FREE SHOW: "Pinball Can't Survive At This Price"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·27m 8s·analyzed·May 5, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Kaneda argues pinball pricing is unsustainable and condemns creator complicity in Stern's greedy strategy.

Summary

Kaneda argues that pinball pricing at $10,000-$15,000 for new machines is unsustainable and driven by greed, particularly at Stern Pinball. He criticizes other content creators for failing to advocate for customers and suspects they receive discounts while promoting full-price games. He predicts Jersey Jack will use unlimited CE orders with non-refundable deposits to artificially inflate perceived demand, and warns that Stern's inability to sell King Kong Limited Editions (only 932 units) signals serious market trouble.

Key Claims

King Kong Limited Edition only sold 932 units, indicating Keith Elwin and Stern's best efforts cannot generate sufficient demand at current pricing
medium confidence · Kaneda states he spoke with distributors and confirms the game 'is not selling like they thought' and represents Stern's 'big cleanup hitter'
Jersey Jack Pinball will collect non-refundable CE deposits without disclosing total production numbers, then announce inflated order counts to justify unlimited production at premium pricing
medium confidence · Kaneda predicts JJP will take orders for 2-3 weeks, claim '5,000 orders' while only fulfilling significantly fewer, locking customers into deposits
Stern Limited Edition machines lose $3,000-$10,000 in value within months due to secondary market depreciation
high confidence · Kaneda references James Bond 60th losing '$10,000 dollars in value on the secondhand market' and notes 90% of games sink from $13,000 to $10,000 in a few months
Most content creators receive discounts on games but don't disclose this when promoting purchases at full retail price
medium confidence · Kaneda suspects content creators 'are not paying full retail' and lack transparency about receiving discounts, allowing them to 'bail on it' without losing money like retail buyers
Stern Pinball needs to sell thousands of games per week to justify its factory and workforce, making it vulnerable to pricing pressure unlike smaller manufacturers
high confidence · Kaneda contrasts Stern's need to 'find a thousand buyers in a week and a half' versus Jersey Jack and Barrels of Fun needing only 'a few thousand buyers over 12 months'
Stern charges $2,000 for flat plastic toppers and $19,999 for James Bond 60th, demonstrating 'greedy moves' beyond normal inflation
high confidence · Kaneda cites specific pricing examples to show Stern's greed has grown over the last few years independent of manufacturing cost increases
Pokémon will not sell as well as Star Wars and may not generate sufficient demand to bail out Stern's financial troubles
low confidence · Kaneda observes at Allentown that pinball enthusiasts show no interest in Pokémon IP and predicts 'They would have sold twice as many Back to the Future as Pokémon'

Notable Quotes

“If pinball is primarily now going to be a luxury toy and a hobby where the cost to get in on a new game is $10,000 or more, I'm just going to say this right now. This hobby is headed for trouble.”
Kaneda @ ~5:00 — Core thesis: pricing structure threatens hobby viability
“Keith Elwin, can't even sell 932 games of an iconic global property like The King Kong to a global buying pinball community...You've got to have only 932 people that you need to see value in the top designer in the world with your best artists going at the game”
Kaneda @ ~15:00 — Evidence that even top-tier games with best resources fail to move units at current pricing
“They're going to collect all of these non-refundable deposits. You're locked in. And then Jack is going to announce that this is the most overwhelming demand they've ever seen and they got somewhere around 5,000 orders for Harry Potter CEs.”
Kaneda @ ~8:00 — Prediction of Jersey Jack's business practice: artificial demand inflation via locked deposits
“Nobody is on the side of the customer. Nobody's looking out for you and me. Nobody is telling you, hold on, like, hold on. You might want to think twice about what you're doing right now.”
Kaneda @ ~3:30 — Criticism of content creator ecosystem for lacking consumer advocacy
“Four dudes drinking beers could save $52,000 if they don't buy four Stern Limited Edition. They don't want us to do the math.”
Kaneda @ ~48:00 — Economic argument against premium pricing: opportunity cost demonstrates irrationality
“When they started charging us $2,000 for flat plastic toppers, you've got to be kidding me. You're telling me this company is being fair to its customers?”
Kaneda @ ~12:00 — Example of pricing perceived as exploitative and unjustified by manufacturing costs
“The market is telling Stern Pinball what their games are worth. And when 90% of these games with almost no plays on them in just a few months, when they sink from $13,000 down to $10,000. That is the market saying that people value a Stern Limited Edition for the most part at $10,000.”

