Quoted from Aurich:People keep saying that, but I've seen zero actual evidence for it. Just everyone repeating the same rumor about some contractual obligation to do so. Does anyone have the actual source for that?
No contractual obligation I can find unless Jack said it at a show during a talk.
Here is an excerpt first preorder letter:
"With that, we are now accepting pre-orders for the Limited Edition version. The Hobbit Pinball Machine will be released in a timeframe consistent with the third Hobbit movie in mid 2014 as the game will embody all three movies. The first Hobbit movie release date is December 14, 2012, the date of our Open House. All of what we do on this game, as was the case with Wizard of Oz Pinball, will be based on approval of our licensor."
"As a buyer of ECLEWOZ you now have the opportunity to reserve your same game number(s) as you have now for The Hobbit LE Pinball which will have 1,000 Limited Edition games as before but we added 500 game due to increased demand (game numbers 1001-1500). The price for The Hobbit Limited Edition Pinball is $7,500 on a Pre-Order basis and we have a payment plan that spans until mid 2014 as the game ships. We need to start this now to ride the wave of publicity for the first Hobbit movie which opens in a few weeks on December 14th and in order to give everyone enough time with the payment plan."
"Jersey Jack Pinball, Inc. proudly announces that we have licensed all three Hobbit Properties from Warner Brothers for our pinball machine which will embody all three movies. The game will ship as the third movie hits theaters in July 2014."
This was before the 3rd Hobbit movie's date was changed from summer release to December.
Assuming all is ready, it looks like JJP was intending to release the game as the third movie "hits" theaters.
Hence, why I was wondering when the game would be released since December is now only a few months away.