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Episode 907: "From 'Buy Buy Buy' to Cry Cry Cry'"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·53m 27s·analyzed·Jan 30, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Pinball's "buy-buy-buy" LE flipping strategy is broken; recent releases show $3-7K losses.

Summary

Chris and Jengis analyze the collapse of the "buy-buy-buy" investment strategy in pinball's secondary market. By examining games released over the past 18 months, they document severe depreciation in Limited and Collector's Edition machines—buyers who purchased at MSRP are losing $3,000-$7,000+ per game within months. Rising MSRP, increased production volumes, and market saturation have inverted what was historically a reliable profit opportunity, forcing manufacturers and distributors to reckon with pricing strategy and consumer value perception.

Key Claims

  • For 10+ years, buying Limited Edition pinball games early was a reliable way to make money or break even due to FOMO and supply scarcity

    high confidence · Chris (host) speaking from 10 years of covering the hobby

  • Stern removed the historical prohibition on distributors selling below MAP pricing this year for the first time

    high confidence · Chris stating Stern policy change confirmed by industry observation

  • Stern initially announced plans to release Anniversary Editions of Godzilla, Batman, and Jaws that would devalue existing LEs, but reversed course after distributor pushback from Cointaker and other distros

    high confidence · Chris citing direct feedback from distributors to George Gomez at Stern

  • Scooby-Doo CE with Butter Cabinet sold for $11,169 at release (Dec 2022) and resold for $7,750 (~12 months later), a $3,419 loss

    high confidence · Chris providing specific Pinside sale data with timestamp

  • Jersey Jack Toy Story 4 Collector's Edition launched at $15,000 and now sells for ~$9,900-$10,000, a $5,100 loss

    high confidence · Chris citing current secondary market data for JJP game

  • Stern James Bond 60th Anniversary was priced at $19,999 on Stern's website, distros got them for ~$15,000, but they now sell for $12,000-$13,000, a $7,000 loss

    high confidence · Chris providing pricing history and current market data

  • $10,000 is a psychological price ceiling for pinball machines regardless of trim level

    medium confidence · Chris stating personal belief based on market observation

  • Stern Pinball previously committed not to make Anniversary Editions as nice as LEs to protect collector value

    medium confidence · Chris referencing Stern's stated policy, but acknowledging uncertainty ('we don't know if they'll stay the course')

  • Jersey Jack makes too many Collector's Editions to qualify them as true Limited Editions

Notable Quotes

  • “The phrase bye-bye-bye, right, has worked really well in pinball for many, many years. If you went in on a game early, especially the limited edition games, like that's where the FOMO lies.”

    Chris @ early in episode — Sets up the core thesis—the historical LE flipping strategy and how it's now breaking down

  • “For so many years, I've been covering this hobby, Jengis, for 10 years. If you went in on mostly every single LE you made money or you didn't lose any money and chances are you made a lot of money so it was a really solid advice for many many years and now the market has shifted”

    Chris @ early — Frames the historical context and confirms the market inversion

  • “I think the greatest shift that's going to happen now is these manufacturers have prevented distributors like yourselves and like everybody out there Cointaker we all know the distributors and you know Pinball Star flipping out whoever you are for the longest time they prohibited you from selling a game below MAP pricing but what did we see Stern do this year for the first time ever they said hey you can sell the inventory you have currently for lower than MAP pricing”

    Chris @ mid-episode — Documents a major policy shift at Stern and signals a broader market correction mechanism

  • “And it's going to be like buying a car, Jengis. Last year's models, new in box, you're going to have to get a discount or nobody's buying that game because the secondhand market is going to set the value for the game moving forward.”

    Chris @ mid-episode — Articulates a paradigm shift: secondhand market pricing now dictates new game value, not supply scarcity

  • “I think I think when when you bought your Godzilla for 10,500 and you didn't open it up. You just sold it to how much? I think 15,000. I got for it at the height of COVID. Yeah, absolutely. It was crazy. You did nothing and you got 15,000.”

    Chris and Jengis @ mid-episode — Illustrates the pre-2023 effortless profitability that COVID-era scarcity created

  • “if you allowed FOMO to make you buy these games on day one, there's a good chance now it's not going to work out”

    Chris — Direct rebuttal to the buy-buy-buy strategy for 2023+ buyers

Entities

ChrispersonJengispersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyGeorge GomezpersonJack GuarneripersonKeith ElwinpersonMelissaperson

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Limited Edition and Collector's Edition pinball machines are experiencing significant and rapid depreciation (30-45% losses within 6-12 months) across multiple manufacturers and themes, reversing a decade-long trend of reliable FOMO-driven appreciation.

    high · Scooby-Doo: $11,169 → $7,750 (-$3,419 in 12mo); Toy Story 4: $15,000 → $9,900 (-$5,100); James Bond 60th: $19,999 → $12,000-$13,000 (-$7,000); Foo Fighters: $13,000 → $9,000-$9,500 (-$4,000)

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball lifted historical MAP pricing restrictions on distributors, allowing below-list-price sales for first time, signaling market correction pressures and inventory overhang.

    high · Chris states: 'Stern do this year for the first time ever they said hey you can sell the inventory you have currently for lower than MAP pricing'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern reversed commitment to release Anniversary Editions of Godzilla, Batman, and Jaws after distributor pushback, indicating manufacturer is responsive to channel pressure and collector value concerns.

    high · Chris: 'They heard from the distros, if you do this, you will burn everybody who's been collecting your LE machines. They heard from you... George Gomez, and he listened to them.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Manufacturers have significantly increased production volumes of Limited and Collector's Editions (e.g., Stern jumping from ~500 to 1,000+ units), leading to inventory glut and reduced secondary market scarcity.

    high · Chris notes: 'they make so many of these CEs and LEs, that at any given time, there's like 15 or 20 for sale' and references shift from 500-unit runs (Batman, Ghostbusters era) to current 1,000+ runs

