Request Kickstarter Fund

Now that FarSight has made it clear that they would consider this due to high cost licenses, I'm curious how many of you would be willing to support it. These guys do a fantastic job and just need some help getting things going. Most of us pinheads have a long list of high dollar machines we'd like to see in the pinball arcade, but to make that happen I think FarSight is gonna need some help! I'm quite sure the Twilight Zone is going to be far from the most expensive to acquire.

We’ve finally succeeded in negotiating all of the licenses we’d need to bring the Twilight Zone to the Pinball Arcade. This is unquestionably one of the greatest pinball tables of all time (and is currently #1 in IPDB’s user rankings). However the licenses are VEY expensive- so expensive that the table probably isn’t commercially viable. Some of you have suggested a Kickstarter project to raise money for the license costs and we’re considering this. We’d like to ask your opinion- is this a good idea? If we did it what should the rewards be for backers, and at what contribution levels? We’d appreciate your thoughts!

Click to expand...

Update: FarSight has decided to go through with doing a Kickstarter fundraiser. If you're interested in pledging a donation you can do so by going here.

Update 2: CONGRATULATIONS FarSight and to everyone that helped this Kickstarter meet it's goal!!

Now it's time to see if we can reach the stretch goal for Star Trek: The Next Generation!!

This could get messy, as you said there are many more expensive to licence tables, are they going to start a kickstarter for each one? Thats not a route I would want to go down. Just tell us what the table will cost and if its not more than $10 I'll buy it.

Kevlar said:

This could get messy

Click to expand...

Well put and yep.

Not sure of the logistics, minefield from where I'm sittin'. Say an extra expensive table was released and people paid and find a fault, would that mean the more expensive table takes precedence over a lesser table fix? if so then an average punter would get a tad miffed as they too paid out money. If the expensive table purchasers weren't given priority then they'd maybe get annoyed considering the extra cost. (only throwing this out as a thought)

Then you'd also get various format quality/options that kinda compounds the above even more.

There is good and bad with this. I would hate to see it happen with every table that is expensive. Plus there has to be some kind of communication. What is the total cost. How much of that cost could be covered by the purchases and how much would need subsidy. If you are going to have it subsidized are you still going to attempt to be making a profit on it? I don't see it being fair to put extra money out and then the company pockets huge amounts of $$$.

I think the first step is to just figure out a price of the table and get pre-commitments. I believe a better alternative is to pre-sell a game code at a set amount. Once a goal is reached, the table goes into production. By the time it is released, pre-sales should hopefully cover expenses and you don't have various individuals donating various amounts. If pre-sales are not reached by a target date, eveyone gets a refund. That seems better to me as everyone would pay the same share and it keeps the price of the table consistent post release so anyone interested in it could buy it at the same price. I'm guessing $10 would be good for that single table. Between the popularity and multiple platform purchases, I have no doubt that it would reap a huge amount of dough.

I have no problem donating for expensive licensed tables, but first, I would like FarSight to tell us how much they would need to charge (if they paid for the license themselves) for a licensed table (Twilight Zone in this case) for it to be commercially viable and get feedback on how many people would be willing to pay that price for the table. I also don't recommend FarSight bundle expensive licensed tables with any other table. Just release a premium table at a premium price quarterly (once every three months) along with their regular monthly bundled DLC which I believe would be enough to draw attention to their product with the more popular and more expensive licensed tables.

Yeah, I agree with PW. I'd also like to hear more details from Farsight on the numbers.

Also, FarSight asked what incentive should they offer to those who donate to their kickstarter program and I say, the only incentive most would want (and would help FarSight at the same time) is to allow all those who donate to have access to and participate in beta testing the table pre-release. That's sounds more than fair to me.

I was glad to see the feedback has been pretty positive on Facebook, outside of a few cheap arses. For the prices that physical machines go for now, not to mention the pricey maintenance...to me this Kickstarter is a no brainer. FarSight if you're reading this start selling merchandise guys! I would buy a hat and shirt without question. Cafepress used to be a great place to go through to get merch started, that'd help get some extra income flowing in.

Here's a backer reward proposal off the top of my head and based on what I've seen before:

$1000+ Tour of studio, photo with devs, 1 of everything listed below

$300+
1. Name in the credits as a backer
2. Free FarSight merch of some kind (t-shirt of choosing?)
3. Beta code
4. ?

$100-$299

1. Free FarSight merch of some kind (t-shirt of choosing?)
2. Beta Code
3. Free DLC Tables for (6 months?)

$5-$100

Maybe some of you could fill in those blanks or replace my crazy ideas.

I think there are a few problems with them doing DLC through Kickstarter - you can't "buy" the material outside of many of these closed systems. A dev can't get 1,000 codes for downloading their DLC content, so how would they distribute the material to the Kickstarter funders? They also said during the initial beta that they couldn't have many participants because Apple doesn't allow it.

I'm not sure they could even offer some kind of bonus outside of the app, as that's probably in violation of various store rules. Maybe they could get away with it if they did a "subscription" that would allow certain perks, and offer those same perks inside the apps. I think there are a lot of issues with the various platforms that would keep this from being viable. With that said, if there was a way to do it, I'd be in.

Frostyglitch said:

I was glad to see the feedback has been pretty positive on Facebook, outside of a few cheap arses. For the prices that physical machines go for now, not to mention the pricey maintenance...to me this Kickstarter is a no brainer. FarSight if you're reading this start selling merchandise guys! I would buy a hat and shirt without question. Cafepress used to be a great place to go through to get merch started, that'd help get some extra income flowing in.

