Season 3 pack removed from all platforms!

[Kolchak357]

I requested a bunch of EMs on Facebook. They said I shouldn't expect to see any and that EMs don't sell well. This was a month or two ago, but I couldn't find the post. But they did say that, if you take Facebook as an official response.

 

[Kemetman72]

There's a bunch of EMs I like: Fun Fair, Skyline, Slick Chick Deluxe, Big Ben, VP introduced me to them. It's sad to see that they don't sell well. Atlantis I loved the artwork on that table!

 

[infernogott]

Yeah how can they tell how well EM's sell, when they aren't sold on their own but in packs with newer tables?

 

[night]

Fireball is an EM that should not be ignored by FarSight.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Yeah how can they tell how well EM's sell, when they aren't sold on their own but in packs with newer tables?

They presumably could have set up the program in such a way that they could tell which table's score limit got triggered and brought up the purchase screen for the table pack. So if lots of people bought Table Pack #7 from having hit the score limit in Scared Stiff, and relatively few people bought TP#7 while in Big Shot, they could say that Scared Stiff was the more popular table.

 

[vikingerik]

They presumably could have set up the program in such a way that they could tell which table's score limit got triggered and brought up the purchase screen for the table pack. So if lots of people bought Table Pack #7 from having hit the score limit in Scared Stiff, and relatively few people bought TP#7 while in Big Shot, they could say that Scared Stiff was the more popular table.

Exactly what I was going to say. It's not just the score limit, there's several ways of accessing the purchase workflow from within the TPA program. Any smart company would have set it up to know which of the pair drove the purchase. Of course it's not a perfect indicator of every user's intent, but by and large that kind of analytics will get you pretty close to the market's mood.

 

[brakel]

All I said was that I emailed Farsight about the issue and they haven't replied, which is unlike them. I might try again. I don't believe there has been an official comment on this so far. If so, could you direct me to it? I must have missed it.

I didn't make any statement regarding an official comment. o_0

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

If there has been an official statement, I'm unaware of it.

 

[infernogott]

The EM's weren't advertised as much. No wonder people try out the more advertised table first.

 

[SilverBalls]

I wish Farsight would do an EM pack of say 5 tables or so, charge a premium for it to test the water. Hopefully they will have low dev costs with low licencing costs.

Maybe it could be like Pinball After Dark, but maybe call it something else 'Electro Mechanical Marvels' pack/app.

Tbh: so far I haven't bought season 3 as tables bore me. Throw an EM with them and I would buy, so it works both ways.

 

[Bowflex]

There is no logical or scientifically provable argument as to how poorly or well any EMs sold. Superballs is 100% right on with every word in his response.

In terms of the ridiculous stance opposed to bringing more EMs, I would add the following:
The EMs offered have in no way represented the best of or most demanded tables. Go to pinside or ipdb and none of the tables are in the top of the rankings.
There are many people out there that refuse to have anything to do with TPA, (for a variety of reasons, pinside forums are almost completely anti-TPA) but there is at least one group of people that exclusively or mostly play EMs. They are big users of digital tables with Visual Pinball and stuff but have no interest in TPA since EMs aren't represented. I think that is very unfortunate that we are all missing out on the wisdom of expert players that have great experience they could be sharing about that part of pinball history.
Slick Chick was a game of recent notoriety being heavily discussed in a documentary. That could have been a great opportunity to tap into a large group of people interested in that machine simply because of its visibility. Interest is piqued and that was just a total misstep to not figure out a way to get that table on here. Not to mention it is ranked #1 on IPDB.

I really don't think a fair shake has been given to EMs. I wish that they would put out a few great examples on their own and let the sales speak for themselves. Not part of a season. Just do it on the side where it is a special one-off type of deal. If it is that bad after the first EM release, then don't even go any further. But they should have no issues at least recouping the money of the table (Most EMs are cheap, just hard to find) and most if not all labor related expense (Especially since most or all of the objects are already created and they've stated they can reuse things like bumpers and such, just need to redo the artwork). That's the worst case scenario. The best case is they get a nice profit and have reason to not ignore a group of pinball fantatics!

 

[night]

^
+1

 

[MWink]

I don't care what they said about the second table being free. We know that wasn't true.

I'd like to see where they said that EM tables didn't sell well. Otherwise you are ignoring facts. EM's poor sales are non-testable. They were never sold on their own so Big Shot sold every bit as well as Scared Stiff and Central Park sold every bit as well as Cactus Canyon.

What logic therefore can anyone put that they didn't sell well? And yes I was listening. You are saying that Scared Stiff and Cactus Canyon didn't sell well. Whether you used those words or not, that is exactly what you are saying.

Also...Big Shot happens to be a rather well liked table while Central Park was received in a bit more of a lukewarm fashion. They really haven't been received much differently than various SS tables.

Actually, at the time, Big Shot and Scared Stiff COULD be purchased separately. I don't think it was till they introduced season packs that they removed the option to purchase single tables. That is how I know they are full of it when they say the second table was free.

