Just a sales tactic. As long as demand is there, someone will always be selling.

That sucks.

So in a month the only versions available are going to be pirate copies?

“...we will continue to support them as we do the other tables in our collection.”

Talk about adding insult to injury...

Yikes. Back to VPX I guess. What happened? Rick? Or Stern putting the screws to them?

New Stern tables have been announced, so Stern seems kosher.

" FarSight will continue to release new tables for the Pinball Arcade. We are excited to announce that Season 8 will launch later this summer and will feature all of the recent Stern tables in Stern Pinball Arcade along with several new tables. "

I was hoping to see Bally/Williams games in VR as the technology continues to improve. Looks like it may not happen.

It's presumed they pissed off the license holder with the Switch release and it not being part of the license agreement.

Holy carp, that’s huge, I play P.A. every day. Not good, not good at all.

This seems like a terrible move for Farsight, PPS, and the pinball community in general. Years of work down the drain, and why? It’s not like the license can just easily be moved to another company to recreate all those tables from scratch.

Well. I am still missing seasons 4, 6 and 7. Is banzai run any good on iOS ?
I guess I will pick up 4 and 6. I like having them on the iPad.
I’m assuming someone will pick up the license. Who knows. Maybe we will get new versions with improved physics at some point.
Time shock is just killer on the iPad. Would be great to see these get similar treatment.

I agree. The Pinball Arcade is what got me into the hobby, and I’ll bet there are a lot of others out there like me. This app is a great way to introduce people to Pinball inexpensively. Now that the Classic titles won’t be available to newcomers it will be interesting to see if that hampers the current resurgence. Hopefully not, but TPA was like a gateway drug haha.

TPA kinda got me into the hobby too, very disappointing. I was wondering if Stern gave them an ultimatum: “Stern arcade or the main TPA” but it seems like it’s just a license thing. Sigh. Not sure if Scientific or Planetary is holding it up, but what a stupid move. Now you can just get exceedingly perfect renderings on Visual Pinball x with NO license fees paid, and no cost, other than the sweat equity put in by enthusiasts. Win for the players I suppose, but stupid loss for everybody else. There were a bunch of System 11 games still to be done and think of all the lost sales!

This is crappy news for sure, I think the B/W tables are emulated better than the recent Stern ones...Maybe they will up their game now on the newer Sterns; as PinabllFX3 is really utilizing the power of the PS4 Pro and XB1X a lot better than TPA.

Farsight has posted a few follow-up posts: an FAQ and a list of games to be removed from sale. What they have conspicuously not done is name the licensor, which I and others assume is PPS, but some are speculating may be Scientific.

Would be good to see some of the pinball press do some digging and reporting on this.

It is not Scientific Games

https://media.giphy.com/media/HEdtJvFj5Whk4/giphy.gif

If Planetary decided to not renew, then I don't understand.

I'm fairly confident that exposure from TPA increased overall interest in MM, and overall interest in MM is what drove Planetary into their remake games business.

It seems like there's a really good reciprocal relationship there...doesn't make sense unless they're planning on doing their own digital product? Or maybe giving the license to PinballFX?

Hey, was Rick on the campaign too? Yikes

B/W titles for Pinball arcade will be available long after they are *officially* dropped

No kidding, I actually laughed out loud at this.

Hope switch version comes up back soon, than i will buy them all fast before it is to late.

I suspect someone else is getting the rights to make simulations of all of the Bally/Williams pins. Hopefully they'll do seemingly simple things like add support for using the new software in a real pinball cabinet, VR support, and other things Farsight fails to provide.

Pinball Arcade started out great, but they've done a bad job the past few years. It will be nice if a more professional company takes a stab at the BW pins. It'd be great to see virtual pins with licensed SW at shows too

They stated on FB that when it comes back to Switch, it won’t have the WMS games. I wonder if the pack I bought already will get wiped.

This sucks. Why would PPS do this!?

That sucks. PBA was a huge reason for me getting in the hobby. Sad that someone else who may have been in my shoes will lose out and collect Garbage Pail Kids or something.

And they never got around to releasing Congo. A sad day....

Rick PPS what’s the story? Seems there must be more to it?

lmao this is like Netflix dropping all the major studios to focus on Hallmark originals

PPS are just a licensee of mechanical pinball , like farsight, nothing to do with PPS
Scientific own the rights not PPS

SG/WMS trying to cash in on something new?
My guess is (and I don't hope they do that) they either want to cash in on the resurgence of pinball (far too late... 20 years too late) or they have gotten a better offer for their money from another studio.

garbage pail kids lmao!!!
that's a trip
Thanks
Blake

According to Farsight’s FAQ page, none of the Williams or Bally tables will go on sale bafore the license expires due to the terms of their licensing contract. There’s a story here somewhere we’ll all eventually hear.

