Episode 1029: "Will D&D Be a Hit For Stern?"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·18m 49s·analyzed·Dec 2, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Host doubts D&D will save Stern; criticizes pricing, secondary market collapse, and LE strategy.

Summary

The host of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast expresses skepticism about whether Dungeons & Dragons will be a hit for Stern Pinball, citing Brian Eddy's poor track record with recent launches (Stranger Things, Mandalorian), theme weakness compared to other 80s IP, and concerns about secondary market depreciation. He critiques Stern's pricing strategy and lack of LE differentiation, advocates for remasters of classic titles (Batman, Jaws, Lord of the Rings), and praises Spooky's Evil Dead launch while predicting a slow December before game announcements at TPF.

Key Claims

Metallica Remastered LE units are selling for $18,000 on the secondary market and actually achieving those prices, not just listing at them.
medium confidence · Host, describing recent secondary market success for Metallica LE
Brian Eddy has not had a hit launch since joining Stern Pinball, with Stranger Things and Mandalorian both being underwhelming.
medium confidence · Host opinion on Eddy's design history at Stern
Keith Elwin recently saw a D&D prototype with a mechanism that impressed him enough to say 'I can't believe we're doing that. That's insane.'
medium confidence · Host, citing second-hand report of Elwin's reaction
Spike 3 was supposed to be on the new Metallica game but was held back because it wasn't ready.
medium confidence · Host discussing Spike 3 platform availability timing
Stern Pinball is rumored to be raising prices while secondary market values for their machines are deprecating severely.
low confidence · Host, referencing unverified rumor about price increases
D&D was a much more niche franchise than Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, or Thundercats, with less nostalgia and fan following.
high confidence · Host's thematic analysis and opinion
Jersey Jack is offering exclusive toppers, different artwork on CEs, and Radcals, making their CEs significantly differentiated from lower tiers.
high confidence · Host comparing Jersey Jack's LE strategy to Stern's
Spooky Pinball sold over 650 Evil Dead units in just one week.
high confidence · Host praising Spooky's launch success
Harry Potter from Jersey Jack is expected to release in the coming months ahead of TPF.
medium confidence · Host predicting imminent announcement/release of Harry Potter

Notable Quotes

“But you know why we love pinball and not politics is because it's much more fun to discuss what's going on in pinball.”
Host @ ~0:30 — Sets the episode tone after personal drama; frames the pivot to discussing D&D
“Now, Brian Eddy hasn't had a hit launch ever since he's been at Stern Pinball... Is he capable of designing a game that has the magic that he used to do back in the Bally Williams days?”
Host @ ~2:00 — Core thesis: questions whether Eddy can deliver a hit with D&D given his recent track record
“I'm just worried that it's not going to be the kind of theme that will justify the prices Stern is asking for all of these games.”
Host @ ~3:30 — Summarizes the fundamental concern about D&D's market viability
“The only way out for Stern Pinball is simple. The only way out is if they make masterpiece games based on themes you really want and you're not worried about the resale value of the game.”
Host @ ~7:00 — Identifies Stern's core strategic challenge: quality + theme + resale confidence
“Imagine a Tron with modern lighting, Daft Punk music, better artwork, and maybe a few more fun mechs thrown into the game... this game would be even more of a take my money now game than even Metallica Remastered.”
Host @ ~10:30 — Illustrates the excitement potential of classic IP remasters with modern tech
“You're telegraphing to everybody. You're about to buy a significantly depreciating item. And so the smart man is just going to wait and see.”
Host @ ~8:45 — Explains why manufacturer sales/discounts accelerate secondary market erosion
“If anyone had half a brain, they would just go research what those games are selling for on the secondhand market. And they're selling for three to four thousand dollars less than Jersey Jack wants to sell you one in a box.”
Host @ ~14:30 — Critiques Jersey Jack's pricing disconnect with secondary market reality

Entities

Brian Eddyperson Dungeons & DragonsgameStern PinballcompanyKeith ElwinpersonJersey JackcompanySpooky PinballcompanyEvil Deadgame Metallica Remastered

Signals

~
sentiment_shift: Host expresses declining confidence in Stern's ability to execute hits; cites repeated disappointing launches and suggests the company is in financial jeopardy if they continue releasing mediocre new games.
high · "I'm not sure they can weather another mediocre game, another soft seller... how can you raise prices as your consumers are losing more money than they've ever lost before on every single pin?"
$
market_signal: Widespread secondary market depreciation across new Stern releases; Metallica LE is exception, but most games selling well below MSRP.
high · "When you look at the secondhand value of most of these new Stern machines, they're abysmal. They're absolutely abysmal."
?
product_strategy: Stern criticized for not differentiation LEs from standard models (no exclusive toppers, same artwork, no exclusive code); Jersey Jack's approach praised as better.
high · "They still don't give you an exclusive topper... different artwork on the playfields... more code in your LE machine."
?
rumor_hype: Host speculates Stern should and likely will pursue remasters of classic hits (Batman 60th Anniversary, Jaws 50th Anniversary, Lord of the Rings) as more viable strategy than new themes.
medium · "If I'm Seth Davis... they're going to be thinking about Batman 60th Anniversary Edition... Jaws 50th Anniversary Edition... if we remade Lord of the Rings... you're talking 5,000 units easily."
?
machine_intel: Keith Elwin saw D&D prototype with mechanism impressive enough to warrant enthusiastic reaction; suggests mechanical innovation present in final design.

