It's hard to say, but that one may have been marketed incorrectly. If it was marketed as a 3rd Lawlor Disaster Game (Earth Shaker, Whirlwind, Quantum City (instead of Dialed In)), it may have made a difference. The pin "seems" like a game about a cell phone. The fact that all the folks behind Dialed In had to say time and again that it's NOT a game about a cell phone in the game play/release videos did not help the cause. The Emoji thing was also super lame. Doesn't really appeal to pinheads, I don't think-- kind of felt "kiddy". Great shooting game, has some awesome elements, but fell down in some areas. I don't think that being an unlicensed theme was the worst thing that it had going for it. It's just that the unlicensed theme itself turned out to be a loser in the way it was presented.

Edit: To be fair though, it is ranked #28 on the Pinside top 100 with quite a lot of people weighing in (654), so it does get more love than most people, self-included, think.

When the cost of your base game has gone from $4000 to $6800 in the last 10 years (I'll always remember my quote for 4K even for AC/DC in 2012), and your LE price has doubled in the same amount of time, you don't have to resort to those cheap tactics. That's not to say that Stern wouldn't try to do it if they could get away with it.

You mean 40-50 year old music that is so great that it's stood the test of time over decades only to dominate streaming services now? "Dinosaur rock" suggests extinction. It's far from that and people still want it because nothing has come out that is better.