Satisfied with price of digital pinballs? Willing to pay more? Less?

[HighFive]

I can't resist a good movie analogy...

AAA game titles coming out that cost $60 compared to micro budget indies costing $20, true it doesn't compare apples to apples with the movie industry. Customer buying habits have been shaped differently over the years. Zen is obviously an indie studio themselves, but they are much larger than Magic Pixel and FormSlingers. All of them however are making pinball games. So let's look at the argument brought up then that within one studio's game, there'd be different pricing (the example given was paying $3 for CSI but $10-$20 for BK:SoR).

Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, all leading up to Avengers, these were all big ticket AAA characters as far as Marvel was concerned with the MCU. Let's call these all deserving of the $20 movie ticket. Then they put out Ant-Man. Hardly a AAA character, lower budget film, untested director, starring a comedian. So they charge $10 for a movie ticket. We get another Thor movie, another Cap America, and then some movie featuring a talking racoon and a tree? Like they are really scraping the barrel to see what audiences will accept! Back to $10 for a ticket. Turns out to be a huge hit. And then Civil War comes out and Ant-Man works within the scheme of all the other heroes. Next time we see Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man and the Wasp, are those tickets $20 now because of the importance those characters now play in the MCU? When Avengers: Endgame comes out, does it now cost $30 because it literally features everyone?

Zen is making digital pinball games. Don't sell me Bob's Burgers at twice the price of Aliens, simply because it's newer. Or because you like that show better. If everything is viewed as being the same value, I'm more likely to give something like Bob's Burgers a spin because of how well the Aliens table was done.

Perhaps the other way it could be done, to make things more equal, is having more recent pins at 20$, CSI or BKSOR as example, and having more often sales at 50%, 75% off, for the tables that dont get amazing sells. I agree that having different prices for each tables is not the perfect solution, will be an indication that some tables might not be better than the more pricy ones. Im just ready IF one day something happen that a developer, hoping its Zen, decided to release newer content, from Stern, JJ, Spooky, etc, i wont mind leaving that like 4$ sweet spot a lot seem to consider this is the normality that it should be. Its just hard to see that a lot of people were as example whining about special 50% off price of ACDC at 6$,or just cant buy individualy Zen tables, what would it be if its price of newer content would be 2-3 time of the price were use to pay. Not everybody got the chance to play these newer pinballs, and i wont mind a price increase if it give me the chance to play them digitally.

 

[Blkthorne]

I can remember the ill fated Game Room for the Xbox 360, the Microsoft rep was saying in an interview that they would be getting anything and everything for the app, with all the arcade giants all lining up to be a part of this great deal. They had this small indie company to do the emulation called Krome and they already had Atari(arcade/2600), Konami(arcade), Intellivision and Activision(2600) signed up. I think they charged $2-3 for individual games, so you had arcade games mixed in with 2600/Intellivision games which led to a lot of complaints in the quality of the app. Microsoft pretty much abandoned it and Krome was left with holding the bag and trying to fix lots and lots of bugs. Hamster, which owns the rights to games like Crazy Climber, Moon Patrol and Terra Cresta ie and currently sell their games on the PS4 for around $8 a piece, just laughed about how people wanted them to sell games for $2-3 on Game Room when they easily get people to pay their price. You even see what people are willing to pay for older games with the release of the Arcade 1up(https://arcade1up.com/) cabinets @ $75-400 with 2-4 games per cab with one 6-1 and 12-1 deluxe units, or the New Wave Toys(https://newwavetoys.com/) miniature cabs @ $100-160. Back when I owned my PS/PS2 and Xbox I always loved getting the various compilation games with Midway/Williams, Namco, Konami, Taito, and Capcom collections with 20-30 games at roughly $1 a game on them but I guess they didn't sell very well cause you rarely see them anymore.