Entities

KanedapersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany Barrels of Funcompany Keith Elwinperson Jack Guarnieriperson

Signals

?
business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball suspected to be implementing unlimited Collector's Edition production model disguised as limited; using non-refundable deposits to lock customers before announcing true production volumes
medium · Kaneda predicts: 'They're going to collect all of these non-refundable deposits...announce 5,000 orders' while potentially only fulfilling fewer; customers locked in unable to know production ceiling beforehand
?
business_signal: Stern Pinball's manufacturing model requires thousands of units sold per week/month to sustain factory and workforce; vulnerable to pricing resistance unlike smaller boutique manufacturers
high · Contrast: Stern needs 'a thousand buyers in a week and a half or it's in trouble' vs. Jersey Jack/Barrels needing 'a few thousand buyers over 12 months'; structural disadvantage at higher prices
~
sentiment_shift: Content creator ecosystem perceived as compromised and non-transparent; many creators suspected to receive manufacturer discounts while promoting full-price purchases; represents structural conflict of interest
medium · Kaneda suspects content creators 'are not paying full retail' and questions their 'level of transparency'; notes some are 'sponsored by distros' creating incentive to promote new purchases
?
competitive_signal: Boutique manufacturers (Jersey Jack, Barrels of Fun) have structural business advantages over Stern at premium pricing due to lower fixed costs and smaller sales volume requirements
high · Jersey Jack 'doesn't even need the money'; Barrels only needs '1,000 buyers over 12 months' vs Stern needing 'thousand buyers in week and a half'; Stern 'in biggest trouble out of everybody'
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Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.081

