WWATCF or WWonk or WONKA but not just WONK- You might as well just throw in the “A”
(or just CATCF to respect the source material if anyone cared)

I actually think jjp POTC is a miss but not as a HUO, but a miss for public consumption. How many casual players will walk right by one not realizing this is a new POTC and not the old Stern POTC from 10 years ago? I know, the differences are clearly visible, this is a new modern pin, but the idea is not new. The “We have seen this before” syndrome kicks in and potential customers walk on by. And all the characters, and all the modes and rules, this thing is packed with almost too much stuff IMO. Never thought I would think less is more, but in a pinball machine, sometimes this may be true. Some people want and like to to “finish” a game. The designer was adamant at Expo and his mindset was to never play the same game twice. (and yes there is a video around the 4:00 mark)

So in HUO, this is a good thing, or on site in a barcade maybe, but as a casual title for locations with not a lot of repeat customers, maybe too deep? I think this is the major difference in philosophy between JJP and Stern.

I have FGy, and I occasionally load Shrek on it... the call outs are a nice change of pace but looking at FGy artwork while listening to Shrek and Donkey talk is just weird... can a FGy rom run in a Shrek? I heard it only goes one way.

Maybe they can just flip DI over and make it a left handed DI with Toy Story Artwork... or a left handed WOZy Wonka?

Not a fan of rethemes.

Although I was excited about JJP entering the fray, the delivery on the dream has not been idealic. WOZ was a great start, but TH and DI and now POTC, each have been a disapointment from the “havent we seen this all before?” point of view. Wonka gives me hope but if they do a POTC treatment of Wonka, count me out... choosing a character from the movie to play as is a non starter, because we all know Charlie is the only true winner, and who would want to be Augustus Gloop?

My jab a POTC aside, DI feels like an over cooked GB Premium to me, and TH was an attempt to capture some of that LOTR Stern nerdliness goodness that made is such a great earner and player. To me TH felt like you threw WOZ and MM in a blender and dialed in “puree”... too many trolls and unused real estate for my tastes and hiding Smaug and making his reveal the big attraction was just too gimicky. Did it need to be a wide body?

So is Willy Wonka or Toy Story or ?!? the next JJP pin? If JJP want to be around a bit longer, they might start looking at the things that keep pinball in the minds of average players like is there any real end to this machine, or does it just go on and on and on and on... POTC packs too much into a single machine from a very large franchise and seems overwhelming to casual players... having every movie and every character just bogs down the whole thing in my mind. They could have kept it to just the original movie IMO. Lets hope WWATCF keeps it simple and fun and makes you relive the movie in order from looking and finding the golden ticket, to meeting Wonka, riding the Wonkatania, and then having a mode for each child, including Grampa and Charlie stealing fizzy lifting drinks. Then the final wizard mode and riding the Wonkavator into history... roll credits.

Double post

The story I heard (back in 2008) was sales on FGy were so slow, they needed something to justify all the work and money they spent on developing the mini playfield and thats what prompted Pat to seek another theme. Dont think DI falls in that category yet and hopefully Wonka will be brandy brand new layout. Rethemes suck from a players point of view.

You say Willy, I say Wonka, lets call the whole thing off...

I just like having an opinion and a place like PinSide to share it where it can be thrown back in my face a thousand times and it never gets old... I can tell my skin has gotten about an inch thicker since I started posting again on here, and I can tell it by the amount of posts that I write and then never post but just delelet after writing them. Not sure if it is just thicker skin or finally realizing that we are all assholes on here trying to “convert” everyone to their way of thinking, and once you drink that kool-aid, shit seems to just roll right off your back and you dont care what the other side says anymore. What is really interesting, is as you read more and more from everybody, you see just what pin pricks we all are one way or another. And you start laughing at your own mistakes and phuck ups... like right now, you are cursing me for this post... don’t care and I am laughing about it too...

If DI owners (and lovers) felt a little sting of truth in that:
a) GB was a crappy machine, an all around disaster of a pin
b) When you play DI, the most recent pin that comes to mind is GB
c) When you are done playing DI, you wish Pat had done GB and not DI.

Then no sir, I am not trolling you. I really don’t like either machine but for wildly different reasons. GB was a mess. I can’t stand to put money into one to play it.

DI is a way better machine, no doubt, but the miss on the theme and the weak and lame humor of the title has always made it more of a machine looking for a theme than a theme that was well done in a machine. Wasn’t it originally going to be a licensed title that fell through?

