Confusion on pricing and sharing tables

[boof]

Hi,

Hot off the back of pinball dreams and fantasies I was quite excited to find this.

This is probably a very daft question, but I can't find what seem to be simple answers anywhere.

Is there any info on the pricing tiers and pack contents anywhere?

And, if I purchase tables under ios (or any other device I guess) am I eligible to use those tables on another device if I also have pinball arcade installed there? I'm thinking pc in my specific case. Otherwise buying up tables per platform would get pricey...

The App Store has two base apps - one free and one 69p (uk) I have no idea what the difference is ? Similarly in app table purchases seem straight forward enough but it also tries to sell me table packs. I can't see a way to figure out how many of these packs there are or what they each contain.

Can anyone help? These seem like simple questions and I appreciate I may be missing something obvious but I can't see much info on their main website.

 

[DeeEff]

TPA purchases are not transferable across platforms (e.g., iOS to PC), but are 'transferable' within one platform (e.g., multiple iOS devices).

The free and paid apps are identical except that the paid version comes with TotAN unlocked and ready to go with all other tables playable as a short demo (game stops when you reach the lowest score in the local high score table), while the free version is all demos. I'd recommend buying the paid version and going from there if you might be adding Game Center friends, as you can't (easily) compare achievements between the free and paid versions. That said, GC doesn't play very well with TPA (it's all achievements, no score comparisons; and Farsight ran out of available GC slots a few tables back, so everything made after Cactus Canyon is completely missing from GC), so going solely with the free TPA isn't all that bad.

Pricing seems to be $4.99 US for a two-table pack, new tables released every month. Previously-released tables are purchased for anything from $0.99 to $3.99(?) per table or as two-table packs. From the app just pick a table and you'll see its purchase options, some are available as single tables only, some are available as single tables or as part of a 2-pack, and others are available as part of a 2-pack only.

My advice: Buy 'em all! As part of a pack when available, individually when needed. The pricing is steep when compared to the plethora of cheap games in the App Store, but if you like real pinball TPA is as good as it gets and a SUPER value for the money.

Just my $0.02,
- Don

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

For everything you could ever want to know regarding table pack pricing, see this thread http://digitalpinballfans.com/showt...arSight-Studios-Concerning-The-Pinball-Arcade and scroll down to the General Information section.

 

[boof]

Thanks both - that's perfectly answered my questions!

Sorry I didn't spot that forum thread - I did actually see it but didn't look in it based on the title. I assumed it was just updated / changelogs etc.

And DeeEff - you're right, it is worth the money. I can't believe I only stumbled across it just now. It is a little disappointing I can't use tables with any client but perhaps this might be something that changes. And / or I guess we've yet to see firm pricing on the PC side of things.

 

[Gord Lacey]

It won't be something that changes, because each distribution method has different hands in the jar. Buying it on iOS and then getting it free on, let's say, PS3 means Apple gets money, but Sony doesn't. Buying it on Steam and getting it free on iOS means Valve gets money, and Apple doesn't...

 

[boof]

It won't be something that changes, because each distribution method has different hands in the jar. Buying it on iOS and then getting it free on, let's say, PS3 means Apple gets money, but Sony doesn't. Buying it on Steam and getting it free on iOS means Valve gets money, and Apple doesn't...

There's little point me arguing as I obviously have no understanding of the backend distribution structure, however...

Your suggestion above would mean that it's the distribution channels blocking proceedings not Farsight. On the PC platform that goes out the window. Farsight centrally have me login to their own backend aggregator so know what tables I've bought and from where. It would be trivial for them to offer the equivalent tables for download 'free' for the PC at that point outwith steam.

Whether steam would be ok with that or not, I don't know. But it's not much different to addon's or mods so I'm not sure how they could stop it.

And from Farsights perspective better I buy the table *somewhere* full stop so they get their cut - then I don't buy at all and they get nothing. But they may equally be happy nickle and diming me across multiple clients where they can. There would be an argument that the table under ios is actually a seperate product because it's portable / gc integration - and so has it's own value in isolation. I'm not sure I share that as a consumer but I would probably take that stance as a content producer

Though I appreciate what you're saying. I suspect the contracts / deals in place for the various distribution means are very aggressive and not really stacked in the consumers favour.

Being blunt my concern here is sinking cash into a locked platform. With ios in a years time will my ipad still be relevant? Who knows. If not then I've 'lost' all those purchases and they're stuck. This isn't just TPA I generally avoid purchasing anything under IOS / android where possible. You can go far with free apps.

