Episode 754: "TWIPY Votes & Stern's Price Hike"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·22m 39s·analyzed·Jan 2, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Stern raises pinball prices; Kaneda slams James Bond reveal strategy and 2022's underwhelming game slate.

Summary

Kaneda discusses the 2022 Twippies Awards voting experience, characterizing the year as underwhelming for pinball and expressing frustration with mandatory default votes across most categories. The episode centers on Stern Pinball's significant price increase strategy, with Standard Editions rising to ~$6,800 and Premium Editions to ~$9,700, while criticizing their decision to withhold the Keith Elwin James Bond machine reveal until CES 2023 as a calculated cash grab targeting James Bond collectors. Kaneda also reports licensing constraints on James Bond code that may prevent stacking multiballs with villain modes from different movies, and shares his own gameplay impressions of the machine as challenging but fun, though poorly suited for casual players.

Key Claims

Stern Pinball is raising prices across entire inventory: Standard ~$6,800, Premium ~$9,700
high confidence · Kaneda, opening segment on pricing announcement
Stern will not honor existing pre-order prices for games like Elvira's House of Horrors, forcing customers to pay new higher prices or lose their orders
high confidence · Kaneda, pricing discussion segment
Jersey Jack Pinball has no affordable games left, with Avatar priced at ~$14,500 with tax/shipping
medium confidence · Kaneda, JJP pricing analysis
Keith Elwin James Bond machine is being unveiled at CES 2023 instead of James Bond 60th celebration events
high confidence · Kaneda, James Bond launch strategy criticism
James Bond license holder restricts code: cannot mix scenes from different movies (e.g., stacking multiballs with villain modes from different films)
medium confidence · Kaneda, licensing constraint disclosure
Kaneda played James Bond ~30 times and found it challenging, with difficult shot layout not suited to casual players
high confidence · Kaneda, personal gameplay impressions
2022 was an embarrassing and underwhelming year for the pinball industry with limited creativity
high confidence · Kaneda, recurring theme throughout episode
Stern Pinball withheld Keith Elwin James Bond reveal to lock in Limited Edition pre-orders before showing the product
medium confidence · Kaneda, marketing strategy criticism
Star Wars Mandalorian Topper costs $2,000, which Kaneda criticizes as poor value
high confidence · Kaneda, topper pricing discussion
Distributors cannot move Rush or Star Wars Premium Edition inventory despite Stern's price increase

Notable Quotes

“What an underwhelming year for pinball. I didn't even want to give a vote for half of these categories because I just didn't feel good about most of it.”
Kaneda @ ~2:00 — Sets overall tone of episode; frames 2022 as disappointing for industry
“Stern Pinball is going to roll out a single level James Bond pinball machine. And we will finally know if this Keith Elwin machine is going to be worth the humongous price Stern puts on this machine.”
Kaneda @ ~4:00 — Signals uncertainty about James Bond value proposition despite premium pricing
“If you want both, now you are going to be shelling out like 40 grand. The game was a sleazy marketing move, I think.”
Kaneda @ ~16:00 — Direct criticism of Stern's strategy to withhold product reveal and lock in pre-orders
“This year we need a magical pin. We need a game that restores all of our faith in new in box pinball.”
Kaneda @ ~19:00 — Expresses industry-wide need for breakout title; sets expectations for 2023
“The game is good. I had fun playing the game. But the game is hard. Casual pinball players are not going to see hardly anything in this game.”
Kaneda @ ~12:00 — Mixed gameplay assessment; raises accessibility concerns for James Bond
“You could buy four Xboxes for the price of one Star Wars The Mandalorian topper.”
Kaneda @ ~38:00 — Highlights extreme pricing of premium toppers relative to consumer alternatives
“We know these companies are capable of doing it. But if they continue to cost cut while they raise the prices of these machines, people are going to start heading for the exits.”
Kaneda @ ~42:00 — Warns manufacturers about unsustainable pricing combined with quality reduction strategy
“I think 2023 needs to raise the bar. We need a game that makes us fall in love with new games again.”

