An Afternoon At FarSight Studios

shutyertrap · Dec 25, 2012

An Afternoon At FarSight Studios
By Chris Friebus (aka shutyertrap)

When most people think of Southern California, it’s of Hollywood, palm trees, and 70 degree weather. We locals like to brag about the fact that you can literally hit the beach in the morning, and go skiing in the afternoon thanks to the local mountain range where Big Bear Lake is, 7000 feet above and only 2 hours away from the ocean. That’s great in theory, but we the drivers of SoCal seem to lose our minds when so much as a drop of water hits the asphalt, and have no clue what to do when encountering snow, which in my case is why I don’t travel up the mountain in winter. I made an exception today though, ‘cause I had been invited to visit FarSight Studios as a representative of the Pinball Arcade Fan Forums. I’ve driven 350 miles just to play pinball in Vegas, as if I’m not gonna brave a little winter ice on the road to talk up the guys behind The Pinball Arcade.

Okay, I almost didn’t go.

And it’s a long story about me not having chains for my car and getting halfway up the mountain before finding out I needed them for real, as opposed to it being merely an ‘advisory’, and blah, blah, blah, get to some damned pinball already!

So I get to FarSight, walk in the front doors, and am greeted with something that puts a big smile on my face. A pinball table kinda but not really announced yet. It’s just sitting there next to the receptionist’s desk, as if it had been dropped off not 5 minutes earlier. Not really the case, but there it was, greeting me instead of the empty chair at the front desk. Across from the desk is a conference room. And it’s got Ripley’s and Cirqus Voltaire and Bride of Pinbot and Medieval Madness and Arabian Nights and a few others, just sitting there, powered down. And there’s not a person in sight or a voice to be heard. Actually, throughout my time spent there, FarSight Studios was a very quiet place.

Not wanting to be rude and start wandering about, tempted as I was, I took a look at the lobby walls. Much like a recording studio would do, mounted in frames everywhere were all of FarSight’s previous games, back to when they were doing educational titles for the NES and sports titles for Sega. While we fans of TPA might like to think of FarSight only in terms of pinball, the lobby walls attest to something else. But then there was that conference room of tables staring at me. Yep, it’s pinball all day, everyday now.

Eventually Bobby King finds me and starts giving me the tour. For those that don’t know, Bobby is the Director of Development at FarSight and Lead Designer of the Pinball Arcade.. Every office I poke my head into has a table, but they’re all powered down. Real quickly I realized, this isn’t an arcade that happens to have offices in it, which is what my fantasy version of FarSight was. Instead what I see in each office is a guy hunkered down in front of monitors, working on code. The tables are there for reference, not entertainment. Or at least not during office hours! As Norman Stepansky, FarSight’s audio engineer later put it, plenty of the guys clock out at the end of the day and then go right to playing the tables. Stopping by on a Saturday to play isn’t unheard of either.

Bobby leads me into a room with more tables, half of which I can’t mention. Let’s just say I’m very much looking forward to the next 6 months. They’re in various states of repair or tear down for future builds. In the middle of the room is Twilight Zone, glass still off the table (as is the case with a lot of the tables throughout the building), across from it is ST:TNG. Freakin’ pinball nirvana surrounds me.

We work our way to Bobby’s office, where Creature and Scared Stiff sit, powered down and glass off. Yeah, having tables not 5 feet from you with attract mode going is probably not conducive to getting work done. Bobby’s desk was much like everyone else’s I’d eventually visit; multiple monitors with controllers and developer kits at the ready.

As we start talking, it’s quickly established how aware of the fans everyone at FarSight is. Particularly those of us posting on digitalpinballfans.com. Bobby understands how excitable we can get for upcoming table releases, because he gets excited too. “It’s one of the treats of making this game; we get to dive into something that we love to play. It’s a different feeling than when you’re designing an original title, where with this game we’re recreating great classics that we like to play too. So the anticipation that you guys feel, we’ve been enjoying for like the 2 months before that.”

Of course, there’s a flip side too; anticipating the fan’s reaction. While iOS and Android will always get tables first (sorry console owners, that’s not gonna change!), those aren’t the preferred versions of most in the offices due to them having more limitations.

