Arcade Collecting > Pinball
Limited Edition Run On New LOTR
Flake:
--- Quote from: pinballjim on July 09, 2009, 03:41:17 pm ---[I really don't want some boat anchor theme like Demolition Man in my gameroom.
--- End quote ---
I like my Demolition Man pinball. Its a good playing machine and the blue led's look awesome when the lights are dimmed down a bit.....or for that matter even when they're not. There are certainly worse themes out there.
Regarding the topic on hand, man I love coin-op goodness - pinball included - but dropping that much jack on a pinball machine just seems outrageous to me unless you are very well off. If I had tons of money I wouldnt bat an eye at dropping $5K on something I enjoy but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most of us on here, while not poor or even struggling, would have to think long and hard before committing that much money to one pinball machine.
Xiaou2:
--- Quote ---You DO realize that most, if not all, Stern games are designed by the SAME people who made all of those classics you so highly covet.
--- End quote ---
Sure I do. However, these guys are being forced to turn out Crap.
Read up on the recent Steve Ritchie rant. Not that it wasnt obvious from
the start. The fault is mostly all with Stern himself.
--- Quote ---There is near zero market for pins, plain and simple.
--- End quote ---
Thats not really true at all. There are plenty of collectors and
well off people willing to buy good pins. In fact, interest in pins
has been climbing steadily... as the worlds population has also been
climbing.
--- Quote ---Stern doesn't have the tooling to make the tables you speak of.
--- End quote ---
The tooling can be reclaimed or remade as needed. See: Tron Handles.
--- Quote --- The only thing they would have going for them is the original design on paper, which is a small fraction of the actual cost of production.
--- End quote ---
As far as I see it... it costs far more to make an original machine than
to remake a pin that has existing specs. There are few to no unseen pitfalls... no endless hours of whitewood development and testings. No
need for artwork photoshopping designs. No unknown failures
from poor mechanical placement/design. And no resulting
outright bombs - such as Ripleys.
Stern has made quite a few pins that Nobody has any real interest in.
Instead of being able to run or re-run several lots of the same games
to recoop investments... they have lost huge sums because of their
poor design practices and bad theme choices.
Making known Great classics in Pristine condition would excite the collectors and create a demand for many new orders. Adding some
tweaks in there as a bonus... would further drive desire and thus
sales up.
Stern can not seem to let up on directing his limited creative staff, or cutting the budget to the very minimum it can go...so this may be the only adequate and realistic option for them.
Stern is like Paul Sr. from American Choppers. He wants things fast,
and has no taste or artistic understanding (everything looks good to
him). It was Paul JR. that had all the Talent in making that place known worldwide. If SR. had forced JR. to cut every corner, to rush his designs, to put on parts and features that SR wanted instead... then AC would barely be known past their own state... let alone have a tv show.
Quality and Artistic integrity sells. Selling cheap crap will barely make
ends meet. Sure, there are a lot of 'Taste-Less' people out there... But,
there are many more who actually have an artistic taste... who can not
stomach the atrocities that Stern lets loose.
JeepMonkey:
The only Stern themes that I don't care for are WOF, Ripley's, and Elvis. The others may not turn out to be the best players, but I wouldn't turn down any other Sterns just because of theme.
I also think that an X-Men theme has great potential. There may be a probelm as Stern has recently done two comic book movie pins in Spiderman and Batman.
Does anyone see a Terminator 4 pin being made? I guess it is a little late for that.
I am a little bit surprised there wasn't a machine themed after the new Star Trek movie given the popularity of the STTNG machine.
Jeff AMN:
Xiaou2,
The thing you're forgetting is that if Stern decided to run a popular game from teh past that they're already trying to sell a machine that has thousands already in the hands of collectors and operators. There were over 20,000 Addams Family machines sold, they're not going to be able to sell another 5,000. Also, in order to re-tool to make these machines it would basically run them into debt faster than a flop based on a machine where they use their own current resources.
To make money on something like a Medieval Madness run, they'd need to sell way more than they'd be capable of doing or they'd need to charge a big premium for the machine.
And no, interest in pinball isn't on the rise. The distribution network is in shambles and getting worse. Some states don't even have the ability to bring a Stern machine in, and it's not Stern's fault. For pinball to stick around, Stern has to be very conservative.
I like to give the guy a break, because he's literally living from machine to machine. He might be able to absorb one or two flops between mild hits, so safer licenses are what he needs to focus on. Margins are already razor thin, and raising prices would only kill the ability to put pins out there even more. Stern himself said that the private market is incapable of keeping pinball alive.
ChadTower:
They may have made 20,000 Addams Familys but I'm willing to bet more than half of them are gone now. Addams and TZ are supposed to have monster quantities out there and yet they're both no more common on the used market than anything else.
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