0:00

Pink Pony Club, I'm gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club, I'm gonna keep on dancing down in West Hollywood, I'm gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club, Pink Pony Club. Oh, welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Happy Monday morning. Happy Cinco de Mayo. Happy May the 4th be with you. Here's what I want to talk about on this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast, because I'm feeling the pressure. The Stern Army is coming at me. And the thing they're coming at me with is this whole notion that as a community And as people that love pinball, we're not allowed to question what these games cost. And I'm feeling pressure from some of these other content creators to just accept the fact that all of the world has gotten more expensive, right? I hear these people being like, Kaneda, you're wrong when you say car prices have gone down. Okay, so maybe car prices have gone up. So everything's gone up in price. Housing costs, pinball costs. Your grocery bill is more expensive. So in a world in which everything is getting a lot more expensive, even Nintendo Switch. The other Nintendo Switch eight years ago was $300. Now it's $450, a 50% increase in price. Now look, it's a lot easier to go from $300 to $450 than it is to go from $10,000 to $13,000, $15,000 for these pinball machines. But the point I want to make on this show is this. Is this it? Like, have we reached a point now where all pinball is now going to live? For the most part, the machines that most people want, is the majority of pinball coming out now? Is it going to live around the $10,000 threshold? An unlimited premium King Kong is what? $9,500 for a game they will make for how many years? They will make unlimited amounts of this game. None of these companies really put any games in the vault where they're never going to make them again. And then you get to the FOMO versions of these games. $15,000 for a Jersey Jack CE. How's that going to work if they make an unlimited amount of Harry Potter CEs? Here's what's going to happen with this whole thing. And I think everybody should be very careful about locking in a non-refundable deposit on a Harry Potter CE because here's what I think they're going to do. They're going to say, we're going to open up a window to take Harry Potter CE orders. and you're not going to know when you order your game what the total number of CEs is going to be. But when you order your game, your $2,500 is non-refundable. And so here's what I think is going to happen. I think the game is going to get revealed in a couple weeks. And I bet Jack takes orders until maybe like June 1st. So we're going to have like a two-week window of you can place your order for Harry Potter CE. The blitz is going to go. The launch video is going to hit. All the distributors are going to spam us with taking orders. They're already taking orders like two weeks ago. This game, if you want to order it, you can order it right now. And here's what I think is going to happen. They're going to get legitimate orders from customers. But when you place your order, you're not going to know how many total this company is going to make until after it's too late. So Canada gives them $2,500. And in that moment, I don't know if they're only going to make $1,000 or $1,500 or $2,000, heck, even $5,000. And what I think is going to happen is this. They're going to collect all of these non-refundable deposits. You're locked in. And then Jack is going to announce that this is the most overwhelming demand they've ever seen and they got somewhere around 5,000 orders for Harry Potter CEs. And the reason they're going to do that is, think about it, it then allows them to run the CEs of this game at 15k a pop for as long as they want. So even if they only get like 2,000 legitimate orders from customers, they will simply say, hey, we got 5,000 orders. Now, the 2,000 people who have their deposits locked, you're going to feel like, OMG, what did I do? If they're going to make 5,000 of these, there's no reason I should have ran in right away. And you know these games aren't going to hold anywhere near that value if they make this many, but you can't back out. And the people who waited are easily going to be able to swoop in in a year and go pick up a Harry Potter CE for less than 12.5. And that's just what's going to happen. But for some reason, and I see it in the other content creators, and I see it when people come at me, for some reason, it feels like nobody is on the side of the customer. Nobody's looking out for you and me. Nobody is telling you, hold on, like, hold on. You might want to think twice about what you're doing right now. And I don't understand this. It's like if you make content and you love pinball, then your job is to just cheerlead everything these companies do. You know, and I also have this strange suspicion that a lot of these content creators are not paying full retail for their games like King Kong LE. I think they're getting a discount. And I also think that is disingenuous because I don't think they're being transparent with us when they get all excited and order a King Kong LE and then do their first impressions at home of their brand new King Kong LE. Well, did you spend $13,000? Are you on the same hook the rest of us would be on? Or did you get a discounted price? So you don't mind taking possession of the game right away because you spending or less And so yeah you can play the game for six months and then bail on it and not lose what the rest of us would lose I don see that level of transparency But this is my main point And I say this and I mean this. If pinball is primarily now going to be a toy and a hobby where the cost to get in on a new game is $10,000 or more, I'm just going to say this right now. This hobby is headed for trouble. And no company is in bigger trouble than Stern Pinball because they can't create enough demand every single month to absorb the supply of games they have to make to keep its factory going. They are in the biggest trouble out of everybody at these prices. And what I don't get For all of these Stern fanboys and these Elwynn apologists and these Stern apologists, if you guys really cared about Stern Pinball, instead of coming at Kaneda with, you're wrong and these are the prices and you just have to accept this, all of you should be trying to convince Stern to course correct. And nobody's doing that. They literally are trying to convince us that we should be dropping $9,500 on a premium and $13,000 on an LE that doesn't come with a topper, doesn't come with any other accessories. And by the time you fully accessorize a Stern game, you can now spend $15,000. And I also want to address something right now. I've been saying that over the last few years, yes, there was COVID increase in manufacturing costs. But I've also said that Stern Pinball has made some greedy moves that were not reflective of inflation. When they started charging us $2,000 for flat plastic toppers, you got to be kidding me. You're telling me this company is being fair to its customers? When they charged $19,999 for James Bond's 60th, and those games have now lost $10,000 dollars in value on the secondhand market. You're telling me that this company is doing what's fair to its customers, that they're treating their loyal longtime collectors with fairness and showing them respect? No, they absolutely got greedy. And now I think there is a silent majority of people that are sitting on the sidelines actually enjoying what we're seeing, that the Goose that lays the golden egg, Keith Elwin, can't even sell 932 games of an iconic global property like King Kong to a global buying pinball community. Just think about that for a minute. King Kong is a global IP. When King Kong versus Godzilla movies come out, it is a huge release around the world. You've got only 932 people that you need to see value in the top designer in the world with your best artists going at the game, with your best code team, with your best engineers. You give Elwin the most. You give him more than everybody else. And you put all your efforts into this game, Stern Pinball, and you can't even sell out of 932 games on a global pinball buying scale. And I've talked to other distributors and this game is not selling like they thought. And now they're in trouble because this is their big cleanup hitter. Now what do you do?