Topics

D&D viability as a hit game for SternprimaryBrian Eddy's design track record and future prospectsprimarySecondary market depreciation and resale value collapseprimaryStern Pinball's pricing strategy and LE differentiationprimaryClassic IP remasters vs. new licensed themesprimarySpike 3 platform and its market impactsecondarySpooky Pinball's community-focused business approachsecondary2024 game releases and their performance (Jaws, Evil Dead, X-Men, Avatar)secondary

Sentiment

negative(-0.65)— Host expresses significant skepticism about D&D's prospects, frustration with Stern's pricing and strategy, and broader concerns about the industry's financial viability for consumers. However, he praises Spooky's approach and shows optimism about potential remasters and future games. Tone is critical but constructive.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.056

Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Happy Monday. It is December 2nd. We have a new month upon us. I want to thank each and every one of you for staying with the show. I want to give a big shout out to Dwayne Cox, who edited his pledge to $30. He is now the new Derek Stutzman. He has replaced Derek, who took his ball and went home because I did not vote along his party lines, everybody. And look, it's hard to lose a best friend in life, let alone in pinball. So for those of you out there that are saying like, hey, just let it go. It's hard to just let it go when it's one of your best buddies. But you know why we love pinball and not politics is because it's much more fun to discuss what's going on in pinball. So here's what I want to talk about on this episode. I want to talk about Dungeons and Dragons. Can this game actually be a hit game for Stern Pinball? We know they need it. X-Men is not doing tremendously well. A lot of people are staying away from X-Men because of code issues and mechanical issues. Metallica LEs, they did great, right? They sold all 500 Metallica Remastered. They're now selling for $18,000 on the used market, and people are getting that. It's not like they're listing it for $18,000 and getting $16,000. They're getting $18,000. But we haven't seen a Stern LE really do that well in a long, long time. I think the last game that had such an increase in price right away was Godzilla L.E. So here we are now, though. We know they don't have a Keith Elwin game next. We know their next game is from Brian Eddy. Now, Brian Eddy hasn't had a hit launch ever since he's been at Stern Pinball. He had Stranger Things, which remember when it came out, did not do that well. the game got much better over time they didn't launch the game with the uv kit which is crazy because they wanted us all to spend extra money to get the uv kit and then you had mandalorian which had a lot of assets still an underwhelming game creatively there's no real sort of exciting stuff happening on the gameplay of that game and so now we await brian eddy's third game with Stern Pinball, the man who had the medieval madness castle? Is he capable of designing a game that has the magic that he used to do back in the Bally Williams days? Now, we know Keith Elwin said he saw a game recently that had a mechanism in it that made him say, whoa, I can't believe we're doing that. That's insane. And it's probably not his own creation. So is this going to be Brian Eddy's Dungeons and Dragons. My worry about D&D is this. I'm just worried that it's not going to be the kind of theme that will justify the prices Stern is asking for all of these games. And will it be on Spike 3? Yes or no? This is the thing right now, too. We know Spike 3 is around the corner. So if a game comes out now and doesn't have Spike 3, are you really going to want it? knowing that the new platform is right around the corner. Now, we do know that Spike 3 was supposed to be on this new Metallica game, and they held it back because it wasn't ready yet. So I think we might get Spike 3 with Dungeons & Dragons. Still, when I think about this from a theme standpoint, this game is not going to do tremendously well for Stern Pinball. I mean that. I just don't think this game is going to be a home run. And I think it's going to be because of the theme. And if it is Dungeons and Dragons, what do you base it on? Is it going to be based on the D&D cartoon show from the 1980s? If history has shown us anything, Stern does not take those 80s cartoons and just serve them back up to us. They sort of reanimate it themselves. So I don't know. I also don think that cartoon show has nearly as much sort of nostalgia or enthusiasm for it as some other cartoon shows like Transformers and G Joe and Voltron and Thundercats right I mean, D&D was always sort of much more niche and didn't have nearly as much of a fan following. And so I'm looking at this release with a little bit of concern for Stern Pinball. I think they need a hit game right now. I'm not sure they can Carl Weathers another mediocre game, another soft seller. And at these prices, the thing that's really hurting them is that when you look at the secondhand value of most of these new Stern machines, they're abysmal. They're absolutely abysmal. And then if the rumor is true that Stern Pinball is about to raise prices, none of this adds up. How can you raise prices as your consumers are losing more money than they've ever lost before on every single pin? So I think something's got to give, right? And we know the only way out for Stern Pinball is simple. The only way out is if they make masterpiece games based on themes you really want and you're not worried about the resale value of the game. And so I'm here to tell you right now, even though I haven't seen it, I think D&D is going to struggle to be a hit game for Stern Pinball. And also the other thing is this, knowing that it's D&D and knowing in just a few months we're going