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.160

0:00
What can I say except you're welcome for the tides, the sun, the sky. Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome.
0:11
I'm just an ordinary daily guy. I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said. All right, everybody, welcome back. Welcome back to Chris and I's Bad Boys of Pinball Show. Chris has invited me to do another show. So Chris, what's this one about? Yeah, so the title of this show is from bye-bye-bye to cry-cry-cry. And what I mean by that, it's a little hyperbolic, but what we mean by it is this. The phrase bye-bye-bye, right, has worked really well in pinball for many, many years. If you went in on a game early, especially the limited edition games, like that's where the FOMO lies. For so many years, I've been covering this hobby, Genghis, for 10 years. if you went in on mostly every single le you made money or you didn't lose any money and chances are you made a lot of money so it was a really solid advice for many many years and now the market has shifted and so what i wanted to do was a show in which we looked at games over the last like year and a half as these manufacturers have increased their volume they've increased the price what would happen to consumers right if they bought each of these limited edition and collector's edition versions of the game did you break even did you lose money did you make money and we're gonna total up what would have happened if someone bought every single one of those limited edition games and i think it's going to be eye-opening i think it's going to be somewhat shocking and look if you love the theme and you're never selling a game it doesn't matter so you could turn off this episode right now but i think we're all feeling it jeng is right everyone's feeling the pressure right now prices are high but are the themes the problem are the prices the problem are there too many le's we're gonna go into it but we're just going to imagine what the journey's been like for consumers chris is this is this wait and see video because i i don't think i can make a video like that my friend because you know i sell games yeah yeah bye bye bye is awesome for me yes i've recently joined your podcast and you have a huge following in there people loves you congratulations with that i've been there for a week now i think and when you say wait when you say wait three months and you will still have three four thousand in your pocket when you talk like that when you say buy on the secondary market then we don't sell games well i but here's where i think it's going to happen jeng is i think then yes and manufacturers i i mean right but what's going to happen now is this the next big shift s-h-i-f-t that's going to happen in pinball is these manufacturers have prevented distributors like yourselves and like everybody out there coin taker we all know the distributors and you know pinball star flipping out whoever you are for the longest time they prohibited you from selling a game below map pricing but what did we see stern do this year for the first time ever they said hey you can sell the inventory you have currently for lower than map pricing and what we're going to see i think now that everybody's realizing if I buy Elton John at $12,000, do I wait? And I bet you they're going to allow you to sell you an Elton John Platinum for maybe $11,000, for maybe $10,500, right? A distro can legally, right? They're not going to be confined to this map pricing. And it's going to be like buying a car, Genghis. Last year's models, new in box, you're going to have to get a discount or nobody's buying that game because the secondhand market is going to set the value for the game moving forward. Look, distros need to get together and actually tell these manufacturers, hey, we might be too high with the MSRP of these LEs and CEs. And hey, you might be making too many of them. Now, we're going to talk about JAWS on this episode because I think that's a little bit of an anomaly can i say just just one thing i don't know if you know this but um what did godzilla cost was it ten thousand five hundred dollars yeah so that's two thousand five hundred more than godzilla right if you buy the jaws yes the new ones distros can't be all that angry on stern because it's not stern is not getting the whole deal of the cake stern is giving a bit of the cake to us distros also so how much do you make on an le why is that a mystery to everybody why why as consumers do we not get to know what your cost is jengis would you tell us what you pay for an le no you won't no exactly but we all know manufacturers are sweet they're so kind to us distros so they let us in on this i think i think when when you bought your godzilla for 10,500 and you didn't open it up. You just sold it to how much? I think 15,000. I got for it at the height of COVID. Yeah, absolutely. It was crazy. You did nothing and you got 15,000. How does that make Stern feel? They shouldn't feel bad at all. They made a great game and there was more demand than supply. But you know what? For every Godzilla, there might be a Venom. there might be a james bond and look look i i am not going to say that i think anyone should be spending 50 over to get a godzilla le i wouldn't i wouldn't if that game was 10-5 but you got to remember when godzilla came out that's right when covet happened and the frenzy happened so for the longest time in pinball jeng is there used to be a period where games like batman and ghostbusters and all the Stern LEs, they made 500 usually of most LEs. And they were around like 8,000, 8,500, 7,500. And if you scalp those games when the demand was high, Iron Maiden was like this. You paid probably 1,500, 2,000 over for a scalp price. And I guess these companies saw this super inflated prices people were getting during COVID. Remember, I remember when Stranger Things LE sat in a box for a year and it was $9,000 at the height of COVID pricing, right? At the height. A new in box Stranger Things LE would have fetched you $19,000. And that is why buy, buy, buy for so many years was actually really smart. Because if you were on a distro list to get an LE, you were actually being given free money, right? Your game was going to be worth more money than you bought it for because more people wanted it. If you were lucky to get an LE. But even, you know, it's interesting. COVID even bumped up games that didn't really go up in value for a long time. Games like, let me use an example. Games like Guardians of the Galaxy LE. Remember when that game came out? Yeah. Oobala boobala bee, whatever, you know, there was that code issue. Yeah, people weren't fighting over each other to get an LE. That LE sat at like $8,500 or $9,000 for like two years. You could easily get one. nowadays jeng is you can't even find a single guardians le for sale if you do find one you're looking at like maybe 15 000 16 000 and look now that stern has said we're never gonna make a game that's an anniversary edition we're not gonna make one nicer than an le i think all of those old le's are gonna hold value they're gonna go up in value because they're never gonna make more you don't know that they said they're not going to do that yeah you don't know that okay so but what i wanted to look at though is post-covid right where we are today if we were to look at the games over the last i want to say something about yeah say something chris let's talk about iron maiden how many did they made cheers buddy 500 500 okay our maiden ellie it was like 15 000 game and it came out back in was in 2018 or something whatever yeah so you can buy iron maiden le from 2018 has got like 500 games it's worn out or you can buy a brand new build premium with brand new artwork yeah i mean the playfield is the same right the game is the same it has got great artwork and did they say it should cut 13 or should it cost 10 000 as a premium cost what was it like premium price the new ones yeah the premium every premium is the same price right now so no one's spending more money on a premium