Official Announcement.

Citizen said:

That's great news. Hopefully they can get the Capcom license.

I wonder if anyone will ever figure out who (if anyone) currently owns the Game Plan copyright.

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The next 5 tables are going to be Stern, based on what everyone knows. So that’s the next year of releases. In that time they’ll hopefully be able to figure out deals with the other companies, and also he closer to having Stern LCD figured out.

I know it'll take time if it happens at all, I'm just happy it's currently on the table as a future possibility.

What happens if we just don't update?
Will those Williams/Bally tables stay on our device (the ones we didn't buy)
I have purchased seasons 1-5 on PC but also play the demos on iPad.

FlippyFloppy said:

Our longstanding licenses for the Williams and Bally pinball trademarks will finally come to an end on June 30th, 2018. Therefore, after this date tables from these manufacturers will no longer be offered for sale within the Pinball Arcade. However, customers who purchased any of these tables prior to the deadline will continue to own them and have access to them within the Pinball Arcade, and we will continue to support them as we do the other tables in our collection. This change will affect all of our devices and platforms.

So if you’ve ever been interested in owning these great tables, please purchase them now, before they disappear!

FarSight will continue to release new tables for the Pinball Arcade. We are excited to announce that Season 8 will launch later this summer and will feature all of the recent Stern tables in Stern Pinball Arcade along with several new tables.

We’d like to sincerely thank all of our customers and fans over the past decade. Your amazing support of our game has helped build the Pinball Arcade into the greatest pinball simulation of all time. Pinball forever!

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PLEASE get the Mac App Store version at least running on High Sierra good enough for us to be able to buy the tables before they disappear!

lettuce said:

Hang on so the switch release of TPA will include all seasons and the Williams/Bally tables up till the end of June?

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Citizen said:

No. It doesn't have WMS tables.

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Really!!??...yet Arcooda are doing exactly that and then removing them at the end of June!!, why the heck didnt they do a similar for the Switch? With out those Williams/Bally tables the line up is not that great!

Also whats this Stern LCD thingy??

lettuce said:

Really!!??...yet Arcooda are doing exactly that and then removing them at the end of June!!, why the heck didnt they do a similar for the Switch? With out those Williams/Bally tables the line up is not that great!

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Just something to do with the licensing issue. They had no choice.

Also whats this Stern LCD thingy??

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Some of the more recent Stern tables feature TV screens as displays in the backboxes instead of DMDs.

I played a Pinball Arcade at a Japanese LAN party event of 3 days (total 48 hours) called C4 LAN 2018 SPRING which took place from 11th to 13th May.
The state of me at that time was reflected by JakenbakeLIVE's for a while only so I left it on the clip.
I played 61 tables that would disappear from the store and I enjoyed it.
When I saw that I was playing, I think Japanese people who usually do not play pinball games are interested.
It is a pity that many tables will disappear from the store on 30th June.
(using google translation)

https://clips.twitch.tv/FrailAbstemiousTitanWoofer

lettuce said:

Really!!??...yet Arcooda are doing exactly that and then removing them at the end of June!!, why the heck didnt they do a similar for the Switch?

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Bobby indicated that WMS didn’t view the Switch as part of the current contract, while FarSight interpreted it as covering ‘Nintendo’. A major violation of contract like that could have given WMS the right to pull the license across the board immediately. FarSight chose to appease by pulling the Switch.

The Arcooda agreement has been in place for over a year and could have technically been available table by table. They were choosing to wait on FarSight having all the games ready (and bug free functional in their cab) to launch at the same time as their new cab. This license pull has mucked up all of Arcooda’s launch plans and they are having to scramble just to save whatever is possible of those plans.

Why is Flight 2000 bundles with Stern Bundle 1 in TPA but not SPA? Will they add it to SPA or do Switch owners need to rebuy that bundle if they already bought those tables in the now 100% redundant SPA?