10:35

And once a game is out at Stern Pinball, what happens? We've moved on to the next game already. We're already thinking about what's around the corner because that's just in four months. And then it's going to be John Borg's game. And what is it? I don't even know what it is, but I can tell you how much it's going to cost. And that's the problem I see in all of this is the market is telling Stern Pinball what their games are worth. And when 90% of these games with almost no plays on them in just a few months, when they sink from $13,000 down to $10,000. That is the market saying that people value a Stern LE for the most part at $10,000, especially if you're going to make a thousand of them. So I don't understand. Is nobody at Stern Pinball reading the market? Are they not looking at what's happening? Are they not understanding that if this happens time and time again, that we're going to continue to lose customers if this is what pinball pricing is moving forward? How convenient it is that some of these content creators want to announce that talking about price isn't fun. It's not pinball positivity. Well, you know what's not fun? Losing $3,000 to $4,000 on a game. You know what's not fun? having the biggest pinball company in the world charge us $2,000 for a flat plastic topper. In the same vein of, I could buy that topper for $2,000. Or how appetizing does a Nintendo Switch 2 for $450 sound? You could get that and a TV and a few games for the price of a flat plastic stern topper. And I think what everyone's felt over the last three to four years is simply this. The experience of playing pinball is always going to be fun, but it is not a $10,000 to $15,000 experience, especially if that $10,000 to $15,000 experience is going to lose you so many thousands of dollars in just a year. We used to justify it like this. I might buy a new game and at most, I was going to lose like 500 bucks. At best, I might gain a few hundred bucks, maybe even a few thousand dollars if it was a hit title. And when you lost $500, you were able to justify it because I put a thousand plays on the game. Nowadays, you can't even put as many plays on the game as the game is losing because we always like to justify if I go on location, every play is a so I'm getting my money's worth. I love it right now because all of a sudden the tide has turned And I think as a collective these content creators and the community should be working together to sort of show Stern Pinball there's gotta be a middle ground. These can't be the prices moving forward. If these have to be the prices moving forward, then you have to give people more for the money. Recycled artwork is not gonna cut it. Not putting toppers on the game for $13,000 is not going to cut it. You're not giving people enough distinction to bake in the value on these LE machines. So I am happy to witness a Keith Elwin LE not selling out. And it's weird, right? Like none of us are investors in Stern Pinball. But I feel this weird sense from like everybody else making content that we should be rooting for the success of a company that might have turned its back on its own buyers. Really? Why are you rooting for them when they're charging us this much for this? What's in it for you? Is your fun at stake? Are you not able as a grown man to find just as much fun playing PlayStation or Xbox? Can you not have just as much fun hanging out with your boys and playing some poker? Can you not have just as much fun going to a concert? Heck, you'd have more fun just finding your pinball buddies, grabbing a 24 pack of beer, having a barbecue and just talking about pinball prices. that would be just as much fun for most of you. And it would only cost you, all of you, collectively, like $150. But imagine four guys who just want to have fun, right? You want to have fun. You're four grown adults. You could get together, collectively, have more fun doing that than if all four of you bought a Stern LE. Because you know what's sobering? If all four of you bought a Stern LE, instead of that barbecue, instead of those beers, instead of that laughter, all of you would be on the hook for $52,000. Just think about that for a minute. If you took four of your best pinball buddies and you said, instead of buying an Ellie each and all of us being in on $52,000, let's go somewhere in the world. Let's change our lives. Let's change our perspective. And when you break it down like that and you actually zoom out a little bit and you think about the inane cost this stuff is now and how little value is left in these machines because of the greed that's happened at these companies. And it's not just Stern Pinball. It's across the board. But the problem is, the problem is Stern's in the biggest trouble because Jersey Jack doesn't even need the money and the boutiques don't need to create a few thousand buyers a month like Stern does. They need to sell a few thousand games a month sold through to distributors to justify the hundreds of people that work there. Barrels of Fun doesn't need to do that. They just need to find a thousand buyers of Dune over the next 12 months. Stern needs to find a thousand buyers in a week and a half or it's in trouble. You have to understand the difference. Okay, so that is the problem. That is the problem across the board. And I won't shut up about it. And I won't stop talking about it until we see change. And I think we're going to get change. Because here's what I think is going to happen. I think more and more people are going to stop buying new in box. And I do think the prices are going to come down. I absolutely do. And if the prices don't come down, I think you're going to see Stern put a lot more stuff into these games. And it's more fun being on the sidelines watching all these suckers run at these new in box games and lose all this money. And again, most of you know what I'm talking about. Do you need another game to have fun? You don't have enough fun in your house already. You don't have enough pinball experiences that have wow moments already. You don't have Lyman Sheets games that are incredible. You don't already have like Steve Ritchie games with great layouts. You don't have any of those games. I think you do. and I think everyone's realizing what's happening. All these content creators are in service of needing to help Stern sell new in-box games. Why do they want us to buy new in-box games so badly? Why? What's in it for them? And then you realize there is something in it for them. Think about it. Some of them are sponsored by distros. Think about