When will the next Pinball Arcade table be released?

[1adam12]

You clearly misread shutyertraps post.

Even the "unlicensed" tables require various third party license agreements, many of which are difficult to secure due to the byzantine nature of legacy rights ownership.

I really like this aspect of the conversation. It's a good reminder of how many factors are outside of Zen's or Williams control currently. The fact that a pinball table with a movie theme has so many hoops to jump through in order to obtain full rights is ridiculous.

I think Zen is in a unique position. They've created virtual tables using licensed property like Family Guy and star wars. I know that doesn't translate to recreations of real tables, but maybe it gives them an inside track on some aspects of licensing.

Purely speculation and thinking out loud. Like I said, I just happened to enjoy the previous posts.

Sent from my GM1917 using Tapatalk

 

[Pete]

stop fighting you guys, your making Jay Obernolte cry

 

[shutyertrap]

You forgot about Adams Family, two Elvira tables, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Judge Dredd, Terminator 2, Indianapolis 500, Doctor Who, Monster Bash, Creature from the Black Lagoon?

No, I didn't. The words you failed to include in your quote were "In that first season". Creature and Monster Bash were in that first season, and we got it in Zen's first too. The two Elvira tables were also, but Zen hasn't done Scared Stiff probably because of how much they'd have to censor the table for the console market. If they ever get the ESRB bit fixed (really hope they are still working on that but I really don't know) then I'm sure Scared Stiff will become a reality. All the other tables you mentioned came as follows... T2 (s2), Dracula (s3), Addams Family (s4), Judge Dredd (s5), Indy 500 (s6), Doctor Who (s7). Do you see how you are comparing 6 more years of releases against one from Zen? And what FarSight was doing there was spending large money on one table and offsetting that cost with all the non licensed stuff. I suspect Zen will do better in this category, but even still, don't expect a flood of releases in any given year for licensed stuff.

How does this help us getting as many tables as possible? I would gladly pay extra to get Indiana Jones, Twilight Zone, Addams Family, Star Trek TNG, The Shadow, Terminator 2, Indi 500, Demolition Man, Flintstones, NBA Fastbreak, etc. in Pinball FX. We don't have any alternatives as long as Zen has the Willams/Bally license and Pinball is a niche market, so they should do whatever is needed to bring us those important tables.

We didn't have any alternatives when FarSight had the license either, and they did alright by us I'd say! You seem to be operating under the assumption that Zen is going to lose the WMS license after this year, so they need to hurry hurry hurry and put out all the AAA titles we all want, like yesterday. I don't know if you noticed, but Zen has partnered with 1UP Arcade to produce 3/4 scale pinball machines for the home market. Those won't even hit the market until 3rd quarter of this year. FarSight partnered with ToyShock to put out a Gottlieb collection already, and has another wave also coming out later in the year. If anything I'd say digital pinball is on the upswing and the user base is only getting larger. Zen isn't going to let the WMS license go, not any time soon. If I were Scientific Games, I'd be looking at what Zen has done in year one, in terms of quality, finish, and extras, and be more than happy to continue that relationship.

I'll get into the kickstarter response later in the post.

I doubt they'll bring us as many tables with 3rd party licenses as FarSight until they start doing 2-3 of the "bigger" ones.

Zen has on multiple occasions asked the community what their top picks for tables are. They are more than aware that Indiana Jones and TAF are typically near the top. I'm not sure I get your reasoning (as you failed to really provide any), but I think you are entirely wrong simply because you make no mention of how Zen has fared in this category with their original tables. Off the 78 (!) original tables they have done, only 18 carry no license. Put aside the Marvel and Star Wars tables for a moment (cuz those aren't huge licenses or anything) and think about this; they licensed Jurassic Park, ET, Jaws, and Back to the Future and didn't charge any more for them they did with all their other tables. They not only licensed Aliens, but they were able to use actual film dialogue, something that Heighway Pinball didn't even manage with their physical Alien table.

