I've seen the name FarSight before and I'm not a gamer. I don't think it's some small startup company thats using creative marketing to get off the ground. If that was the case I could understand. I think everyone let the TZ kickstarter slide through without much fuss but to continue this business model I think they should show some numbers. Something to show they need this and they don't just want this. Everyone wants a kickstart program in their life. I know I do. If McDonald's went to a town and said they would build a McDonald's if everyone paid the bill people would think they were nuts.

I'm not against the idea. If people want to send Farsight money to get STTNG on their mobile device, then good for them. For the other people, I'm going to imagine they already OWN (or know a friend/arcade/bar that has one) the pinball machine to want to spend money for a console port. PC guys have the superior Visual Pinball 9x emulations of STTNG (some VP9 emulations allow for dual monitor play...one for the translite & DMD alone).

I would be interested to know exactly how much Farsight thinks they would have to charge for a table with more expensive licensing fees like TZ or STTNG without a Kickstarter.

If your the dictionary police, you caught me. No, I do not think they are lying nor defrauding.

Maybe exploitation is the more correct word. FarSight is exploiting their fans. They are taking people's love for certain tables and using that to up their bottom line in a sleazy way.

As for the rest of your comments. I am sorry, I thought this was a forum. Which is where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. I am merely expressing my view on FarSight's business strategy. I am not sure why you need to attack me and my 'complaining.'

It does seem like they're taking advantage of their supporters. They are an established profit making company yet they basically say give us $10 to pay the licence fee and we'll give you the product that we're going to sell to everyone else for half the price when it's finished.

I've purchased every table so far for the ipad and i think it's a great product but as an established profit making company they should be able to source the funding for the licence fee without getting the public to front it. That's part of managing the companies finances. I'll keep buying their tables but i won't pay twice the price just to improve their profit margin.

^^this . I just don't get it. Millions buy the tables, why the need for funding? Frankly, from the outside, it looks like bonus money. Something "left on the table" that, now visible to everyone, must be picked up. Also frankly, I would do the same. Why leave money on the table? It is after all a no risk proposition. As a % virtually no one reads these forums.

I don't like it, they are NOT making me participate in it. So in the end, I am still buying every table they release. Their work is top notch. IMHO the best out there.

Hello, first post. I just wanted to say this is EXACTLY my case. I was re-introduced to pinball with Pinball Arcade on my ipad. That has now brought me here, and am now in the market for my first machine and eventual games room for my home. My four and eight year old sons have now been introduced to pinball as well.

I won't be part of their kickstarter, for various reasons already given in this thread, but I will buy the table when it is released, and will continue to explore this new hobby in the real world as well.

If a small % of Pinball Arcade users follow the same path as me, this could be a big deal.

Anyhow, glad to be here.

I don't like this kick starter stuff. It like the companies take none of the risk, yet reap all the rewards. I'd be more inclined to participate if I was given equitable compensation. If I donate $10, give me two codes so I can have a copy, and gift one.

I find it ridiculous that a multimillion dollar company can't see fit to cough up $45k in seed money to make another million. If they believe in their own product, how about the owners take less and reinvest in their OWN business

I'm going to start a kick starter to pay off my house. Thank god for idiots!

I think you might be overestimating how much people need this table made. It would be great to have but at the end of the day it's a novelty app, not a real pinball. It's Farsight that should be kicking itself if they don't release the table as it's their product and in turn their company name and profit margin that would be impacted most.

Like DrainO said if they gave you 2 copies for the $10 then that would be a fair investment. After all they're a company, not a charity.

Maybe Farsight should look at their business model and their finance manager. If they can't afford to fund licence fees for new tables from their existing cash flow then one or both of these may not be up to scratch.

Did he say that they couldn't find a pinball for less that $11k????

No. What they said was:

In fact we were astonished to discover that the price for just one of the tables we were interested in is over $11,000!

In other words, one of the tables that they wanted to license (and possibly did license - I think they were referring to Medieval Madness) was over $11k (IE, they couldn't find one cheaper). While I'm sure that some pinsiders have found it for less than that, it's not exactly easy to find.

With regard to the cost of the Kickstarter - if you'd be buying the table anyway, you'll be paying for the licensing fees one way or another. With the Kickstarter, you're helping ensure that high-license-cost tables like these even get ported to Pinball Arcade. And since you don't pay unless the Kickstarter is successful, it's just as much of a no-lose proposition for the backers as it is for the producers. That is, unless you resent prepaying for things.

Amazing how many people in this thread don't understand this.

I'm going to state this one more time...

They need to give something back for the kickstart. Something of worth.

Raffle off the machine that they buy to those that support the offset. It pisses me off, that we are padding an established company's risk on venture. Once was enough.

They do.

Read it.

