PAF Top Ten Most Wanted Table Poll Series : #6 - Stern/Data East/Sega (Closed)

[Rudy]

Also, even though we all chose Flight 2000 as the classic Stern we wanted to see released first, that table pack has done somewhat worse in sales than most other table packs and I don't think that the fact that this pack contained two early Solid State tables was just a coincidence. The Classic Stern poll goes to show that separating polls by era doesn't necessarily mean more money for FarSight.

It really didn't help that Flight 2000 was paired with Goin' Nuts, if it had been paired with anything from the Williams collection then it could been a completely different reaction. Centaur, another early Solid State poll winner was paired with Pin*Bot, if that pack had a similar sales pattern then you may well have a point, but pairing a table that worked as a strong B-List table with a really weak B-List table or worse was a huge mistake. If they're using tables paired with Gottlieb re-releases that scrape the bottom of the barrel as a reason to justify choosing future tables then there probably won't be a Season 3.

 

[PiN WiZ]

It really didn't help that Flight 2000 was paired with Goin' Nuts, if it had been paired with anything from the Williams collection then it could been a completely different reaction. Centaur, another early Solid State poll winner was paired with Pin*Bot, if that pack had a similar sales pattern then you may well have a point, but pairing a table that worked as a strong B-List table with a really weak B-List table or worse was a huge mistake. If they're using tables paired with Gottlieb re-releases that scrape the bottom of the barrel as a reason to justify choosing future tables then there probably won't be a Season 3.

My point exactly...popular System 11 and DMD tables will always strengthen a table pack, but the fact is, pairing a popular DMD table with a popular System 11 table will no doubt bring in more revenue for FarSight than pairing an early Solid State table with a popular System 11 or DMD table.

 

[Rudy]

Fair enough, I mistook your argument as saying that there's no point in early SS machines, not that a DMD+SS pairing is the best type of pairing. I stand correct and apologise for the tone <_<

 

[PiN WiZ]

Fair enough, I mistook your argument as saying that there's no point in early SS machines, not that a DMD+SS pairing is the best type of pairing. I stand correct and apologise for the tone <_<

No problem...and by the way, I love early Solid State tables as well, but I personally chose 7-8 poplular System 11 and DMD tables and 2-3 early classic Solid State tables in each of the polls (excluding the EM and Premium polls for obvious reasons) because I feel this is the proper mix of tables that will keep the majority happy (and purchasing future table packs) and help keep the doors open at FarSight Studios at the same time.

 

[Father Time]

While I do understand the need for diversity in The Pinball Arcade, the fact remains that FarSight is, first and foremost, a business that needs to make money to keep the doors open so they can continue to bring us these wonderful tables for years to come. Also, even though we all chose Flight 2000 as the classic Stern we wanted to see released first, that table pack has done somewhat worse in sales than most other table packs and I don't think that the fact that this pack contained two early Solid State tables was just a coincidence. The Classic Stern poll goes to show that separating polls by era doesn't necessarily mean more money for FarSight. Most members of this forum are considered hardcore pinball fanatics and these polls only go to show which tables would bring in the most revenue for FarSight since we are the one's choosing to pick the more popular System 11 and DMD tables over the majority of the older Solid State tables.

Really? I love flight 2000, way more than I thought I would've. Although I am waiting for the PS4 version to get it, same with Monster Bash. As for Goin' Nuts I've just gotten used to every table that I think is worth buying being paired with a table I do not care about. No seriously this has happened with literally every table I wanted to buy. At least I could buy MM on it's own.

 

[Father Time]

Hey wasn't there a baseball themed table in this poll or was I thinking of a different one?

 

[PiN WiZ]

Really? I love flight 2000, way more than I thought I would've. Although I am waiting for the PS4 version to get it, same with Monster Bash. As for Goin' Nuts I've just gotten used to every table that I think is worth buying being paired with a table I do not care about. No seriously this has happened with literally every table I wanted to buy. At least I could buy MM on it's own.

Correct, but you are also a member of this forum and truthfully, if you you knew very little about real world pinball and weren't a member of this forum, would you have seriously considered purchasing the Flight 2000/Goin' Nuts table pack if you had just seen screenshots of the tables and/or played a limited Demo of each?

Hey wasn't there a baseball themed table in this poll or was I thinking of a different one?

I believe you are referring to the previous Gottlieb/Premier poll.

 

[Fungi]

Correct, but you are also a member of this forum and truthfully, if you you knew very little about real world pinball and weren't a member of this forum, would you have seriously considered purchasing the Flight 2000/Goin' Nuts table pack if you had just seen screenshots of the tables and/or played a limited Demo of each?

Hmm. Interesting question. Y'know what? Yes, I might have passed.

