I'm not gonna copy/paste the whole thing above, but again you seem to have a very colored vision favoring all decisions Gary Stern is making. Still fine, but it also seems some rumors may have lead to that colored vision. I read a post on Pinside where Gary was described as a typical american car manufacturer. His way of doing business has a lot of similarities. To you Gary is your hero, others have a different opinion, based on other information. Nothing more, nothing less.

Obviously there is a difference between industry insiders with a passion for pinball, who know how the business works and see what possibilities and innovations are available but unused, and outsiders who base their opinion on rumors and speculation. At he moment there are at least 4 new companies starting up pinball manufacturing and they all have the same drive: they are disappointed by the output of the past decade and want to bring the fun back in pinball. I'm not saying it is easy, but I played the whitewood of Circe's Animal House and that game had more fun in it than I have seen in a long time with new games. (That may be my colored view on things speaking ;) ) Sure you may appreciate what Stern has put out, but there are also opinions who see the 'damage' that Stern games have caused in the form of operators quitting on buying new games. You may be happy with those games, but plenty operators were not and gave up on pinball. It will take new companies to win these over again, cause they most likely won't be interested in pinball as long as Stern keeps doing what they did so far.

Whether you like the idea of a collectible printed glossy paper magazine, or not, if you would read issue 1 you may discover some great inside background info. There is a chart with B/W pinball production numbers which shows that after Demolition Man in 1994 it took until Revenge from Mars to match the numbers of that production run. All 24 games in between sold less than RFM. Since rumors are brought up: what I've been told the B/W pinball division did make money, especially when Pinball 2000 was launched. However, they did not enough money to keep shareholders happy. They saw more profit in making casino equipment, so WMS went that way. That may put things in a different light. Contrary to some opinions WMS did not go broke. They still exist and are very successful. They just closed the pinball division for whatever reasons they had at the time.

Since the BBB production was brought up: I assisted in that production. I went over for a month and put all sorts of parts together. I know why it took Gene 3 years to build these games. Apart from dealing with all sorts of issues with third parties, he wants to things his way (stubbornness seems to be a required qualofication for pinball manufacturers ;) ). So it took him 3 years, but he delivered a killer game. There were easier ways, but Gene figured they would not be true to the original game. That's a choice he made. Interestingly the biggest bashers of the BBB project did not buy a game. So why did they care anyway? The people who ordered one were confident and got their game.
JJP announced WoZ January 1st 2011. In my book that's not 2 and a half year ago, just over 1 and a half.
I knew about Heighway Pinball since January of this year. In august they had a smooth playing whitewood. That shows it is becoming easier to make pinball machines. I can only hope they can get their production up and running soon.

So yes, Stern is still building and selling games. to go back to a comment at the beginning of this topic: I can understand why someone would say: of all the pinball manufacturers in the world, why did it have to be Stern to keep the ball rolling.

As for a PM issue on Stern's history: the 80's games/company may be interesting to cover, but I doubt if we'll see a Gary Stern special anytime soon. A special on Australian manufacturers and their games seems more interesting to me.