Is this it for Farsight / Pinball Arcade?

[rob3d]

The very legitimate concern is that if any of your tables were purchased through the TPA app and not say through Steam, you need to log in to play, otherwise it will show those tables as being locked. Same goes for people that contributed to a Kickstarter or won the tables through a FarSight giveaway. In every case, you need to first log in to the FarSight servers in order to have access to those tables. FarSight has said that keeping those servers open in very inexpensive and as long as their doors are open, so will the servers. That's one of the key benefits to buying the Arcooda stand alone pack, it is entirely self contained and won't be vulnerable to updates nor does it require a log in. Arcooda actually has these still available for sale (they did a block purchase so are legally still able to offer these) if it really is a concern to someone.

Not only am I not concerned, I'll progressively get less concerned as tables release for FX3.

I've had this exact problem recently and I am very worried for the future. I attempted to change my password for my FS account and I was stuck in an endless loop of "password not verified use forgot password to verify" Only the forgot password system doesn't send a verification only the reset pass so I was unable to log in on any platform. Because of this I lost access to 50 of my tables on steam as I bought those through the app and not the steam store. After discussing with farsight they had to manually change my password and said in the future to use the website not the app to reset. However this doesnt work either. Even though the apps accept the password they had to create for me, the website will always return the same error of "password not verified use forgot password to verify" Speaking to them they have no idea what is causing that and they sent it to their internal tech support. That was a month ago and still no results. If and when FS closes the doors on TPA there's a more than likely chance many will lose access to tables on steam because of this issue.

 

[lettuce]

Think their on life support tbh, the last table pack came out what over 3 months ago now?, and not a peep of an announcement of what tables are next let alone a release date. RIP

 

[shutyertrap]

Think their on life support tbh, the last table pack came out what over 3 months ago now?, and not a peep of an announcement of what tables are next let alone a release date. RIP

TPA might be, but FarSight has other projects.

 

[Gorgias32]

I think the concerns above are legitimate, it's more than just keeping the server lit up, Farsight will need to dedicate some support resources to handling lost passwords/license issues/etc. Still probably not a huge amount of work on their side (hopefully). I will say that Farsight's technical support has always been very responsive and helpful when I have needed to use them.

 

[trash80]

TPA might be, but FarSight has other projects.

Being aware of what these "other projects" are and how the current business climate in that particular area is rapidly changing, color me a bit skeptical that FarSight will be able to operate much longer in their current capacity.

 

[shogun00]

Being aware of what these "other projects" are and how the current business climate in that particular area is rapidly changing, color me a bit skeptical that FarSight will be able to operate much longer in their current capacity.

Farsight is a contract company. Mike had to reiterate this again on the Blahcade podcast. In other words, they get hired by big companies to make (usually casual) games for them. They've been doing this practice for decades.

Pinball Arcade is the sole title where Farsight did everything on their own. FWIW, the two Pinball Hall of Fame games were contract work from Crave Entertainment.

 

[trash80]

Farsight is a contract company. Mike had to reiterate this again on the Blahcade podcast. In other words, they get hired by big companies to make (usually casual) games for them. They've been doing this practice for decades.

Pinball Arcade is the sole title where Farsight did everything on their own. FWIW, the two Pinball Hall of Fame games were contract work from Crave Entertainment.

That was exactly my point.

Even Pinball Arcade was leveraged into things like Arcooda, SPA and the VR version which were technically contract work.

 

[KathyP]

Data East and Sega tables are part of the Stern license for TPA. So from that perspective, yes FarSight could do Jurassic Park. Where things get tricky is that Zen has put out a Jurassic Park table pack of original tables. Licensing logic dictates that Zen licensed for the digital rights, which would eliminate the chances for FarSight to do the Data East version in TPA.

This isn’t confirmed, but we have heard through various sources that this is the case with Deadpool, Family Guy, Marvel and Star Wars too. The license holders don’t want customers getting confused by having the brand be on two separate but very similar things. With pinball, where there is a large swathe of customers that have no clue a real Jurassic Park machine exists, this would be especially problematic.

thanks - I won't hold my breath then, shame because it's quite a decent (if easy) table.

 

[wilbers]

Just noticed something on Farsight's website

http://farsightstudios.com/portfolio/pinball-arcade/

Still says Tales of the Arabian Nights is the free table.

Also, apparently its won "Mobile Game of the Yea" - sounds like something worth winning, but I'm assuming they've just missed the "r" off the end!

