Proposed PS4 Retail Release Discussion

JoshuaKadmon

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Aug 12, 2012
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Several forum members brought up an interesting topic on the news thread, and I would like to discuss it further here. While none of us know exactly how FarSight's licensing contracts are written up, it's fair to assume that they won't retain licenses for these tables forever. Once every table is released and FarSight is content to end its TPA run (probably after 4-5 seasons and around 100 tables total), it might make sense to release a hard copy retail version of The Pinball Arcade for archival purposes. After all, once the licensing runs out, there may not be a way to acquire the tables on later generations. With a hard copy, we could at least go back to play the legendary TPA in its final state, and all it would require is that we don't sell our PS4s (or whatever console it ends up on).

Of course, price becomes a bit of an obstacle in that scenario, as I'm sure FS would want to get as much mileage out of the DLC table packs as possible. In that case, FS would just need to wait a while after the final pack was released, then offer a Limited Edition hard copy. If the table packs cost an average of $3.99, accounting for discounts on older tables over the life of TPA and assuming Pro content could be a free incentive to a package deal like this, that still puts the projected price close to $200 for 100 tables. So, if FS produced a Limited Edition, perhaps packed with some physical extras in a collector box set, it could probably be pushed to $89.99 retail. Not many would need to be produced, maybe less than 100,000 of them between the US and Europe, and that would be a little less than half the price of buying table packs. Not a bad deal at all...

As for the physical extras, I think pinball fans would appreciate a 100-page guide to all of the tables, and FS could pack in a 20-track music disc, with 10 tracks of original music used in PHoF and TPA and 10 tracks of the best music clips from the actual tables. With those and the game disc packed into a nice art box, plus a section of the guide that lists credits (and thus includes printed names of Kickstarter backers, beta testers, etc), I think plenty of us would be willing to support a retail Limited Edition.

In fact, I think we would be supportive enough to warrant a final Kickstarter that would lighten the financial burden of printing and distribution for FS. KS rewards could include tiers to get your name in the Limited Edition Kickstarter credits, get free tables of your choice on the digital version of the game (so you're not paying twice for those tables in the end), and perhaps above a $200 pledge for a copy of the retail game or $500 for a copy signed by the FS team. Besides, if FS plans to release such a Limited Edition, they could start banking some of TPA's increasing profits to offset retail production costs, and if the Kickstarter for it didn't fund, it would just be money back in the bank for them.

The Pinball Arcade is an important project for posterity, and looking forward, I think this would be a perfect way to button things up after FS reaches its end goal. But as always, I would like to hear what the rest of the community thinks about the idea, as FS actually listens to us (within reason).

Thanks in advance for your feedback.
 
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Rudy

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Sep 13, 2012
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I think you're being a little bit relaxed about the pricing, as I've mentioned before, it looks like they've only got a good deal right now because the license holders have a chunk of each sale. As soon as a person buys a table the platform gets a cut, the money is then passed through Farsight where they give their license holders a cut and then what's left they have. If it wasn't for digital media then we wouldn't be able to have licensed tables in the first place (note the Gottlieb/Williams HOF collections having no licensed tables) because Farsight would have to pay the license holders up front as the physical product is being made at the CD pressing centre, not on the game servers as the person buys the product.

To manufacture 100,000 discs, manuals and cases alone you'd be looking at $400k-1.2m before we start looking at the licensing of tables themselves. And that's just counting a theoretical situation where everything can be fit on one blu-ray, if it was a multi-disc release with each disc containing say, 70 tables (probably much less considering that future tables on future platforms may well take up a huge amount of space uncompressed) then I'd be guessing at $1.8-2.1m.

Each game would presumably hold around 100 tables (core+s1+s2+s3+s4+s5?) and if we're going by PS3/Android pricing schemes then each table would cost more than a dollar to license, maybe even two or more for premium tables. So $80 (for unlicensed) and $60-70 for the liscenced tables. Approximately $150 worth of licensing per disc.

So let's do some quick multiplication.

150 x 100,000 = $15,000,000

Already alarm bells are ringing.

But add that to the $1.8m = $16.8m

Divide all of that by 100,000 people and you're looking at a game that is approximately $168 per person. From that I'm probably missing a bunch of extras (like paying Sony for having a game on their platform, paying designers and everyone over at farsight etc.) AND I'm doing the terrible thing of trying to work it all in dollars when I'm much used to pounds (I'm assuming each season pack costs $30 to the UK's £25, because if not then that's another $10-15 per season pack pushing it up to well over $200)

Oh, and profit, Farsight's going to want to break at least even if not a little more for all the legwork involved in such a potentially catastrophic idea.

I'm pretty sure that a kick-starter for $16.8m is dead in the water. Even halving the price is dead in the water. Even halving THAT price is dead in the water. By contrast, right now Ubuntu (the largest Linux platform) is doing a kickstarter kinda project for releasing a new phone with a total of $32m. If Ubuntu, with all the tech people in the world wanting the best phone in the world can't come close to that figure then there is no hope for such a thing here.

So without a kickstarter either Farsight will have to make copies to order (pushing the $200 figure even higher because low production runs of discs cost more per disk than higher production runs). This assumes two things 1) that people are willing to spend that much on a game and 2) that their intended platform is the PS4. Pinball nuts may well have chosen the PC over the PS4 over potential cabinet support, so take those guys out of the equation and who do you have left? And of course, when the PS4 era is over and the PS5 comes out with no backward compatibility you're kinda stuffed there too.

