DPP #36 "In defense of Star Wars Premium"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·22m 59s·analyzed·Apr 23, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Don defends Star Wars Premium value and critiques Stern LE pricing erosion vs. older models.

Summary

Don defends his recent Star Wars Premium purchase against community criticism, arguing it offers good value at $8,500–$8,800 despite limited mechanical depth, and critiques Stern's Limited Edition pricing strategy, contending that the $3,000 premium for LE features (autographs, powder coat, expression lights) has diminished in value compared to earlier models like Stranger Things, while praising the gameplay experience of Star Wars and comparing it favorably to other recent Stern releases.

Key Claims

Foo Fighters LE has sold through or sold out based on limited Pinside resale postings and distributor conversations
medium confidence · Don, based on distributor conversations and secondary market observation
Stern LE prices have increased significantly: Stranger Things (2019) was $9,099 for LE vs. $7,699 pro (difference ~$1,400); current Bond LE is $12,995 vs. $9,699 premium (difference ~$3,000)
high confidence · Don, citing Pinball News historical pricing data and current Stern pricing
Expression lights for Foo Fighters will likely cost $5.49 or more by release; Rush expression lights are only now becoming available over a year after game launch
medium confidence · Don, based on historical pricing trends and Rush timeline observation
Stern LE side armor design has simplified over time: Rush had steampunk guitar-shaped armor; Godzilla LE moved to simple angled armor with button protectors; Foo Fighters offers similar simple design
high confidence · Don, visual comparison of LE armor designs across models
Powder coating side armor (legs, hinges, armor, lockdown bar) costs approximately $400–$580; Don paid $580 at Michigan Pinball Refinery for premium treatment including chrome inserts
high confidence · Don, personal experience with Elvira House of Horrors custom powder coat
Star Wars Premium is priced at $8,500–$8,800 on Pinside and is currently available, unlike older premium titles like Big Lebowski which struggle to find under $15,000
high confidence · Don, Pinside market observation
Star Wars Premium offers an Exploding Death Star feature and Hyperspace loop that provide satisfying moments comparable to quarter-dropper potential
high confidence · Don, personal gameplay experience with Pro and Premium versions
Led Zeppelin has 'dog bones' gameplay and feels like 'half a game' despite killer theme and expression lights innovation
high confidence · Don, personal gameplay experience with Pro, Premium, and LE versions

Notable Quotes

“So for $3,000, I think you're getting about $1,000 worth of parts that you could add to a premium to make an LE.”
Don @ mid-episode — Core argument about LE value erosion; quantifies the perceived gap between premium and LE pricing
“That my friends is value. I like that. For the same thing, even with the addition of the expression lights, man, I don't know if I'm feeling that.”
Don @ mid-episode — Compares Stranger Things LE (2019) favorably to current Stern LE pricing; highlights dissatisfaction with modern LE value
“When I blow up that Death Star, that is a moment. When I get one ball or even more on the hyperspace loop, that is another moment.”
Don @ late-episode — Defends Star Wars Premium gameplay experience despite acknowledging mechanical limitations
“I would like to see exclusive cabinet art to a limited edition machine. I would like to see something I can't easily replicate.”
Don @ mid-episode — Articulates specific design philosophy for what would justify LE premium
“Spooky Pinball totally gets this. I mean, they got Creeper Armor coming on the collector's edition of Scooby-Doo... there's a lot more value in Scooby-Doo than there is with the Stern LEs now.”
Don @ mid-episode — Praises Spooky's LE approach as superior value proposition vs. Stern; competitive positioning
“A thousand of these LEs, twice as many as they were making just a few short years ago, have sold completely out. So who cares what I have to say because these are all selling.”
Don @ mid-episode — Acknowledges market demand contradicts his value critique; signals LE production scale increase
“This game has moments if you appreciate the game for what it is... I'm enjoying it, my wife is enjoying it, my friends that come over are enjoying it, and that's enough for me for pinball.”
Don @ late-episode — Defense of Star Wars Premium; emphasizes accessibility and social play over design depth

Entities

DonpersonStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyFoo Fighters LEproductStar Wars PremiumproductStranger Things LEproductGodzilla LEproductRush LEproduct

