Stern has already released another couple new games.

If you're going to take a year to release a new game you need to make sure you did it right because that game is going thru several phases as did Halloween.

PURE EXCITMENT - FOMO STAGE - Can't wait to play it - Played it a couple times it was fun (its always fun to play something new btw) to oh wait I played it again and again, this broke, this flaw, that flaw and it goes on and on for months. Again while everyone is finding every flaw with Halloween, Stern just had 10 more games come out.

This will always be the case which is why I think all the suppliers shouldn't make games until the demand is exhausted. Every flaw of that game is talked about over and over until they finally do something new. In Halloween's case there are so many flaws we've created the buyers remorse club wondering how do I get out of this. Spooky needs to hire experienced talent and make that announcement otherwise I really feel their next game will suffer.

One last thing Spooky games really are the pinside community, the toughest crowd, whereas Stern has buyers thru channels Spooky never has access to. You must design a great game because you'll get this treatment every time.

Let me state a fact here. What is the value of KPOP games (Theatre of Magic, Tales from the Arabian Knights, Magic Girl, Circus Voltaire and people really liked the art on RAZA. Look I'm not saying to actually hire KPOP, I'm saying he's available. If he designs a game, and someone like Spooky manufactured it would people line up for miles to buy it... ahhh yeah they would.

KPOP knows more about designing a pinball than everyone at Spooky combined times 10. With that being said I'm not saying hire him, I'm not saying hire Balcer, or any of the other free agents. I'm saying just HIRE someone with a proven track record of pinball design what is wrong in saying that. Personally I would love to buy a Magic Girl or RAZA both games look amazing. Unlike some people I wasn't dumb enough to go on impulse and hand over any money. I would NEVER give KPOP 50 cents in advance but if Stern hired him would you buy the game? Yes you would just like you bought a Bryan Eddie game. I can see it now Stern hires KPOP and everyone goes crazy talking trash, then his game is released and people or crawling all over themselves to buy it.

Like it or not Pinball buyers have short term memory when it comes to seeing something they want. Did people go back in on Big Lebowski, Aliens, etc? Ahh yeah they did, if American Pinball came out RIGHT NOW and said we bought the design rights to Magic Girl and its our next game what would happen? People would line up with money to buy it. Screw KPOP he's a thief, but what does that have to do with Magic Girl and buying it from American Pinball? Nothing. Are you going to actually sit here and say with a straight face if American Pinball a company we can trust, bought the RIGHTS to everything Magic Girl and produced the game it wouldn't sell like hot cakes? Magic Girl would be American Pinball biggest seller ever period!

But none of that is the point, because the point is there are proven designers out there with more experience than the current crew at Spooky. I am NOT a fan of Joe Balcer designs, but do you think he would have done a lot better job with Halloween? Yes and by ten miles.

Spooky needs someone over there to design the games end of story. I personally don't care who as long as they have a track record. Spooky should do what it has proven it can do which is manufacture, leave the designing to those better suited.

Spooky in my opinion needs to come out of the clouds dump the EGO, and admit our current team isn't good enough. Do you see Gary Stern designing pinball games? He's the leader, whomever is leading Spooky should LEAD the company to a new level. It starts by hiring talent. Have you ever heard the term 'everyone focus on what you're best at'. Spooky can manufacture, but can their current team design, create artwork, computer animation, do they have the engineers for mechs? Don't be the guy who thinks you can do it all because you will fail be the leader, create a winning team and score touchdowns not field goals.

Spooky has the everything they need now to take it to new heights a facility to build games and money. Now use that money to build an award winning team and then watch spooky grow!