With fold and fight Optimus Prime head! Lol

A lot of speculation that AP will close it's doors this year (I sure hope not).
People evidently are jumping ship (not a good sign).

But if it did happen..... what would it look like? All the games are on clearance until stock is gone, but that also means no more parts (aren't people saying they're having trouble getting parts now?).
I still want a GTF, but the potential of closing is a big red flag for a purchase (for me).

Personally I believe if the stock market takes a big dump, AP is gone.
If it doesn't, AP holds on.
The moment the parent company is under stress, Aimtron closes AP abruptly and without warning.
Just my feeling.

Things seem pretty bleak over there. I've been seeing a ton of GTF owners having tons of issues with their games and trying to get in touch with any sort of tech support and it seems non existent.

Yeah, you would essentially liquidate all of the assets, to include parts, machines, etc. All it would look like is a memo on a FB post apologizing to all of the 'great customers' who put 'so much faith in API over the years' and that this was an 'agonizing decision.' And then it's lights out.

AimTron doesn't need to wait for the economy to take a hit. Their P&L showing more of an L on that part of the business is enough. Why pay overhead and production costs for products that are not selling? AimTron can use that equity to fund other more lucrative initiatives.

they have a problem selling GTF but they also have a problem making it. I don't think there's any inventory to put on clearance. not many anyway.

Any liquidation would probably involve boxes of parts. Ballarama might be interested in this…

Houdini was a home run. For $5400 you got a NIB real grown-up visually stunning pinball with unique playfield toys/gimmicks, coupled with a couple developers and engineers that seemed to love their creativity, and even their early support capabilities. (yes, they had a couple of hardware hiccups, like the power distribution stuff and even the virtual EOS they tried, but they worked through them)

It would be great to see them re-take that place in the ranks, build quality & value. Knock a universal title out (i.e. Sherlock) with instant recognition, and they might have a chance.

Whatever they show will be "completely sold out" by the time of the panel, and then they won't ship any.

Would be great, but the people that made that happen are mostly gone from AP, some by attrition, and some by the will of David Fix (rosh - for no discernible reason).

AP has at least some demand for their standard base GTF model, but they refuse to build it. It's like the world's worst hostage standoff - they won't build the one people want/can afford until they sell enough of the expensive stupid one no one wants. They need to get over the fantasy of selling expensive fake tanks and start cranking out the one version of GTF that has faint demand and just get past this huge mistake.

you can buy parts for adams family because they made 20,000 addams families. there's a market for parts. they made 200 GTFs (ok pushing 300). What's the market for parts there? Hopefully they'll upload their STLs at least...

rosh was a stand-out guy. I traded emails with Josh on a few weekends, and his ability to actually troubleshoot your USB upload data from the system was not just for show, he really dug into what was happening in YOUR machine. I felt like he took the bugs he saw, solved them, and then rolled it into the next code drop while we were trading emails!

Give someone a screw gun and a wire cutter, swap the glass and they can 'convert' the GTF inventory DLX to STD...

So it's not He-Man?

Well that's a relief. Great to know that everything is great there.

Citation?

pinside has 34 deluxe owners and 39 LE/SE owners. Generally, this represents 25-40% of all machines made. Can check machines with known production numbers (I previously scraped all the games in the pinside db with a script and did this math) That suggests they've made about an equal number of each, and maybe 100 or so of each.

According to:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/galactic-tank-force-owners-club-get-your-ice-cream-here/page/20#post-7961394
DE number 76 was delivered last week (10 months after launch).

Also the big "300 banner" in the factory to encourage them to hit their goal of 300 machines in a year.
https://www.knapparcade.org/post/additional-details-on-american-pinball-s-next-three-pinball-machines-two-new-games-in-2024

Based on these 3 separate things, I estimate the number of GTFs in existence between 150-300.

https://www.knapparcade.org/post/additional-details-on-american-pinball-s-next-three-pinball-machines-two-new-games-in-2024

they are planning on 2 games in 2024 both are original themes. Then the next 2 games they said are licensed I’m guessing this is what’s for 2025. I don’t know why they went this route. I would have done 1 licensed and 1 original for 2024 and 2025. That way you can always fall back on the license to help with sales

Sounds good......I sincerely hope they have that much runway to keep trying.

