Nothing.

And every business is "up for sale;" everybody is always willing to listen to offers.

If this "rumor" is true it's more like they are actively going around begging someone to take this headache off their hands.

What they have to offer (assuming its a full sale) is a turn key pinball manufacturing solution.

They truly did build great games, but just couldnt understand that you need a great license to accompany the great build.

They also didnt understand the importance of customer support as since Dave Brennan and Josh left... its been over.

I love my Houdini.. just a shame really. Built like a tank.

Imagine if they had the build quality with a quality license IE: Back to the Future... they would have been a major contender.

I think what also has hurt them is the fact that Aimtron is the main business which funded a fun side business that didnt need to worry about payroll.. it was always treated as a side venture, not like the whole business is at stake.

This.

So I wonder if GTF was in the works before the owner said “I’m tired of you guys losing money on AP, you guys need to start making money”, or if GTF was the response to that statement? If it was the latter…woof.

They seemed to be on a good path with Houdini and Hot Wheels. Interesting layout, cohesive artwork/appearance & recognizable theme to the average Joe.
At some point they went off the rails. Don’t get me wrong LOV looks like a really fun shooter, but seems like a step back in terms of appearance. GTF looks great, but that first gameplay livestream turned me off. If they could just hit the right combination with theme, gameplay and appearance package…

Wow!

American Pinball website is a hoot.

They are hiring! https://www.american-pinball.com/careers/

I've never seen a "careers" website that just said "Call us!" and gave a phone number.

They also have some cool goodies on there. I actually like the GTF theme and art. I ordered a lunchbox and thermos as its nerdy pinball I can take to work.

https://store.american-pinball.com/products/standard-galactic-tank-force-lunch-kit-with-thermos

I think he was referencing the "signature edition" they came out with, not a standard edition.

It was at The Allentown Pinball Show last year. I would think that it will be there again this year. My wife and I enjoyed playing it. We agreed that it’s not a title we would purchase NIB but might consider one in a couple years. I’d have to play it in a home environment in order to form a real opinion.

I told Fix that Megadeth was looking to make a game and down to license if they wanted to pursue it. He told me that it likely wasn't a big enough IP. 6 months later Galactic Tank Force came out. Not everyone knows everything about every band, but I'd think you have to know Megadeth is one of the biggest and iconic metal bands in history. If GTF had x sales potential, Megadeth had likely x*10 sales potential.

What ever happened to Sonic? I heard Stern may have ripped the license from AP, but if nobody is working to bring it to market, then I can't imagine SEGA is just thinking it's ok that they are getting no royalties. Unless they flat out said we are just going to buy the rights for a hefty fee with no intent to bring it to market.

LOV just looked OK to me but actually played much better than I would have thought.

Did they find that header image by searching Shutterstock for "well-dressed dude breaking woman's wrist"?

snap (resized).png

WHAT

GTF > Megadeth

Megadeth sells... But who's buying?

Megadeth_-_Peace_Sells..._But_Who's_Buying-.jpg

If pinside ran American pinball I bet they'd be fine right now, oh the irony!

I wonder how many lunchboxes need to be ordered before someone shows up to ship them?

I bought one last week and it was mailed out the next day.

GTFLBOX (resized).jpg

How's the quality of the lunchbox? Is the artwork printed on the metal or is it a decal?

Time to start a club!

Wasn’t that a selling point of their LE’s? I thought they originally said they weren’t going to be selling those separately and you could only get one with an LE. Maybe I’m wrong about that.

So the consensus here is that it’s all over and done for AP and it’s primarily the fault of David Fix?

If it is over, despite GTF, it’s the overall market conditions.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s a good game or not. Oktoberfest was hated too. It’s a really fun pin.

I heard that Fix interview. You can’t survive selling 300 units per year.

Sounded like a few designers left and a couple of contract laborers slapping games together.

Sounds like a death spiral.

I doubt they will be the only ones.

2024 will be the year of Distros dropping like flies.

So many were added during the Gold Rush during Covid.

Fringe guys get culled out.