Signals

?
product_strategy: Stern's Limited Edition prices have risen $3,000 per tier (Pro→LE) while decreasing differentiation from Premium: simpler side armor design, elimination of reflective foil decals, limited exclusive artwork, unchanged speaker systems. LE production volume doubled from 500 to 1,000 units.
high · Don's detailed pricing matrix comparison (Stranger Things 2019: $1,400 LE premium vs. current Bond/Foo Fighters: $3,000 premium) and visual design analysis of armor across models
?
product_launch: Foo Fighters LE production appears to be concluding; Factory Friday video from most recent week showed only short decal application clip (potentially recycled from prior week), suggesting transition to next production line (likely Premium tier)
medium · Don's observation of Factory Friday pattern shift and speculation about shortened/recycled video content suggesting line changeover
?
collector_signal: Foo Fighters LE has limited Pinside resale postings despite high MSRP ($12,995), suggesting strong primary market sell-through and potential sell-out; early LE buyers appear satisfied based on unboxing content
medium · Don's observation of minimal Pinside LE resale listings and positive unboxing reception
?
gameplay_signal: Star Wars Premium features limited ramp mechanisms compared to contemporary Stern games but delivers satisfying moment-based gameplay through Exploding Death Star animation, Hyperspace loop, and magnetic interactions; considered accessible and social-play friendly despite mechanical simplicity
high · Don's detailed gameplay experience with Pro and Premium versions; repeated emphasis on 'moments' rather than ruleset depth; comparison to other Stern releases

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.069

0:00

Screaming into a Saturday, it's the weekend, everybody. And that brings us to another episode of me, my voice, in your ears, Don's Pinball Podcast. I think I'm at episode number 36 here for the weekend. For the weekend starting Saturday, what is it, 4-22? You guys had a good week? You guys having a good weekend? Watching all the news? Watching some pinball streams? I see a lot of them coming up there and a lot of content. I've got some more hot takes for you. I want to talk about Stern LEs today because they're currently on the line. It's what's going on. Let's get at it.

0:37

Let's get at it. I think we should say we should get at it. All right, so what's going on this week? So Stern Pinball has pinball games on the line. Stop me if you've heard this before. This company's a juggernaut, man, just churning out content nonstop. So what I like to watch, though, is they reveal on Friday on their socials and their Facebook page, They put out a Factory Friday video, which tells us what's going on. We're able to get these leaks every now and then about what's on the line, or other podcasters with connections happen to give that to us, for which we are forever grateful. So we have an idea of what's going on the line, what's going back on the line, but that changes up. You can't ever go by this or trust it as gold, because with market fluctuations and parts fluctuations, you know the farther in the future a game is forecasted to be run uh the more likely it is to change up you know we might see godzilla premiums drop down instead of those james bond pros you know are people still buying those i kind of figure at this point anybody that wanted one kind of has one right especially looking at the resales on uh pin side uh but it looks like uh as for the the second to last video i saw from stern they were wrapping up those uh foo fighter le's And I was kind of figuring it would be about two and a half weeks or so. From what I've known, talking to distributors, talking to other people that should know, the LEs have for sure sold through and possibly even sold out. I mean, I'm not seeing a lot of postings for Foo Fighter LE spots. I think these things sold well based on, well, the pro is amazing, the designer is rad, and just the marketing was on point for this. Plus, the theme is great, the integration is awesome. I like what they're doing, and this thing flips great. You know, is the Godzilla killer? Probably not. But I mean, even to just be considered close or considered in the same realm as that is a good thing. And man, the pro is killing it. So I know people be wanting their LEs. And from what I've seen of the unboxings, these things are making it to customers, and people are totally digging it. So I'm happy for them. But I'm not happy that I don't have my premium yet. Like, come on, Stern, what's going on, right? So, you know, I've been eagerly watching that video every Friday thinking like, all right, was this the last LE? Are we done? Throw them in the box. Throw my premium on there, boy. Get that to me. Give me that Foo Fighter adventure. And so the second to last video I saw was a great, you know, 45 seconds or so montage of the games. It looked like at that point they were making the imports because there was only a single coin slot there. But then the one came this Friday, and it was a shorter clip, and it was just showing a couple of dude bros putting the decals. on the side of the cabinets for the LEs. And, you know, I watched it and I thought it looked familiar. And somebody had commented that it looks like it was a clip from the video from the week before. So what's actually going on on the line? You know, why didn't they show like a whole rack of LEs if that's what they're throwing together? You know, did they just need something to wrap out there? Maybe, and just maybe, it's because they're getting the line ready and turning it around for something else to go on there. So I'm going to see this as speculation in favor of me getting my premium. Like, are they doing the premium runs now? Are all the LEs and boxes happily on their way to customers and to distributors to sit in their warehouse and be sold? And am I finally getting to the premiums? I'm hoping. I'm hoping. So, you know, that got me to thinking, though. You know, of course, the first thought I have is, why the hell didn't I buy an LE? I would have had that thing coming by now. And then, you know, I would have had the expression lights. And then I look at, you know, the cost differences, you know, for this game. I mean, that's a $3,000 jump right now to go to a Stern LE. And it seems like with each release, you know, the price keeps going up and up. I mean, well, with Bond right now, I mean, a pro went to $7,000, $6,999. The premiums were $96,999, which is where they're at now. And then the LEs are going for $12,995. So $13,000 for the LE. And it's a $9,700, $9,800 for the premium. So we're just over $3,000 in cost to go from the premium to the LE. So I want to take a moment and just kind of talk about, you know, the differences and is it worth it? Is the value there? You know, for right now, there's a time value. I mean, the LE is one that you get sooner. You also get those expression lights. And we've seen them take, you know, over a year for them to come out for Rush. They're only now becoming available. And I still haven't seen anybody actually receive them. They've just been announced. And I think deposits are being taken for the Rush expression lights.

