It's theme. It connects with this market. The rules on Tron are nothing special and the playfield layout is nothing special. Tron is fun and the game is good, but it could and should have been way better IMHO.

Case in point, if you took the widely disliked Mustang theme and put it on the current Tron playfield with a shallow Tron ruleset, it would be a bottom of the barrel Stern game. Likewise, if you took Tron and put it on the Mustang playfield with Mustang's deeper ruleset it would be an absolute out of the park home run.

That's the point. If the Tron playfield layout or the rules were that good, the theme would be transferable and it's not. Tron is a good game, but it's the theme that drives Tron and elevates it's status...people "like to look at Tron". For many people in my generation that like games and liked them as a kid, it is the perfect representative theme.

Mustang has the reverse issue that Tron does. Mustang has a more creative playfield layout and better ruleset, but because of the theme the game got largely ignored. Mustang is actually a pretty good game, but very few people like "to look at" the Mustang theme, so very few people give it a chance.

I do. You get basically half the ladder to SOS without even shooting for it. How often do you have to intentionally try to light Flynn, the recognizer, Zuse or Clu? If wasn't for the Gem shot being such a roadblock for many people it would be even more apparent how shallow it is.

Whoa, whoa, whoa...I never said Tron sucked, I said it was good...should have been better. The question was asked by someone was Tron is so popular and I responded that the popularity is fueled by the theme primarily. It's not a bad game, I just wish there was a little more to it as Tron is my dream theme, much like it is for many others. And sure, most every game has things you start by accident, but normally on a game so beloved like Tron it isn't 50% of the requirements to get to the mini wizard mode. You don't have to apologize to me, I was just answering a question for someone, I don't have a Tron pin and I would never pay the price they would charge for a vault edition if it does come out, so I don't have a horse in this race.

I certainly never said Mustang had a shitty layout and ruleset. On the contrary I said the ruleset was pretty good and layout was more creative. If you really don't think that theme drives Tron sales, I think you are kidding yourself. Even you yourself said, "Tron looks better, it plays better, it sounds better". You do realize that that two out of the three factors you stated for Tron being a better game are based on theme right? The question was asked what makes Tron so desirable? It's a totally fair question as the game doesn't have a unique layout, fantastic toy, great dots or even a creative ruleset. The theme takes that good overall package and makes it great in this case. Tron looks and sounds cool. When you add aftermarket stuff that should have been there to begin with, it looks really cool. Theme can take a good game and elevate it like it did with Tron or take a good game and drive it down like it did with Mustang. I don't understand why some people get so worked up about that. It's pretty common knowledge and why Stern does all licensed themes to begin with so they can hopefully catch lightning in a bottle with that theme's demographic.