Prior to the recent San Diego Comic-Con there was quite a bit of speculation amongst pinball fans that Stern Pinball might introduce a special edition of its popular Jurassic Park pinball machine in conjunction with the movie franchise's 30th anniversary.
A month or two ago, Stern began to place special 30th Anniversary badges on recently produced Jurassic Parks. I personally figured that since they were doing that already that Stern probably wasn't going to do a whole special edition of the game. Well, it looks like they are.
This morning, Stern is sent out an e-mail to Insider Connected All-Access subscribers that confirms that a special Anniversary Edition of its Jurassic Park is indeed coming.
🚨ATTENTION Stern All-Access Insiders!🚨 There will be a very limited number of Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary Edition pinball machines available to purchase on the Stern Store soon. Keep an eye on the countdown for your chance to purchase one. Only registered All-Access members will have the ability to make a purchase while supplies last. Don't have All-Access? Get connected and become an All-Access Stern Insider NOW!
It would be awesome if it included new code that contains actual clips from the original Jurassic Park movie. Stern's biggest issue with this pin is that a lot of people aren't using Insider Connected on their Jurassic Parks because they have replaced the game's original code with a special modded movie clip version. Having said that, I doubt that it's happening, looking at the animated teaser video that Stern just shared.
My guess is that any changes to the new 30th Anniversary Jurassic Park pin will be mostly cosmetic, like Stern did with its Elvira's House of Horrors 40th Anniversary pin, which included powder coating, special side art, a backglass, etc...but again that's just a guess.
This seems like a really strange move to me because Stern manufactured a ton of original Jurassic Parks in 2022 and 2023. Now some of those people, particularly the wealthy ones, who just purchased an original new Jurassic Park Premium, or even worse a used original Limited Edition, are going to be annoyed that Stern is introducing a fancier version of the game that they just bought weeks ago.
It looks like the mysterious Comic-Con Reddit poster has been redeemed (for those of you who aren't familiar with that saga, click here: https://www.knapparcade.org/post/mysterious-redditor-venom-is-not-next-from-stern-is-this-possible).
UPDATE: The distributor Classic Game Rooms posted on its Facebook page that the 30th Anniversary JP will cost $12,999. I've heard that it will be limited to 500 units.
The sticker that Stern has been placing on recently produced Jurassic Parks:
