I may be crazy but I own a CE and its a great game. The bottle topper is awesome and I like the cabinet and trim better as well. I even bought a NOS CE playfield that was cleared by Kruzman, so I can play it and not worry about damage.

For the price not sure they are worth it (esp the CE), but they sure are pretty to look at and they aren't making any more!

I was thinking about this as well, I'll bet TS4 is one of the lowest selling from JJP and they tend to take a year between new games, maybe they'll fill in the empty factory time with GNR or maybe they will make PotC and they can literally charge $12.5K or more and sell a good number of them.

Sure if you felt you were individually bait and switched.. but going forward buyers knew the deal. The real problem was the uncertainty of it all.. JJP had a history of late game delivery.. and POTC was showing even more of that. Then, late news of major toy changes? This is just gas on the flames for those with doubt about the title and JJP. What would they do next?

High Prices
Delays
Bad News about reduction in product
Slow sales
Expensive build
'next big thing..' waiting in the wings

It's all a formula for POTC being tossed out like moldy bread.

Well they also were trying to switch to more frequent releases.. so you'd hope something else was not too far behind TS4.. but a run of 500 POTCs at 15k a pop.. I'm sure they'd be a one day sellout.

We love the theme, the layout and mechanicals. The multiple character selection changes rules to allow for plenty of different strategies. It’s great for a small collection, but personally I still play WOZ more.

Is it overpriced? That depends on your perspective. For us Pirates is the most played pin in our collection and the first pin friends gravitate to play during parties.

Based on that, no I don’t think mine is overpriced.

Lets not forget people were not exactly thrilled with the theme either. It may not be ts4 levels of theme disappointment but it was close. Everyone was scratching their heads. I think a fourth (?) movie in the series had come out maybe a year prior but nobody cared. POTC was an out of date theme in almost everyone's eyes. In fact, before the game was revealed everyone was naysaying it pretty hard. Then it got revealed and (no pun intended) the tides turned a bit after everyone saw how packed it was. Then yeah spinner gate and what not kinda cooled off some of the hype it had built back up for itself, then the wait was sooooo long before it actually released, people had moved on to other games by that time.

I got the chance to put quite a few games on the proto version with the triple discs. It was fine. I don't miss them at all though on the final release. I believe theres a mod for the treasure chest so thats not too big of a deal either.

POTC is one of my daughters favorite franchises, even she thinks the game sucks. Maybe with the original toys it would have been good but its a floaty clunk fest IMO. STERN POTC> JJP POTC and I have played both quite a bit.

LOL. That game is nowhere near clunky. LOL.

I think that's overstating it... there of course is the whole 'where is Johnny' angle and the gripes about what assets they used or not (I love that my Stern POTC has Depp lines and the ride's song) but I don't recall people poo'ing on the whole thing. The darkest cloud was price+delays.... which is kinda like the JJP calling card

Pirates is an unusual game, complex and beautiful, like a modern TZ, but for some reason not as fun to play. The use of multiball itself seems like the main mode, but it can be fun stacking other modes while in it. I'm always attracted back to Pirates, maybe for the mechanical complexity or beauty, or for David Thiel's music, or the cool CE topper, but...I'd rather play other games. Some friends love it, some hate it. Seems like all the JJP games are a bit polarizing.

Lots of interest when it was revealed, even with sticker shock, then long delays before production, during which the three discs were removed and made One, and the trunk lid change. Lots of talk of no depp, limited assets, meanwhile, other new games come out, so deposit money moves, negativity snowballs, production cut short. Pinball market explodes, game now rare in relative terms, price jumps.

Played one on location a week or two ago. It is a fun game, like most pins, has some things I like, some I don’t. I’m sure when you understand the rules and strategy, and get a better feel for the hidden shots, it is even more fun.

POTC has one of my favorite, smoothest - most satisfying (and variable) shots in pinball: drilling a ball into the open chest with a hard slapshot from the right flipper -OR- finessing it into the chest (past the upper Bayou flipper with just enough power) with a backhand from the left flipper.

The chest lid then closing in acknowledgement afterwards is tasty icing on the cake!

That would be the biggest reason for me getting one eventually. I never watched those movies as I'm not really a fan of his movies where he overacts, and these movies seemed to play right into his already overinflated ego. Good to know he's not really in the game at all! Give me more Bill Nighy any day!

It wasn't even that, I'm talking about in the days before it was revealed. We didn't even know what it looked like yet, we just knew the next game was Pirates. People where out on the game just on that knowledge alone. Then the reveal, yeah there was some disappointment, because no Johnny, it actually IS pirates, ect. But then we saw how much was in it and things looked up a bit, and then the delays and removal of mechs, like you said, just killed any momentum it had.