Basically, it's far too much effort when people could just buy a copy of the game on Steam and it'll last as long as Steam is around. Yeah, Steam could shut down in 10 years time, but try and buy an original Xbox in 5 years time to play exclusive games and you'll realise just how expensive and fragile modern technology is. Even with a PS4 disc, what happens if it gets scratched? Farsight may no longer have the ability to reprint said copies of the game once their licenses expire so all that money has gone to waste.
 

shutyertrap

Moderator
Staff member
Mar 14, 2012
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On top of everything already said, I'll add this; FarSight has stated they are done with releasing physical copies of games. With digital distribution, they can self publish, something they couldn't do with games on disc. The license they currently have for these tables probably includes language to the effect that it is for 'digital distribution only', and they'd need to strike a whole new agreement for hard copy.
 
N

netizen

Guest
what happens if it gets scratched? Farsight may no longer have the ability to reprint said copies of the game once their licenses expire so all that money has gone to waste.
This is exactly why optical media will not be around much longer, imo. it doesn't have the longevity as a storage medium.
 

Rudy

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Sep 13, 2012
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I still have PS1 discs my first 2 PS3's are dead...

Indeed, and whilst PS1 emulation isn't that much of a problem (it's patchy but mostly good) you don't even need a physical console or a physical disk (if 'backed up' correctly)

By contrast, the PS2 has only just started to be emulated in a way that isn't awful. If people actually try for PS3 emulation I'd say 10 years until we get something working even moderately ok, and PS4 emulation may well not be out in our lifetimes.

You double the power of a console, you double the effort needed to emulate it correctly.

Besides, even long lasting games that rely on DLC for continuity like Rock Band have stopped making it's DLC. Whilst you all could argue that it's catastrophic, that's not to say that Harmonix (the guys behind it) aren't thinking of a new thing to launch for the PS4. And if all that's a success then they might make something for a PS5 and PS6 and so on and so on.

The Pinball Arcade is capturing pinball at the best it can at this moment in time, just like Microsoft's Pinball Arcade did the same back in '99 and so on. It's a digital snapshot, and let's just not get too ahead of ourselves with this, plenty of things that are even more enjoyable have disappeared into nothingness before now. What we can hope that TPA will do is help to create a surge in popularity in pinball so that the future generation may be able to own their own physical tables with more cost effective and reliable parts.

And as long as people are willing to pay for pinball products, there'll be pinball products to be sold :p
 

francis247uk

Member
Jul 7, 2012
480
1
Interesting points, if the release was on a future console then it would be blu ray so scratching shouldn't be a problem.

Rather then a best of, and I know this will never happen, I'd be more inclined for a day one PS4 Disc release of all content so far and call it something like TPA Part 1, then in 34 Tables time Release Part 2, and so on.
 

brakel

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Apr 27, 2012
2,305
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Interesting points, if the release was on a future console then it would be blu ray so scratching shouldn't be a problem.

Rather then a best of, and I know this will never happen, I'd be more inclined for a day one PS4 Disc release of all content so far and call it something like TPA Part 1, then in 34 Tables time Release Part 2, and so on.

Blu-rays scratch just as easily as DVDs.
 

Gord Lacey

Site Founder
Staff member
Feb 19, 2012
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Blu-rays scratch just as easily as DVDs.

Definitely not. There's an excellent scratch-resistant coating on the discs. I sat at a presentation at Panasonic where they went over the coating, and I asked one of the people for a disc, and a pen, then proceeded to scratch the thing. It took a lot of effort to make a scratch on the disc. I have a ton of Blu-rays in my collection (1,290 sets, according to a program I use to track them), and I've never had a scratched disc when I opened the set (though some were loose in the packaging).
 

Tron

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Jul 8, 2012
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If this game made it to retail disc status it would be in the bargain bin within months, that is why Farsight prefer the DLC method. We are not talking COD4/MW revenue status here lets be realistic.
 

brakel

New member
Apr 27, 2012
2,305
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Ok. How about this. Blu-rays can be scratched. Perhaps not as easily as a DVD but still can be done. I still rent physical discs and I get quite a few that are scratched. Maybe one in 20 or so has an issue playing. Family Video down the street from me has a disc buffer that they use that takes the scratches out. I've learned to have a look at the disc before I leave and have them run it through the machine before I leave if necessary.
 

SKILL_SHOT

Banned
Jul 11, 2012
3,659
1
Im kinda oldskool I like physical copies of games I know Im going to play alot oh yeah and the books although thats slmost pointless now but with that said I like the convienience of digital downloadable games I just worry about filling up my HD. I know this can be a non-issue with an upgrade but it also keeps me from going hog wild downloading EVERYTHING!
 

shogun00

New member
Dec 25, 2012
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Ok. How about this. Blu-rays can be scratched. Perhaps not as easily as a DVD but still can be done. I still rent physical discs and I get quite a few that are scratched. Maybe one in 20 or so has an issue playing.
Yeah! They can get scratched, especially if the scratch resistant coating fails (becomes brittle). Many times the scratches are from the coating itself.
 

brakel

New member
Apr 27, 2012
2,305
1
Im kinda oldskool I like physical copies of games I know Im going to play alot oh yeah and the books although thats slmost pointless now but with that said I like the convienience of digital downloadable games I just worry about filling up my HD. I know this can be a non-issue with an upgrade but it also keeps me from going hog wild downloading EVERYTHING!

Physical games rarely come with books anymore. The little insert that comes with games now just has a blurb about epilepsy, a graphic labeling the controller buttons (but not the control scheme for the game), and legal mumbo jumbo.
 
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