yeah so so so this year if there will come another iron maiden with new artwork a premium for 10 will you buy that brand new updated all the mcmix everything is updated and perfect no errors on nothing or will you buy and you know five-year-old used one for 15 so it does destroy the old but But here's the thing. The LE is always going to be the only one worth collecting because the premiums are unlimited. And whenever you have an unlimited amount of a game, it's never going to be worth more than the limited. So an Iron Maiden LE, Jeng, is for – What would you buy? I would always buy the – I would buy the – I would still buy the LE of Iron Maiden for $15 because here's why. Here's why. I would buy a brand new build with new artwork, everything new. But you'll – look, no matter what you do – $5,000 cheaper. No matter what you do to a premium, you'll never be able to turn it into an LE. And Iron Maiden, again, because those games from that period, remember, now that every single new LE is 13,000 and there's 1,000 of them, right? And we don't know if these games are amazing or going to be classics. Like Iron Maiden is considered one of the best games ever made, right? And it's a Keith Owen masterpiece on a lot of levels. I think Iron Maiden is probably going to slide down around the $13,000 period. The games are coming down. That's the good news is everything's coming back down to earth, right? Whether you were a $15,000 Iron Maiden or you were an $18,000 Stranger Things LE, now that Stern's making more premiums of Stranger Things, right? We're seeing the LE prices come back down to earth a little bit. I just saw the other day someone wanted to get a Batman premium and distros are like, well that's a $13,000 game is what a distro is selling it for and the guy was trying to trade in his star wars premium and he got offered 6,000 for the premium of star wars to buy a it's a $7,000 difference it is getting bonkers and i think the greatest distros that made needs to make money great okay but that's a lot of money that they're under they're really a lot of money They're really undervaluing the guy's Star Wars and they're really overvaluing. That's how it is when you sell your old car and you get a new car. You won't get the street price of your car. No, of course not. Of course not. Look, that's – yes, you're going to get the worst price imaginable from a trade-in with a distro. Everybody knows that. Like you're going to get more money selling it privately. But here's the thing. But you don't have the hassle. When you sell it privately, you have some hassle. With this – Totally, totally. All right. So let's say you caught the pinball bug over the last two years and you hear about buy, buy. And if I buy the LEs and the CEs, that's the best game to buy. And what we're going to do right now, Jane, is we're going to look at the data and the numbers we're going to see are what was the MSRP of that game, new in box. And if you waited and you didn't buy that game when it got revealed, right, the FOMO window, if you avoided that FOMO window and you went to buy the game today. on the secondhand market, we're going to look at what the cheapest you could get the game for. And this is going to be really interesting. Then we're going to tally up. If you bought each of these games, how much money would you have lost? I'm just spoiler alert. You're going to lose money. How much money you would have lost if you went in on all these games? If you had just waited, do we have the numbers? I have the numbers. I have the numbers. I did this. I did some homework. What the game sold for? Yes. Yes. These are. So here's the thing. And we were talking about this earlier. What I have is all the games that sold on Pinside. Now look, whatever the list price was, the game either sold for that price or most likely less money, right? No one's going to offer you more than your list price. So oftentimes we will see like $9,000 or best offer, which means that person is obviously willing to take a little bit less than 9K. So yes, we are going to use those numbers. And again, I know this is not like an exact science where there's a lot of delusional people Genghis who have games listed for sale and they never going to get that much money for example there a lot of foo fighter le guys that think they getting 11 5 or 12 for their used they're not getting it they're not getting anywhere near that they can list it for that much money but if they want to really sell their game they're gonna have to you know move the price down so should we do this i did some for for sale 9 000 with 17 games yeah what's that who plays i don't get it i don't get it i don't get it it's like the guys that still have elvira 40th new in box like those guys waited way too long and missed the market on that game we're gonna talk about that game too at the end there's it's a notable loss i think that game this is a very delicate why why because i have a lot of distro friends yeah and i don't i don't want to mess with people's income because I like buy, buy, buy, you know? Right. Of course you do. Yeah. I like buying too. I just don't, I just don't want to ignore the fact that's on, that's on the wall right now, which is if you allow FOMO to make you buy these games on day one, there's a good chance now it's not going to work out. And here's the other part, Cengiz, is, you know, and again, the data shows this, it's just not hard anymore to find any game anymore because they make so many of these CEs and Ellies, that at any given time, there's like 15 or 20 for sale. And we're going to talk about, you know, after we go through the last year and a half of games, let's talk a little bit about Jaws and what we're seeing with Jaws right now. And I think the reason we're seeing some Jaws spots open up is like, we're not seeing people flip that game for 14, 5 or 15. You know, I think people are getting nervous that maybe we've reached the point. And I believe this firmly, is that $10,000 to me is a little bit of a price ceiling. Nobody really wants to consistently spend more than $10,000 on a pinball machine, regardless of the trim. And I think now that it's also expensive, that's why we're seeing the prices come back down. But let's start our journey. Are you ready? Okay, so let's do this video for the consumer, for the collector. Yeah, why would I? Who else would we make videos for? Well, we're going to make videos for manufacturers and for distributors i have friends everywhere you know i don't know nobody but but i see the other angle also so i see yeah but here's the thing jeng is and i firmly believe this no distributor wants their customers to be losing this much money either you know i i know all the distributors are talking about they don't want to like hey i got you one and then like a few months later they're like shoot like if i had just waited like i'm seeing the secondhand sale of like a game like Godfather. And like no one wants no one wants to pass on such an extreme loss to their customers. And that's why I think, you know, these these manufacturers need to listen to the distributors. They need to listen to the themes customers want. They need to listen to how people are responding to the prices of these games. And I'll tell you this right now. The reason Stern Pinball changed its policy on the anniversary edition of games, because, you know, and I know They were getting ready to drop an anniversary of Godzilla that was going to make the LEs worthless. They were going to drop an anniversary of Batman, an anniversary of Jaws, and they heard from the distros, if you do this, you will burn everybody who's been collecting your LE machines. They heard from you. It wasn't just me. No, I talked – From you. From your following. Oh, your followers, Miles. No, but it's not just me. I heard from Melissa at Cointaker. They have been telling George Gomez, and he listened to them. Now, whether or not they stay the course, we've seen Stern lie to us in the past. Remember when they're like, we're not making any premiums of Walking Dead? Remember that? Yeah.

