New table price season 3

brakel

New member
Apr 27, 2012
2,305
1
What FarSight and what Zen are doing is two different things. Why people keep comparing them is beyond me. Zen makes their own games, and one of them happens to be video game pinball. That's it. Just because Zen Studios puts out a pinball game, it doesn't mean they'd do, or even know how to do, exactly what FarSight is doing when it comes to re-producing real pinball tables. Nor would they have the time, resources, or the interest. You might as well just say that you wish Capcom or SquareEnix would take over FarSight. It would be the same thing. Actually, it would be even better because larger companies have larger teams and budgets.

But personally, I don't wish for FarSight to be bought out by anyone. Who knows what would happen to the quality... it could be 100x worse, or the game might get canned completely. I, for one, as a pinball enthusiast, really appreciate the work FarSight has done, and I think very highly of the quality too. I don't want anything to change other than what you'd expect from anyone... for FarSight to just keep improving themselves, and put out a consistently better product over time.

Real life is much different than my dream world. In real life I wouldn't want Zen to buy FarSight. But in my dream world Zen helps FarSight with some of the pesky publishing stuff while FarSight keeps working on virtual pinball machines in Big Bear.
 

Primero

New member
Sep 12, 2013
34
0
Real life is much different than my dream world. In real life I wouldn't want Zen to buy FarSight. But in my dream world Zen helps FarSight with some of the pesky publishing stuff while FarSight keeps working on virtual pinball machines in Big Bear.

Again, why Zen, instead of any of the numerous other companies out there with bigger budgets and teams? What makes you think Zen has any better chance of timely publishing and/or acquiring table licenses than anyone else? Just because they make... fantasy pinball tables? I'm not seeing the link between Zen's fantasy pinball work and easy real-world table license acquisition, or why they'd have any better luck with publishing than an even larger company. Not to bash your dream world, I'm just not understanding where you're coming from. Zen Studios makes video games, straight-up, like any other video game developer. FarSight puts together a simulation product implemented with real-world parts. They're two completely different things.

Another thing is, I don't know why people keep putting Zen on a pedestal like they've always got their stuff together. They've had their own problems too. Tables not importing properly, trophies not unlocking (multiple times), and recently, the new Doctor Strange table was not registering properly with PS3 players (like me) and we had to download an unlock key from a previously purchased table (strangely) in order to get the game to recognize Doctor Strange as a full table and not just a demo. And it wasn't showing up in the store for PS4 players, but I guess that could be Sony's fault. Zen's tables also have many glitches too, just like FarSight's. I've run into a lot of them myself. They're not perfect.

The polish that people see in Zen's work is clearly coming from the fact that Zen has a really talented team... they are supremely artistic. Really impressive artistic vision, indeed. Of course, this passes through to every aspect of the game, including the presentation from the very beginning in their boot-up screen and in the table select menu as well. But it doesn't mean that FarSight's game is not polished. Their various menus and leaderboards may not be very polished, but the tables certainly are, to me anyway. I feel like they play very well, and I'm still impressed by the level of realism they've been able to achieve. But they're a different group of guys with a different vision of how things should be presented. I don't think anyone would have a problem with that scrolling table menu if it was really sharp looking, and if it doesn't get too long (may have to replace it with a Zen-style menu when the collection reaches 50 or so...), and maybe they know that the thing that matters the most is the meat and bones of the product, and that's the tables themselves, which do, for the most part, look and play very well. So maybe that's why they don't put too much effort into the main menu, or the generic sounding music that plays in the background. Maybe they feel that those things don't really matter in the end, and you know what? They don't. I wouldn't mind if those things were upgraded, sure, but I also wouldn't ever feel bothered if they weren't. As long as high-quality tables keep coming, FarSight will stay in my good graces.

Am I rambling? Probably. I get like this when I'm hungry. :p Gonna a make a sandwich. Later.
 

