# Stern Pinball Gets Heavy Metal Theme

**Source:** Cary Hardy  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2020-02-20  
**Duration:** 11m 50s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb5qSoqUuAU

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## Analysis

Carrie Hardy discusses Stern Pinball's upcoming Heavy Metal pinball machine, a licensed contract build by Incendium. She expresses concerns about Stern's apparent contradiction between publicly advocating for women in pinball while contracting a game based on a franchise known for nudity and objectification. Hardy also recounts a previous conversation with a Stern representative about her content, suggesting Stern has an internal agenda regarding female representation.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Stern Pinball is contracting Heavy Metal pinball to Incendium rather than developing it in-house — _Hardy states 'they're just contracting it' and 'Incendium is the one that's basically going to be responsible for it'_
- [MEDIUM] The Heavy Metal pinball is a re-theme of the existing Star Wars design by George Gomez — _Hardy: 'they are going to be doing a re-theme of the home pin star wars that was designed by george gomez so that's going to save some money on the contract'_
- [HIGH] A Stern representative contacted Hardy months ago regarding content featuring a woman, asking her to be more mindful of how she portrayed females — _Hardy recounts the call: 'this person wanted to have a conversation with me' about 'a portion of a video that I made' and expressed concern about female representation in her content_
- [HIGH] Heavy Metal (1981 film) contains significant nudity and objectification of women — _Hardy: 'if anybody has a good enough amount of knowledge of heavy metal you going to know that there is a lot of nudity' and 'there's a good chunk of nudity in there and major objectification towards women'_
- [MEDIUM] Stern employees have stated on streams that they will make games based on customer willingness to pay — _Hardy: 'This has been stated by a couple of different people on streams for pinball' that 'if you give us enough money we do it'_

### Notable Quotes

> "If any of you guys know Stern well enough there's a little bit of an agenda okay and I just don't see them doing this but I think the reason why that they're going to be able to somewhat kind of slip this by people and be able to back away and say hey don't hey you know it wasn't us is that they're just contracting it."
> — **Carrie Hardy**, ~3:15
> _Core thesis: Stern uses contracting to avoid responsibility for thematic content_

> "So on that bit, then we evidently can see that Stern has some sort of agenda or moral grounds when it comes to objectification for women. They don't want the lash back, obviously, and stuff like that."
> — **Carrie Hardy**, ~6:30
> _Hardy's interpretation of Stern's position on female representation after their private conversation_

> "It a matter of if you pay us the money we do it. If we make money off of it we do it. That's been stated by a couple of different people on streams for pinball."
> — **Carrie Hardy**, ~9:00
> _Hardy's claim about Stern's actual business philosophy vs. stated values_

> "I think the art is going to be a major selling point on this. It's going to be a very niche purchase, even smaller than Star Wars."
> — **Carrie Hardy**, ~11:00
> _Market prediction for Heavy Metal's commercial viability_

> "if she decided to be a christian book writer and she was writing all these christian books and praising christianity and stuff like that but then on the side on the weekends when no one else is looking she was doing you know smut magazines or stuff like that"
> — **Carrie Hardy (paraphrasing her wife's analogy)**, ~13:00
> _Wife's metaphor for perceived Stern hypocrisy between values and actions_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Stern Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer contracting Heavy Metal game to Incendium; discussed for internal agenda on female representation |
| Incendium | company | Contract developer responsible for Heavy Metal pinball game |
| Carrie Hardy | person | Pinball content creator and YouTuber; received contact from Stern representative about video content |
| George Gomez | person | Stern Pinball designer of Star Wars pinball, which is being re-themed for Heavy Metal |
| Heavy Metal | game | Upcoming Stern Pinball game based on 1981 Heavy Metal animated film; contract build by Incendium |
| Star Wars | game | Existing Stern Pinball game designed by George Gomez; being re-themed as Heavy Metal |
| CPR | company | Custom pinball artwork provider; recently announced custom Heavy Metal artwork back glass |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major pinball event; Hardy speculates whether Heavy Metal will appear there |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Heavy Metal pinball announcement and design, Stern Pinball's internal agenda on female representation, Contract manufacturing vs. in-house development, Female representation and objectification in pinball
- **Secondary:** Game re-theming as cost-saving measure, Stern's business philosophy and values alignment, Market niche and sales predictions
- **Mentioned:** Content creator responsibilities