5:02

So what all do you get? So I went through the matrices, the matrices that exist that tell you the breakdown between, you know, pro premium LE and what you can get. And I want to do a kind of a value consideration here. So, you know, starting with the Foo Fighters right now, they're running a thousand of them. You get the autographs, which that is a very subjective value to some people that holds value for others. It holds just about nothing. You know, these guys make the games fantastic. If it was autographed by the Foo Fighters, I think personally I would care a little more. But, you know, what's another Gary Stern autograph to throw in the stack, right? Sequential number plate. We get to that in a second So basically what I see these coming with is upgrades to the art package and armor And in the case of the music pins the expression lights So you know expression lights those right now are running about $4.99. I wouldn't be surprised to see those at $5.49 at least by the time they do come out for Foo Fighters, because I know people are going to be hungry for them. You do get interior art blades. Okay. Art blades run about a hundred dollars. They'll be included with this kit with the lights. It seems like it does come with a shaker motor and an anti-reflection glass. So, you know, add another $300 of value there. What's that bring us up to around $700 or $100 or so? You get a mirror back glass with exclusive art. Okay, okay. You know, those are pretty fresh. I know I do dig mine on my Rush LE. But then when it comes to the decals on the side, what I noticed is that the art is actually the same as the premium. It's just like color shifted a bit. You know, it's more green than red, but otherwise you're getting the same art there. And the one thing that I really dug with my $11,000 Rush LE was the reflective foil that was in the graphic on the side of that exclusive art for the limited edition. And it seems like this has been budget engineered out of this. I mean, we get the great zombie giddy artwork, nothing against the artwork. I think it's great, but it's not different enough, you know, to me to just put a green tint or green filter on that art and throw it on the side. And I'm, you know, not seeing that if it comes with, you know, it says foil cabinet decal, but, you know, these are hard to see on the internet and you really need to see these in person. So a little color shift, they've added the foil. Otherwise the decal art is about the same. You know, the art blades, those come with the expression lights. You get the expression light system. You do get the upgraded speakers, three channel amplifier. If you want to go to a pin woofer, you're like $370 or so. I don't think what Stern puts in their LEs matches the same level and value as that. So maybe we'll award like $200 worth of value there. The shaker motor is in there. Those are easy to put in. And so we're really left with the powder-coated armor and legs. Now, I got myself an Elvira House of Horrors, and I stripped every metal part off of that machine that I could, and I sent it off to Michigan Pinball Refinery, and I got the 40th anniversary purple color with glitter coat put on everything. The coin door, the speaker grill, the hindages, the side armor upgrade, the lollipop rails, did the lockdown bar, the legs, the little shooter rod plate. And all that came in around $580 with added chrome inserts to the coin door to really make the thing pop. Now, with the Stern LEs from the factory, you don't get coin door speaker grills done. It's hinges, armor, and legs and the lock bar, right? And so going back, it used to be that I think a lot more thought was put into the side armor to really make it different. Rush is a great example. I mean, Rush's side armor for the limited edition comes with like a steampunk guitar kind of shape. It protects the button. And then what I noticed starting with Godzilla's LE, that kind of went away. If you look at Godzilla LE, you really just have that kind of angled armor with the button protectors. Otherwise, it's a silver powder coat and like that's it. and I can probably get that work done for under $400, I would think. And it's not hard, I found out. I was able to strip down my machine myself, mail it all off, install it all back when I got it back, and it looks great. So for $3,000, I think you're getting about $1,000 worth of parts that you could add to a premium to make an LE. Now, there's a big leap trying to engineer yourself a pro to a premium, but not that hard to go from premium to LE. So really the standout thing that you can't replicate, at least replicate easily, would be autographs on paper cards. You know, I'm planning on taking my Foo Fighter cards around with me. If I run into JD, maybe he'll do me a solid and sign on or something. Or, you know, Mr. Jeremy Packer who did the art. You know, but autographs, okay. But the only other thing you really get is a machine that's limited to $1,000 signified by that signature plate. Is that worth the extra $2,000? So I went back even farther than Godzilla and started looking at Stranger Things. Stranger Things came out 2019. Let me bring up the matrix here.