SilverBalls

Active member
Apr 12, 2012
1,233
3
I have said it before but will say it again, why doesn't FS employ on a one-off fee basis some of the many talented VP artists who do playfield redraws, etc. These people are extremely talented, they do it for the love of pinball, they strive for perfection and for many of them seeing their work in a commercial product is reward enough, however paying a fee of course would work better and be fairer. There are many examples (but not all) out there where the VP redraws and recreations are superior to that in PA. I think that this type is the only way we will ever see EMs in PA now, ie: if they are produced on a low budget.
 

brakel

New member
Apr 27, 2012
2,305
1
Again, why Zen, instead of any of the numerous other companies out there with bigger budgets and teams? What makes you think Zen has any better chance of timely publishing and/or acquiring table licenses than anyone else? Just because they make... fantasy pinball tables? I'm not seeing the link between Zen's fantasy pinball work and easy real-world table license acquisition, or why they'd have any better luck with publishing than an even larger company. Not to bash your dream world, I'm just not understanding where you're coming from. Zen Studios makes video games, straight-up, like any other video game developer. FarSight puts together a simulation product implemented with real-world parts. They're two completely different things.

Another thing is, I don't know why people keep putting Zen on a pedestal like they've always got their stuff together. They've had their own problems too. Tables not importing properly, trophies not unlocking (multiple times), and recently, the new Doctor Strange table was not registering properly with PS3 players (like me) and we had to download an unlock key from a previously purchased table (strangely) in order to get the game to recognize Doctor Strange as a full table and not just a demo. And it wasn't showing up in the store for PS4 players, but I guess that could be Sony's fault. Zen's tables also have many glitches too, just like FarSight's. I've run into a lot of them myself. They're not perfect.

The polish that people see in Zen's work is clearly coming from the fact that Zen has a really talented team... they are supremely artistic. Really impressive artistic vision, indeed. Of course, this passes through to every aspect of the game, including the presentation from the very beginning in their boot-up screen and in the table select menu as well. But it doesn't mean that FarSight's game is not polished. Their various menus and leaderboards may not be very polished, but the tables certainly are, to me anyway. I feel like they play very well, and I'm still impressed by the level of realism they've been able to achieve. But they're a different group of guys with a different vision of how things should be presented. I don't think anyone would have a problem with that scrolling table menu if it was really sharp looking, and if it doesn't get too long (may have to replace it with a Zen-style menu when the collection reaches 50 or so...), and maybe they know that the thing that matters the most is the meat and bones of the product, and that's the tables themselves, which do, for the most part, look and play very well. So maybe that's why they don't put too much effort into the main menu, or the generic sounding music that plays in the background. Maybe they feel that those things don't really matter in the end, and you know what? They don't. I wouldn't mind if those things were upgraded, sure, but I also wouldn't ever feel bothered if they weren't. As long as high-quality tables keep coming, FarSight will stay in my good graces.

Am I rambling? Probably. I get like this when I'm hungry. :p Gonna a make a sandwich. Later.

Because it's my dream world, that's why.
 

shutyertrap

Moderator
Staff member
Mar 14, 2012
7,334
0
Why do we always bring up Zen when talking TPA? Because they have a proven passion for making pinball just like FarSight. There aren't currently any other studios showing that same dedication and drive. Could you imagine the reaction if Activision suddenly took over FS? Resources to make an uber polished game? You bet. Odds of them shuttering it after a few months? Very high. Simply put, if you were to partner or be taken over by someone, wouldn't you want it to be someone that did so because they wanted your product and aren't just looking at you like an asset?

Shoot, if I had to pick any one company to try there hand at what TPA does, it'd be Polyphany Digital. Can you imagine if they were as passionate about pinball as they are about cars? But you don't bring up FarSight and Polyphany in the same sentence because they are apples to oranges. Zen and FS are apples to apples. They both make pinball games, they both show a desire to put out pinball games, and I think they to an extent feed off each other to improve.
 

Jamman39

New member
Jan 1, 2013
246
0
Shoot, if I had to pick any one company to try there hand at what TPA does, it'd be Polyphany Digital. Can you imagine if they were as passionate about pinball as they are about cars?