to get to see Harry Potter from Jersey Jack, it's hard not to just wait. The only reason to buy right away, the only reason to buy a new in box game right away is if you feel it's going to be difficult to get an LE down the road. Other than that, there's really no reason why you would buy a new in box game right away. We are now starting to see pinball manufacturers put games on sale for the first time ever. Jersey Jack had their Black Friday sale. They went down to IAPA and offered money off of those games as well. The moment you start doing that, the issue is this. You're telegraphing to everybody. You're about to buy a significantly depreciating item. And so the smart man is just going to wait and see. So I think here's what's going to happen with Stern Pinball. I think Stern Pinball is going to have a little bit of another flop with D&D. I think they're going to quickly get to Keith Elwin's King Kong. I think that game has been done for a while. And then I think they're going to relaunch Tron to coincide with all the Tron stuff Disney has in the works. I know John Borg's been working on a new Tron. It is still based on the old game, but I think he just wants to add more stuff to the mix. And I think that's going to be very exciting. Imagine a Tron with modern lighting, Daft Punk music, better artwork, and maybe a few more fun mechs thrown into the game. And with a big screen. Remember, because the new Tron would be on Spike 3, which is going to have the much larger display. And with expression lighting and the fiber optic lighting, this game would be even more of a take my money now game than even Metallica Remastered. And so I think that's going to be Stern's formula. And if I'm Seth Davis and I'm George, I mean, ultimately, it's seeming like the best way forward for Stern Pinball to be successful and to grow and to get new people into the hobby. The best way forward is if they look backwards at all their hot titles and you know they're going to be thinking about Batman 60th Anniversary Edition. They're going to be thinking about a Jaws 50th Anniversary Edition. and they have to be looking at games like Lord of the Rings. And oh my gosh, if we remade Lord of the Rings and just did it right, you're talking 5,000 units easily if you remake Lord of the Rings. It's these new games to them that are really painful. I don't know how they're gonna survive if they keep charging this much money for these games that really are not clicking with the buying community. You know, they put so much effort into Internet Connected, which is good. It's very satisfying. They put a lot of effort into achievements and making sure your games have replay value. Stern pinball machines still shoot the best. These games shoot better than everybody else's machines. But man, nothing's more painful than just losing a lot of money. And they have to figure out a way to stop the secondhand value bloodbath that is happening to everybody that buys their product. And they haven't really made any moves. In my honest opinion They haven really made any moves to make the LEs really special They still don give you an exclusive topper They don even think about different artwork on the playfields And they sure as heck don't give you more code in your LE machine. Those are three easy things they could do that would differentiate those $13,000 machines. Remember, Jersey Jack gives you an exclusive topper with the CE. They give you different artwork on your CE game. They give you the Radcals. Adcals, they give you a lot more stuff so your CE looks leagues better than the model below it. You know, Jersey Jack just should make one model. I mean, let's face it. They should just make one model, 1,500 units. It doesn't matter what game it is. It's $15,000 and then just go on to the next. So is anything going to happen over the next few weeks? Are we going to see D&D before the end of the year? I don't think so. I really don't think so. I don't think we see anything new from Stern. I don't think we see anything new from Jersey Jack. I don't think we see Cuphead this month. I just don't think we're going to see anything new. I think it's going to be a little bit of a dead month. And then things are really going to ramp up. Because we know leading into TPF, we're going to get Harry Potter. We're going to get the next game from AP. The next game from Stern. We're going to see Alice on the line. Has to be on the line. Dutch Pinball knows they need to get that game on the line. because all the orders for Lebowski are over, right? There's not going to be any more new Lebowski's made. And now I'm looking at Lebowski and heck, why would you spend 13.5 when I think you can kind of go get one now pretty easily for around $11,000. And so that game is now no longer in demand. I mean, it's been around for like 12 years. You know, the state of what Back to the Future will become is still up in the air. I'm not sure what's going to happen. I'm hearing Barry wants to make it on his own. I'm nervous now because this game, it just doesn't feel like this game is in development where it needs to be considering the theme, considering the expectations around it. So I'm nervous. And look, they need to get Alice's on the line because they need games going out the door. They need to get that revenue, right? They need to be able to knock on people's doors and say, hey, you now need to pay in full. And if you pay in full, you're going to get your game in a certain amount of time. And I'm a little bit nervous because they've never switched over a line ever before. And so we saw what happened with Haggis. And so they need to make sure that whatever they promise people, if you pay in full today, you're going to get your game. You're going to get your game on this date. They need to deliver on that. And will the tariffs happening in the world impact games that are imported