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Hardy is critical of Stern's perceived hypocrisy and somewhat skeptical of the game's commercial viability, but not hostile. She clarifies she supports the Heavy Metal theme itself and female empowerment. The tone is more disappointed/resigned than angry.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** CPR's recent announcement of custom Heavy Metal artwork may have fueled initial speculation about game (confidence: medium) — Hardy: 'cpr just recently announced the ability to do your custom artwork... they have a custom heavy metal artwork back glass... I thought that maybe someone kind of misconstrued misread'
- **[business_signal]** Stern using contract manufacturing model (Incendium) to distance itself from thematic content responsibility (confidence: medium) — Hardy: 'they're just contracting it... they're just building the machine and that's it... The contents of it, that's off of us'
- **[community_signal]** Tension between Stern's stated commitment to female representation and licensing adult-oriented IP (confidence: medium) — Hardy's analysis of disconnect: 'you state that you don't want objectification for women and you want more women in the hobby. And then you contract out a game to put out material that is more than likely going to have somewhat of that style'
- **[design_philosophy]** Heavy Metal is a re-theme/re-skin of existing Star Wars design to reduce development costs (confidence: medium) — Hardy: 'they are going to be doing a re-theme of the home pin star wars that was designed by george gomez so that's going to save some money on the contract'
- **[market_signal]** Heavy Metal expected to be niche purchase with limited commercial appeal, smaller even than Star Wars (confidence: medium) — Hardy: 'It's going to be a very niche purchase, even smaller than Star Wars. So I don't expect them to do a whole bunch of sales on this'
- **[community_signal]** Stern representative contacted content creator about gendered representation in her video content (confidence: high) — Hardy recounts months-old phone call from unnamed Stern contact regarding her portrayal of a woman in one of her videos
- **[rumor_hype]** Heavy Metal pinball announced for Stern/Incendium as upcoming title (confidence: high) — Hardy discusses it as confirmed upcoming release; states 'someone talking about heavy metal potentially being stern's next title'