And not being able to nudge properly.

The tables are built for the consoles, and from there FarSight programmers try and eke out the best possible version and smoothest performance of that for the mobile devices. Sometimes that means ramps will be opaque, like on No Good Gofers. Other times it means special lighting tricks need pulling off like with what was done for Black Hole. So that first feedback FarSight gets is often met with them wanting to respond, “wait till you see it on the PS3!”

Bobby and I talked of what it was like for FarSight a year ago, just prior to the first pack of tables being released. They needed to drum up support from the pinball community. “Our biggest fear, which is a fear of everyone releasing a mobile title primarily through digital distribution channels was, are people going to notice our game. I mean, there are hundreds of games or apps being approved by Apple everyday. Were we just going to have a few sales in the first month and then it just trickle off?”

Fortunately The Pinball Arcade got a large push from Apple, being a featured game of the week, from Sony who eventually did similar on PSN, and Google who invited FarSight to their booth at Mobile World Congress. One year later, not only is the install base strong, it’s growing. And all with minimal advertising. FarSight embraced the fans early on, and despite having to deal with what sometimes might look like a non stop barrage of complaints on Facebook, it’s obviously paid off. “To get your guy’s feedback and help, cause you know, the fans on the fan forum, a bunch of you guys get beta builds and help us a lot out before we even release. That’s been very, very helpful.”

He’s counting on us for the future too. Bobby says, “One of our fears is that, well our goal is to release the best 50 tables of all time, and we’re gonna run out of those tables eventually! We’re not going to get them all, obviously. Some are just licenses that are impossible. We’ll end up having to release lesser known tables. So we want to create a fan base of people who are going to appreciate tables for at least a few more years.”

Ah, licenses. Talk about a convoluted mess. At various points in the day, I was treated to some insider talk of how silly it can get. Each license FarSight secures is good for only the one table intended. For instance, if they got the license for Indiana Jones and planned on doing the Williams version, they’d have to go through the entire process again to secure the rights for the Stern version. Before you get excited, Indy was never part of any of those discussions I was privy to. It’s just an example people!

Where it really can get screwy though is when you have ST:TNG, which is a CBS license, but Paramount holds the current movie license. Someone out there gets a wild hair up their butt that Star Trek in general is Paramount, and now you have to prove your license in fact has nothing to do with them, nor should it.

That’s a not so made up example!

What isn’t made up is that this is just a drop in the bucket for what’s going on with everyone’s favorite table request.
“Addams Family, you know we’d love to do, we’re just having problems getting an actual figure, a number of what that license would cost.”

Considering TZ and ST:TNG are out, I’d say 2 out of 3 isn’t bad when it comes to top requests. But what happens when neither of the tables in a pack are top 20? Are we, the core audience and customers in general, going to buy and appreciate older tables?

I asked about FarSight holding the license for only a limited amount of Williams/Bally tables and what that means for the future. I had heard Zen wanted to make ‘classic’ tables, and wondered if that spelled trouble. Bobby assured me that not only does FarSight have exclusivity on anything already made, it also includes a list of unmade tables. An extensive list that I was assured pretty much covered everything we’d ever want to see anyways. He did confirm though that Zen a few years back had gone after the Bally license, so the threat was real. Past tense.

shutyertrap · Dec 25, 2012

We’ll get back to my discussions with Bobby, but he wasn’t the only one I got to talk to all day. At a certain point he had to leave for a bit, so I got handed off to Rob Mann. Some of you have probably had dealings with him online, as he is the User Community Manager. What that means is, he has the thankless job of dealing with all of us monkeys online, reading our rants, enjoying our praise, and keeping a presence for FarSight in the fan community. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t a beaten down shell of a man!

Rob introduced me to the art department guys, headed by Jason Juneau. I figured since Rob is essentially the PR guy, and Jason is essentially responsible for the look of the tables, now’d be the time to get into issues some in the community have vocalized.