You are raising the fire alarm when there's not even a sign of fire.

Releasing alphanumeric tables is a risk too, now that they can't bundle them with popular DMD tables, that don't require additional licenses. They missed the chance to include those tables in the first 5 packs. IMO they should have stretched those packs from 5 to 7 packs and include the most import alphanumeric tables without much risk.

Let me break this down for you. The Zen Pinball fans were quite happy with the 'only in digital' nature of the tables they were getting. When Zen posted that they had the Williams license, many of those fans said they had no interest in 'boring' pinball that did nothing special visually (which Zen took care of by use of the enhanced versions of tables) and had limited rules in comparison to Zen (clearly these people were not familiar with DMD era machines or felt only Stern pinball tables of the past few years were up to their standards). This was the audience Zen did not want to lose, as they were their core. If alphanumerics were introduced too early, that very core might have rejected the much simpler rules of those tables outright, and Zen had no idea how many of the TPA crowd they could count on to double dip on tables they already owned.

What you are applying is the model FarSight used, mixing DMD with alphanumerics each release at the start. Funny thing is, that was purely a time and economics choice. They'd already made the table before in the Williams Hall of Fame collection, and were merely porting them over while developing the DMD title that accompanied it. FarSight was also operating under the premise that they'd make 2 seasons worth of tables and be done, not knowing themselves what kind of audience was out there. That's why those first 2 seasons were so front loaded.

The Zen crowd has accepted the Williams tables though, and the TPA crowd has shown a willingness to repurchase, and on top of all that you have all the people that came late to TPA and digital pinball, didn't purchase a lot of the tables prior to license loss, and now are buying up everything FX3 has to offer. For this reason, the risk involved with alphanumerics is much less. I will say also that in terms of development costs for the studio, emulation of DMD era games and that of System 11 and prior is in fact different and each pose their own problems. It makes more sense to tackle one, solve all its problems, before tackling the next. TPA was riddled with bugs, and a lot of that stems from FarSight trying to do too much on too short a time frame. Zen realizes it's not a sprint, but a marathon.

Yes, they started with popular DMD tables that didn't need extra licences. That's what I meant when I said "easy tables". There are (almost) none left and releases and announcements stopped - that's why I'm worried about the future. Every future release will be more risky, expensive and/or complicated. They have "wasted" all bullets and will have to use the knife for the rest of the game. I'm asking myself why they did that, if they really want to give us a big selection of Willams/Bally tables. Maybe they only wanted to release the popular and uncomplicated tables before they drop the license in a few months.

Quit being so paranoid! Understand the release history of Zen beyond this last year. You are absolutely worrying over nothing. Think about this too...as Zen has now partnered with 1UP, who is also dealing with a huge swathe of licensing for their arcade cabinets, there is power in pooling resources. Somehow 1UP managed to secure licensing for NBA Jam, that means dealing with the Player's Union and securing all those basketball player's and team's licensing, from back in the 90's. That was a Midway game (part of Bally) and came out around the same time as NBA Fastbreak. Logic dictates that Zen merely has to ask who 1UP got in contact with over at the NBA, make a call themselves and since one deal is already done, the gears have been greased to make another.

The hardest part of licensing is not so much getting the deal done, as it is getting in contact with the people who can even make the deal happen. The reason not all the music is in Creature is not for lack of paying, it's for lack of the license holders even being found. FarSight did a great job making all the contacts they did, Zen is even better at licensing, and since deals were made once, it'll only be easier getting in contact the second time. Hopefully bridges weren't burned from anything FarSight did in TPA, but I doubt it.

I give them all the time they need, but I will only believe they will do as many tables as Farsight, if they really start to do alphanumeric tables and a few of the big licenses.

