I kinda like that wide bezel...it gives me the impression of framed artwork.

2nd this. And it has ZERO impact on game visibility!

Aurich should have eaten more bananas!

funny-alien-banana_(resized).jpg

Seems like this stuff should have been squared away before announcing the game. Waiting/continuing until after gives the licensor extra leverage on you in the negotiations and puts you at risk of failing to secure some important assets. Not to mention your creative team doesn't even know what they can/can't use, so late into the design.

Here's the premium...makes 2/3...And the secondary market firmware has lots of callouts from the show and that download is mega-popular.

Just say'n....

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Did we get the license for the banana at least?

This has zilch to do with Fox. Nada. There is no leverage. They don't control this part.

Here's the deal in a nutshell: the actors own their own likenesses. It's not in their movie contract. We can license the film, but we don't get them with it automatically. We have to ask them separately. That process is ongoing.

It's not something I can really talk about. Legal issues, not my place, etc.

The point is this is normal, don't panic, and what you're seeing is how the sausage is made. Of course it would be better to have this all in place before announcing the game. No argument. But it's the nature of the beast with a new pinball company that had to announce early to not get lost.

Just relax, watch the fascinating process of making a pinball unfold in excruciating slow motion before your very eyes, and we're gonna keep making a great game in the meantime.

I just got our simulator working on my local Ubuntu VM, heard game sound for the first time running with virtual switch hits, was pretty rad.

Cool!

Aurich, one basic thing I don't understand. If you have license to a film but not the likenesses of it's actors, does that mean you can't use footage from the film that contains said actor without the actor's permission?

That's the film. They can do that....

If that's so, then it would seem to me that they could also use their voices from the film as well.

My understanding is it's not that simple. You know more about this field than I do Ted, so by all means educate me, but I think to use their likeness in a game it would need to be in the film contract. Modern movies probably have all that stuff, but the older ones don't.

So it's a separate process. It's ongoing.

As I said, no one panic. We're doing the process. It sucks to wait, I get it. But your choices are to wait in silence, or for us to share in progress things. I think everyone prefers the share part.

But you have to understand you're seeing in progress work, the behind the scenes stuff that isn't complete. So yeah, you got a bare playfield, with no plastics or mechs. That's coming. We're still negotiating things, so you have to wait. Every game does this stuff, you just didn't see the 2 years it took to make Game of Thrones for instance until it was done.

Which brings up an interesting caveat in the case of TBL where they couldn't use certain clips from the movie that had licensed original songs playing in the background. I guess in the case of Alien/s it's all original score so that SHOULDN'T be a problem . . .

Sorry, just thinking out lout here.

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None of that makes any sense to me by the way. They should be able to get the voice clips from the studio entirely isolated from the music. I don't want to get off topic too much, but that's pretty basic stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_(audio)

That has no bearing on our situation, don't even worry about it.

These are some really cool set photos from Alien.
The planet photo looks like they stole it off Aurichs playfield

http://geektyrant.com/news/253-photos-from-the-set-of-ridley-scotts-alien

--Jeff

Yeah, USUALLY it's in the contract that the likeness goes with the film. But, as you said, a contract can say anything. I'm pretty sure though that if they're showing clips....characters will be in them....

I agree, I want the call outs and clips but it won't be deal breaker for me if they are absent, what will be is if the call outs are custom and go the route of Stern with bad humour and bad pinball references, If the TWD hadn't had that adj that allowed one to attenuate the hillbilly it would have lasted a matter of weeks.

Hope you guys can pull it off. Aliens without Ripley is like Rocky without Stallone.

Yo, Ripley!

It would be a bummer if Stern gets Sigourney Weaver for Ghost Busters and can't be obtained for Alien. Way more crucial for this theme.

For what its worth, Funco was able to secure Sigourney Weavers likeness for their retro 7" line of toy figures packaging. Of the ones they negotiated with, Ian Holmes and John Hurt declined. So 2 out of 4! This of course is no indicator of anything for other products (like pinball) other than perhaps Weaver is generally OK with image licensing.

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Hey, what if Stern can't get her for that either?

Sure, pay them enough and they'll all agee

Not true at all - some actors, especially non active ones that are not in debt, do have personal philosophies against merchandising themselves. Many actors hate being in genre films and feel they are a career blemish, or a ton of other reasons. Some feign that for hardball negotiations too...but its a delicate case-by-case thing.

