Metallica - Stern - release 2013

[elkor-alish]

First nib you must be pumped ;)

Hell yeah!
I'm a Metallica fan from way back.
You always say things like "Wouldn't it be cool if they made a (insert cool themed game name) pinball?"
Well this was one of the ones I would go on about. 

[wonder]

Does anyone know how many LEs are coming to Australia?

I heard 69 Daniel

Funny thing it that the number I got

Must be more

[Caveoftreasures]

I wonder what numbers AMD got allocated for the LE machines. Did the numbers start at 50 or 100 or 150 etc ? 

If Stern produces 500 LE machines only, they guarantee themselves a quick 3.5 million dollars aprox - this recoups all their design and set up fees  easily, and probably leaves them with a easy million or two in profit. Then, everything else they make is clear profit minus production costs etc.

In the past Stern has always said that it can cost up to 1 million dollars to bring a title to full production, so it looks like they are certainly extremely profitable at the moment with the LE, Premium and Pro models all bringing in a lot of coin for the company.

[Caveoftreasures]

UPDATE

Bruce will have 6 x Metallica Pro pinball machines at the AMD Metallica Pinball Product Launch.

The details will be sent out next week by AMD to everybody who is on the AMD email mailing list etc, and I will update the thread as well
as soon as the extra info becomes available.

Metallica Premium machines will be here mid to end July.
Pro machines before end June.
Avengers Premiums end of June.

Get your diary's ready for the Metallica Product Launch, Saturday 11th May in Sydney with AMD.

[coon82]

Looks like a lot of the distributors in the US have had their allocations cut in half and in some cases even people who were paid up well in advance have had the bad news they can no longer get the LE. Seems very wrong, but maybe Metallica themselves are looking after people on the side so to say....

Metallica LE was always going to be popular. I know the premium is essentially the same game, but Stern could have easily sold 1000 LE's, so I wonder why they didn't cash in?

[delarge]

Looks like a lot of the distributors in the US have had their allocations cut in half and in some cases even people who were paid up well in advance have had the bad news they can no longer get the LE. Seems very wrong, but maybe Metallica themselves are looking after people on the side so to say....

Metallica LE was always going to be popular. I know the premium is essentially the same game, but Stern could have easily sold 1000 LE's, so I wonder why they didn't cash in?

If you read into it on the U.S forums, it seems some dealers were taking money before they knew what numbers they were being allocated. People are screaming at Stern when they should be screaming at the person they bought it off.

[MrMaloo]

Looks like a lot of the distributors in the US have had their allocations cut in half and in some cases even people who were paid up well in advance have had the bad news they can no longer get the LE. Seems very wrong, but maybe Metallica themselves are looking after people on the side so to say....

Metallica LE was always going to be popular. I know the premium is essentially the same game, but Stern could have easily sold 1000 LE's, so I wonder why they didn't cash in?

The cases in the States seemed more like there were distributors that took pre-orders for Metallica LE's before they even knew the exact number that Stern was going to supply them . The distributors are blaming Stern for cutting back numbers ( which the distributor never had to start with ) .

If they made 1000 LE's then it defeats the purpose of having a Limited Edition machine . I know that at 1000 it is still "limited" but most of Stern's LE releases thus far have been a total number of 500 ( Tron was 400 ) . A lot of people buying the Metallica LE would be repeat LE buyers and if they go and double the amount made you would have a lot of disgruntled LE collectors as suddenly the LE name tag would not mean as much . The end result would be people NOT buying the LE on future releases , thus Stern would be shooting themselves in the foot to collect on the cash cow as Cavey mentioned above .

[ktm450]

As everyone says that is why they are limited editions only 500 made, it would be a sham, I mean shame  if stern cashed in on popularity.

Well done to the LE purchasers, at least your pins will keep their value for some time, and hopefully be worth more than the initial price if it is a ripper game   

[Caveoftreasures]

There is one point both Stern and the Pinball world need to consider which has not been raised before regarding LE numbers.

If the first LE release was say close to 500 numbers as an example, and that was 2 to 3 years ago, both Stern and the Pinball world need to understand that the target market of pinball machine buyers has grown considerably since the first LE was made.
Accordingly, now that the experienced pinball buying world, and the new pinball hobbyists have learnt about these LE machines, the allocated numbers haven't grown in proportion with the demand.

Therefore, you could raise the numbers to say 750 LE machines, and it still will not be anywhere near enough to satisy LE demand.

Stern, and its dealers, want to make sure that every single LE machine in the future isn't already SOLD OUT just 2 minutes after its technical release.
All this will do is piss people off, make dealers do under the table higher cash price deals well ahead of time, making people pay more off the books to be on the books, and make 2nd hand resale prices of the LE pinballs stupidly expensive. Pinball machines should be played and enjoyed, not bought to trade like currency which will only have multiple negative effects in the end for the whole hobby.

