Stern Pinball

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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 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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"This was never part of their plan on how they were gonna launch John Wick. Did they invite any of these pinball media into Stern pinball before they launched John Wick? People are getting this access right now. Think about it is because John Wick sales are abysmal."

Stern's media invite campaign is damage control because John Wick sales are terrible

"There's like this arrogance now by these companies that if they make anything, we will buy it regardless of the price, regardless of the theme."

Stern is arrogant and thinks they can sell anything regardless of theme or price

"the company that's just pumping out really the cheapest mass produced product in all of Pinball, it's Stern... They have the lowest bomb in all of Pinball. They have the cheapest manufacturing because of all their efficiencies. And yet look at where they are priced."

Stern has the cheapest manufacturing but highest prices in pinball

"The fact that Stern pinball is making a thousand John Wick LEs when they only made 800 Star Wars. I mean, think about how stupid that is... What market research did you do, George Gomez? To say to us that you think there's demand for 1000 John Wick LEs."

Making 1000 John Wick LEs shows Stern's arrogance

"They killed their own FOMO. The stupidity at Stern marketing these days, they killed their own FOMO. They're the other submarine and they just fired a missile at Red October and they thought they had it, right? They blew up their own FOMO."

Stern Pinball destroyed their own FOMO marketing strategy

"You used to say that Pinball is a game where it's a world under glass, right? That was the thing and now Stern Pinball is a new thing. It's a world on the screen and that is why John Wick is not selling because we're not stupid and we're looking at the game and we're not seeing a world under glass. We are seeing a world on the screen."

Modern Stern games are 'world on screen' not 'world under glass'

"I'm hearing the next Vault game from Stern pinball that's supposedly coming out in June or July. It's got to be like July is no other than Metallica."

Stern Pinball will release a Metallica Vault Edition as their next game in June/July due to poor John Wick sales

"If Stern does this and they burn all those original Metallica owners, they're really digging the grave even deeper... all of a sudden you've got a few thousand people that don't like the way Stern is doing business."

Stern's strategy of burning previous buyers with remakes and high prices is creating thousands of angry customers

"That is the mafia, ladies and gentlemen. Stern Pinball operates like they are the mob and that is why on my very expletive show, I'm like F off Stern."

Stern Pinball operates like the mafia by controlling dealer pricing and preventing deals

"No modern Stern does or will ever or can ever. Even Jaws LEs now are sliding down to 12. They're going to slide back down to 11 after 12 and this is what happens. No modern Stern is worth what these rip off prices are"

No modern Stern pinball is worth current retail prices

"the fucking truth so while Gary becomes richer and Gomez and set Davis I don't need to see fucking pictures of the team has celebrating over beers because my friends are losing fucking three to four thousand dollars on every single game"

Current Stern games lose $3000-4000 immediately while company profits soar

"This was the worst marketing launch in history of stern I've never seen a stern launch week turned so negative so like so disgusting on so many levels now the game is lost in all of the debate"

Stern's marketing team caused the gun controversy by not showing gameplay footage on day one

"instead of bringing in all these Mickey Mouse YouTubers and guys that don't even own your product, who own a godfather and a toy story for, I mean, talk about people with no taste in games"

Stern brought in Mickey Mouse YouTubers with no taste instead of real pinball media

"it's really easy to turn Stern pinball into the bud light of pinball in which you're so big, and you have so much volume in market share where you think the only way to grow is to go after new audiences at the expense of your core audience"

Stern could easily become the Bud Light of pinball by abandoning core audience for new markets

"I think everyone knows deep down that a Stern bomb is like $3,500... So we're paying almost $10,000 over the bomb for a Stern LE"

Stern's pricing is a ripoff - games cost $3,500 to make but sell for $10,000+

"The same price as a Stern Foo Fighter topper. The greed is real. The arrogance is real. And I think it's catching up the Stern Pinball. I think all of us are tired of it. I think the enthusiasm around that company and their new games is just dissipating really quickly."

Stern Pinball's pricing is greedy and disrespectful, comparing $2,000 Foo Fighter topper to furniture