What good is a replacement playfied at $550 if it’s from the same run as the ones that have issues?
Complete waste of money as far as I see it.

Plus shipping. Adding insult to injury, as if JJP’s “offer” isn’t bad enough already, they wouldn’t even pay for the shipping on a playfield even though my current POTC playfield chipped.

One thing just came to mind... Considering most people bought their Wonka and POTC through a distributor, wouldn't going the credit card route (dispute, warranty, etc) just hurt the distributor? Curious if JJP would even see the hit from that unless the person bought it from them directly.

I agree, I was just pointing out that they seem to be setting ultimatums on a timeline of accepting this piece of shit offer.

Pickup the phones people......let them know how you feel about this. It’s the only thing that may work in the end.

My distro even told me he can’t get involved and his hands are tied on this one.

The LE wonkas in STL on location have the same pooling around the star post. think this is widespread. just checked my TNA #257. it also has the chipping around the slingshot star post. maybe everyone needs to stop buying NIB til they figure this issue out.

This is a bullshit excuse from your distributor right here. Distributors are in place literally to be the representative of the manufacturer. This is why they get to earn a profit on the sale, and how they are supposed to add value to their stop in the supply chain. The manufacturers put them in place to be a firewall for any issues that arise, and they earn profit on the sale as a part of doing this. Any distributor that isn't willing to do their job for you should be out of business. I hope you can find a better person to spend your money with next time.

I’m not going to trash the distro because he is a good guy and family friend but I was definitely surprised by the response.

I do have to say, it’s amazing how it’s nothing but crickets here from people in the know who post here a lot. The JJP guys, the various distros involved, Mirco .....it’s like a big f’ing conspiracy.

Not sure what you expect the Distro to do, other than buy you a free Playfield from his profit on the sale?

Did I say anywhere that I expected him to do anything? The distro could communicate at a minimum on our behalf that there are some unhappy customers, the do talk regularly and the distro is usually more accessible to the customer than the mfg.

Someone said to get the distro involved and just responded that most of us dealing with the POTC issues since feb/March have gone through all the proper channels to date.

The distributor needs to go to JJP and stand up for their customer. If they are too chicken to do that, what do we even need distributors for? Most of them drop ship from the factory anyway. Making hundreds of dollars off a pinball machine sale while not ever even being in possession of the machine as well as offering no help on warranty claims is nothing more than being a leech and a pimp in the supply chain. Manufacturers might as well kill the distributor model and go to direct sales.

I'm one of the quiet majority. I purchased 4x NIB the past two years but I won't be purchasing NIB again unless they figure this out 100% and it's a well documented 100%. Sales to businesses/routing (barcades/arcades etc) will probably roll along but I'd be willing to bet this will slow overall (all companies combined) NIB sales 10-40% for the Pinside crowd...depending on the manufacturer concerned.

Yeah, I think it's that big. As big as a $9500 Pirates of the Caribbean LE purchase to most of us here.

As another complete BS guestimate, I'd wager JJP is probably top of the list of potential straight gross sales loss with 30-40% loss of sales to Pinsiders or like-minded collectors until this is fixed or at least addressed.

I don't know if that will impact the various concerned companies long-term, but I'm willing to bet they care quite a bit. They may feel powerless. The situation for some may not be good. Almost non-existent margins; an oversaturated market that is becoming brutally competitive; a very discriminating client base...motivation for some companies might exist but the $$$ may not exist to fix the problem.

They did try to speed production of everything up with the hopes of getting two games out per year.

Could this be an underlying cause for all of this?

I doubt it. I think the issue is that water borne clear is not a good answer for spraying on wood, and spraying it on thick is an even bigger problem. Heat and summer humidity are also probably causing the clear to not ever fully cure. Does a waterborne clear suck humidity back in during these hot summer months? You aren't far away from me, and you know how soupy it can get between here and the JJP factory. Is the JJP facility climate controlled? Are playfields being stored in a high heat/humidity situation over at the factory? I have a friend who is an automotive paint rep...I am going to get in contact with him and see what his thoughts are on the matter. I've sprayed heavy layers of solvent based Dupont Chroma on my playfield projects, and have installed posts 24 hours later with ZERO pooling whatsoever.

Valid points and certainly many good questions there.

The interesting thing with the Stern games is all the recent builds that suffer from these same issues is that I’ve seen more good games out in the wild that are defect free and this is likely due to the different vendors being used.

It would do the hobby good if one of these vendors was able to chime in on why this is happening to some but not all games.

I’m sure Stern uses multiple vendors simply due to the sheer volume of games they build but clearly not all to the same std. or are they and one vendor is just better at their craft?

I would 'think' that even though Stern does use multiple PF vendors - they don't have different PF vendors for the same game. Anyone know if they have different PF vendors for the same game? Or do they give the business to a single PF manufacturer for each game?

I agree on the Hobbit PF's - I don't know anyone that has reported an issue with those PFs.

As for mine - I, and guests, have played the hell out of it over the last 3 years and PF looks fantastic. No pooling, chipping, and only very minor dimpling (as expected). Hell, it still looks shiny and new to be honest.