Then again, Aimtron has the $$$ to do whatever it wants. Can limp along for years and wait for a resurgence.

With Fix in charge, there is no resurgence. He's had the time to prove his worth and has been shown to not be up to the task at hand. It's zero surprise given his qualifications.

The only shot Aimtron has is canning him and attracting someone else with a guarantee of x years of funding to right the ship, but that will be a tall order.

I don't agree.

That is possible.

Might be some. I doubt many. Happens all the time. New ones will pop up or change lines they sell.

LTG : )

Blaming one guy for a pinball company going tits up doesn’t seem fair to me. If GTF is really the finally nail in the coffin (I called that one when I saw the first trailer), there’s plenty of blame to go around. There’s an entire company worth of people who apparently thought that game was a good idea.

The market's to blame? If you can't make money selling pins from 2017 to 2023, just hang it up.

Highly respect your opinion Lloyd.

Fix dealt a tough hand with poor timing?

And/or survival is in the cards and AP is here for the long haul in some form or fashion?

The market might be the final nail in the coffin. More supply, less demand

Tough to replicate what Spooky put together. And yet they are on a tight rope too. Gotta keep selling those NIBs. Won’t be my fault there.

I bought an Oktoberfest

The thing is, I love GTF as a theme. It’s just waay overpriced. I doubt they could break even at maybe $6500, and that’s about what I would pay for it.

Yes GTF would have been a great theme in 1994 when all games went on route and they cost $3,000.

Today, a bizarre boomer theme of questionable humor maybe wasn’t the best bet to stake a company on, In an industry where one huge flop can put you out of business.

He’s the Exec VP and Director of Operations & Marketing. He’s calling the shots…if you worked there and thought everything he was doing was awful, you’d go along with it because you like being employed.

None of these horrible decisions happen without Fix’s OK:
-Viewing Nordman as a marketable asset
-Approving the GTF concept
-Approving the GTF design
-Greenlighting the live action footage concept
-Not scrapping the footage when he saw it was horrible & a detriment to the product
-Approving the asinine folding tank model
-Pricing the game as though all the previous failure points were brilliant.
-Hiring “budget sucks” like Bowden, who didn’t need to be at DR & doesn't need to be at AP. A good coder writes rules & codes. You don’t need a separate guy to just write & not program.

The DE version of GTF. Put it out there and sell what you can then move on.

Those LE and SE versions? wtf.

Nobody stepped up and said this won’t sell too many pins? That’s on Fix

Hiring “rules consultant/ambassadors” is all the rage in pinball hero.

You saying that’s not a good value add?!

That’s another of Fix's failures. He thinks what worked in the 90s can work today. The reason collectors like dopey cheesy 80s & 90s games is because we got them for like $1000 or so. I love Road Show at $1800. I don’t love Road Show at $8000+. This was precisely why Dialed In flopped. Classic designer + cheesy theme + $$$$$$ = flop. He was there at Expo when the reveal was DOA…he learned nothing from that and repeated it!

Timing may have been bad. I think it was more than that.

He came into AP when it was a mess.

I have no idea who above him he has to answer to.

And changing a company around to get it and everyone working in the same direction is no easy task. And please the bosses and convince them where change needs to happen.

Time will tell. I hope for AP, it's customers, and fans. It comes together.

Someone posted earlier that they'll have a new game to unveil at TPF. We'll have a better idea then.

LTG : )

Ain’t that the truth. Tough herding cats.

Lloyd, the voice of reason!

From Ferret, coder deluxe

“Soon-ish"? Trying to give specific date estimates right now is a deathtrap for me and our little team... there are also pending Hot Wheels and Okto updates that have owners (understandably) chomping at the bit... but none of it has been forgotten or discarded. We're just juggling our plates the best we can.”

The Dialed In unveiling at Expo was bad, Not because of the game.

The title of the game was rumored for awhile before.

At Expo they had 7 games, turned on, covered in black sheets.

They pulled off the sheets. Half the audience, "It's Dialed In!", got up and left. In minutes it was on Pinside the game sucked, which still resonates to this day.

