I hope Pin Rescue and PPS can work things out.
I for done thins PPS is doing a great job. There are far more parts available then ever before, and CPR keeps making great stuff. When people go through the right channels, I think everyone wins.
Chris
I posted this in the EM forum because a lot of what Pin Rescue does is for the EM market. Overwhelmingly, they service a pinball segment that is pretty much ignored by PPS. As I stated before, PPS does little to nothing for collectors of Williams EMs. And there's pretty much no indication that they'll do anything in the future for EM collectors.
I note this because the majority of the people who have responded to this thread seem to have collections that are solely SS/DMD game and aren't really going to be impacted at all by what has happened here.
Quoted from EMsInKC:I posted this in the EM forum because a lot of what Pin Rescue does is for the EM market. Overwhelmingly, they service a pinball segment that is pretty much ignored by PPS. As I stated before, PPS does little to nothing for collectors of Williams EMs. And there's pretty much no indication that they'll do anything in the future for EM collectors.
I note this because the majority of the people who have responded to this thread seem to have collections that are solely SS/DMD game and aren't really going to be impacted at all by what has happened here.
I think you're expecting the worst. Rick has the ability to open things up to his distributors as well, which may increase demand and get additional products made. I know it's easy to be skeptical, but give him a chance!
Quoted from johnwartjr:I think you're expecting the worst. Rick has the ability to open things up to his distributors as well, which may increase demand and get additional products made. I know it's easy to be skeptical, but give him a chance!
Open what things up? These guys make a very narrow range of products. They're already making them. They already have a website and they're already well known.
What exactly is PPS going to do for them other than take a cut of whatever they do?
Quoted from EMsInKC:What exactly is PPS going to do for them other than take a cut of whatever they do?
Enable them to do it legally.
Quoted from Bryan_Kelly:I have found Rick to be very approachable when it comes to making parts.
You want to make something, contact him. It's really pretty easy.
Agreed 100%. I reached out to rick a few years ago about reproducing something and he responded very quickly.
Hope it all works out, I purchased a play field plastics set for my 1960 Williams Nags and was very happy with the quality. My old ones were toast so it really helped make the game look nice (along with my repo Shay back glass).
Rick, Lee, Steve and all the others that support us in this hobby aren't going to do it for free or lose money in process regardless of how passionate they are about it. The overall health of this hobby is directly proportional to their longevity and success. There's nothing to worry about here, it will get sorted out otherwise the hobby will suffer.
Quoted from EMsInKC:Open what things up? These guys make a very narrow range of products. They're already making them. They already have a website and they're already well known.
What exactly is PPS going to do for them other than take a cut of whatever they do?
PPS is legally entitled to their cut. Just because you get away with speeding every day doesn't mean you have the right to use this argument when the cop pulls you over and writes you a ticket.
Let's say PR makes 50 sets of plastics for a particular game
Rick may enable them to sell 100 sets, if he contacts his distributors and finds interest in that set. Not *everyone* knows every product that is made. I'm amazed daily by the amount of people who will buy something from Marco, for example, when it's available for less elsewhere - but a lot of people think Marco and BAA are their only choices, for example.
If they can sell more product, they may make more products!
You're not going to pay for a $500,000 investment by trying to squeeze nickels and dimes out of wood rail and wedge head owners. I agree with EMsInKC, I doubt if they've given 10 minutes thought to EM parts--they have bigger fish to fry. On the other hand, two very talented guys in Australia might look at the cost, the paperwork, and the general bullshit involved in making "officially licensed" products and decide it's not worth it.
Besides, technology is going to make it all obsolete soon anyway. They can try to collect license fees all they want, but in 10 years or less we'll all be printing our own plastics, making our bumper caps with 3-D printers, and the artwork for every back glass ever made will be on the internet ready to have printed one glass at a time.
Quoted from EMsInKC:What exactly is PPS going to do for them other than take a cut of whatever they do?
I hope that one of the things PPS is doing is quality control. QC is not needed for Pinball Rescue, obviously, but I have some Space Station insert decals I bought for my many years ago that are too small. I just ordered a new set from BAA with the expectation that they redid them, and they're accurate now.
Quoted from cjmiller:You're not going to pay for a $500,000 investment by trying to squeeze nickels and dimes out of wood rail and wedge head owners. I agree with EMsInKC, I doubt if they've given 10 minutes thought to EM parts--they have bigger fish to fry. On the other hand, two very talented guys in Australia might look at the cost, the paperwork, and the general bullshit involved in making "officially licensed" products and decide it's not worth it.