Will Switch owners get cross-buy support for SPA and TPA or will we be stuck with two pinball apps fot the same tables because we were told that 3 would remain exclusive to SPA?

Why can't Switch owners buy the specific tables they want? Will forced bundles be the norm for all platforms after June 30th?

I'd like to say the Gottlieb bundles are a good value but they aren't as most of the tables are poor. Please just let me by Flight 2000.


Why did Tales of the Arabian Nights disappear for Switch owners who played it prior to updating? Was it not said that TOTAN would still be there if you played it?

Some people are choosing not to update TPA on Switch for fear of losing TOTAN, a table they value more than any other table on TPA for Switch since the oyher good tables are on SPA. You're actually losing potential sales in TPA as a result.

Until we have answers & changes I am ending my support for all Farsight products. I've supported a product of very poor quality for many years because I appreciated what was trying to be done and there was no other official way to play the pinball tables I loved. Now that the pinball I love is gone I have lost incentive to support the poor product.

I don't know what happened between Farsight and the License Holder, but I do know what happened between Farsight and their audience. With clockwork consistency Farisght has shown general incompetence and sloppiness, stretching themselves so thin that all platforms were made to suffer from tons of bugs and missing features (and missing tables!), many of which went unaddressed for months and even years. They've been poor at communicating and content to sit on issues so they can port the game to yet another platform. They sold us all on a seperate piece of software, having us invest in a whole new bag of promises while contending with a whole new bag of bugs, only to drop support almost immediately and have it die on the vine having lived just long enough to fart out a disastrous, long-delayed launch of Ghostbusters and finally collapse into utter redundancy five months later. Congratulations, you confused the hell out of a lot of people for 18 months.

6 years of a relationship with the license holder and I'm supposed to assume they're the ones that just decided to be jerks one day? I have a strong suspicion that the blame for all of this lies at Farsight's feet. They let us down again. Consider that they had no problem launching Stern Pinball Arcade for Switch at retail, but not Pinball Arcade Season 1 as they did on PS4 and XB1. I'm forced to wonder if they weren't really sure they'd have the license and still proceeded with the eShop version.

Well, Farsight, maybe you shouldn't have made such a massive assumption about your license because the cost is devestating to you most of all.

And for the record, I'm not going to thank anyone for the miracle that is cabinet support when you were supposed to deliver that years ago.

There is no silver lining. There's just a conclusion.

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

just take a look at Scientific Games who own WMS , THERE NOT A LOLLY SHOP BUT A GAMBLING SHOP , there in there for billions of $ . make up your own mind .

wolfson said:

just take a look at Scientific Games who own WMS , THERE NOT A LOLLY SHOP BUT A GAMBLING SHOP , there in there for billions of $ . make up your own mind .

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They are all businesses, entertainment is a business, software is a business.

It's all about making money, no one is charitable. I have no qualms with that.

But I also have a choice to not do business with a company that never delivers without major caveats.

HotHamBoy said:

Why is Flight 2000 bundles with Stern Bundle 1 in TPA but not SPA? Will they add it to SPA or do Switch owners need to rebuy that bundle if they already bought those tables in the now 100% redundant SPA?

Will Switch owners get cross-buy support for SPA and TPA or will we be stuck with two pinball apps fot the same tables because we were told that 3 would remain exclusive to SPA?

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In our interview, Bobby indicated that SPA was going to be shifting to a 'free-to-play' style game. Tokens will be used and earned, and with enough collected you will be able to purchase a table. This certainly isn't going to please the early adopters of SPA, but it was pointed out that Ghostbusters sold way more, like not even close, in TPA as opposed to SPA. This is a business decision that will keep SPA alive rather than just abandoning it outright (an option I'm sure also would tick people off).

HotHamBoy said:

Why can't Switch owners buy the specific tables they want? Will forced bundles be the norm for all platforms after June 30th?

I'd like to say the Gottlieb bundles are a good value but they aren't as most of the tables are poor. Please just let me by Flight 2000.

