Hey, where did Rog go?

I would love the chance to program a pin with a modern software engineering process and maybe some hardware. The disruption that would take place would change the industry.

Seems like he dropped a huge dump and left the room

It doesn't fix the fact that the original point is ridiculous. When have you ever introduced a new player to pinball, maybe told them a little about what to shoot for, and some basic flipper skills pointers -- only to have them play a game or two and say "Man, the software in this thing is really disappointing, I'm not interested in pinball".

Would more intricate software be well like by people who are ALREADY pinball fans? Sure. But that's not going to make anything "explode" because those people are already in the hobby.

AHAHAHAHAHahahahahah ha ha hah ... no.

Said he sold his MB on Pinside in twenty minutes but then moments later recorded it as unsold in our archive. Perhaps he didn't want to pay the small fee to Pinside or perhaps the deal fell through and he got frusterated for whatever reason (maybe his other thread being locked bothered him) and hasn't come back to the site for awhile. Who knows, all matters (the MB sale, this thread, his other thread being locked, etc) seems to have happened at about the same time.

Aaaah, this old nugget. First clue, nobody who actually knows what they're talking about would use the term "programmer" anymore.

Not sure why you are laughing. Will programming change the industry, no it wouldn't, it's not going to create new customers. What it will do is make current customers play longer and more often. Just by the doing a very basic user customization and online experience would blow most pinballers minds. Even the most basic friends leaderboard would be like witchcraft to some of the guys on here.

As a veteran of 17 projects since 2006 and 5 other pins for starting in 1987 let me suggest that the 'soft' tasks have been expanding geometrically. Most of my Stern projects were limited to 32M. My new clients may as well have infinite storage as the cost effective SSDs are typically 32 Gb. All this space coupled with as many as three hiDef streams to feed have made the job bigger. This is new territory. Will the pinball business model support this kind of development load? Time will tell.
Pinball programmers are very good. They are typically overloaded with tasks. Some clients/companies are in denial about what it takes to make a 'modern' game thus pushing out games that are not even feature complete.
Add three months of dev time for each independent video stream a game has. It takes a lot of effort to feed the hiRes beast.
So, lighten up on programmers. All of the ones I have worked with have been working like crazy trying to make something fun.

Good point, yes! For instance my editor is a 25 year old guy who really wants his first pin. He's obsessed with Champion Pub, a game most pinheads don't like because of shallow rules. Should I say "YOUR TASTE SUCKS!" and drive him away from jumping into hobby?

The original OP clearly has a layman perspective. New features are a slow build they will grow the industry but it's not instantaneous. People are not going to suddenly go buy a pin. What it will do is make your current users view the next pin as a must have. It will make them open their wallets. It will slowly create new customers but it's not an explosion. It would blow the minds of your current user base and create a lot of excitement. Also it's not programmers by themselves that can make it happen. It cost money and Stern does not seem anywhere near understanding the ROI on improving their software engineering process.

This sounds familiar. The term "P3" comes to mind.

Don't just talk about it - action speaks louder than words!

You guys have the patience of Job with some of the people on this forum.

Don't they, though?

Man this guy pops up like a pimple before the Prom.

BTW...I predict that with the threads started and locked by the OP, coupled with his stunning upvote/downvote ratio and other questionable behavior, that he will be consumed by the purge sooner rather than later.

That wasn't a pimple. That was your hard-on.

Either way I wish you stop squeezing it.

He seemed to hate that this thread turned into an actual conversation. So he went and started another Software thread that just got closed.

What happened with the other thread he started? Looks like he's been purged -- finally -- presumably for trolling

I don't get the point of trolling -- was it THAT fun to rile people up for a few weeks and then get banned? That's how you want to spend your time?? Wth?

Except the "mechanics" can change with the P3 and it doesn't even need cartridges, you can download your "themes" from the interwebs.

First issue is I have a non-compete agreement, that my employer is not likely to waive.

The real issue is programming one hobby pin is not going to do anything. A company like Stern needs to want to get with the times. Every pin they sell should be have the standard online functionality. Global, regional and friend leaderboards. Every time anyone you knows beats your score, gets wizard mode or any of a thousand other achievements you get notified. Every time you turn on that pin a new challenge should be waiting for you. Scheduled events and tournaments should drop on a regular schedule. And guess what when a new pin comes out people will buy it and you you wont be able to take part in all the cool new events until you buy one. Online modes would be so easy on a pin, simple things like time attacks, first to get to X points. Since pins are not deterministic you don't even need to be in sync. You could upload and download plays with your friends. To be able to see that your friend went with this mode first then that mode while you play, to compare strategy. All of this is very basic functionality. Also all of this can be monetized and all of it would grow the industry.

I don't disagree with what you are saying but each machines plays differently...so it's never apples to apples. Does one machine have open outlines? Where is the tilt set? How is the pitch on the machine? Is one machine freshly waxed vs a dirty game? All these physical differences make a huge impact on any event and mean the playing field won't be level.