 

[zmcvay]

Ok, I missed the pricing announcement for Star Wars Pinball for the Switch entirely (been a little busy moving), but $30 for 19 tables is a steal. I was hoping for $40, but expecting $60, so this is now a must buy for me. The Switch has been my preferred portable pinball while travelling lately and I feel a lot better buying these tables again.

 

[Firefox2000]

I can remember the ill fated Game Room for the Xbox 360, the Microsoft rep was saying in an interview that they would be getting anything and everything for the app, with all the arcade giants all lining up to be a part of this great deal. They had this small indie company to do the emulation called Krome and they already had Atari(arcade/2600), Konami(arcade), Intellivision and Activision(2600) signed up. I think they charged $2-3 for individual games, so you had arcade games mixed in with 2600/Intellivision games which led to a lot of complaints in the quality of the app. Microsoft pretty much abandoned it and Krome was left with holding the bag and trying to fix lots and lots of bugs. Hamster, which owns the rights to games like Crazy Climber, Moon Patrol and Terra Cresta ie and currently sell their games on the PS4 for around $8 a piece, just laughed about how people wanted them to sell games for $2-3 on Game Room when they easily get people to pay their price. You even see what people are willing to pay for older games with the release of the Arcade 1up(https://arcade1up.com/) cabinets @ $75-400 with 2-4 games per cab with one 6-1 and 12-1 deluxe units, or the New Wave Toys(https://newwavetoys.com/) miniature cabs @ $100-160. Back when I owned my PS/PS2 and Xbox I always loved getting the various compilation games with Midway/Williams, Namco, Konami, Taito, and Capcom collections with 20-30 games at roughly $1 a game on them but I guess they didn't sell very well cause you rarely see them anymore.

Yeap, i bought about 5 of the packs before it was withdrawn from the store, and i doubt we will ever see it on BC on the XBX which is a bummer.

 

[rehtroboi40]

Yeap, i bought about 5 of the packs before it was withdrawn from the store, and i doubt we will ever see it on BC on the XBX which is a bummer.

That was a kick to the grill. Konami had some true gems in Game Room. Unfortunately some got mangled by bad emulation.

Now SNK 40th Anniversary-there is a huge compilation for anyone who knows the B.N.G.-era. (Before Neo-Geo, that is.)

I think most prices for digital pinball is fair. Although TimeShock Ultra was high-up on the scale $14.99 for one table, I bought it on day one. Were it properly supported, I think it could've been the best simulation today. I would have gladly paid for new versions of Big Race USA and Fantastic Journey as well. They can still compete with the modern tables of today IMO.

I don't know how much I would pay for the Sterns. Bought them for SPA (how'd that turn out again?). After what Zen did to pack 4 and was Farsight did (and didn't do) with the Stern license , I don't think I'd pay $10 for a single table.

Yes, that includes Metallica.

 

[Pete]

i'd be happy to pay $10 for a single major licensed current gen table with lcd screen (guardians of the galaxy, munsters, batman 66, jurrasic park, iron maiden, aerosmith, star wars, deadpool, black knight 3, anything jersey jack). I'd probably go up to 15 for those but dont tell them that. i waste way more than that on the real life tables just to visit them temporarily, and pinball seems to be the cheapest thing to go out and do lately. honestly money burns so fast nowadays 10 bucks isnt allot. like just going to see a 3d movie with your significant other buying some sodas and popcorn is like 40-50 bucks for less than 2 hours of enjoyment. I'd probably put in a good 10 hours playing each of those tables within the first week of having them, $10 would seem fair. then i would learn all the rules by playing them so much that when i play the real life tables i'd know everything and hit the replay so much it would pay itself back really, ha. Honestly i'd probably just keep paying them money no matter what they end up costing, i'd be pretty broke and mad but they could definitely take advantage of my addiction and completely extort me. im very weak.

 

[djb5f1]

Would pay more for many, like Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc, ones that are not on Pinball Arcade.

For re-releases of Williams/Bally pinball tables that were already on TPA, I wait for sales as it is.