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Here's an idea, why not just wait and see? They probably bundled them to cut down on market entries. Also, they would prefer a bulk purchase as opposed to nickel and diming it. Zen repackaged all their tables too when they came out with FX3. Quit acting shocked. It's like a cable package; they know you only want Discovery Channel, but are going to package 8 other channels with it because otherwise none of the other channels would sell. Simple business 101.

HotHamBoy said:

Why did Tales of the Arabian Nights disappear for Switch owners who played it prior to updating? Was it not said that TOTAN would still be there if you played it?

Some people are choosing not to update TPA on Switch for fear of losing TOTAN, a table they value more than any other table on TPA for Switch since the oyher good tables are on SPA. You're actually losing potential sales in TPA as a result.

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No, it was not if you played it. It was if you owned it, and TOTAN was not available for purchase as it was the 'free' table. The new 'free' table I believe is Frankenstein. The license was pulled by WMS (Scientific Games actually). They felt that putting games out on the Switch was not part of the contract, and if FarSight continued to make it available they would just pull the license from every platform immediately. In case you haven't figured it out yet, FarSight is not the bad guy here.

HotHamBoy said:

Until we have answers & changes I am ending my support for all Farsight products. I've supported a product of very poor quality for many years because I appreciated what was trying to be done and there was no other official way to play the pinball tables I loved. Now that the pinball I love is gone I have lost incentive to support the poor product.

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Our BlahCade Pinball Podcast just posted an episode yesterday that has a 30 minute interview with Bobby King, Vice President of FarSight. Lots of answers, but I'm sure that's still not good enough for you. The pinball you love has not gone. If you bought the tables, you still own them and can still play them. You just will not be able to buy any WMS title after June 30th. The Switch is the only platform that was denied this option at all. Open your ears, read the threads, the answers are there for the taking. The only real question is whether Scientific Games allows anyone to recreate WMS titles digitally in the future. Also, don't mistake what your hopes and dreams were for TPA to what was always the reality. Say what you want about the UI, customer support, or bugginess on first release, but I and a vast majority of people have found the tables themselves to be far from poor. If you really felt this way about the product, you should actually be jumping for joy that FarSight can't 'ruin' your pinball anymore.

HotHamBoy said:

I don't know what happened between Farsight and the License Holder, but I do know what happened between Farsight and their audience. With clockwork consistency Farisght has shown general incompetence and sloppiness, stretching themselves so thin that all platforms were made to suffer from tons of bugs and missing features (and missing tables!), many of which went unaddressed for months and even years. They've been poor at communicating and content to sit on issues so they can port the game to yet another platform. They sold us all on a seperate piece of software, having us invest in a whole new bag of promises while contending with a whole new bag of bugs, only to drop support almost immediately and have it die on the vine having lived just long enough to fart out a disastrous, long-delayed launch of Ghostbusters and finally collapse into utter redundancy five months later. Congratulations, you confused the hell out of a lot of people for 18 months.

6 years of a relationship with the license holder and I'm supposed to assume they're the ones that just decided to be jerks one day? I have a strong suspicion that the blame for all of this lies at Farsight's feet. They let us down again. Consider that they had no problem launching Stern Pinball Arcade for Switch at retail, but not Pinball Arcade Season 1 as they did on PS4 and XB1. I'm forced to wonder if they weren't really sure they'd have the license and still proceeded with the eShop version.

Well, Farsight, maybe you shouldn't have made such a massive assumption about your license because the cost is devestating to you most of all.

And for the record, I'm not going to thank anyone for the miracle that is cabinet support when you were supposed to deliver that years ago.

There is no silver lining. There's just a conclusion.

