What Could've Been and What Could Be

[Pinballwiz45b]

"I originally came up with the idea of Pro Pinball in the mid nineties whilst working at Empire Interactive when Star Trek: The Next Generation had just been released. I was both a massive pinball
fan and Star Trek fan and I thought we could do a simulation of that excellent game for the PC. We tried to get the rights to do it but it was way too complicated and expensive, so we came up with
our own design for a table which was inspired by all the great Williams games that we coming out at that time This game eventually became Pro Pinball: The Web and set a new standard for pinball
simulations. We went on to make a total of four games under the Pro Pinball umbrella for platforms such as PC, PlayStation, Saturn, Mac and DreamCast."

https://www.neowin.net/news/intervi...ms-up-with-pat-lawlor-for-new-pc-pinball-game

Cunning Developments did attempt to get Star Trek: The Next Generation. That fell through, and we now have The Web.

That being said, Blahcade did mention Barnstorm as a possible WMS takeover. Like Zen, they've worked with many companies, pinball (Mario Pinball and Metroid Prime Pinball) or not.

I wonder what tables they'll do if this is the case? I recall them having a Black Knight 2000 in their studio at one point.

 

[Blkthorne]

Looking at their website they seem to be going in the family friendly mobile direction. Steam forums for Pro Pinball Ultra are fairly dead with hardly any communication from the developers, for those that like to throw rocks at Farsight on Facebook/Steam for their communication, people would be heaving boulders at Barnstorm with the little information they get from them. I agree with what they said in the Blahcade podcast, if the WMS license holder went out and was scouting out a new company to do their pinball tables it would have to be Zen, they have a good track record and have the built in audience for that type of game. Sadly I still think it the WMS holder will just throw the IP's back in a vault or use them for their slot machines.

 

[thefly0810]

Zen would be the team to go with as far as any more Williams tables seeing the light of day. How long did it take Barnstorm to release 1 Table? Plus, I’ve always wanted to see what Zen could do in recreating a real table in comparison. That said, I do feel bad that Farsight got the license taken from them. I feel that they have really started to turn it around with TPA over the last year.

 

[shutyertrap]

Zen would be the team to go with as far as any more Williams tables seeing the light of day. How long did it take Barnstorm to release 1 Table? Plus, I’ve always wanted to see what Zen could do in recreating a real table in comparison. That said, I do feel bad that Farsight got the license taken from them. I feel that they have really started to turn it around with TPA over the last year.

I feel bad for the team and their effort. As for management decisions, well you reap what you sew. Among us on the forum there was always this overhanging cloud of "it doesn't make economical sense to go back and do that..." which perhaps didn't help their case any. They had a classic car, got it running and looking nice, but never went and did a full nuts to bolts restoration because very few would have appreciated it. Zen has done this 3 times in the same time period of PHOF and TPA. And all you have to do is load up Zen pinball on PS3 and then compare it to Pinball FX3 and all the things people didn't quite notice over time become giant leaps.

What we can all hope for is that FarSight takes extra care now of what they do still have, invest the money into making them everything they can be, and ensuring a future.

 

[Jamman39]

There is still a ton of ground for Pinball Arcade to cover, I personally would like to see them take on modern pinball and move to a 2-4 release per year schedule (at a higher price)

I've said it before but if they can get a Jersey Jack or Spooky Pinball pin into the Pinball Arcade and offer a cabinet mode. I would gladly pay $50-$100 for each pin.

It would be a lot more work and I don't know how they would emulate those hideous LCD screens but maybe there's a way

 

[shutyertrap]

There is still a ton of ground for Pinball Arcade to cover, I personally would like to see them take on modern pinball and move to a 2-4 release per year schedule (at a higher price)

I've said it before but if they can get a Jersey Jack or Spooky Pinball pin into the Pinball Arcade and offer a cabinet mode. I would gladly pay $50-$100 for each pin.

It would be a lot more work and I don't know how they would emulate those hideous LCD screens but maybe there's a way

Wow. I know my breaking point for a single purchase would be $10-$15. If you were selling a physical copy in the store, the max would be $60 but I can't imagine anyone seeing one table and thinking it worth that. And it damn well better look photo realistic and be flawless in performance. Our podcast was alerted that the LCD isn't an emulation, it's just a cue to run certain video with a score overlay. FarSight says they are working on it right now for Stern tables.

And by the way, I think you can update your 'devices' since you now have cab support

 

[Jamman39]

Haha Good point, updated

I agree that $15 is a more realistic price, and that is about what I would be willing to pay to play these tables on my Xbox or PlayStation. However if they add them to the Arcooda Pinball Arcade I would be willing to pay a big premium to get them

 

[vikingerik]

I paid the full $50 for Pro Pinball The Web back in the day. (I got the other Pro Pinballs as a playtester.) It was a different time, that was the standard for most any retail game, long before the race-to-the-$0.99-bottom on all the mobile app stores.

BTW, that interview is from 2012; obviously since then Silverball Studios fell through and Lawlor is working with Jersey Jack.

 

[lio]

Why would you pay 4x as much for a retail box?
I wouldn't complain about 25-30$ for really high quality single table (re)creations... but maybe you had to be there in the original 90's 'pro pinball day and age' to appreciate that ;-)

But I doubt anyone is going to have the WMS license and recreate tables anytime soon.

 

[Ben Logan]

I’d love to see Barnstorm pick up the WMS license. Williams and Bally games with Timeshock quality? That’d be a dream come true.

 

[steven120566]

I would love to see the license picked up for a digital video game based pinball collection for sure. However, I think it won't be. I think they are going to try to revitalize the machine market with these properties. And if that is what they are trying to do, it's unlikely to succeed as far as profits go. If I am wrong and they still want to license out to video game-based pinball, well, I am anxious to see what that means as well.

 

[vikingerik]

I’d love to see Barnstorm pick up the WMS license. Williams and Bally games with Timeshock quality? That’d be a dream come true.

It'd be a dream to see a functional Barnstorm do it... but Barnstorm's current ghost-mode and obsession with three-year-long rendering pipelines aren't exactly an inspiration for confidence.