Stern Pinball

"have you seen this guy's Godzilla playfield, it is like ribbed beyond belief, I mean you look at it from an angle and it's like as wavy as an ocean... if you get sent something like that it should have been caught by their quality control people and the guy should just get a new game"

Customer shouldn't accept ribbed Godzilla playfield - Stern should replace defective games

"Stern is making a move in the right direction. And when someone makes a move in the right direction, we need to give them credit. I think it is awesome that Stern is making 811 and not 1000."

Stern Pinball is moving in the right direction by reducing LE count and adding meaningful mechanisms

"Stern's been doing it with overpriced games and themes we don't really want"

Stern has been releasing overpriced games with unwanted themes

"If a Stern distro buys a Stern LE for around $10,000 and sells it for $13,000... So that means they'll make another $6,000 on top of that three. So let's do the math. Stern gets six grand in its pocket. The distro gets three. That's $9,000. That means the bomb or the cost to make the damn game is $4,000 on an LE."

Stern's profit margins are excessive - they make $6000 profit per LE while distributors make $3000

"Do you think anyone who's looking for entertainment devices that has an itch that pinball can scratch is going to wake up one day as a grown adult and just discover this hobby and then lay out thousands of dollars for pinball? It just doesn't work that way."

Stern's Costco partnership and office rental strategy are misguided moves targeting the wrong audience

"Stern's strategy right now should be to double down on its core audience. How do we reignite and re-excite the core pinball buyer?"

Stern should focus on re-engaging core pinball buyers instead of chasing growth in new markets

"There is no such thing anymore as a stern OE that you will ever, ever, ever have to pay more than $13,000 for. It will never happen. There's too many of them. Stern does not make a game that's worth anywhere near $13,000."

No Stern premium will ever be worth more than $13,000

"It's like Stern Pinball has like the greatest software teams going now, maybe ever in the history of Pinball."

Stern has the greatest software teams ever in pinball history

"If you buy a new in-box Stern machine at these current prices, you have a 90% chance of losing thousands of dollars within the first six months."

Buying new Stern machines results in massive financial losses

"You put a stern machine next to a Jersey Jack. It looks really dated. It doesn't seem like it should be even close to the same price point."

Stern games look dated compared to Jersey Jack

"I'm just kind of tired of the way Stern launches these games. It's always the same cookie cutter formula. It's like Friday teaser, then the Tuesday dealer call, then we get the cell phone photos and then they try to like roll out this like week long of like revealing the game slowly. And it's so stupid because it's just show us everything on day one."

Stern's marketing approach is outdated and ineffective

"Stern Pinball is a ginormous, mass-produced product. They do not have the quality of the Japanese. There clearly isn't someone going over each of these games, making sure they're made exactly to the standard and the quality. That Stern expects of its products. It feels like things are being rushed out the door."

Stern Pinball lacks proper quality control and is rushing games out the door with defects that should be caught at the factory

"Consumers are no longer chomping at the bit to buy these overpriced games, that's the vibe I'm reading"

Stern Pinball's pricing strategy is killing consumer enthusiasm and the hobby

"Have you seen the quality of the cabinets that people are getting? Bubbling up, right? The decals are falling apart where the bolts go into the cabinet like it's bubbling around there"

Stern's quality control is failing at premium prices

"I think Stern needs to change its strategy. It's like they still keep their major distributors in the dark about what's about to come out"

Stern's marketing strategy is outdated and ineffective

"Stern has already made this game. So if you are wondering what it's gonna be, it's not gonna be some Marvel theme we have not seen before"

Stern's upcoming Marvel game will be based on a theme they've already made

"I think what Stern's done is they found a way to make money that makes everybody unhappy except for the newbies. And that is not how you're gonna future proof the business"

Criticizes Stern's pricing strategy and treatment of long-time customers

"It's gonna be called Metallica Remastered"

Reveals upcoming Stern game will be called 'Metallica Remastered'

"You're making moves that are basically turning off the collector to your company and to your brand and stuff like more Jurassic parks, more Elvira's, more this, more that"

Stern is alienating collectors by remaking games like Godzilla LE

"I think everyone's tired of all the flat plastic in the world. Take your flat plastic stern and go get some sculpts."

Stern needs toys and sculpts, tired of flat plastic

"the ultimate opportunity you had was to make a Barbie themed pinball machine when Barbie was blowing up in the world"

Barbie was the ultimate missed opportunity to expand pinball audience

"Their strategy is starting to wear really thin. And then the moment they step their toe into a contemporary theme like John Wick, they absolutely get annihilated."

Stern Pinball's strategy of Dad Rock to Marvel themes is wearing thin and they need to reset

"I think they need a craft version of Stern where they can go get a theme like Big Trouble in Little China or a theme like The Last Starfighter or Bloodsport or Akira and have a version of Stern Pinball, a la DPX, where they're only going to make a thousand versions of that game"

Stern should create a craft division for cult classic themes with smaller production runs

"The entire company has been priced as if we are still living in the COVID feeding frenzy madness and it's not working out for them."

Stern is priced as if we're still in COVID feeding frenzy but those days are over

"If I were Stern right now, what they really need is a universally beloved nostalgic movie, pinball machine. They need something like Ghostbusters. They need something like Batman 89 Redone. They need something like Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Stern needs universally beloved nostalgic movie themes, not more Marvel

"people cheerlead a company like Stern charging $13,000 when they just remove the color from their printers and we're all supposed to just get on board"

Stern Pinball is overcharging customers and the community accepts it

"The machines coming out of the new factory have not been the best quality machines"

Stern's recent quality from new factory has been poor

"Everybody wake the F up. These stern machines are not worth this much money. And this is not sustainable."

