yea, lets move Game of thrones to a totally different art package and layout. but not FG or RS.

I think mustang rethemed to fast and furious would be a big hit

Uh oh.

While I'd love to see Ghostbusters on a better design, this idea makes no business sense at all. Metallica and Ghostbusters are both selling well...no reason to confuse the market by combining them into one game.

Software is designed to work with specific layouts, inserts, toys and features. You can't just plop it in a different game and expect it to gel. They tried this with their simpler titles - Iron Man, BBH, Tron, Avatar, and Rolling Stones are generally working off the same rule concepts...then tweaked to make sense with the differences in the layouts. You couldn't plop Metallica rules into Ghostbusters...there's just no way it would work.

While I agree with you on GB's gameplay (I hate it) ...there's zero motivation for Stern to rewrite the game from scratch. It's selling well. Money talks. We don't like the game, oh well....we move on. Others are enjoying it (how, I have no idea lol)

I like GB as it is and most of us that own one here like it. It's somewhat liner, but not more than TAF. where you start mumushka every single time right from the get go. or pinball magic where every shot pattern is exactly the same. I like the different paths, and I like how they progress to tell a story. If you don't like the mode route. Rack up proton packs to see how high you can get it before cashing in. or focus on storage facility multiball. or go for PKE frenzy. You don't have to do just modes.

that's because you are not changing your skill shot at the beginning before you launch the ball. Generically, it's set at the right orbit which starts the who brought the dog/stay puft story. if you move it around you can start a different story. I usually start with the librarian because I like the music and the shorter storyline, then move on to We got one, and chasing slimer through the hotel.

For starters, you do "ALL" the EASY fixes that have been repeatedly hammered home by myself, Neo and others...

Second,
Who brought the dog is three effin' shots!
(Oh the humanity...)

Like Neo stated above, select aNyThInG else to get started and you won't even be bothered by WBTD when you get to it.

The rest of the modes/music are awesome and as much as I originally thought Dan Akroyd, or Bill Murray should've done the voice work for GB, Ernie Hudson stepped up and did a fantastic job of keeping the player engaged.
Not quite Gimli status mind you but, waaaay better than most of the newer Stern titles on the market.

Does the code still need some work?
Of course!
Reverse flippers (on and off) without solid visual and better audio cues is still just silly.

I've been getting better at isolating the loopin' supers but, sometimes I'll forget and I'll still accidentally stack it into storage facility multiball.

For the OP:
Family and guests are still playing it roughly 20-1 over the "higher-rated" GOT pro or any of my other Sterns.
(Besides Stars of course! )
Nobody complains about cheap drains, or airballs, linear code, Sir-Mix-A-Lot endorsed flipper gaps, goat-diddling, etc...

They just have fun playing (in my opinion) one of Stern's better/more immersive pins to date.

Then don't bash it, HOLY MOLY. Pinside is the big whiny baby in the pinball community about new games and makes everything seem a LOT worse than it is - do not use anything said here as a definitive reference to what you should or shouldn't buy. Outside of Pinside all I have heard are good things about this title - and that is coming from an unbiased source that also does not own any DMD games nor Stern games. Play the game and see if YOU like it. Another example is when I was surprised when I talked to a major distributor in PA (that you all know quite well) that doesn't do Pinside much and when I tried to strike up a conversation about the Stern playfield flaking problems, the biggest most widespread frantic issue in the pinball community at the time, he didn't even know what I was talking about. This was just a casual conversation at a show when we were talking about the flaws of other pinball machines and companies, nor was I in any position to buy a Stern from him and he was just hiding it or something like that. This was well into the lifespan of the issues and after thousands of Pinside posts on the matter making it seem like an epidemic. Didn't have a clue. Still have yet to find a GB or Metallica in person that has issues either. If you read Pinside too much it is very easy to blow things out of proportion in your own mind. It is almost like an unintentional propaganda effect. Pinside makes everything seem worse and more dramatic than it is and when you go out in the world of pinball it really isn't a big deal and isn't happening. I think playfield flaking IS a big deal if you're spending the couple thousand dollars to buy the game and I'm not saying it isn't, I'm saying a lot of the issues here aren't occurring everywhere as everybody thinks.

Ghostbusters is pretty good and the anal majority here is the minority in the real world. People speak (type) louder when they don't like something than when they do and it is very easy to form an opinion biased opinion based off of that. Go to a location and play play play and decide if you want to buy it then. If you are potentially going to spend $6,000 on a game you can put $10-$20 into playing a game a bunch of times, or find a free play location, or even a buddy that has one and play the same amount for free. It is really not that hard to do.

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If they combined the two games, as weird of an idea as that is, then people would be bitching about how it's just a carbon copy of Metallica. (which in my opinion, that complaint would make a lot of sense; I'm not sure how you think two of the same game is better with no secondary game really existing at all, than two completely different games, even if you feel one is a little lacking)