The last few weeks folks have been asking where the 2023 Stern Insider Connected stats would be. Good news, they’ve been published here: https://insider.sternpinball.com/account/profile/stats
Here’s mine:
At least as far as achievements go, it’s going to be tough to beat 2023. Number of games played at 901 is also a pretty high amount, but when my son’s Jaws comes in, can see racking up a bunch of plays on that.
My wife has Thursday and Friday off, so makes sense that those two days were my biggest pinball days. We love to go down to Next Level pinball (related: Next Level Pinball Museum Hillsboro, Oregon has all 22 Stern Insider Connected Machines as of 8/10/2023 – best pinball place to play we’ve ever been to!) and play there, followed closely by Saturday when my son and I go out and play pinball.
The stat others might be curious about is the 22 of 22 Spike 2 IC pins played. The tough ones to find on location are Bond 60th and Batman ’66 (oldest Spike 2, I believe), because even if you find, they still have to have the Insider Connected (IC) kit. The Beatles is another challenging one to find on location, so that could be difficult for folks to find and play.
My vendor friend had The Beatles and it wasn’t IC at first, but I encouraged him to add IC. He was a bit reluctant, but I told him it should increase his $$$ in, because he has one of the few Beatles on location in the area and the only one with IC. Hint: encourage location operators in your area with Stern Insider Connected Machines – Turn It On, Owners!
If you haven’t setup a FREE Stern Insider Connected account, get over there and get it done. Even if you rarely play Stern Pinball out and about, you want to use this, because it’s cool. These stats are free to all those using IC. Some folks might disagree with me, but I think every modern pinball machine needs a connected feature like this.
Calling out every Stern competitor: either buy into something like Scorbit or build your own system, because without something like this, you’re missing out on something important.