There were 60 tables in total that FarSight did. We now have 18 of those. Will they get to all 60 of them? Good question. I believe we'll see a few that FarSight never did themselves, a few that won't make the cut and nobody will really miss, but I think it's safe to say we'll hit 50 tables when all is said and done, at least. That would be 2 years more, and by that time Zen might have grabbed the Stern license and will want to move onto that. I mean are you really going to be sad if Firepower II, Gorgar, and Spanish Eyes are left behind in favor of Metallica or Tron?

They just have to modify the engine. We don't need fancy animation like they did in FX2 VR, but they need to do it before they lose the Willams/Bally licence.

So you just want Zen to slap something together, quality and presentation be damned? That's not how they work. I also think they see way more potential in this 3/4 scale pinball market than VR. Pinball is a social game, and VR is very much being in isolation to the real world around you. I know it sucks to have spent all that money on a VR rig, but numbers are numbers. Zen is going to put money into whatever makes financial sense for the studio, not into what will make a small community happy.

Yes licencing. AFAIK only two tables needed extra licencing and even those were the easy ones, that didn't need Kickstarter campaigns in the past. Give us Indiana Jones, Adams Family, Terminator 2 and Star Trek without Kickstarter and I will be impressed.

Well then, be prepared to be impressed. The conversations I've had with Zen coincide with my whole outlook on kickstarters like what FarSight did; it's a bad look to the license holders and cheapens your negotiating power as a studio. As far as Zen is concerned, it is up to them to figure out how to pay for things, not the customer. They've done it every time in the past, the price difference has been slight (like only getting 2 tables instead of 3), and it eases the apprehension of IP holders in doing business with you.

Look at the last 2 Kickstarters FarSight did; Doctor Who and AC/DC. Doctor Who, a beloved brand of the BBC, in existence for decades, at an apex in popularity here in America, almost failed to get funded. That is a bad look to the BBC, as they know their brand is popular, but now there's a crack in their armor when licensing to other companies who may look at the lack of excitement in crowd sourcing to say hey, the cost should be lower. Then comes AC/DC that within the first 2 days of the campaign was looking even more anemic, so Oculus stepped in and bought the license right there, closing the Kickstarter campaign immediately, thus negating how much damage could be done to the band's name. You really think any IP holder was going to be excited to come to terms with FarSight in the future? They made it that much harder on themselves.

Do you think Disney would let Zen continue to make Star Wars tables if each one had to be crowd sourced? No way, it's damaging to both brands. Instead Zen has proved themselves so capable that Disney let them do a months long campaign for Star Wars Pinball, to come announce at Celebration, to be the first SW title on the Switch, and to be sold as a 1UP pinball machine. Any other IP holder will look at that relationship with the 900 pound gorilla that is Disney and think to themselves, yeah, we can work with Zen for sure!

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I get the concern you have. Having the rug pulled out from under FarSight really ratcheted up everyone's paranoia. I've not had one conversation with the Zen team that makes me feel the least bit apprehensive. There was an interview recently done with Bobby from FarSight where he said he hopes to get the license back, and that is just laughable at this point in time. If anything it'd be nice if TPA could once again be allowed to sell what they had made, and I kinda think that is what Bobby was inferring, but I don't think they'll ever make another new Williams table and Zen is only just getting started.

 

[shutyertrap]

stop fighting you guys, your making Jay Obernolte cry

Ha! This is civil debate. It's also good to repeat this sort of information to those like gnadenlos who are new to the forum and maybe not up to speed on the long history of digital pinball as discussed in this forum.

You on the other hand Pete, it's time for some bare knuckles!

 

[wolfson]

I`m over the moon with my 100 tables from Farsight and I have every Zen table , happy chappy !!! the Williams Bally tables on Zen are the best in looks and physics , I`m in no hurry and I don`t care what tables are thrown our way , except for Taxi , my fav . Farsight gave me a great time , but Zen has taken the tables to another level . so in around 15 months , Zen has given us 18 tables , in my eyes , that`s not bad .