First lemme say this though…I saw what the real tables look like that Jason and his team model off of. They earn their pay! For some reason, I had this idea that not only were the tables shopped for playability, but that they were restored to collectors quality shine. While Norman Stepansky would love it if that were the case, as he’s not just the audio guy but the fixer of machines, there’s simply no time and no reason for it. All restoration takes place digitally. The Twilight Zone you guys are currently enjoying is not the TZ I saw in the work room. Many tables are faded, have discolored plastics, oxidization on metal. Bride of Pinbot was really nothing to look at, but as Bobby pointed out to me, he’s never played one better than the one they got.

Still, this is where some issues can pop up. The guys here at FarSight make no claim to being pinball historians. They model the tables off what they physically have, sometimes using the flyers as reference. So you know how some of you complained about the blue tinted ramps in No Good Gophers? Well, they’re transparent blue, right before my eyes. That rubber bumper in the lower pop bumpers of TZ, it’s on their table. And the guy they got it off of, it was there when he bought it. Turns out the table FarSight has is a prototype model. Jason said there has been numerous occasions where a table build was sent back due to a wrong colored light or something on the table that shouldn’t have been there. There will be a future update that removes it from the game across all platforms.

Jason elaborates, “If it wasn’t in the production table, we can’t put it in.” That means no working Tiger Saw in ToM, no gumballs in TZ, no lights in the skulls on Party Monsters. But yes, occasionally something might slip through, such as the painted Bony Beast of Scared Stiff. As a matter of fact, an upcoming table that Jason was working on right then had a little something he knew was not from the production run. I could be wrong, but I think they were modeling it anyways, just in case!

Another thing Jason had to say was this, “The more people point stuff out to us, when we start getting a bunch of issues in one area, at least we know what people want more than anything else. So when we get a chance to do improvements or when devices get more powerful, that’s what we’ll do first.”

See, Rob once a week puts out a list of what the top issues are among the forums, and sends it to all the guys. They’re listening to us. Maybe it’s time we listen to them though. A common complaint the guys hear, and it was mentioned multiple times, is that they should take a month off from building tables and just fix things with past tables.

Jason took time to enlighten me on how it’s not as easy as we might think. Fixing the bugs, Jason gets on that soon after he hears about them. Mike Reitmeyer, who does final table builds before they get sent to Bobby for tuning, he just wrote a fix for balls passing through flippers. As much as they want to get those fixes out to us as soon as possible, there’re a lot of hurdles to be crossed. Every time a change is made, it has to be submitted for approval once again to Stern or WMS, as well as each device it’s being put out for. If it is a licensed table like Monster Bash, it’d also have to be sent to Universal for approval. Depending on the company, there are “marginal to extreme wait times” as Rob puts it. Until you get that approval, you can’t release the table. So there is a lot of thought that has to go into when it is the right time to revisit a table.

Take Scared Stiff on the PS3 for example. It is finished and ready to go, as in Sony has it and it is in the approval process. But when it got delayed to come out after TZ and ST:TNG, many people said, “Great! Extra time for FarSight to really fine tune it”. Well no, because that would involve resubmitting to WMS, the Elvira license holders, and then Sony again. That’s the simplified version. The business politics of all this are way beyond what most ever suspected.

Throw on top of that the fact that when a table gets changed, it has to be re-downloaded again in its entirety. You gotta figure the majority of players are of the casual variety. They don’t see a problem with the tables, so they don’t want to have to deal with a new download simply because a certain texture isn’t hi rez. If you’re a mobile customer on a limited data plan, this becomes a true sticking point. Instead it’s a matter of stacking up the bug fixes until there is enough to justify needing the table to be downloaded again.

There’s one more aspect to it all too. As Norman pointed out when I talked to him, this is a business that needs a revenue stream. Taking a month off of releasing a table means significantly less revenue, which a certain amount is counted on for paying the bills. I ran with that, thinking not paying the bills means having to cut staff, which in turn would reduce the frequency with which tables could be released, which means even less revenue, ending with us not getting anymore pinball tables.