What wasn't reported was half the audience got up and left. Ran across the parking lot to Twin Peaks. To see scantly clad waitresses, have free beer, and see the Alien pin.

Hard for any new title to compete with what breasts, short skirts, free beer, and see another pin unveiled, at the same time.

LTG : )

And you also said Jaws sux. You’re obviously…uhm…crazy. Levi.

I’ll see myself out.

I said jaws sucks and was going to put stern out of business?

I don’t remember that.

First impressions are everything if you want to sell something no one’s heard of. If ANYTHING is “off”, you’ve lost your potential buyers. And look - I’ve played DI & think it’s pretty fun…but like I said, I like my cheesy dated Lawlor games for ~$2k. Not at NIB prices. My love of 90s Lawlor (and Nordman) don’t translate to NIB buys. Obviously I’m not the only buyer who reached that conclusion. Fix actually had 2 examples of this. After DI flopped, so did Steve Ritchie’s Black Knight 3. One could argue Steve carries a tad more cache than Lawlor…and BK3 being a sequel also gave it a bit of a heads up. Nope, same thing. Fans like me who already have a cheap BK or BK2K don’t need an expensive new one, and newer buyers don’t know what BK is or have any nostalgic attachment to it. Fix saw 2 legendary designers flounder when left to their own visions. Why did he think Nordman would be the one to buck reality?

See? That’s just crazy talk.

Unfortunate how things are going with American. GTF is the first one of their games I've owned. I bought it on a whim, discounted, and have been surprised by how fun it is to play. The playfield is awesome, art is impressive, lightshow pops, modes are fun, multiballs are great, and the game is fast. I don't like the 3D printed sculpts, but they aren't as bad as they look in pics. I've had other popular games come and go much more quickly. The only reason I have dabbled with selling, other than my usual revolving door, is because the video modes and jokes are not my thing. Fortunately, you can double flip through most of them. It is built really well, very solid game, super heavy, and reliable in my home. I've had a good experience. However, I called them yesterday for that bracket behind the tank targets and they don't have a service department at this time. I was asked to email for the part. The biggest mystery to me is how many guys on here have posted extensively about their hate for the game, pushing a couple of hundred posts in one case, apparently without having actually spent any time on it. I wish American were doing some popular themes, anything really. They would be great for some remakes like BBB. It does sound like a slow burn to Capcom if they are trying to sell. Here is a pic under the playfield. There is a lot to like. But I like a bit of rock 'n roll, and GTF definitely pisses off the conventional wisdom.

IMG_5926 (resized).jpeg

This still blows my mind. OK make one as a gag, but going with a production target of 500 is literally the worst decision I have ever seen. I could write a novel about all the facets of why it was so bad, but I won't.

Glad someone had the guts to say this.

I think AP started out great, Houdini was a great start, but each title since then has just had a few things off. Some could be great with a few changes. I have a Hot Wheels and my kids like it but every time I play it I can't believe there isn't a loop ramp or jump...it's friggin Hot Wheels! LOV the artwork missed the mark. GTF I dig the artwork but the 3D printed models look amateur. And I hate Galactic TANK Force (why tanks in space?) as much as Dialed In and that whole theme. Call it Galactic Assault Force and put a few cheesy jokes (cover the 'ault' in a cheeky scene or a lazy soldier who doesn't GAF)...and Dialed In should've been about the city not phones dammit. Maybe I just have unreasonable expectations from the late Williams creativity but man if you're gonna go through all the effort to make pinball machines these days get the last layer of polish right. At least the AP games feel well built...such a waste of potential though.

Agreed. The folding tank is so stupid and cheap. Reminds me of quality watches from polex.

They started by trying to salvage something after getting scammed by Popaduik. They’ve truly been cursed from the start.

It took Stern several years to release Godzilla after they snagged the license from Spooky. Sonic will most likely happen if Stern has the license.
I hope Jack Danger leads the design if they do have it.

It is a cheaply made thin metal stickered lunchbox. Not like the 1970's lunchboxes that were built like a tank.