 

[Jake_Ry4n]

Farsight lives!!!

https://youtu.be/q4DNRA3wFa0

 

[Gorgias32]

YouTube comments are on average pretty brutal on this so far, but based on the video it looks pretty decent to me. I'll definitely give it a shot. Seems like a good place for FarSight to go with their Pinball physics engine, and the production quality/polish looks good.

 

[dave950lam]

I wish they would do Gottlieb EM's instead.

 

[Byte]

Farsight lives!!!

https://youtu.be/q4DNRA3wFa0

At the bottom it says "©2018 FarSight Studios Inc."

Maybe it's an older, shelved project that has been revived?

 

[Citizen]

CHALLENGE MODE! Challenge your friends to PVP matches for a chance to get unique rewards and be the #1 ranked player in the world.

At the bottom it says "©2018 FarSight Studios Inc."

Maybe it's an older, shelved project that has been revived?

I wonder if this game is basically the remnants of the unfinished work they did back in the day when they were toying around with bringing tournaments and recreations of the real life head-to-head machines to TPA.

 

[trash80]

At the bottom it says "©2018 FarSight Studios Inc."

Maybe it's an older, shelved project that has been revived?

I'm guessing they just copy and pasted the footer from one of their other videos. And it looks like this may have been an outside developer since the copyright is registered to Frito Play via an intermediary.

https://apps.apple.com/au/app/pinball-soccer-world/id1496273555

It is based on Pinball Cadet https://apps.apple.com/au/app/pinball-cadet/id1277862627

And I had no idea this existed... https://apps.apple.com/au/app/pinball-tournaments/id1305302867

 

[Citizen]

Oh, so it's just another mobile freemium game. I'd at least have given it a try on Switch.

What exactly is Frito Play? I tried Googling it but didn't really see any useful results. Is it actually a division of Frito-Lay or is the name just a coincidence?

 

[trash80]

Oh, so it's just another mobile freemium game. I'd at least have given it a try on Switch.

What exactly is Frito Play? I tried Googling it but didn't really see any useful results. Is it actually a division of Frito-Lay or is the name just a coincidence?

Looks to be a defunct LLC and the new Retrick LLC has the Frito Play IP. The common theme among them is LEANDRO GONZALEZ who is the developer. He had Trick LLC before this.

 

[jaredmorgs]

maybe FS they just read all the crap talk on here and decided you know, screw us guys, were just a bunch of ungrateful jerks. I bet they return out of nowhere just to put out one of those old school just plunge it with no flippers 1950's tables just to laugh at us. ...and oh wow i love those graph charts nice man!

We make up about 3% of their original customer base. So, probably not I'd hazard.

 

[ZREXMike2]

Farsight lives!!!

https://youtu.be/q4DNRA3wFa0

No. Liked that World Champion Soccer that followed, Bally so not on TPA any more, though i never noticed it from when i started playing TPA ever, so it musta been gone a ways back.

 

[ScotchYeti]

The video looks pretty simplistic. Where is the challenge and why is so little gameplay shown? No wonder that comments are harsh on YouTube.

 

[Rayder]

I'm gonna be honest....that soccer pinball game looks like rubbish and doesn't interest me in the least. I find it very hard to believe that a game like that is more worthwhile for them to create than any further additions to TPA.

 

[shutyertrap]

I'm gonna be honest....that soccer pinball game looks like rubbish and doesn't interest me in the least. I find it very hard to believe that a game like that is more worthwhile for them to create than any further additions to TPA.

It's not FarSight creating it, it's the same studio that made Pinball Cadet. They are using FarSight's game engine (heavily modified) and then FS is publishing it. FarSight has been busy instead with PBA Bowling.

 

[dave950lam]

Can't believe PBA Bowling makes FS more money than TPA DLC. C'mon guys, release the Gottliebs.

 

[trash80]

Can't believe PBA Bowling makes FS more money than TPA DLC. C'mon guys, release the Gottliebs.

PBA paid Farsight. The Gottlieb rights owners do not.