Decker

Well, I picked up the Twilight Zone table and special ball today. Unlike most of you I'd never played or even seen the rea-life table before. I've also not been such a fan of Pinball Arcade in the past (despite having bought all their PS3 offerings), their tables sometimes just feel a little "off" to me in a way that Zen usually doesn't. Having said all that : Holy hell, that Twilight Zone table is AWESOME. So cool, so much to do. I need to play it a lot more, but it's really an achievement. It also seems to have benefited from the long lead-time since it feels better made than previous tables. Also was pleasantly surprised when in addition to the TV theme, the table played the 80's song "Twilight Zone". So, so worth $5, it's the one table I'm certain to keep on playing. Not sure the spiral ball was really worth $2, but whatever, it's a cool souvenir. Also saw lots of other alternate balls I could use on the table; not sure if those were always available in the Extras section of the table Menu or whether the $2 buys a whole set of alternate pinballs. Maybe someone else can check for my curiosity?

pinata242

Canis Firebrand

At least others are getting their codes. I opted for the 360 version for Twilight Zone and Star Trek: TNG. No idea when those are going to be released. Since I just have an iPhone, I didn't want to get the iOS versions since playing on the small screen is not that great.

Decker

Um thanks. I'll repeat what I've said many times here : I think this is a shitty business model. If Zen can somehow work completely under the radar and produce ten, TEN Star Wars tables without anyone even knowing about it, I'm pretty sure Far Sight could have made a Twilight Zone emulation without a Kickstarter project behind it. Their bullshit excuse, that "We don't want to pass on these licensing costs to the consumer because it wouldn't make the tables commercially viable" doesn't hold water when they charge double for the table anyway. If they hadn't completely bungled the launch of the table -- I literally had to search for it in the PSN store; if they had made a big deal out of the launch of this impressive table the way Zen would have, I'm sure they would have made their money back just fine. Ditto for TNG table which will be released next month, again I assume, with little to no fanfare.
[/rant]

pinata242

Meh, I think you can't compare Zen courting Lucasarts to make ten non-existing tables and their very interactive process with Farsight(?) trying to acquire the rights for 30-year old properties that don't have a "causal games division". They have a much different process bringing a real table to the digital space than Zen.

chuckd21

To believe in your theory means that you have to believe that Farsight is flatout lying to their most rabid fanbase and therefore exploiting them. So why would you ever give them any of your money for their products if you hate this process so?

I don't think there's a remote chance in hell that licensing Star Wars property and licensing ancient tech and countless likeness rights are in any way similar.

To follow that logic... a tiny company like Zen was able to license Star Wars but MGM can't renegotiate simple music rights on countless DVD releases? Come on!

Rights are not the same across the board. Companies aren't all on equal financial footing from the start.

Decker

Okay, I get that. It's not the same thing, and licensing can be pricy.

I wouldn't call them "liars" exactly, but I think it's a little disingenuous to put out a Kickstarter video
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LruHUjxaXG8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
where he says that it wouldn't be commercially viable to pass those licensing fees onto the consumer, then once they raise enough Kickstarter money to cover all the licensing fees, still charge (essentially) twice as much as any of their other tables. I don't mind paying $5 for the table at all, but something about that does strike me as fishy.

I don't support the process of using Kickstarter to launch their tables (and didn't really care enough about either of the tables to be upset if they never got made), so I didn't contribute. I do mostly enjoy the final results that Far Sight puts out so I buy every DLC pack when it comes out on PSN without waiting for a sale or even doing the demo most of the time. I support their preserving the tables and show my support by buying every one. That's the sort of publisher/consumer relationship I can get behind.

Anyway, I guess I'm looking at things through the prism of a small business owner. We take financial risks with every undertaking; there's no guaranty of profit but if we feel there's a good potential of success we roll the dice and plunge on in. I personally don't like the Kickstarter model because it basically eliminates risk for the company and doesn't incentive them to make an outstanding product since they're already in the profit before the table is even available. Having said that, the table (at least on the PS3) is outstanding and I'm very happy with the outcome.

So thank you to the Kickstarters who made this table available. It's superb. I hope the table is a huge DLC success and that Far Sight will see the success as a new business opportunity to bring over more licensed tables without having to organize a fund raiser for every one. We shall see.

pinata242

There's something to be said about doing whatever you can to get a big time "get" as soon as possible. Them going after those tables, which are near the top of whatever the pinball ranking list is, are huge. Not to mention tapping into the massive ST fanbase. Truth be told, I and others tried desperately to get it noticed by that community as a whole to get ST:TNG funded alongside TTZ table. Mostly selfishly as it would have double the value of my original pledge. But that's water under the bridge.

I wonder if they found out about Zen's deal with Lucas through the grapevine or even directly by going to Lucas for licensing of real world tables and decided they needed to act quick to pre-empt that launch with their own competitors? Where better to go than ST?