Haha I was just thinking about this the other day. I think back to the Polyphony team literally crawling around the Nurburghring on their knees taking photos of every inch of track to faithfully recreate it for GT5, and it's pretty hard to compare what they do to what Farsight does. That said if Farsight had the budget Polyphony does maybe they'd do the same
 

Rudy Yagov

New member
Mar 30, 2012
836
0
Haha I was just thinking about this the other day. I think back to the Polyphony team literally crawling around the Nurburghring on their knees taking photos of every inch of track to faithfully recreate it for GT5, and it's pretty hard to compare what they do to what Farsight does. That said if Farsight had the budget Polyphony does maybe they'd do the same

If only they did that with their cars.

Don't get me wrong, I'm playing and enjoying GT6, but I can't believe they think nobody will notice how bad some of these re-used PS2 car models look. GT4 was 8 years ago, and they're still using the cars from that game.

The cars they build from scratch just for the PS3 look amazing, I'll give them that. But it really bothers me that there are so many cars that aren't high quality like that.
 
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Primero

New member
Sep 12, 2013
34
0
I think brakel's comment was taken a little to serious.

Not taking it too seriously, just trying to have a conversation. The only thing I was seriously serious about was trying to understand where he was coming from in regards to his dream world. Things like that always interest me. I'm a psychology nut so I'm always digging around for unique details to ponder and feed my wonder.

Why do we always bring up Zen when talking TPA? Because they have a proven passion for making pinball just like FarSight. There aren't currently any other studios showing that same dedication and drive. Could you imagine the reaction if Activision suddenly took over FS? Resources to make an uber polished game? You bet. Odds of them shuttering it after a few months? Very high. Simply put, if you were to partner or be taken over by someone, wouldn't you want it to be someone that did so because they wanted your product and aren't just looking at you like an asset?

Shoot, if I had to pick any one company to try there hand at what TPA does, it'd be Polyphany Digital. Can you imagine if they were as passionate about pinball as they are about cars? But you don't bring up FarSight and Polyphany in the same sentence because they are apples to oranges. Zen and FS are apples to apples. They both make pinball games, they both show a desire to put out pinball games, and I think they to an extent feed off each other to improve.

I see your point. Of course, the pinball parallel is a given. But I'm thinking that Zen isn't interested in reproducing real-world tables. That's just the feeling I get anytime I've seen a Zen rep speak on the issue. If they bought out FarSight, they might just flush the Pinball Arcade so that all the pinball fiends' attention would be on their own creations... like when Vince McMahon bought out WCW just to shut them down... ha ha... (Man, I'm so glad I grew out of watching wrestling. I thought it was great when I was younger, but now I realize how terrible it is, and was all along. Sorry, off topic...)
 
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The loafer

Member
Oct 28, 2012
494
0
Haha I was just thinking about this the other day. I think back to the Polyphony team literally crawling around the Nurburghring on their knees taking photos of every inch of track to faithfully recreate it for GT5, and it's pretty hard to compare what they do to what Farsight does. That said if Farsight had the budget Polyphony does maybe they'd do the same


Agreed, if Polyphony would make a pin simulator, each table would end up being at least 30 bucks per table. Most people would whine they are too expensive, forgetting we were willing to pay $40/$50 for one table 15 years ago.

I sometimes think the biggest crime to happen to virtual pinball is that it's become lumped in with "casual gaming". I get why, because of the nature of the short burst of gaming many may feel it belongs in that group but for any true pinhead, IMHO, I don't think we see each other as casual gamers at all. In fact, we are on the opposite end of that scale! Anyway, being lumped in with the casual crowd means the dev budgets will forever be small, with the odd few exceptions (pro-pinball team) and even then, they are still way under budget dev/sales wise compared to the "old" days.
 

Tabe

Member
Apr 12, 2012
833
0
Again, why Zen, instead of any of the numerous other companies out there with bigger budgets and teams? What makes you think Zen has any better chance of timely publishing and/or acquiring table licenses than anyone else?
Because Zen's publisher is Microsoft?
 

Buzz1126

New member
Dec 27, 2013
258
0
Keith Richards has been dead for over twenty years. Nobody's told him, though...
 
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