Striker Extreme? High Roller Casino? Don't know if I would call those successful thought

All Anyone whom is actually making games is pumping out licensed themed. Still Rumors JJP next PL game won't be...so you might have to wait for that...really wait.

This is old news though.

And not including AMH I assume? I believe it would be Roller Coaster Tycoon from 2002? Then High Roller Casino from the year before that.

RCT is licensed. but yeah AMH for sure.

Roller coaster tycoon was a license....

Hmm, never realized that. I stand corrected. It was a video game first?

Cactus Canton

Yup.

But look at the top 20 ranked games...most are Licensed. And to take it a step further, If you had a "most sucessful" games list after 1980 I wonder how many are licensed.

It was kind of like a "The Sims" for amusement parks...

RFM? Pin2000 platform.....while the platform didn't take I think this one was a success. SWE1 not so much - too much Jarjar.

Hmm...technically it isn't, but it's really a sequel/remake so it's kind of iffy.

It's odd because I (and most of my friends) really prefer original themes, it always surprises me that the market is so wholly in favour of licensed games these days, to me most of them start looking a bit tacky and dated compared to how an original theme holds up. It also adds the risk of being a theme some people dislike already, for instance I can't stand Metalica but the pin is awesome, I hated avatar so i have some bias in hating that pin etc.

Stern tried to make unlicensed games, Bally didn't approve

Well, the circuit boards anyway

And that shitty kid.

The Predator was unlicensed. ;(

this

That's pure genius comedy

And Jpop

Either Cactus Canyon 1998 or Champion Pub 1998

Why not include whoa Nellie? That's two.

AMH 2014
WNBJM 2015

2001 Sharkey's Shootout which is an remake of the unlicensed Eight Ball Deluxe.

Gary Stern made it very clear at TPF a few years back that they would only be using licensed themes. He said that he has no problem explaining to uninformed buyers what a Spiderman pin is about but try to explain what Cactus Canyon is all about...

The reality is we don't actually want unlicensed games. We say we do, this is hardly the first thread like this, but it's not true.

We like the comfort of understanding things ahead of time. We like nostalgia. Every single "what's your dream theme?" thread is full of people naming their favorite movies etc.

I love unlicensed themes. If I was making my own pin it's what I would want to do. But the market speaks volumes on the matter. You're kind of a moron as a manufacturer to not use a license now. Just how it is. I don't blame Stern in the slightest.

+1 Just take a look at Spooky Pinball. It took them well over a year to sell all 150 unlicensed AMH games. Their new Rob Zombie game (double the run of AMH at 300 units) will likely be sold out within a week of when they start taking deposits and the 50 LE's are already spoken for many times over. And nobody has ever heard of the programmer or even seen a layout on that game. It's all theme!

Eh?

Can you take another shot at making a good argument here about what WE want? I'm not saying making good arguments is easy, but I know you can do better...

---

I too love unlicensed themes, and I've NEVER heard anyone make a good argument for why I ACTUALLY do prefer licensed themes, when...

I don't...

I own 19 unlicensed themes, and I'm looking forward to JJP #3.

I could write for pages about why I prefer unlicensed themes, but I'll have to save it for another day. I certainly won't be writing about why you or others do or do not.

-mof

Licensing opens up doors for more people than pinball players. I'm the perfect example. I got into pinball because I saw STAR TREK written on one in the mall. I played that for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't until several weeks later when I stepped up to a Funhouse that I fell in love with the game of pinball. The point is that I would have never started playing if I wasn't a big Star Trek fan. There were 30 machines there but I would have passed by ALL of them if I had not seen that. Another great example is KISS. There are some diehard KISS fans out there that will buy anything KISS related and can be collected, even pinball machines. Licensing opens up many more opportunities to sell games. Hardcore pinballers can (usually) get past the theme if the gameplay is good enough. Personally, there are only a hand full of licenses I have seen that I would absolutely not let in my house (WWE, for example), but if the right machine comes along for the right price, then I'd probably take the plunge - regardless of the license.

Yeah, funny thing. I'm coming to realize this first hand as a buddy and I are currently brainstorming themes for a custom (one-off) pin we want to build. When we first started, both of us were 100% on the original theme mindset. But personally, as time has gone on, I keep finding myself way more compelled by ideas focused on existing properties. It's not that we necessarily have a lack of original theme ideas that interest us, it's just that every time I try to imagine the machine on location (in pinball's natural habitat, of course) I can't help but feel like a well executed licensed theme would get more head turns than even the most clever original them. Like Gary Stern said, is somebody in the wild going to "get it" right away or are they going to pass it by because nobody was there to explain it to them? And personally, even as a pinhead wanting to build his own one-off machine, I'm finding that I too stand by that philosophy. If I put my machine on location somewhere (because why wouldn't you), of course I want pinheads to like it but what I really want is the rest of the population to be drawn to it as well.

Jody and Jared from Stern are interviewed in Coast2Coast Pinball episode #170, and they talk a lot about their reasoning behind how they choose their themes. They make a really great point that they're being very strategic in the themes they choose, going beyond just what seems like a good pin theme or not. They're not trying to target the pinhead niche community specifically, but rather trying to appeal to new players in a much wider demographic, bringing more eyes & hands to pinball.

It's a collective we. And it's simply true. I would love more unlicensed themes. Love, love, love. I think licensing is choking the creativity out of pinball, it's full of too many compromises. Companies are more strict about what they'll allow now, brand management has changed since the 90s.

