TPA Topics #2: How Much Can/Should FarSight Make TPA Into A Franchise?

[CC13]

Without a doubt, the announcement of TPA After Dark was the highlight of FarSight's holiday Facebook announcements. This new TPA app should open up many intriguing possibilities for TPA, including Big Bang Bar, Family Guy, Xenon and several others. It does bring up an interesting question, though: how much would TPA benefit from expanding into a franchise? Can specialty TPA apps prove a viable source of supplemental income for FarSight or would they be better served channeling as much of their limited capital as possible into the main TPA app? Myself, I prefer to have as much of TPA contained in a single centralized app as possible, but do think that specialty TPA apps could serve as useful and enjoyable supplements, especially with an option to centralize all the TPA tables you buy in the main app. Here are some TPA apps that would be day 1 purchases for me:

- Disney Pinball: The Walt Disney Company have proven a thorn in FarSight's side, apparently not even replying to FarSight's licensing offers, but I think some smart marketing could change that. By putting the Walt Disney branding front and center, this app could well end up as a bigger draw than the supposed main attraction. Having a lineup that could potentially include Indiana Jones (Williams), Pirates of the Caribbean and the Star Wars tables (ideally with the 2012 code for the DE Star Wars table) should also ensure that the TPA faithful have few complaints. This idea is still a long shot, but I sincerely believe that FarSight should at least try to get Disney on board with this.

- The Early Years: One of the fears that the switch to one table per month has inspired in many of the TPA faithful is that we may not get any more EM or early solid-state tables. There clearly is still a market for them, though, so a separate app would make sense. FarSight would have almost limitless credible options with an EM-&-early-solid-state-centric app, but some I'd really like to see include Lightning, Medusa, Solar Fire and Spirit. This should prove a solid moneymaker without any complications, so FarSight should pursue this avenue of development vigorously.

- The Silver Orb Club: With Kickstarters apparently being quite a burden on a small company like FarSight, perhaps a more...premium approach could work out better for them. The Silver Orb Club is for TPA stalwarts only, delivering the best tables with the best licenses to customers who expect nothing less. These tables will not come cheap, but I have the highest confidence that anybody who brings their custom to the club will get their money's worth.

What do you guys think? Did I come up with some promising ideas or do these proposals need some more polish? I'd also love to hear any TPA spinoff ideas any of you might have...

 

[Sean]

I don't see why not, Zen has sold Star Wars pinball as a standalone app on at least one platform. Pinball After Dark could be seen as a means of testing the waters certainly.

 

[Bowflex]

The silver orb club sounds intriguing but a lot of the time there are hang ups with the license and lawyers more than anything. Plus the collateral would need to be raised up front. Personally I hop to just win the lotto so I can make a donation to farsight (and include a stipulation for a couple of my favorite licensed tables)

 

[Kolchak357]

I like the idea but I'd be surprised if it ever happened.

I'm sure Disney would make it not worth Farsight studios time by sucking up any profits to be had.
The early years idea would be fantastic but based on what FS has said on Facebook regarding EMs and early SS pins, I don't think they see it as popular enough to explore seriously.
I'd also be in for the Silver Orb Club, but could there be enough interested to make it work? Sadly, I doubt it.

Cool idea though.

 

[Roo]

The whole "separate app" thing annoys me. Maybe it works from a marketing perspective on mobile (the way Zen has done it for Star Wars and Marvel), but in this case it seems like a workaround for ESRB ratings issues. Plus it seems to cause no end of headaches and confusion regarding which app has what, do tables transfer between, etc.

The last thing I want is to have to switch between programs on my PC/pincab in order to see all the tables. Hopefully they do make them "importable" to the main version.

The Silver Orb thing is interesting; I would certainly pay a premium price for premium tables. A lot cheaper than buying a real one (or even playing a real one on location regularly). But I don't think there would be enough people that would. Isn't that why they did the Kickstarters in the first place? Because otherwise they'd have to charge like $20 each for those tables. Some people like us would be in, but the general backlash among players who aren't educated (or don't care about) the licensing costs would be huge. Can you imagine what would happen on Facebook if they posted something like, "Coming soon: The Addams Family ($24.99)"?

