Episode 1156: "Stern is The Walking Dead"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·25m 54s·held·Nov 5, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Stern Pinball is creatively exhausted, overpriced, and losing market dominance to competitors.

Summary

Kaneda delivers a scathing critique of Stern Pinball strategic direction and product quality, using Walking Dead Remastered announcement as a focal point for broader industry concerns. He argues Stern is creatively exhausted, locked in repetitive design patterns, losing secondary market value on every LE since Godzilla, and hemorrhaging community enthusiasm to competitors like Spooky (Beetlejuice) and others. Kaneda claims Stern's leadership is burnt out (citing Jack Danger departure and organizational malaise), missed licensing opportunities (Back to the Future, Beetlejuice, Superman 78), and pursued a failed DLC strategy that backfired when customers began losing thousands on NIB purchases.

Key Claims

Every Stern LE since Godzilla (Premium/LE) ($10,500) has lost money on the secondary market except JAWS (Pro), which has only held its original value.
high confidence · Kaneda, directly stated as personal observation of secondary market data
Walking Dead Remastered is limited to 500 units at $12,999 LE / $9,699 Premium, but the LE lacks features justifying the $3,500 price difference.
high confidence · Kaneda, confirmed against KB context showing exact pricing and production numbers
Wyson is doing code porting work on Walking Dead Remastered, taking Lyman F. Sheats Jr.' original code to the new Spike 3 platform.
medium confidence · Kaneda, stated as insider knowledge but not independently verified in KB
Stern passed on Beetlejuice licensing, with George Gomez stating nobody at Stern wanted to make it, despite 80s/90s nostalgia appeal.
medium confidence · Kaneda, citing George Gomez as source, but presented secondhand
Spooky's Beetlejuice will be $9,999 (LE) with only 1,000 units plus 79 show games, making it $3,000 cheaper than Walking The Walking Dead Remastered (Premium/LE).
high confidence · Kaneda, referencing industry knowledge with specific pricing and production figures
Stern declined Back to the Future, Superman 78, and other Christopher Franchi licensing pitches in favor of lower-cultural-impact themes.
medium confidence · Kaneda, attributing this to Christopher Franchi and company decisions but not citing direct evidence
Stern may be operating on a four-day work week due to insufficient demand.
low confidence · Kaneda, explicitly framed as rumor ('Are the rumors true...')
Melvin at DPX holds a patent for lighting side armor, and Stern's Spike 3 side armor lighting may infringe, potentially triggering cease-and-desist correspondence.
medium confidence · Kaneda, stated as insider knowledge but speculative about legal action

Notable Quotes

“this company, I hate to say this, it's feeling like all of these Stern launches now, one after another after another, are just feeling predictable. They're feeling repetitive. It almost feels like they didn't even care about this game.”
Kaneda @ early — Core thesis: Stern's creative exhaustion and lack of care evident in announcement presentation
“John Borg looks like he'd rather be talking to me about his collection of Reader's Digest magazines from the 80s more than he wants to talk to me about his new pinball creation.”
Kaneda @ early — Satirical critique of designer enthusiasm in Walking Dead Remastered reveal video
“Stern Pinball is completely completely lost as an organization and I've never seen anything like it this used to be a company where you and I and most of this community would fight hand and fist to get our hands on Stern's latest limited edition games.”
Kaneda @ mid — Direct statement of Stern's strategic crisis and loss of market dominance
“wait till people see Beetlejuice and compare it next to The Walking Dead. They're going to be laughing out loud at what the world's biggest pinball company thinks is worthy of $13,000.”
[name withheld pending review] @ mid — Industry consensus on competitive product value comparison against Spooky
“every single Stern LE since Godzilla (Premium/LE) has lost money except for one game... JAWS (Pro)... everything has gone down significantly.”
Kaneda @ mid — Key market signal: systematic secondary market value collapse for Stern LEs
“I thought this was Stern, not Skittles, bro. And that's the truth. Everything's starting to look so repetitive.”
Kaneda @ late — Summary critique of Stern's overcolorized, homogenous aesthetic across entire recent product line
“It's like you pass on Back to the Future, you pass on Beetlejuice, you pass on Superman 78... And this is what you're left with now. You're left with a company that just looks like it's making games for kids”

