It is common knowledge in the gaming industry that Nintendo is expensive and difficult to deal with in licensing their IPs for a GAME. Shoes, shirts etc etc not so bad. It’s been discussed at great lengths in the next stern thread including input from people who have dealt with the company. No, I do not personally deal directly with Nintendo. This has been a very irritating conversation.

Can you provide resources to that effect? I'm curious

I know Nintendo are dicks to their fans who try to monetize or freely distribute fan made products (including video games), but I want to know more about the reputation they have about licensing their IP and being so difficult to work with.

They license to other video game companies like Ubisoft (who gave Mario a gun FFS), they work with a huge number of retail partners at a variety of price points and target demographics, they make theme parks, and they're getting back into movies and tv shows.

I feel like pinball people mostly assume Nintendo is unapproachable (even though they licensed Mario pins before and almost did a Zelda pin). Nintendo seems very friendly to licensing out their brand based on the products available.

Do a forum search man. I’m done with you. You quote me out of context and then tell me to “calm down” when I get irritated and then ask me to educate you?! Bye lmao.

I didn't quote you out of context. I was asking about your logic on the things you wrote. I think you misunderstood me asking about what you know re Sega and Nintendo and their relationships with licensors and pinball companies.

I'm sorry I upset you so much...

I posted a photo of you quoting me out of context. Bye.

What was taken out of context?

You’ve got to be kidding me, take it to pm. I’m not gumming up this thread with your lunacy.

The vertical loop could be in the launch lane and have a sideway exit in case the ball doesn't make it. Than it just goes onto the playfield like a soft plunge.

There is a left launch lane that has a vertical loop already in the game.

Has there ever been a pinball machine with a shooter lane skill shot like the bowling ball hill games?

Thinking 3-4 hills with 2-3 dips with exits. It would work kind of like Funhouse step ramps, but be the main skill shot for the normal shooter lane.

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Now tie this in with it moving as in Millionaire...

This is the reason why I never looked really hard into buying a Houdini. I heard the shots are really tight and I am not that good either.

Persistent rumour oft repeated.

I bought this game in 2018 and I’m an average player and never had that tough a time. If the game is set up correctly, it plays great!

If you buy for home use, the shots are fine...you learn the shots and despite being a so-so player, I can hit the hard ones rather easily.

On location where you pop in a few dollars and play, yeah - I can see a person being frustrated.

Same as Walking dead or Tron. You get a dozen tough games and then one that all comes together and just flows. Yes, i am a below average player, but Houdini played too long in a good game to have in comp so didn't get played much, other wise it would still be here.

The one thing that makes it more playable than many think is that when the game is setup correctly it's pretty easy to control the ball, even when you're missing shots there are only a couple that are certain death. (I'm thinking of you right C seance standup!)

Cross-posting from the Houdini thread that Josh Kugler is no longer with American Pinball. I have no idea what happened, if he left on his own, who is going to take over his role as lead software guy, etc. I'm surprised this isn't bigger news on this site actually. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/american-pinball-houdini-thread/page/278#post-6912352

It's a great question. I believe Ferret is still doing work for them though I noticed his avatar doesn't say American Pinball anymore either and he's also doing contract work for CGC. The obvious thought is that David Fix is bringing in some industry veteran to do the work but I don't know who that would be as it seems all the well-known ones are already working for someone else like Stern or JJP. Maybe they intend to outsource it but that seems like a crazy idea based on what happened at Deepshit. Josh has been gone from A.P. for several weeks so they did a really good job of keeping this quiet, maybe until they have hired someone to replace him, who knows?

Huh. Interesting they both left. And sure enough his LinkedIn shows Kugler gone.

Maybe he went independent contractor with AP or freelance in general? (Just on my mind after listening to Lyman's last interview on SAP podcast)

Hope it works out well for him and we see his work on other games. I know a certain company in Wisconsin really needs some experienced pinball coders and rule designers...

That completely sucks.
I wish Josh all the best.
He did amazing work on Houdini and his dedicated code efferts to the very end it appears.
Thank You Josh.

I don't know about Joe (@ferret) but I do know Josh is not doing anything with A.P. at least as of right now.

I’m still working for American Pinball.

Glad to hear it, I didn't realize the "American Pinball" tag that shows on your avatar when you post is not there when you look at the public profile. Sorry to create any confusion on that!

I invited Josh to my 50th Anniversary Party, he mentioned he wasn't with AP anymore. He didn't say why.

