We love the "horrible license" games NOW because they're cheap and offer great design...and some hokey nostalgia 20 years after the fact. Great bang for the buck with those games....but no one wants to pay NIB price for a bad license game.

My point is that license doesn't usually factor in as much as we want to think after the games are released. Art and gameplay are probably the biggest factors. Why do we love Tron more than Avatar? When I tell non-pinball people my CFTBL is worth a lot more than my SWE1, they are shocked.

Big Bang Theory "could" be a good license if the pinball company did a great job with the entire package. Our opinion that they wouldn't do a great job is based on WoF, 24, and CSI.

If we want to start poking holes in themes, I can tell you how brutalized I feel by what Disney did with Tron Legacy. I lost track of how much it violated the original thoughts and ideals. Quorra was the saving grace. Oh, and the pinball game

Why do we love Tron more than Avatar..... because we love the original Tron. I haven't played much Avatar pinball, but the times that it did, I enjoyed it. Absolutely love my Tron pro though!

I think pinball as an art form, like music, like movies, like paintings and cartons, and even television shows. It's all variety, it's all subjective. There are themes that are going to draw you to them, there are themes that are going to draw me. When I go to PAPA in PA, there are rows of like themed games. I might dabble in a few that don't interest me. I'm not a big fan of sports. I might play a game of NGG or Harlem Globetrotters. But I am going to stay for a few games of Indiana Jones, just because I loved the movies.
I'm not going to say that a certain pinball is necessarily bad because it is a theme I don't agree with, I played a few great games of Sopranos in the wild. i don't care for the theme, and have no desire to watch the show, but it was a good play. That's the meat and potatoes for me. The theme is just the icing on the cake. If a manufacturer wants to make some games, maybe one time they appeal to a theme that a certain section of the population is into, and the next time another. They might expand the market that way. Good for them if they can make a pin that you like, and one I like the next time, and maybe one that someone else likes. So be it. Just make the gameplay good underneath the art, the paint, and the graphics. I will at least give it a try, and if the game plays good I may just stick around - regardless of the theme.

Futurama would be great. Archer too (but won't happen, too adult)

They're shows where characters have jobs (delivery men, spies) that translate easily into fun & exciting modes and goals.

Sitcoms get dated VERY quickly, especially already old-fashioned ones like everything on CBS.

Can't argue with that. I know Avatar killed at the box office, but man did that movie and then the machine both suck. I cringe at the thought of Disney building a 'land' for that turd.

Well, that's subjective...Avatar's success means people do like it. I've gone to bat for the game enough so I won't repeat myself...short version - it's very fun. You can't compare Avatar (legit hit that people like, despite your opinion) to something like Shadow or Johnny Mnemonic (total box office duds, most people didn't like them much as well)

Again, I agree with ya man. I wasn't equating it to a dud. I just don't like it and needed to vent that.

What? Futurama, I saw once and didn't get it at all. Never heard of Archer.

I take it you're not a fan of comedy.

Have every 2 slingshot hits(when it does the slingshot dance) callout "Penny?" which should surely irritate the player to no end.

I'm a fan of comedy. I'm one of the 20.44 million viewers of The Big Bang Theory. That's why I am posting on this thread. You just happen to like some other kind of funny.

$_57.JPG

Thanks wayout440! Our dream pin is already here!!

Don't forget the game knocker has to knock three times and then give a Penny callout when you get a replay!3375111-penny_nipples_big_bang_theory.png

Like I said...you're not a fan of comedy.

What's it like, living life with no sense of humor?

Could easily be a huge hit of the pin if done correctly , I know the show has a massive following in Australia .

Pinball needs some different titles , not a new mustang machine that will prob struggle in Europe ect . Big Bang could draw in the younger players and help the hobby overall and may just be a big seller .

This is like calling yourself a fine art collector when your collection consists entirely of velvet Elvis and dogs playing poker paintings.

Ekkk.. I hate this show, it gives me the creeps. TV, Movie, and Band themed pins in general are lame. I can only think of a handful that were made in the 90's that survived the test of time. Imagine walking into someone's basement and seeing this:
belvedere.jpg

That is what would happen come 10 years if a BBT machine was produced.

How about some original stuff again from Pinball companies?

OK - thats funny - a little of the mark, but funny nonetheless. Everyone has a different concept of comedy and this show seems to agree with 20.44 million others. I'll go with the numbers here and say its funny (or mildly amusing in some cases). Its all about the numbers.

I get angry, maybe slam a door, and then go play pinball by myself. I thought that was everybody.

Full House would destroy all previously mentioned suggestions.

