Stranger Things... Another Run

[Pinpickle]

Man... Stern is really killing the used market. First JP 30th edition and now another run of Stranger Things Pro/Prem.

I sold my premium to someone in the US last year for the price for more than what LE's cost. There's going to be a lot of owners pissed off on this one.

Would have been nice to see a season 4/5 edition or something different. Hopefully there's a code update or something or they introduce some badges like Foo and others.

 

[MoPin]

Where did you see that posted?

 

[Pinpickle]

Stern website, Stern email

STERN OF THE UNION ADDRESS – OCTOBER 2023 - Stern Pinball

The Stern of the Union Address, your monthly resource for news, information and highlights on all things Stern Pinball. Without further ado my fellow pinheads: Stranger Things: After being lost in The Upside Down... Stranger Things Pinball has returned. Join Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Will and Eleven...

sternpinball.com

 

[MoPin]

Aw okay. Those go in my spam. Will maybe in spam them.

 

[roar]

26% increase in MSRP between launch in 2019 and todays announcement. I don't blame Stern one bit for capitalizing on a market pinball owners have created for themselves. I guess it had become part of the appeal of pinball ownership, the potential of your purchase appreciating, but Stern never made that claim or promise to its buyers, so why shouldn't they capture that profit for themselves? Agreed entirely though that there will be some pretty bitter buyers out there. An expensive lesson I suppose.

 

[Pinpickle]

I agree Roar, smart business decision. Especially when Venom is doing so poorly. It a quick an easy simple sell for Stern and this machine will move well. If your in the pinball hobby to make money, then you should find another hobby. Buyer beware we spending copious amounts over MSRP. Definitely an expensive lesson to learn or many people.

Imagine if JJP did the same for Pirates.

 

[roar]

Wow, if JJP did this for Pirates... that would be something else altogether. You'd go from losing a couple of grand on a Stranger Things to potentially losing 10+ grand overnight!

 

[Padre]

Kiss 50th coming soon

 

[Chris Bardon]

Honestly a little surprised. Yeah, there was internet demand, but I suppose that actually bubbled up into enough distributor demand to make a run worthwhile? Can't imagine it'll be a lot of games, but I'm sure there was at least a critical mass of orders/interest/commitment from the network. I'm actually a little curious as to how much easier it is to run different games like this on spike 2 vs SAM or Whitestar. Given that the node boards are mostly common, and the wiring harnesses are significantly simpler with the cat5 cabling, maybe it's less labour to switch? There are still a lot of special parts for each game of course, but I'd be willing to bet that it's easier to switch over and run, say, 500 stranger things over a couple of weeks, than it was to build up parts etc to do another 500 Sopranos or Simpsons.

That post didn't say whether these will have the UV kit installed at the factory, which could help justify the price bump too. Assuming they're doing both pro and premium? I wonder if the projector in the premium is the same part, and if so, whether that was one of the components that got more expensive? If I recall, impressions of that weren't great on release, so it could be an opportunity to retrofit with something better?

 

[MrMikeman]

What I’ve seen from U.S. distros indicates it’s only a run of Pros, no Prems.

 

[Pinpickle]

Confirmed, pro's and premiums.

UV kit is extra

 

[Pinpickle]

There is already rumour of GZ LE next year. It's the 75th anniversary.

 

[Pins4ever]

It was actually a healthy market when pins were appreciating. Let's see what happens when people stop buying NIB.
Corporate greed will kill the golden goose.

 

[MrMikeman]

It was actually a healthy market when pins were appreciating. Let's see what happens when people stop buying NIB.
Corporate greed will kill the golden goose.

Pins always appreciating is not healthy or sustainable. Greedy collectors are what’s killing the hobby, not the other way around. Pinballs were never meant to be a Golden Goose as you put it.

 

[Pins4ever]

They are only considered greedy if there's someone silly enough to pay ridiculous prices. Slow appreciation is good; people with too much money laying around jumping in the hobby is what's bad and now they are leaving the hobby.

 

[kool1]

It was actually a healthy market when pins were appreciating. Let's see what happens when people stop buying NIB.
Corporate greed will kill the golden goose.

Stern like every company is here to make money. It's not "greed", it purely business. Substantial demand for a STh re-run has been there for quite some time. I don't any company that would not sell more units of something in demand if they can do it.

Glad to see this, it's definitely a game I will re-consider at more reasonable prices.

 

[ZoomZoomBoomBoom]

I think this is definitely a short term gain that will result in huge long term losses for Stern.
From my understanding (and talking to distributors across North America) the majority of NIB pins sold are to home collectors, not for commercial use. My guess would be around 75%. Which means their products have become collectibles. As someone who has been in the collectibles and gaming business for over 30 years, what Stern seems to be doing is corporate suicide.
Once a business starts remaking older "collectible" products to try to cash in on the secondary market, it immediately kills their "primary buyer" market. Like overnight. If a primary buyer can retain most of their investment, or even make money on his investment, he is more willing to buy a new product at a higher price. If a primary buyer realizes that the second he buys it, it will continue to drop in value, he will not buy it, but rather wait for the reduced price on the secondary market. I have seen this happen over and over again without a single exception.
If Stern ignores the collectors (primary buyers) and continues to remanufacture older titles (like they have done with Elvira 40th, JP 30th, Stranger Things Premium etc.), I think this will trigger a drop in NIB sales that will be catastrophically bad for Stern, because the primary buyer will not purchase NIB and the secondary market will essentially vanish as there won't be any primary buyers with pins to sell.
This is why Honda Civics depreciate like crazy and Ferraris can go up in value.
Now one might say; but Honda sells more Civics than Ferrari's, but I would say (in terms of "toy price point") Stern makes Ferraris, NOT Hondas.

More relevant examples of this would be;
-Stern trying to cash in on the Elvira secondary market price point by making a 40th edition; which essentially bombed
-Stern trying to cash in on the collector market price point by making the Bond 60th, which couldn't even move 500 units at MSRP

I would even go so far as to say; at this point in time, there is virtually no demand for NIB pins, as the secondary market is flooded with current titles available at a discount and you can see distributors are stocking up and unable to sell them.

 

[pinballjah]

I wonder what the recent ST Prem went for?

 

[Pinpickle]

14k USD

Now $9,600

 

[pinballjah]

14k USD

Now $9,600

I meant the one on Pin Rev. Good timing on the sellers part.