10:01

And at that time, the machine was limited to only 500. So it was more limited than what they've done now. They've doubled the amount of limited available. The autographs were still there. The sequentially numbered plate, mirror back glass, right? You did have exclusive artwork on the LE that was different from the premium. um art blades the same three channel amplifier speaker system the anti-reflection glass the shaker motor and the powder coated armor and legs so not that much different but what was different was the price so uh went on to uh what is it uh pinball news i think they have a great repository of all this information um and so when stranger things came out uh as far as you know when this article went live December of 2019, uh, pro was 6,099, which isn't too far off from where we are now, but our premium was 76 99 and the limited edition stranger things with that purple coated powder armor, powder coated armor, $9,099, 9,096, 9,099. Um, so nine grand back then. Now we've seen pinflation and everything, but what has also pinflated is the difference between that $7,700 premium and the $9,000 LE, right? So that's a difference of $1,400 for powder-coated armor, the mirrored back glass the autographs the art the inner art blades the shaker motor the anti glass and this upgraded speaker systems that my friends is value I like that for the same thing, even with the addition of the expression lights, man, I don't know if I'm feeling that. At the same time, I would like to have my machine right now. I do like the green fluorescent that they use for the powder coat, but in a few months, I'm going to have my machine already and so like that value is going to be lost what i would like to see and this will probably be promptly ignored by stern pinball but i'd like to see some of the value engineered back into the machine at least in the form of art that is truly exclusive for the back glass and for the cabinet i want them to keep that foil i do like that foil look but i would like to see like a custom engineered armor now in in foo fighters defense there is a foo fighter logo laser engraved on the side there. But, you know, I would like to see something that was more robust. Now, Spooky Pinball totally gets this. I mean, they got Creeper Armor coming on the collector's edition of Scooby-Doo. It's under $10,000. It's also got a green powder coat. It also has a story about a bunch of teenagers in a van. Well, teenagers and 50-something rockers, but, you know, similar motif. But as a point of comparison, I see a lot more value in Scooby-Doo than I see with the CERN LEs now, and that's really only because of that price differential. You know, if I saw the price differential of around $2,000, especially the fact that with this limited edition, you get the expression lights, I could maybe make a good concessive argument for that. But, you know, failing that, I'm just wondering, you know, there's, there's no, the value has been engineered out of the LEs for me. Now, that being said, a thousand of these le's twice as many as they were making just a few short years ago have sold completely out so who cares what i have to say because these are all selling um what we're going to find out over the next year though is where's the value staying on these games are these games going to stay at msrp at 13 000 14 5 with tax and shipping are we going to see them come down to 12 11 i don't know if we would see 11 um but you know with everything that comes in them i could see the value landing around 11.5 or 12, 11.5 probably being a smoking hot deal. But I would, for me personally, to go on an LE, either it is a dream I'm dying for, right? This would be Back to the Future, this would be Jaws, Beetlejuice, something, something, right? Or some of that value would be put back in there. This is great artists, there's great talent at Stern. I would like to see exclusive cabinet art to a limited edition machine. I would like to see something I can't easily replicate. Go back to the Star Wars LE. You know, the Star Wars LE came out before even Stranger Things, but that side armor, it was a two-tone, it looked like it came right out of the Death Star, right out of Emperor Palpatine's, you know, chair lounge. I would dig something like that. Some of it was more creativity in there, something that really you could see, you know, walking up to the machine like, okay, I'm gonna play the LE, this is fantastic. Not just a simple powder coat that I could do myself. That's my hot take on the Stern le's um but right now i think customers are happy people are liking them that have got them i'm seeing them show up i just hope that you know they've completed their run on those and i can at least get my premium on the line waiting to hear confirmation of that i have not got that yet moving on to another topic i need to cover real quick uh your boy has been taking a lot of slings and arrows um for my uh recent purchase of star wars premium uh by the aforementioned stern pinball And I'm going to tell you a little bit, I'm going to defend this a bit. Okay. Now, a lot of it is coming from the perspective of this is like probably the greatest license ever created in the world as far as