Pinball Arcade now on Steam Greenlight!

Wait a minute...When did they send this? Because the chosen games happened at 11:16 A.M.

Pinballwiz45b said:

Wait a minute...When did they send this? Because the chosen games happened at 11:16 A.M.

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I just got the newsletter an hour ago, but there's a good chance most of it was compiled before today.

SilverBalls said:

I can add a few thousand more no's to the Windows 8 proposition. Seriously it seems like Microsoft are bringing out a new OS every 5 mins. Wasn't the Vista disaster supposed to be the last Windows version ever, then came 7, now 8. Another couple of years and it will be 9, which will be 10 times more bloated than 8, 5 times slower, and will eats twice as much RAM.

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I like Windows 7 myself-it's no XP but still solid. With no PC version or updates for the 360, I'll wait for the WiiU version. No offense to PS3 owners, but I am just not feeling it's version of PA.

They were hovering around place 90 and dropped now to #96?
That doesn't look very promising as most pinheads already voted, how are they going to convince none pinball fans to vote?

I guess those people like Euro Truck Simulator 2 better as it got Greenlit.

Freelance said:

There's actually lots of other avenues .. GOG, Gamefly, Gamersgate, Desura and DotEmu ...

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Well I said it twice and I say it again. FS should talk to EA.
EA is huge and FS could need a powerful partner.
Did you know that EA is also the publisher of Valves retail games?
Maybe it's just me, but I don't know the other online stores (?) that you have mentioned.
I guess they are relatively unknown and their future is unclear. Do they have a decent piracy protection and DRM?


At least we all, or most of us, agree that FS should not choose the Windows 8 store.

I know I won't buy it on Origin or the Windows 8 store. Steam or a retail disc for PC would be my preference. It's a shame about greenlight, it sounded so cool and to some extent it is, but I didn't think it would turn out to be such a thorn in all of our sides. And Farsight should get a pass like any other experienced developer. Really sucks for anyone who wasn't grandfathered in before, it's a huge bottleneck to getting your game out - or worse ties you to the publishers who were there before GL.

I own all the platforms (except Vita) but I already started buying the games on 360 and decided with the delays I'd wait for the PC and switch. It's a killer waiting for TZ knowing you've released it on other skus, but I am still holding out. Let's hope we get some good news soon guys.

Farsight, for crying out loud, please put something that links over to your Steam Greenlight page. Doing nothing doesn't make anything better to get Greenlit onto Steam. By doing so, I'm sure you will attract more voters, leading towards Greenlit (and eventually Released) status.

EDIT: The Greenlight system is definitely flawed. Games that are popular are likely to not be finished yet, which puts games what ARE finished little to no chance at being Greenlit. Maybe they should have two separate categories for Greenlit games, OR Greenlight a few games from each genre (simulation, rpg, action, puzzle, etc.), to make everything fair.

I'm a pinball person, not a video game person, thus I don't have a PS3 or Xbox 360.

I don't have an iPhone, iPad or and Android phone or tablet, I use my phone for PHONE CALLS.

I am, however, a PC person and software developer.

I've been waiting and waiting for this to come out on PC.


I don't exactly have any arcades around with pinball machines where I live.. my access to real machines is severely limited to only 3 or 4 badly maintained machines in places like Chucky Cheese.
I HAVE made several rather expensive road trip/vacations to Austin TX, primarily to play pinball at an aswsome arcase.
(that's merely to show that I REALLY like pinball and am welling to spend a significant amount of money on my interests.)

I had money saved up to buy the PC versions of ALL of the tables, plus enough to get started on a cabinet build, if the software supported it.

With all the stupidity and delays, I've just about given up and have financially moved on to other hobbies.
Thanks FarSight.

I've gone from a rabid supporter (even though I've barely been able to play any of your games) to just about totally giving up on something I was really excited about.

I've spent the money and no longer encourage people to purchase your games.

I don't tell anyone to NOT buy Pinball Arcade, but the evangalistic zeal I once had has dropped downwards towards all the way to disapointment.

I've not totally given up, but another month or so and I'll probably even drop my website bookmarks.

bummer.

Just release it on Windows 8 already. If Farsight make a quality 'Metro' style application, it will stand out and probably sell quite a lot as the Windows market place is pretty bare at the moment, lacking quality applications, much the same as early iOS games probably made a bucketload of cash before the 'app' market became saturated. 40 million copies of Windows have been reported to have been sold, so there is a large market out there already, which will increase even further over time.

squidlr said:

Just release it on Windows 8 already. If Farsight make a quality 'Metro' style application, it will stand out and probably sell quite a lot as the Windows market place is pretty bare at the moment, lacking quality applications, much the same as early iOS games probably made a bucketload of cash before the 'app' market became saturated. 40 million copies of Windows have been reported to have been sold, so there is a large market out there already, which will increase even further over time.

