Stern Pinball

"The Stern Army is coming at me, and the thing they're coming at me with is this whole notion that as a community and as people that love pinball, we're not allowed to question what these games cost."

Pinball pricing backlash - community pressure to accept high prices

"A Mazda Miata is often times a lot more fun than cars that cost 2-3 times its price and that's what Stern is. They're like the Mazda Miata. They're the cheap option. That's a lot of fun. The tragedy is that the community has now allowed Stern pinball to charge us like they're making a Porsche 911"

Stern is like a Mazda Miata charging Porsche 911 prices

"I think they need to shut him down. And I think we're going to see a new period where Stern Pinball is going to have to be extra litigious protecting its IP"

Stern needs to protect its IP from aftermarket translite makers

"It takes Jersey Jack two and a half weeks to put together a Harry Potter teaser image and then nothing for two and a half weeks. It takes Dutch Pinball two and a half heck 12 years to get people their big Lebowski games. It takes DPX how many months to get people their Alice's adventures in Wonderland in two and a half weeks. 932 shiny King Kong LE's will be in the world."

Stern Pinball delivers games efficiently while other manufacturers take too long

"Stern Pinball has found a way to separate grown men from $13,000 simply by adding at most, at most those decals on the side of the game that are glossy. How much do you think those cost? 50 bucks? A hundred at most. They're just stickers."

Stern LE upgrades are minimal - just cheap stickers and speakers

"The great Keith Elwin can't even move units now for this company. I think we're headed for a whole new period in pinball people."

King Kong LE not selling out means Keith Elwin can't move units and signals a new era in pinball

"They definitely feel, and I've been covering this hobby for a long time, this company feels more vulnerable than ever before. And I think a lot of the mistakes they've made have been self-inflicted."

Stern Pinball feels more vulnerable than ever and has made self-inflicted mistakes

"I think overall what we're witnessing everybody is really the death of the Stern LE. I mean it, and I'm not holding back. I think owning an LE now means nothing. I think anybody who's bought a new in-box LE over the last three years regrets it."

The Stern LE model is dead and means nothing anymore

"I just think like that's the problem I see with the stern three-tier model now, which was always predicated on the LE being a take my money now, gain that everybody wanted to get their hands on. And those days are over"

Stern's three-tier model is broken because LEs no longer mean anything

"But man, for half the price, a stern pro is not a bad buy. You're going to get most of the game. And also historically speaking, stern pros are the only things that hold value these days. Like it holds better value than the LE."

Stern Pro models hold value better than LEs and offer most of the game experience at half the price

"It's like instead of looking at King Kong, instead of looking at its world and what is iconic in its world, they're putting it into the Stern Blender. And that's what it's all starting to feel like. You put everything in the Blender of Stern, and you get this."

Stern Pinball puts everything through the same design blender regardless of theme

"It's like the only reason why there should only be an LE and a pro then... I mean that like the only LE is hold any value now is if there was no premium but like it's just. I mean if I it's just stupid to have this three tier model now"

Stern's three-tier pricing model is broken and unsustainable

"They've ruined the brand of Stern LE. They really have and I don't think collectors run to these things like they used to and I just don't think Kong LE is going to be like, I have to have it... They've ruined what a Stern LE is"

Stern has ruined the collectability and brand value of their Limited Editions

"Stern's lighting is the worst. Like it's the worst... have you ever seen a stern game in a track mode, even look as good as like big Lebowski's a track mode from 12 years ago?"

Stern's lighting is the worst in modern pinball

"I think that means that Spike 3 is a price increase move. Yes, they're going to give us more, but they're going to charge more"

Spike 3 system is primarily a price increase move, not innovation

"When you go on Stern's website, do you see gentlemen like you and me represented as their lifestyle brand? Nope. You see the complete opposite of what the pinball buying demographic looks like."

Stern Pinball has become a lifestyle brand that ignores its core demographic

"In a lot of ways, Stern carries all of it. They are the gigantosaurus of the pinball world and everybody else hitches a ride on its back... If Stern pinball collapses, you will see a mass exodus of people in this hobby and it will be a new dark age of pinball."

