Pinball Arcade to lose rights to Bally&Williams Tables

[TR0N]

This is terrible given how most of the good tables are the bally&williams ones damn it all !!!
https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/8/17333300/pinball-arcade-bally-williams-license
Again just another example when digital only sucks If any one hasn't bought what tables they wanted do so before june 30th.

[TheClash603]

Sucks.

[seieienbu]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they get the rights back at some point.  I'd expect it, in fact, unless the app itself is going away.  A lot of money went into those virtual boards and there's certainly a lot of them. 

Some of the pinball fans at my arcade have this app on their phone and will actually practice the boards while waiting their turn in pinball tournaments.  I find that concept kind of hilarious but that's neither here nor there.

[NightWolve]

Oh, looks like I badly misread that. I'm thrown off by this:

Pinball Arcade will lose access to some of the most popular pinball tables of all time in June, including The Addams Family, Bride of Pinbot, Medieval Madness, Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Theatre of Magic, Tales of the Arabian Nights and Red & Ted's Road Show.

The use of "pinball tables" led me back to thinking they're talking about real machines. Same with the title, "Some of the best pinball machines of all time will soon be absent." Throwing the word tables or machines around is misleading. More use of virtual would help.

OK, so good pinball machines/tables were emulated/simulated digitally into videogames (e.g. Alien Crush) in an All-in-One gaming app or platform (titled "Pinball Arcade"), but said pinball videogames won't be included in the future given licensing grumbling/issues (by whichever party). Got it, I think.

[TR0N]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they get the rights back at some point.  I'd expect it, in fact, unless the app itself is going away.  A lot of money went into those virtual boards and there's certainly a lot of them. 

Some of the pinball fans at my arcade have this app on their phone and will actually practice the boards while waiting their turn in pinball tournaments.  I find that concept kind of hilarious but that's neither here nor there.

At this point yeah hopefully later on farsight studio's can renew the license.The most i played pinball arcade on was the PS4 and i only bought a table occasionally since releases were so slow.Losing bally&williams tables will really slim down the selection.Though it's worse for the switch version,since it came out so late it just get's stern&gottlieb tables.

[seieienbu]

At least you get to keep the stuff that you, you know, actually purchased.  Not being able to buy stuff sucks but is WAY better than stuff you've paid for going away.

[VmprHntrD]

Best bet at this point for the stuff outside of random early seasons on physical discs or the 3DS game card with 6 William's tables will be Steam(PC) and Android.  Steam says if some company dies, they'll still support stuff and unlock them for use (just as if they fail, they'll unlock their DRM on the games too.)  And for Android, there's a huge warez community for APK files and with that contract going to hell be certain someone will already have or will shortly upload every single table in one fat APK file or set of APK files to side load into the system.

That's the problem with digital, licensing, and companies just not wanting stuff out there after so long on a format.  Once the hardware fails, even that promise of if you bought it means little too.

[johnnykonami]

I don't know if something better will come out, but I bought seasons 6 and 7 to finish up my collection on Steam.  I got the other seasons on sale for $10/$20 dollars at time by waiting patiently, but this time they said they were under contract not to put it on sale before the deadline.  The DLC packs are crazy expensive even when you compare it to real pinball collecting/paying by 25c a play/etc, and I've bought the last two begrudgingly.  There are some good games in there and it's worth it for me to have access it to them, but I agree with the shortcomings that have come many times elsewhere.  I think the worst is the mood/lighting/textures of the room that you play the pins in.  That terrible wood floor texture is probably the thing that irks me the most.. so easy to have added a room customization feature where you could maybe earn items (bust up or waist down framed pic of elvira pls) or set up your favorite 3 pins together.  Meanwhile Pinball FX has their issues, but those tables are routinely on sale for a dollar or less a piece.  For the time being, it's one of the best ways to play real pins with no/poor access to the real versions, with no legal grayness.  But I do hope there is a successor that can wrangle other cool licenses (big bang par please!)

[seieienbu]

I would kinda expect a sale at some point before they go away.  Maybe you'll be able to pick up a bunch of boards at a last-chance great price or something.

[johnnykonami]

They already said on the Steam forums that they couldn't have a sale because of the contract, that's why I pulled the trigger at full price.

[xcrement5x]

This kind of stuff is dumb, I can't stand it because you're actually losing content.

Same thing with Sega and the Ferrari rights with like Outrun 2006.

[NightWolve]

I didn't know there was such interest in digital/artificial pinball videogames TBH. Makes sense I guess since physical machines are harder to come by with disappearing dedicated arcades and they are fun. Your main business model has to be something else with a little arcade section on the side like my bowling alley has, a theater or those big sports bars, etc.

Last real pinball machine I enjoyed was Terminator 3 at a little arcade section in one of the theaters I go to on occasion. But yeah, what I wanted to express is I can't say digital emulations are as appealing in my mind. I do find Alien Crush fun, but I know the physics of the ball movement is fakery with algorithms, randomizer code, etc.

[TR0N]

Well june is here and the deadline is still this month.This one youtuber,has recommendations for any one that is not sure what tables they should download still.

[NightWolve]

Wow...you have to see that video in fullscreen to appreciate how realistic pinball simulators look now! I'm impressed!

[TR0N]

More recommends by crow-pinball i suggested safe cracker in the last video and it's mention.

[TR0N]

Update zen studio's has gotten the rights to williams pinball tables they will be feature on zen pinball.

[JoeQuaker]

Yeah pinball emulation has come a long way. When I first started tinkering with it I was using pinMAME and Visual Pinball. These full 3D pinball emulators totally sucked when they were first introduced but the rough edges have been polished out.

I've got Pinball Arcade for steam mainly to play Funhouse. It's ok for a quick game but still nothing like the real thing. Much cheaper than 3,000$+ for a real Funhouse table though haha.