Quoted from bemmett:Good game, blast to play and excited to uncover all the modes and little things within it! Theme as many have said is EH but then I think about other games I love where the theme is horrible(Congo, Shadow and so many more) and remember that any game can still be great with average theme. I hope it does well as they took the chance on unlicensed theme and hope that many more will follow with the same efforts.
I was at the reveal. It seemed poorly prepared and executed and the audience's reaction that night and on this thread reflects that. In front of tough crowd of pre-determined fanboys or haters you need a well polished presentation.
I've since played the game and I'm neutral overall and definitely not interested in buying.
It has a lot of nice features (like the aforementioned magnets) but mobile phone theme is awful. I'm playing a game and don't want to be bothered with my phone (in game) ringing and listing an unknown number (an actual feature).
Here, DI has a theme that is partially hated ("what's popular with the kids today? Selfies, mobiles, drones, blue-tooth self lacing shoes!") and plays well - but the theme is a draw back.
Themes matter. SMVE was controversial (and punished here on the board for its looks) for cosmetic changes to a machine with the exact same gameplay. [I'm an owner of SMVE]
The pricing ($9k) is hard to swallow for a NIB machine, especially when competing with a $5k "pro" model NIB. Even $5k is embarrassing when a non-pinhead asks how much they cost.
I don't get $4k more in satisfaction from an LCD screen (vs. dots) since I'm watching the playfield during play. I don't need my StarTAC to interact with the game-- I'm playing the game to escape from the real world annoyances. I don't need a selfie because I'm ugly and don't want to look at myself. The DI glass helps reduce the glare but dimming the lights to see a "pro" better can buy me a whole bunch of extra electricity for $4k. The game appears to be fairly deep but not $4k more deep. At +$4k I'm more than halfway to having another "inferior", fun game.
DI is a case where giving a designer free reign didn't work out as expected. Jonathan Ive had/has and overlord and produced great products. "The Homer" or "The Car Built for Homer" was an extreme example of a failed, free-reign, design.
In the future collaboration on a unlicensed theme might be a better route.
I applaud the effort of the unlicensed theme. I hope more follow. Competition is good, it forces innovation.