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## Transcript

 Guys, check out my wiener. This is Mouse. Say hello, Mouse. I've got to laugh just a little bit about this decision. what's up guys and welcome back to my channel where i talk and do everything pinball so if that sounds interesting to you then hit that subscribe button down below so a couple of days ago i kind of get wind of someone talking about heavy metal potentially being stern's next title immediately i was like i doubt it and the reason why a couple of reasons why i doubted it was because first of all cpr just recently announced the ability to do your custom artwork and they could print it out for you and they have a custom heavy metal artwork back glass and all that kind of stuff and junk for sale i want to say but it was just recently announced about that so i thought that maybe someone kind of misconstrued misread and so therefore they were relaying false information the second reason i said i doubt it is because of the theme now there is a backstory to this guys and i was originally just never going to tell this story but due to what's going on here i feel like I kind of just need to throw this out here. But before I talk about the story between me and a person from Stern, I need to let you know that I'm not against this theme. I'm not. I think it's going to have great artwork, more than likely a great soundtrack. But here's the thing. If any of you guys know Stern well enough there's a little bit of an agenda okay and I just don't see them doing this but I think the reason why that they're going to be able to somewhat kind of slip this by people and be able to back away and say hey don't hey you know it wasn't us is that they're just contracting it. So technically they're just building the machine and that's it. They're not putting their name all over it and stuff like that. It's essentially Stearns building the game and that's it. But you have artwork like this. This is one of the comic books. This is another one of the comic books. Trying to get this where I don't have so much of a glare. But another one of the comic books. and then going a little bit old school here but another one of the comic books now here the thing if anybody has a good enough amount of knowledge of heavy metal you going to know that there is a lot of nudity I'm calling the police! I don't believe they're going to do the movie. They might, but if they do, there's going to be a lot of stuff cut out, and essentially there's no way they're going to be able to put a lot of stuff in there that is in the movie it came out in 1981 the animation for it was for its time pretty damn decent and there's there's a good chunk of nudity in there and major objectification towards women in there so that's my second point on this because this is what brings me into the story between me and stern so months ago i get contacted by someone from stern i'm not gonna name drop anything i'm just gonna keep this pretty simple on how it was and essentially this person wanted to have a conversation with me i didn't know what the title or topic of it was going to be i was just like okay cool so someone's wanting to speak with me and we set up a time this person called me and it was due to a portion of a video that I made and during this portion of a video was a very small moment where I'm holding the camera and a female and evidently this was the point was that this female that I had to point the camera at for this little bit is somewhat important i don't i didn't know who it was all i know is that this person was wearing what she was wearing for people to look at her that's all there is to it there's no way you wear that and go you're not going to cause any kind of googly eyes at all there's just no way there's no way so i made a point in my video to kind of like hey wow did John Youssi that kind of thing but in and they wanted to bring this up to me due to the fact that you know they want to get more females into the hobby and they just kind of want to make sure that you know that it the way the conversation kind of sounded like this is kind of like the best way i can put it for you guys what's happening uh we have sort of a problem here yeah there's no problem yeah if you could just go ahead and make sure you do that from now on that would be great it was sort of like that it wasn't like you know they were like telling me like you can do this anymore kind of thing it was more of an asking like you know so something for me to kind of think about in the future of my future content I was like I was like OK I thought I was pretty respectful And trust me if I really wanted to I could have gone majorly out into left field on that portion But no, that's not what my objective was on that. The objective for that bit was to be funny. And I was hoping that a lot of people took it that way. And I'm going to assume that a lot of people did, but evidently people up there in that corporation, company, saw it differently. So on that bit, then we evidently can see that Stern has some sort of agenda or moral grounds when it comes to objectification for women. They don't want the lash back, obviously, and stuff like that. They want more of you in the hobby, and I'm completely fine with that. I didn't know there was an issue with that, but I'm guessing there is. and just so we're clear i've got no problem with them making a heavy metal like i've already stated and i've got you know i love stuff like this because for me i i like seeing women empowered so even in games whenever i have the ability to create a character and it's a female option i go with the female because i like watching females kick ass more than i do big dudes whatever i don't That's just me. Aesthetically, the female is much more aesthetically pleasing. So that's where I have to draw questions, is that you state that you don't want objectification for women and you want more women in the hobby. And then you contract out a game to put out material that is more than likely going to have somewhat of that style in the art. maybe not but it's in the art in the comic books in the movies it's there may not be in the game the pinball machine but it's still there now granted not a lot of everyone's gonna know what heavy metal is entirely exactly when it comes to the comic books and movies and stuff like that so this is definitely going to be a very niche purchase and that is why they are going to be doing a re-theme of the home pin star wars that was designed by george gomez so that's going to save some money on the contract by basically not having to spend a bunch of money for a whole new design when all they got to do is do a re-skin of a current design that they already have chances are they had plenty of parts left over so i'm sure they're happy to get rid of those extra parts i don't know how many home pins they sold but probably not very many so it's obviously not a moral issue it's just who's going to give us money that's what we're going to do and that's been worded by employees there on streams whether they want to remember they said it or not but they stated if you give us enough money we do it so there you go i mean it not a matter of like oh we got morals It a matter of if you pay us the money we do it If we make money off of it we do it That's been stated by a couple of different people on streams for pinball. And it's one of those things where I heard it, I listened, and I was like, okay, I'll store that in the Rolodex for later on. And this kind of brings me to my point on that is that this is what this is, which that's why I find it funny. And that's all I really got to say, guys. I think that the art, like I said, is going to be a major selling point on this. It's going to be a very niche purchase, even smaller than Star Wars. So I don't expect them to do a whole bunch of sales on this, especially since we already know what the design is and layout, if it's just a re-theme of a current game. But since it's a contract game, that's going to be their loophole. It's like, hey, we're just building it. We're just building it, guys. The contents of it, that's off of us. All we do is put it together. They do the rest. So I guess that's the loophole they want to go through. But as long as they're making that money, are we going to see this game at TPF? I doubt it. Because if someone's going to bring it to TPF, it would have to be someone who purchased the game, not Stern themselves. But who knows? We don't really know much what the game's going to look like or anything like that. But if it's going to look like the comic books and the art, I think the art is going to be a major selling point on this. if it's done like it is in the comic books we will see it's kind of funny the wife brought up something that was kind of interesting when i told her about this whole ordeal and it was that she wanted to parallel it to her you know basically if she decided to be a christian book writer and she was writing all these christian books and praising christianity and stuff like that but then on the side on the weekends when no one else is looking she was doing you know smut magazines or stuff like that or smut content for books that was not my parallel that was hers but it is what it is that's going to wrap up this video guys but i want to know what you think of this upcoming heavy metal pinball machine from stern i say from stern they're building it but incendium is the one that's basically going to be uh responsible for it So, let me know what you think about this decision with Stern. Concerns, likes, hates, whatever. Let me know in the comments down below. If you like what you've seen here, give me the thumbs up. And if you haven't already, do not forget to hit that subscribe button down below. That way you can be notified on whenever I upload something for your viewing pleasure. Until next time, guys. Peace out. Thank you.

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 49cd2a48-6c97-4308-bc26-b0ca2796391f*