that. I'm making content where I'm supposed to be giving you an objective point of view on a game and I'm sponsored by a dealership. Gang, if this message is stale, then just cancel the show. Cancel the show. We all know who's on the right side of this debate. We all know who's looking at this the right way. And I'm sorry, but I just don't think the fun is there for this much money. I think all of us are having a lot more fun just watching people spend these prices, lose this much money, hang out with Canada and the community here, And we're going to wait. It's not like we're not going to buy pinball anymore. This is the best part. It's not that we're not going to buy more pinball. We're just going to wait for all these suckers to take the depreciation. And then we're going to swoop in and be able to get all these games we want for a much better price. Isn't that the intelligent thing to do? You don't need it now. And that's the thing. When people come at me and they're like, well, the auto industry, well, the grocery industry, Well, you need food. You need a car. You don't need another pin. And when non-essential toys start to go the same way of all this other stuff, fine. But then you're really only selling a luxury item to people that can absorb humongous depreciation on luxury items. That's fine. But there's not 932 of those people out there that are willing to buy King Kong L.E. So Stern's whole marketing strategy doesn't work at these prices. And how many launches in a row do we have to see the same results and they still are going to change nothing? Not only are they going to change nothing, people, they're about to increase the price of their machines. Do you think Spike 3 is going to come out at the same price And when that happens all of us in the Canada army are going to be dancing around the bonfire We going to be hanging out in the chat We're going to be smoking cigars, having barbecue, hanging out with each other for just a few hundred dollars. Let's go hang out more often, spend a few hundred bucks on food and beer and let four of those newbies go spend $52,000 on four Stern LEs and then make YouTube content. How great it is. No, it's not worth it, people. You know it. It's not worth it. Look around you. Look around your lineup. Look at all the great games you have. Look at four of your favorite pinball machines. now ask yourself would i have bought these four machines if they cost fifty two thousand dollars would i have would i have bought these four machines if each one was going to lose me three to five thousand dollars would you have there's no more deals to be had in pinball everything is overpriced everybody knows it and they want me to shut up talking about it that's where we're at I won't. The goose that lays the golden eggs can't lay the golden eggs anymore. Keith Elwin can't sell 932 LEs. Wake up, Stern. Wake up. For those of you who just bought an LE, wake up. Why? You really think your game is going to hold value? It's not. They're not even really powder coating the armor anymore. It's just flat black. Just matte black. No clear coat on it. No sparkle, nothing, just matte black. Doesn't even make any sense. It's like an art deco design on a game that looks like a comic book I got for Killian. It's like Marvel presents King Kong. That's what it looks like. Stop him. Stop him at all costs. He's not talking positively about the hobby. Gang, I'm about to get positive change in this hobby. We're going to get prices lowered and we're going to do it together. What's crazy is for every one of you and for those of you who are probably listening for free because you're stealing my show. You know who you are. You know I'm right. People are not going to run and go buy a dune for $12,000, $13,000 with incomplete code. They're not going to run at Harry Potter's CE for 15 grand if they don't know how many CEs are going to be made. It's going to get brutal out there. Brutal. But it doesn't have to for you because I think all of us, and I mean this, all of us have a new perspective. You don't hear anyone saying bye-bye-bye anymore, right? It was like fun thinking back to those days when it actually did make sense to bye-bye-bye. So yeah, the reason I'm doing this show right now is I'm just tired of these stern apologists coming at me, getting mad at me for saying stuff like this, and they can't do anything about it because in the end, they know I'm right. And in the end, they know how inane it is to think that having pinball fun should be a $10,000 to $15,000 cost. Ridiculous. And the last point I'll make on this show is when I was walking around Allentown and I saw all the games there and all the people there. It was more about the people. There is no way the people who buy pinball, the people who care about pinball, the people that have even an inkling of this much money. there is no way these people want Pokemon it is not a Pokemon crowd and if Stern thinks Pokemon is going to bail them out they are not going to sell Pokemon like they sold Star Wars they would have sold twice as many Back to the Futures as Pokemon again just walk around a pinball show none of these people are into Pokemon it is unbelievable the Stern CMO does he have his work cut out for him. Canada out. I'm about to go take a bubble bath and join the Pink Pony Club. Thank you everybody for being a member of the Canada Pink Pony Club. We're having more fun here and they're going to keep coming at us, but I'm going to tell you right now, my commitment will always be to you, the pinball buying community. I will not let these people change who I am. It doesn't matter what they say to me. I'm always going to be on the side of the customer because yeah, you can actually look at these things and ask yourself, is there enough here for this much money? Of course, all pinball is fun, but they don't want you to question it because they all wanna help out their buddies who are distros. They all wanna stay in good cahoots with their friends over at the manufacturers. I don't care. I want pinball to go back to being a more reasonable price and if you're gonna make an LE, make it freaking limited. Don't get greedy. Don't make too many. Don't charge too much and put too little in it. Who disagrees with that? Come over and let's have lobster rolls and discuss how we're both going to save $26,000 because we didn't buy two Stern LEs. I love thinking about it like that. Four dudes drinking beers could save $52,000 if they don't buy four Stern LEs. They don't want us to do the math. It's jump the shark, everybody. Kaneda out.