Should I now pay AMD a deposit for a LE Star Trek, 6 months ahead of its release so I dont miss out 3 minutes after its official Stern release ?
This also causes the price of Premiums to rise, and will do the same to the Pro product in the end. The success of the LE machine, might give every person in Stern marketing a swelled head, thus believing they can keep raising the prices. Big mistake I believe.....

[swinks]

I think with the LE numbers it has to be considered that they aren't selling as fast as what is perceived. Yes Stern sell out to the dealers but alot of dealers still have alot of older stock some only just finally selling off the transformers LE's.

Just look at AMD, they still have both LE models of the X-Men and Avengers and of the Avengers there was only 12-13 total coming into Australia. Obviously theme has something to do with it in some cases but I think $ is the big thing. Hopefully AMD still have LE's available up to when the video comes out as that will seal the deal for some pinballers with the Metallica. Others like Metallica fans who are cashed up will just buy - which Stern have realised that the market is a different story with this pin as when you do a search on the net (Metallica Pinball) it's being advertised in everything metal music website, blog, music mags and anything related to Metallica so marketing on this one is like a massive freebie for Stern and it's timeless unlike a movie pin which is not really at the time of the movie unable to ride the coat tails of the world marketing of the movie release.

screen shot today of todat's availability of there machines in stock.

[Caveoftreasures]

According to a email I recently recieved, AMD have no more BNIB LE Avengers anymore. They had 1 x Only HULK LE demo model left a few weeks ago only.
I am not sure if it has since sold or not.

They have 1 x only X Men LE of each colour left only. 1 x Red 1 x Blue. That was a few weeks ago.

LE Transformers tanked everywhere because people bought the LE Decepticon or LE Autobots only LE models.
The Pro was successful, but the "Half n Half" LE was produced and Stern did admit they produced far too many, combine this with the fact that the
LE Transformers felt, looked and played like a Pro level game only, and this is why so many sat unsold at very high prices.

I think people spending a lot of money on the ACDC versions in Australia, around the time of the X Men release, probably did cause sales of the X Men titles to be a little slower than anticipated.

[swinks]

AMD was updated a few days ago so very current. My point wasn't AMD having lots in stock it's the fact that they still have a LE of something 3-6 months after it comes into stock, and we are speculating that we need more LE's 2-3 months before a new pin release.

Point being I don't think you need a massive amount of LE's, keep it at 500 and keep that collector feel about a pin purchase and the Premium allows the LE play so everyone is happy. Though I do think for their business model it gets messy stock wise to have the 3 different cabinets, 4 different tranlites and imagine in 10 years time people will look back and say so what model was that.

Personally I believe every pin pro, premium and le all should have the same playfield/rules and just have
LE - unique cab, trans, trim, maybe some different playfield plastics, with a certificate and placard)
Pro - pro cab with the same game play of a LE.
Code would then be the same, meaning less work and the true collectors buy a LE

Anyway back to Metallica - lookin forward to a video.

[coon82]

I agree the whole point of an LE should be 'Limited'. I'm in for Hobbit LE. I definitely think 1500 of them is not limited but it's not the primary reason I'm buying one.
I also agree the pricing and regular increases are not a good move, which I hope will change when Heighway and Spooky Pinball etc. get up and running.

Surely Stern would do some kind of market research and forecasting of quantities they believe will comfortably sell. Now this may sound a little speculative but, as a nominal average figure they sell around 2500 pins (all model versions) of a particular title/theme which included 250 LE's, then that's 10% being 'limited'. If a title is highly likely to do very well, then 750 or 1000 LE's may still only be 10% of the total for that titles release, still keeping the exclusivity there. Stern would be very confident Metallica will do well off the back of ACDC's success, thus isn't there less risk to increase the LE numbers a little?

Personally I believe every pin pro, premium and le all should have the same playfield/rules and just have
LE - unique cab, trans, trim, maybe some different playfield plastics, with a certificate and placard)
Pro - pro cab with the same game play of a LE.
Code would then be the same, meaning less work and the true collectors buy a LE

+1
I think one of the reasons Stern like to keep there LE runs small is that they have so many versions on offer, If LE numbers increased there is potential it wont be the most 'limited' version of a certain title if there is a flop title.

Anyway back to Metallica - lookin forward to a video.

Yes video please...

[swinks]

I also agree the pricing and regular increases are not a good move, which I hope will change when Heighway and Spooky Pinball etc. get up and running.

Heighway's pricing is in and posted on that thread, Stern's will be better value but good news is Charlie from Spooky has a goal that the selling price is $4500 US so plus freight and taxes we are looking at $5500 to $6000 for a brand new machine with no LE versions - Ghost Squad starting production soon and Pinball Zombie starting around Oct all going well. Sorry bakc to Metallica - video please

[GORGAR 1]

Metallic pins on the line behind the X-men pins.