STERN Production to date - 1999 to 2012

[Freiherr]

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. 

Which operator is prepared to invest in a dozen pinball machines worth around $100K, in a pinball parlour which costs 5-10K per week in rent and spend $100 p.h. for technicians to service when our young are playing Angry Birds on their phones and tablets?
Times are changing and it is harsh to blame the sole pinball manufacturer on the arcade demise. What the new manufacturers are rushing for is the pot of gold associated with the growing home collector market sparked by the cashed-up retiring baby boomers.

[Caveoftreasures]

Oh NO!!! Not that old chestnut "Toyotas are the most reliable car on the planet" - please, spare me!

Mike, It was only an example.lol  you can change the word toyota to ford, holden, subaru, mazda, take ya pick.lol  
If thats the only thing u picked up on after all that reading I am a happy man.

Also for pinballmag, Freihher makes a very good point. It wouldnt have mattered who made pinballs this last 13 years, it wouldnt have mattered if you gave a free model wife who puts out 3 times a day with every pinball machine sold to a operator, kids were playing xbox and playstation and talking on facebook. It would not have mattered what pinball u produced, worldwide pinball machines onsite arent taking in the coin. The home market is the future of Stern. I hope its enough for Stern to stay open another 13 years.
To my knowledge operators only account for less than 30 percent of Stern sales maximum. 

[PinballMagazine]

To my knowledge operators only account for less than 30 percent of Stern sales maximum. 

12 years ago that was 100% operators. Gary still doesn't acknowledge home users as a market. So what does that tell us? That he lost the operator market for 70%. Isn't that alarming?

As for JJP: didn't he take the WoZ license to make that pusher game first and once that started selling he started on hiring people for the pinball company?

[Caveoftreasures]

Gary often talks about the home market and talks specifically about the LE models designed specifically for the home user/collector.

[Olivia_jason]

how do you figure Garry stern is successful or a brilliant business man??
he isnt producing good titles, to me he seems to be building titles he likes or a very small market likes, besides Acdc there isnt really that many titles that make sense making. he isnt listening to the masses by producing innovative games, that isnt smart, i think he is lazy.

To be honest if he had half decent competition and not simply relying on the SYMPATHY buyer he wouldn't be in business any more.
i bet the pinball market is bigger than the amount of pinballs he sells, he has world wide market and the only Pinball maker, yet small numbers. there are more billionaires in the world than there are pinballs being made by Stern.

He isnt building good titles. you cant deny the titles Stern is coming out with are exactly Inspiring or mind blowing. there is no creativity with the themes.
I personally hope Pinballmagazines criticism reaches stern, whilst stern may not want to be interviewed by them lol it might make him try and prove the critics wrong.
Ps i site pins, atm i site cheap secondhand pins, but let me tell you, if i saw a good brand new innovative pinball i would site in my shop straight up, i bet i am not alone. im not spending $6-10grand on a pinball that is less than inspiring when i can do that for $1grand.

I bet if B/W held on for a few more years i bet stern wouldnt be around today.

I HOPE STERN LISTENS AND STARTS BUILDING INNOVATIVE TITLES. i dont want to bag stern out, but i dont think we should pat their back, and give them false confirmation they are making good titles when they arent in most cases.
and again there is no value for money in these machines, your only paying for royalties not a machines awesomeness

[Caveoftreasures]

I have to respectfully disagree with 99 percent of what u have said. Stern employs around 60 people plus, has a turnover in the dozens of millions per annum, and makes machines that alot, ALOT of people love.
He has probably around 6,000 or more machine sales per year. Thats 6,000 people who like his product in 30 different countries. That DOES take a smart businessman who is very switched on. Results speak and he HAS the runs on the board.

Some people will never be happy with what Stern does, no matter what Stern does. Its easy when u are on the outside looking in, but it would be ALOT different sitting in Gary Sterns chair.
If anyone has any brilliant ideas, email them to Stern !

[Olivia_jason]

I have to respectfully disagree with 99 percent of what u have said. Stern employs around 60 people plus, has a turnover in the dozens of millions per annum, and makes machines that alot, ALOT of people love.
He has probably around 6,000 or more machine sales per year. Thats 6,000 people who like his product in 30 different countries. That DOES take a smart businessman who is very switched on. Results speak and he HAS the runs on the board.

Some people will never be happy with what Stern does, no matter what Stern does. Its easy when u are on the outside looking in, but it would be ALOT different sitting in Gary Sterns chair.
If anyone has any brilliant ideas, email them to Stern !

Outside Looking in?? im on the side where i have to decide to buy or not. i can go through sega,capcom,b/w,dateast and find titles i want to buy, but Stern?? whilst he may not give a crap what i think about these titles or others, that maybe the reason he only sells 6000 games a year, thats not very many games really. im not asking for 100% hit rate but mate they arent inspiring machines by any stretch, name one theme stern has made out of that list that was none licensed and successful? How much money on a pinball sale would go into the license that is meaning budget cutting from the build??? these licensed titled arent value for money, your paying for some ones brand only and the deisgn can only work within the brands restriction.