 

[Rudy]

A nice easy way of determining what tables have 'pull' is to own TPA on multiple platforms or try to recommend only 5 packs to someone. I find myself only buying certain packs for my PS3 to keep me going until PC, and soon after introducing my girlfriend to TPA I found myself only recommending a few table packs and didn't even feel guilty about doing so.

 

[netizen]

popular System 11 and DMD tables will always strengthen a table pack, but the fact is, pairing a popular DMD table with a popular System 11 table will no doubt bring in more revenue for FarSight than pairing an early Solid State table with a popular System 11 or DMD table.

I disagree tho. Pairing a popular Sys11/DMD with a lesser known or older table is the best way to get these other types of tables out there.

Relying on the DMD popularity to push things only goes so far, as there will be a saturation point of people wanting shorter games and not wanting to sit down for 45+ minutes for a single game.

This is why I am asking for the polls to be looked at separately. Sure when you ask facebook members to come in and compare a DMD to a Sys 11, or earlier, usually the DMD will win in a poll, but is it always going to be the better game?

There is already a steady stream of complaints/critique re: the length of games, the level of difficulty and very specific things that "need" to be done in order to bring a level of "realism" to the game and decrease play times while not deceasing playability. So will simply increasing the number of games that compound these problems really be beneficial in the long run?

Mixing the eras of the games was what FS was doing in the first season, and only seemed to stop doing as such recently.

 

[LeBaron]

While I do understand the need for diversity in The Pinball Arcade, the fact remains that FarSight is, first and foremost, a business that needs to make money to keep the doors open so they can continue to bring us these wonderful tables for years to come. Also, even though we all chose Flight 2000 as the classic Stern we wanted to see released first, that table pack has done somewhat worse in sales than most other table packs and I don't think that the fact that this pack contained two early Solid State tables was just a coincidence. The Classic Stern poll goes to show that separating polls by era doesn't necessarily mean more money for FarSight. Most members of this forum are considered hardcore pinball fanatics and these polls only go to show which tables would bring in the most revenue for FarSight since we are the one's choosing to pick the more popular System 11 and DMD tables over the majority of the older Solid State tables.

Fair enough PiN WiZ. Of course I'm just very grateful TPA exists at all and that you've evidently put so much work into these polls, and thank you very much for that. I was just throwing an idea out in case a bit of it made sense or got people talking. Whatever keeps TPA going has to come first. I just felt that with the Stern vote the very fact they were both early solid state, as you pointed out, was more important, good or bad, than than the fact they were both Stern. So if polls were by table type, even if the end result leads TPA to give those early machines a lower priority or just bundled them with a newer machine, at least the view of what type of tables people wanted would be more informative for TPA and for us than judging them by manufacturer, because people who simply didn't like early tables could just choose not to vote.

 

[Father Time]

Correct, but you are also a member of this forum and truthfully, if you you knew very little about real world pinball and weren't a member of this forum, would you have seriously considered purchasing the Flight 2000/Goin' Nuts table pack if you had just seen screenshots of the tables and/or played a limited Demo of each?



I believe you are referring to the previous Gottlieb/Premier poll.

Woah woah woah who said I knew much about real world pinball? I played it when I was a kid when I was in the mood and liked it, but I can't recall a single table I played back then. I usually just played the light gun games like house of the dead or time crisis (speaking of which someone should make something like the pinball arcade but with those games). In fact the only table I remember playing for sure was the lord of the rings one some time last year (and I missed the vote for the licensed tables). I do not understand 90% of the pinball jargon you use either.

So yeah there's that, and I still like Flight 2000, although to be honest that and Space Shuttle are the only 2 non-DMDs I like enough to want to buy. Although perhpas I should give them more of a chance.

 

[PiN WiZ]

Woah woah woah who said I knew much about real world pinball? I played it when I was a kid when I was in the mood and liked it, but I can't recall a single table I played back then. I usually just played the light gun games like house of the dead or time crisis (speaking of which someone should make something like the pinball arcade but with those games). In fact the only table I remember playing for sure was the lord of the rings one some time last year (and I missed the vote for the licensed tables). I do not understand 90% of the pinball jargon you use either.

So yeah there's that, and I still like Flight 2000, although to be honest that and Space Shuttle are the only 2 non-DMDs I like enough to want to buy. Although perhpas I should give them more of a chance.

But you are a member of this forum and by default, you have more knowledge about pinball (and other member's opinions on certain tables) than the casual gamer who merely purchase games based on how they look on a screenshot or play on a limited Demo.

The bottom line is, I've given everyone a chance to voice their opinions on which tables they would like to see sooner rather than later on polls that feature a nice mix of popular early and late Solid State tables which 250+ voters on each poll have voiced their opinions.

Remember, there's always a chance that FarSight may have to shut down (for reasons beyond their control) and if that's a possibility, which tables would you rather be left with to play?

 

[Father Time]

But you are a member of this forum and by default, you have more knowledge about pinball (and other member's opinions on certain tables) than the casual gamer who merely purchase games based on how they look on a screenshot or play on a limited Demo.