Similar with the 360 and ps3. Those consoles are already EOL and likely not going to current for another 12 months. Sony and Microsoft may allow you / may have backwards compatibility to let you pull forward all your PSN and XBLA purchases - but they may not. I'm not sure that detail has been announced?

PC is the one constant for me. It's the most flexible and open (even assuming steam). Still not perfect but, for me, it has a much higher predicted lifespan than my ipad. All of which is making me reluctant to start stumping up cash for tables on ios when I have a feeling I'll be doing it all over again for the PC.

Given the mechanism exists for Farsight to know what tables I've purchased against my account it's certainly possible to do what I'm suggesting.

I will live in hope / continued naivety

Such a scheme would certainly encourage me to open the purse strings and spend on tables with abandon.

 

[Gord Lacey]

Well, one of the other issues would be development costs that need to be covered. There's work that goes into tuning the game for each platform it's released on. If everyone that bought the iOS/Android versions got the PC versions for free, where does the money come from to support the PC development?

 

[boof]

Well, one of the other issues would be development costs that need to be covered. There's work that goes into tuning the game for each platform it's released on. If everyone that bought the iOS/Android versions got the PC versions for free, where does the money come from to support the PC development?

Well the money all goes to the same place in the end right? So why differentiate between the platforms. You have a product (table) you want to sell. And you want to get it to the widest market you can so you convert to all formats you want to target. You'd also have people buying on the PC platform primarily. But it doesn't matter given it goes into the same bucket. You could internally run the business as being separate entities for each platform (and maybe they do?) and have them compete against each other / have to stand on their own two feet. That would seem a bit odd for a company for the sort of size I'm guessing they are.

This also depends on the effort required to convert the tables. I really have no idea. But I would imagine that whatever the business model you'd want, as a developer, to get that conversion time down by making it as easy as possible. Whether that's making the table data as simple as possible and doing the heavy lifting in the client or having a 'master' table model that can then be programatically 'compiled' down into the model for each version I don't know. But the faster the turnaround you can get on tables the better in any payment model.

In todays throwaway 'buy the same media 10 times in different formats over the years' society this might not be an issue now. But given the current rate of development and presuming the odd licensing bump along the way I'm guessing there is scope for hundreds perhaps into thousands of machines to be released for TPA? When you have 400 tables bound to your ios account and apple goes away, ios goes away, the ipad as a form factor goes away or TPA just stops supporting ios you might be a bit miffed you have to pay for the tables again just because you now want to use a different client.

You can argue this is no different than if I bought space invaders on the 2600 on day of release and complain I can't now play it for no extra cost on my ipad. There's an argument there but, playing into the TPA models hands, I don't feel I'm paying for TPA the client. I'm paying for the individual tables one by one. So I don't, as a consumer, really have it in my head that I should be locked to a specific format for them when the infrastructure is there to also have them on other platforms at the same time. Right or wrong? Twisted sense of entitlement? I don't know - but as a consumer it would be the winning model.

It's easy to see from both sides of the argument. They're a business so the current way of getting money everytime no matter what is obviously best for them but for me, personally, as a consumer it's short sighted. The longer they can sustain me as a customer over the long run the more I'll spend with them.

As I said naive perhaps but as someone whose bought (as an example) the same film across the years on x different types of media - I'm kind of getting tired of that sort of approach. Where possible I want to buy into something that's a bit longer term and with TPA I can see everything in place to allow that model, so I'll remain hopeful.

In the meantime I've picked up 3 or 4 tables which is more than enough to chew through until, hopefully, the PC version appears and we can see what the pricing looks like. I imagine I'll spend on the PC version rather than IOS. I also imagine I'll end up buying the same tables I've already bought..again..on the PC. And I'll grind my teeth as I do it (or wait for a sale ) but at least it will only be 3 or 4 and so only a handful of $.

They'll still get my money - but they could be having it right now if I knew I could transfer the table purchases to the PC client and they'd likely get more as I would be less bothered about buying lots of tables.

 

[bavelb]

Considering the plethora of examples you give that opposes the idea of "sharing across platforms" I can see you know how the real world works. I'm pretty sure we can come up with 100's more if we want to. Ill suffice by saying just 4 words : Nintendo, Disney, Star Wars.

Therefor it's a bit moot to start this discussion on what companies "should" do for their consumers. Maybe they should, but they won't, and apart from a very very small percentage of people, their consumers dont expect them they will. And I'm not sure a 99 ct DLC-package is where we should start that particular discussion. But then again this is coming from someone who will buy certain tables for the fourth time when they are coming to Steam (totan, rbion, TOM, Bop, MM).

 

[Dumpstar]

TPA is pretty much all I play on my iphone. Bought a mophie battery pack so I would still have extra battery when I needed it.