 

[Zaphod77]

not now it doesn't.

 

[Pete]

Jay Obernolte is currently writing down code for metallica on bar napkins, i ran into him at a kegger and he said all tables that are not metallica is wussy crap for pansies and then he drop kicked me in the face and shouted "pantera". It was the best moment of my life.

 

[xZOMBIEx]

so over a year later and still nothing from FarSight other than an advertisement for a crappy new mobile Pinball game that has nothing to do with actual Pinball tables and nothing to do with TPA...

It was obvious once Zen got the license from Williams and even more obvious and the final nail in FarSights coffin that they were done when Zen's versions was 100 times better and the closest to actual Pinball tables...

Plus, I already saw all the signs before their last season was even finished releasing completely because they had already started saying and doing the same things they did when they stopped supporting the last gen console versions. They started saying the same things about how the last table packs would be coming "soon" and how it was taking an extremely long time between releases and patch fixes...

I know some of you held out hope, but the writing was on the wall... If you haven't already and still trying to hold out hope for something new, then don't. Make the switch already to Zen's Pinball FX3 and get the new Williams tables, even if you already had them on TPA because they are completely worth it and are the closest to playing a real table...

 

[WesReviews]

They had an interview with Bobby King on the BlahCade Podcast a few weeks ago. Here are some of the highlights.

- Farsight is still committed to TPA and will be releasing 5-6 tables (Stern, Gottlieb licenses) a year going forward.
- As soon as they complete the LCD screen feature for TPA, they will be releasing all future Stern tables day-to-date as the physical versions. As per their parnership agreement with Stern.

https://medium.com/blahcade-pinball...ollection_category---2------5----------------

I've been out of the loop for quite a while now, sooooooo.... where are these 5-6 Stern and Gottlieb tables per year?

What's going on with TPA and FarSight?

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

This is what's going on with Farsight, apart from the very occasional TPA sale:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1126990/PBA_Pro_Bowling/

 

[shutyertrap]

I've been out of the loop for quite a while now, sooooooo.... where are these 5-6 Stern and Gottlieb tables per year?

What's going on with TPA and FarSight?

That interview was done prior to FarSight knowing Zen had secured the Williams license. Zen getting it was like a knockout punch. I think it convinced FS to get out of the pinball arena and focus elsewhere. Big Buck Hunter and Whoa Nellie came months later and were hardly their best effort. A FS employee commented in this forum that old Gottliebs weren’t gonna sell and the licensed Sterns all cost too much. We all questioned whether that 7 year old game engine could even handle a modern LCD display machine, and them saying it could was all bluster it seems. I’m convinced they don’t even have the license to recreate Stern anymore, and that their ability to sell those packs they did make will be coming to an end rather soon. Just a gut feeling, based on when contracts should expire.

 

[WesReviews]

I'd like to combine these points a bit and add that, if they were so dead set on Premiers, they should have just found a way to pay for Stargate and Freddy. Unless the license holders were completely unwilling to strike a deal.

Warner Bros. will put Freddy's face on ANYTHING. There's even a Freddy toaster and chopsticks. (Seriously.)

If FarSight made them an offer to do the Freddy table, they would FOR SURE listen.

I still think a Warner Bros. deal could have born decent fruit...

Freddy (Gottlieb)
Batman (Data East)
Batman Forever (Data East)
Lethal Weapon 3 (Data East)
Tales From The Crypt (Data East)
Twister (Data East)
Maverick (Data East)
Space Jam (Data East)

 

[shutyertrap]

FarSight had told me that they made contact with WB, but their price for any licensing was way above what the other studios asked.

 

[Naildriver74]

Still a lot of good memories. It was fun being a beta tester for them. There’s was a lot of good people involved and some like shutyertrap and Jarrod are totally passionate about pinball. Thanks

 

[TFHFony]

I've been out of the loop for quite a while now, sooooooo.... where are these 5-6 Stern and Gottlieb tables per year?

What's going on with TPA and FarSight?

I wouldn't count on any TPA releases anymore. Or bugfixes for that matter.

 

[WesReviews]

FarSight had told me that they made contact with WB, but their price for any licensing was way above what the other studios asked.

Interesting. At least they tried, I guess.

Shame they couldn't work out a deal for Congo while they had the agreement with Paramount for Addams Family. Of course, TAF was expensive enough to get on its own, I suppose. With Congo, you'd have to pay Paramount, the Crichton estate, actors featured, etc.