If Micro did that PF - and I think they did - they should not have changed a thing because that PF is freaking perfect.

Jumping can lead to contusions though.

$1500 per game.

They must because I’ve seen location Beatles machines that have a ton of plays with no bubbling and same with GOTG.

I have also seen some Beatles machines that are on location and literally every single post everywhere is either bubbled/chipped or appearance of sunken posts.

Something has to be different or there wouldn’t be such a variance and the only thing that comes to mind is different vendors for art and clear or a really inconsistent vendor at his craft of applying this stuff.

This issue is giving me a contusion ...

If you want to view paradise, advert your eyes from the slingshots....

Is this dealer profit?

If so what is the estimated Mfg profit per game?

Seems the cash flow may be there to take care of these issues.

exactly this right here, if this is what we get then we should be able to buy direct from Stern/JJP or whoevcer for lower price.

That doesn’t work on POTC, chipping in many many locations.

Let your game age a bit, there is no paradise!

I posted what my distributor told me.

How about everyone else? What are they telling you? I’m sure it’s the same lip service.

This is true. My POTC has chipping in multiple spots.

WOZ has light wear around throne room VUK, but that has around 4,000 plays.
Hobbit- flawless with around 4,000 plays as well.

Could this even exist in 2019?
I would imagine pretty much all productionsteps are automated.

distro profit...…...per game. I thought like $500, no.. its $1500

I wouldn't be surprised if less like $300 per

As i´ve said before, i´m totally puzzled as of why jjp went back to mirco after potc.

Honestly have no clue but with JJP it seems every game literally at some point suffers this issue since POTC.

Stern has more good defect free games out there than bubbled or chipped so me thinks they do use different vendors even on same title or they would either have zero or very few issues or widespread like JJP with just one vendor.

Just thinking out loud.

I always thought the mfg cleared 1000-1500 per game and the distro 2-300.

$1500 to the distro seems really high

I ordered by Hobbit direct from JJP for 8K (5K to preoder, and rest on ship). But that was way back in 2014 in the preorder days.

They allowed me to upgrade to Smaug for no additional cost, back then they were going for 9K (instead of 8.5K for the LE).

I didn't even think of asking for a non-distributor discount...and I bet there isn't such a thing anyway.

I always heard JJP had less distributor profit than Stern. Also, Wonka playfields were probably already in production when the POTC issues came to light.

I dont know if that´s a good excuse or looks even worse for jjp?

Your not kidding... happened to me the first week... it still hurts...

as for the PF they should not be doing this for $8K+ per game... that sucks...

so if anyone wants to sell me theirs cheap so they don't have to look at it anymore... I will deal with it... (joke)

I have 40 year old games not doing that... new ones should not chip for sure...

I heard the same. JJP I think is only $500 and Stern is around $1000-$1500 depending on level.

I'm going to check my maiden when I get home
I cancelled my wonka ce and may cancel JP

Feeling really uneasy now

That's why I ultimately passed until the replacement playfield doesn't have the same issue as what's in the machine.

Someone broke the code.

My distributor said that he makes a little over $200 on the Wonka SEs. When JJP lowered prices on the entry editions, the difference was taken almost completely out of the distro’s profit margin. I’m not sure if they made up for it on the LEs though. I would suspect that way more Wonka SEs are selling compared to previous JJP titles, including to new buyers like myself who could not justify the higher prices in the past.

JJP is apparently strict on a lot, including shipping fees for distros. This is why you rarely if ever see the free shipping deals you see on Sterns. Way less profit margin.

I can not confirm any of this, but I didn’t get the impression he was lying (or had any reason to). I also didn’t get into or particularly care to ask how much they make on Sterns.

That’s 2.6% on sales. Nobody in their right mind works on that low of a margin.

And yet another question is if these issues are caused by a switch to water based clears then shouldn’t all the PF’s using this method be pooling/chipping? Confused by the fact some people are saying their clear is good and not pooling. The plot thickens.

Yea I'm not sold on it being some change to the materials required by some regulation. As you pointed out, there are plenty of playfields being made today without this issue.

Exactly what I was getting at with Stern using different vendor and even different vendors on same license. How can many Beatles be perfect with no issue and all of a sudden boom we have a batch that is all jacked up. Different vendor and different process is my suspicion. Does Stern actually dictate the type of clear coat and process that must be used on their games or do they just say to x, y and z vendor...hey we need 250 pf’s made to each of them and let them do their thing however that may be? I’m guessing the later.

You should actually be feeling a lot more at ease now.

Maybe at first, but if you hit the distributor in the wallet, I guarantee the pain will flow upstream to JJP. Then JJP will make Mirco feel the pain. Do what you can do, and let the natural market forces work it out.

For Stern yes but what about some saying their POTC PF is fine. How does that work if they are all Mirco?

For gosh sakes, McDonalds forgets to put the third pickle on a hamburger, consumers complain and Mcd’s responds immediately. It’s hard to believe that there has been no response from JJP or Stern on this issue. I don’t get it. Every company their size has a PR person or department to handle these things. No response from them is worse than one that not everyone is pleased with.

McDonald’s serves Billions of people, so that may play a part in their immediate response time
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