Entities

KanedapersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany Keith Elwinperson This Week in Pinballorganization James Bond 60th Anniversaryevent

Signals

?
product_strategy: Stern Pinball implementing across-the-board price increases: Standard Edition ~$6,800, Premium Edition ~$9,700. Not honoring existing pre-order prices for previously quoted games.
high · Kaneda: 'Stern pinball games are raising the price of every single game that is in there inventory with distributors to the current price model of James Bond. So that means every single Stern game... are now like 6800 bucks and the Premium Edition are really where it's gonna hurt. The Premium Edition are now like $9700'
$
market_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball and premium manufacturers pricing out casual and new collectors; Avatar ~$14,500, no sub-$12,000 JJP offerings available
high · Kaneda: 'Jersey Jack Pinball has priced themselves into a box now too at $12,000 and $15,000 bucks. Jersey Jack doesn't even have a single affordable game... their James Cameron's Avatar is almost twice the price of a Stern game'
?
product_launch: Stern withheld Keith Elwin James Bond reveal until CES 2023 to lock in Limited Edition pre-orders before product demo
high · Kaneda: 'They wanted to lock in all your money and they did it. Stern's never done this before... They never done this before... They know the target is the James Bond fan... my bet is tomorrow you going to see a lot of people laughing out loud and chastising Stern pinball for what I am predicting tomorrow a really greedy cash grab'
?
licensing_signal: James Bond license holder restricting game code: cannot stack multiballs with villain modes from different movies; cannot mix scenes from different films
medium · Kaneda: 'There is an issue with the James Bond license holder and how they can code this game. So apparently the license holder does not want them to like mix up different scenes from different movies. So you can't stack like a multiball with a villain mode if the multiball is not from the same movie as that villain.'

Topics

Stern Pinball pricing strategy and price increasesprimaryKeith Elwin James Bond machine reveal timing and marketing strategyprimary2022 pinball industry quality assessment and creativity criticismprimaryTwippies Awards voting process and category selectionsprimaryJames Bond license restrictions on game codesecondaryJersey Jack Pinball pricing and market accessibilitysecondaryTopper pricing and value perception ($2,000 Star Wars Mandalorian)secondaryDistributor inventory challenges with premium editionsmentioned

Sentiment

negative(-0.72)— Kaneda is highly critical of industry direction in 2022 and into 2023, characterizing the year as underwhelming and embarrassing. His primary frustrations center on manufacturer pricing strategies (Stern's price increases without honoring previous quotes, Jersey Jack's premium-only lineup, $2,000 toppers) combined with what he perceives as reduced creativity and code quality. However, some positive sentiment emerges regarding specific past games (Godzilla, Guns N' Roses, Lord of the Rings) and genuine appreciation for the podcast community's engagement. Overall tone is disappointed and warning but framed as constructive criticism.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.068