Entities

KanedapersonStern PinballcompanyThe Walking Dead Remasteredgame John Borgperson George Gomezperson Lyman F. Sheats Jr.person Wysonperson

Signals

~
sentiment_shift: Kaneda documents systematic, sustained decline in community enthusiasm for Stern products across consecutive releases, contrasting with historical FOMO-driven demand for Stern LEs
high · Used to be company where community 'would fight hand and fist' for LEs; now 'I don't think anybody cares' about Walking Dead LE; contrast with excitement for competitor releases (Winchester, Beetlejuice, Harry Potter)
$
market_signal: Systematic price decline in secondary market for Stern LEs since Godzilla (2019 pricing benchmark): every LE except Jaws Elite has lost money; buyers losing $2,000-$5,000 per NIB purchase
high · 'every single Stern LE since Godzilla LE has lost money except for one game... Everything has gone down significantly.' Direct statement of secondary market trend data
?
product_concern: Walking Dead Remastered embodies broader pattern: overcolorized, saturated palette ('Skittles puke'), recycled artwork, lack of theme authenticity, generic visual language across all recent Stern releases
high · 'everything's starting to look so repetitive.' Art palette criticism; comparison to King Kong color choices; complaint that all games 'look exactly the same'
?
business_signal: Kaneda alleges Stern operating under structural constraints (possible four-day work week due to weak demand) and experiencing creative burnout at designer level (Jack Danger departure cited as symptom)
medium · Framed as rumors but substantiated by pattern: 'Are the rumors true that Stern is on a four-day work week because demand is not there?'; Jack Danger burnout claims; hostile internal correspondence with Zombie Eddie
?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.078