Besides, technology is going to make it all obsolete soon anyway. They can try to collect license fees all they want, but in 10 years or less we'll all be printing our own plastics, making our bumper caps with 3-D printers, and the artwork for every back glass ever made will be on the internet ready to have printed one glass at a time.
They are licensed for Gottlieb because Gottlieb is the biggest market for their products. But they do make some Williams things.
I checked their plastics, vast majority are Gottlieb, but I found this. Note the licensing statement.
http://www.pinballrescue.net/Plastics_Hayburners.html
So they had at least some arrangement with IPB, at least for these plastics. So a WMS licensee knew what they were doing, obviously.
It also suggests that once that license was transferred to PPS, that something didn't work out, which is why the WMS/Bally stuff is now being held up. And given the likelihood that Gottlieb stuff is the majority of their sales, you might be entirely correct that they just decide they don't want to deal with the headaches, or maybe they've already had a taste of the headaches to come? Who knows?
It won't really change much for Gottlieb collectors, but if you happen to also like to buy some Williams games, these guys are the only source of some of these things that I know of.
It would definitely affect my buying. If I was buying a Williams that had a bad apron, I would go ahead knowing I could fix it relatively easy. It they can't sell the apron decals, or other Williams items any longer, it would have an impact on buying those games.
We are in fact ramping up EM items ... just started putting EM Schematics on our store (printed), and many more items to come. As for Pinball Rescue ... they were operating without any permission when IPB licensee was terminated, and at this point we are discussing with them, that's about it. You can turn that into whatever you want to, but copyright and trademark items don't happen without an agreement by a licensee - full stop. I don't think we are anywhere near as restrictive nor narrow in terms of who we work with to get products out as 'others', and you can find dozens of people who make products all day long via our license and more to come ...
Also, we have no intention or plans to change IPDB and will continue to have manuals on the site.
Quoted from PPS:We are in fact ramping up EM items ... just started putting EM Schematics on our store (printed), and many more items to come. As for Pinball Rescue ... they were operating without any permission when IPB licensee was terminated, and at this point we are discussing with them, that's about it. You can turn that into whatever you want to, but copyright and trademark items don't happen without an agreement by a licensee - full stop. I don't think we are anywhere near as restrictive nor narrow in terms of who we work with to get products out as 'others', and you can find dozens of people who make products all day long via our license and more to come ...
Also, we have no intention or plans to change IPDB and will continue to have manuals on the site.
[email protected]
So you're going to pick and choose who you decide to let use your intellectual property free of charge? Am I understanding this correctly?
Quoted from PPS:We are in fact ramping up EM items ... just started putting EM Schematics on our store (printed), and many more items to come. As for Pinball Rescue ... they were operating without any permission when IPB licensee was terminated, and at this point we are discussing with them, that's about it. You can turn that into whatever you want to, but copyright and trademark items don't happen without an agreement by a licensee - full stop. I don't think we are anywhere near as restrictive nor narrow in terms of who we work with to get products out as 'others', and you can find dozens of people who make products all day long via our license and more to come ...
Also, we have no intention or plans to change IPDB and will continue to have manuals on the site.
[email protected]
Rick - In regards to IPDB manuals; this is great to hear! Is there any chance that there will someday be "real" copies of the manuals on IPDB?
Quoted from EMsInKC:So you're going to pick and choose who you decide to let use your intellectual property free of charge? Am I understanding this correctly?
IPDB isnt profiting off of the manuals. Also he probably realizes that the manuals have been out there for so long, taking them down would do no good.
The manuals were up on IPDB via permission thru us (as you can see on IPDB it calls that out) as granted by WMS. We kinda thought it was good for the hobby to have the manuals on IPDB and I suspect you all do as well. Maybe the bigger thread should be why others do not let manuals on IPDB? IPDB is not trying to make money, they provide a service to the pinball community, so we support that.
Quoted from PPS:We are in fact ramping up EM items ... just started putting EM Schematics on our store (printed), and many more items to come. As for Pinball Rescue ... they were operating without any permission when IPB licensee was terminated, and at this point we are discussing with them, that's about it. You can turn that into whatever you want to, but copyright and trademark items don't happen without an agreement by a licensee - full stop. I don't think we are anywhere near as restrictive nor narrow in terms of who we work with to get products out as 'others', and you can find dozens of people who make products all day long via our license and more to come ...