medium confidence · Chris expressing opinion on JJP production volumes

  • Stern previously lied about production intentions (e.g., claiming they weren't making premiums of Walking Dead)

    medium confidence · Chris citing historical industry example to justify skepticism of manufacturer promises

    • @ mid-episode

  • “I firmly believe this no distributor wants their customers to be losing this much money either you know I I know all the distributors are talking about they don't want to like hey I got you one and then like a few months later they're like shoot like if I had just waited”

    Chris @ mid-episode — Signals distributor concern and potential alignment with consumers against manufacturer pricing

  • “They heard from you. It wasn't just me. From you. From your followers, Miles. No, but it's not just me. I heard from Melissa at Cointaker. They have been telling George Gomez, and he listened to them.”

    Chris and Jengis @ mid-episode — Credits distributor leverage in forcing Stern to reverse Anniversary Edition policy

  • “Stern thought they could sell them all for 20. And it was a nice $5,000 payday, right? For every single one they would sell.”

    Chris @ discussing James Bond 60th — Exposes Stern's profit motive in the pricing strategy and removal of online pricing

  • “you're not losing hardly any money on a Pro and now the Stern Pro is like the smartest financial buy”

    Jengis @ late episode — Identifies Pro/Premium models as the safer financial hedge vs. LEs in current market

    • Zach Sharpe
    person
    Eric Meunierperson
    Cointakercompany
    Pinball Starcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Scooby-Doogame
    Toy Story 4game
    James Bond LEgame
    James Bond 60th Anniversarygame
    Foo Fighters LEgame
    Godfather Collector's Editiongame
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Venom LEgame
    Iron Maiden LEgame
    Godzilla LEgame

    market_signal: Community is resisting higher price points; $10,000 appears to be a psychological price ceiling for pinball machines regardless of trim level, with 13,000 and higher MSRP games struggling to hold value.

    medium · Chris: 'I believe this firmly, is that $10,000 to me is a little bit of a price ceiling. Nobody really wants to consistently spend more than $10,000 on a pinball machine'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball distributors (Cointaker, Pinball Star, etc.) have gained unprecedented leverage over manufacturers, successfully pressuring Stern to reverse policies and signaling they may coordinate on pricing and production concerns.

    high · Chris credits Melissa at Cointaker with directly influencing George Gomez's decision on Anniversary Editions: 'They have been telling George Gomez, and he listened to them'

  • ?

    collector_signal: The 'buy-buy-buy' FOMO-driven LE investment strategy that reliably generated profits for 10+ years is now broken; scarcity no longer guarantees appreciation due to supply increases and market saturation.

    high · Chris: 'if you allowed FOMO to make you buy these games on day one, there's a good chance now it's not going to work out' and the comprehensive loss data across all recent releases

  • ?

    product_concern: Distributors are sitting on excess new-in-box inventory of recent LEs/CEs that cannot move at MSRP, creating pressure for off-the-books discounting and 'backdoor deals' to liquidate stock.

    medium · Chris describes scenario of distro refusing $15,000 firm ask on Godfather: 'But you know what's going to have to happen next? The backdoor deals... If I show up to Pinball Star with 11,000 in cash, you know what's going to happen?'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Stern removed advertised pricing from its website for James Bond 60th Anniversary and switched to 'call for price,' suggesting attempt to manage distributor expectations and avoid public MSRP visibility.

    medium · Chris: 'Stern thought they could sell them all for 20... when they sell out they don't they remove the prices always' and 'nobody had like an advertised price everyone said call for price'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community trust in manufacturer promises has eroded; Chris explicitly states 'we've seen Stern lie to us in the past' regarding production claims, reducing credibility of future commitments.

    medium · Chris: 'Remember when they're like, we're not making any premiums of Walking Dead?'

  • $

    market_signal: Pro and Premium tier machines are emerging as superior financial hedges compared to LEs; they depreciate less because they lack the FOMO scarcity expectations and unbounded production runs.

    medium · Jengis: 'you're not losing hardly any money on a Pro and now the Stern Pro is like the smartest financial buy'

  • ?

    business_signal: Distributors are under margin pressure to move inventory, potentially forcing negotiations with manufacturers on production levels and pricing to prevent further channel inventory buildup.

    medium · Chris notes distributor frustration: 'distros need to get together and actually tell these manufacturers, hey, we might be too high with the MSRP of these LEs and CEs'