Or there’s Norman’s simple way of putting it. “Ask the average TPA player this…which would you rather have, table x which you’ve been dying to play, or nothing?” The message here is, be patient, as frustrating as that might be.

shutyertrap · Dec 25, 2012

By the way, Norman is a pinball geek through and through. While talking with Jason, I brought up the joke that is TPA: After Dark, where mature rated tables like The Sopranos and Playboy would have to reside. It is just that, a joke by the way, but it got us talking about the various ‘safe’ modes of certain tables. I brought up how I didn’t think Scared Stiff was really any worse than Medieval Madness, and Norman suddenly appeared out of nowhere to join in on the conversation.

He said, “MM is just drugs and cursing, where’s the sex?” I make mention of the princess, which got nodding approval as he started rattling off quotes from the table.

Norman is also the guy that gets to find and buy the tables for FarSight. If there was ever any doubt about FarSight’s love of pinball, look no further than Norman.

Let’s get back to my conversation with Bobby.

We talked a bunch about how the game is developed, what it takes to take the 360 version down to a mobile version, and then started getting into the PS3 and Vita. “Well I think the Vita’s main complaint is we don’t have any HDR lighting, there’s no real time lighting effects, which we do have on the PS3, which is why there’s a slight lag. There was a bigger lag, we actually improved that in the update patch that I think was in October. It went from being a 2 frame lag from HDR lighting to 1 frame lag that’s still there for 1080, but it’s there because we’re doing this post processing thing. In order to have the lighting technology that we do and run at 60fps, we need an extra frame to process everything after the controller input.”

I asked if putting in the option to remove HDR was possible, and Bobby said that’d mean it would have the same look the Vita does. Having your TV set up properly to interact with the PS3 should get you to that 1 frame lag. My PS3 is hooked up to a CRT rear projection, so I didn’t think I was experiencing the lag, but I guess I am. They keep on trying to optimize the code, so there’s still hope yet for some of you experiencing it badly. It shouldn’t have anything to do with your controller, but then Bobby uses a wired controller when he plays. As to why it’s not a problem on the 360? Not as many HDR effects, and it’s a different way of running them.

I felt this was the perfect opportunity to ask about the lighting in the console versions. For a while now people have been asking for a slider, so they could set how dark the table got. Bobby said they’re looking at having 3 settings; a brightly lit room, a medium, and a dark. I hinted at whether that would solve the way Black Knight looked on the PS3. When I talked to Jason later, he showed me how it looked on his monitor, running the 360 version. It looked like it should. I didn’t quite understand the why’s or how’s, but something happened to it in translation to the PS3, and they’re more than aware. Remember what was talked about with resubmitting? Some tables, the changes needed are so drastic, it might have to wait for a completely new Pinball Arcade build, much like Zen did with Pinball FX2 and Zen 2. Or at least that’s how I understood it. Here’s hoping the lighting settings will do the trick instead.

There was no way I could end my visit to FarSight without talking about table difficulty. I started by asking Bobby how he viewed the game by comparing it to a completely different genre, racing games. Gran Turismo is known for being meticulous about getting every last detail correct to the point of it being a bit unforgiving, while Need For Speed is all about fun. Bobby feels TPA is 85-90% Turismo as far as style, but they’re not trying to eat your quarters like a real machine is. It’s still reality, just the easiest version of it.

When I asked Jason about it, he said it comes down to math. He makes the point that in the real world, you’re dealing with gravity and forces at play that are random. In TPA, it’s all math. You discover a certain point for the ball to be on the flipper equals it making a particular shot, well the math never changes. So yes, the same thing is going to happen every time if you hit at that exact same moment. For true randomness you’d also have to factor in wear and tear of a table, how oily the ball gets during play, temperature and how that affects the rubber, etc.

Sometimes it goes the other way though. Bobby had this to say…

“Some of the physics, and this is with WMS’s and Stern’s permission, when there’s something on a table that may have been designed where maybe a feed wasn’t feeding quite the way they wanted it to, and the way a table might wear over time causing a straight down the middle drain, we have tuned it to not be a SDTM drain. I see people complain about, oddly, Medieval Madness, the right ramp. On the real table, ours drains straight down the middle if you fail to make it up that ramp. And people were complaining that on either of those ramps it should never do that. Yet that’s just not the way it is! But they thought it was more ‘real’ for it not to go SDTM. But no, that was making it more fun in our opinion, and that’s why we made it that way. Even though there is still the chance that, I think it’s the left ramp, that before a slight re-tune of MM we did a couple of months ago, it would drain down the middle.”

