Williams' Collection Volume 4 guesses

[Hinph]

Bad Cats. It's prophesied.

 

[francis247uk]

Just went back and watched the Zen Studios original Williams announcement (https://youtu.be/wb4ePACUJD0)

ZSolt is clearly stood in front of a Circus Voltaire and Judge Dredd, probably in the Zen offices rather than the Budapest Pinball museum by the looks of it, so think there’s a high chance of those two, especially when you watch further in the video and can clearly see the team playing Champion Pub and Theatre Of Magic in the office prior to those being officially announced.

And could definitely be any of those ones they’ve got manuals of!

 

[Gorgar]

Here’s some unfounded speculation that I just tore out of my butt. There is supposed to be a Twilight Zone reboot in April. So maybe the licensing deal that Zen made (the one that delayed the zen originals) was with CBS, who wanted zen to have the twilight zone table out by May. So Zen tore the people working on the zen originals and put them on reproducing the Twilight Zone to reach their deadline.

 

[kimkom]

Here’s some unfounded speculation that I just tore out of my butt. There is supposed to be a Twilight Zone reboot in April. So maybe the licensing deal that Zen made (the one that delayed the zen originals) was with CBS, who wanted zen to have the twilight zone table out by May. So Zen tore the people working on the zen originals and put them on reproducing the Twilight Zone to reach their deadline.

Love it

 

[Pete]

Bad Cats & Mousing Around would be so cool. Those two plus Heavy Metal Meltdown & Gameshow are my top 4 unlincenced that TPA never put out. I think some have a fear they will not get to the non-DMDs and if they do probably only grab the top favorites TPA already had. There are so many already done that are hard to ignore hopfully they stick with it long enough to give us some fresh stuff. Im guessing we will get Cirqus Voltaire as the main grabber with two lesser demanded tables along with it, then pack 5 will have Cactus Canyon as the grabber and pack 6 White Water

 

[Pete]

also something thats been bugging me... now i dont know what kind of contracts went on or whatever but worst case: even though farsight lost the bally/williams licence that doesnt mean they dont still hold exclusive rights to recreate the licenses for some of those tables. For example lets say they signed elvira for 10 years and put exclusivity in the contract, that would mean zen cant touch it till it expires. Lets hope we dont run into a bunch of that...

 

[Narc0lep5y]

also something thats been bugging me... now i dont know what kind of contracts went on or whatever but worst case: even though farsight lost the bally/williams licence that doesnt mean they dont still hold exclusive rights to recreate the licenses for some of those tables. For example lets say they signed elvira for 10 years and put exclusivity in the contract, that would mean zen cant touch it till it expires. Lets hope we dont run into a bunch of that...

Rights holders would be incentivized to renegotiate their existing license if it wasn't nulled out with loss of Williams license. Especially if that license included a percentage of sales. Rights holders can't earn anything if they don't have an actual product for sale.

 

[Pete]

Some people buy rights purposly with the intent of competitors not getting those rights and then do nothing with them. The owners of the properties have no say regardless of a product existing. Its like catch and kill.

 

[Gorgar]

Farsight used to have exclusive rights to reproduce Williams and Bally tables. I don’t think they contracted exclusive rights in their 3rd party contracts too.

 

[shutyertrap]

Exclusive rights would have only been for a short term. Now if this new mystery table FarSight is indeed working on turns out to be the 3rd Elvira table, that would preclude Zen from doing the other two for a period of time (probably a year, no more than 2).

 

[trash80]

In response to Pete.

This is not how it works with actual third-party media asset licensing. Almost all contracts require the end product featuring said license by a certain date or the agreement is void (or extension signed with penalties attached).

You may be thinking of asset acquisition via liquidation and/or auction of some sort where there is no longer a viable third party asset owner/trustee.

If you are basing this theory on the Marvel verses Sony verses 20th Century Fox movie fiasco(s) regarding specific characters, well... that example doesn't translate over to the digital rights we are discussing here.

 

[sh4wnsm1th]

Why do you say that? There's absolutely no reason to think Zen wouldn't do these. The priority is DMD to cater to better sales (as FarSight admitted to) and ease the Zen Pinball crowd into playing real tables. Give 'em time, they'll get to them.

If this is the case, I'd rather they hold off with Jack-Bot and release that as a 3 pack with the BoP, and Pin-Bot, family pack! As for V4, I'd like to believe TotAN, WW, and maybe Who-Dunnit?
My tables I'd love to see would be Fire!, Eight Ball Deluxe, and maybe trying out Space Shuttle or Strikes N' Spares, but these seem like they'd be far off!!!

 

[shutyertrap]

In response to Pete.

This is not how it works with actual third-party media asset licensing. Almost all contracts require the end product featuring said license by a certain date or the agreement is void (or extension signed with penalties attached).

You may be thinking of asset acquisition via liquidation and/or auction of some sort where there is no longer a viable third party asset owner/trustee.

If you are basing this theory on the Marvel verses Sony verses 20th Century Fox movie fiasco(s) regarding specific characters, well... that example doesn't translate over to the digital rights we are discussing here.

Correct. When FarSight was negotiating for the use of The Terminator, another game company had just bought the rights. A special deal had to be worked out proving that digital pinball was not going to compete with whatever game they had planned, and that FarSight would not have to pay the same sum since it was for a very narrow aspect of the license. In both cases though, the exclusivity of the license has since expired. If you look at Elvira, it would make no sense for FarSight to renew that license simply to block Zen, as they themselves can't sell the table. I do no believe these 3rd party licensors are earning any residuals from table sales either.

