Confused: is TPA Dead?

I can't get a handle on the new Stern IOS app. I own all but 3 tables in TPA IOS. Is that app now abandoned? Do they expect us to rebuy the tables in Stern since they don't restore when I login? Will the new tables be in TPA? Why does this even exist?

Still very much alive. Another season of tables will be arriving to Pinball Arcade.

Stern Pinball Arcade...it's one of those cases where "the name says it all".

TPA will continue on with non-Stern releases.

So they doubled all their programs/apps on every platform so Stern could seperate their tables? Doubling that much work can't be a small deal. I guess Stern wouldn't give any more licenses unless they did this. But it makes no sense that they can't transfer tables I paid for to the new app. That is just slimey business. And all new tables are $10? I don't know. Looks like a bad call.

If you purchased the tables in tpa they transfer over to spa at least in the Steam version. Not sure on iOS but try logging in with your same tpa login.

All the new tables in spa are expensive licensed tables so the $10 a pop. Which I believe was the same or about the same price of buying any of the expensive licensesed Kickstarter tables separately.

Plus, SPA is not obligating themselves to a table per month timeframe.

Per the latest "News" post on pinballarcade.com:

January 6, 2017
We are proud to announce that Stern tables owned in Pinball Arcade are now cross-purchase with Stern Pinball Arcade on Steam.
This promotion will also be rolling out to mobile and consoles in the near future!

The Stern app exists pretty much only because the 3 (4 including ghostbusters) new tables, which is expected to grow with more new tables. The old TPA tables were thrown in there because they are also Stern tables, or made by Stern before they changed their name to Stern. It's a collaboration with Stern themselves and the premises are much different to regular pinball arcade. Real tables that are brand new and currently produced in factories will be released in the Stern app, it's a completely different situation on so many levels, compared to what we see in the regular pinball arcade.
For instance, do ou know what the newest table to be released IRL is in TPA? It's Harley Davidsson III, and High roller Casino. But they were released in 1999. They are 18 years old!! AC/DC came out 2012, Star trek 2013, Mustang 2014 and Ghostbusters is a couple months old!!!!

The new tables; Mustang, AC/DC, Star Trek, and soon to be released ghostbusters, are $10 each. However, they are part of bundles, similar to the seasons in TPA, Two of the new tables in each bundle. And one bundle is $20. So it doesn't really matter if you own the older tables or not, if you want to buy the new tables separately you might as well buy the bundle and get the rest for free. AC/DC and Star Trek are in one of the bundles and Mustang and Ghostbusters are another bundle. Currently Mustang is a free to play, so you can wait on purchasing that bundle until ghostbusters comes out, at least that's what I did. But don't be mistaken, the Stern app is ALL about the NEW stern tables. As more new tables are added I'm pretty sure hey will all be at least $10 each (maybe whoa nellie will be cheaper), and there are no more free previously released tables to add. Maybe flight2000, but that's about it. It will be single, or at max double table release with no set intervalls that we know of and no season bundle pre-orders or stuff like that. Maybe there will be discounts in the future for previously released tables but that's probably about it.

These 4 new tables are premium tables with heavier licensing. Premium, licensed tables have always been more expensive in regular TPA so nothing new here. In the first seasons, where you get 2 tables for $5, it's only a single table for $5 if you buy T2, Star Trek or Twilight Zone. If it weren't for kickstarter money also help funding these tables, along with Addams Family and dr Who, we would never have seen them in TPA. AC/DC was supposed to be kickstarted but got funded by external company in exchange for exclusive release for a period of time. I guess people are worn out by the kickstarters as they seemed harder and harder to fund, and now that Stern as a company has their reputation on the line as well, for me personally I think $10 a table is a much better solution as we remove uncertainty so we know for sure we are getting the tables, we don't have to wait through the whole kickstarter process time before a table is released and we get much newer pins than we've ever seen before. Oh and the physics are updated and so they play and also look better than anything previously released.

switch3flip said:

For instance, do ou know what the newest table to be released IRL is in TPA? It's Harley Davidsson III, and High roller Casino. But they were released in 1999. They are 18 years old!! AC/DC came out 2012, Star trek 2013, Mustang 2014 and Ghostbusters is a couple months old!!!!

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It's Ripleys - 2004, and the big unknown with Stern is if that lcd screen tech is staying and if SPA can do it. Another is, The top 250 tables on pinside had 62 Stern&Stern-owned, licenses that may never make it to TPA from that era of system going backward if TPA doesn't get anymore stern licenses with SPAs arrival.

If they do succeed with cross-app purchases, perhaps simultaneous releases for TPA/SPA can happen for old stern tables.

Flight 2000 is not part of the DE/Sega/Stern lineage.

A little bit of history:
In the late 1970s, Chicago Coin was bought out by Sam Stern (Gary Stern's father), who until that point had worked for Williams (or was it Bally... memory is fuzzy... one of those two at any rate), and renamed Stern Electronics. They produced a number of tables, the best-known of which are probably Flight 2000, Meteor, and Seawitch. In the early 1980s, Stern Electronics ceased trading and stopped manufacturing pinball tables. Sam Stern retired from the business.

In the late 1980s, Sam's son, Gary, went to the video games manufacturer Data East with a proposal to create a pinball division. The proposal was successful, and thus Data East Pinball was born. Their first game was Laser War (1988?) and the rest you know. Sega took over the business around 1995, before Sega themselves bowed out and Gary Stern rebranded the business as Stern Pinball Inc.

relaxation said:

It's Ripleys - 2004, and the big unknown with Stern is if that lcd screen tech is staying and if SPA can do it. Another is, The top 250 tables on pinside had 62 Stern&Stern-owned, licenses that may never make it to TPA from that era of system going backward if TPA doesn't get anymore stern licenses with SPAs arrival.

If they do succeed with cross-app purchases, perhaps simultaneous releases for TPA/SPA can happen for old stern tables.

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Yeah true thanks I forgot about ripleys.

i see dead tables...

Fungi said:

Plus, SPA is not obligating themselves to a table per month timeframe.

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LOL, ask any Console owner and we're lucky to get any Season 6 tables when Season 7 is already underway.

I wouldn't say TPA is dead... but it is just sitting in the corner and drooling. Every now and again it reaches into its adult diaper and flings out some Gottlieb feces.I was hoping to find some answers here if they were planning on ever releasing a decent table again. The fact that their Facebook page has been as quiet as a tomb for over two weeks makes me think the future looks cloudy.

AlBravo said:

But it makes no sense that they can't transfer tables I paid for to the new app. That is just slimey business.

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What would be so terrible about it, when you can play the games on TPA already? Does owning them twice give additional benefits?

Xanija said:

What would be so terrible about it, when you can play the games on TPA already? Does owning them twice give additional benefits?

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On iOS, they have slightly improved graphics on the SPA version. Since they upped the device requirements, I was hoping for greatly improved lighting and that hasn't happened.

Kolchak357 said:

On iOS, they have slightly improved graphics on the SPA version. Since they upped the device requirements, I was hoping for greatly improved lighting and that hasn't happened.

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Did they? I didn't buy the bundles on iOS but I compared the SPA old tables on PS4 to the TPA versions and they look identical. Frankenstein on iOS SPA looks the same...

Compare the ramps on both versions of RBION. I'm not saying it is worth a rebuy. Just saying there are some minor differences.