Rocking rig clapping ass leads like the 80s never give it up until the reaper come and slay me pull over the zelda and a peach and a daisy i be dirty dancing now the yelling gravy Swayze Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, the first podcast in 2023. I hope each and every one of you had a really great holidays. I hope you had a great new year. I don't know about you guys, but it's exhausting. I find like the week between Christmas and New Year's, I don't even know what day of the week it is. I don't know why I'm drinking again. I don't know why I'm eating all this food every day I normally would not eat. But I'll tell you this, it's not a recharging time of year. I feel like we all slide into January feeling like we just destroyed our bodies. And then we're like, let's do dry January, which I wanted to do. But after day one, I've already had some wine yesterday. So it didn't really happen. But You're not here to talk about resolutions, we're here to talk about pinball. So what are we going to talk about on this episode of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast? Well we're going to talk about the Twippies and I will say, I think each and every one of you who filled out a Twippie ballot and thank you so much for all of your votes. I think we all felt one thing. What an underwhelming year for pinball. I didn't even want to give a vote for half of these categories because I just didn't feel good about most of it. I almost felt like most of it was just like a default vote. Like I have to put in something, so I'll put in this. But I didn't feel great about the majority of the votes during this year's Twippies. The only real feel good one is Kaneda's Pinball Podcast and Kaneda's Facebook live stream. Thank you everybody. And make sure you get the other members of your family to vote for Kaneda. And I think we've got it in the bag and I've got the cargo shorts ready. So we're going to talk about the Twippies. We're going to talk about how tomorrow at the world's Mecca of innovation and technology, Stern Pinball is going to roll out a single level James Bond pinball machine. And we will finally know if this Keith Elwin machine is going to be worth the humongous price tag Stern puts on this machine. We don't know what the price is. Is it going to be 15,000? Is it going to be 17,500? 20,000? The Week in Pinball, Joust or Johnny Pinball Mnemonic (classic arcade/pinball game), Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, transliteelectronic Let's start on this stern pinball to start 2023 is going to officially raise the price of every single game that is in inventory with distributors to the current price model of James Bond. So that means every single pro I think the pros are now like 6800 bucks and the premiums are really where it's gonna hurt. The premiums are now like $9700 for a stern time being used in try to attract the attention of trading allowing people could get the real option of requires a increasingly lifetime free game otab untapped How much mate/man it was to make that game in that year. And I think this is a bad move for Stern. I think they should be honoring the price of the game in which you ordered the game for that price. So you walk in and you order an Elvira Premium for $8,500 bucks. And if you want to pick up the game that you ordered two years ago, Stern now wants you to spend $10,500 on an Elvira Premium. Why aren't they honoring the price at which they agreed the sale upon? And I don't like it. And I don't think anybody likes it. Like who would actually like any of this? So that is one of the big stories of the beginning of the year is now stern pinball games are really expensive. Jersey Jack has priced themselves into a box now too at $12,000 and $15,000 bucks. JerseyJack doesn't even have a single affordable game in pinball right now think about it their le is almost twice the price of a stern pro so now Jersey Jack pinballs are no longer even viable for most people who are just getting into this hobby and I don't know about the rest of you gang but like I spent a lot of mate/man this holiday on food and on presents and on other items and I'm looking at my credit card bill and The Last Arcade thing I would want to do right now is write a check for a James Bond LE for like 14.5 with tax and shipping. Now let's talk about James Bond real quick. Okay, so we're gonna see the Elwin pin. We're gonna talk about that tomorrow. I'm gonna tell you right now, there's a really good chance I'm gonna do another podcast tomorrow about my first impressions on this Keith Elwin pin It been a fumbled launch It weird to bring it to CES Like that not where you would unveil a James Bond 60th collectible item The fact that they missed all of the James Bond 60th celebration stuff they never brought the Keith Elwin pin to any of it And instead you going to bring it to CES in which we celebrating the most innovative and modern technology You going to bring a single level pinball machine with scoring reels and a cheap screen in the playfield into the den of the most highly advanced technology on planet earth. Really questionable move. Stern, you're not a modern technology company. Video games went online like 20 years ago. You brought pinball online like 3 years ago. It's a little embarrassing. I don't know why Stern even bothers spending mate/man to go to CES. Here's the other big news people. We're now learning that there is an issue with the James Bond license holder and how they can code this game. So apparently the license holder does not want them to like mix up different scenes from different movies. So you can't stack like a multiball with a villain mode if the multiball is not from the same movie as that villain. So think about that for a minute. Almost all All of pinball coding revolves around this sort of layering up of all of the different elements in the franchise. And the fact that they can't do this with James Bond, I think would have me really nervous that this is going to be a huge monkey wrench into the coding process of James Bond