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As a 360 owner, I will tell you that PA is almost done for good on the 360, thanks in part to M$. We don't need M$ to kill yet another version of Pinball Arcade when Steam is doing a good enough job as it is.

rehtroboi40 said:

As a 360 owner, I will tell you that PA is almost done for good on the 360, thanks in part to M$. We don't need M$ to kill yet another version of Pinball Arcade when Steam is doing a good enough job as it is.

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I doubt the Windows 8 marketplace will be as tightly locked down as the xbox 360 live store. Controlling the 360 hardware is more important to prevent piracy of xbox games, through exploits from software. I also haven't read about any large fees for updates to Windows store applications. Steam unfortunately, is doing nothing for TPA at this moment.

squidlr said:

I doubt the Windows 8 marketplace will be as tightly locked down as the xbox 360 live store. Controlling the 360 hardware is more important to prevent piracy of xbox games, through exploits from software. I also haven't read about any large fees for updates to Windows store applications.

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Plus TPA is not dead on the 360, its in hibernation. Once FS starts publishing on the 360 again, people will buy it.

Pinballwiz45b said:

Farsight, for crying out loud, please put something that links over to your Steam Greenlight page. Doing nothing doesn't make anything better to get Greenlit onto Steam. By doing so, I'm sure you will attract more voters, leading towards Greenlit (and eventually Released) status.

EDIT: The Greenlight system is definitely flawed. Games that are popular are likely to not be finished yet, which puts games what ARE finished little to no chance at being Greenlit. Maybe they should have two separate categories for Greenlit games, OR Greenlight a few games from each genre (simulation, rpg, action, puzzle, etc.), to make everything fair.

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You are dead right about the Greenlight process being flawed for the reasons you state, and your idea to greenlight x number of games in each genre is an excellent one. That way each part of the market will be a winner and everyone stands a fair chance. Pinball will never compete against a first-person kill-em-up, but I suspect that Steam Greenlight isn't about being fair and providing a broad choice of games.... it's more about finding games that will bank Steam more dosh. Forget 'em I reckon is the only option.

Cant farsight just offer the game to download from there own website, via a paypal payment that we pay for the main program and then DLC???? So we basically order a digital download straight from FS??

I know its not an ideal solution but its a solution for the time being!!

lettuce said:

Cant farsight just offer the game to download from there own website, via a paypal payment that we pay for the main program and then DLC???? So we basically order a digital download straight from FS??

I know its not an ideal solution but its a solution for the time being!!

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They probably have neither the infrastructure to support the online distribution nor the DRM that is required by their licensing agreements.

brakel said:

Plus TPA is not dead on the 360, its in hibernation. Once FS starts publishing on the 360 again, people will buy it.

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You may be right provided 360 owners don't switch consoles just to get to play tables that were released for other consoles three months ago...and counting!

Guys, I was just up late (sick and coughing my brains out, so just sitting here browsing because I can't sleep) and I saw a new version of Karateka came out!

I enjoyed the old one for a time on my C64, but this new version doesn't really tickle my fancy. But then I noticed:

"Publisher: Karateka LLC"

Did they make a LLC just to get published? Possible loophole? Can you just publish yourselves this way???

No thoughts on this? I looked up LLC pricing and it looks pretty affordable. Does having a "publisher" in this way grant you any leeway with Steam?

The problem with the FarSight and the Greenlight-process is absolutely "0" promotion on FarSights end.
How many posts are there from Farsight?
The video is outdated.
There are no links on the main PinnballArcade website that links to the Greenlight page.

IMHO this is all done very unprofessional (like the kickstarter, for example the kickstarter-page is full of people with problems, but no "official" dev-post.

It looks like all they do is hide behind a monitor and program new tables. That's important for the product, but if you want masses to vote for your game, you need to call to these masses. And if you have a niche market you need to make your best effort to get 100% of your customers on your side.
If you want your game on Steam (and in the end it's important, because they need the money from the PC-version) you need to do better than this.

I would agree that Farsight's communication with the public and their users is seemingly mediocre. They've never had a significant website (looks like something from the 90s) or their own forum and interactivity with users. They don't promote, even stuff like the interface for their product was the lowest thing on the priority list. And is still full of non-existent features.

They are a small operation but they need to be more interactive on places like Twitter. That's becoming the standard these days; more and more people don't even go to Facebook for gaming stuff. And if you don't read this particular website, odds are you know nothing at all about The Pinball Arcade. It's probably no wonder that the general gaming public seems to still have no real idea it exists. Or that it's a premium product, rather than what looks like, at first glance, an ultra cheap disposable iOS app.

Has anyone seen the pc-version in action? Even a beta? Do we know for sure they actually have one?
Why would they use the xbox-version as a demo on Steam for a pc-game? Sure, they have alot in common, but come on.
Even a freakin screenshot would suffice for me right now to be convinced it is in fact in the works.

Before I rant on to much, maybe someone knows something I don't about this?