Re: Who's Buying Stern's Last Pin Regardless of Theme?

On 14 Nov, 04:37, mattyb <mdbri...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Nov 13, 11:22 pm, Frank Traut <ftrau...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Lloyd Olson wrote:
Are you talking about the license cost per machine built ? If so it has been
reported here in the past that it is about $50.00 a machine.

Do you think $50 a machine would make that big a difference ?

For me, from an operator standpoint, that extra $50 is money well spent.
Having something recognizeable across the translite is the cheapest
advertising available. LTG :)

I've heard that $50 amount too, but if I'm not mistaken, that came
from a D.E. rep of 10+ years ago?

Truthfully, I do not know what the amount is, how they negotiate the
licensing or how they calculate in real dollars to production sense.
I doubt it's as easy as tacking on another $50 per machine. Then add
what a pinball company would add to that for simply securing the
license. Does $50 really sound right to you? If that were the case
and we knew that Stern did not compound that figure to add to their
production cost(but we know better because there is no such thing as
a free lunch, especially in business) - than I would be in total
agreement. $50 would not be much in the way of total cost. Especially
as you continue to cut corners.

ST:TNG - 11,728 units made x $50 per machine = $586,400 to be divided
up among 7 actors providing voice overs, Rick Berman & the
Roddenberry's, Paramount Pictures and God knows who else. $50 per
machine sounds like a real bargain!  lol

It's also been reported that the *total* production cost to manufacture
a modern pintable is in the $2k-$2.5k range. This sounds a little high
to me and is probably skewed in favour of the general ledger, but
assuming this info is correct, we're talking about a gross margin of
53% on a modern pinball machine. That's REALLY good by anyone's math
and anyone's level of retail awareness. Who's going out of business
at this level of profitability?

Math based on margin standard of (retail - cost / retail = margin).
$2250 cost & $4750 retail. Especially when you consider the cost
of "like" minded consumer electronics, ALL retailers would LOVE
to maintain that level of profitability!!

Yes, sitting on a mound of unsold inventory is not good. I understand
phoney (but legal) depreciations and how they affect the general
ledger. Used to be that retailers, manufacturers and distributors alike
would take a "hit" (lowering their profitability is more like it) on
these items, just to move them out. Sell them at a clearance price and
lower said price every unsold week that went by. Then there would come
a time where the product was eventually written off if unsold. In
keeping with regulations, the company was ordered to destroy said
product. They could NOT, by law, sell the item for any price to anyone
after that product was "zero'd" out.

And here we are. So Stern is in trouble because... ?

Every time I do the Stern math I can't figure out how they've ever
managed to make a profit. Considering the cost to design and build a
game and then only making a few thousand of them. They must have some
serious efficiency. MattyB.

Truely knowning is something left to Stern as you don't know what they
paid for all the parts that make up a pinball machine and the only
thing you can do is figure out how much it'll cost you... most
probably at retail prices. I'd not both if I were you as you'll end
up in the red everytime ;)

Ping
.

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