Also, we have no intention or plans to change IPDB and will continue to have manuals on the site.
[email protected]
I hope somebody now finally makes good quality repro Williams backglasses for "King Pin", "Space Ship" and "Skill Pool". There are others as well. This will help save many project machines that could become part-outs soon if these glasses don't become available.
Quoted from EMsInKC:So you're going to pick and choose who you decide to let use your intellectual property free of charge? Am I understanding this correctly?
I don't think you understand correctly. We are the licensee of wms, we are in lockstep with wms on any agreements we need to have about how IP is used and who uses it. The key is to use the IP you have to have permission to use it ... anyways if it's 'our' (and wms) IP, isn't that exactly what you would expect us to do is to decide when and where and how we deploy that IP ... the answer is yes we decide where and when and how.
We just made Rocket, Sea Wolf, King Pin are available now. Space Ship is just about done and a couple of other bulb scoring backglasses (on acrylic with hidden text, etc) looks perfect. Have more in the pipeline on that. Also they were I think $149 each, which is about $75-100 less than the glass version would be.
Annabelle is coming up as well ... we have about a dozen others that we have been working on.
rick (who do nothing with EM's).
Quoted from PPS:The manuals were up on IPDB via permission thru us (as you can see on IPDB it calls that out) as granted by WMS. We kinda thought it was good for the hobby to have the manuals on IPDB and I suspect you all do as well.
This is much appreciated. Thanks!
Quoted from PPS:I don't think we are anywhere near as restrictive nor narrow in terms of who we work with to get products out as 'others', and you can find dozens of people who make products all day long via our license and more to come ...
And some who have the licence and do absolutely nothing visible with it....like the BOP playfield!
Yeah, I had to bring it up. Seriously though, please find some way to get EM PARTS made..coil stops, flipper kits, etc.... it's always nice to have plastics and playfields and stuff, but if the game don't play, I still don't want to own it no matter how pretty it is.
Regarding manuals on IPDB, I think what's really being asked is there a restriction in terms of size or resolution scans that can be uploaded to IPDB that Williams wants them to stick to? There's a LOT of room for improvement for someone to provide better scans to IPDB.
Quoted from PPS:We just made Rocket, Sea Wolf, King Pin are available now. Space Ship is just about done and a couple of other bulb scoring backglasses (on acrylic with hidden text, etc) looks perfect. Have more in the pipeline on that. Also they were I think $149 each, which is about $75-100 less than the glass version would be.
rick (who do nothing with EM's).
I bought those three from Jeff McAfee at the last Allentown show. They're OK, but the glass versions have much better color. They are a good deal though. Sure would love to get "Space Ship" when it comes out. Keep me posted.
the BOP playfields are getting printed (screen) in the next coupe of weeks and are 'supposed' to be out by Expo, but we will see. I think we can either have one or two playfield suppliers or we can have 5 or 6. And what happens is the first one of the additional suppliers takes more time than they ever thought. Those who take the risk to learn how to do it usually disappoint until they get thru the first one (if they get thru the first one). But I'd rather (as painful as it is) have 5 or 6 playfield suppliers than one or 2. At least I'd rather try to do that ...
rick
we do have some JM translites ... just have to check them out first ... this week sometime.
I was bitchy earlier, but I like everything I've read from PPS, especially the part about how they weren't trying to emulate "the other guys."
Actually, this is where you got me:
Quoted from PPS:Maybe the bigger thread should be why others do not let manuals on IPDB? IPDB is not trying to make money, they provide a service to the pinball community, so we support that.
Good luck to you.
also, the 'other half' of PPS has one of the larger EM collections (setup and several hundred more EMs not setup) in the country and we use these machines for doing projects, etc (some of the backglasses, etc). In fact Twisted Pins came for a weekend and shot sideart for all of the games there which results in accurate stencil sets for games (including EMs). I always wonder how the posters of this dis-information would handle the situation if they understood before they posted ...
rick
Quoted from PPS:we do have some JM translites ... just have to check them out first ... this week sometime.
You are to be congratulated for participating in this thread Rick, for providing optimism on the future availability of components and for seemingly exercising your legal rights in a sensible & productive manner.