Jcheckel

I'm curious whether there will be more premium tables after Star Trek, that may not have a kickstarter but get the premium $5 pricing for the table just based on the complexity of the tables. I've felt like I've been paying $5 per table all along since all the packs have had a repeat from the Williams collection. The next two non Star Trek releases have their repeat tables from the Gottlieb collection which I have way less time on.

Play a little on Twilight Zone, it's probably been about 15 years since I played the real thing. I still hate those bumpers on the left, the ball goes down the left outlane from in there so much, just like the real thing. I can't think of another table that punished you that badly for hitting a successful skillshot. The left outlane is just pure evil.

Decker

That's a thought. I think they could do more with their marketing to drum up support and sales. They've blundered so badly on XBLA that I can't imagine they have much of a following on that format at all. They've been much better with PS3, but still when they come out with a table pack, it's months after it came out for the iPad and buried deep in the weekly Drop. If they put out tables on multiple formats at once, they would probably get more attention. And as I pointed out two days ago, by either incompetence or unfortunate timing, their announcement on the Playstation Blog about the release of Twilight Zone came hours after the huge Zen Star Wars reveal, making it feel like a complete afterthought. I like the product but their marketing sucks. Just look on Facebook and compare the Pinball Arcade page with their stream of random announcements about different tables and packs to the Zen Studios page with its slick appearance and clear focus on their upcoming Star Wars tables-- the difference is striking.

flashburn

Not sure if there will be non-Kickstarter premium tables, but they have said they plan on doing a Kickstarter for T2 over the summer. They might of also mentioned The Addams Family, but I don't remember.

They've said that because of the licensing fees they would of had to charge $10 a table if it wasn't for Kickstarting them.

Decker

They may have said that but I have a hard time believing that either Terminator or Addams Family would cost four times as much to license as all the Universal Monsters on the Monster Bash table. It might in fact be true, but I sort of doubt it. It's just too an easy excuse to go back to the well for more fundraising.

Besides, I think I read that they couldn't have the T2 table on Pinball Arcade because it wouldn't be rated E and that's what the main game is rated.

flashburn

What is there in T2 that would cause it not to be rated E? I owned the machine for a few months and I can't think of anything, outside of the unofficial "profanity roms" that would justify a higher rating.

Decker

Perhaps just the cyborg skulls and pistol launcher are enough to warrant an rating?

It was a while ago and I don't remember where I read it.

flashburn

I dunno, they said in some podcast interview a month or two ago (check a few pages back, I posted cliffnotes), that they will be doing T2 next. It sounded definite. I don't see how a shotgun launcher is any worse than the gun launcher in STTNG.

UncleGramps

I haven't been following this at all, but I did participate in the Far Sight Kickstarter thing. Did they ever deliver the 360 table or is that still in limbo?

pinata242

Limbo.

flashburn

I think they said next month we should see it get resolved and all the tables start to come out.

neilo13

Got my TZ code about 24 hours after the release, so I am very happy now. Table plays just like the real thing, and for all the times i've played it, I never noticed that there is a skill shot! The custom balls are a neat bonus, but i don't think i'd pay extra for them if i hadn't been all about funding this. The same goes for the Pro mode, it's neat to mess around with, but really doesn't do much for me. Speaking of funding this, where can I view the backers list that I'm supposed to be on?

As for the lack of promotion on the PS Store, I never really noticed this as the game itself prompts for an update and shows newly available tables within the game menu. I guess advertising this on store would bring in new customers, but for folks already with the game, you can easily see what you haven't yet purchased.

Spiderbite

I wish the Xbox 360 would get on fucking board with this game, dammit.

Decker

It's actually featured quite prominetly on the first page of Add-Ons in the PSN Store. I stand corrected, but like I said there should have been some lead-in announcement rather than just saying "It's available now".

A couple of questions about the table : I don't really see that much that is actually based on the TV show plots or anything. It seems to be more based on the opening credits. Am I wrong there? Do they reference famous episode storylines? It has been decades since I saw the show.

Also I'm a little curious why were the licensing fees so high for this game. I get Star Trek TNG, but here you've only got 1) Twilight Zone series, 2) Twilight Zone theme, 3) Rod Sterling likeness and audio clip, 4) Rockwell Song. I would think that's it (besides the table license that they already had). Sure that's a few, but needing $110K? It just seems to me it would have been harder and more expensive to license Monster Bash than that.

Did they give you Kickstarter a breakdown of the licensing fees?

pinata242

When you say $110K, you're intentionally adding the cost for TZ and ST:TNG, even though you're actively only talking about TZ? You know that's misleading, right?

On top of that, they did honor their commitment to use the overage of TZ's initial $55,000 goal to lower the initial ST:TNG goal to only $45,000 additional.

Decker

Not intentional. I had remembered the $110K figure and thought that was the goal. If it were half that cost, it makes more sense. I should have checked the Kickstarter page. I stand corrected. Sorry.

pinata242

Oh, ok. Sorry, I thought you were playing games Yeah, it was 55k for each, but the 2nd was lowered because the 1st went a little over.

Music

Decker don't play that homey!