    • 17:13
    All right. So let's jump into it. This is going to be a really fun episode. So we're going to start on the first collector's edition. We're going to start with this Scooby-Doo. Now, Scooby-Doo, December 2022. Now, Scooby's a little unique because they didn't say we're only making this many collector's editions. They made 1,969 Scooby-Doos in total, and they would make as many CEs as people ordered. Now, Genghis, with the Butter Cabinet, how much do you remember how much Scooby-Doo cost? If you ordered it fully loaded with Butter Cabinet, how much do you think that game was in total? With Butter, I want to say $10,500. Okay, close. $10,800 or something. The game itself was more like, I think it was like $9,900 and something, plus the $1,400 for the Butter. They increased the price of the Butter cabin on Scooby. The total price of the game, new in box with Butter, was $11,169. Okay. Right? And we don't know how many CEs there are out there. No, we don't. We don't know the exact number. But okay, but if you bought that with Butter, you love Scooby-Doo. Okay, but here's where it gets interesting. If you wanted to get the same exact game, right? And one just sold for on December 10th of 2023. So just like a little over a month ago, that game with 47 plays with Butter Cabinet, right? Just sold for $7,750.
    18:42
    $7,750, which is a loss of $3,419 in literally just one year. 12 months? Is that on Pinside? Yes, it's on Pinside. All this is verifiable on Pinside. And look, we all know this, Cengiz. Is the game damaged? No, the game's not damaged. Most people who collect pinball, we know this, they don't play their games. It is like they are like movie posters that they just like watching them light up when they go into their game room. And these things are mint. And I would also argue that some of these collectors take better care of their games, and they fix some of the issues. So when you buy a used one, you're actually getting it in better working order. They're selling games for $7,000. Ready for the next one? It's a popular game. It's a well-liked game. Yeah. But the thing is this. There's a lot of them, and it's a long wait to get it. and now it's like people have moved on to Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw, where Scooby-Doo feels like, you know, yesterday's news. Toy Story 4, this was the big one, right? This was the one where Jersey Jack had the Toy Story license. You know, everybody loved Toy Story. We couldn't wait to buy this game. I got burned on this game. I lost my deposit on this game. Nobody thought that they would only make Toy Story 4, right? One of the weirdest marketing decisions ever. and this is also when Jersey Jack raised their prices post Guns N' Roses. Genghis, do you remember how much they asked for a collector's edition of Toy Story 4?
    20:15
    $15,000. Right. New in box. All right. And look, all of us would have bought it at $15,000 and held on to it if the game was Toy Story 1 in Andy's room with actual toys in the game. Okay. So as of recently, they've been selling. Are you ready for it? How much do you think they're going for right now? I don't want to play this game. Chris, you tricked me into this.
    20:42
    CE, I want to say 11.5. No, you can get a CE now for $9,900, which is a loss. Are you ready for it? A $5,100 loss on one single game. a five thousand dollar loss and look it's easy to get maybe it has played a lot of games no i'm telling you like this is what the market is on this game you are not seeing them go for like 11 or 12 like you want to you can get one for right around ten thousand dollars and you're all right now right not le these are collective editions i don't consider jersey jack le's to be le's they make too many of them all right so look you might be thinking like this is just jack guinari getting greedy right this is them being delusional after guns and roses but this isn't a jersey jack issue it's an industry-wide issue because the next game on our list the george gomez james bond limited edition neil mccray bought 999 of these things to corner the market every james bond fan was like this game's amazing the code's incredible how much was that game brand new jang is the le they only made the jump to 13 000 13 000 yep and it was it was announced in september of 2022 right that's when it came out in 23 i think yeah yeah while we're waiting on the final code update okay nowadays okay so about a year's gone by how much can you go get a james bond ellie that was originally 13 000 what do you think the game is popular today so i don't think it's got down that much i mean people love james bond man they love it yeah i want to say about 10 5 11 okay 10 5 11 right now and it's not sold right now there is a mint condition one for sale $9,500 or best offer or best offer. $9,500 or best offer, which means he'll take lower than that. And the game hasn't sold. So it's and it's a game in mint condition, which is a loss of $3,500. All right, here's where it gets interesting. Now, what did they do after that, James Bond? Remember, I told everybody Keith Elwin's going to have a fourth version of James Bond's single level game. 60th anniversary spectacular and remember what stern charged for that game if you bought this game the james bond 60th on stern's website on day one jeng is how much did they ask for that game you said it was priced right you said it was i didn't no i did not i did not wasn't it you no it wasn't me it was it was our friend it was our friend at you know it was zach said that he said we thought it was priced right it's fine you know look nobody knew this was going to happen But what was the price? Because remember that Stern- $20,000. $20,000, $19,999. And remember what Stern did after they sold them? They removed the price from the website. And then they tried to do the call for price shenanigans. Because literally what was happening was this, is that distros got the game for 15. Stern thought they could sell them all for 20. And it was a nice $5,000 payday, right? For every single one they would sell. and there was going to be 500 of them now when they sell out they don't they remove the prices always yeah but like really really weird right because remember with all the distros nobody had like an advertised price everyone said call for price and that was really weird because when stern sold elvira 40th they didn't even sell it directly um the only game where they sold it directly at like a premium game was batman sle remember stern sold everyone direct for 15k all right so james bond 60th obviously nobody's really buying this game for for anywhere near 20 what do you think you can go get one for today or what do you think the lowest price is that one sold for recently 15 000 5 000 loss yeah yeah okay so this is crazy right if it's 15 000 the lowest sale recorded was a twelve thousand dollar one okay there is a new in box one listed right now for fourteen thousand dollars for new in box yeah and so i would say that like around thirteen thousand is the average of what this game is trading for and that's a loss it doesn't have two five thousand games played right so jengis here's what's crazy that is a loss if you bought it on day one and i didn't even factor in if you had to pay tax on stern's website you're about twenty two thousand dollars in on this game we're gonna just say you bought it for twenty and you lost seven thousand dollars on this super limited rare keith elwyn machine and i'm just saying that's crazy that's like losing an entire pinball machine in value in just less than a year and look do you know that what's up that's a Godzilla pro that's a pro that's a window that's that's what I spent on my Lord of the Rings Ellie when I got into pinball 10 years ago I bought an Ellie Lord of the Rings for seven thousand dollars it is bonkers and also look this was a learning lesson for Stern and I'm happy that the community pushed back against this game it didn't work out right it had on paper this must have seemed like a great