Quoted from PPS:also, the 'other half' of PPS has one of the larger EM collections (setup and several hundred more EMs not setup) in the country and we use these machines for doing projects, etc (some of the backglasses, etc). In fact Twisted Pins came for a weekend and shot sideart for all of the games there which results in accurate stencil sets for games (including EMs). I always wonder how the posters of this dis-information would handle the situation if they understood before they posted ...
rick
No disinformation here. According to your website, you've had Williams licensing rights since 2010, and your EM parts inventory consists of...ring kits. Every single game I looked up, and it was a bunch, that's what I found. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
Sure, IPDB isn't trying to make money, but if you're intending to sell schematics, that puts you in direct competition with them as far as schematics are concerned, unless you're going to give them out for free also. Kind of hard to claim you're protecting your IP when you let someone give away what you're trying (I'm assuming) to sell.
In any case, the "other guys" have those schematics for sale anyway. It's not like we're going to get something that isn't already available here.
I can only go by what I see. Good intentions are great, but that's what the road to hell is paved with.
If you really get started on EM stuff, then great. I'll admit I was off base. But since you don't have the licensing rights for Gottlieb, which is really where most of the money is on the EM side, I can't imagine you making a big push for EMs, because the return on Williams/Bally EM parts is certainly not going to be anything like it would be for Gottlieb. Your money is going to be in Williams/Bally games, SS games, and PR isn't really much into them.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the law here, but PR is basically a Mom and Pop store. These guys do this as a sideline to make a few bucks and help the hobby. They're not going to get rich off it, nor are they going to cause you or any other vendor to lose sales, since for most of what they make, there are no other vendors.
I'll be interested to see how this plays out.
We don't even sell ring kits on PPS site, perhaps you are confusing BAA. We have other people make and sell items as well. I'm not sure how you think berating us on what we are not doing in your view is going to encourage us, that's not how I would try to lobby a vendor for making stuff I need ... IPDB doesn't sell schematics, and it takes a little bit of time and money do print on a continuous sheet of paper, so we thought for $14.99 that was a good things to have - much like reprints of manuals vs spending more time and energy at home printing them.
Please go pick on the gottlieb guys, I'm tired of this.
rick
You bust his balls because he makes exceptions:
Quoted from EMsInKC:So you're going to pick and choose who you decide to let use your intellectual property free of charge? Am I understanding this correctly?
But then bust his balls because he won't make an exception:
Quoted from EMsInKC:Don't get me wrong, I understand the law here, but PR is basically a Mom and Pop store. These guys do this as a sideline to make a few bucks and help the hobby. They're not going to get rich off it, nor are they going to cause you or any other vendor to lose sales, since for most of what they make, there are no other vendors.
Dude can't win.
I think you should do takedowns if anyone even mentions a WMS product... then they can become just as worthless as gottliebs and I will finally be able to afford a MM 
soon people will start uploading pirated pinball machines onto the internets!!! wait... wat?
Rick:
One of the most needed things for EM machines I'm encountering now is the Jones "jack-and-plug" connectors going bad from severe corrosion. These connectors have been N.L.A for at least 30 years now. Any chance of getting them reproduced? All the EM Williams machines I've worked on for the past year have had major troubles due to corroded connectors. Oh how I've wished to simply replace them with new ones.
Quoted from johnwartjr:If Pinball Rescue works with Rick, and comes to an agreement, it benefits everyone.
I'm just going to pop in here with a plug just in case some people have never dealt with Pinball Rescue. The guys at Pinball Rescue are really great upstanding people. I'm sure they will work something out and get these great products back on the market. I have bought a lot of Gottlieb apron decals and a plastic set or two from them and the products are always top notch. I prefer their plastics to PBRs repros. They also have great communication with friendly shipping status emails.
Quoted from KenLayton:Any chance of getting them reproduced?
At this point, anyone could reproduce connectors w\o the need for permission from Rick. There's a chance they might have been patented, but those would have been long expired on EM games (and soon most SS\DMD games!).
There's no way a connector could be trademarked or copyrighted, so these kind of parts would be fair game for anyone to reproduce.
Quoted from KenLayton:Rick:
One of the most needed things for EM machines I'm encountering now is the Jones "jack-and-plug" connectors going bad from severe corrosion. These connectors have been N.L.A for at least 30 years now. Any chance of getting them reproduced? All the EM Williams machines I've worked on for the past year have had major troubles due to corroded connectors. Oh how I've wished to simply replace them with new ones.