licensing, movies, merchandise. I mean, when you think of juggernauts of theme, I mean, Star Wars, what's bigger than that, right? I mean, everything from theme parks to bed sheets is Star Wars. And so if you were to make, the problem is I don't think you can make a comprehensive Star Wars game like you can kind of with Lord of the Rings where you're on a solo adventure through the entire movie. I mean, you know, these are three movies as well, but it's the universe that it encompasses. I mean, how do you get Endor and Tatooine and Hoth and a Death Star and space battles all in one machine? So what I'm thinking is, first off, this game, fast shooting, fun to shoot game. The shots feel fair. There's difficulty there. There's ease there. So I dig that. I see clips from the movie and the theme is integrated into it. What there isn't is a lot of heavy mechanisms. I mean, I will give that all day. But the game is fun to shoot. Now, I find myself when I do play the pro or when I had played the pro before, I look and it is a simple game. And I'm like, I really wish they would have done a little bit more with this license. a little bit of Exploding X-Wings or something, or something more to play through. But then when I played the Premium, and I saw all the Metal Wire 4 ramps instead of the plastic ramps there, when I saw the Exploding Death Star, when I saw the Hyperloop and how fun that is to hit and how satisfying the moment is when you get more than one ball in that track going around, that is sweet. That is a quarter dropper, ladies and gentlemen. So I had played a pro, and then I perused Pinside It happened upon a local game for not an incredibly outrageous price from a super solid dude. And so I went ahead and I made that purchase. And I've been having fun with this game. This game has moments if you appreciate the game for what it is. Now, I don't want to let Stern off the hook and say, like, I want games like this or less going forward. Because that's how we end up with things like Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin, also a killer theme, killer band. I mean I a fan of the band I a fan of the the the the expression lights that were developed and released first on that game But that gameplay is dog bones man I played a pro premium I've played a limited edition of Led Zeppelin. And I'm left like, this is half a game. Where's the rest of this game, Stern? If that was my dream theme band, I would be a little upset. So I think I could see some of that. Like the big Star Wars fans can be disappointed because there are things missing from that. They marketed this as Star Wars all-encompassing. And maybe that is where people were left astray or set with some high expectations. If this was, you know, Star Wars Death Star Assault, you know, or TIE Fighter Death Star Assault or something like that, and kind of limited the focus to that, I think that's how we can attack Star Wars. The good thing is there's room in this license for all sorts of games. I mean, look back. We've had probably more Star Wars-themed games than any other theme in pinball. I mean, Elvira's got three, but, you know, looking back at Star Wars, there's three for the films themselves. And then within the expanded universe, we've got Mandalorian as well. And I think there's still tons of room. I mean, you can make, you know, you know, Hoth Battle Assault or something, you know. Look at the Star Wars video games. I mean, you know, they've defined that theme into, you know, Battlefront type games, you know, first person shooter games, you know, flight simulator games. So I think if you take Star Wars and find a focus for it, you know, Ewok space adventure, you know, or, you know, Chewbacca's family fun time adventure or a game with a life day mode or something. I think there's more room to revisit Star Wars and add those things in that aren't here in Star Wars Premium. But for a game, looking at it objectively where it is, I am having a lot of fun with it. Okay. It's not a game that's $16,000 for a premium. You know, this isn't like Stranger Things. where the price is that high, or Big Lebowski where try to find one for under $15,000 without waiting a year. This is a game that's available now. It's running for $8,500, $8,800 on Pinside. It's fun. It's fun for a Star Wars fan. I love Star Wars. I'm having fun with this game. Yeah, I think there is a whole lot more that could have been done with it. But when I sit down there and look at it, with the shooter rod, with the art blades, with the magnetic things that have been put on there, at all the different graphics. I now have Insider Connected installed into it, and a shaker motor, a knocker, and when I blow up that Death Star, that is a moment. When I get one ball or even more on the hyperspace loop, that is another moment. I'm enjoying it, my wife is enjoying it, my friends that come over are enjoying it, and that's enough for me for pinball. You know, people say that I tend to like every new game. I'm interested in every new game, but I'm not buying a James Bond, I'm not buying a Toy Story, I'm not buying a Godfather, and there's a reason for that. I think the games are fun, but they don't quite have enough value in it for me.