5-14-07 post

More people read this web page than listen to the other 2 live hobby related radio shows combined***************************Getting a lot of emails about SternLet me spell it out First of all, I am more positive about Stern in print than many people are in private. The things I hear about Stern "off line" are brutal. For some reason, it is considered cool to slam Stern in private, but you are not supposed to say anything negative (unless your Mom named you Korn) in public. It's bizarre because if you are a sports fan or movie fan or anything fan, half the fun of being a fan is talking good and bad about the stuff you are interested in. But in this politically correct (stab you in the back hobby), you are considered a bad guy for expressing yourself honestly. So the question is, why is it OK to slam Stern in private, but not in public?Obviously, there is no answer .....It's like asking, how do you know if someone is your friend just by typing back and forth with them on a moronic newsgroup? How can you make friends by typing? You can't tell who your true friends are when you see them face to face and suddenly you are supposed to be able to make true friends on RGP typing. Obviously the whole concept is absurd.The fact is that most of the people in this hobby will stab you in the back in a second. And frankly, they usually do it a lot quicker than in a second. Try buying a game off of Ebay and see what I mean.Guys like David Schulpius, The King Christopher Hutchins, Jeff Mcaffe and The Virginia Bull Jeff Reynolds are always there with 100% honesty and integrity, but then you have the freaks that just bring the hobby right down into the dirt. To them the hobby is more of a "social adventure" than anything else.Anyway, here are my Stern "concepts"1) We should be able to buy the games direct for $3495 via their web site ... You go to the Stern site, see full information on the game, click the "buy it now" button and have the game shipped for $199 right to your door (they could work a bulk shipping deal) ... we keep them going, so we should be getting the best price ... meanwhile to try and get a decent price from a distributor, you have to try and become "friends" with that distributor, otherwise you pay full price which is like $4495 plus shipping ... think about it, what does the distributor do that deserves $4495 for one person vs. $3795 for another person. The games are drop-shipped from Stern, so all they do is take the order. The whole system is designed to supplement the distributors for the poor sales to locations. We are paying extra mark-up because the location guys have given up on pinball. I think all consumers should be paying the same low price for the games so we could create an organized market. One guy told me once to bring coffee and donuts to my distributor when I wanted to buy a game so I could soften him up and get a better price. That's horse crap. I don't bring coffee and donuts over to Best Buy when I want to buy a Plasma TV. I go in, look for the cheap price, get treated right or walk right out the same door I came in on.What is this with being friends with the Stern distributor? I'm paying my hard earned money for a game that will depreciate by as much as half the moment I open it. I should be the one getting the royal carpet treatment. Not vice versa.Sell the games direct on the web with no drama for ...$3495 per game FLATsave the making friends routine for RGP Typing ...2) We should have the option of paying an extra $300 for chrome side rails, lockdown bars, better screened artwork and an upgraded speaker package3) Personally, I think Stern games are more reliable than WMS games (that's a plus)4) I like playing Stern games more than many WMS games ... they are very reliable and for a player like me who just likes to knock the ball around, they are a lot of fun (that's another plus)5) I thought it was bad that Stern didn't support the best radio program the industry had (especially considering it was run by people, Bull and myself, that bought their games) ... the radio show was the best thing that ever happened to the hobby, even though ending it was the best thing that ever happened to yours truly (great recipe for getting divorced)... We didn't need any money, we just needed them to have the balls to talk with the folks, which of course they didn't. I'm a big fan of a businessman like Donald Trump who will talk to anyone at anytime to get the word out about what he is doing ... some guy hiding under the desk afraid to speak on the phone, just kind of turns me off ... (this to me was a huge negative and showed how little Stern thought of the folks making up the customer base)6) The artwork on the current Stern games looks silly next to a HEP-WMS game ... why not spend a few extra dollars and get rid of the pixels ... and why not use Youssi, the greatest pin artist of all-time on all the translites? (the art simply sucks)7) I would like to see them to do some games without a license (the most popular WMS games ever had no license involved AFM, MM, CC)8) Games like RBION, Nascar and Sopranos are great playing games, but get ready to have major problems when it is time to sell them I'll give a free translite to the first person that can tell me (in a way I can understand), why one of these points of view is out of line ... I'm one of the biggest supporters of Stern when it comes to playability and reliability.We need to get this hobby in a postition where we can each have a point of view, without hammering people into the ground for thinking out of the box. RGP Typing is nothing more than a bunch of lonely people, trying to make friends on the internet. It's also a way for people to cover for each other, so they can sell their products and games for more money, but that's another story for another time. take care everyone ... Gary/ArizonaAlong with the Bull, always saying what we think and saving the politically correct stuff for Jessie, Load and ClayNote: Have any of you seen the pictures of LOAD up on Pinball News? Good old Martin should be more careful with the photos he chooses. Talk about having a bad hair day for the Loadster.