According to Jason, putting in a difficulty setting would basically involve complete rebuilds of tables, as collision meshes would need changing, new bug fixes would be needed, and each table would need to be re-tuned.

There is hope on the horizon though for those of us wanting more of a challenge and it’s called Tournament Mode. In tournaments, there’s going to be tiers of experience people can be involved with, from Easy to Pro. For those playing Easy, it’ll probably use the same ROMS as are currently in TPA. For the harder tiers, it’s each table’s tournament ROM, as well as all the settings PAPA uses on the tables.

I asked whether Tournament Mode was going to be like Pro Mode, a separate purchase. The short answer, no. The longer answer is, you’ll have a certain number of replays for free, but subsequent entries into a given tournament would be monetized. It’s still really early in the planning stages, as what they’re trying to eliminate is people finding ways of posting ridiculous scores through bug exploits or hacking. Still, after what some have speculated, it’s good to know it’ll be free to all.

I wish I could say I had news on the PC front, other than it’s a priority to get on there. Well, there is this. Once PC is out, development will probably shift from being done on the 360 to being done on the PC. Cabinet support will probably not be a day one feature, but seeing as how they’re going to get one in the offices, you’d better believe it’ll happen. Mike Reitmeyer, who is dealing with the PC builds (and all the console builds), actually thinks doing the cabinet version will be quite nice to work on since most people building cabinets are running on high end PC’s, much like FarSight has. In other words, no worries about minimum system requirements!

Couldn’t help but ask if stereoscopic 3D was a possibility for Playstation. Possible, yes, priority, no.

I thought nobody would like my idea of opening an arcade in Big Bear with all the tables FarSight owns. I argued that space in the building is quickly running out, and then what? The response was, we like playing these too much to not have them on site. Room will be found! Plus they still reference them for all those tweaks that we keep demanding. But then it comes out they actually are looking into opening a place up, potentially a retro bar with tables in it. Oh hells yeah!

How ‘bout partnering with a peripheral company to make a dedicated pinball controller? Owners of iCade might want to start practicing putting a smile on their face.

I go for another shot in the dark; selling t-shirts emblazoned with any kind of Pinball Arcade or FarSight logo. Well, it would require a 3rd party to make and ship, but could we one day be able to purchase those of FarSight’s website? Absolutely.

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s garbage time for questions!

I inquired about tables being in mono and being converted to stereo soundscapes…as if they’re not busy enough trying to keep deadlines, I want them to add in something inconsequential? Thanks for putting me in my place Norman!

I asked Rob how much he has to hold back when dispensing info in the forums and Facebook due to proprietary info, and it turns out it’s quite a bit. “It really sucks, ‘cause I see the fan’s frustrations and I totally get it, but there are some things we really can’t talk about!”

And believe me, every last person I talked to wants nothing more than to put out a kick ass pinball game. Everybody wears multiple hats when it comes to actual job duties. The love for pinball is every bit as much as we fans have, and I think that’s why we feel the connection to FarSight that we do. This isn’t a game company just putting out a title that happens to be pinball. This is pinball geeks putting out pinball games for other pinball geeks. There’s a reason Tim Arnold, owner of the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, allowed FarSight into his building after hours to photograph tables all those years back. He doesn’t even like virtual pinball, but he likes pinball people.

FarSight is as much a part of our forum here on Pinball Arcade Fans as any of us. I’ve seen ‘em in the chat room, they scan the forums to see what problems we’re having and what we’re loving, and they wanna make these tables as much for us as they do for themselves. This next year is gonna be every bit as good as the last from what I saw. I’ll have to make the trek up the mountain again for another update. Maybe there won’t be a need for so many questions, and instead I’ll actually get to play some of the tables. Then again, I didn’t get the chance to talk to Jay Obernolt. Next time!

I also think it’ll have to be during a warmer month when I won’t have to worry about putting chains on my car!