But it doesn't matter what I think. Or what you think. The market has spoken, loudly, over and over. We want licenses.

And until someone manages to make a real go at a successful unlicensed title (and I mean mass production units, not limited affairs like AMH, or what Jpop lied that he was going to do) that's not going to change.

If JJP can get Pat Lawlor's next game out, and it's good and unlicensed as promised, then maybe we can talk about it again. Until then it's not going to change.

duplicate

Whoa Nelly Big Juicy Mellons by Stern this year?

Stern's clarified this a bunch of times. Licenses sell preorders. Random themes do not. If you make a "Jurassic World" game, distributors line up to order. If you make a "Dinosaurs" game, they won't. Sure, it may be an awesome game, but you'd have to make a bunch of them and spend a bunch of time and money pitching it and demoing it to get people interested. It's a lot easier and safer to run a business with pre-sales.

Neverminding the whole thing Aurich mentioned where anytime people say "What theme do you want?" -- EVEN if they specifically say unlicensed them, people line up and spit out TV shows, Movies, Bands, etc.

Sharkeys shootout is a licenced pin. They got the licence to use Jeanette Lee in the game.
Professional female pool player.

Roller Coaster Tycoon is an insane amusement park massacre simulator.

The actual last unlicenced mass produced game was Revenge from Mars. 6878 made.

But there is MMr, 1000 LE units. And the possibility of more.

What was the first licensed theme?
-mof

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Vacation America yet which came out in Nov 2002? Chicago Gaming Co., John Trudeau design, etc.

http://ipdb.org/search.pl?any=vacation+america&search=Search+Database&searchtype=quick

That was always my goal when I played it. Sorta like GTA. Yeah, there were goals and stuff, but why bother when you can blow shit up mindlessly for hours?

I'm weary of only licensed themes. I don't care about such as old bands as AC/DC, KISS, Metallica, Rolling Stones, or themes like TWD, Wrestlemania, Mustang, BBH, even Tron, and many others. However, I realize there's a belief that licensed themes helps sales and unlicensed themes probably won't happen very often at all in the future. I wish every 4th or 5th Stern games was unlicensed or one that is a licensed theme and sometimes a second more family friendly theme like Stern did with FGY and Shrek. Or the some machine could have a license or a choice of one unlicensed with original sound, artwork etc. However, I'm realistic and realize creating separate artwork, sounds, video, etc. would drive up expenses and not going to happen.
B/W made many great and unique unlicensed games: TOTAN, MM, CC, FT, ES, WW, HS, FH, Cyclone, WW, NGG, CV, and Firepower sold over 17,000 units for Williams. Of course, some of their biggest sellers were licensed themes including TAF, TZ, T2, and many others. Bally was the early king of licenses in the 70's and early 80's.
I'm quite curious to see what JJP's unlicensed pin will be, how good it turns out and sells. Personally I hope it sells terrifically if it's a great pin.

I'm not.

High Roller Casino wasn't licensed.. That I know of...

Production numbers? No idea. Not listed on IPDB.

If the first licensed theme is Wizard in 1975, how did pinball flourish all those years until then without licensed themes?
The horror...
-mof

High Roller Casino was Stern's last unlicensed game. Sharkey's Shootout was kind of a half license, since it featured a licensed pool player.

Other unlicensed games to have released since are Vacation America and America's Most Haunted, but those aren't really from major manufacturers.

People cared aboot it more and it was more prevalent.

You need to remember that while "we" the pinball community would like an original theme, the general public probably wouldn't. They see a pinball machine from far away and have to make a call whether they are going to stick a dollar in it. If it is a theme they don't know, something has to attract them to it. Maybe a toy? Maybe the title?

If it is licensed, there is automatically a connection point. Based on how popular the theme was, statistically speaking, there will be more connection points right away. Thus the draw for manufacturers to use licensed themes. They do come with baggage though. Sounds like both Stern and JJP have been challenged by the process of getting approval around certain themes. TH is a great example of this. Where timing came into play on certain portions of the game.

Personally I love the idea of JJP's third game being original. PL sure has had time to think about one!

With creative hand drawn art by some very talented people. And bells.

The real reality is that themes are themes. Some are great, some suck. And a half baked original theme is going to pale next to a great license. Just like a great licensed game is better than a mediocre original one, unless you buy games to just look at them.

In a perfect world you'd get a great game with a great theme, that was wholly original. And it's certainly possible. But it's just a ton of work. Take it from someone working with a license right now (Alien with Fox) it's not like working with a license is necessarily easy. You have to stick with the rules that come with it. But at the same time, you have this whole universe to play in. You're not sitting there for weeks sketching and trying to design cool looking bad guys, the xenomorphs are right there. Everyone knows them. When the beacons on the top of the game go off you're going to be remembering scenes from the films, there's extra memories and emotions triggered there.

It's tough to beat that now.

I just moved my Mystic inside the house, it's in my home office right next to me. Beautiful game, I love it. But if you made a modern title with the same art you'd have to have so much more. Callouts. Characters. Animations. Tons more music and sounds. We have a lot of expectations now. And that all has to be created from scratch. There's no license to give you assets, ideas, and frameworks.

If you're Stern, and you're paying for your employees' time, and you have to keep the line moving, you simply can't take a year off to noodle around with creating that stuff. They're on the clock, and under pressure to make every game count. A missed license (WWE) hurts, but an original game that gets ignored is probably way more painful.

I would be interested in a new non licensed western theme. Not so much a goofy one like CC, but real blood and guts like the early west was. They could do so much with that.