idea right Keith and 500, James Bond, all the characters, and it didn't work. And now the game is just you know I don even think it settled at 12 Like we going to see where it goes So okay so after that we got Jack Danger inaugural title which is going to win game of the year We got Foo Fighters LE, right? In February of 2023, another game, Genghis, that was 13,000 new in box. People love this game, right? I mean, they love it. I mean, there's, there's only, you only hear great stuff about the gameplay, about the artwork. You could argue that Foo Fighters is a little bit of a polarizing theme you know is it something that is going to be bolted to the floor what do you think foo fighters is going for right now foo fighters is one of my favorite games it's such a great game i love the layout and because of that game i actually like the music this is not going to be a guessing thing because i made a foo fighters video for a short time ago and i saw them with my own eyes for sale nine thousand nine thousand right you hit it you hit it right on the nail 9,000. That's a $4,000 hit in less than a year. And I saw new in box early for 9,500. Right. Isn't it crazy too? And this guy was selling it at like 92 and then he had to go down to nine. It was like 24 hours special. And that's a huge hit, right? I mean, and again, the part that people need to just always remind themselves of, if you bought any Stern throughout history you never lost four thousand dollars on any stern ever whether it was wrestlemania led zeppelin kiss aerosmith you never lost this much money on a stern machine in the history of pinball and here's the crazy part 50 000 in a flash in a year and jengis here's what the crazy part is right is that the is that you're not losing hardly any money on a pro and now the stern pro is like the smartest financial buy yeah and this this is insane like the ullies that for so long all right so then okay now you ready for the next one godfather collector's edition jersey jack making games for jersey jack guinari came out in march of 2023 right fifteen thousand dollars eric minier's follow-up to guns and roses um what do you think how much do you think that game is lost in value i don't want i love that game yeah christopher franchi artwork yeah for us collect this edition and i don't even think they made all thousand let's let's be honest here jersey jack did not make a thousand well i don't know eleven five twelve maybe twelve okay um right now Now, as of January 11th, there is one for sale in mint condition for $10,500. So hold a little bit stronger than Toy Story 4. You're at just a $4,500 loss on that game. Is it sold or listed? It's not sold. It's just listed for sale. And what's interesting, and this is why. Okay, let's just use this as an example. So let's say you're flipping out or Pinball Star or Coin Taker, Mad Pinball. Let's just name as many districts. Okay, how many of them right now have a new in-box Toy Story – sorry, Godfather Collector's Edition, right? And you see the listings that they have on Pinside, and it's like $15,000 firm, right? Firm. You can't mess with MSRP with your – Okay, right. So like if you're a distro, all you can list this game for a new in-box firm is $15,000. Who's going to buy it? It's $4,500 more money for the cardboard box. Who's buying that game? Nobody. So you know what's going to have to happen next? And we know what happens, Jeng is the backdoor deals. The backdoor deals. If I show up to pinball star with 11,000 in cash, you know what's going to happen?
    30:32
    You know, they're taking that cash. I don't know. I don't know if Joe's going to take the cash, but someone would take the cash and at least they made something on it. You know what I'm saying? like something is better than nothing because they need that money to buy the next game that's going to hopefully be hotter than godfather all right so that's a huge loss all right next on our list is everyone's favorite game this one's crazy because it actually held more value because not many were bought galactic tank force american pinballs dark horse game that's going to bankrupt the company you remember what the le sold for jengas 11 yeah you're right spot on and you remember what the signature edition sold for 17 i want to say 17.5 i mean that's a thermos thing yeah the thermos in the lunchbox was 6500 more all right so as of today the lowest you can get an le4 it's not that bad it's nine thousand dollars so that's just like 40 of them there's none of them right there's there's none of them but they're not they're not tanking as much because the MSRP didn't start as much. Now, you can get a signature edition new in box right now for $14. So that's a $3,500 loss if you bought it for $17,500. What's interesting about Tank Force, to your point, they didn't make many. So there's not a lot of sample size here to know what the real market value is. We can tell by the lack of initial purchase that people don't really want the game. So then it's like, I don't know. It's like, would you even want to spend $9,000 on one i wouldn't like i mean i mean we ordered it day one and we got a confirmation yeah you ordered the galactic tank force and since then we got nothing no mail nothing send us rest of the money nothing so we're just waiting here in europe all right and the final one right is is venom le right this game came out and this has always been the pressure test is like at these prices can stern keep these prices as high because when you have a theme like venom how are you going to command a you know thirteen thousand dollars and make a thousand of them so how much do you think you can get a venom for today which is pretty much a brand new game it's a it's a brand new game but it's it's it's not a popular game yet uh i want to say what full fighters for nine then venom must be seven well venom's newer so venom's held a little bit shorter than food is like thousand times better i know well the thing about venom i'm not even sure all thousand le's are out there i think they probably have all been made by now though the lowest i saw on pin side was 9500 so that is a it's still a big loss right that's a 3500 loss now let me give you some shocking numbers jengis if you were to buy all of those games we just mentioned without without galactic tank force let's just say you went in on all these games i know what you're up to you bought bought bought um if you just waited you could march into the pinball marketplace today and acquire all of those games and save yourself $31,019 you would save. Is that a two-year period of game? One and a half. One and a half. One and a half at most. $31,000. That's $62,000 you need to make before taxes. But that is the biggest financial loss that you would have taken on pinball in the history of pinball here's a scary part if you're just a jersey jack fanboy right and we know who those guys are right the jersey jack apologist i love you if you just bought their last two ces you lost in total in just one year nine thousand six hundred dollars in just one year of value on their two collectors editions and look elton john is it going up in value is it going down i mean when you go into the owners club there's only like two pages there's only two pages on pin side of the elton john owners club nobody owns it people love elton john okay and if you bought every stern le this is also right this is this is like a thing if you bought every single stern le over the last year and a half there's just three games just three games you lost eleven thousand dollars on three stern le's wow now these numbers are shocking right they're jarring they're like they make you like they make you feel some agita and some anxiety in which we never used to feel this like i people made money on led zeppelin this is something i have been thinking about so hating me like this i'm like well when you hit these numbers it's like right it feels very unrealistic to me it's it's not and the numbers aren't lying what i think what this is indicating and