A free-to-play model that I feel could actually work for pinball.

[mystman12]

With the release of the Williams Pinball app on mobile, I was pretty disappointed. I have the game on PC and Switch so I'm not really missing out on anything, but I would have bought a few packs to have on my phone had Zen just made them available for a fair price. I still can't get over how bad the current model is though. Three currencies, insane amounts of grinding, packs of zen coins that you can only buy in strange amounts that don't line up with the prices of what you can exchange them for, it's all classic free-to-play mobile garbage, and it doesn't mix well with pinball.

The thing is, I feel like there is a way to make free-to-play pinball work, and that would be by tapping into what pinball was designed for in the first place: Buying credits. Would it not be cool if the Williams app allowed you to buy packs of credits, and then spend those to play any game of your choosing until you run out? They could even make it so you can earn credits from replays and matches, or spend credits to get continues on games that support that. And of course, if you wanted, you could still buy individual machines out right to get free play and other features.

It probably wouldn't make as much money, but I think it would still be a really cool, somewhat authentic even, free-to-play model, and I'm surprised that no one (At least as far as I know) has tried it yet. If that was how Williams Pinball worked I'd probably have bought a few tables and bought a few packs of credits, which is more than I've given Zen through the current Williams app, but that's just me. Would anyone else like to see a pinball game try something like this?

 

[zmcvay]

Farsight tried this with the Ghostbusters reskin table. You got a few credits play at a time that slowly refreshed, then you could buy further credits. Even that didn't go over well, but I didn't really want to play Ghostbusters much more than that anyway.
Stern Pinball Arcade VR does something similar as well, though you can just pay the normal price to buy the tables there. I didn't mind it so much in that case, as I only played the occasional game of, for example, Phantom of the Opera but could just purchase tables like Star Trek that I played a lot of.

I think the thing is, arcades are one thing, games you play on your devices are another, and we have expectations set in place for both that don't mix well. I don't think I'd pay arcade prices per play for digital games.

 

[Xanija]

I would hate it. But then, I hate all "free-to-play" models.

 

[Scared Stiff]

I am not sure how buying credits fits into FREE to play...lol.

But I am open to new ideas. I want something that works for Zen. But it has got to work for all of us as well. I was happy with how things were until they came along with the “pay for only two stars” nonsense. That should have NEVER even had been considered in the first place. Either let people pay for the whole thing, or let them grind it out. But don’t do that weird middle ground where you BOTH pay AND grind that makes no one happy. Especially when it has been done differently previously. That’s just wrong.

 

[mystman12]

I am not sure how buying credits fits into FREE to play...lol.

Hmm, you have a point, haha. I suppose they could introduce other ways to earn credits like daily bonuses and watching ads. Really though I have no idea if a model like this would really be commercially viable, I just thought it would be interesting to see.