I guess I never considered that possibility but hopefully that behavior is the exception rather than the norm.

Eh. Nah.

I wish American would do a really cool Infinity glass back box. I always loved those! Not sure how good it would work out with a display though.

Another downfall to the contest is people will be much less likely to post their build logs as they work on their game. A few people are already iffy about sharing stuff, least a major manufacturer steal an idea. If they're trying to get it produced, then they would want to hide everything to make the best impossible first impression with a mostly finished game. Also the idea of starting and finishing a homebrew project in a year is A BIG ASK

I think it's cool if AP wants to help homebrewers make their games into a commercial product. I don't think the contest idea is good for the homebrew community though.

If someone can finish a homebrew and it's worth building in mass, just build it in mass. The contest is unnecessary.

Competition is always good. If anything this will hopefully increase the number of homebrews taken on each year.

Disagree. Homebrew is hard and the community helps each other a lot. I don't see this fostering cooperation and only increasing secrecy. I think a positive community does more to build people up to inspire them to achieve great personal projects than thinking "oh I gotta beat so-and-so"

I don't see why it would increase the number of people trying to pull of a homebrew project. (Maybe increased visibility that people are doing this sort of thing?) If the person's end goal is to get a job in the industry, they already know building a homebrew is the best resume they could have.

Or if they do get into homebrewing due the contest, they're setting themselves up for disappointment after hundreds of hours of work.

Again, if something is worth mass producing...then mass produce it. The contest is unnecessary.

Can it be a game for the Multimorphic P3? I'm guessing not.

They will still help each other. If they don’t, that’s on them. No reason to stop. If they are really in it together, they will be happy for anyone that wins.

What in pinball is necessary? This is a fun incentive that will be very interesting to see how it plays out. I just hope they try to give the homebrews that are already established a shot.

I’m not gonna act like I know what the homebrew folks think of this, but it could be really cool. And the more chance of a homebrew getting massed produced is a good thing. Before now it was a complete crapshoot it seemed like. Now we know one will get made each year. Or at least next year. Haha.

I’m telling you what many of us think…

It was a crapshoot because so few homebrews are viable for manufacturing (or come in a state close to finished)

Sorry didn’t realize you were in the home brew crowd. So if so many are not viable, then it will only be a select few that will make sense, leaving the community largely unaffected I guess? Then you’ll will probably get some to come to the forefront that know there’s a path to production for them that may have not went down the road before.

As I said, the competition doesn’t help the community.

So few are viable they should evaluate them on a case by case basis, not leave it to the whims of the community and a yearly contest.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what they are doing. Aren’t they just going to look over the the various projects throughout the year then decide which one they want to build?

What are they leaving to the whims of the community?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what they’re doing? I thought it was take the game to Expo and people vote on it

They are going to pick the one they like and possibly make a run ... keyword: possibly
It's sort of like a science fair for pinball.

Yeah I’m not totally sure as I didn’t watch the seminar. But I think they are deciding, not us.

Bring your homebrew to stern an see what happens...

It's awesome that a company is interested in homebrews at all, so far the experience from riot pinball seems to be pretty good.

I feel when David Fix said we will never bring a homebrew again, also people would moan about it as usual.

It appears that American pinballs website is down.

Someone forgot to renew their domain name. Whoopsie!

No Oktoberfests?

We are totally out of stock, so we had none to bring. Playfields were delivered this week, so should be back on one of the lines in the not too distant future.

AP building goodwill with home brew is great and as potential consumer, let’s get full disclosure on standard pricing to capitalize on support. Just odd.
Got the mag today -excellent.
A826FB64-2B47-4458-AF31-981B3741EDA3 (resized).jpeg

Thats to bad, but not neccesarily a bad thing, That shows that the more people get exposed to actually playing it, the more learn what a great fun game it is!

If I would have made it to Expo, I would have been sad that an Oktoberfest wasn't available as I still have never seen one for real! Houdini is still one of the most beautiful pins I've ever seen and my HotWheels is awesome fun!

Congrats to Scott, Frank, and American Pinball on the launch of Valhalla. I put a couple of games on it myself this weekend. Really cool to see another independent P-ROC project get picked up by a commercial manufacturer.

For others considering custom machines, contest or not, the custom development community is one of the nicest and helpful online communities I've ever seen. Everybody's there to do cool work and help each other out. Hopefully that doesn't change. Grab some P-ROC boards and build your personal dream machine. Many of us will help you along the way.

- Gerry
https://www.multimorphic.com

Houdini is a stunning looking machine.

Just a little musing, When you look at how far American has come, and how each game is so different and constantly improved, add the amount of love that went into getting Legends of Valhalla to market, a game that is not even theirs by initial design. The next game has to be absolutely stunning. If it is Sherlock than I cant imagine how amazing the them will be!

I think Oktoberfest is my favorite of their first three. So many modes, great humor and theme, and the playfield is one of the most interesting and jam packed in pinball. Because of the amount of shots and modes it probably doesn't click well on location but it's a monster at home, love it. Try to check one out if you can.

nm, double post

I'm really enjoying my Oktoberfest. The rules and shots are so much fun. The times I can connect the left orbit to a perfectly timed upper right flipper shot into the beer barrel lock just feels so damn satisfying.

Really glad I picked one up.

You think they would drag multiple homebrews to a show? Come on man.

Deluxe is already sold out to distros.

Are you sure? Nitro still allows you to put a deposit on their website which usually means they have some.

They are a distro. Yes they have some. But all games have been sold from AP to distros.

Yes they buy all of them. Presold or not. Not surprising at all in this market. No distro have stock. And I would assume any stock is better than no stock.

AP is sold out, we distributors bought them bases on interest. Yes distributors have to buy all the games they order whether they are sold or not. It’s like any other inventory. Some distributors may be sold out, while some are not. We still have a few left of the deluxe editions left for sale, if not pre-sold they will go into inventory.

Greg
Pinballpro.com

It is nuts. The discourse over gatekeeping SE buyers of Cactus Canyon from buying a topper later is nearly as big as this thread that’s years old.

I remember toying with the idea of trying to become a distributor for pins about 10 years ago when they were all a hell of a lot cheaper, I never really considered it too seriously for a few reasons but the money involved now is completely different. Of course you can make more too but as always that comes with more risk.

Yeah, it's a funny but kinda sad mess going on in that thread.

When are they going to tell us what the Classic model will cost ? Haven't they figured that out yet

Just come out and say it's 1K less. No one will take the classic....

NOT!