Wasn't trying to muck up the thread, just kinda pointing out how messy these licensing issues can be. Who knows who signed on for what etc, etc.

I don't think that's particularly relevant.

What's far more relevant is that Weaver offered both her likeness, and voiced her character in Alien: Isolation. But Creative Assembly are a famous and lauded developer within the PC gaming industry, and were no doubt able to put together some very impressive demos which convinced her. In pinball the latter is rather more difficult, and Heighway are just a startup; furthermore Sega & CA have pretty deep pockets - they can probably afford to pay her market rate if she wants it, or a cut of revenue.

So she clearly is willing to offer her likeness and voice, for the right project and no doubt the right price too.

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Strange, since Ian Holm licensed his likeness for the recent Alien video game.

$$$ talks.

From what I believe sigourney weaver is a bug pinball/alien fan at heart, isn't it documented somewhere that BSD was originally planned to be Alien 3 and in an interview Sigourney expressed her love of pinball and disappointment the game didn't come together in the end? I also remember reading an interview about her involvement with the recent PlayStation/Xbox game Alien Isolation "Ripley" added downloadable content, in which she seemed enthusiastic enough, I'd be real surprised if they can't at least secure Sigourney and Bill Paxton, but this is a theme that really needs all the actors/characters involved both films had a great group of characters alien crew and aliens marines wasn't a bad character in the bunch something modern films seem to struggle acheiving, which is why these films and the characters are timeless classics and have to be in the pin! If not leave back door access so some of the pinside geniuses can work their TWD magic

I dunno, to me - thats precisely why the toys were relevant. I am not talking about the figures, but her face appearing on two separate figure packages made by an obscure toy company with zero clout or pull (and doubtful a high budget). Just saying thats a positive indicator, thats all.

But what walks?

Sure sure sure except we're talking aboot someone whom's got a goddamn action figure right above us.
And her, at least her charcters likeness, used on the super secret leaked long ago GB

For some reason my favorite pic of the batch was this. Guess I was fascinated with the practical side of making Alien.

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Adding to what I posted above about her interest in Ripley as a character:

http://time.com/3453689/sigourney-weaver-alien-isolation/

Also worth noting Sigourney & Michael Biehn allowed their likeness to be used for promotional artwork for the pitch of Alien 5 and both where keen to return to the alien universe especially Sigourney to "finish" the story properly.

Hey, here's hoping! Don't get all gloom and doomy yet, you gotta let the process play out.

Either way, I can promise you no hillbillys, and no ball jokes. This game is going to be about the atmosphere and nothing will ruin that.

Aurich, I would just like to commend you on your attitude and professionalism over the past few days. It's really refreshing and keeping the discussion on track.

Let's add in some 5.1 outputs then!

I try! Some people make it easier than others.

Seems to me directly talking to your customer base in an honest way is the best approach. Obviously there are things I'm not at liberty to share, but there's more good news coming, and it's about making the game the best it can be, so just enjoy the ride for now.

Will the music scores from both movies be able to be used? The music is great in both flicks.

Not all that practical, but I do wonder if you could do one of those soundbars that kinda fake the surround sound.

That's in negotiations too, the score is owned by a different arm of Fox than the film.

I can tell you we're going to have original compositions that match the tone of the film, but are also more pinball appropriate, so more energy, not quite so slow and empty. More news on that stuff later.

I feel that's something that someone's going to do sooner rather than later. I never played one, but I assume the old Gottlieb top of back box speaker location was better than sitting directly on or above a panel of glass at waist height on everything else.

I'm not just talking about Fox, but all relevant parties.

Ugh! Drama fest has completely tainted the love fest!

Any chance we can just scrap the whole Alien thing...Re-theme this awesome table to something unlicensed and let the Aurtist have free reign?

You did it with the Animal house deal to Full Throttle...

Can we go back to Animal House? Would love that.

It did sound cool didn't it?

I absolutely promise you no one is going to mistake this for anything other than an Alien pin. There will be nothing generic about it.

I'm sure it's frustrating to only get tidbits and bits and pieces, but hang in there and we'll try and show more when we can.

I've never played the Avatar pin, is Weaver in that game in any fashion?

Aurich, since we're getting a glimpse into "how the sausage is made", can you share some of the ways you've been able to proceed with the design without knowing all the assets you will get?