pinball. Now I hope Stern Pinball is able to convince the license holder to be More Brewing Company flexible, but if they're not, like think about this for a minute. un Sergey toy This whole belief that every single game will end up amazingly well is just an illusion. Like we don't know what the final verdict is on James Bond. The other thing I'll say about James Bond is this. I went over to Jack Bar. I played the game a lot. I put about 30 bucks into James Bond. I think 30 plays of a machine is a good amount to get a feel for it. And I'm gonna say this right now. The game is good. I had fun playing the game. But the game is hard. Like it's not super easy to hit and a lot of the shots in the game are Papa Duke difficult. It's not a standard layout. It's not a fun layout, but the shots are really challenging, and I was thinking to myself coming out of James Bond, like casual pinball players are not going to see hardly anything in this game. The thing that I'm surprised about with James Bond is if you just shoot the ball up the middle, you're really not going to start anything really interesting, and I still don't like the missile in the middle. I think it doesn't really do anything. I don't think it adds any value whatsoever I think the missile needed to have a moment where like it comes up from underneath the playfield and there's some Dramatic thing it does but right now the ball just whacks into it It wobbles back and forth and it takes up this huge area of real estate. It's just a Questionable toy to put in a game and I would even argue. It's not a toy. It's just a plastic I think James Bond fanatics are a little bit annoyed right now. If you are a James Bond fan, I think you are really annoyed that Sternpinball on purpose didn't show you the Elwin pin. They made all of you pay in full for your LEs before they showed you the Keith Elwin game. And if I was a Bond fanatic, I would be so annoyed right now. Because now if you want the Elwin pin over the George Gomez (legendary Stern designer) pin, what do you do now? You gotta go sell the George Gomez (legendary Stern designer) pin? And if you want both, now you are going to be shelling out like 40 grand. The game was a sleazy marketing move, I think. They put every single game into the press release when they announced these James Bond games and they easily could have shown you the Elwin pin even if it wasn't ready. They could have showed you the gameplay and the features and they could have told you how much it would cost and that it would be available sometime in January. Why didn't they do that? They wanted to lock in all your mate/man and they did it. Stern's never done this before. There has never been a moment in the history of stern pinball in which they done this in which they created a fourth version of a popular theme and they going to release it as a highly collectible super expensive game and they know the target is the James Bond fan They never done this before We will see how this plays out But my bet is tomorrow you going to see a lot of people laughing out loud and I think chastising stern pinball for what I am predicting tomorrow fallacyndubu a really greedy cash grab moment Alright now look it 2023 and I think each and every one of us is feeling the same way going into pinball this year This year we need a magical pin We need a game that restores all of our faith in new in box pinball Will it be Scooby Doo I don't know. Will it be James Bond when code is finished? I don't know. But I can tell you right now, after looking at what this Industry Arcade was capable of in 2022, it was kind of embarrassing. And I think a lot of people are feeling that like deflation. Like we need to get More Brewing Company creativity into this hobby with all of these companies making all of these products. And I get that there was like a COVID supply chain issue, but a COVID supply chain does not impact your creativity. It does not impact your The stream is the best and there's no More Brewing Company to tell you about and I was like this is it like this is all we have to choose from so I'm going to go down real quickly and tell you what I picked as the first choice for each category I'm not going to go through all three it'll get too boring so for best theme in all of pinball in 2022 I I don't think I've seen any company's displays that absolutely blew me away. I don't think anyone's display or animations were super stellar this year. I mean usually JerseyJack runs away with this. There's nothing about Toy Story displays or animations that wows me. There's nothing in Rush that wows me. There's nothing in James Bond that wows me. So I gave it to the Dot Matrix display of Cactus Canyon remake. Best toys and Mechs in a Game. This week's topic is the most popular topic in the game. I don't think any of these games have inKRETible toys or Mechs. Weird Al, Super Hoop, James Bond, Rush and Toy Story 4. I gave it to Rush by Stern Pinball. Best sound in American Pinball machine I also gave to Rush. Sound also includes the music and not for nothing if you're a Rush fan, it's got all All of that great Rush music if you love Rush in the game. Best rules in a game I also gave to Rush Pinball. I haven't played that much of Rush but I've heard such great things about the ruleset of the game. Now here's where it gets interesting. Best playfield gameplay and layout. Now I have played every single game here. I've played Rush, I've played Toy Story, I've played James Bond. Well I haven't played Super Hoop and I've played Weird Al. And I mean it when I I say it if I'm looking at this category at face value what is the most fun game to shoot based on the layout I gave this to Toy Story 4 and this is gonna be one of those examples were like layout and design I think Toy Story 4 has the best layout but there's no way it's gonna win best game of the year and that's like in the Academy Awards right when someone wins best director but not best film it gets really weird it's like how can you be the The best director if the film you directed isn't the best. But