Post a decent picture and we can see what there is and if I have a print for it. If anyone happens to have a part # for it that would be great.
rick
Here's pictures of the 10 pin connectors from a Williams Paratrooper I restored last year and a Gottlieb Surf Champ I did this year. On the Gottlieb one you can see the corrosion on the connector pins. All types of EM machines (pinball, arcade, novelty, and slot machines) had been using those connectors since around 1940 until 1977.
Since you have joined this conversation Rick, what do you plan to do about the numerous rule sets that people are coming up with for PRoc where they are updating the code using the existing video and sound? What some of these people are doing is amazing but it seems you have put a stop to them giving it out. Are you going to allow them to use it free or for a price or buy the code from them and sell it or just stop the process?
not sure what I plan to do case by case... when presented with someone's plans then I usually figure out what to do. As of this point nobody has approached me. If someone has a serious project (like the BOP guys) then they know what they need to do, worked fine with them.
First of all, let me apologize for some of the things I said. Comparing you to Wayno was a bit over the top. While Im aware of a few projects for games such as IJ, ES and WW which I would love to have Im thinking about CCC here. What Eric did was amazing. It took a "meh" game and made it awesome. I could not do this in my wildest imagination. Hell I could not figure out how to download all the stuff into a computer and set it up. If You bought the code from these people and sold the computer setups or the code for people to install themselves or allow them to use the info for a fee you would be helping out immensely. These old System 11s and DMDs are great but it would be amazing to give them the depth of the newer games. Please do not do what Wayno and Gene did and sit on it and not do anything nor allow anyone else to do anything. BTW, I cant wait for the Funhouse upgrade. Im all in.
Also ... to keep things back on topic ... we did just acquire the bulk of WMS original silkscreen films for anything that existed for WMS, including a ton of EM and early SS games. And, given that we have alot of the knowledge and equipment already for turning that into product (other than silkscreening, which we have partners), there will be a drammatic acceleration in what is available, for EM's and anything else that we find.
rick
Quoted from PPS:Also ... to keep things back on topic ... we did just acquire the bulk of WMS original silkscreen films for anything that existed for WMS, including a ton of EM and early SS games. And, given that we have alot of the knowledge and equipment already for turning that into product (other than silkscreening, which we have partners), there will be a drammatic acceleration in what is available, for EM's and anything else that we find.
rick
This is great news.
I have been collecting pins for 16 years. For years I was trolling ebay and mrpinball trying to buy up plastics, playfields and other misc. parts I figured would be impossible to buy in the future.
If you would have told me back then that all of these wonderful repro parts would be available today I would have called you a liar...
Thank you Rick, CPR, Shay, Steve Young, PinRescue and all of the other guys out there working hard to provide us with a great selection of parts!!!
Quoted from HandsOfStone:I have been collecting pins for 16 years. For years I was trolling ebay and mrpinball trying to buy up plastics, playfields and other misc. parts I figured would be impossible to buy in the future.
If you would have told me back then that all of these wonderful repro parts would be available today I would have called you a liar...
Thank you Rick, CPR, Shay, Steve Young, PinRescue and all of the other guys out there working hard to provide us with a great selection of parts!!!
Yep ^^^
I've got 35 years of collecting under my belt. Back then, no Ebay to troll. PBR at the time was basically a place to get rubbers, balls, Millwax, Wildcat, bulbs, coils, sleeves, and friendly advice We all hoarded parts, especially bumper caps, like they were gold. I actually bought whole games just to get my hands on a backglass, four nice legs, plastics, parts or some caps.
If I needed a cap I didn't have, I'd find a cracked cap with a good center, and marry it up with a good cap with a burned center and sit at the bench for a half hour with a dremel, cutting the bad center away from the good ring and then cutting the bad ring away from the good center and then gluing the two back together and then touching up the missing/faded blue ink with a Sharpie, which always looked good till you put it on the game with a light under it. Never thought I'd see the day when PBR has every cap combination you could ever want.
You kids don't know how good you have it...just like my Dad used to say
Quoted from KenLayton:Here's pictures of the 10 pin connectors from a Williams Paratrooper I restored last year and a Gottlieb Surf Champ I did this year. On the Gottlieb one you can see the corrosion on the connector pins. All types of EM machines (pinball, arcade, novelty, and slot machines) had been using those connectors since around 1940 until 1977.
Not to sound like too much of a heathen, but is there any way these could be updated to "modern" standards, or is the current and voltage requirement just too high for compact modern parts?
I would love to see the "standard" jones plug pin/acceptor configs reproduced..would be AWESOME.
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