Where do they state that they will give the machine away to one of the kickstarter supporters?

Have you seen their facility? They have sold millions of copies (at least 3 million) at $5 a pop.. kinda makes you think they are doing pretty good.

They will sell a million more with the STTNG title, mainly because of the huge fan base that Star Trek has. People that don't even know who far sight is will see the star trek label and buy it.

So if the title makes more money than usual, are they going to kick back some of that profit to those that helped kickstart it? hell no.

I'm backing.

FarSight is responsible for showing me how awesome pinball is, led me to spend money on location pins, and now I'm a new pin owner and loving every minute of it.

Many of my friends have bought The Pinball Arcade and now are coming with me to play pins on location. One day a few of them might follow my lead and buy their own pin.

FarSight's work is true gold for the hobby so I like to support them.

So if Apple asked you to kickstart the costs of the iPhone 5 would you be in?

Something of worth. Not a damn machine.

Kickstarter in a nutshell:

Someone pitches an idea for a creative project. If you think "I'd like to ensure that this thing gets to exist in the world" then back it. Most projects offer the very thing that is being created if you pledge the value of that thing, so it is also a bit like a pre-order. And just like a busker: if you don't like it, don't give anything.

The thing is that the "something of worth" that they are giving people is half the worth of what you are giving them based on previous Pinball Arcade table prices.

I don't think anyone would knock the idea of them saying we are going to charge $5 for this table. if you pre-order it will help us cover licence costs and ensure the table is made. But they are saying give us $10 towards licence costs and we'll give you a $5 product.

I have no issue with pre-ordering products but i still don't see any reason to pay double the cost of the product to ensure they make it. Normally if you pre-order you get a discount rather than an increase in price.

The premiss of my comment was that the machine was "something of worth".

Reading comprehension requires that you take the entire comment into consideration, and not pick and choose portions that pertain to your agenda.

I recall in the promo video for this STTNG Kickstarter, Jay Obernolte said that the license fees for this pins would result in closer to a $30 cost for the table. So $10 for backers is a good deal. And even so, this isn't a pre-order. To think of it as a pre-order is to miss the point of Kickstarter.

Exactly ^

They should reward the backers but instead they are taking 50% of the lowest $10 donation as charity unless anyone here think the STTNG table will be sold for $10 or more? The higher tier 'rewards' are even more of a joke.

I loved Farsight for what they are bringing and promised to continue to bring to the pinball community but this Kickstarter business makes me wonder if they aren't trying to cash in some of this good will at the fans' expense.

Also, I have a strong suspicion that they have deliberately engineered this 'delay' between handheld and console releases to encourage people to 'double dip' on table purchases which they wouldn't do if the releases were simultaneous.

Like I said earlier, if you want to donate money to people recreating pinball digitally then go over to the VPForum where people have been doing just that for years for no money at all.

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showforum=29

While an admirable goal, Virtual Pinball is a million miles from the reach of average people. The Pinball Arcade being on essentially every platform that requires almost zero effort to buy, install and play, gets pinball in the hands of everyone. VP gets pinball only in the hands of existing pinheads who have capable PCs and the knowledge to install/configure/run it.

Right now, I see Farsight studios like the squeegee kid on the corner stoplight....

The one that begs and puts on a good show for a donation, then climbs into their BMW at the end of the day.

Really.

Because it was your earlier post that mentioned the likeness to a pre-order.

They haven't sold millions of copies. The app has been downloaded millions of times, but it's just a shell that's free to download. Free apps get lots of downloads.

Seriously tho. Realistic cradle separations

I'd consider contributing to a kickstarter if they were going to use the funds to study our planet's physics and to hire a skilled user-interface/menu programmer.

I run my own business and I invest in others - which I get equity back in return for my investment. I'm also privy to the numbers of the business I've invested in.

Kickstarter is more of a charity. Normally for start-ups that don't know if a market exists, and that is useful. But if Farsight wants to say the table price would raise from $5 to $30 if they weren't to get $45k on Kickstarter would mean they expect to sell a low four-figure number of tables, which doesn't add up.

Anyhow, all of that is neither here nor there. Their kickstarter is working, they're happy to get the cash up front, and the contributors are happy to give it to them, so it's all good. I'm ready to buy the table when it is released and pay them what they've determined it should sell for (even if that ended up being $30).

THIS right here ^

Fugly app is fugly.

I wonder why this isn't the case with the real pin. It has traditionally been, and still is, a veritable bargain compared to other highly rated pins from the era.

You said "something of worth". Giving you one of their tables is something of worth. Right? Just because it isn't worth as much as the actual physical pinball machine doesn't make the point any less valid.

I don't mind pitching in a few extra bucks to get something made that otherwise wouldn't. So I did. End of story.

