Volume 3 announced for march 19!!

shutyertrap said:

It's not a question of how long Zen has the license for, it's how quickly can they get a return on investment, thus maximizing profits.

I'll show how this works in a completely different scenario...the custom car world.

If you watch any of these shows on TV, there are 2 basic approaches; one is to build a show quality car over the course of a year or two (West Coast Customs, Custom Hot Rods, *****in' Rides, Fantom Works) which typically will put the car into 6 figures for the customer, while the other is to build the same type of car but within a month or two (Fast N' Loud, Misfit Garage, Iron Resurrection) and being able to sell for a lower price but higher profit. The parts cost the same for all the garages, and the skill level is all on par resulting in top quality custom vehicles. It's the overhead, how many cars that can be worked on at the same time, and how much your labor force costs that varies. So Gas Monkey has a crew of roughly 8 guys that do everything, while Kindig Design has closer to 20. Say both garages want to build the same car, with parts and vehicle costing $60,000 before fabrication. Gas Monkey turns it out in a month, all labor devoted solely to that vehicle, turns around and sells for $90,000. Kindig takes a year, but their labor force had 4 other vehicles they were working on at the same time. They sell the car for $140,000 which seems like it would have the larger profit, but having the vehicle occupy space during that time, all the extra employees, and the time spent with that vehicle wind up making the profit relatively equal to the shorter build while costing the customer more.

So how does this relate to Zen? Well right now they are cranking out unlicensed machines for the Williams collection. This is the bread and butter, where maximum profit is going to be made. If they have all 19 DMD machines for sale before doing one licensed table (this is all assumption by the way), they essentially have a war chest built. Now they can pay for licenses from that, which will continue to generate revenue for some time to come, all the while never having to pass those costs on to the customer. I imagine this is why Zen has never had to do a kickstarter, nor ever will. FarSight had a tipping point where the back catalog of seasons was more than paying for future returns from current seasons, or that was the case while they had the WMS license. If Zen winds up making 'original' tables from licenses they secure for classic ones, that will only further stoke the value in investment.

I think that Zen also knows the Digital Pinball Fans audience does not want to wait 6 years for all these tables, and if they have their sites set on getting the Stern license, they'll wanna crank through this catalog as quick as possible.

Folks, this is nothing but my speculation. I'm seriously pulling these notions out of thin air, but I do think it makes a lot of sense. I would love nothing more than to be a fly on the wall during Zen's strategy meetings to see how on the mark I am. As usual, I'm happy to eat crow when we look back at all this, but more often than not I've been in the ball park with my guesses.

Click to expand...

shutyertrap said:

As for Champion Pub, I'm most looking forward to proper lighting and the toys having actual shading and depth. The video has already alieved my concerns in this department.

Click to expand...

shutyertrap said:

Why Safe Cracker? Because Thomas at Zen is a big fan, because there's only 19 unlicensed DMD machines to choose from, and we'll have all of them (presumably) by August. Oh, and TPA did all 19 of those tables already.

I'll just repeat myself in various threads to help manage people's expectations...

Zen has said they wanted to do DMD tables because a) they tend to be the most popular, and b) their Zen originals audience that had no desire to play TPA wants DMD style games like they are used to as they view alpha numerics as 'those boring old style pinball tables'.

Licensed tables will not be part of the Volume packs, as the license holders want their product to be the sole focus of the purchase. There are 23 licensed machines, 13 of which appeared in TPA. Outside of Indiana Jones, most are going to want to see those 13 again over the remaining 10.

So where does that leave us? I see people wishing Zen would put out a 'new to digital' pinball, but where's it going to come from? Hell, I was making the same request myself until I wrote down all the tables and realized the reality. We're going to have to wait for licensed tables. Let me list the 10 not done by FarSight...

Congo
Demolition Man
Dirty Harry
Flinstones
Indiana Jones
Johnny Mnemonic
Gilligan's Island
NBA Fastbreak
Popeye
The Shadow

My head would explode if NBA Fastbreak got picked ahead of something like TAF, but who here actually believes that will happen? Other than Indiana Jones and possibly The Shadow, I'd bet 7 out of 10 would want to see the likes of Monster Bash, TAF, Twilight Zone, T2, or ST:TNG ahead of those other 8 when push comes to shove. Yes, playing something new would be nice, but before getting the gold standard tables?

Even if Zen does start doing alpha numeric machines, there's no way I'd want something like Future Spa or Vector over the likes of Whirlwind or Centaur. I for sure would want Rollergames over most myself, and I'd take a lot of yet to be done machines over the likes of Dr Dude or Firepower II, so I think this era of machine is the most fertile for mixing new with old. I just think Zen is going to knock at as many DMD machines as they can, as quick as they can, as those are going to be most profitable for them.

Click to expand...

Benny Baroni said:

That Sparkled
Collect all 20 Magic Tokens on the Safe Cracker™ table. (Single player only)

Click to expand...

zmcvay said:

Oh please tell me that you don't get duplicates until you collect all tokens.

Click to expand...

rehtroboi40 said:

Theater of Magic-one of the first TPA games and needs a more modernized touch up. The only one of this batch I am excited about.
Champion Pub-Glitchy and has no flow to it. Has some funny dialogue to it though. ("I don't feel so good, bloccch!)
Safe Cracker-NOT AGAIN! Was interesting at first, but I may lose all respect for Zen if they make the achievement for it "collect all 26 unique tokens".

I'm sure Zen has better offerings planned for the future. Wait and see.....

Click to expand...

shutyertrap said:

My high school graduation was the same night that Dick Tracy was having it’s midnight release on (remember when they wouldn’t release on a Thursday, so it’d be 12:01 instead?), so after my party a group of friends went to see it. We were so hoping for another Batman experience, but man what a disappointment.

Click to expand...