that is what I think is going to happen in this year's Twippies. Alright, best artwork. This was another one. It was like oh my gosh I don't want to vote for it. But if I just stood back and looked at all of the games that came out last year, Toy Story 4 does look the sexiest. And that artwork is basically from Disney and Pixar and that's why it looks so good. I want to also say this will the Twippies (annual pinball industry awards) committee please wake up will they wake up a little bit and actually understand the consumer experience of voting why is it when I'm looking at best layout or best artwork or best mod why are there no images on the Twippies (annual pinball industry awards)'s website so I can see all the different art packages and all the different layouts and all the different toys this is the most ridiculous and lazy The only The Place they show you images is on the homebrew section. Are you kidding me? You're giving the homebrew games More Brewing Company real estate and More Brewing Company love than the major games that we're voting on from each manufacturer. Guys, we know you can have images on the dropdown menus. Please, next year, upload some images so we can see what we're voting on. All right, so best artwork goes to Toy Story Game of the Year. This is easily gonna be Rush, so I put Rush by Stern. Favorite pinball streamer, you know me, I'm a narcissist, so I put Kaneda's Facebook Live. Favorite pinball podcast, of course, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I think we're gonna go six for six. Thank you for your votes. Favorite pinball YouTube channel, I gave it to my friend Todd over at TNT RLM Amusements Amusements. Favorite pinball mod of 2022. Another one where I was like there like 10 options here and there no way I going to go look at all of these They should have had photos I did the neon Tokyo sign from Godzilla favorite pinball website I so tired of pin side winning it because they never change anything I gave this to Knapp arcade I actually like going to Knapp More Brewing Company than pin side I have to go to pin side but when I really want to get the news in real time Knapp Arcade is where it at I also gave Will this advice They need to do a category like best neopinball podcast best neopinball website You've got to give people who are starting new content channels a chance to win without having to go against like these dinosaurs, The Kaneda (pinball podcaster's name/show name) and pin side cuz I would love it if they did best neopinball podcast You know what that would do that would invite so many new people to throw their hat into the pinball Podcasting ring and then it would be More Brewing Company exciting than it being the same names every year favorite pinball location This was another one like I haven't been to any of these places, but my good friend runs the The Pinball Palace in Brunswick, Georgia JORJA So I voted for The Pinball Palace. If you don't know where to vote for favorite pinball location, do Kaneta a solid and vote for The Pinball Palace. Favorite pinball convention it is funny. The award show is held at TPF. It always wins this. It is going to be TPF Favorite pinball topper. Now look, this was between Mandalorian and Cactus Canyon remake. I voted not for Mandalorian because even though it is cool, it is not $2000. So, what's next? Let's start by talking about the Cactus Canyon Topper, which is the first one to be released in the Cactus Canyon Topper. So you can see that the Cactus Canyon Topper has a little bit of a change to it. But first, I am going to show you the Cactus Canyon Topper. Now, the Cactus Canyon Topper is a really cool, I voted for the Cactus Canyon Topper because it's free on the Elite (LE version of Star Wars game) Machine and I think we should start celebrating and rewarding companies who also give us value. There's absolutely no value in that $2000 Mando Topper. Someone was saying it the other day. They're like, I just bought an Xbox for $500 and Stern's going to ask us for two grand. You could buy four Xboxes for the price of one mando topper. I think we're all gonna wake up in 2023. I think we're all gonna wait to see if these games are any good before we chase after new inbox. I think 2023 needs to raise the bar. We need a game that makes us fall in love with new games again. And I mean it after going through these titles of 2022. It was kind of like a snoozefest for mainstream Pinball News inbox lovers. And this is it like this is it. It was an Closed Caption by The Closed Caption Project everybody 얘기 Spaniel, DecstarIle Thawster, television community podcast believethat theata I wanted to talk about these Bo yep. In addition, you know, have mine of him Bladblow, without which, To me, we, Closed Caption by The Closed Caption Project Win $2,000 More Brewing Company for the same Elvira? Jack the price up on rush premium? I hear from all my distro friends, can't get rid of rush or mando premiums and now you just raise the prices? People 2023 has just begun, but as you can tell Pinball Battleground is gonna be a Battleground of value and magic! The game is our masterpieces. We're not going to wait a year for code to be done. We're not going to take your excuses anymore. We know what a magical pinball machine should be like. We need More Brewing Company Godzilla. We need More Brewing Company Guns and Roses. We need More Brewing Company Lord of the Rings. We need More Brewing Company ACDC. We need More Brewing Company Metallica. We know these companies are capable of doing it. But if they continue to cost cut while they raise the prices of these machines, people are going to start heading for the new in box exits. You know, the sales The Distributors, they want magical amazing titles. They're not going to be able to hoodwink us or spin it. Like we can see with our own two eyes what goes into a game. And you can tell with your own two ears who's got the world's favorite pinball podcast. Thank you for being here everybody. I think we'll talk to you tomorrow. Later. A having had man and the women