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It's actually been about a 10 year relationship, going back to the Williams Hall of Fame release. Also in that time, WMS was sold to a different company who does not care one iota about pinball or the license they hold. I'm not going to say FarSight is innocent in this whole affair, as I do believe they must have done something to sour the relationship over time. That being said, it has never been an easy negotiation with WMS even going back as far as between Season 2 and 3. Meanwhile FarSight has had an easy time negotiating with Gottlieb and Stern. My bet is WMS just didn't want to even be bothered again and had no intention of signing but that one last time. Oh, and by the way, WMS is the one that dictated which tables FarSight could do. There was some leeway here and there, but it wasn't carte blanche. WMS also determined when tables could be put on sale. So again, direct your anger where it belongs. As for SPA, that is an app Stern paid FarSight to make. Stern has to approve all decisions made with that app. I know it's easier to just lay the blame at FarSight's feet, but it seems no matter how many truths get dropped in front of those most critical of TPA and SPA, they only see red for FS.

Thank you shutyertrap. Thank you.

THANK YOU !!!! shutyertrap , I tried to keep it simple , but you said it PERFECT !!!!

now let us all look forward , we going to have Gottlieb and Stern tables and hopefully other brands as well , cheers !!! myself I`m looking forward to the era 1970 to 1985 , there were a lot of great tables in that time!!!!

Yeah, thanks shutyertrap.

shutyertrap said:

I encourage all of you to listen to our BlahCade podcast we just recorded and posted...

http://blahcadepinball.com/bobby-king-wms-license

A lot of your questions will be answered in this, and Jared has laid out detailed timing notes for those that just want to skip ahead. Next week we'll dive into full speculation mode about what we think and hope is happening with the WMS license.

As for the Arcooda stuff, check out the official website http://www.arcoodapinballarcade.com for all the details yourself. We also talk about it in the podcast as we're in communication with Arcooda. I'm hoping to get up to FarSight in the next few weeks so I can get my hands on the Arcooda cabinet they've been developing on, so I can report with first hand knowledge.

Dan asked above, "Would we hobbyist players have been offered an official cabinet support add-on?" and the answer would have been "no". This software was being developed exclusively for use with Arcooda cabinets. So I guess the silver lining here is until June 30th, it's available to all.

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What a great listen!!, answered a lot of the questions i had and seems to suggest that WMS group wasn't the easiest to work with and pulled a lot of dick moves (leaving the biggest to the very end) that said something still doesn't add up and maybe FS aren't completely without blame i mean why pull a license what was bring in money!??.......i think all things point to the Arcooda deal maybe upsetting the apple cart!?. At least FS seems to have a fair few 'pots on the boil' at the moment and hopefully can still bring some quality tables to TPA despite losing the Williams/Bally license.

I still cant help feeling sad that we'll never get to see the likes of...

Congo
Barracora
Bad Cats
Mousin' Around!
The Shadow
Rollergames
Grand Lizard
Lost World
Elektra
Johnny Mnemonic
Future Spa
Medusa
Riverboat Gambler

Sounds like Monster Bash might still get its much needed facelift at some point also which is great that they will still update these tables

You're welcome, guys!

Look, there's no doubt I'm a TPA apologist. At the same time, I have never had an issue with people pointing out the obvious faults with FarSight. I have done the very same here and in the podcast. I just can't stand it when people purposely ignore facts, information, or valid points just because they have an ax to grind.

I don't hate the game, TPA. Not one bit. I am certainly disappointed in it's mediocrity compared to what it should be. I never purchased anything for SPA purposely because of TPA, and I championed that people should wait and see. I preached that people should abandon the PS3 version and go to Steam when the PS4 option was about to hit (end of Season 2). I have no sympathy for people that couldn't open their eyes to the reality, thinking things would be different with each platform release. I have enjoyed the game for what it is, pure and simple. Never buy any studio's game for its promises, only buy for what is there at time of purchase. You'll be much happier for it.

Shutyertrap, when you say your disappointed by TPA and it not reaching its fully potential , what are you referring to what would you improve?.......i know one of them is the Frontend as thats just a give and maybe how some of the early season tables now look compared to the later seasons but what else?