Stern Pinball

"It's like a movie studio putting out one movie a week and you can't even figure out when you're going to go see the first one, let alone the fact that the second one's already out. And that's what it feels like. They're just dropping stuff on top of stuff and nothing's starting to feel special anymore."

Stern releases too many titles too quickly - nothing feels special anymore, like a movie studio releasing one movie a week

"We know these games aren't worth anywhere close to $9,000 or $7,500. But we still buy them because you do put out a fun Pinball product. We know we're getting ripped off, but we support you, Stern"

Stern games aren't worth $9000 or $7500 but people still buy them - customers know they're getting ripped off

"The biggest pinball company in the world. What a funny April fools joke. I mean, I have a sense of humor. I do. But I just found that to be pretty lame."

Stern Pinball's April Fools joke about revealing Black Knight at Burger King was lame and shows their arrogance

"I'm starting to feel a little bit like it might be Stern Pinball that they might be, you know, the Sauron and the evil empire a little bit."

Stern Pinball is becoming like the evil empire/Sauron in pinball - arrogant and avoiding community shows

"But we do know that Stern has a little bit of a formula. That a Stern game is always a Stern game is always a Stern game. And while they'll do different things here and there, for the most part, are you ever really blown away by that thing that Stern puts into the game? Are you? No."

Stern has a predictable formula and rarely delivers truly surprising innovations

"How is that not idiotic? How is that not ludicrous that Stern Pinball has Steve Ritchie"

Stern revealing Black Knight right after TPF was idiotic

"They're winning this battle. Don't be fooled. Yes, there are some companies chipping away. Primarily, the only one really chipping away at Stern is Chicago gaming company. Everybody else is not. Nobody else is really making a dent on Stern's black castle."

Stern Pinball is dominating the market and competitors aren't making a real dent

"the cadence and the volume and the frequency and efficiency of this company puts every other pinball company to shame"

Stern Pinball's production efficiency puts all other pinball companies to shame

"Without Stern, how boring would this hobby be? You have to admit without Stern releasing a new game every three to four months, we would literally be bored to death waiting for the other manufacturers to deliver something."

Stern does amazing job keeping hobby exciting with regular releases

"I don't see myself buying any Stern Pinball machines anytime soon until I see the mechanical innovation there. I just don't see myself doing it."

Won't buy any Stern machines until they add more mechanical innovation

"the final thing that they need to do to justify where the prices of their games are currently at... is to include a lot more mechanical innovations in their games. And they've gotten away over the last few years with stuff that isn't really pushing the boundaries of what they can do."

Stern's mechanical innovation is lacking but they excel at art, themes, and shipping more complete code

"They don't need to make magic. You don't need to conjure up magic when you can fool everybody with tricks. You see them saying real magic goes beyond just being like hoodwinking people. And I think Stern has done a great job in giving you just enough to get your money out of your wallet."

Stern doesn't create magic, just tricks people into buying with 'good enough' games

"here's the thing I think you very much enjoy the Stern games but those Stern games they don't have a soul. They really don't have a soul right now"

Stern games lack soul and innovation compared to Jersey Jack

"Look, it is what it is. We've set our piece on this Stern Insider program. I do think it's a cash grab. I think it's silly... But don't be fooled. They're gonna use this as a way to just get you to buy more merchandise that you don't need and t-shirts that you don't really want."

Stern Insider program is a cash grab that doesn't provide real value to the community

"when someone spends nine thousand dollars on the limited edition game can we actually give them something that the different experience so it justifies the cost"

Stern should give LE owners exclusive gameplay features, not just cosmetics

"this company just has everybody buy the balls and moves like this just reek reek of a spoiled sort of super successful category market leader"

Stern Insider program is a greedy cash grab for basic information

"we know that you will design the game to a bomb, to a price. And that is what is most important to you. And we also know that the more expensive the license, the less that will go into the machine"

Stern designs games to a price point and sacrifices quality for expensive licenses

"Stern Pimberg gets people their games faster than any other manufacturer. Like way faster than any other manufacturer... They revealed this game when. I think it was January. Here we are end of February... and people have the game in their homes. I mean, that's incredible."

