TPA - Bobby King on Spooky pinball podcast

[karl]

I am wondering if the zen guys have all rights for creating pinball games using the marvel license? If that is the case. Do any of you think there is a chance zen will let Farsight use their license for a fee. I guess it all depends on how much of a competition zen regards farsight to be or how much they need the extra cash I am not that familiar with marvel. Is there any other good tables besides those later Stern?

 

[Bowflex]

On one hand this can probably explain why Pinball FX (or Zen depending on platform) didn't just create one Marvel table, they ended up with about 20 after striking the agreement.

Marvel was purchased by Disney after the zen deal was in place so generally the contract transfers. On the other hand Disney is about th greediest company on earth and they would probably threaten some clause to end the contract unless zen was willing to renegotiate with something more favorable to Disney.

I am wondering if the zen guys have all rights for creating pinball games using the marvel license? If that is the case. Do any of you think there is a chance zen will let Farsight use their license for a fee. I guess it all depends on how much of a competition zen regards farsight to be or how much they need the extra cash I am not that familiar with marvel. Is there any other good tables besides those later Stern?

The deal with zen and marvel was to create original digital tables. Stern has rights to physical original tables and farsight has rights to recreate stern's physical tables. Farsight doesn't need to get Zen's permission for anything. They only need Disney to sell them the rights to use the license. Likewise, zen could not recreate any stern table without stern reneging the contract they have with farsight. Unless Farsight did not negotiate an exclusivity clause.

 

[ClaudeHenrySmoot]

Most interesting points I picked up on:

1. Josh Sharpe is assisting FS with the tables? That's very cool!

2. Pro players are using TPA to learn the rules. Also very cool. Wish they'd drop some names.

3. The note about how Stern "noticed" tables like RBION went up in price after TPA hit the shelves. That's a very interesting tidbit. How cool would it be to see the next Stern release come out in physical AND virtual form? Makes a lot of sense. It could generate some physical table sales for Stern. I'd never consider buying a Tron/FG/XMen/ACDC/etc.... you know why? Because I don't have access to the tables and would never buy a $5,000 table without spending a lot of time trying it out. But if I could test drive these tables on TPA... that changes things! If I had to plunk down $$$ for a physical table I'd "prefer" to buy NIB. I don't have time to spend t-shooting problems at this point in my life. Maybe in 10 years or so I'll have time to resurrect a older machine, but until then I need a table that works from day one.

 

[JoshuaKadmon]

I've got an idea. Instead of FS worrying about overpriced music licenses, SAM emulation, messy Warner and Disney/Marvel licensing, etc... Maybe they should just buy a NASCAR [Stern 2005] (or Grand Prix if they want to save money on licensing), pair it with Central Park [Gottlieb 1966] (which they may already own or have access to from PHoF), and they can just declare those as the "bookend" tables, with no future releases in TPA to be earlier than 1966 or later than 2005. We would have a defined 40-year period to draw from, it would continue the table pairing trend, and we could all get back to anticipating golden age machines.

Personally, I don't care if we ever see original table designs in TPA. To me, TPA is all about the historic recreations, and original tables should be reserved for a separate FS product. The recent Sterns just aren't worth the hassle or the money, and few people have any interest in FS going back to tables from the 30's to 50's. Limiting TPA to a 1966-2005 time frame could manage expectations and get people focused on TPA's most important qualities. Like I've said before, there are enough quality machines from that era to keep FS busy for at least a 4-year/100-table run. Anything outside of that seems to be more of a distraction than actually making TPA a better game. But again, that's just my opinion.

 

[Rudy]

Personally I don't mind us getting new tables, just as long as they are replications of PHYSICAL tables. Nothing would be worse than emulating a machine that doesn't actually exist just because of issues with getting other tables. It's a pinball SIMULATOR and without the 'hall of fame' tag, we're not just limited to classics, just any pinball table that Farsight feels that fits.

I mean, Ripleys Believe It Or Not isn't exactly a 'classic', but it has the potential to be considering it's a very good table. It's never going to conjure up the feelings of nostalgia like Funhouse/TAF etc. but back when Funhouse/TAF were released, they weren't exactly billed as classics either... they just became them.

Who knows, maybe the next Stern table will be absolutely incredible? I think the biggest problem they have is that not many people have actually played them because it's cheaper for places that have pinball machines to just buy a second hand classic, with more people playing them we might start to warm to newer Sterns.

Better yet, if the rumours are true with Farsight having problems with some license holders who want to push for 'sequel' tables... maybe Farsight could end up securing certain licenses for Stern in order to make them a possibility? Farsight have said that they aren't table creators... but Stern (who have some pretty big names still in their production staff) certainly are.

Maybe that's already happening? I seem to remember Elvira wanting another table, there will probably be a Hobbit table tie in (which could secure Lord of the Rings), maybe even George Lucas could be buttered up into handing over Indiana Jones/Star Wars if another table is produced to tie in with the latest films (seriously, just stick jah-jah binks as something to hit that says "ouch" and there will be a line of people waiting to hand over their money)

 

[Heretic]

Lucas licensed to angry birds....surely hes gotva soft spot for oinball

 

[shutyertrap]

Lucas has a soft spot for whatever is gonna bring him in merch money! Seriously though, do you think Lucas himself actually approved the Angry Birds tie in? He's got a whole team to deal with that stuff and its them that are gonna need convincing. Even if you got face to face with the bearded one himself, I'm sure he'd respond "that's great, you should talk with so and so and work that out". My guess is Lucasfilm has standing prices for licensing and if you want a piece of Star Wars or Indy, you gotta pay. Slap Star Wars on something and immediately its gonna sell to a certain amount of people that would never buy your product previously. Lucasfilm knows this, they have thousands of vendors that have tried this, and there's many more waiting in line. If I had to guess, which I do, I'd say the hurdle TPA is gonna have to get past is 20th Century Fox and Paramount for Indy.