So hoping the best for Josh and AP.

LTG : )
Disclaimer : Glad got his TZ back together.

Sorry to see him go. He did good work with AP. I wish him and AP the best.

Word on the street is…Stern pulled another sneaky. Just like they did with Godzilla.

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If they did they're really pulling a petty bastard move, that theme and game is perfect, and I guess they know it.

Yeah, I mean it seemed like Stern got the Godzilla license directly after they noticed that Spooky was interested in acquiring the license. This definitely seems to be a tactic of theirs. Really unfortunate in this case as the Sonic layout and rules are so specifically designed for that license that I doubt it would be easily or effectively re-themed without some serious changes.

I wonder how long they can hold on to it, I wouldn't be surprised if they "ransomed" it or just kept it indefinitely, assuming it's the case.

Or just a smart business move. That's the risk of making a homebrew off of popular IP. My guess is AP already knew if they could get the sonic license or not before hiring McQuad.

I would make the same guess.

Assuming the rumor is even true, I wouldn’t say it’s a smart move. Why should Stern stoop to being worried about what any of the boutique manufacturer’s plans are? Is there any company that sells even a fifth of the number of games Stern does yearly? If they really are out there try-harding to the point that they’re poaching licenses, it would just look weird and weak to me.

As evident by all the work Ryan did in making the game and bringing it to shows, he proved that a lot of people do in fact want a Sonic pinball. So it makes total sense why Stern would buy the license if the deal makes sense to them.

Crazy thought: maybe Sega rather work with Stern considering they are the industry leader by a country mile? They can get thousands of Sonic games into location and home collections within a few years. This matters a lot if the license includes a per unit fee, plus the general benefit of how many would end up in public locations to promote the Sonic brand. Plus Stern already has extensive relations with a variety of media and licensing partners, greater brand recognition, a great track record, and an overall larger team to execute the project.

Regardless, Ryan has shown incredible talent, an eye for design, and an ability to get things done. Whatever he works on will be excellent.

This has been discussed many times on this site and on podcasts, etc. IIRC some or many of the people with licensing experience have stated that when you obtain a license you generally, if not always have a set amount of time to produce the product featuring the license and if you do not meet that timeframe they pull the license in hopes someone else that does want to produce it will pay and actually produce the product. i.e. the WANT the licensed product to actually get made as they are probably paid additionally for each unit sold and that if it sells well they would pay to re-up the license. That's probably a terrible over-simplification of it but the gist of all this is that they didn't really believe Stern was just grabbing licenses to keep someone else from getting them with no intention of producing a game using it.

Yeah, if Stern wants to be dicks there are so many better ways to go about it in an industry that is so small where Stern can (does?) throw its weight around

Random thought. I remember AP had a Sherlock Holmes registration filed. I like the idea of a mystery theme and that’s an ok public domain theme

I also remember they had Poker Run which sounds like it was changed into Hot Wheels, which is undoubtedly a better theme.

There was also a Valkyrie registration. Maybe that was going to be LOV before they kept it as LOV?

Anyway, if AP is still interested in a Holmes/mystery game, I really think they should try to make it Scooby Doo.

Here we go again.

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Sherlock Holmes was something Josh was super passionate about, I don't know if Nordman or any of the new we folks would care enough about it to want to do it.

Sonic pinball? That would look great next to someones collection of other arcade pins like Super Mario Bros and Street Fighter 2. It's never worked.

The sonic game that Ryan made would sell 100%. Too bad stern has that license and not AP.

Honestly wait til the license runs out, aquire it, and put out the dream machine.

I realize it's the market it's a competition, but they have a big chunk of market share already and a huge backlog, I thought it was quite petty, because they know how awesome it is.

Stern will keep renewing the license just to stop AP. It’s over for Sonic as far as AP is concerned.

There's so many people here who have insider corporate knowledge, it's incredible.

I've seen and played their next game.

Any good? Hoping it’s a hit. I’m getting Houdini soon

Yeah, well…I do actually know people who work for AP Stern and JJP so…yeah, I guess.

Not just you buddy, there's dozens of people here who know everything about the inside workings of pinball companies, their long range plans, next machines, budgeting and machinery costs. I read it all the time.

It's such a good resource pinside

Yeah, a lot of us live in the US in city centers and are operators and tourney players and have designer friends / programmer friends etc. To be honest I’m not sure if you’ve been being sarcastic or not but….yeah. haha