When I walk away from DI, which is usually after only a couple of games, the reason I don’t want to play anymore is I dont care. Nothing in that theme makes me want to play pinball to see more of the game, and as a matter of fact, I think thats is it’s biggest flaw.

At the time does anyone remember the controversy over the ending of the original movie? It was so secretive somebody stole a copy just to know the ending before everyone else. At least that was what I remember about it.

Yeah the Pixar connection and pinball... I can see a Buzz Lightyear machine... wait what was that stupid, plastic, POS-cracker jack toy on toothpick legs- battery operated- Christmas morning meltdown inducing- Earl Shibe $19.99 costing-picked it up at the gas station while coming home drunk from the company cristmas party- Daddy dont love you- Mommy don’t care- you’re just a poor backseat decision made 7 years ago- what did you expect? Twilight Zone?- broke the shooter rod off when you tried to plunge your first ball- made for children 4 to 6 yrs- your skills are way beyond this piece of shit- Merry Christmas, dear- Now maybe you can save all those quarters- But honey its Buzz Lightyear?!? Isn’t he your favorite?- Toy of the Year reject?

Yeah, thats the Pixar and Pinball connection I see coming our way.
Who’s building Toy Story, JJP? So WOZ + DI - (POTC-TH) + Pixar - The Incedibles = Toy Story: The Pinball Adventure?

WWKA or WNKA, or WLYWKA or WILY... damn, I had a string of emoji’s that worked too but not on Pinside,

Listen, if JJP pulled a fast one and secured Pixar licensing deals over the dead bodies of those people at Stern handling the SW account and Disney reps, they must have hit them with the “we charge more so we can pay more for the license” bullshit that just keeps hiking the costs of games up and up.

If Roger Sharpe were dead, he would be rolling in his grave right now. Costs and production numbers of current pins can not support the licensing fees that video game manufacturers can offer, and that is the reason a lot of licenses do not end up on pinball machines. You need a savy, industry tried and true pinball celebrity/realist to go in there and teach them that pinball licensing is not how you make money in Hollywood. You make money in Hollywood by putting butts in theater seats, and the only way to do that is with marketing and recognition. So lets talk about what money is on the horizon, and where that money will come from, and how best to use it in the pinball world.

Mature franchises, like POTC, or BTTF, or even Star Wars, or Wonka currently don’t have a direct tie in with a current film, so the marketing potential of a pin title is not that appealing to the owners of the IP. You come in saying you want to put their IP on a pinball machine and you tell them you will sell a maximum 4000 units at $100 per machine, that barely pays the lawyer fee to read and approve the contract. These people are used to seeing a video game maker walk in, saying we want to put your IP on a commercial console game and sell 2 million units at $3 a game, and then they start listening.

So for a non tie in, I would think JJP did well acquiring the POTC license, and hopefully maybe Wonka. I don’t see JJP getting Toy Story unless it is a tie in and they really did outbid Stern, and so June 2019 would be my guess... except the confidence level of delivering on time would make me cautious to trust JJP to deliver it with complete or near complete code.

Prognosticating on TS or WW, my money would be on WW before TS, only because Stern has a prexisting relationship with Disney/Star Wars license which would cloud a Pixar title going to JJP.

See, but this is the beauty of not knowing anything, because everyone keeps claiming, this person said X, that person said Y and therefore Z... yet until there is concrete proof one way or another, everything is conjecture... I don’t put much credence in anything until we get undeniable proof... and that certainly hasn’t happened yet, and hell, even when it does will anyone on here believe it? The Beatles had pictures and people still didn't believe it...

Real old people who can't see or hear have all kinds of money... we just have no reflexes or memory, or time left on this planet to play these new Marianas trench deep ruleset pins.

TL;DR
People talking about prices and viability and “if this” and “what about that” at JJP and the economy. There is an economic slowdown because people are saying there is going to be an economical slowdown... period. The 1% are playing with all the money at the top, and have to predict what is the best way to keep the money they already have when everyone in the 99% starts getting worried about an economic slowdown. It feeds on itself. If everyone would just say, You know what? I want a new car and a new JJP Willy Wonka machine this year, and go out and buy one, and then just watch what the economy would do. “We” are the market. We drive our economy. When people start saying “get ready for a recession” is when we have one because everyone is worried we are going to have a recession. If we would all be good little consumers and go out and buy buy buy... we wouldnt have to worry at all. My bet would be on a Toy Story pin, not Wonka. Wonka is a good theme, a good title for a slot machine and video poker if you have been to Vegas. I think this theme works for the 50 and up crowd right now, not the millenials. Toy Story is so family friendly and millenial endearing, JJP would be foolish NOT to do a Toy Story in lieu of Wonka, especially if the mellenials are driving the resurgence.

