Stern Pinball

"they are watching people spend $2500 on black night toppers... if stern wanted to take care of you as a black night or a stern customer Why won't they just make more of their own accessories?"

Stern doesn't care about customers getting ripped off - evidenced by not making more Black Knight toppers

"they eventually are going to turn on their internet connectivity to all of their games on spike two And charge you a monthly feed to connect to the network that's coming next"

Stern will eventually charge monthly fees for internet connectivity on Spike 2 games

"They are the greatest pinball company on planet earth right now... what they do at the efficiency they do it is just incredible."

Stern Pinball is the greatest pinball company on earth right now due to their efficiency and business model

"So we all should be very thankful that stern is here to sort of keep pinball prices down I know this sounds crazy and counterintuitive to what we've been saying about stern is they're driving prices up The truth is they're not Without stern pinball prices would be astronomical"

Stern Pinball is actually keeping pinball prices DOWN, not driving them up

"but May 11th is the date I am hearing stern is planning to reveal this thing Now that means we might get a tease on May 4th and they might roll it out and then have a bigger reveal the following week So we'll see what happens, but you heard it here May 11th is the date that Kaneda is hearing"

Prediction: Stern is planning to reveal their game on May 11th.

"If you put a Jersey Jack LE next to a Stern, you can't tell me they should be priced the same."

Jersey Jack LE quality far exceeds Stern LE quality despite similar pricing

"Stern gets the best themes in pinball. But it is often the case when we see a new Stern machine, we are somewhat underwhelmed. And we often don't feel like, wow, they went the extra mile with these games."

Stern gets the best themes but often disappoints with execution and value

"the majority of them the majority of them are not allowed to come on Kaneda's pinball podcast... Ed Robertson won't come on the show... Ed's afraid to come on the show because of how it will make him look to his buddies at Stern"

Most Stern employees won't come on Kaneda's show

"I know they've done such a good job of keeping these titles a secret but the secret might be out of the bag and the last person any of these companies want to have in his possession The title of their next game is Kaneda's Pinball Podcast"

Kaneda claims to know upcoming Stern and Spooky titles but won't fully spoil them

"My won't Stern Pinball make more toppers for these games. I really don't understand it... every single topper is out of stock. And then you go on the second hand market and you see these damn things trading for well above what they're worth."

Stern should make more toppers to meet demand instead of allowing scalping

"I absolutely don't think you're getting anywhere near what you're paying for in a Stern LE. They know what they're doing. They're doing the smart thing. They're getting this hype train going with these LEDs. The FOMO is what drives their LEDs"

Stern LE pricing strategy is a cash grab exploiting FOMO

"how bad did stern miss releasing godzilla right now because if you look at the world right now king Kong versus godzilla or godzilla versus king Kong this movie is huge the excitement for it is huge"

Stern missed huge opportunity not releasing Godzilla during current movie hype

"This was the ultimate middle finger to Stern Pinball... it's Stern Pinball's price gouging of the industry... we are telling them that we don't want your overpriced crap"

Stern's expensive toppers are price gouging and should be criticized

"Before you know it you're going to look at your Stern receipt you're going to look at your bill and it's going to be around 12,000 dollars for a Stern machine where the bomb is around $3,000 and they're not putting way more into these games like Jersey Jack."

Stern is strategically pricing games to reach $12,000 through accessories and toppers

"Talk about absolute Pinball world domination. The market share they have they're in a completely different universe than everybody else... I would say this that quantity does not equal quality and I would argue that even though Stern has made 28 games, they have not made 28 masterpieces. They have barely made any masterpieces amongst those 28 games."

Stern Pinball dominates the market with 28 games since 2015 vs all competitors, but quantity doesn't equal quality - they've barely made any masterpieces

"I don't need all of your games to be great I don't need all of your games to be masterpieces but when it comes down to its stern at least once a year you should create a game that is a level above anything you've ever done before... you've made enough money now's the time to at least make masterpieces"

Stern needs to make at least one masterpiece per year instead of focusing only on profits

"You see how stern pinball does it? Look how Jersey Jack pinball did it with Guns N' Roses"

Stern Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball set the standard for proper game reveals

"How amazing would it be to have Zombie Eddie Keith Owlin and Lyman Sheats on a game Can we just get all the all stars on the court at the same time"

Stern needs to put their best talent together on one masterpiece game

"My prediction in 2021 We're going to Brian Eddy with Godzilla And then I think the next game is going to be Keith Elwin Zombie Yeti Masterpiece And I mean that I think we're going to see a game in August From"

Prediction: Godzilla will be released by end of March 2021 to coincide with the movie, followed by a Keith Elwin game in August that will be a masterpiece.

"I think stern pinball has made more fun games than Jersey Jack pinball has, but we're not talking about fun here. We are talking about people who want the most premium pinball experience."

Stern makes more fun games than Jersey Jack despite JJP being more premium

"They're starting to go after these big themes and remove the expensive assets from the game. We saw it with Jurassic Park. We saw it with Avengers."

Stern's approach of removing expensive assets from licensed games

"People are starting to start threads that said if you have a dream theme, the last company you would want to make it is Stern pinball"

Stern is the last company you'd want to make your dream theme

"And yet what does George Gomez and Gary Stern keep telling us over at Stern Pinball? They keep making excuses why the assets are not in the games. And all of you keep buying these games when they be yank the assets out. And I think there's no more excuses."