and here's the thing as you look at this data the variables at play i think i also would argue that the themes haven't been great right if if jersey jack made back to the future or matrix that game's not going down from 15 it's going up right and i think we had a year and a half of mediocre themes for the most part um i thought i think they over made every single limited version of the game like thousands too many when you want to charge 13 or 15k so i think there was just like an increase in price an increase in volume covid is over yeah and mediocre themes and so then you get to this point now here's the problem is there's a lot of machines a lot of money evaporating from the pinball community and people need to move their old games out to get the new games in and now we're going to start to see a little bit of a stalling of the pinball market and now that people are going to hear this show you think they're going to run and go buy the next le now let's talk about jaws though right jaws le is going to sell out right there's no there's no there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it, but will the game go up in value? Will it hold value for very long? Or if a game as popular as Jaws sinks to like 10, 5, and 6 months, I don't know how long the community can absorb these losses, Cengiz, before people are just going to say, well, I'm just going to wait. I, if you look at those numbers, I don't think any Keith Elbin games has lost that much. no nothing has lost anything was 10.5 man the only the only i don't think a keith elwyn game has ever lost money i would say avengers le has held its value it's it's europe avengers le is almost unsellable right nobody wants it right well you know for the most part though every other elwyn game you know godzilla's held really nicely a great return for its buyers and and again that's my point of this show and i wanted to you know always add this caveat as we have this conversation is that buy buy buy buy worked out really well for everybody for many many years we all made a lot of money right we all made a lot of money like if you bought those lees you were sitting on a gravy train and covet made everything go crazy but then we started to see you know just like that ceiling just kept creeping up. Like, am I really going to drop 10 grand on every premium and 13 for a Stern LE without a topper in which if you add a topper to a Stern machine, you're at 14 or $15,000 for a Stern for, and we know, we know, right? Jag is you've put, you've put a Stern next to a Jersey Jack. Like we know which one should be worth 30% more, which one should charge more money like we know like we're not our eyes still work our our hands still feel rad cows like we know who's putting in more effort i mean i yeah but used to if everybody waits and buy yeah no one will buy new in box games no the no the prices will just have to come down and look ford motor company just lowered their prices tesla lowered their prices yeah if if everyone waits it's they're not going to stop making machines distributors are not going to evaporate you know overnight it's just going to force somebody to lower the prices you can't charge 13 for every what if the next le is dungeons and dragons jeng is who's buying that i mean it's not keith elwynn and it's not a popular theme you just can't ask like it just went too high too fast too it was gradual for a while the the silliest move was jersey jack like they literally like overnight just priced themselves out of the market completely absolutely completely and they saw what was happening with the guns and roses the man right it was because of guns and roses okay let's look at that game right 12-5 brand new guess what you can get one for right now 12-5 it's it's absolutely the c uh i don't know what the ellies are selling for six thousand bro six thousand seriously like and now that you can get an le of gnr for six grand and you change out that io board for 400 bucks and it makes the game feel great and precision flippers yeah it looks okay okay so you literally would you rather lose five thousand yeah are you gonna lose five thousand dollars on a toy Story CE or just go get a GNR LE for throw in a little board and some flip and you got that game is still awesome It's awesome. People don't get it. Well, you know. Golden Bridge and Flippers is an awesome game. It's a party, man. Jersey Jack has – it's weird to me too about JJP right now is why aren't they celebrating this IO board fix more? Like everyone who's using it is saying the games now feel so much better. You'd think they'd be screaming about this upgrade from the rooftops that you can now make your game much more enjoyable. What does it do? I'm not familiar with it. What does the aisle board do? You know the aisle board. Yeah, but what does it do? It's got larger capacitors, which actually makes it so the flippers are stronger. They're not losing power. They're snappier. The reaction time, everything about it is better. How much does it cost? $400.
    41:00
    Is it in their new games? It's basically going to simulate what the board is in Elton John. And people have been putting them in older JJP games to great success. And it's on Pinball Life and it's $400 a pop. I get that's a lot of money. It's not a board from JJP. You buy it from other… Well, Pinball Life is selling it, but I'm assuming JJP commissioned the production of them. I get why they don't want to celebrate it because it's like, oh, you bought a game for this much money. Now you have to spend another $400 to make it feel right when you flip. But whatever. I'm going to put one in. I think people have been having great success with it. So this is where I'm at, right? It's like if you bought all these games and you lost all this money, you're pretty much crying, not celebrating how much you bought. And look, Cengiz, at the end of the day, I think prices need to come down. The market will do what the market does. I also think that we all could benefit from a little bit more patience. And I think patience, not just in pinball, in life will help us make better decisions. And yes, I get it. Distros don't want you to be patient, right? They want you to like, oh, the game is revealed. Ancient kills the FOMO. Yeah, well, FOMO. See, I firmly believe that Jersey, Jack, and Stern collectively have killed their own golden goose. And everyone's feeling that. And, you know, Jaws is not going to, again, I don't think it's going to be this game that like, it's a little bit of an anomaly because it's Elwynn. It's not Jaws. It's the game after Jaws that Stern needs to sell. and imagine if you're a distro jeng is right you got to buy every single bulk order to keep your allotment from stern right we all know the dirty little secret they pull they're like the mafia if you want your 10 le's you got to agree to buy this many premiums and this many pros of that theme we all know that's how they do it and so that's why all those guys that are sitting on venom premiums and pros unsold even at least unsold every game unsold is eating away your jaws profits it's how's it working out for you it's not it's not really how you want to be doing business and this is canada's pinball podcast would have been number seven for seven baby ain't no twippies now but this is how we think about pinball and it look look i'm all for i'm all for manufacturers and distributors and content creators but like we need to look at the numbers here and people are getting they're getting hosed at these high prices everyone's losing now where it used to be like you know the slow to the party people used to lose because you know they they had to buy a scalped machine right that they had to pay extra now everyone's paying the scalper prices even if the game's not worth scalper prices so the moral on this video is pros are not for hoes pros are for smart people because one thing stern won't do is jack up those pro prices it's also They take them up with $100 each time or something like that, and they're so smart keeping those