You know, watching George Gomez and John Borg talk about this new game, and seeing Neil McRae and Iceman try to defend these Stern LEs, this is what the energy level and the excitement is by everybody else when they see these Stern LEs for $13,000. And now the vibe over at Spooky Pinball and everybody who's going to get a Beetlejuice. I get no doubt that I can open it, cause I have a goal to keep me down. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the world's most tired pinball podcaster, Kaneda. I've been up since about 4 o'clock in the morning, and I've been in meetings all day long, And we also got the worst kept secret in pinball today. We got Stern Pinball's The Walking Dead Remastered. We all knew about this. And it's maybe fitting that I am very tired right now. And you're not going to get the same energy levels you get when I'm going live 8 o'clock in the morning after a good night's sleep. But I think it's fitting that I am tired and I am fatigued. And I am feeling like Stern Pinball is a company that is tired and they are fatigued and they're out of ideas and everything's starting to look exactly the same. It doesn't matter what the theme is. It doesn't matter what the occasion is. It doesn't matter what the industry is doing. It doesn't matter what the competitors are doing. This company, I hate to say this, it's feeling like all of these Stern launches now, one after another after another, are just feeling predictable. They're feeling repetitive. It almost feels like they didn't even care about this game. Did they hype this game the day before they revealed it? When you watch the video itself, it's so telling. John Borg looks like he'd rather be talking to me about his collection of Reader's Digest magazines from the 80s more than he wants to talk to me about his new pinball creation. Him and George Gomez both look like they are reading off of cue cards. And this is how Stern Pinball wants to get you and I excited to buy its products. And it's just feeling like sort of ironic that we've had two games in a row now, the fall of the Empire and now the Walking Dead. And when I look at this game, I will say this. I don't really like find it to be that bad. Like the art is what it is. It's another one of these colorful sort of reinterpretations of a theme. You know, King Kong, they gave us a Skittles puke game, and that's not what King Kong is. If those of you out there are fans of The Walking Dead, be honest. Does this color palette remind you of The Walking Dead? Now, look, it's not bad. I actually find it to be an improvement over the Brown game that was out like 10 or 12 years ago, but it's still not really what you want it. A lot of you want it, the comic book artwork. You know who's doing the code on this game other than Lyman Sheets? You know who actually is the one coding Lyman's game into the new platform? It's Wyson. I don't even think people know this. so his job was to port over the Lyman Sheets game and it's funny to me too because like Lyman never really was a fan of Wyson and now he's touching Lyman's masterpiece if you will for a lot of people out there but you know what I just want to say this I just think Stern Pinball is completely completely lost as an organization and I've never seen anything like it this used to be a company where you and I and most of this community would fight hand and fist to get our hands on Stern's latest limited edition games. This game is limited to 500. I don't think anybody cares. I don't think anyone sees anything that makes the LE worth $3,500 more than the premium. And when I look down at this game and I see the changes they made, none of it feels like anything would justify this game being anywhere near a $13,000 game. And I'm going to tell you right now, I heard from someone over at another company and they said, wait till people see Beetlejuice and compare it next to The Walking Dead. They're going to be laughing out loud at what the world's biggest pinball company thinks is worthy of $13,000. You son of a bitch! Beetlejuice is $3,000 less money. And there's only ever going to be 1,000 Beetlejuices plus 79 show games. I'm always going to have to clarify the amount of show games whenever we talk about Beetlejuice. I know Luke is regretting this because now every time we talk about the number, we're going to have to readjust that number because of the show games. But my point is this. Stern Pinball is in big trouble. and if you think they're not, then you're not reading any of the feedback. Then you're not reading any of the commentary. So you're telling me that Stern Pinball is doing great, that Neil McRae is accurate, saying Stern's got orders a country mile long. I don't think so anymore. I just don think they have it anymore I don think they have the excitement I don think they excited And I think they in serious serious trouble I have not seen Stern Pinball release so many games in a row where the response from this community has been so mediocre so lukewarm and so unimpressed with everything they are doing They seem to be stuck in this weird place where every single game has to be overly colorful, where every single game has to not give you all the assets you want, where every single game feels like a total compromise. And I don't think there's any game they've come out with since Godzilla L.E., which was $10,500. I don't think they've come out with a single LE since then that actually is worth what they want for the game. And you know what? The secondhand market has proven my point to be accurate because every single Stern LE since Godzilla LE has lost money except for one game. And that game has only held its value. It is now trading for what it was originally. Originally, nothing has gone up. Everything has gone down significantly. And that is Jaws elite. So what is Stern do now? What do they do now in a world in which Winchester comes out and gets nothing but praise? In a world in which Beetlejuice is about to come out and get nothing but praise? In a world in which Harry Potter has received pretty much nothing but praise other than the AI artwork shenanigans, it's a game that people are loving. It's like everybody's got a lot more enthusiasm. Everybody's got a lot more excitement for what's coming out if the company is not named Stern. And Stern is the biggest company in pinball. They're a company that can make 500 or more games a week. They can make almost every single