Here's a backer reward proposal off the top of my head and based on what I've seen before:

$1000+ Tour of studio, photo with devs, 1 of everything listed below

$300+
1. Name in the credits as a backer
2. Free FarSight merch of some kind (t-shirt of choosing?)
3. Beta code
4. ?

$100-$299

1. Free FarSight merch of some kind (t-shirt of choosing?)
2. Beta Code
3. Free DLC Tables for (6 months?)

$5-$100

Maybe some of you could fill in those blanks or replace my crazy ideas.

Click to expand...

I'm am sure they would have artwork etc lying around that they could use. You can work out how many items you have and then make a level that gives you that as the prize (So 20 pieces of artwork/flyers for same $100 each and a T-Shirt), Even the PC version on disk (or free download) when available would be awesome.
They just need to look at other kickstarters and ensure they make it suitably high (Not sure how much each licence costs, but you would want to aim for the next 4-5 licences so income can come in) and with enough time to allow the money to be raised (say 1 month?). A bit of advertising on facebook and wherever else they can get the word out, I am sure it would be possible, especially if you posted some screens of the game, and a representation of the Cabinet version (Maybe even a $20K donation would get you a Cabinet version once available with all the games and free DLC's forever). You could even possible make a special option that you code into the game and a $10 donation would provide a code to unlock.

Frostyglitch said:

FarSight if you're reading this start selling merchandise guys!

Click to expand...

I just bought a coffee mug at the Pinball Cafe in Toronto on Sunday. I would buy some TPA gear if it was available.

I have no interest in any type of kickstart program. Charge 10 -15 dollars for premium tables and start using what you already have availbable to raise more funds .... make dynamic themes and avatars which can be purchased online as DLC.

RetroBlast- think of it like this: just pay Kickstarter 14 dollars up front to help pay for the license, and then pay $1 or 2.50 or 5 when it comes out. The whole reason that they need the kickstarter is to cover these costs before they can even start developing. I feel that if we want TZ, rather than have them just strike it off of their list, we should all put our money where our mouths are.

I'm all for donating when I know the funds will go towards a table I want. But I have to admit that first post has me really worried. Obviously I don't know all the details, I wouldn't imagine a license to Twilight Zone being all that expensive as it's pretty much a dead franchise (maybe not dead, but idle?). Despite that, it's probably not commercially viable. What does that say for tables with probably much bigger and more prominent licenses?

Animator_pin_fan said:

RetroBlast- think of it like this: just pay Kickstarter 14 dollars up front to help pay for the license, and then pay $1 or 2.50 or 5 when it comes out. The whole reason that they need the kickstarter is to cover these costs before they can even start developing. I feel that if we want TZ, rather than have them just strike it off of their list, we should all put our money where our mouths are.

Click to expand...

Ok, so here is my solution, offer a pre order of the table ... they get the money up front, if they do not get enough and scrap the project, they must give us a voucher for what we put up.

Let me say that I do not mind supporting Farsight but the whole idea of getting a physical gift means some of our money is going to be spent on our gift. Let us not forget, this is the first premium table, there will be others and making donations is not my idea of how it should work. This is why I say offer pre orders, start selling things you can sell now such as dynamic themes and avatars, and set up a preorder and charge 10-15 bucks for it. In my eyes the core game and downloadable tables are very cheap to begin with.

With regard to the gifts, make them anyway and start selling them now. I would wear a PINBALL ARCADE T shirt, baseball cap, use a coffee mug, keychain and so forth. But I do not want to donate 100 bucks and get a coffee mug for my trouble. Set up an online store and lets get cracking!

Dumahim said:

I'm all for donating when I know the funds will go towards a table I want. But I have to admit that first post has me really worried. Obviously I don't know all the details, I wouldn't imagine a license to Twilight Zone being all that expensive as it's pretty much a dead franchise (maybe not dead, but idle?). Despite that, it's probably not commercially viable. What does that say for tables with probably much bigger and more prominent licenses?

Click to expand...

Now THIS is a VERY good point...
Please cough up the figures on what makes TZ not commercially viable please FS.

Andy

HOW said:

Now THIS is a VERY good point...
Please cough up the figures on what makes TZ not commercially viable please FS.

Andy

Click to expand...

They most likely can't. Usually one the first things spelled out in any licensing arrangement is that the licensee can't reveal the costs of the licenses to outside parties, as this would weaken the negotiating position of the licenseholder in future deals with others.

If I win the Mega Millions I will pony up the money needed.

Agreed on how this could be messy. If the licenses are so high for Twilight Zone, I can't imagine what the costs would be for more of the other tables requested that have big name movies etc. I really like Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones (got a chance to play them for real last month) I'm sure the licenses on those would be huge.

Still though I would pay minimum of $5-7 for those tables. It should be worth it when you consider the tables we will be getting in the next DLC is around $2.50 each.

Still unsure, I can understand the "feelers" goin' out just to check the lie of the land mind.

Personally I'd like other suggestions/bugs already posted elsewhere to be applied/included in the game first and foremost, plus get a few more tables out that most will purchase. A great license doesn't necessarily equate to a great return, the foundations need to be solid.

Not posting just negative thoughts as I love the work & tables so far but feel it's a "walk before you run" situation, or is that just me?