Indiana Jones '93

[invitro]

I hear FarSight has a person dedicated to getting licenses now, so fingers crossed no door has been completely shut yet.

WHOA, this seems like some seriously big, and good, news to me. More licensed tables means better tables (at this point), and more seasons. I prefer unlicensed tables by a large margin, but at this point there are many more classic licensed remaining tables than unlicensed. Well you guys know this, why am I saying it.

I will say something perhaps not universal... IJ is a classic, sure, but there are, I'll guess, about twenty-to-forty non-Disney licensed tables that are just as or almost as classic, and as fun, as IJ. About 30 WMS, a few DE/Sega/Stern, and Stargate. So screw Disney. I don't like them anyway.

 

[The loafer]

Great post SYT. I think on top of that, it's not that Farsight can't take a leap of faith, it's that aside from Disney, there are additional costs on top of Disney (Williams and actors) that Zen don't have to deal with. Ie: if zen had to cut their pie into even smaller pieces to include a pinball company and potentially expensive actors, would they have gone ahead with the avengers/guardians tables? Not sure the answer is yes. I think you are bang on anyway with that kickstarter issue.

 

[Fungi]

Ie: if zen had to cut their pie into even smaller pieces to include a pinball company and potentially expensive actors, would they have gone ahead with the avengers/guardians tables? Not sure the answer is yes.

Good point. Judging by the Marvel/Star Wars tables, they definitely didn't have to pay expensive actors.

 

[Slam23]

I'm gonna put out a theory of mine, see if you guys agree.

From what I've heard about licensing and Disney, they like to know a guaranteed base number of sales, as well as them taking a large chunk of each sale. Many companies agree to this in terms of it being a "loss leader" product. They may make no money off it, but it establishes a reputation for the company and gets their name out there.

With that in mind, imagine this scenario: FS approaches Disney for the license and is asked what kind of numbers for sales are expected. FS uses previous data to show them, except there is one caveat. First the property, say Indiana Jones, has to get put up for crowdfunding because FarSight can't afford it. You can imagine Disney's reaction. Why would they let a brand such as IJ get put up in a situation where it might fail? That could harm the reputation of the brand! On top of that, no other company they lend the license to says they can't afford it. My theory is that until kickstarter is taken off the table as a means to get something like Indiana Jones, Disney is not going to even talk.

As for Zen, well they already had their foot in the door. When it came time to re-up the licenses, they were able to show everything Disney would need to see, with the exact brands. For Disney is was probably an easy decision, and for Zen they knew exactly what kind of numbers would be acceptable to still pull in a profit. They were willing to take the risk early, and it has paid off in spades.

I hear FarSight has a person dedicated to getting licenses now, so fingers crossed no door has been completely shut yet. But I do feel strongly that the only way any Disney license is going to happen is if FarSight bites the bullet and pays for it themselves.

Great read SYT, those seem all valid points. That leads to the question how Farsight could go about a kickstarter to already secure funds to entice Disney to do a deal. Then again, I wouldn't know how that could be made to work, because that would be a very strange Kickstarter indeed....

 

[karl]

Agree with most of it, shut, except the kickstarter bit. Of course it could theoretically be true, but I have a hard time imagining that kickstarter has anything to do with if Disney approve a license or not. Just my thought

 

[Tabe]

Realistically, how many copies of the table could Farsight possibly hope to sell? 50,000? Maybe? So that means a payment to Disney of what? $50k? Plus the up-front fee? If I'm even remotely close to the ballpark with my figures, it's no wonder Disney won't come to the table to negotiate.