Rejoyce! Pinball Arcade coming back in August?

Gigabomber · Jul 27, 2013

http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/27/mic...ishing-on-xbox-360-as-early-as-august-report/

XB One announcement as well!

Looking for a more direct quote from Farsight.

Original Polygon Article with Farsight quote:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/26/45...coming-to-xbox-360-this-august-says-developer

"Microsoft has just announced that indie developers (like FarSight) can now self-publish on Xbox Live Arcade instead of being required to find publishers for their games," the newsletter reads. "This means we can bring The Pinball Arcade back to the 360 ourselves, and also opens the door to an Xbox One version of The Pinball Arcade in the future!"

The Pinball Arcade and its tables were pulled from Xbox Live Arcade after the game's original publisher, Crave Entertainment, went belly-up and Microsoft revoked its publishing license.

FarSight says the new self-publishing program will open in August. Microsoft said earlier this week that it plans to further detail its self-publishing plans at Gamescom, which runs Aug. 21 to 25.

Link to HTML Newsletter:
http://sendgrid.com/wf/webmail?rp=Z...SMFpYSmZkWE5sY2w5cFpDSTZNekE1TmpNM05UQXpOVFY5

xNiCeGuYx · Jul 27, 2013

September/November more likely.

Gigabomber · Jul 27, 2013

There's some confusing/non-committal language in there, so I am looking for another source.

Sumez · Jul 27, 2013

I'm so tired of waiting

Gordon · Jul 28, 2013

Gigabomber said:
"Microsoft has just announced that indie developers (like FarSight) can now self-publish on Xbox Live Arcade instead of being required to find publishers for their games," the newsletter reads. "This means we can bring The Pinball Arcade back to the 360 ourselves, and also opens the door to an Xbox One version of The Pinball Arcade in the future!"

The Pinball Arcade and its tables were pulled from Xbox Live Arcade after the game's original publisher, Crave Entertainment, went belly-up and Microsoft revoked its publishing license.

FarSight says the new self-publishing program will open in August. Microsoft said earlier this week that it plans to further detail its self-publishing plans at Gamescom, which runs Aug. 21 to 25.

Not Finding the actual newsletter.

In the Newsletter 17

As many of our fans have noticed, the Xbox 360 version of the Pinball Arcade is no longer available in the Live Arcade store. Our publisher for the 360 version recently emerged from bankruptcy and we'd been told that we would be allowed to immediately submit all of the unreleased Table Packs to our long-suffering 360 users. Unfortunately, Microsoft has elected to revoke the publisher's license agreement (which is why the Pinball Arcade is temporarily not available in the store). However, we have some very good news to share- Microsoft has just announced that indie developers (like FarSight) can now self-publish on Xbox Live Arcade instead of being required to find publishers for their games. This means we can bring the Pinball Arcade back to the 360 ourselves, and also opens the door to an Xbox One version of the Pinball Arcade in the future! Microsoft has stated that the new program will open in August- we will do everything we can to get the Pinball Arcade (and all of the new Table Packs) back on the Xbox 360 as quickly as possible.

superballs · Jul 28, 2013

Hope they can self publish and get out of their contract with crave

brakel · Jul 28, 2013

superballs said:
Hope they can self publish and get out of their contract with crave

If Microsoft revoked Crave's publishing rights then FarSight would be relieved of their contractual obligations with Crave.

superballs · Jul 28, 2013

brakel said:
If Microsoft revoked Crave's publishing rights then FarSight would be relieved of their contractual obligations with Crave.

Best sentence I've read all day.

karl · Jul 28, 2013

Lots of great news. Let us all hope that Microsoft is quick about this. There must be a lot of Indie games wanting to publish at the same time in August.

On another note, I am curious about how much money Crave owes Farsight and if they will ever see any of it now if they are allowed to completely free themselves from Crave.

Anyway, this is fantastic news for both Farsight and the community.

Nightwing · Jul 28, 2013

karl said:
Lots of great news. Let us all hope that Microsoft is quick about this. There must be a lot of Indie games wanting to publish at the same time in August.

On another note, I am curious about how much money Crave owes Farsight and if they will ever see any of it now if they are allowed to completely free themselves from Crave.

Anyway, this is fantastic news for both Farsight and the community.

It is,and it also has the side effect of putting the spotlight on TPA and Farsight also. Many of the gaming websites are going with the 360 indie self-publishing story. The more good exposure that TPA can get is always a good thing.

McGuirk · Jul 28, 2013

brakel said:
If Microsoft revoked Crave's publishing rights then FarSight would be relieved of their contractual obligations with Crave.

I thought I read Farsight announced (back when the court case was settled) that they were back with Crave in their restructuring. I groaned when I saw that.

Gigabomber · Jul 29, 2013

McGuirk said:
I thought I read Farsight announced (back when the court case was settled) that they were back with Crave in their restructuring. I groaned when I saw that.

Sounds like the publishers are going to have to actually advertise these indie games now rather than just get cash for being a pure middleman.

Mark W**a · Jul 29, 2013

Ok so potential 360 release in August, September, or October?

Please please please be the case. August preferably. So I can get my console Pinball Arcade on.

Would be most amazing if we got everything up to and including T2 in one release. I'd probably have to cancel my life for about a month if that happened.

karl · Jul 29, 2013

Now if Microsoft would just cancel the whole certification process and the "We will release it when it suits us" mentality we could have this baby in August, but my guess is more like October/November. In the case of Microsoft I have found it is better to be a pessimist (or realist if you will) than getting my hopes up to high

Still it is wonderful news that they bother to change their mentality about Indie games at all

Sean DonCarlos · Jul 29, 2013

I wouldn't think any earlier than October. Microsoft may have gotten rid of the requirement to have a publisher, but they didn't get rid of the certification process as far as I can tell, and that still takes 5 to 6 weeks...if everything goes right the first time.

Sumez · Jul 29, 2013

To be fair, we should all be thankful that they have their certification process.

gooche77 · Jul 29, 2013

Should be a fun update with 20+ tables included.

Matt McIrvin · Jul 29, 2013

While the certification process perhaps takes longer than it should, I blame Farsight more than Microsoft for the episodes in which they had to go through it multiple times. Farsight knows what kinds of things Microsoft is testing for, and they ought to have hashed out most of these issues with their own QA before having Microsoft take a look at it, since the effect on time-to-market is so huge. Especially considering that they think of the XBox as their primary development platform.

Sean DonCarlos · Jul 29, 2013

Sumez said:
To be fair, we should all be thankful that they have their certification process.

We will see once the release version comes out on Steam. (The beta I'm expecting to have problems; it is after all a beta.)

Redrazorback64 · Jul 29, 2013

From the original gameinformer article when the story was breaking...

"Additionally, we have learned that Microsoft is drastically overhauling its certification process. The company will use a model similar to iTunes and is targeting a 14-day turnaround for an approvals. Instead of extensive code checking, the company will be looking for terms of service violations and significant bugs."

Is this something different or was this proven false? Because I was hoping this meant it wouldn't take so long to get TPA through certification.

Rejoyce! Pinball Arcade coming back in August?

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