Assuming they sell through these TBLs, there will be 80 or 90 out there, bringing it closer to Alien numbers in terms of a self-supporting community of owners.

I don't know what the state of Alien code is, but from playing TBL a couple of dozen times at TPF, the code felt pretty complete to me. Of course there's no comparison to Alien where the coder is actively engaging with the owners on Pinside. But if I were a buyer I'd be more worried about hardware failures than about the code.

It's not about scale - it's about the individuals involved or motivated. None of the research or sourcing of new bits was done on the premise of break-even number of units or sales to justify the work. In fact, very few of the post-HWP projects done to make Alien more viable were even sold period.

Obviously scale helps - but motivated individuals is the mandatory step 1.

they gone

Sure, I didn't mean scale like "let's make a profit selling fixes to people", but scale helps in two ways:

1) You just get a larger pool of people to have a chance of those motivated individuals, who also have the skills needed

2) When you want to do a run of PCBs, LED light boards or something, it's helpful to know there's a pool of owners who need them, often times there are just minimum viable run numbers to deal wtih

All I'm really getting at is if you can get enough TBL out into the wild the chances of people figuring out how to keep them running go up. Look at Alien as a test case for that notion.

It's a shit show, I dunno what to tell people. I bailed before sending in my first payment, just couldn't stomach what felt like a risk. Sorry that I was right, but it at least helps me imagine being in people's shoes. But my personal feeling is this:

- Anyone who lost money, it sucks, but these things are gambles and you gotta accept a certain about of risk. You're not getting a fridge from Best Buy

- Whatever personal feelings and emotions anyone has, the world is better off with games out being played than sitting in a factory

So I hope they get in people's hands. Someone is gonna get screwed on this, no doubt. But that ship sailed a long time ago.

Disbelieving how many people think more TBL’s will be built. ARA won’t be involved, as they hate and cannot trust DP. Chinese vendor who is owed money and tired of listening to DP’s lies won’t touch this. So a new manufacturer would be needed and fast. 2019 is coming to an end and tbl license will expire, along with any hopes of renewing it.

As a reality check - if new manufacturer were to become involved, it’s time to restart the clock. They’d need to create custom parts and molds. They should spend time fixing known design issues and part problems. DP should polish the software to a sparkle and pay vendors and suppliers money owed. Only then begin ordering parts and setting up manufacturing. That won’t be done this year, so it’s a good time to put a fork in that dream.

If you are serious about buying a TBL, the cost for a nib game that is 100% working is $12.5k. This is the cheapest they will ever be sold and only while supplies last. I’m disappointed in the price given - outstanding issues, no future customer support, lack of replacement parts, lack of final code and no business ethics. Game is beautiful and theme is great - but gameplay is average. It does not make sense to pay a $4k premium for a pin that is worth $8.5k to me from a company I don’t wish to support. I look forward to playing it more in collections.

That is debatable. they may go up, they may go down. Hard to tell.

You are just now getting spooked?

My buddy called Melissa and said all the 40 games are sold.

I doubt that... They might be “spoken for”, but I doubt paid for.

I'm not trying to give you grief as I am as guilty as anyone of seeing life through the eyes of an American; however, I imagine the ARA/DP contract and settlement would have been using Euro. $500k USD = 444.390 Euro, not a particularly round number.

Of course, it really doesn't matter. If I recollect correctly, ARA stopped shipping games because DP did not pay for games already shipped. Therefore, DP ostensibly owes on the 40 hostage games plus some percent of the 50(?) sold. Add in legal expenses paid by DP and additional damages I assume asked for by ARA and it's hard for me to believe there is a ton of money left for DP. After you factor in the company history it's hard to imagine there are many people willing to offer up more than a token deposit for a preorder. I hope I am wrong; however, I think the only way more TBL's are made is if another company reaches out to Universal to see if it is possible to extend the license and, if so, pays a few $ for the IP. I can see them leverage the pre-approved assets of art, video and sound and maybe some of the software and hardware components.

One of the first posts said that ARA would be releasing all games, parts of games, semi-completed games and tooling. So needing to completely tool up again would not be a concern.

Also, that $500k figure raised by selling 40 machines at $12,500 does not account for shipping cost (included in the $12.5k), and some kind of profit to Cointaker. One could probably conservatively take ~$50k off that number. The x-factor here is how many parts are available at ARA to possibly assemble more machines from stock on hand? American Pinball could possibly contract assemble some of these with somewhat minimal cash outlay from DP.

Whoosh and like that the games are gone. Im not surprised in the least they went that quick. This isn't the same Barry from American Pinball is it?

If I eventually get a machine - I'll commit to community hardware support and code updates. I heard it's built on p-roc and I'm assuming then the Mission Pinball Framework. Can anyone confirm? If so, I'll offer to help.

How much will they be worth when they don't work and no replacement parts are available?

The ARA setup was small scale... It's not like they would have had full parts for hundreds of machines on hand.

And who wants to spin up production (except in a boutique/homebrew setup) for just a few dozen pins? Such an investment of time and resources needs scale to work. Someone would have to tool up the parts and supply chain to fill the BOM for a lot of games.

Unless you go the Gene C plan of 'just build as many games as you can from this pile of parts'.. and we saw how long that took too.

Ask the alien owners.

The game is built on technology that is common place - not stuff from mars. If there is a will - there will be a way. Especially if Barry wants his legacy to succeed.