 

[Buzz1126]

@CC13-please forgive my ignorance on this, but let ask a question: what would be the point? Rather than divide the current workforce, I would rather see a more, not polished, but more effective TPA and work on the issues at hand. $20-25 for a table? Ouch. There are many, many tables that can be picked for a song by FarSight. For TPA to generate capital, there needs to be a very broad base. The more less expensive tables to purchase from TPA ($2-3) will create a "pushup" , effectively funding the next level up. And as the bottom level increases, the next level increases. Each level funds the next, and that makes the "Silver Orb Club" more affordable for everyone. I tried to put down in words what was in my head and I may not have done a very good job...

 

[shutyertrap]

I think this is interesting. It would certainly allow for a more experimental to how they sell the games to customers and for how much. I said it with TPA After Dark, so long as there is a way to allow me the user to bring all the tables under one roof, I don't care how it's split up.

The $20 a table thing was just a number thrown out. I think $10 per is much more realistic, but when they were charging *cough cough* and average of $2.50 per, that would have been a significant jump for the audience. Now that it's $5 per table, that would seem much more reasonable. Ultimately they would have to find that sweet spot, charging just enough before you actually turn away too many customers.

 

[jaredmorgs]

What I think would work really, really well would be the "STERN Digital" package.

Sort out SAM emulation (whether that means exclude certain types of hardware) and strike a deal with Gary (and the lawyers) to digitize every new and existing SAM pinball released to date.

Think of the co-licensing deals STERN could do on tables moving forward. Think how great it would be to see Mustang Pinball digitally preserved, and potentially with updated game code as they were released.

Hell, use TPA as the beta testing bed for new game code. Give all LE and Premium owners an entitlement to a digital copy as part of their investment. Let other folks purchase the game and opt-in for access to beta test code.

 

[Bowflex]

What I think would work really, really well would be the "STERN Digital" package.

Sort out SAM emulation (whether that means exclude certain types of hardware) and strike a deal with Gary (and the lawyers) to digitize every new and existing SAM pinball released to date.

Think of the co-licensing deals STERN could do on tables moving forward. Think how great it would be to see Mustang Pinball digitally preserved, and potentially with updated game code as they were released.

Hell, use TPA as the beta testing bed for new game code. Give all LE and Premium owners an entitlement to a digital copy as part of their investment. Let other folks purchase the game and opt-in for access to beta test code.

This is a great idea, all the way around. Especially giving the free copy which would promote the TPA as a software package and help its exposure. Beta testing built in for new software revisions would be awesome as well.

 

[lio]

I agree with Roo... the idea of splitting things up into different programs/apps for different themes is nothing I would like to see - of cource if they were to do it like Zen Studios where you can buy the themed app but just as well get the tables within the main app then there's no real harm done but from a dev point of view I guess it at least means a higher maintenece workload to keep everything in sync with changes across the apps.
We'll see howPinball after Dark does, but I certainly hope that there will be a way to play all tables in one programm - probably Pinball after Dark should be aware of the regular TPA tables somehow and allow to play them just as well so you don't have to switch programs if you want to go from say BBB to BK2K.

I would certainly be willing to pay more for higher quality or "premium" tables but I also think that there are too few to justify branching out in that direction.
Maybe some more frequent but less high-profile kickstarters could help where they don't have to set up as many reward tiers, basically just giving away copies of the finished table and let people pay more than they would have to in order to help secure the license and as a result require less money to be funded.

I once dreamed up a system where Farsight would just create a list with about every possible table on it with a binding "pre-order" button [like a kickstarter pledge] next to its' name so they could easily see which tables people really want and then start working on a table once a certain threshold of pre-orders has been crossed that makes the table a viable endeavour without too much of a business risk attached (say once pre-orders would cover for half of the costs involved to actually make the table).
It would have a kickstarter like system where money for the pre-order would only be actually taken if and when a table goes into production, maybe 2-3 months before the table would actually be released so the money can be used to pay for licenses upfront and then start working on the table).
So basically there would be a nice long list with all the tables names on it that states how many pre-orders at what price point are still reqired to make the table a feasible thing to do and we could just browse that list and place pre-orders for each and every table we'd like to see and eventually they'd get made and you still would not pay lots of money because there'd still only be one new table a month and they would just keep coming
Personally I could easily think of 30-40 tables I'd place pre-orders on, so please let me do it

 

[Roo]

I once dreamed up a system where Farsight would just create a list with about every possible table on it with a binding "pre-order" button...

