Episode 162 – Herd Mentality

TL;DR

Ryan C joins Slam Tilt to discuss GNR's community impact, code bugs, market FOMO dynamics, and tournament friction.

Summary

Key Claims

• Stern is no longer manufacturing Stranger Things machines

  high confidence · Ryan C. states 'Stern ain't making them anymore' in response to discussion of Stranger Things playfield issues

• Guns N' Roses is driving more new players into pinball than any machine in the past 5+ years

  high confidence · Ryan C. (location operator in Australia): 'the amount of good that it's doing, I think, in the pinball community in terms of getting people into pinball...outweighs any negative possible thing...more than any machine that I've seen in my over five years they've fixed in the hobby'

• Stranger Things left feed smashes into the slingshot by design according to designer Brian Eddy

  medium confidence · Ryan C. reports being told Brian Eddy said 'I wanted it to smash into the dropout' when shown a fix that routes the ball around the loop instead

• Guns N' Roses has a Live and Let Die intro animation with lighting that precedes the music by half a second

  medium confidence · Bruce Nightingale describes watching the intro and observing the lights start ~0.5s ahead of the music cue

• Guns N' Roses has multiple code bugs including Wi-Fi connectivity issues and replay value graying out

  high confidence · Ryan C. (location operator): detailed reports of auto-match grayed out, replay logic issues, song freeze bugs, and Wi-Fi connection failures

• Jersey Jack original brand mantra was 'we will never sell a stripped-down game' but has since made standard editions twice

  high confidence · Ryan C.: 'Jersey Jack originally was we make the highest quality, most feature-packed games...we will never sell a stripped-down game. And then they did. Which they did, twice, yes'

• Pinball prices will not decrease even after COVID supply chain normalizes

  medium confidence · Ron Hallett predicts: 'They're going to keep on pumping up as much as they get. They'll hit the brakes when nobody's buying...I just don't see them changing'

• Wizard of Oz is the only Jersey Jack game that has been remade/continued in production

Notable Quotes

• “I'm taking the leaf out of Roger Sharpe book and going grassroots...if I keep on dating people and trying to get them into pinball, I can spread the seed of pinball, so to speak.”

  Ryan C. @ ~5:00 — Establishes Ryan's community growth strategy and leads to his new podcast venture with Jesse J

• “the amount of good that it's doing, I think, in the pinball community in terms of getting people into pinball, getting people to buy their first machine, people on location playing the game and fucking loving it, like that outweighs any negative possible thing that people could bring up about the machine”

  Ryan C. @ ~35:00 — Strong endorsement of Guns N' Roses' community impact despite mechanical/code concerns

• “I reckon you're watching like an old software version. That might have been fixed, like a code update.”

  Ryan C. @ ~42:00 — Acknowledges Guns N' Roses code update cycle and potential for fix to sync issue

• “Stern ain't making them anymore. Yeah. Gee, I wonder why. Sam Stern rule, make it until it sells and sell it more and sell it more and sell it more, unless it's not selling?”

  [name withheld pending review] @ ~20:00 — Confirms Stranger Things production halt; indicates poor sales despite game quality

• “It's like a car. They're going to keep on pumping up as much as they get. They'll hit the brakes when nobody's buying.”

  Ron Hallett @ ~55:00 — Prediction on manufacturer pricing strategy post-COVID

• “The truthful version is that I drove an hour each way to this tournament to pay $15 to play five qualifying games and then not get an opportunity to play anything else and got bailed up by some guy who was telling me about how he burns his body hair off with a cigarette lighter”

  Jesse J. @ ~85:00 — Highlights negative tournament experience and community friction for new players

• “This is why Bells and Chimes exists, right?”

  Jesse J. @ ~90:00 — References Bells and Chimes as a solution to tournament accessibility problems

Entities

Signals

• ?

  product_concern: Guns N' Roses experiencing multiple code bugs: Wi-Fi connectivity failure preventing updates, auto-match settings greyed out forcing 50k replay start, replay value logic failures, song freeze issues, and AV sync issues with Live and Let Die intro animation

  high · Ryan C. detailed operator experience: 'I have a bug now where I can't connect to Wi-Fi...the auto-match settings, it was grayed out...bugs happening with that game...songs would freeze up'

• ?

  product_launch: Stern Guns N' Roses production schedule shows: remainder of standard editions completed, then middle of collector's editions halted, resuming collector's editions, then proceeding to LE editions

  high · Ryan C.: 'they did the remainder of the standard editions...stopped in the middle of the collector's editions, did the rest of the standard editions, and now have gone back to the collector's editions'

• $

  market_signal: Reverse FOMO dynamic observed: games with poor initial sales (Pirates, Wonka) that are discontinued see prices spike; games with strong initial sales (Stranger Things) see value depreciate due to oversaturation

  high · Ryan C.: 'games that are shit that come out at the start, like, let's face it, Deadpool was pretty average, Guardians of the Galaxy...they don't sell, then they become better, then there's no stock, and then those are the ones that have a higher end price'

• ?

  product_strategy: Manufacturer consensus that pinball machine prices will not decrease post-COVID despite supply chain normalization; companies will maintain high prices until demand drops

  high · Ron Hallett: 'Do you think when all that's over, any of these prices will go down? No, not at all...They're going to keep on pumping up as much as they get'