You can't devalue the brand by blowing out inventory and damaging the brand

How about Scratch and Sniff stickers? Remember those?

I'm pretty sure a BIG portion of the aged 20 to 30-something pinball buying enthusiasts are in the hobby now at least partly because of this app. Pinball just didn't have a magical resurgence with people who've never even seen one in the wild IMO. I call this biting the hand that feeds you

Williams/Bally Table Announcement FAQ

1. Why has the license not been renewed? Whose decision was it?
The company that controls the WMS IP chose not to renew our agreement.

2. When will the Williams/Bally tables stop being sold?
June 30th

3. Will there be discounts on the tables before the contract expires? If not, why?
No, our agreement with WMS prohibits there being any sales on their tables before we have to take them off the market.

4. Will there be any updates/bug fixes for the tables before/after the contract expires?
Yes, we will continue to support all of the tables in Pinball Arcade.

5. What will happen to the tables that are already owned (or unlocked, as with the Kickstarter rewards) once the contract expires?
Everyone who owns a WMS table will still own it, and have full access to it. We will modify the game via updates before June 30th on each platform so that players can no longer buy WMS tables if they haven’t already. In most cases, if you don’t own a WMS you won’t be able to see that table in the game at all.

6. Would future hardware (iPhones/iPads, Android devices) be updated to allow the Williams/Bally tables to work correctly, or will there be a time when these are completely unplayable?
We will continue to support all of the tables in Pinball Arcade for customers who bought them. This includes support for users who need to re-download tables they’ve already bought.

7. With the loss of the Williams/Bally tables, what's the future of the app? Will we see it continued with new non-Williams/Bally tables?
Our “Season 8” release will include all of the Stern tables that we’ve done to date for SPA plus a couple more. We will continue to develop and release non-WMS tables. Once the WMS tables are removed from sale, the remaining tables for sale in the game (Stern, Gottlieb, and Alvin G) will be restructured into different packs based primarily on the table manufacture.

8. What's happening with the staff at FarSight? Will there be layoffs?
There are no plans to lay off any FarSight staff.

9. Is FarSight working on other projects?
Yes, in addition to developing many more digital versions of Stern tables, more Gottlieb tables, possibly more tables from other manufactures, and an awesome 2D pinball experience for mobile, we’re working on a couple new cross-platform games that are yet to be officially announced – primarily for console.

10. This sucks, right?
We are very disappointed by the WMS license holder’s decision – so it’s not great. But we’ll be working to enhance the players’ enjoyment of all of the tables in Pinball Arcade for years to come.

At least they intend to keep supporting the tables if you've already bought them. I took a quick peak around the steam forums, and the devs made this post:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/238260/discussions/0/1694920442963087824/

Rick and crew can suck it.

Six people are going to be very upset

Pinball Arcade said they were going to implement VR into their platform in the first quarter of 2018 and instead they give this announcement? WTF guys? Horrible news. This saddens me that they didn't pony up the cash to renew their license. What a dumb company decision to cut ties to some of their best pins. Bye bye Medieval Madness, White Water, Attack From Mars and a boatload of others. Also sad that they spent so much time creating/programming these tables that they are just going to be locked away for future use forever. They should have done a fund raiser or something if they couldn't afford it. Very disappointed in the crummy direction this company is going.

You could always buy a real machine to play those titles. VR threatens the sales of real games.

I wonder if this will have some impact on devaluing these pins. Or will it only cause the opposite effect.
This is terrible news.

Not sure what, but something jumped the shark here.

Short-sighted business decisions like these are the beginning of the decline for some org, just not sure which one.

I heard from an unreliable source that PPS was planning on releasing digital remakes of all of these existing tables.

lol, dumbest post ive read in awhile. Most people playing TPA cant afford a MMr dudeee

I thought PPS held those also?

Not only that, they're just different markets with different purposes. I bought a table pack for Switch before they were pulled....I’ve been playing T2, Whitewater, Champ Pub, etc in my office, on a plane a few weeks back....I can’t bring a real pin in a plane! Lol

So this is the license that they are taking about which I believe is PPS!

How much would have Pinball Arcade had to have paid?