I don't have a problem with TPA adding more EMs but I doubt I'd pay $5 for one. Personally, I really dislike Big Shot but I really enjoy Central Park. I might actually like Central Park more than Cactus Canyon.

 

[StarDust4Ever]

I think a lot of people enjoy Big Shot as a great table for cooling down. It's challenging yet has a simple ruleset an is visually easy on the eyes. I often play Big Shot to relax and eliminate eye fatigue, espevially after playing a marathon on one of the more cluttered or visually loud DMD tables. I believe many of the later EMs with the basic standard design (center drain with flippers on either side to knock the ball upwards, paired with dual outlanes on the edges of the playfield) would be awesome to play. I too saw the documentary and was intrigued by Slick Chick, although the wide gap between the flippers is a bit scary looking. Many EM designs drain balls faster but give you an option for five balls, and initially most only cost 10 cents instead of a quarter or two like the later SS tables. It's really moot though because you're playing for free. The brevity of EM games places a bit more emphasis on luck to improve your score, unless you're a wizard at tilting (I'm not) so it really feels like an accomplishment when you achieve a specific goal. I just feel Farsight is biased against EM, and Big Shot, Central Park, and Genie (yes Genie has solid state elements but it "plays" like an EM) only got "grandfathered" into the game due to their inclusion in the Gottieb Collection. To be fair, EM tables I think would sell well if they had a separate pricing tier from SS. Since they have far fewer elements, I imagine it requires less man hours to digitize an EM. Now that all future SS tables will be $5 a piece, maybe Farsight could add a "vintage" catagory, which would be handled in software the same way Season 1, 2, 3, etc are. Vintage EM tables could be sold for $2.99 instead of $4.99, and no season pass "discount" will be offered, least not for a while. Maybe when there's 10 tables, "vintage 1" pass could be offered for $20 (33% discount over individual). Clearly Farsight can make EM more "desirable" by offering a more "desirable" price. Likewise you pay a slight premium for a "modern" SS table which contains more "content." My 2 cents...

 

[ER777]

..I really dislike Big Shot but I really enjoy Central Park..

I think my brain just turned inside out..

 

[brakel]

I think a lot of people enjoy Big Shot as a great table for cooling down. It's challenging yet has a simple ruleset an is visually easy on the eyes. I often play Big Shot to relax and eliminate eye fatigue, espevially after playing a marathon on one of the more cluttered or visually loud DMD tables. I believe many of the later EMs with the basic standard design (center drain with flippers on either side to knock the ball upwards, paired with dual outlanes on the edges of the playfield) would be awesome to play. I too saw the documentary and was intrigued by Slick Chick, although the wide gap between the flippers is a bit scary looking. Many EM designs drain balls faster but give you an option for five balls, and initially most only cost 10 cents instead of a quarter or two like the later SS tables. It's really moot though because you're playing for free. The brevity of EM games places a bit more emphasis on luck to improve your score, unless you're a wizard at tilting (I'm not) so it really feels like an accomplishment when you achieve a specific goal. I just feel Farsight is biased against EM, and Big Shot, Central Park, and Genie (yes Genie has solid state elements but it "plays" like an EM) only got "grandfathered" into the game due to their inclusion in the Gottieb Collection. To be fair, EM tables I think would sell well if they had a separate pricing tier from SS. Since they have far fewer elements, I imagine it requires less man hours to digitize an EM. Now that all future SS tables will be $5 a piece, maybe Farsight could add a "vintage" catagory, which would be handled in software the same way Season 1, 2, 3, etc are. Vintage EM tables could be sold for $2.99 instead of $4.99, and no season pass "discount" will be offered, least not for a while. Maybe when there's 10 tables, "vintage 1" pass could be offered for $20 (33% discount over individual). Clearly Farsight can make EM more "desirable" by offering a more "desirable" price. Likewise you pay a slight premium for a "modern" SS table which contains more "content." My 2 cents...

You don't want to be a wizard at tilting. You want to be a wizard at nudging. Nudging is the art of applying physical force to the pinball machine in order to effect the trajectory or speed of the ball. Tilting is the penalty for nudging more than the tolerance of the machine.

 

[Shaneus]

I'm a wizard at tilting

 

[Espy]

I didn't make any statement regarding an official comment. o_0

Then I still don't know what's going to happen with my credit. I'm going to email Farsight again, will update when I get a response.

 

[night]

I think my brain just turned inside out..

I never understood why Central Park was added to TPA.

 

[vpalmer]

They presumably could have set up the program in such a way that they could tell which table's score limit got triggered and brought up the purchase screen for the table pack. So if lots of people bought Table Pack #7 from having hit the score limit in Scared Stiff, and relatively few people bought TP#7 while in Big Shot, they could say that Scared Stiff was the more popular table.

i dream someday i'll go to bookstore and find on it's shelfs book titled: "The Pinball Arcade: true stories from backstage or as i think it could be in my imagenary world" with your name on it.
but seriously: do you believe what FS could make this statistic gathering stuff long ago, but at same time we still have broken friends leaderboards?