So, I got to play the WHOA NELLIE! BIG JUICY MELONS pinball table and it left me with mixed feelings. The distressed-wood...
So, I got to play the WHOA NELLIE! BIG JUICY MELONS pinball table and it left me with mixed feelings.
The distressed-wood cabinet is actually lovely, both visually and tactilely. The game itself is a throwback to the old electromechanical pinball tables - no ramps or additional playfields here. The art is lively, well-executed, and bursting with vivid color, and really fucking stupid. Same with the sound design - abundant and executed with care, but all the vocal bits I heard were unfunny variations on “BOOBS LOL”.
Was it fun? It was OK. Didn’t remotely come close to any of the other super-new tables at the Midwest Gaming Classic - I got to play THE BIG LEBOWSKI, AMERICA’S MOST HAUNTED, and THE HOBBIT - or, honestly, most of the older tables (it was hard to not buy the SPANISH EYES table one guy was selling, but I don’t have a place for it right now).
My understanding is that this machine will be selling for around $6K. For $6K you can get a hell of a lot better pinball table, and it probably won’t have the wince-inducing, backward, sexist imagery of WHOA NELLIE!. Hopefully the next time Stern makes a table without a licensed theme, it’ll be something I don’t feel embarrassed playing, not just for myself but for the hobby and industry as a whole.
(So, nerkles informs me the design is from Whiz Bang Pinball, and Stern’s just manufacturing it)
Stern getting a black eye over this machine and it doesn’t matter that they didn’t design it. My guess is 90-95% of sales will go directly to the collector market. Nobody in their right mind would display this in public for commercial use unless the venue was a strip club or XXX bookstore.
As far as hubba-hubba-ha-ha it doesn’t strike me as far off from Scared Stiff, honestly. (Also, I live in Portland, so strip clubs and sex shops seem like reasonable locations for a table.)
That said you’re right about it being a collector table, between the theme and the old-school styling. But that’s just why I think it’s a clever move for Stern to pick up and distribute it - they can use otherwise idle production capacity without cannibalizing sales from their 2-a-year operator market, while building a relationship with Whiz Bang that might see them becoming a designer stable and “imprint” for neo-retro tables (like how Buell was Harley-Davidson’s imprint for streetbike styling, say).
Stern’s clearly trying to figure out how to balance collector and operator markets, I think that’s why they alternate themes between midlife crisis brands (Harley, Mustang, Metallica, AC/DC) and brands with high youth recognition (superhero movies, WWE, Walking Dead).
I think this fits the strategy, I suspect the kind of guy who wants retro style but would rather shell out 6k than learn to fix a $500 EM won’t be put off by the theme. I mean, have you seen the Pinside forums?