Winchester game in one week. And yet here we are in this weird quagmire now where the company that can supply us the product we want, they can oversupply us the product we love. They're the one company making the product that most people don't want and don't want at these prices. And there's no fooling anybody anymore. You can't release the Walking Dead LE for $6,500. bucks and then even if it's 10 years later it doesn't matter you can't come back out with this game for $13,000 and expect anybody to get excited it wasn't a game that was very hard to get it wasn't a game that everybody wanted another run of there are other stern games where we would much rather have a run right now than The Walking Dead. I would also argue that culturally, The Walking Dead is a theme now that nobody really cares about. We are about to get the final season of Stranger Things. So wouldn't it have been awesome if Stern went and remade Stranger Things and maybe actually ponied up some money because it's a fan layout and they could add more stuff into the Stranger Things code, imagine if they coded into that game the final few seasons of Stranger Things when the show is over, instead of just leaving us hanging with only seasons one and two. You're never gonna get the never-ending story theme song being sung in the game ever. Doesn't help too much that the sheriff from the show is about to get canceled by his ex-girlfriend, but that's another story for another time. but overall I am absolutely shocked that this is all Stern has now and think about it it's only November 4th Star Wars did not sell well this game is not going to sell very well so what are they going to do next nobody needs more Godzilla's nobody's ordering more King Kong's nobody's ordering more Venoms nobody's ordering more Dungeons and Dragons nobody's ordering more John Wicks. Nobody's asking for more James Bonds. It's like, what do they do now? Stern's not used to this. They are not used to this lukewarm response to their cornerstone games. And then their remastered games are absolute 100% not worth it. Right now, they're not worth it. Metallica was a little bit different because the band got involved. But AMC did not get involved with this remake and give Stern more assets. So it's a company that's feeling very stale, very repetitive, and their own video, they can't even muster up their own excitement around their own product. If I were to just make a little bit of a guess, I really think this company was being primed to be sold during COVID. I think Seth came in. I think the books looked great. The numbers looked phenomenal. And that was the moment to find a buyer because on paper during those COVID years, it looked like there was never ending demand for this product. People are paying so much over on the secondhand market for everything you could make. Every single dealer and distro was out of inventory. You had orders coming in left and right. And on paper, this thing seemed like a never-ending juggernaut. And how much different is it now? Are the rumors true that Stern is on a four-day work week because demand is not there? Are the rumors true that they burnt out one of the best pinball designers in pinball in Jack Danger? What, we're not going to talk about that? You're actually not going to want to talk about that and analyze why. the second most creative guy in all of Stern Pinball is kind of fed up and burnt out and we not going to what Discuss it We not going to ask questions about why would an organization that is seemingly a dream job do that to a man like Jack Danger Okay And we see it in other people over there. When I've had correspondence with like Zombie Eddie, it's no longer friendly. It's no longer nice. He's angry. He's mad. He doesn't like what I say about his stuff. Well, You know what? When I put all your Stern machines in front of me now, they all look the same. I thought this was Stern, not Skittles, bro. And that's the truth. Everything's starting to look so repetitive. Who is this for? Who is this for now? Whatever happened to like diversity of art? Whatever happened to like trying innovative things on the games? Whatever happened when you have a new platform, like inventing something. What about Spike 3 even feels special, even feels innovative? It all feels old still, like nothing about this new platform feels new at all. When they talk about these side armor rails, like this is somehow part of the new Spike 3 system, I'm like, well, wait a minute. You had more impressive side rails on Star Trek, but also, wait a minute. Do you know that Melvin over at DPX has the patent now for lighting up side armor like that? So yeah, there's about to be some correspondence between Melvin and George Gomez with a possible cease and desist because they don't have the patent to do that on the side armor. Yeah, stuff's happening like that, people. People file for patents. Now, the thing is this. Stern's got a lot of patents in pinball that they don't enforce on other people. So look, I'm not a fan of patent trolling anybody. I'm not. I'm not. I don't even understand how that's even patentable, but whatever. It is. But it goes way deeper than that right now. It just feels like there is some karma that's about to hit Stern Pinball so effing hard. And it's two games that they could have made. two games that start with a B and they passed on both of them. And George Gomez said originally, nobody over at Stern Pinball wanted to make Beetlejuice. Nobody. Do you believe that? That nobody over there amongst these men who are children in the 80s and 90s who are in the formidable years in which this movie was iconic, nobody wanted to make Beetlejuice, but they wanted to make John Wick, but they wanted to make Venom. And then, you know, the ultimate mistake in pinball history. I mean, if books are written years from now, it's not going to be that Canada won six Twippies. It's going to be that Stern pinball passed on Back to the Future. And so none of it makes much sense, right? It's like you pass on Back to the Future, you pass on Beetlejuice, you pass on Superman 78, you passed on all those themes that Christopher Franchi was bringing to you. And this is what you're left with now. You're left with a company that just looks like it's making games for kids, like these rainbow bright, overly colorized, overly saturated games that all look the same. When was the last time you took a risk. When was the last