Which is why I said debatable. Parts availability/repair knowledge has historically kept some titles value low. Mystery Castle,AG Soccerball/USA Football for alvin g. Pinball Magic is another. DE/Sega large and small dmd games.

Essentially if it is perceived as hard to get parts for or difficult to maintain it hurts the value. Alien suffers from this a bit. Full Throttle really suffers from it.

Yea but it's Labowski

unlike others, DP used a lot of off the shelf kit. the hardware (lights, solenoids, switches) controllers are multimorphic p3. the standard pinball parts are largely bally/williams. heck the lower playfield window is the CFTBL window. so, actually.. i feel you have a better shot of maintaining these than some others.

Perhaps the best comparison is, if they only get between 80 to 90 machines out, Big Bang Bar?

no not even remotely

Bar had what 20 something protos and over 200 of the remakes? Its on part with the likes of Mystery Castle or Alien. Bar parts availability (even in the mid 2000s when gene sat on all the capcom stuff) was better than alvin g ever was. Repair knowledge was much higher than alvin g. Alien is similar in production numbers claimed (although i do question it), but its not as reliable. If it weren't for a few dedicated in the community it would probably be worth well under 10k because once it breaks you'd be sol.

Yes, Nitro will be getting games. Our first priority is to those that still have deposits with us.

So that is 40 machines through CT and an additional amount through Nitro? I thought the total number available was only 40?

The plot thickens, it seems...I thought there were the 40 only, as well...

Cointaker has confirmed they are getting 40 games:

So unless Cointaker is supplying games to Nitro, this makes it sound like there are more than 40 sitting in that warehouse. Assuming that DP is being straight with their distributors, of course.

I am pretty sure that once I saw a picture of parts from within the ARA factory, that showed boxes with parts and a batch number of #300
I think the pic was even commented in the way to assure the audience about that number.

...but I could remember incorrectly
...or the number was a make up

Do you have confirmation on how many games Nitro will get?

If I had been a paid in full EA and one of these games wasn't going to me......I'd be P I S S E D.

No - there are apparently two (or maybe more!) guys named Barry in the pinball industry.

shipping from Europe was through CT in the original scheme... see https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-big-lebowski-preorder-club/page/52#post-3460909

My wager is the 40 games are being shipped via container to CT... some are allocated to Nitro, the rest to CT.

Sure, but as some of the startups would love to tell you.. it only takes one missing part to stall production. So maybe you order enough injection molded bowling pins for 300 games because it just makes sense for such a small part that breaking up the run doesn't make sense. Where as other higher dollar items that can be ran in smaller batches (effectively) you might have less (like playfields, etc). So the real answer can be anywhere inbetween

if only DutchP were more transparent...

Just to clarify for those not paying attention, the post of mine quoted above is from 2 YEARS AGO.

Yes - lesson painfully learned.

Hindsight is also 20/20. The pinball world has changed a lot in the 5 years since I (and other EA's whose games have now been resold) got in on TBL and these were fully developed over time, and then being manufactured and shipped right up until the day that they weren't.

Yes, hence the wording "...in the original scheme... "

I bet they open the games to see if there is corrosion and make certain they flip before the games leave the warehouse in Europe. Then after confirmed to be playable they will be shipped one at a time via air directly to the individual purchaser.

Guessing this shipping starts first week or two of August.

I understand. Just trying to help ensure that someone skimming this thread doesn't attribute a shipping post I made two years ago to the present.

who? Barry on his own? and why? are they going to do anything about it there?

I think you have to gain some perspective on what is happening here. This is a bulk deal to sell off inventory to fund a settlement. This isn't a nice clean retail experience. What you suggests requires unboxing the games completely, putting upright, putting balls in, and then doing the reverse. Highly unlikely.

Cointaker or Nitro may do that for their games once they arrive here... but to expect anything other than boxes put into a container and shipped to PA... I think is wishful thinking.

I think we can all agree, based on what we've seen from other pinball manufactuers other than Stern, that it's not easy to fire up a pinball production line and start rolling out games

What if they roll on Shabbos?

There is no rolling on Shabbos!

Yes, but did you tell the f**ks down at the league office?

Damn great news. Nitro has had my deposit for literally years. Glad to hear my persistence may pay off.

QSS

Not outta the woods just yet — how many deposits does Nitro have? They can’t be getting too many of those 40..

So if each distributor is lied to and sends in money for 40 games, DP may receive a couple million dollars, yup that financial expert was right the numbers make sense.

But I'm sure CT, nitro, and others talk to each other and won't fall for that trick.

I am not sure the 40 games are meant to apply any previous payment you made to Dutch. I think they may grant you the right to buy the game at 12.5k plus shipping.

Not the resolution many are happy with but that is currently how I am reading it.

Those happy campers are the ones who had deposits with Nitro or Cointaker... their money never went to DP, so they basically didn't lose anything. It's the people who bought from DP directly that are SOL at this time and double paying if they want a game now.

And yet, Spooky has made over 1000 games. American Pinball might not be pumping them out, but I'm sure everyone in this thread wishes there were as many TBLs made as Houdini and Oktoberfest. One is a scrappy story of just doing the work, and being persistent, one is a story of investors footing the bill. Big spectrum there, but they both made it work.

Don't be so sure of that

Oh, I'm definitely sure of it. But it's been a pretty drama free factory, so that's nice.