Stern Pinball is essential to the hobby - if they fail, it would cause a new dark age of pinball

"I don't think his marketing department has ever been focused on the collectors and the high end buyers of his product. I don't. They've been focused on tournament players. I don't think the marketing people that Stern have been focusing at all on the long term customers of their games."

Stern Pinball's marketing has never focused on collectors and high-end buyers

"George Gomez told me there have been no layoffs at Stern. In fact, we have open positions and we are hiring at Stern pinball... The rumor that I was hearing from people, which I did not report because I knew it was a lie, was that Stern pinball laid off 30% of its staff, 30%. One out of every three people at Stern pinball was fired. Talk about a reckless rumor."

Stern Pinball layoff rumors are completely false and reckless

"And they clearly scaled up and built a massive massive manufacturing organization during the COVID demand craze. And so now they've built a company to satiate a demand that's no longer there."

Stern Pinball built too large of a manufacturing operation for current demand

"The number I am now hearing, and I can't confirm or deny this, but the number I am hearing is that Stern has somewhere around 10,000 NIB Stern games are sitting in inventory unsold."

Stern Pinball is in serious trouble with massive unsold inventory

"That is not what a pinball company is. And the moment they declared themselves that, they went down a road where they forgot. They forgot what this is all about, like what these games need to cost, what people expect from you."

Stern lost their way when they declared themselves a lifestyle brand

"Toy Story 4 should have been killed. They should have killed the Godfather. These games should have been killed. John Wick, Venom, these games never should have been made"

Stern should have killed several recent games in development

"Stern Pinball, out of all the companies out there, your accessory timeline is one of the biggest disappointments in all of Pinball... you can't develop this stuff in parallel so that it's released the same time the game comes out."

Stern Pinball's accessory timeline is disappointing and poorly executed

"that's what Stern pinball has done to its collector base over the last three years. They've screwed over everybody and they're going to do it again this year when they do a remake of another game that they said they were never making more LE's on. It's most likely I'm probably going to be wrong. It's most likely going to be the Walking Dead"

Stern screws over collectors and will remake Walking Dead despite promises

"That thing probably costs Stern Pinball to make that in China less than $5. And they're selling it for $200."

John Wick shooter knob is overpriced plastic that costs $5 to make but sells for $200

"I think we all need to come to terms with the fact that Stern is gonna remake all of those hit DMD games eventually. I mean it. Eventually they will do it"

Stern will eventually remake all hit DMD games as remasters

"King Kong is gonna be $3,000 more than freaking Godzilla was. Do you think it's gonna have 3,000 more in it when it comes to mechs, bomb and toys and everything? I don't know."

King Kong LE pricing criticism - $3000 more than Godzilla without justification

"When you look at Stern Pinball launches, they have hits and they have misses. Every game is not consistently good. Every game has different levels of code. Every game brings you different levels of theme popularity, different levels of mechanical magic."

Stern Pinball has inconsistent quality across releases with hits and misses

"Stern Pinball, every three to four months, puts out a new game and they have everything from music to comics to movies to D&D. Like they've got something for everybody."

Stern Pinball has the best variety and most consistent output in pinball

"I am shocked that Stern Pinball has not invited like 20 X-Men owners into Stern Pinball, fly them over and say, hey, look, we've been reading your feedback on Pinside, you have a lot of really interesting ideas on how to make this game better, we're committed to making this game better"

Stern Pinball shows arrogance by not engaging with X-Men buyers who are concerned about the game's future

"Stern Pinball wasn't able to test the final version of that cable and the node board in the game and has passed that on to customers without proper testing."

Stern's quality control is inadequate - they're shipping untested final production versions

"It's a problem for Stern Pinball. They really messed this whole thing up. The LE's never used to lose value. It used to be the place where the collectors got handed something that was ascending in value. And now it's like, gosh, it's so painful to see this that the Pro is now the smartest and wisest place to financially put your Stern money"

Stern LE strategy is broken - Pros now hold value better

"you abused your position as a pinball company releasing that basic game for twenty thousand dollars it was a slap in the face to everyone who collects pinball"

Stern's James Bond 60 pricing was abusive to collectors

"Your Stern pinball and you're inviting these pinball media into Stern pinball to play the game for the first time. And that's great. But here's what they're doing wrong. And I mean this. And it's so stupid."

