Relatively new to your content guys, it's really good to get some common sense perspective on all things pinball. Loving what you do, thanks for putting the effort in and hope to see you all at UK Pinfest for an awkward selfie! :D
So I received an anonymous message: "Pinball prices reflect what the market will bear." - and thats the point, the market isn't bearing it! hundreds of unsold Venom LEs, Rush LEs atc.
About these youtube content creators. It might be true that those videos are not the best, but those videos are not meant to be watched by people who are already heavily involved with pinball, those guys have a lot of followers that know nothing about pinball and would NEWER watch a pinball content creators videos. Stern knows that they need new blood in the hobby, and this one really good way to get new folks realizing that there is cool machines coming for the franchise they might like.
I don’t disagree about the need to expand the hobby - but this was like shutting your eyes and firing a machine gun and hoping you hit something you want to hit and hoping you don’t hit something you don’t want to hit. People who have the opportunity to buy pinball machines don’t watch any of the channels that Stern used and here is a simple question why not include both?
@@neilmcrae1 Sure it would be good to have also early access to some really good pinball content creators as well. I think it might be hard (especially for Stern) to choose who to ask for. I mean lots of those who are making content in really good level are somehow linked to some distributors as well, so some could see slight advantage / disadvantage with this. And sure they can be asked to sign NDA but still, you know. But I really hope that this will get better in the future. It just seems strange that Stern is so poor with marketing decisions at this point.
I don’t fully understand the concern about current pinball pricing. $9k is less percent of average salary than $5k was in the 90s. The LE 13k+ machine new are just for a crazy different audience and aren’t a big part of the conversation to me. Pinball has always just been stupid expensive. They’re not investments.
The concern is that new game sales are massively down, current prices vs second owner huge gap too. Brand new Foo premium box not opened £7K! Here in the UK our prices are substantially higher owing to distro markup.
@@neilmcrae1 fair enough I am not privy to any sort of sales numbers. 1000 LEs seems very unsustainable. I’m taking more about the $7k-$10k pinballs. All the current manufactures are kind of in the same ballpark on price. I don’t think we can really complain much about it or think their pricing is killing pinball sales. They’re objectively more affordable than ever before. Say Stern drops their price $1000 and they currently make $2k per game after all is said and done. They now have to sell double the number of games to make the same amount of money. There is only so much you can cut into the profit margin before it just doesn’t make any sense. I have no idea what their number are but you get what I’m saying? I dunno I think they’ve done the math and the business is more sustainable as a higher profit, slightly lower volume, luxury toy than a more commoditized hyper low margin business. Lower pinball sales is a factor of so many things. I don’t think they sell many more if they drop a pro $500 or something. Inflation alone is up for 30% here in the US the last 8 years.
Excellent episode calling out the bucketloads of BS we've seen in the pin world over the last month or so.
Great podcast guys. Was great entertainment on my way back from the Amazing Pinball Race this weekend. Thanks.
Absolutely superb, 👏
Many thanks!
Relatively new to your content guys, it's really good to get some common sense perspective on all things pinball. Loving what you do, thanks for putting the effort in and hope to see you all at UK Pinfest for an awkward selfie! :D
Welcome aboard!
So I received an anonymous message: "Pinball prices reflect what the market will bear." - and thats the point, the market isn't bearing it! hundreds of unsold Venom LEs, Rush LEs atc.
Matrix 5 is confirmed.
with 4 being so bad we hoped otherwise :D
About these youtube content creators. It might be true that those videos are not the best, but those videos are not meant to be watched by people who are already heavily involved with pinball, those guys have a lot of followers that know nothing about pinball and would NEWER watch a pinball content creators videos. Stern knows that they need new blood in the hobby, and this one really good way to get new folks realizing that there is cool machines coming for the franchise they might like.
I don’t disagree about the need to expand the hobby - but this was like shutting your eyes and firing a machine gun and hoping you hit something you want to hit and hoping you don’t hit something you don’t want to hit. People who have the opportunity to buy pinball machines don’t watch any of the channels that Stern used and here is a simple question why not include both?
@@neilmcrae1 Sure it would be good to have also early access to some really good pinball content creators as well. I think it might be hard (especially for Stern) to choose who to ask for. I mean lots of those who are making content in really good level are somehow linked to some distributors as well, so some could see slight advantage / disadvantage with this. And sure they can be asked to sign NDA but still, you know. But I really hope that this will get better in the future. It just seems strange that Stern is so poor with marketing decisions at this point.
I don’t fully understand the concern about current pinball pricing. $9k is less percent of average salary than $5k was in the 90s. The LE 13k+ machine new are just for a crazy different audience and aren’t a big part of the conversation to me. Pinball has always just been stupid expensive. They’re not investments.
The concern is that new game sales are massively down, current prices vs second owner huge gap too. Brand new Foo premium box not opened £7K! Here in the UK our prices are substantially higher owing to distro markup.
@@neilmcrae1 fair enough I am not privy to any sort of sales numbers. 1000 LEs seems very unsustainable. I’m taking more about the $7k-$10k pinballs. All the current manufactures are kind of in the same ballpark on price. I don’t think we can really complain much about it or think their pricing is killing pinball sales. They’re objectively more affordable than ever before.
Say Stern drops their price $1000 and they currently make $2k per game after all is said and done. They now have to sell double the number of games to make the same amount of money. There is only so much you can cut into the profit margin before it just doesn’t make any sense. I have no idea what their number are but you get what I’m saying? I dunno I think they’ve done the math and the business is more sustainable as a higher profit, slightly lower volume, luxury toy than a more commoditized hyper low margin business.
Lower pinball sales is a factor of so many things. I don’t think they sell many more if they drop a pro $500 or something. Inflation alone is up for 30% here in the US the last 8 years.
Who doesn’t shower every day?
Sadly lots of pinball and gaming people!