By Todd Russell
Our second post ever at PGM was about Stern Insider Connected being connected on location (Stern Insider Connected Machines – Turn It On, Owners!). That it is/was frustrating to visit a place with a Stern IC game only to find out that the game “is not registered on the network” or cannot connect to the network for some reason.
It’s even worse, however, attending a large pinball show — a place that is there to celebrate what’s new and exciting in the hobby as well as games from the past — and Stern IC games aren’t connected.
On our family vacation to Texas earlier this year we attended the Texas Pinball Festival 2025. Something we immediately noticed, having visited other shows as comparison, is that a number of the Stern games that have IC were not connected to the network.
This, again, is a huge miss at any pinball show in 2025.
I do not wish to disparage the hard work that goes into these shows, the many awesome volunteers and people putting in1 their time and effort to put up machines to play, but every one of these beautiful Stern Pinball machines that is IC-capable needs to be connected at pinball events promoting the hobby. If they aren’t connected at these events, then where else to promote this tech that makes sense?
For games like D&D especially, being connected is vital for tracking progress. Luckily, the D&D games *were* connected at TPF 2025. At least the ones we played were. Jaws wasn’t connected 25 feet away … and without being connected you can’t play Shark Hunter or other modes that use shark teeth. The Jurassic Park home edition they sell at Costco with the new IC functionality added? Also not connected.
Fortunately at the NW Pinball & Arcade show, they had many Stern games IC connected. What do you think, readers? Do you want to see the SPIKE 2 Sterns at shows IC?