Stern Pinball

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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 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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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 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

"I don't think stern wants many of us to ask are we really getting $7,500 to $9,000 in value in each of these machines? I don't think they want you thinking that"

Stern doesn't want customers to question value proposition of $7,500-$9,000 machines

"apparently the conversation we were having around stern pinballs wholesale pricing has some people over at stern pinball really upset and look instead of getting other people in trouble, I thought it would just be easier to take down the episode"

Stern upset about wholesale pricing discussion, forced episode deletion

"I have to admit, I was a little surprised that it was Wo NLE again just because they've already done that game twice, you know, in two different formats"

Primus pinball is just another Wo NLE reskin at high price

"Nick, one, we'll never be a contract manufacturer. We have no desire to be a contract manufacturer... And then, you know, within months, you know, the whole mid of a madness thing happens in their contract manufacturer"

Stern refused to be a contract manufacturer but then did contract work shortly after

"The reason why they're doing it is to make the gold edition by which they will make the majority of these games look like a fucking deal"

Beatles Diamond and Platinum editions are deliberate distractions to make Gold editions seem like a bargain

"I'm talking about you Tim and you Jarrett and you George and you Joe... putting a $25,000 price like or even allowing distributors to ask $25,000 for this machine is something the Stern and Kapow marketing teams should be ashamed of."

Direct criticism of Stern marketing team for greedy pricing strategy despite company success

"you can't deny how incredible it is that you first saw this game a little over a week ago and it's already being made... People are going to wait a year and a half to get their Alice Cooper's. People are going to wait. God knows how long to get pirates of the Caribbean when they already paid for it for a year."

Stern's manufacturing efficiency is incredible - showing game and shipping quickly while competitors take years

"Let's say Charlie or some other non-Stern company talks to a license, right? And they're like, hey, your license would make a really good fit for Pinball. And basically what happens is if Stern gets whiff of anybody looking at any license, they snap it up, even if they're not going to make it."

Stern acquires licenses defensively to prevent competitors from getting them

"If Stern did what any other manufacturer out there did they would be crucified and burned at the stake... If Stern revealed a game with the art package that looked like Oktoberfest would you let them get away with that"

Stern gets unfairly criticized while other manufacturers get away with worse problems

"And this is my prediction. I really do think Stern is not going to have a trouble like not going to have trouble selling this game."

Prediction: Stern will not have trouble selling this game despite negative feedback.

"This reeks really bad of arrogance from Stern Pinball. Like total arrogance in the way they market this stuff... You become the shit when people keep telling you you're the shit"

Stern's arrogance in marketing comes from pinball buyers enabling them

"We all know that Stern knows that we are suckers. We have to admit that reality that we will buy a $9,000 pinball machine that has different stickers and it's basically the same game as like a $5,500 machine"

Stern knows customers are suckers and takes advantage

"When's the last time you heard anyone say anything about AAerosmith? When was the last time you heard anyone say Peep about Kiss? When was the last time you heard anyone even say anything about Guardians of the Galaxy?"

Recent Stern games are quickly forgotten after initial hype

"My worry is Stern is going to chase the money and not chase the legacy. They are really going to be about volume, volume, volume because now their customers are the private equity investors."

Stern prioritizes volume over quality due to private equity ownership, chasing profits over legacy

"does Stern have no more surprises for us? Are they just so big that everybody knows what's going on? What was the last time Stern really shocked us with a title?"

Stern is too predictable and no longer surprises the community with their releases

"I think universally everybody's just struggling with Stern's new price point. It just hasn't really worked out for anyone who's gone in early on any of these Stern games."

Stern Pinball's new $13,000 pricing strategy has failed - all recent LEs are selling for around $10,000, causing massive losses for early buyers

"Stern keeps burning its own customers. They did it again on Jaws. We're seeing people with LE's swap in the 50th anniversary playfield because they love the theme so much. Stern needs to just really reevaluate this strategy."

Stern keeps burning customers by releasing better versions after people buy LEs

"Once again, Stern is gonna screw over everybody who supported this company years ago. It's a failing strategy. These remasters, we're gonna talk about it."

Stern's remaster strategy is failing and screwing over original supporters

"I'm hearing like Seth has been calling meetings and he's like yelling at people about what's going on, where the sales for the walking dead, how come this is not selling so well. And so it's a company that's got its back against the ropes."

Stern Pinball is in financial trouble and cultural crisis

"I have a little bit of a personal chip on my shoulder because I marched into that company, not as Kaneda as Chris, a dude with 25 years of marketing experience... I spent so long making an entire deck and an observation and an analysis of their company. They didn't even ask for it... And they ignored every single thing I said."

Kaneda's personal frustration with Stern ignoring his marketing analysis and recommendations

"what has happened to Stern pinball isn't an isolated thing at Stern. It is what is happening all over the world. Companies are losing their identity. They are losing their culture and they are losing their creativity in the name of one thing. In the name of growth."

Stern Pinball has lost its identity and culture due to obsession with growth over creativity

"Stern out of all the companies they blew it like they really blew it they had a chance to have both like the mass volume games and the collectible games that everybody wanted and they absolutely blew it they treated their customers that collected their games like crap and they're never going to get them back"

Stern blew their chance at making collectible games and treated collectors poorly

"I just, how could it take so long? How could it take two years to code one game? Think about that, you go into work and let's say Lyman's doing a 10 hour day How can you do 10 hours every day for 365 days and not finish a game?"

Kaneda criticizes Stern's extremely long development times, questioning how Batman 66 can take two years to code

"Jersey Jack was cranking games out if Pirates of the Caribbean was cranking out since March if toy story was revealed if Wonka was there if these games were real if they had Guns N' Roses if they had real games coming out with real cadence I guarantee you it would make Stern have to up the Annie it would but they don't need to because they can just sit back and watch Jersey Jack once again flop when it comes to bringing a game to market completely fuck up how you bring a game to market"

Prediction: If Jersey Jack had consistent game releases, it would force Stern to improve their offerings, but since Jersey Jack will flop at bringing games to market, Stern doesn't need to step up.

"Do we think Stern is capable of making games as good as BLE Williams? Well the answer is I don't think so. They've never made a game that has been as good as a BLE Williams game."

Stern cannot make games as good as BLE Williams due to volume constraints