Farsight didn't originally plan to use Kickstarter, but people kept bugging them to do it....so they are only doing what they were asked to do by their customers.

Without Kickstarter, I could never play TZ or STTNG on my ipad while taking a dump, so I'm all for it

He's saying that for $10 you get what will cost $5 (or less) for anybody that DOESN'T do the kickstarter.

It is kind of slanted, but the whole point is that the people who REALLY want to see expensive license games will have to chip in a bit more to make it happen. Those who don't care if it gets made or not can just wait to see how it pans out and then get it cheaper.

Twilight Zone was one I wanted to insure would get made, so I donated there. Star Trek doesn't really do anything for me, so I'll ride this one out. Whatever.

/Personally I wish they'd just crank out all the stuff they can do on the cheap en masse - Fish Tales, Cactus Canyon, Hurricane/Cyclone, Pinbot/Jackbot, etc. etc. But I get that licensed stuff attracts more attention, which they need.

Either way, the table is definitely worth $10.....and it would never happen without the Kickstarter, so if this is what it takes, then so be it.

No. This is what he said:

They *are* giving something back for the kickstart. Something of worth. The table when it is released. Yes, it may not be worth the amount contributed, but it is still something of worth that you will get back.

Like Jeffy777 says, the table is worth $10 anyway.

Probably not. They were talking about a $30 table cost when they were expecting to front the licensing fees themselves. With the Kickstarter floating the licensing fees, they'll probably drop it to $15, or possibly even $10. The early adopters are making it cheaper for everyone.

And I, for one, am glad to do it.

It's like being held hostage, I like the game, but I think the kickstarter method is a fairly crooked business model. Dishonest at the very best.

They make millions of dollars from the sales on all platforms combined, while I have no data on actual sales, one can estimate from the number of shell downloads that is the case. Laughing all the way to the bank.

I still really don't see why everyone is up in arms over the kickstarter. Farsight only started it because so many people wanted them to make TZ and kept suggesting that they explore the kickstarter route to fund the 55,000 licensing fees required to make TZ. They were then at least honest enough to roll the extra 15,000 they made from the TZ kickstarter over towards the ST:TNG project. Anyone who knows about gaming, knows that Farsight is a mere blip on the gaming map that caters to a niche audience at best. These guys are far from rolling in stacks of EA type cash for sure. In the end, nobody is being forced to contribute. It just comes down to the simple fact of how much the gaming public is really willing to part with out of pocket to play these heavily licensed tables in the comfort of their own home.

Well, I'm not really running around my house flailing my arms cursing Farsight (funny cartoon bubble though). I just disagree with the method, to me building a business is selling a product and rolling profit back into the business. Evidently Farsight has found a way for people to build their business for them AND rake in the profits at the same time. I'm not mad/angry, I just will never contribute because I think it's a bit sleazy, but I will buy their game/tables, because I think that it's a very valid product and find it a fairly accurate simulation.

I, like many, started playing pins on locations and ended up buying a pin because of Pinball Arcade. Hard to argue about their business model. Whatever works.... works.

I'm not sure how many times we have to say it, but evidently one more: they are only doing Kickstarter because their customers kept continually bugging and begging them to do it. They never originally planned it. I don't see how we can call them "sleazy" for simply doing what their customers wanted them to do....and the money from the Kickstarter is going directly towards paying for the licenses. They aren't pocketing a single penny of it, and they are still paying for all the development costs themselves. The whole point of the Kickstarter is so that they can bring us tables that would never be possible due to the expensive licenses.

And as for them making millions, they were recently asked in an interview about their commercial success and here's what they had to say:

Are the commercial results of The Pinball Arcade so far on par with your expectations?

"Our biggest fear was that we’d get lost in all of the other games and apps that are distributed digitally. Thankfully, we’ve gotten past that with a lot of support from the first parties.

Once we start rolling out more tables on console, I think we’ll be able to better determine just how well we’re going.

I asked Jay Obernolte (the president of FarSight) to weigh in on this question."

From Jay:
“To be honest, we really didn’t know what to expect. We love making pinball games and we hoped the Pinball Arcade would be successful enough to let us go on making several tables every month. Although the game Is not profitable for us yet, it’s doing well enough to pay its own way in terms of ongoing expenses (which is very gratifying). Also we’re very encouraged by the fact that for each of the past few months we’ve sold more tables than the month before, which means we’re reaching more people every month and introducing pinball to a whole new generation of people who might never have become pinball fans except for the Pinball Arcade. That makes us feel really good about what we’re doing.”

So the reality is: they aren't even making a profit yet....

You don't have to repost this, I understand the dynamics of the game world. I just don't believe them. You choose to, and I don't, and that's cool. I'll continue to buy the packs that come out (if I like the games) and you can continue to contribute to kickstarter if you choose.