Sounds like a pretty big software development project to implement something like that, but I like the idea in theory! Sort of a way to prove how badly you want a certain table, other than just yelling about how you want it on Facebook or in the forums.

 

[Eaton Beaver]

I think the reason Pinball After Dark has to be a different app is because it is going to have age restrictions and also it is going to feature two player against opponents. I have no problem buying the seperate app and tables. I think for Pinball After Dark if you do buy the seperate app it should include one free table with app purchase like Tales Of The Arabian Nights on The Pinball Arcade.

 

[Espy]

I think the reason Pinball After Dark has to be a different app is because it is going to have age restrictions and also it is going to feature two player against opponents. I have no problem buying the seperate app and tables. I think for Pinball After Dark if you do buy the seperate app it should include one free table with app purchase like Tales Of The Arabian Nights on The Pinball Arcade.

I think it's good for those who aren't interested in adults-only tables, too. I know I'm in the minority here. They can easily ignore them and still get the full TPA experience.

 

[Crawley]

I think it's good for those who aren't interested in adults-only tables, too. I know I'm in the minority here. They can easily ignore them and still get the full TPA experience.

Its not like the tables they are going to release for it are going to be hard core porn. I can't even think of any tables like that - let alone that being pretty tacky. These will be tables that appeared in arcades at one time or another. I imagine when they start releasing tables for PAD people will be scratching their heads wondering why it needed the separate app in the first place.

 

[Espy]

Its not like the tables they are going to release for it are going to be hard core porn. I can't even think of any tables like that - let alone that being pretty tacky. These will be tables that appeared in arcades at one time or another. I imagine when they start releasing tables for PAD people will be scratching their heads wondering why it needed the separate app in the first place.

That is a possibility, but I think that would be doing the concept wrong.

 

[superballs]

I honestly don't see why a t rating is all that bad a thing. I don't see it getting much higher than that anyway. How many play the game are under 13? Even so, I'm pretty guarded about what my 8 year old daughter sees but I seriously won't sweat it much if a 1 pixel nipple is somewhere in the table artwork and she happens to play that table.

 

[atlantis1982]

What I think would work really, really well would be the "STERN Digital" package.

Sort out SAM emulation (whether that means exclude certain types of hardware) and strike a deal with Gary (and the lawyers) to digitize every new and existing SAM pinball released to date.

Think of the co-licensing deals STERN could do on tables moving forward. Think how great it would be to see Mustang Pinball digitally preserved, and potentially with updated game code as they were released.

Hell, use TPA as the beta testing bed for new game code. Give all LE and Premium owners an entitlement to a digital copy as part of their investment. Let other folks purchase the game and opt-in for access to beta test code.

Now that's an interesting idea just so FS can work around the hardware limitations.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

What I think would work really, really well would be the "STERN Digital" package.

Sort out SAM emulation (whether that means exclude certain types of hardware) and strike a deal with Gary (and the lawyers) to digitize every new and existing SAM pinball released to date.

Think of the co-licensing deals STERN could do on tables moving forward. Think how great it would be to see Mustang Pinball digitally preserved, and potentially with updated game code as they were released.

Hell, use TPA as the beta testing bed for new game code. Give all LE and Premium owners an entitlement to a digital copy as part of their investment. Let other folks purchase the game and opt-in for access to beta test code.

What I'm worried about is that preserving Stern tables on digital format could reduce their rarity in real-life format. If FarSight recreated every SAM system Stern table ever, then Stern might as well become a digital company. After all, some of them are less than 5 years old.

 

[Crawley]

What I'm worried about is that preserving Stern tables on digital format could reduce their rarity in real-life format. If FarSight recreated every SAM system Stern table ever, then Stern might as well become a digital company. After all, some of them are less than 5 years old.

I don't think the digital tables would reduce actual pinball sales - would think the opposite. It's not like Forza is killing the sports car market because you can drive those cars in digital format. The digital format would spread the brand name and get people interested in the actual tables.

 

[shutyertrap]

Most tables are going to private collectors, not public locations. Therefore, most pinball players never get the chance to play these new Sterns. That is why the common logic that us trying to be pushed is that if the average person got to play these digitally, they might be inspired to buy a new Stern after having a chance to fall in love with it.