There is always cheating, that doesn't mean you do nothing. No one is saying everyone will play, if you don't trust your friends or don't want to play online then don't. The functionality should be standard. Sure you can slide the glass out and press the switches but that kind defeats the whole point of doing it. Every gaming company faces cheating and hacking, the best defense is to make things fun and exciting. Every pin should have a mic and online chat as well you can figure out the losers pretty quick.

P.S. I would target the home market with this kind of functionality. I wouldn't do much beyond basic leaderboards and tournaments for paying customers on location.

P3 has also essentially defeated cheating as well with the cheat detection feature and enabled online play -- it will be interesting to see this in action. Of course you can only play vs other p3s -- no hope for traditional games there

In the garage to play Monster Bash. Did you know he had a MB? Did you know it was in the garage?
Man if only there was a picture somewheres....

It ended up on CL Detroit. Take that for what it is worth. But it is down now. Must have "sold" it again.

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OP is now Inactive.

Hopefully off the nearest cliff.

OP has issues. All that "hey come play at my house" to those in his area would've given me the creeps. Show up to play 10 pins, permanently stay as one of his new skin suits.

Ha! I was hoping that he would take his super cool race car and run it into a brick wall at 100 mph while his daughter who also loves pinball would film it....

I don't know.......

You have to admit, there IS a certain degree of entertainment value here.
Sort of like passing that bad crash on the highway.......you know it will bum you out, but you just have too look anyway.

E

All good points. I'd throw procedural rule generation in there as well.

But why can't a JJP game with a full PC inside do this sort of thing now? It's not the hardware, it's the software. And it's not the fault of the programmers, but their bosses who don't hire enough of them. It's easier to build a pinball machine than to program it.

Modern video games are made by small armies backed by billion-dollar companies. Pinball companies are an ant next to an elephant in comparison. It's like asking why a blacksmith with a hammer can't compete with Toyota.

Ya, I would agree. I don't know who it was, but he/she was definitely an accomplished professional troll

I'm with you except for the scale. A pin is very simple compared to a modern AAA video game and this type of functionality is trivial. It does not take an army to add base level online functionality. It would not take a huge investment nor a great deal of time. This is the kind of shit you throw to a co-op and they do it for free.

Those are illegal now. Also, even if it was legal, it would apply only to the same industry you're in now, so unless you're working for a pinball company I don't see the conflict. Anyway...

Again an armchair quarterback steps in and says "oh that would be so easy" without considering the complexities of maintaining the infrastructure to support online functionality. We're not talking about some pizza-box server sitting in someone's closet here, there are all kinds of issues you need to deal with, like load, concurrency, and especially security. Then there's the day-to-day stuff like maintenance, administration, customer support - none of this shit is free you know. You don't just bang out an app, put it in the app store and walk away.

Anyway, I disagree with your assertion that this is easier than a AAA game because these days with HD video and sound to support, you have all the complexity of a video game, but instead of a four-button controller to worry about, you have a 350lb hard case filled with expensive electronics, coils and switches, with a steel ball controller that likes to randomly hit stuff, and doing QA on it isn't as simple as just hitting buttons in the same order over and over. It's a giant physical machine, and instead of selling 60 million copies of it, you might sell a few thousand so you need to budget your development staff appropriately.

Pinball is hard, and your dismissive hand-waving implying otherwise is a slap in the face to every pinball game dev's amazing hard work.

PS. if you're looking for a pinball project to work on, I'm sure plenty of the game designers on pinballcontrollers.com would love to have you help.

I am fully aware that my company will hand me walking papers if I was to work on anything even close to gaming related and it would be completely justified. They pay me and pay me well and they will not pay while I work on software for anyone else. As far as I am aware it is completely legal, I have a signed NDA. They are a billion dollar corporation sorry if I pass on trying to win a legal battle with them, when they treat me fucking awesome.

You can call it dismissive hand waving if you want, but its just reality. A pinball machine is not anywhere near the level of complexity or difficulty, I work in the elite level of console gaming, pinball is not the same league, its not the same sport, it does not compare. I am sure the Devs work hard, I am also sure it's all about budget and time and what Stern is willing to pay. Your still talking HD video, talk to me when you're in the 500 million pixels a second range. How many switch do you think trigger a second on a pin, maybe 20 in the pops?

DP was successful with the online feature on BoP2.0. Firmware can be updated from the machine online. There are live display feeds. Live trophy awards and stats. And you can see other people's machines and stats. Sure, people can cheat if they want to. But, as it sits right now, it's all just for fun.

The trophies are pretty cool. It lets you build rewards from game to game with a registered user. It's not just one game and done.

I have heard Lebowski has the same online real time functionality.

Brian

You're not speaking from a position of experience - you're speculating. So saying it's "reality" is taking your speculation for fact. Which it is not. That's the issue here and why I called it armchair quarterbacking.

How do you know? Have you developed a modern pinball machine with a high-res display and graphics?

I'd say it's even harder because they're not using an off-the-shelf game engine like 99% of console games.