My thanks to Bobby King for the invite and allowing me to interview him. Rob was great at introducing me to everyone, and giving me ‘the look’ when there was something I wouldn’t be allowed to repeat. And no, I won’t tell any of you in a PM, I signed a Non Disclosure Agreement! Jason, Norman, and Mike were more than gracious with their time, as was everyone else I failed to mention I met during the 4+ hours I was there.

Viva la pinball!

Now how soon before we can play TAF was that again?

grashopper · Dec 25, 2012

Very interesting write up. Thanks for braving the crap weather.
I am a bit curious about Black Knight though... Even back when they put the you tube video out of the 360 version the black blotches were noticeable. Less than the PS3 maybe but it was still a bit ugly. Was it really that much of a improvement?

shutyertrap · Dec 25, 2012

I'm telling you, Jason booted it up on his rig and it looked beautiful. He started talking tech that was WAY over my head and somehow it got translated wrong when going to the PS3. But yeah, on his display, there wasn't a black blotch to be seen.

netizen · Dec 25, 2012

shutyertrap said:
Viva la pinball!

Now how soon before we can play TAF was that again?

Thanks for the insights. By Far the bestest christmas pressie i'll get.

All the best to everyone at Far Sight for all the work they have done.

grashopper · Dec 25, 2012

Wow ... Bit crazy that can happen that way. Very glad to hear that it's more of a crossed wires issue somewhere than a lazy art issue. Was one if the tables I had really been looking forward to. Hopefully they can fix it soon.

shutyertrap · Dec 25, 2012

Me too, but the gist I got was that was one of those that might not be changeable until a TPA2 gets released. Something to do with changing DLC on consoles...again, didn't quite get the lingo, but it was clear that was why Zen came out with the sequels they did, cause it was the only way to do certain changes.

That's why I'm hoping the addition of a light setting might be a work around. Global settings across all games, apparently not as big a deal as targeting a specific one.

francis247uk · Dec 25, 2012

Great article, good christmas reading! How were they coming along with Cactus Canyon, what sort of condition was it in?

Advalle · Dec 25, 2012

Very nice post

PiN WiZ · Dec 25, 2012

Thanks for the great read...very informative. By the way, I figured out all the blurred tables in about 15 minutes and was just wondering why FarSight made you blur a couple of machines that have already been confirmed? I won't spoil anything and just leave it at that.

Sean · Dec 25, 2012

Great stuff. This post should be required reading for all new members as it would probably short-circuit a lot of moaning. Like I've been saying these guys know there's issues and they're working to fix them, but there are reasons they don't happen as quickly as we'd like. Nice insight into the inner workings at Farsight, thanks SYT!

jrolson · Dec 25, 2012

Simply amazing read! Well done.

SilverBalls · Dec 25, 2012

Advalle said:
Very nice post

Very interesting read and nicely put the together. Thanks for putting it all together.

What really came over from this is how the Farsight team are a real bunch on Pinball fans themselves and this was the impression I already had before.

They are also a small team handling so many platforms at once which makes their job tough. The one thing that really does make their life difficult is they are trying to produce a replica of as complex machine that already exists. There will always be someone out there with more knowledge than them on a particular table, and they cannot compete with that. Also every table differs so much in looks, condition, the way it plays based on age, etc. so they can never please everyone.

Hopefully this article will help people to understand the challenges Farsight face, and the need for a little patience.

Kevlar · Dec 25, 2012

Great article. So anyone want to guess what the blurry machines are?

I'll start, there's a pinbot in the first photo of pins.

Palmer Eldritch · Dec 25, 2012

all right guys let's try to figure out those blurred images!

xNiCeGuYx · Dec 25, 2012

Yes, please!

Sean · Dec 25, 2012

Pin Bot, Firepower and Space Shuttle are games from the Wiiliams collection that absolutely need to be in the Pinball Arcade. I'm still hoping to see Aces High, my second favourite machine from the Gottlieb collection. After that, well, I love surprises!

gsxrboy · Dec 25, 2012

Thank you for the write up and a little info on the behind the scenes goings on, it was an interesting read for sure. Also thanks for risking life and limb on the snowy trails of slidey for our benefit

Heretic · Dec 25, 2012

for some reason i thought mike was jay heh

An Afternoon At FarSight Studios

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