and built overseas? Most likely. So it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with that game. And I think all of us are sort of in a place now where we just want great games. We don't want to think about resale prices. We don't want to be moving games in and out of our homes. We don't want to be talking about quality issues on a brand new game like X-Men. We don't want to be tearing our games apart. We don't want to buy any Mirko playfields ever again. We just want more Godzillas. We want another Tron. We want another Metallica. We want just great pinball. Because all pinball now is expensive, then every game should be great. And the good news is, imagine if you just got into this hobby this year, you'd have like 30 to 40 games that are absolutely amazing games. I mean, if you go on the Pinside Top 100 and you look at the top 30 games, most of those are readily available. They're available for less money than they were brand new, and you will have a great pinball experience. The problem is, is these companies can't survive if all you want to buy is the old stuff. So they're going to have to find new ways to make it attractive to buy new in-box games. I don't think they've done a good job of that. You know, Spooky Pinball did a great job launching Evil Dead. They sold over 650 in just a week. That is great. it now kind of makes no sense to get online after 650 because we all know by the time they make 400 of them there going to be a bunch of them for sale for less money than brand new and if there any issues with the game they be worked out Or if you know there bad issues with the game you just avoid it So it only makes sense right now to wait and see how that plays out. But I will commend Spooky once again for a great launch. A lot of passion went into this game. I think people see the value in the game. I think people see the connection to the company as being part of that value. And when you buy a spooky pin, you feel like ingratiated into that spooky culture and the community. And I think that means a lot for people. You know, when I think about this hobby in general, all of us, every time we wake up, we decide how we want to spend our time, how we want to spend our money, who we want to support. And with so many pinball companies out there, I think the onus is on all of them to build stronger bridges to the community. And I think the days of like, well, we're not going to go on Pinside and engage with people. I think those days are over. I don't think you can just operate in the shadows anymore and people are going to buy your product. I don't think you can have social media channels that are not very transparent. You don't want to end up like Jersey Jack and you're just spamming everybody. All you do is spam everybody about what games you have for sale as if we're confused what game you have for sale. I mean, you literally are only making one new game at a time. We know the other games didn't sell. That's why nobody wants them. And nobody wants to pay the prices they want for new in box like Godfathers or Toy Stories or Elton John. If anyone had half a brain, they would just go research what those games are selling for on the secondhand market. And they're selling for three to four thousand dollars less than Jersey Jack wants to sell you one in a box. So we're at the end of the year. we are at the end of 2024 it's been one of the years where pinball has been the most expensive it's ever been i think it was a little bit of an underwhelming year i think the two games that stood out for me based upon people's feedback was jaws pinball and evil dead those two games seem to have the most real enthusiasm around them i think everything else has sort of just kind of come out and had its issues. Avatar was a flop. X-Men is one of the most creative designs Stern has ever done, but because of mechanical and code issues, it's kind of turning out to be a dud for people. I think everyone feels bad for Jack Danger. The game was rushed, and it sure needed more time to bake. I don't think all the time in the world, though, would have made Jim Weisz and code this game any better. I really don't. And for most of you, it doesn't mean you've had a bad year in pinball. You've loved the games you own. You know you don't need many more. You know, I was thinking about this with Black Friday and all the consumerism that has taken over this country, this promise that you'll be happier if you just buy more. If you go further into debt and you put more items in your home, you're going to be happier. And I think the opposite is true. I think getting rid of more stuff will make you happier. I think having a smaller pinball collection will make you happier and make you appreciate the games you have. It'll actually make you play the games you have more often. And I think that's a good thing. And I think it's a good thing. And I think if we want these companies to be successful, they need to get better at theme selection. They need to put more magic under the glass and they need to be more transparent. Again, the days are over. You can't just treat the community like we're suckers with money and anything you put in a box, we're gonna buy. I think we're really gonna push back, especially this year. And I think people are tired. They're tired. They're just tired of losing all this money and not getting dream themes. Everybody, thank you for being a member of Canada's Pinball Podcast. We'll be back every week. We're gonna still do this show. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot that's gonna happen. Someone's gonna make a move soon. I think there might be a surprise move by the end of the year, But there's always something to talk about in the pinball world, especially when you're Kaneda. Everybody, have a great Monday. We'll talk to you soon. I want to tell you a lot about you, about me.