Single table releases - are they going to be the new normal?

[Bowflex]

Farsight devs have stated that EMS are no less work than did machines since even though they have simpler rules to and geometry, they have to build the games logic from the ground up where with the newer games they map the switches to the room and let the rom take care of the rest. I don't think EMS will come in packs.

They do have the same basic cost per table bu I can't see them selling without being in a value pack. The one good thing is that em and early ss typically have less varied parts. Bumpers, flippers and drop targets. Maybe farsight doesn't have to recreate models of part but could adjust position and save some time.

 

[brakel]

Just caaaaalm down, brakel. You remind me of the skydiver dude from No Fear: Dangerous Sports.

Time will tell...

I'd be fine playing one super-refined, ultra-polished table each month. Keep the price the same. Go back over the other tables and finesse them.

In Australia, it's $1 / play on most machines. I've made my money back in 5 games.

I would be fine with this if this is what's going on. I don't really care personally about the price. My concerns are more about the future success of the franchise. I want to be able to purchase the tables for many years to come. Whatever price point they decide on, I'm in no question. None of my questions should be interpreted as me panicking. They're just questions. I like Jared's answers. Hopefully it will be like that.

 

[MonkeyGrass]

I would totally embrace one, high-quality table per month/pack. It makes more sense, IMO.

I also think that FS should consider (as has been mentioned) "Classic EM/SS" add-on packs. Keep them separate from the standard "season" passes, and allow those of us (admittedly older) EM/SS dinosaurs to get our fill. Best of both worlds, the add-ons only have to come out 2-3x per year, with maybe 2-4 tables per pack. I understand that the younger gamer-kids who were exposed to pinball are only 90's DMD fans, which is cool. But that is literally one decade out of 4 when you consider the "history" of the game... EM/SS machines ruled for 30 years, and then DMD's had a good run for a decade. If you really are trying to preserve the history of the game, then DMD machines should only represent 25-30% of the collection, if it's going to be a balanced collection.

 

[DaPinballWizard]

I am so happy they released Flight 2000 already. I don't think there will be any chance of seeing tables like this in the future. Sad, because I have come to like SeaWitch too. At least there is VP.
I love Centaur now too. Was a table i never knew about, and have come to love. Probably wont see tables like that either. So glad that is released already.
And then there is Goin' Nuts. At least we won't see any more of those.

 

[jaredmorgs]

just wonder when some of you will finally understand - real game and virtual try to recreate it are two different things - and TPA's tables are faaaaar in quality level from RL things. its same as saying "i bought a ticket to carousel instead of buying real car or horse so i saved huge amount of money !"

I get what you're saying. Ok, as a comparative statement:

At $5 a table, I've made back my purchase value (entertainment value with playing a virtual pin) in 7.5 plays of real table play (if I could actually find a table that worked at all)

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I think we should give FS a fair chance before we pass judgment. Many people both here and on Facebook have insisted that FS should slow down and fix longstanding bugs, add long-requested features, and enhance the admittedly-bad UI. It appears they may finally be doing so.

I'm sure FS will be watching sales of the next few tables closely and if sales start to flag will take corrective action.

 

[debuggiest]

I'm kind of mixed on this. Sure it would be nice to get some bugs fixed, but if they start releasing one table per month, it's going to look like they're slowing down, and that can also read like they're not planning on continuing for the long term.

 

[McGuirk]

I see it both ways as well...will they spend more time polishing up their one table each month? Conversely, will we see the end of TPA in season 3 or 4? We don't know anything concrete, obviously, but I'm erring on the side of optimism, for a change.

 

[ZenTron]

Gary Stern is very pro TPA and mentioned in a speech last month used Ripley pins saw a bump in price after it was released in TPA. I think you could make a couple of Seasons just based on Sterns and that doesn't include Data East and Sega which they also own. Obviously licensing is another issue, but Data East has Laser War, Secret Service, Torpedo Alley, Time Machine, Checkpoint and some others that might have lower cost licenses.

From the Top 10 Poll on here I see High Roller Casino, Time Machine, Sharkey's Shootout and Seawitch which can be no-brainers. There has also been talk of Rollercoaster Tycoon having a less expensive license like Ripley's.

 

[DarkAkatosh]

If they decide to release Seawitch as a single table then it will sell like total crap. They have to go to dual packs if they want any semblance of older tables in the game.

 

[ZenTron]

I don't agree with you, but that is fine. 1) They could sell enough Season Packs that it wouldn't matter if it sold like "total crap" 2) It ranked #9 on poll here (it could of ranked high because the assumption was that this would be a 2nd table to a pack, ill give you that..) 3) I like playing Big Shot.