time Stern Pinball put in innovation into a game? Let me know. I would happily wait for your answer. When was the last time you saw a Stern mech that made you feel like it justified the $13,000 cost? When was the last time Stern Pinball for $13,000 gave you something that actually felt exclusive. Even looking at this Walking Dead game today, I understand that the armor's a different color and it's got some bullets on it and it's this and that. But again, it's another game where the LE just doesn't feel that much more special than the premium. Like there's nothing about the LE here that feels like it's $3,500 better than the premium. if they really wanted to make this le special they would have done what they originally did with the walking dead i would have made 500 le's and then just a pro version of the game and the dirty little secret about the walking dead you know what it is is that anybody who's anybody in pinball knows 100 that the walking dead pro is the version to have that the premium and Ellie features make the gameplay worse. And if you really love this game, the pro is the version you want. Like that's what everybody who's a real pinball player feels about the walking dead. But you know who's walking dead right now? Stern Pinball. They are really in a spot where I don't know what they're going to do to get out of it. Is Elliot Elliot Eismin's Transformers going to yank him out of it. I'm not buying that game if it doesn't have Stan Bush's song, You Got the Touch. If that song is not in this game and Peter Cullen is not doing the call outs, we're not even going near it. It's like Predator without Arnold. But I don't know, man. It's like it's only November 4th and the world's crazy, right? The world's crazy. New York City is about to elect a mayor who's a socialists so here we are we're gonna get this walking dead game but what are they gonna do between november december january they've got three months to go how are they gonna bridge these three months of manufacturing with a game like this that's not gonna light the world on fire with the star wars that nobody wants and we don't need any more premiums of any of these recent Stern Games. What the world wants more of is Winchester Mystery House, Beetlejuice, Back to the Future Sonic the Hedgehog Big Trouble in Little China baby Fifth Element If we were talking about Stern Karate Kid right now how excited would you be If we were talking about Stern Goonies how excited would you be If we were talking about Stern Pinball's G.I. Joe, how excited would you be? But here we are. A game that's over 10 years old, that's twice as much money, that looks exactly the same is everything else we've been seeing from Stern. They really have no other playbook. That's what Stern feels like right now. Just a company unable to call an audible to do something shocking and different. And what this company needs is a moment again that felt like when we saw Ghostbusters for the first time or Batman 66 for the first time or those Godzilla mechs for the first time? You know, I don't even know what their answer is. I don't know what their leadership is doing, but I feel like this company has no more excitement. And I also feel like their strategy, instead of focusing on the right themes and on the right innovations, their strategy was all around insider connected. and their strategy was also to turn Insider Connected into DLC. And their strategy was probably on a business front to connect like hundreds of thousands of games, get everybody to pay for DLC and create the most amazing secondary revenue source on games they've already sold. And they would have seen all that money. That money would not have gone to distributors. It would not have gone to owners on secondhand sales. it would all have gone to Stern. And I think what they're realizing now is with where people's perception of them is, ain't nobody gonna wanna spend extra money on Stern stuff after they buy these games, especially when they're buying these games and losing two to $5,000 on every single Stern new in box. Their strategy has backfired. And the thing they can't do now, and they were probably planning on doing it, is they can't increase the price. Who's going to pay more for any of this? Who's going to pay more for a platform and a company whose products just continue to get pummeled in value on the secondhand market? And they've yet to call a meeting and address it. They've yet to course correct with anything. And what they need to do is they need to lower the price. You know, for a couple of years now, we've been saying like Stern's only way out is to make magical games that are worth it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you now, November 4th, 2025, Stern Pinball will never be able, and I mean this, never be able to consistently make a game, even in Ellie Trim, where you look down at it and it looks like a $10,000 to $13,000 product. They are not that company. You can't take a company that was selling five to $7,000 games a year and they look like it and they haven't changed much other than a bigger screen and you think they can charge double. Remember, a Stern game with all the accessories is $15,000. they will never be able to consistently make games that justify that much money for their product. The competitors have gotten better. The competitors have better value, better creativity, better originality, better mechanisms in their games. They might not have the big software team. They might not have the big art department, but they have bigger hearts and bigger passions than Stern Pinball. And reading George Gomez and John Borg's lack of enthusiasm today shows me all I need to see on which company I want to back and I know which companies you want to back when it comes to writing a check for your hard-earned money. Stern has become a big commodity. And unless they can get a game that reestablishes them and shows us the full potential of this organization, they are in big trouble. And anybody who buys their games might as well play this song as they watch the second hand market collapse on what they just bought Canada out. The arms of the angel fly away from here From this dark, cold hotel room And the endlessness that you fear You are pulled from the wreckage Of your silent reverie In the arms of the angel May you find some comfort here You're in the arms of the angel And you find some comfort here You son of a bitch! you