And down to $10 by Christmas

I am actually preparing to have a blast at TPF, mostly because I will be trying to play all the existing machines I have not played a lot of yet, or I have not played in a long time, as opposed to all the new machines I have never played before, don’t know how to play, and may end up walking away thinking, meh? Because thats what really happens at these shows... you get a couple or twenty games in on Oktoberfest and start wondering, why was the MBrLE so much more fun to play over at CGC’s booth? That was Expo for me last year. Now without 5 days of CheapSuit pinball, it should be a relaxing, fun filled show without too much drama... unless that is what people around here really want?!?

If manufacturers are smart, and sometimes they surprise us and are, they will learn NOT to bring a game to a show that you are not ready to ship out the next week. CGC tried that with MB... hasn’t gone so well for regular LE purchasers. I think SteepRoute has a feeling about this and it is the reason they postponed their 5 days event at TPF imo. Revealing pins at shows works when you get it right, and when the pin is a real hit, and you have them for sale right away. You certainly don’t get to “win” the show Expo or TPF or anywhere else by taking a real dog to a pony show. Unless you want to really embarrass yourself. TBAG anyone?

I think Gottlieb had the first “moving” playfield, but it just flipped a mini playfield over to reveal a second, different side, similar to BOP, except only 2 sides, not 4, like Bride’s head, which was all before WIJ POA, which innovated the moving by making it be controled by the player flipper buttons while a ball was on it. At least thats my foggy memory on moving playfields.

Where is the Willy Wonka and JJP in all this Stern talk? Or did I misread the thread Title?

I think, first off, we have got to acknowledge the fact the main character is Sporky the Clown, a real “KFC in your face” moment that oddly makes me hope he ends up in the landfill. Pixar, although virtuosic masters of heart-stringed instruments, may have launched this foray into the PCU missing a “C” and may end up part of a small, but growing pile of P U that started with Cars 2&3, the good dinosaur, and Finding Dory. The trailers for those movies were a hard sell as well.

As a Gobstopper fan, I must interject, the candy traditionally sold under the TM’d name is a round jawbreaker. The original from WW&TCF was “jack” shaped but was unmanufacturable, so they went with a jawbreaker when they introduced it later to the market under the WW candy brand. If anyone goes and buys a Gobstopper today, it will be round like a pinball.

I mean, if Jack was considering doing himself in, one good way of doing it would to be to hang his hopes on ANOTHER Johnny Depp character, imhho... but Barber of Saville could have a wonderful double decker barber chair lock on top, Pie oven ball release bellow mech to lock balls, why was this title never done, I have no clue....

JJP needs to pack at least as much into WW as DI. And here is why... Magic. Back in 71 when Wonka was released, kids wanted to here about Wonka, read about Wonka, and be Willy Wonka. Teachers read the book to their students, kids dreamed of seeing the factory and it’s marvelous magic candy making equipment. You can not expect to put out a pinball machine with “LESS” magic than DI and expect any pinhead to think, this machine is wonderful, this is magical, this is cool.

If man in mom-jeans was the high bar of “magic” for a JJP standard sized title, WW better rock my socks off or they are getting a solid “Mhe” from me. This needs a mech as cool as a flipperless mini playfield, a lower pf as cool as Munsters but full size, and some kind of Wonkatania, Wonkavator, or Gobstopper machine in order to move my needle off “been there, done that in mom jeans” with Dialed In.

What about FGy, can it get no love?!? I’ll give you that I can’t stand Shrek, and I even swap the code in my FGy once in a while to remind myself why.

I like Pat, have chatted at length about pinball over the years at Expo’s past. I loved his work on DI, from the mechanics, layout, toys... it’s great stuff. If it would have been Sim City, it would have hit it out of the park. Which is why I have great hope for WONK (or maybe WWKA?)

Pat can integrate, he turned hill climbing into pinball, so I think he can turn a chocolate factory into a pinball machine. Will it be as inovative as Banzi Run was back then only using todays technology? That is a thought to ponder

If I find a Golden Ticket, I want Jack to give me my life time supply of Pinball... that would mean more than the factory tour.

I don’t know which is anticipated more by Pinside, the reveal of JJP WW, the Dead Flip stream of BKSoR or delivery of my MBrLE.