Totally
Overpriced
Plastic
Parts
Everyone
Regrets

It depends on whether you enjoy them and wish to own them...it makes 0 difference what others think, if they're worth it to you then, that's all that matters.

Phoebe

HAHAHA

If they were a few hundred dollars max then I could at least understand - I still wouldn't buy toppers but ok. Some look cool, but I'm not paying attention to the topper while playing, so nope not for me. Being exclusive to LEs and such would be a cool perk that would at least add some exclusivity that imo is lacking with Stern's LE model. But for $1000-$1500 Stern's topers are an insult.

Buy what you like with your money, but come on. Stern is sticking it to you. GZ's challenge mode topper paywall is probably only the beginning, and that is absolutely infuriating.

I hope so, I have a AIQ Topper that I need to sell. Game sold but not the topper.

As much as i would like to have that extra mode on my AIQ, even used toppers at $600+ and that's insane.

I'm at $550.

When they have moving parts, I really like them. Munsters foes do a whole lot but love it.

Aerosmith has sort of an expression lighting effect, not amazing but it was reasonably priced.

JP, I hate the stern one & was glad yo pass on the topper added code for tilt topper instead. His is much nicer.

Foo, I'm pulling my hair out waiting to throw money at whatever black knightish mechanical foobot head they release. Will cry myself to sleep if it turns out to be like thier JP topper.

No. I did buy a Rush topper, but it definitely wasn't worth it. I don't even think $250 would have been worth it. But it's the only topper I've bought, so there's that.

I would’ve bought a Munsters topper had they not unexpectedly stopped production . New they were $400 but now I see guys trying to get a couple grand for em - no thanks .

It's all about what you like, and there's no denying there's some pretty stunning looking toppers out there, but that being said, there are some pretty great games for the prices some of these toppers go for. Given the choice between the Sinbad in front of me and a cool Twilight Zone topper, there's no contest, Sinbad all the way.

Some people will just buy both though.

In fact, I have a bond Topper! Didn't stop me from also buying a Sinbad.

depends which one. i'd say yes on game of thrones, godzilla, jp, stranger kids, star wars... those are good. no way on turtles and mando. unless i'm wrong, it just a mirror flipping up an image. $2000?

I think toppers fall in that niche spot between the need to feel stupidly "complete" and the need to be feel completely "stupid".

On one hand, without the topper, your machine is "just not up to snuff" compared to Joe Bloe's super sweet LE/CE-hybrid frankenstein with every mod known to man and then some that are not... and yours just looks- well, stupidly incomplete.

On the other hand, you will be throwing down stupid amounts of Stern highway robbery cash for these flat, immobile, seemingly unbalanced and sort of incomplete looking Godzilla toppers with a building on the right side that illicits nothing but a constant stream of questions, like "Is the right building supposed to light up too?!?" at which point once again, you have to think, for $1000 all you got was a baseplate, a bunch of flat playfield plastics, a bunch of post offsets, some blinking lights and a few LED fire arrays, a translucent breath ray and another node board to go tits up at some point...

But don't you feel smarter already?

only worth it if You keep the machine,dont see you getting your money back if you sell.

No don't waste your money & time, if you pick up a machine that has one, sell it.

My JP came with topper, otherwise would never buy one at those prices. But, I'm curious to hear more about the exclusive game modes unlocked by the toppers and how much value they add. The Jurassic Park one is kind of cool as it tracks and remembers your collecting of the letters as you capture the dinos, and when you finish Jurassic Park you get the Goat Mania mode. But that seems to be just a little novelty mode replacing all sound effects with goats wailing: a bit underwhelming after -all- those letters. Not sure if it has additional special rules to it. My first thought was that even BK2000 has a much better reward.

The toppers do come with a node board and some sub boards usually, so that can probably help justify the price somewhat. At least that is what Stern is hoping you do, along with the game mode it unlocks. Physically, the JP topper is kind of lame, just some flat plastics.

What about the other topper-exclusive modes? How do some of the others stack up? I've had thoughts of hacking the software to unlock it on my Godzilla, but after seeing the JP one not sure if it's even worth it, ha.

kiss and bksor were both $400 when they came out. that was a reasonable price for what they are. Now stern wanting $1000-2k is just stupid.

Toppers are an incredible waste of money and not worth even half what they charge for them.

That said, I have a topper on every one of my Sterns games because I like them. In fact further to this, I have previously bought Stern toppers for games I didn't even own yet in anticipation of one day owning the game.

Don't make me have to pay for your dumb topper when I buy your machine. Just consider it money lost right out of the gate

Stern toppers are by far the most overpriced accessory out there IMO. Most of them look incredibly cheap and have huge markups. The Ghostbusters and KISS toppers were "deals" at $400 - $500, now they are selling for $2k - $3k...Stern has seen this and as a result we now have $1k+ MSRP toppers that look far cheaper then those from the Ghostbusters and KISS days.

I would like to own the official Stern Godzilla topper but damn does it just look so cheap for $1k. Stern literally reused the same Godzilla figure from the playfield and zipped tied it to the thing.

Which is why the Atomic GZ figure mod is so F-ing popular and backordered... I think the original GZ figure looks like it came out of a bublegum machine, worst GZ figure out there. I mean, if this was Bally Williams in the 90's, they might have used that cheap a figure, but they would have sliced a big slot in is his back and at least mounted a flasher under a flat plastic cut to roughly look like his spines are glowing...

We get a flashing white spotlight?!? I think modders are worshiping how incomplete (yet fully featured) the original "world under glass" is so they have plenty of meat left to carve off the GZ bone.

The insanity continues to get worse. https://shop.sternpinball.com/collections/foo-fighters-accessories/products/foo-fighters-foo-bot-pinball-topper

$2K list!!!

image (resized).jpeg

What in the actual F**k ?

Aaand to add to this machine that's already depreciated, $3,250 in accesories, Check!

funzo.jpg

It’s not Sterns fault . It’s the fault of all the people who’ve been paying thousands for toppers thus far - they forced the issue .