[Retropin]

6000 machines world wide for the ONLY main pinball maufacturer isnt a lot Brett... he has very little if any real competition. Thats why JJP started up producing machines and on the promise to make machines that are NOT like a Stern he sold 1200 pre sale... all he did was say he was making a machine based on quality as opposed to Stern and on that promise sold 25% of Sterns yearly worldwide market before any machine had even gone to production. The queue to play WOZ at PPE was huge.. far more interest in this than any Stern title. Its almost like the pinball community breathed a sigh of relief with JJP and embraced it for what its not.. now it will be embraced for what it is.
JJP has hit delays.. its to be expected when starting from scratch.. Gary inherited all his tooling.
Once up and running properly JJP will be a thorn in Gary's side.. he already is. I guarantee that gary sweats over JJP and would do anything he could to try and delay its release ( if he can).
Without JJP... Stern would have more Big Buck games..LOL. Since JJP's release of intention he has lifted his game.
ACDC at just under $6000 to an Australian market was a master stroke, but it cant be repeated, all it did was lift his profile and show to the world that he can make a good title when pushed.
4 new manufacturers emerging... oh yes.. Gary is sweating.
it should also be noted that when the repro King of Diamonds went onsite with a Stern.. it outperformed Stern in its takings every time... thats not good news for Stern as KOD was not embraced by the purists and many shunned it.
The POTENTIAL pinball market is far far bigger than Stern have been able to satisfy... presales for WOZ attest to the hunger in the community for something other than the Stern business code.
Stern have ALWAYS been lazy.. he copied everything right from the start and with little or no competition he has no real drive.

Next 3 years will see a lot more happening in the pinball market with the new manufacturers emerging... if these manufacturers didnt think that Sterns games lacked direction and met the market demand they wouldnt set up.. it aint cheap!
But no... money is on the table and convictions have been made... all because of the belief that Stern doesnt deliver to a POTENTIAL market... not an existing Stern market... but the thousands of others who havent bought NIB due to lack of innovation and imagination.
Stern now has shareholders that he has to keep happy... and with share holders its all profit.. more profit or close. This new investment in Stern could well be its own demise. I hope not as all innovations in pinball have come about with stiff competition for rival companies.
Maybe Stern will emerge as a GOOD pinball manufacturer.. its not a reputation it already enjoys.. apart from yourself that is...LOL

[Caveoftreasures]

quote from OJ > ""Maybe Stern will emerge as a GOOD pinball manufacturer.. its not a reputation it already enjoys.. apart from yourself that is...LOL""

dont forget the other 5,999 happy customers.lol

By the way, I reckon half of the people who bought a WOZ from JJP probably thought it would be JJP's only title, and it might become a collectors item like Big Bang Bar. I wonder how many will be held new in box, or resold for profit if it is JJP's only pinball title.

Sterns machines getting better probably had nothing to do with JJP, it had to do with the fact that the company got a heallthy investor perhaps and the global financial crisis went away. If anything JJP has made Stern look better. X Men etc is a great title, probably brought about by a better budget and more design hours n innovation.

[Olivia_jason]

I recon stern have the capability to make an innovative pinball but they need to take a gamble.less useless toys, no more photoshoped art, and i recon their best way of being able to do that is is by none licenced theme. i bet you would buy it cavey, just like every other stern fan boy, the difference being they might also make new stern fans by doing that.

How much money do you recon goes into royalties that could go into building a better machine if sold for the same price??? and stern isnt limited to design restrictions to meet the licensed themes requirements. dont you agree with at least that ???

the beef with JJP is on the themed side, they have done exactly the same thing as Stern imo

[Caveoftreasures]

more fanboys the better for pinball.  yes to a non licenced theme if it was a fun player and a looker.

(now, I am going to bed. Its always good to have a fun debate/discussion on here). We are all passionate about pinball and thats what counts. 

[Olivia_jason]

more fanboys the better for pinball.  yes to a non licenced theme if it was a fun player and a looker.

(now, I am going to bed. Its always good to have a fun debate/discussion on here). We are all passionate about pinball and thats what counts. 

no worry's have a good night. 

[Retropin]

dont forget the other 5,999 happy customers.lol

Thats worldwide and MANY people were not happy with ACDC... silly failures that should have been ironed out before shipping.. already ACDC owners are looking at their machines wondering how to replace parts WHEN they fail.. not IF they fail... been a couple of posts on this forum to support that statement.
Dont get me wrong here Cavey... im not here to bag the crap out of Stern, but if post after post is about how great Stern are then expect some opposite feedback... i dont agree.. one good title and then another doesnt make a good  manufacturer, not when a bunch of  lame titles have preceeded it

[PinballMagazine]

I couldn't agree more with Retropin and Olivia Jason, but it is obvious we're dealing with a firm believer who is going to see a full glass when there are only a few drops in it. That's still fine, so let's agree to disagree.
There was recently an interesting discussion on Pinside about things people dislike in modern pinball machines. Interestingly nobody mentioned Stern, but all the dislikes seem to appear on their games way more than on any other brand from the past 15-20 years. http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-modern-pins-do-you-dislike

As for the royalties being paid for a license on a pinball machine: those aren't the costs. You'd be surprised how low that actually is.

[Pop Bumper Pete]

I couldn't agree more with Retropin and Olivia Jason, but it is obvious we're dealing with a firm believer who is going to see a full glass when there are only a few drops in it. That's still fine, so let's agree to disagree.

are you trying to alienate your potential customer base?

Because to me you are coming across as a Stern hater an a bit of a dick