pro prices down. And LE now stands for the loser edition because you're losing the most money out of everybody. And that's just right now. It's not the old LEs. It's the current $13,000, $15,000 Jersey Jack if you buy in at those prices. And here's the thing. If you love the theme, Cengiz, and you never want to sell the game, then you don't care about any of this. All this is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. If you love Elton John. I'm not with you on that. You still know this one has this value. Yeah, I know. It's painful. It's still painful because even if you loved it, you would have loved to have got it for less money. Of course. It's about the value. People are saying, I'm never going to sell. I don't care. It's still about the value. So it is a very thin line. And I don't know if I should upload this video, Chris. This video is crazy. No, you're uploading this video. This is my podcast today. You're uploading it. And the other two other honorable mentions. I'll do it for you. Ultraman Collector's Edition. Remember that game? Oh, no. That game was $9,000. You got hosed on that one. Yeah, I lost. You can get it now for $4,400. Oh, man. At the worst ever though, if you bought Elvira 40th, remember when people bought- How much did that cost? $25,000 was the, that's what people were paying at the peak. Did anyone say $25,000? There were some people that bought them for $25,000. Seriously? I have documented examples of it. Okay. So now you can go get one for $13,200. There's one for sale for $13,200. Perfect condition. That's a loss of $11,750. And I would still go ahead and buy the red. Yeah. Brand new zero plays. I mean, darn it. But Chris, this is not pinball only look at the house prices. It dropped. I just watched the news in China. The biggest house building thing is going down and the world economy is going down.
    46:19
    You're right. I mean, this is something happened during COVID that made everybody, act stupid and companies got stupid with their pricing. We didn't really see a recession. So people were just at home and they were bored. Right. And we saw, especially in our hobby, people started to be like, I'm not going to be going out as much. There's a pandemic. You know, we're going to turn my basement into an arcade and we're going to invest in these things. And now what's happening, right? I just went to Disney, man. One thing you're missing at the COVID times, The issue was also people called us. I want this game. Okay. Contacted the manufacturers.
    46:56
    We can't produce them. We have nothing to produce with. So we didn't have the part. So we couldn't get the games. Yeah. No, there was no inventory. There was nothing being made. Same thing with the housing market. No new houses were being built. The material costs were through the roof. And we just thought the supply would never turn on again. And that's what's happened, though, is the supply has caught up to the demand and then some. And in a world in which that happens, in which now everyone realizes you never really needed a thousand Foo Fighter LEs or Venom LEs. They just made that many because, yeah, you could have sold a thousand when the COVID demand was there, but it's gone. But they made those games, designed those games, thought about those games during COVID times. But the pricing and the volume – and this is why marketing is so important. Marketing needs to be able to adjust to the market realities. And I think the pinball companies are stubbornly unwilling, if you will, to ever lower prices. Wait, wait. 30 minutes from me is Sweden. And we have manufacturers here in Sweden called my boys, Pinball Brothers. they took prices down on yeah yeah i don't know how they did that well i don't they they're alien is like seven thousand like eight hundred dollars or something crazy right and then it's more money in euros it's like nine thousand euros how is it more money to buy a european game from a european company than it is to buy it in the united states where it has to be shipped over here um they have a no it's yeah like just to put a pin on this this we all know deep down jeng is deep down stern's bill of materials has not really increased much all they've done is jack the price up if you pop the hood on any of their new machines like it's just it's like crazy because think about like this if they're making a good cut on the pro you know and the pro is what 6,500 an le is twice the price of a pro twice how is that even like when when when those older le's i was mentioning you remember when the pro used to be like 5,000 and the le was 7,500 like it was 20 it was 2,500 more not 6,500 more and they're not putting like 4,000 more into the le So I think that's where there's a lot of strain to now. It's like when I played Jaws and I enjoyed it, but I just cannot get over the fact that the LE is twice as much money as the Pro. Same software, same coding, same lights, same basic play field. So would you have for the same money Jaws LE or Jaws Pro and Godzilla Pro? What would you choose? I mean, I think the person who's got those two pros is having more fun. Oh, yes. I believe that. I wouldn't want any of those. I would want to get a Jaws LE when it sinks down to 9,500 because it's going to. It's going to. And that's my whole – A Keith Elwin game. It's fine. But you know what the problem is? There's just too many games in the marketplace now, though, and everything is so oversaturated. And having played Jaws, it's not as good as Godzilla, and Godzillas have held value nicely. I don't know. We're going to see what happens. The market will do what the market does. Have you checked the price of four, five, six years old games? They are for sale everywhere. Everywhere. And the prices are like… And that's the challenge in pinball. Unlike other industries, right, like televisions where there's actual innovation that makes the newer TVs better. I would argue that pinball doesn't really have much innovation. You know, a game from five years ago is going to kind of play exactly the same as a game today, right? Especially a Stern. It's like an Iron Maiden comparing to… Yeah, Stern doesn't innovate anything. Like, they don't really innovate. Their games, their light shows, they're so archaic. Like, you know, what was that lighting thing they put into some of their games? That system sucks next to like what Jersey Jacks lighting looks like. The tight on the cabinet? Yeah, like it looks like Skittles. Like it's not – they don't really – I mean the most innovation Stern's done and it's worked well for them is Insider Connected. And that has been their major contribution technologically to the industry of the last like five years. You know, whether or not they're going to start using that to get downloadable content dollars from everybody, I think that's the next move. But again, why not? But I just think there's only so much people are willing to invest in a single pinball experience before people say no more. How about your room? You're talking about the television. When your TV is two, three years old, you just throw it out. Yeah. But you don't do that with the pinball machine. You want to sell it. But I can get a great brand new TV for $1,500. That's the problem here. When you're losing, let me just pull up a number here, on Toy Story alone, $5,100. I mean, that's a trip to Disney World for a family. You know, it's no longer 500 bucks or a grand. It's a significant amount of money that you could have saved.
    52:32
    Chris. Yeah. This video is about an hour long, so I want to say thank you for hitting me up. Thank you for doing this. I'm a bit concerned about uploading this, but I'm going to do it. I promise you to do it. Thank you. I'm going to upload it on your Patreon. Yeah, get me the audio because this is going to be my podcast today. Okay, okay. All right, buddy. Thank you for everything. And I'll see you on the next video, okay? All right. Thanks, James. Bye.
    53:13
    Now we can do anything but close You're welcome And thank you