Big Bang Theory.
What a awful tv show that is.
I did enjoy the porno parody of it though!

Have only played the Avatar pin once, I hated the movie, so made it hard for me to play it. While the movie's 3D and special effects were amazing, the story was so derivative (can you say 'Pocahontas', I knew you could), and almost every aspect of the plot was beyond predictable . And there were so many ridiculous things, like they take a guy who knows absolutely nothing about the planet and its people, and his first day you hand him a gun and send him out into the jungle. I can go on and on.

I guess it shows how a large percentage of the population cares more about style not substance.

Unfortunately that is the business model for all entertainment that has significant funding these days; Formulaic, little risk, recycled/familiar. Call me a snob if you want, but I've seen enough sitcoms for multiple lifetimes.

EXACTLY! That's largely why the show isn't funny; it's incredibly formulaic and predictable.

Like most sitcoms.
Sitcoms are not comedy they are fillers for commercial breaks.

For an interesting side-perspective on this:

Frank Zappa, a personal hero of mine, once argued that it wasn't the rich record label executives that ruined music, it was A&R scouts later on that did. Prior to the talent scouts, the big-wigs just threw money at everything and watched to see what would stick because they had no idea what was good. Lots of weirdo bands and artists got a chance because of this. Frank based his own success on this. Later on, as they became more analytical, less wasteful with artist spending and contracts and did more research on what made them the most money, things became very formulaic, music started sounding more similar, and not in a Motown sorta similar pop-music way. Music was starting to become a fully manufactured product. This was in the early 80's when he was talking about this.

Flash forward to present day, and now we see things so formulaic that they are manufactured down to exact second in song length, BPM, note progression, tonality, familiarity to other successful music, etc. Think of a crazy thing to compare with and I guarantee a major recording label is using an algorithm to comb the databases to make their next hit. And so, we end up with crap like this:

Apply this same analogy to TV shows. It is sad but true. There is hardly anything being produced anymore with any sort of significant private funding that is original, that is taking any risks. The only good news is that it is becoming less and less expensive to produce. There is plenty of good indie music and movies and tv. The problem is distribution networks and backing. What urks me the most is that some production house could literally spend a few hours on the internet, find some amazing concept low-budget indie project, and snatch it up and back it. But they don't, they go for the formulaic crap.

Case and point is that there is a way to produce original material and still make money off of it.

I just love how someone has a backup account named CarShark just to go through this thread and give me a thumbs-down on every single post I make.

That's not a backup account. That's just me disagreeing with you. I probably use the thumbs more than most, is all. No malice behind it. I like the show, alright, but I'm the first to admit that there are some wells they like to dip into quite often. Sheldon's an arrogant jerk. Leonard is insecure about his relationship with Penny. Penny's dumb. Howard yells at his mom. Howard's mom is really fat. Raj is effeminate and awful around women. Bernadette has a sweet voice, but can be really dark and threatening. Oh, and Amy needs laid, but Sheldon's oblivious to it. They just added that. So, yes, some combination of three or four of those jokes happen every episode. Also, most of the jokes are insults at a friend's expense, but I find it less mean-spirited than it probably sounds. Since it's a Chuck Lorre show, it's more about telling jokes than telling a story, which can lead to some...inconsistencies. For example, how intelligent Penny is on any given episode is totally dependent on whether she's making fun or being made fun of. They do make more than token efforts at explaining the genesis of some of their quirks, usually involving their parents or social awkwardness as children. Recently, Howard's had a couple of episodes based on his abandonment issues stemming from his father leaving him and his mother as a child and how that lack of a father figure makes it hard for him to gain acceptance from new wife Bernadette's father, who's a more traditional man's man. They're still pretty joke heavy, but I think they're some of the better episodes of the last couple seasons.

Oh, that's right! Pinball!

I think that TBBT would be a good choice for a machine. The left side would be Penny's apartment and the right side would be Leonard and Sheldon's. The loops would lead to the comic book store on one side and the physics lab on the other. The middle could have a shot which starts at the bottom of the apartment staircase and have a kicker shoot it up a ramp, like in Victory. The wizard mode would end with the player hitting the elevator to fix it for the first time in six and a half years. The player could hit targets to spell BAZINGA and start a mode based on one of the scenes where Sheldon's said it, like the ball pit or the commute with the robot.

My updated opinion of the show after reading that:

the critic.jpg

My wife and I don't watch very many of the same TV shows together. For example she likes all the so-called reality detective/forensic/murder shows that I really can't stand (to me just depressing, sometimes just sick). The one show we watch together: TBBT.

Murder porn? South Park did an excellent episode about that. Maybe you two can watch it together.