Stern is making excuses about asset licensing while other companies are proving it can be done

"You basically are fleecing us all... You know it... You're a multi-millionaire because of these things"

Stern is fleecing customers with high prices and low content

"$450 for a strip of LEDs and some inner art decals... you know how much a strip of LED lights costs 5 to 10 bucks... that is where the biggest profit margin lies now"

Stern's LED accessories are massively overpriced with huge profit margins

"I don't think they're trying to get as many of the assets as they can... They're not going to make the Avengers movie we love now. They're going to make the comic book version. And this is the wrong direction for pinball... I would rather Stern pinball and all the other pinball companies out there... make these games and only make one or two games a year based on blockbuster themes"

Stern should stop making games without proper movie assets and charge more for quality themes

"Stern Pinball is arbitrarily raising the price of Batman and Elvira by 500 bucks that left a bad taste in my mouth and it smelled like a bunch of BS"

Stern arbitrarily raising Batman and Elvira prices by $500 without giving customers anything more

"Stern has baked in to the price of its own product, the flipper price. Stern is now flipping its own product."

Stern is now flipping its own product by baking flipper prices into MSRP

"I don't think anyone would disagree with me, but Stern Pinball has fumbled every major license recently... Star Wars, they messed up. Game of Thrones, they messed up. Led Zeppelin, they messed up."

Stern Pinball consistently fumbles major licensed themes and shouldn't get premium properties

"Stern pinball has this industry down to a science and if you don't think they do you're wrong they know exactly what to do to be successful in pinball"

Stern Pinball has the industry down to a science with their successful formula

"Now, Stern Pinball wants to be the Grinch. They want to use legal messaging and broad legal language to let everybody out there know that when you buy a stern machine, you now don't really own it."

Stern's new end user license agreement is turning them into the Grinch, requiring permission to stream games you own and threatening legal action for modifications

"They are going down a road that is really pathetic... this is why Stern pinball to me is Stern pinball they're always going to act like big brother"

Stern's approach is legally pathetic and driven by greed rather than community support

"Stern Pinball would never show us what they could really do. They would never want to do that because it would make everything else they make look really boring, plain and pedestrian. If they showed us the potential of Stern Pinball we would demand it in every game."

Stern would never show us what they could really do because it would make everything else look pedestrian

"Most of you who are investing heavily in Stern LEs and buying up every new stern machine they make, the truth is there are so many of them. There are a dime a dozen. They're found everywhere"

Most Stern LEs won't be collectible due to overproduction and easy availability

"I will fight any man on planet earth that wants to tell me that any Stern machine is worth $9,000. And I will always believe that, that these machines are not worth that much money."

No Stern machine is worth $9,200 - will fight anyone who disagrees

"To me, this feels like Steve Ritchie designed this mechanism and you could drop this mech into pretty much any Pinball machine out there"

Stern designs mechanics that aren't theme-specific

"this is where I just always feel like Stern goes 75% of the way there"

Stern always stops at 75% effort on their games

"without Stern Pinball, there is no pinball industry. I mean, there really isn't. These guys keep pinball going consistently"

Without Stern Pinball there would be no pinball industry

"the company right now that makes it the simplest is stern and there's a reason why stern is so damn successful because it's no hassle... they're the simplest and that's why stern dominates"

Stern Pinball dominates because they make it simple and are a well-oiled manufacturing company

"as customers in the pinball hobby there is only one company that consistently gets people their games on a timely schedule and that is stern"

Stern Pinball is the only company that consistently delivers games on time

"If you accessorize a stern machine, you are close to $11 to $12,000 if you buy all of the accessories for these machines"

Stern accessories are getting too expensive, approaching $11-12k total cost

"it is a fact that pinball toppers are overpriced and it is a fact that so many of the recent pinball toppers that stern pinball has released have not really given you your money's worth thousand dollar toppers right Ninja Turtles Elvira 700 dollars for the Star Wars topper that looks so cheap"

Stern pinball toppers are overpriced and low quality

"I just want to congratulate the team over at Stern who's doing these code updates because you have to be happy the efficiency and how much faster people are getting their code updates"

Stern's code update efficiency has greatly improved

"if you ask anyone who do you want to make your dream theme if you could pick your company who would make it I think almost 90% of people would say Jersey Jack pinball just because you know that they would put more in the game"

90% of people would prefer Jersey Jack Pinball over Stern to make their dream theme

"the even the best Stern machine just feels like it should cost $7,500 because you're just not getting anything more in the game for their LE"

Stern LE prices don't justify the value compared to Jersey Jack

"You can not play Guns N' Roses and then go back and play a stern. You can't. Once you play Guns N' Roses, it makes every stern feel obsolete."

Stern Pinball machines feel obsolete after playing Guns N' Roses

"I would hate to be stern pinball right now Because we know that stern pinball has been working on their next music pin for 16 months And there is no way whether it's lead zeppelin or queen... There's just no way they're gonna be able to compete with this"

Stern's timing for their next music pin is the worst ever due to GNR

"they make really good games and they are fun but they're not putting everything they can into these games because they don't have to"

Stern Pinball doesn't put everything into games because they don't have to

"The only reason Stern early is $9,000 is because Jersey Jack pinball showed them that there's customers out there that will spend $9,000. Now unfortunately, Jack was putting so much in his machines that they were worth $9,000. But you're buying Stern machines that are worth nowhere near $9,000."

Stern machines are overpriced for what you get

"I definitely think Stern pinball is like the monster, the juggernaut in the pinball world. They're the Microsoft of pinball. You know they're not the dreamers."

Stern Pinball is like Microsoft - successful but lacking creativity and taste