The Marvel license that Sony, Fox, and Universal have are interesting. There was a clause in place that if licenses weren't used, then they would revert back to Marvel. This is why Fox kept making X-Men movies, why they tried rebooting Fantastic Four. It will be interesting to see if Dark Phoenix does any business (I'll be seeing it, but I like that whole franchise) and what happens to New Mutants as that was Fox trying to extend and create a new franchise.

Same goes for Sony with Spider-Man, which is why they did three reboots. Had Venom tanked, Sony most likely would have let Marvel buy the rights back from them as they weren't sure if anyone would care for a Marvel movie that wasn't set in the MCU. Instead they hit an unlikely jackpot with both that and Into The Spiderverse, so will hold on to the rights and continue to make both MCU set Spider-Man and separate universe Venom and other rogues gallery characters.

I don't quite understand the Universal deal regarding Hulk. Marvel essentially has full ownership of the character and can do what they wish, except make a stand alone movie. Only Universal can do that. The workaround for that is what happened with Thor: Ragnarok, which could have just as easily been a Hulk movie that happened to have Thor in it.

Swinging back around to The Terminator, it took all these years for the rights to finally revert back to James Cameron. Look at the chain of studios that were involved, from Orion to Caralco to Warner Bros to Paramount, and that was all just for distribution. The actual production companies are even more a mess. Terminator 6 is has listed both Paramount and Fox among the productions companies (is Terminator now going to the Mouse?), but it's Cameron's Lightstorm being listed too that is most important as that is who is in charge of nurturing the character now.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

It will be interesting to see if Dark Phoenix does any business (I'll be seeing it, but I like that whole franchise)

I'm not sure I can handle Sopie Turner playing anyone other than Sansa Stark so soon after the end of GoT! So that was a bit weird, seeing that trailer ahead of Captain Marvel.

I don't think they can screw up the Dark Phoenix saga as bad as they did in The Last Stand. Possibly the biggest let-down in the whole franchise, after that epic tease at the end of X-2 (still, of course, the best in the series).

 

[shutyertrap]

If this is the case, I'd rather they hold off with Jack-Bot and release that as a 3 pack with the BoP, and Pin-Bot, family pack! As for V4, I'd like to believe TotAN, WW, and maybe Who-Dunnit?
My tables I'd love to see would be Fire!, Eight Ball Deluxe, and maybe trying out Space Shuttle or Strikes N' Spares, but these seem like they'd be far off!!!

I don't think Zen is going to get cutesy with their pack releases. Otherwise we'd probably have seen Safe Cracker, No Good Gofers, and Roadshow all together as a Pat Lawlor pack.

When it comes to SS/Alpha Numerics, there are a few repeats that I'd want sooner than later

Whirlwind
Centaur
F-14
BoP (with 2.0 DMD and rules too)

But then I also want to see lots of new to digital tables, starting with

Rollergames
Mousin' Around
Vektor
Fire!

After that, there are a host of oddball Bally tables from the 80's that I'd like to see in addition to all the System 11 machines we've yet to have gotten. I honestly don't see Zen doing something like Future Spa or Embryon, or at least not until they've exhausted most of the popular oeuvre. Games of that era, very much rooted in EM style layouts and rules, just seem to outside their brand. But who knows, it all depends on what sales. If they get around to doing something like Medusa and it does well, the door might be opened to such tables.

 

[shutyertrap]

I'm not sure I can handle Sopie Turner playing anyone other than Sansa Stark so soon after the end of GoT! So that was a bit weird, seeing that trailer ahead of Captain Marvel.

I don't think they can screw up the Dark Phoenix saga as bad as they did in The Last Stand. Possibly the biggest let-down in the whole franchise, after that epic tease at the end of X-2 (still, of course, the best in the series).

Well Sophie was in Apocalypse, so I'm not too thrown by it. If anything it's Jennifer Lawrence that's the distraction, especially since I can't see her ever becoming Rebecca Romijn and her blue is no longer shiny!

The only reason I can now watch Last Stand is to laugh at it being all retconned by Days of Future Past. I am nervous for the movie though, because it's the same writer, just without the studio and Brett Ratner interference. X-2 is still phenomenal, with Days being close behind it. I actually didn't hate Origins: Wolverine, mostly due to the fact I'm unfamiliar with any of the comics and had no clue who Deadpool was or should have been. My biggest gripe had been the seriously dodgy CG, especially with his claws. Now of course because of the Deadpool movies, it's turned into as much of a joke as Last Stand has. Logan and The Wolverine are both top notch too as far as I'm concerned. I pity whoever Marvel eventually recasts him with.

 

[lettuce]

Regarding License table being on their own and not bundled with any other tables, surely a great shout for pack 7 (which should be around October) would be

Bram Stokers Dracula
Monsterbash
Creature From the Black lagoon

as these are all Universal IP's???

 

[trash80]

Regarding License table being on their own and not bundled with any other tables, surely a great shout for pack 7 (which should be around October) would be

Bram Stokers Dracula
Monsterbash
Creature From the Black lagoon

as these are all Universal IP's???

Dracula is not a Universal Monster IP, but is based on the book which is in Public Domain.

Universal though has recently scooped up EPIC which handled branding dev and IP management for a huge amount of properties that are represented in pinball.

In fact, with the consolidation happening in the media IP world of late, you could probably release almost every pinball table by having agreements with Warner Media, Vivendi (Bravado), Comcast (NBCUniversal) and Disney.

edit: Even I can't keep track anymore... it was Universal Music (Vivendi) that purchased EPIC. Oh well. And Universal Monsters is under the Comcast umbrella.

 

[shutyertrap]

Dracula is based on the movie, Sony holds those rights.

 

[Citizen]

Does BSD also require a license from Zoetrope?