Stern's media day format is unprofessional and poorly executed

"That is the worst thing Stern Pinball could do right now. Because what I don't think Seth understands is I think they're finally getting closer to where they need to be to justify these prices."

Stern cannot afford to raise prices again

"Modern Stern pricing is where it's at because we're paying for that humongous factory they moved into. And since they've been in that big factory, they haven't been cranking out hit after hit after hit. The IP and the licenses they've been bringing the market haven't been big enough to support that kind of factory. And I think Stern's in a little bit of trouble."

Stern Pinball is in trouble due to high factory costs and lack of hit themes

"I think some of us secretly want Stern Pinball, maybe not even secretly, maybe publicly. I think a lot of us sort of want Stern to learn a lesson that you took prices too high, that you burned a lot of LE collectors with the remakes."

People secretly want Stern to learn a lesson about high pricing and LE remakes

"I think they've absolutely abandoned the home buyer the home collector which actually makes up more of their sales. And I think they made a lot of really greedy moves."

Stern is winning but their win streak is over due to abandoning home collectors

"Stern Pinball showed me in this game that they can create a mechanical thing that is embarrassing anything we've seen mechanically from Jersey Jack"

Stern's dragon mechanism embarrasses anything Jersey Jack has made mechanically

"They're not going to snake me stern. I know what your plans are. You're going to try to show this game without me ready... I wish they would let us know so as content creators could like actually plan."

Frustration with Stern revealing game early without proper notice to content creators

"you guys are making the pros two nice. You're making the pros way too nice the artwork is way too nice on the pro the pro should be as pedestrian they should be sand bagging what the cabinet artwork on the pro is like instead they idiotically sometimes make the pro artwork even better. Then the damn premium"

Stern makes Pro cabinet artwork too nice - should be more basic

"stern animations are a joke compared to Jersey Jack and spooky I don't agree with that Engleberg Humper Denk from Princess Brad I think you're wrong on that you think spooky animations are better than the stuff that's happening in X-Men and in Godzilla and in no spooky animations are not better than Stern there's not a single spooky game with better animations JJP's animations are really good"

Stern animations are not inferior to Spooky, but JJP has good animations due to their big screen

"Stern's whole model requires them to have a an LE everybody wants because if they don't get FOMO around the LE, then distras and dealers don't need to like order their bulk order"

Stern's business model requires LE FOMO and this game won't deliver it

"stern should be flying you guys to Vegas a special guest of CES they should put you up in hotel rooms. And they should actually roll out the red carpet for the main content creators for their industry that's what everybody else does in the tech world that's what everyone else is doing all my friends in tech media are going to CES"

Media should not pay their own way to Stern reveals - company should treat them like tech industry does

"how are you gonna handle making a better version of Ghostbusters than all those thousands of people who have the original one are now gonna have what? A game worth a lot less, a game that doesn't play as well as the new one. And you're gonna just burn them the way you burn the Metallica owners"

Stern's remake strategy hurts existing owners

"A stern is a stern is a stern. So you know, like just remember who's making this game. I find it hard to believe that stern is going to go above and beyond and throw so much into this game and not fall back on flat plastics all throughout the game."

Critical of Stern's typical approach and doubts they'll deliver truly innovative features

"I also think all pinball content creators should have their own webinar. So we could see this game without having to travel. And if Stern pinball wants us to travel, I think they should pay for the travel... Jersey Jack pinball did the right thing and set up everybody with not just travel, but hotel room. I think Jersey Jack gave us somewhere around like $800 to book our travel to go see Avatar."

Stern should pay for content creator travel like Jersey Jack does

"I heard Stern pinball has the license for Super Mario Brothers."

Stern has Super Mario Brothers license

"So you heard it here first. I'm here to tell you right now. I heard Stern pinball has the license for Super Mario Brothers. So you start to think about that for a minute, right? Maybe they have Pokemon and Super Mario."

Prediction: Stern pinball has the license for Super Mario Brothers, and maybe also has Pokemon.