The computer inside, say, a JJP game is way, way more powerful than any current console, so let's not pretend it's some underpowered weakling here. So it not only needs to push millions of pixels a second, it needs to handle the real time needs of the physical machine as well. And they do it with a team of less than a dozen people, only two or so are actual developers. I'd say it's pretty impressive.

Tell you what - you go out and find a game to program. Maybe a virtual pin? One with full HD graphics, and make it look polished like WoZ, Hobbit or even Dialed In, and you'll be in a position to comment on how "easy" it is. Until then you're just blowing smoke out your ass.

Ha ha, this is why you should never talk to people on the internet. I can't have a conversation when you refuse to be rational. A pin is about the complexity of of an air cooled VW and a modern AAA console game is a Bugatti Veyron. That's as simple as I can make it. I love pinball I think its amazing and incredible fun. I prefer it to modern gaming, maybe because when you work on something all day its not as fun. Clearly you don't know understand or know much about modern gaming.

Clearly you don't know much about modern pinball development, let alone marketing and demographics. Programming is the "easy" part.

Everyone who works in pinball isn't an idiot, just waiting to be saved by someone who actually understands programming. Every new project doesn't struggle because pinball is so simple. So when I see things like this:

And then:

I'm laughing because I assumed you were joking with your awful tech bro speak. Especially when it turns out your "disruption" is online leader boards. Sorry to pick on you, but you're honestly being insulting to a lot of people, so ... actually not that sorry. Dial down your ego champ. You're not the savior of pinball. Your "elite development" doesn't impress anyone. You're just another armchair quarterback, full of excuses for why you can't walk the walk.

First I never said anything negative about programmers. I said it's up to a company making the investment. Who exactly have I insulted? If anyone that develops pinball is insulted I would be happy to speak with them. I am sure anyone that understand software engineering will completely agree with me. This is a very public forum and I'm not real keen on posting my personal information. I can assure you I can walk the walk. If you want to take this to a private message I will happily share the things I have worked on. I never said I was the savior to pinball, I said pinball is behind the times as far as programming. Why do you guys think its not possible that another person might be capable of programming a pinball machine?

P.S. I also said I would like to apply a modern software engineering process. The process covers everything, its not one guy pounding out code. Its the entire process involved from gathering requirements all the way to launch.

AAA video games are, indeed, more complex, in general. I'm not sure that it's a relevant comparison, though.
As Linus's Law says: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"
In a AAA video game, even a relatively small operation, there are probably more developers on any given subsystem than on an entire pinball design team. And that's ignoring the QA teams.
As far as I know, the developers in pinball aren't sharing infrastructure and/or code. A AAA video game may well be grabbing off the shelf libraries and engines. In that case, more of the actual complexity is farmed to another team(the engine and library devs).
Bad software can rarely destroy a modern console. Bad software can definitely destroy modern pinball hardware.
I'm sure that there are economies of scale which handicap the abilities of pinball devs.

Some other comments:
I don't have a preference for or against programmer over a term like developer. Not sure why that would indicate anything.
People who want a taste of this, buy a pile of parts from ebay or a supplier, along with a microcontroller, and figure out how to fire solenoids on demand. At the very least, you get an idea of how the low level code works. And, you might end up learning a lot and helping the open source pinball community. I'm all about open source.

I just love a thread where so many of the folks talk with authority when the are totally clueless as to the reality of the situation.

Comparing pinball to modern console game development is a ridiculous comparison. As some have pointed out, the size of markets are as different as night and day as are the budgets involved for development, where video game development budgets are often more than a 100X greater (I believe the latest Grand Theft Auto had a development budget well over $250 million). And for the major console games, the development time, even with the huge teams is longer than pinball development.

In many cases, not all, the programmer is doing so much more than code, as they are often creating the rules and setting the vision for the game, working with the other creative members of the team (art, animation, sound, mechanical/toy, etc.), to bring that vision to life in what is hopefully a great game experience for the player (and one that sells well and takes in coins on location). Obviously the designer and the layout they created is the foundation on which all of this is built and if that is crap, hard to create a great game, and of course, a great playfield design can be undermined by bad rules/code/etc.

As we have seen the early interest in a new game can be impacted not just by who the designer is, but also who is programming it, which shows the importance of the programmers role in creating a great machine.

And if you want to get a true sense of the importance of sound, lights, art, animation to the playing experience, go play a whitewood that has no music, sound effects, callouts, animations or light shows.

I think the closest parallel would be the first generation of console game programmers. They were often one-person development teams.

Where will pinball go when all these pinball guys retire or die? Who is passing the torch to the next generation programmers??

They are all building pinballs in their garages.
I'm teaching a whole class of high school engineering students about the basics of the games. They are currently gutting and reworking a Fireball Home edition, with more projects to come(including some "from scratch" games).

It won't be an issue, I'm not even 45 and I feel ancient at times in the gaming business. Being completely honest it's like pro sports, its a young man's game, the next 18 year old phenom is always pushing to retire you.

Wheeeeee
I miss radrog already...
He sure knew how to start a thread...

If the programs were better, television might explode!