After all these years, PBA is less popular than...

[EnergyOne]

...Lawbreakers.

That's a bit of a shock. Kind of interesting to see where it stands.

 

[Beatfox]

I'm actually a bit surprised PBA came that close to Lawbreakers. Pinball is very much a niche genre. With the FPS scene as big as it is, even the commercial failures get a ton of exposure.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Less popular than Monday Night Combat. That was actually a fun game there for a minute. Sad the developers screwed it over.

Space Pirates and Zombies! Now we’re talking lol. I actually wish I would’ve bought that in the summer sales...

Hey at least TPA beat Guacamelee! Gold Edition. it actually looks pretty fun.

Beating a game like Wolfenstein II is pretty impressive, although I guess it hasn’t been in the store nearly as long as TPA and apparently wasn’t as popular as I would have imagined.

 

[Citizen]

We beat Grim Fandango and Jet Set Radio.

We did it, maw.

 

[lio]

I don't really believe that list is reliable... Half-Life 2 below Portal?

 

[shutyertrap]

I don't really believe that list is reliable... Half-Life 2 below Portal?

I play Portal and Portal 2, have never played Half-Life. Portal was even put into classrooms. So yeah, it's believable to me.

 

[shutyertrap]

So actually reading the article, this "only works for games with developer-defined Achievements" and does not take into account whether the game has been played or not. It does count for unique downloads though, but in the case of TPA or Zen, is it only counting the base game or all DLC too? I did look up some Zen DLC and it didn't appear on the list.

So here's some download numbers for you all...

Pinball Arcade 555,716
FX3 66,560
Zaccaria 48,795
Super Steampunk 18,480
Stern Pinball Arcade 9877
FX2 VR 7127
Hyperspace 6716
Malzbie's Pin Collection 6533
ASCII Game Series: Pinball 4164
Liquid Pinball 4164
Zombie Pinball 3711
Momonga Pinball 1744
Pinball Wicked 1137
Babylon 2055 Pinball 951
Quantic Pinball 831
Pinball Deluxe: Reloaded 725
Pinball Parlor 325
Pinball 2018 138

You'll notice Pro Pinball Ultra is not listed. Guess it doesn't have achievements? A lot of these are exactly the kind of crapfest you'd expect, but that last one, Pinball Parlor, is a single EM style table that looks really good. Problem is it's $12.99! Anyway, looks like I just found our topic for today's podcast!

 

[lio]

I also love the Portal games but find it hard to believe that less people have HL2 in their steam library.

 

[Beatfox]

I also love the Portal games but find it hard to believe that less people have HL2 in their steam library.

Those numbers aren't accurate for older games. One of the promoted comments explains it:

It's "total number of Steam users who have played the game at least once after achievements were added to the game."

It seems like a meaningless distinction, but for older games is a huge deal. A quick google search didn't get me an exact date for when achievements were added but it must have been between 2008 (release of Steamworks API) and 2010 (date of oldest forum post complaining about steam achievements that came up in my first search). A game like Half-Life 2 came out in 2004. What percentage of the people who own that title launched it after 2008? In a similar vein, Steam tells me I have only 97 hours of play time in Counter-Strike: Source despite me spending almost every waking moment outside of class my junior and senior year of college playing it. IIRC activity tracking wasn't added until two years after I had graduated and at that point I had stopped playing CS:S entirely.

Beyond the hard cutoff for older game counts, not all games have achievements immediately. At least at the beginning of the Greenlight and Early Access programs, games generally didn't have achievements (similar to them not being able to have trading cards). Someone who purchased an early access game and played it prior to achievements being added, then never came back (chasing the latest and greatest game in their ever expanding backlog) won't show up in this as a purchase.

 

[shutyertrap]

The plot thickens!

 

[blindpeser]

Wow, impressive number of downloads. Would bei interesting to know, how much an averahe downloader spent. You got numbers for FX2 (non-VR)? Those Zen games got no free tables, right?

 

[SilverBalls]

Shame Zaccaria deserves a lot more than that. Having just experienced it last night in a cabinet I can't recommend it enough. So many good things to say, the lighting rocks, being able to adjust the physics to get that heavy ball experience is awesome, the game modes make it competitive, and the number of tables is mindblowing.

btw: Is that Jared's voice I keep hearing?

 

[shutyertrap]

Wow, impressive number of downloads. Would bei interesting to know, how much an averahe downloader spent. You got numbers for FX2 (non-VR)? Those Zen games got no free tables, right?

FX2 wasn't in the list since it is no longer for sale in Steam, only the VR version. That's a bummer too, as I'd really like to know how much that affects the download numbers in comparison to TPA.

 

[shutyertrap]

Shame Zaccaria deserves a lot more than that. Having just experienced it last night in a cabinet I can't recommend it enough. So many good things to say, the lighting rocks, being able to adjust the physics to get that heavy ball experience is awesome, the game modes make it competitive, and the number of tables is mindblowing.

btw: Is that Jared's voice I keep hearing?

I'm amazed at how few people have downloaded Pinball Wicked. Gotta be the price it was at, but it's a gorgeous looking game.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

I'm amazed at how few people have downloaded Pinball Wicked. Gotta be the price it was at, but it's a gorgeous looking game.

Pinball Deluxe Reloaded has even less than that. Great 2D pinball game.

 

[shutyertrap]

2D pinball is so not my thing. That one though at least looks a ton better than the leading 2D pinball, which is Super Steampunk.

 

[SilverBalls]

I'm amazed at how few people have downloaded Pinball Wicked. Gotta be the price it was at, but it's a gorgeous looking game.

Agreed - well worth the money IMO - Would love to see that tech to be applied to some real tables.

 

[kouchan]

Pinball Parlor, is a single EM style table that looks really good. Problem is it's $12.99!

It is a video of Pinball Parlor I uploaded.
I can not believe in physics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyXpUTEt20g&t=196s

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/277170583

 

[The loafer]

I'd love to see a video of Pinball Parlor without someone taking advantage of the unlimited nudging. That way we could get a opportunity to determine just how good/bad the physics are.

 

[dave950lam]

EARTH-SHAKER!!!!!!!


And though it's an EM, the pitch isn't steep enough.