With the exception of the Twilight Zone and Terminator tables (which I put in some money on their kickstarters) I base my table buys entirely on how much fun I have with the free version.

Remember, there's always a chance that FarSight may have to shut down (for reasons beyond their control) and if that's a possibility, which tables would you rather be left with to play?

Good question. That could be a whole nother topic in itself.
My answer:
The historic ones, the ones that are connected with the Who and after that it goes by fun then by theme. I'm just saying that maybe the older tables might have an audience with the people like me who aren't hardcore pinball fans.

 

[Chellspecker]

I can also speak for those who don't have a lot of experience with real-world pinball. I haven't played any of the games on this list. I'm basing my decisions on a few factors:

1. Does the gameplay video look like fun? It's frustrating that some of the linked videos are poorly shot and give a negative impression of the table. Viper, I'm talking to you.

2. Does the table feature rare or unusual features? One table I would love to see is Lightning, which has an upper ramp-accessible playfield. I think Black Knight is the only other TPA table that has one of these. Big Game is a four-flipper table, which is not a table type we have a lot of on TPA. And Viper is a widebody. Full disclosure: I've been playing a lot of Zaccaria pinball lately, and digging the generic dorky themes to their games. They didn't need (or couldn't get) big licenses but a lot of their games are really entertaining. Robot is great, with its ramp and pop-up targets.

3. How does the game rate on IPDB? Looking at those, I notice that the highest-scoring tables are mostly late model big-franchise tables that aren't even on this list. Metallica Master of Puppets scores 9.4, X-Men 9.1, The Avengers 8.8. The first table on this poll from the later Stern Tables (ranked from high to low rating) is Monopoly at 7.4. NASCAR sits near the bottom of post-1999 tables at 6.9. My point: we're not getting the best tables these manufacturers made in these periods. Which is why I've included more of the older table that match the ratings of the new ones.

Personally, I like the older tables a lot. Part of TPA's mission, as I see it, is to create a kind of playable museum of pinball (please freely use that phrase in your promotional material, FarSight). Maybe "kids today" don't go to museums anymore, but I always thought the re-creating tables from the past thing was one of the coolest things about TPA. Zen has Star Wars, Zen has Marvel, DC. Let them have it. I'm sure the licenses for really recent franchises are way out of budget, eg. Lord of the Rings, Simpsons, Spiderman. I don't care that they don't have these tables, though I would play a Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Game of Thrones pinball in a second if they existed. I would spend good money on that. If TPA continues to put out unique, sometimes weird/unusual/one-off tables that have merit as pinball games that play well, they should be fine. I can't even imagine how bad a Centaur movie would be, but I f***ing love that table.

 

[PiN WiZ]

3. How does the game rate on IPDB? Looking at those, I notice that the highest-scoring tables are mostly late model big-franchise tables that aren't even on this list. Metallica Master of Puppets scores 9.4, X-Men 9.1, The Avengers 8.8. The first table on this poll from the later Stern Tables (ranked from high to low rating) is Monopoly at 7.4. NASCAR sits near the bottom of post-1999 tables at 6.9. My point: we're not getting the best tables these manufacturers made in these periods. Which is why I've included more of the older table that match the ratings of the new ones.

The three tables you mentioned above are running on Stern's latest MPU which is not even close to being fully emulated by FarSight at the moment.

 

[Chellspecker]

The three tables you mentioned above are running on Stern's latest MPU which is not even close to being fully emulated by FarSight at the moment.

Okay, good to know. I wasn't complaining. I'm not particularly interested in the new big franchise tables. I also wanted to just say thank-you to Pin Wiz for putting this poll together and linking to the images and videos. It's great that this community can give FarSight its opinions on their upcoming releases. I'm excited to see what Season Three is going to look like, and I really do hope they're able to keep putting out tables. I get nervous when people talk about their viability as a business. I'm a big fan.

 

[ayuthaya]

Here, I did the work for you.

http://digitalpinballfans.com/showt...Table-Poll-Series-4-Premium-Licensed-(Closed)

thank's Fungi for your response .... but I'm too late

yes, I didn't see the poll series # 4 - I hope soo much see this game " Jurasik Park " at Arcade Pinball, and so the number one for mee " Familly Adams " ... maybe one day ....

 

[Chellspecker]

Not on the list, but looking at videos on pinball.org, it looks like a blast: Starship Troopers, Sega, 1997. The franchise that nobody wanted. Or even better, Total Recall, Data East 1990. But best of all would be Robocop, Data East, 1989. I wonder why they didn't make it onto the poll. Licensing, I'm guessing. I'm a big Verhoeven fan. On that note, another table I'd like to see which doesn't exist: Showgirls.

 

[Terminator872]

got my ten in. lets hope nascar or rollercoaster tycoon wins!