Anyone on the UK forum want to ask what the date is that the IP owner is dictating for a playfield reveal?

I’ve never got his need for secrecy. “Chinese Zombies isn’t for the western market” so we never see anything about it? Weird. Who cares if it’s not for outside of China, if there are zero pics to show what it is and that it actually exists how do future customers see that you have been doing anything since TB seemingly stopped shipping?

Because it's pinball? I'm curious to see new pinball "not coming to the States" just like I'm curious to learn about an old game that is so rare/expensive that I'll never be able to play/see/own it.

Every Stern LE buyer in the last several years is essentially doing this. There haven’t been too many duds thankfully. Those that were likely didn’t sell all the LEs and I’m sure we can guess what those are.

The marketing is an odd strategy. Why put it on your distros and not be able to control how the game is showcased? Some probably aren’t even interested after having inventory from game 1 sit and sit and sit.

It really wouldn’t be hard to pick moments from the movie to make for a great pin. There’s plenty there. I guess we will see.

From the infrequent FB posts they are still getting parts delivered. Sounds like somebody got a little too excited. Reminds me of a scene from Mystery, Alaska.

Exactly. For each distro there is going to be a different narrative and a different level of quality when it comes to game images and promo video, if any. Why would any manufacturer trying to sell something take that risk?

“Homepin will not be releasing any information on the finished machine directly as we are leaving all of the promotion and sales to our sales agents.”

This reads like a free for all to me. If HP is going to spoon feed distros marketing materials, then say that. You aren’t doing direct sales, that’s fine, many companies in this hobby don’t. Control the narrative or prepare to be entertained.

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If they had a normal looking dial label and then the 11 as a hidden insert, like the Future Car wizard mode on Corvette it could still be special, and not visible 100% of the time.

It gave Magic Girl quite the aura for a long time. Maybe that’s the strategy.

I thought he was leaving all marketing for the game up to the “agents”.

What’s wrong in Taiwan?

Many? But not all? Sweet.

It didn’t over Ukraine. A sea based invasion is the worst attacking position possible. 30 planes going into an airspace isn’t an invasion. Russia does it to Alaska on a regular basis.

Could China start stuff tomorrow, sure. And 2022 could be the year that 2 communist superpowers are so economically crippled they can’t afford to saber rattle for a decade or more. I guess we will see.

Anyway, back to “pinball is hard”.

If “pinball sux” was a marketing strategy…

Looks like the gears are starting to turn. I wonder who will be the first to do a proper stream of this game. Proper meaning no hand held cell phones. Stationary playfield cam and at least a display cam. Player cam isn’t really that big of a deal, but your typical pinball streamer has that whether it is at home, on location, or with a full up mobile rig for tournaments.

The only thing I could says as devils advocate is that the player was basically backhanding everything. The one time the ball went into the left ramp was off a bricked shot to something on the right side wall.

Sure doesn’t look good at this point, but I’d prefer to have another video or two of different players giving it a go.

“Marketing is going to be left up to our agents” or some garbage like that. They (Mike) don’t want to control the narrative. It’s baffling.

The right side entrance of that ramp is too large. If the ball is going to enter at an angle that it will only ever rattle, what’s the point? Close the opening so only a direct shot goes in and through, and add a thin standup where the ramp opening was closed.

Other games have come to market where they admitted there were not as many whitewoods as needed to refine shots. This might be the most glaring example of a game that wasn’t playtested enough (at all) and the changes incorporated and tested again. With as long as it took to get it in front of the public, there are no excuses. If you wanted to do a 180 after the reception of TAG there was a huge opportunity, which was not utilized.