Stern Pinball delivers games faster than any other manufacturer

"please let the Harry Potter license go. Please let Jersey Jack make it... I know and you know in your heart of hearts that you will not do this license justice"

Stern should give up Harry Potter license to Jersey Jack Pinball

"The assets from the shows from the 60s are plentiful when you let licensed those IPs because the actors back then did not have the rights. You didn't have to sign the rights for each individual actor."

Stern focuses on 60s themes due to easier licensing

"I'm here to tell you right now on Kaneda's pinball podcast, we're going to start with a, we're going to, we're going to confirm a title that's not coming out in 2019. You will not see in 2019 a James Bond pinball machine."

James Bond pinball will not be released in 2019

"These guys, these marketing guys, man. They're really good. I mean, they're finding new ways to take your money and do stuff that they think. They think is good marketing but they're really not thinking a lot of this stuff through."

Stern Pinball's new Insider program is misguided marketing

"it does look like shit. Regardless of the cause, when I played the Beatles for the first time at a modern pinball in New York City, the first thing I did was I did notice an extreme amount of dimpling on the game."

Stern playfield dimpling is getting worse and looks terrible, especially on Beatles and Batman

"I've had a Stern spike two system on my Batman for an entire year. I play the game frequently and I've had no issues. And they make thousands of games."

Stern node board system is reliable despite controversy

"if you think stern pinballs about money and not pinball I think you're 100% wrong. They are a manufacturing company that makes pinball and they want to manufacture pinball to make a profit but I guarantee you if you went into stern pinball and you talked to people there what they're passionate about and what drives them is pinball"

Stern is passionate about pinball, not just money

"but I guarantee you if you went into stern pinball and you talked to people there what they're passionate about and what drives them is pinball now there is a reality that is financial for all of those people who love pinball that is you need to m"

Prediction: Stern Pinball employees are passionate about pinball and that's what drives them, not just financial motives.

"I don't think Stern is making games to break. I think Stern is a company making games in a way where they can ship 10,000 a year."

Disagrees with Christopher Thompson's claim that Stern makes games designed for obsolescence

"the difference between the games that Stern's making today and the games that Stern made 10 or 15 years ago is a lot of these spike games are planned obsolescence. Stern doesn't want to be competing against their own games"

Stern designs games for planned obsolescence unlike Williams/BLE

"I think it's an undercooked mess that diagnostics are not well understood, and it is still subject to voltage-regulational issues and shorts. And I don't recommend it, but that's me. That's my opinion."

Stern Spike system is an undercooked mess with planned obsolescence

"the actual cost to Stern pinball to make an LE is like three to $4,000 at most. So they're making like $5,000 in gravy on every LE's sold."

Stern makes huge profits on Limited Editions with minimal additional cost

"The pop bumper caps on Stern machines are so cheap. Look at them... There literally is nothing there but a cheap little image painted on, you know, a cheap, flat piece of plastic."

pop bumper caps on Stern machines are extremely cheap looking

"I really hate also how Stern just takes off the shelf. I think they have a Dracula race car from Hot Wheels in there. I just can't stand that kind of cheapness."

Stern uses cheap off-the-shelf parts like Hot Wheels cars in their games

"And I'll say specifically the one that I know for sure they did when we said Iron Maiden was going to come out that morning, they held it to the end of the day just to prove that I was wrong. I'm never wrong, Stern."

"I'm here to tell you, Stern has actually adjusted its marketing moves based upon stuff that we've said on this podcast. And I'll say specifically the one that I know for sure they did when we said Iron Maiden was going to come out that morning, they held it to the end of the day just to prove that I was wrong."

Kaneda claims Stern adjusts marketing based on his podcast predictions

"I think it's bullshit. They should not be able to just arbitrarily play around with the limited edition numbers after they've announced how many there will be on reveal day because every single one of those 500 games will lose a little bit of value because now there's a whole nother 100 of them out there in the world."