Current Stern machine pricing is unsustainable - machines are not worth the money

"I'm telling you right now that Stern's next cornerstone game is going to be Jack Danger's game. You heard it here. It is not John Borg with a cornerstone."

Prediction: Stern's next cornerstone game will be Jack Danger's game, not John Borg's, with potential Metallica and Godzilla 70th remakes.

"there couldn't be something further from what a pinball buying demographic looks like"

Stern's marketing demographics are completely wrong - showing Gen Z kids when buyers are older collectors

"Stern Pinball really does reward you with consistent and great code updates and not only that, because they have Insider connected... as a Jersey Jack Guns N' Roses owner, where it took them three and a half years to polish the code"

Stern does excellent code updates, much better than Jersey Jack's 3.5 year development cycle

"Stern is looking really vulnerable... I think they're out of touch right now"

Stern Pinball is vulnerable and out of touch after John Wick failure

"How silly was it that Stern Pinball, George Gomez admitted this, that Stern Pinball did not want to make Beetlejuice because nobody over at Stern wanted to work on it"

Stern missed opportunity by passing on Beetlejuice

"stern pinball is a company that's had tremendous success. They've got great talent. They've got great creativity, but they're starting really to lose it and you could see it. They've just lost their way. They're swagger. It's almost like they know they're ripping us off."

Stern Pinball is vulnerable and losing their way

"I think Stern is in trouble... The fact that they made John Whiff, we should just call it John Whiff because nobody's buying it. The fact that all of Stern's market research led them to that game and we know they wanted to make hunger games, it just shows me they're out of touch."

Stern is in trouble and out of touch - John Wick was a bad choice

"Stern, you need to think about the pricing. It's too expensive. You need to make sure the themes are what people want and do market research."

Stern should do market research and lower pricing to avoid market oversaturation

"It is crazy to me that for $13,000 this company doesn't even put a topper on top of John Wickleys or Foo Fighterleys. Jersey Jack gives you toppers for both models."

Stern's LE games should include toppers at $13,000 price point

"Seth Davis and the modern pricing has destroyed Stern pinball in my honest opinion. They've absolutely destroyed and killed their own golden goose."

Modern Stern pricing has destroyed their FOMO model and killed the golden goose

"I think there's this delusion that Stern pinball can't fail. Like they're just going to be around forever because they're number one. I just want to name a few companies that failed at the height of their pinball operations. And these are major companies. You might know some of them. One of them was called Sega. Another was called Capcom. Another was called Bali Williams."

Stern Pinball could fail just like other major companies did at their peak

"I also think that, you know, this media tour was a very thinly veiled attempt to get John Wick sales going."

Stern's media tour was just a thinly veiled attempt to boost John Wick sales

"Simply connect all those machines and charge all of those owners a monthly subscription to do different things with those games. And there are micro transactions. And I'm here to tell you people, it's gonna work."

Stern's subscription model strategy will be successful

"If you put Adam's family next to John Wick and you look at both of those games and you say, hey, which company put more mechanical magic under the glass? It's Adam's family and that's it."

Modern Stern games have less mechanical innovation than older games

"There are thousands of unsold Stern games sitting in this warehouse. Thousands of them just piled like it's like Indiana Jones and the arc of the covenant scene at the end of that movie."

Stern has thousands of unsold games piling up in warehouses, indicating major oversaturation

"I wanna really address this rumor that is seemingly true. That Stern pinball has thousands of unsold games sitting NIB at a warehouse in Chicago."

Stern has thousands of unsold games sitting in Chicago warehouse due to overproduction

"So you heard it here now. I'm here to confirm for you that it is going to be Metallica, Ride the Lightning, 40th anniversary. It is happening in July from Stern Pinball."

Prediction: Stern will release Metallica Ride the Lightning 40th anniversary in July 2024.

"What everybody would want right now is you got to go deeper back when you want to go to a well game. You know, you got to go deeper to a game like Tron. Tron is like a decade old and you never really made more for so many years. To me, that's going back and remaking something people want. Go back and make Lord of the Rings."

Stern should remake older games like Tron or Lord of the Rings instead of re-releasing Godzilla so soon

"It's at the point now where a Stern LE is actually the worst value. It will lose you the most money. As I've said before, a John Wick LE by the end of the year will lose $4,000 in value."

Stern LEs are now the worst value proposition and will lose buyers thousands of dollars

"I do know that the only reason they most likely did this was because John Wick sales are abysmal... other than Jason Knapp you invited the poodles in you didn't invite the Rottweilers you invited the poodles. You didn't want the dogs with any bark"

Stern Pinball media tour was damage control for poor John Wick sales, invited only 'poodles' not critics

"Explain to me why your L. E.s are the versions of your games that are losing the most amount of money. A stern L. E. financially loses within the first six months way more money than a premium, which is unlimited way more money than a pro... the cheapest Stern is the best buy that is upside down marketing"

Stern's LE strategy is backwards - LEs lose more money than Premiums or Pros

"they absolutely turn their back on all the collectors that kept them in business all these years. Absolutely. And you can't overlook that with an all expense paid media tour."

Stern turned their back on collectors who kept them in business