 

[Bowflex]

Another possible scenario: the current conditions they are working with may not have the ability to support two tables per month. They don't have the user base to afford premium licenses like marvel, disney, Lotr, dc, etc. Regardless of your take on gottlieb tables, they are not very popular, aside from haunted house and 1812. So their best tables are behind them. That leaves WMS. Farsight has stated on their page that they still have a number of tables remaining on their original contract but has not confirmed successfully renewing it. If that is the case, I doubt they would use one on a reissue for sorcerer. They would want to bring out maximum quality with each release. Without certainty, this would be a safe and effective plan until a contract renewal be signed. Not to mention that securing the physical tables to satisfy the fulfillment of releasing the most requested tables may be more difficult. I don't have insight to any of the dealings between the two parties but it is a reasonable hypothesis given all those conditions.

 

[brakel]

I think we should give FS a fair chance before we pass judgment. Many people both here and on Facebook have insisted that FS should slow down and fix longstanding bugs, add long-requested features, and enhance the admittedly-bad UI. It appears they may finally be doing so.

I'm sure FS will be watching sales of the next few tables closely and if sales start to flag will take corrective action.

I agree that we shouldn't pass judgement on things that we don't know but it's fun to speculate on the possibilities. That's all I intended with this thread. When I read that Fish Tales was going to be a single pack so many possibilities went through my head that I had a need to start a conversation about it.

 

[smbhax]

They said today that the re-released Hall of Fame tables they'd been doing as the second tables in the two-table packs took them very little time since for the most part they already had the models and textures for them done; since they're pretty much done with the re-releases now, they wouldn't have the means to get two new tables made per month, so yeah I'd expect single table packs from here on out.

 

[Jeff Strong]

They said today that the re-released Hall of Fame tables they'd been doing as the second tables in the two-table packs took them very little time since for the most part they already had the models and textures for them done; since they're pretty much done with the re-releases now, they wouldn't have the means to get two new tables made per month, so yeah I'd expect single table packs from here on out.

heh, since we have the same discussion going in two different sections of the forum, I'll paste my paste my post here too:

Models yes, but not the textures. They actually re-bought all the PHOF pins so they could re-do the textures, as well as emulate them and update the physics. They had sold all the pins off after PHOF thinking they wouldn't need them again. Jay told us when we were there that they'll never make that mistake again.

 

[BigWeather]

That makes sense (though I still hope we'll see the remaining missing tables -- Sorcerer and Jive Time, right, are all that are left?). Hopefully there is still room for EMs and non-DMD SSs in the release schedule. Time will tell, but I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming TPA year -- lighting enhancements, better UI, hopefully another few licensed tables, and bug fixes / emulating rather than scripting will do wonders for this (already excellent) product.

 

[ZenTron]

You mention Gottlieb and WMS, but why do we forget about Stern? There seems to be a theme that Gottlieb has poor pins and without WMS TPA is done. Like my post above says they could easily get 20+ pins from Stern alone.

Another possible scenario: the current conditions they are working with may not have the ability to support two tables per month. They don't have the user base to afford premium licenses like marvel, disney, Lotr, dc, etc. Regardless of your take on gottlieb tables, they are not very popular, aside from haunted house and 1812. So their best tables are behind them. That leaves WMS. Farsight has stated on their page that they still have a number of tables remaining on their original contract but has not confirmed successfully renewing it. If that is the case, I doubt they would use one on a reissue for sorcerer. They would want to bring out maximum quality with each release. Without certainty, this would be a safe and effective plan until a contract renewal be signed. Not to mention that securing the physical tables to satisfy the fulfillment of releasing the most requested tables may be more difficult. I don't have insight to any of the dealings between the two parties but it is a reasonable hypothesis given all those conditions.

 

[Bowflex]

You mention Gottlieb and WMS, but why do we forget about Stern? There seems to be a theme that Gottlieb has poor pins and without WMS TPA is done. Like my post above says they could easily get 20+ pins from Stern alone.

Stern basically has nothing of interest without a heavy license. Maybe monopoly, roller coaster tycoon and a couple others. But those could be expensive too. All their tables are either the early ss or the non live sed dmd's are probably not too high on the request board.

 

[lettuce]

If they decide to release Seawitch as a single table then it will sell like total crap. They have to go to dual packs if they want any semblance of older tables in the game.

Yeah i have to agree with this, imagine if they had started this last season, would any of you buy that months table if it was just El Dorado or Victory or Tee'd Off or Going Nuts or Central Park etc, i know i wouldn't and i think IF this is FS plan just to go for the 1 table a month then we wont probably be seeing many older tables as there would'nt be no where near enough interest and theyll see their sales figures plummet as a result

 

[lettuce]

They had sold all the pins off after PHOF thinking they wouldn't need them again. Jay told us when we were there that they'll never make that mistake again.

In that case their going to need a bigger office!!