Stern adding 100 extra Monsters LEs after announcement was sleazy

"Come on Stern. I just praised you... And you're not putting service rails in the game. How expensive are service rails? $5 this reeks of a cost-cutting terrible decision"

Criticism of Stern's cost-cutting on Primus

"Stern is going to continue to improve and once they are firing on all cylinders... It is hard for me to envision a world in which many other pinball companies can survive"

Stern will dominate and make it difficult for other companies to compete

"So Stern pinball, my prediction is, of course, it's going to be another good year for Stern. I think Stern pinball in 2019 is going to fire on all cylinders."

Prediction: Stern will have another good year in 2019 and will fire on all cylinders.

"This is why Stern's marketing is genius. Is they are able to create this hype and hysteria when 500 people who bought Ghostbusters LE before they even saw it, they had no idea how that game shot."

Stern's marketing is genius at creating hype when people don't even know if the game is good

"Stern Pinball will ship you. Are you sitting down four to five games a year that are NIB four to five games a year. Jersey Jack Pinball with its factory got you four games in like seven years."

Stern Pinball understands business and delivers consistent product despite criticism

"As you've educated your listeners, quality control from playfield, chip in to cabinets, splitting, you can go through Pinsides to everyone complaining about quality control."

Stern's quality control issues with playfield chipping and cabinet splitting are a major weakness

"despite the fact that their talent pool is part of their strengths. And mine, this is an aging talent pool. Steve Ritchie is almost 70. Dwight, the young buck, is in his 50s. Like George and Lyman are probably in their 50s as well. These are not spring chickens making these machines."

Stern's weakness is aging talent pool - Steve Ritchie almost 70, others in their 50s hitting back end of professional shelf life

"They are the dominant player in the market, right? From a market share perspective, talents, that they've gotten house, brand recognition, they are the 800 pound gorilla in the market."

Stern has dominant market position with 90% market share, economies of scale, distribution network, and private equity backing as key strengths

"with Stern releasing four new titles a year, three of them are cornerstone games. You know, we didn't really talk about this as a weakness, but I think this should be brought up is a simple market fatigue of how many years can they release so many games at what point do people run out of money and room to keep absorbing this many titles?"

Market fatigue concern - how many years can Stern release 4 games per year before people run out of money and room

"I think they're vulnerable in the sense that they're not putting as much magic or wow into these games because they need to keep the line moving. And I think they've found the shortest or a little bit of a shortcut where if it's artwork and theme and LCD, they don't need to do as much mechanically."

Stern vulnerable because they put less mechanical features into games to keep production line moving, relying more on artwork/theme/LCD

"I also just want to say that we all probably missed out on just congratulating stern on all of the recent code updates that have happened I mean this company who was slammed for so long for giving people incomplete games has hired an army of people to work on code"

Stern has massively improved with code updates and should be congratulated

"stern pro is the only good value you get... you buy a premium or an alley you starting to get fleas you buy an alley you really are getting ripped off you just are"

Stern Pro models offer good value while Premium and LE models are overpriced

"I'm no longer just blown away anymore... These games come out and especially Stern Games, I think Stern has really built an empire on hype... It feels just more like a slight evolution of what came before. Nothing feels like a revolution"

Kaneda is no longer blown away by new Stern releases, comparing them to iterative car models rather than revolutionary products

"I would say the actual cost to Stern to actually make a game right their cost to make a game...is probably somewhere between two and three thousand dollars...wholesale around a Stern machine is somewhere around $4,000 for a pro"

Stern's wholesale pricing is around $4,000 for a pro model, making actual cost to manufacture around $2,000-$3,000

"the genius of Stern's business model is that everybody wins everyone makes money all right they've built a product to the point where they can make money and distributors can make money and consumers are happy"

Stern has created a successful business model where everyone wins - company, distributors, and consumers are happy