Listening to Fix interview now. If anyone else has and can explain his answer about why they haven't been doing licensed games that makes sense in the world where every other company bigger and smaller does, please let me know.

Regarding GTF sales, he's says they've got them. Especially in Germany. Germans are gaga for GTF apparently.

Reminds me of my Canadian girlfriend in high school.

David Hasselhoff was apparently very popular there also.

So I've heard

Yep. And as soon as the Germans have enough GTF LE tanks they will invade Italy and conquer Pedretti.

I just hope they don't use them to bomb Pearl Harbor again!

If the Germans love GTF then AP will do a Baywatch/Knight rider with Mr. Hasselhoff and call it “Bay rider” this will be the rumored “White water 2.0”

I wonder how Oktoberfest did in Germany

Following up on my own post, I'll give it a shot (with the help of auto-transcription):

QUESTION
You've come out with two original games since you've been with the company. You had Legends of Valhalla, and now you've got Galactic Tank Force. And you have mentioned in the past that you have two more original licenses coming before any IPs, although you do have some IPs as well in the chute.

So what makes you stay with original licenses versus IPs, at least as of now in your career with American Pinball? You stuck with that.

RESPONSE
Budget. Timing. There's a lot of stuff, right?

So listen, right now we have, when you start a company, you have to get the IP, right? You gotta get the license, gotta fork over what we call dead money, which is you gotta give the licensure all this money and say, okay, we're gonna bring out an 18 to 24 months or maybe more, this title for you, okay?

And then you have to put that out, and then you gotta get the team on it, and you gotta start working at it, right?

The other thing that holds up a lot, IPs, the IPs control the strings too. So if you wanna go a certain route, well, you know, “we don't like that character anymore.” “Or no, we don't want this. We don't want that.”

Now listen, Franchi has actually, has a pseudo friend and partner in crime. I've called him up. “What do you think about this license?” “Oh, it's gotta be great.” I said, “they only wanna do it this way.” “Oh, go away, don't touch it. You don’t wanna touch that. Don't touch it, man, it's toxic.” And he's like, “I’ll get you holy water or something.” And I was like,

So, you know, there's that realm that you wanna make sure, if you're gonna do a license, you got to do it right, right?

And listen, the biggest, the biggest people, we're not in the 90s anymore, right? When people just saw a game and went, “oh my God, it's a game.” Now we have everybody's... you know, kind of a critic and everybody wants to talk about it, which is okay. You know? I like that. But the point is that we have to get it 100% right.”

SUMMARY OF WHY AMERICAN PINBALL DISFAVORS LICENSED THEMES, ACCORDING TO DAVID FIX:
- You have to pay money for licenses
- You have to meet production timelines
- You have to work with the license holders
- You have to do a good job
- People will discuss if you did a good job

He probably just doesn't want to sell more games because then he'd have to figure out how to make more than 300 a year.

I don't understand how is #1 argument is concerns about tying up money for a license. Aren't they privately owned with a billionaire backer?

Meanwhile, David Van Es down in Texas sneaking money out of his kids piggie bank to buy license, build a factory, assemble a legit team, and order parts for 1000 pinball machines to build in a year. Godzilla sized balls. And the response is fantastic and he's got like 3-4x more deposits in a couple of months than David Fix has sold GTF in almost a year.

Not mentioned: the lower expectations of original themes vs dream themes

The one licensed game AP did people shat on because, even though Hot Wheels wasn't a dream theme for most, it didn't have a loop-de-loop. Hey remember that time Fix said AP was looking at selling official playfield mods to add stuff like that? Yeah that was years ago...

Yeah. It's almost like the reasons American doesn't do licensed themes are just basic things inherent to producing licensed products which every other pinball company (and hundreds of thousands of other companies) accepts because the results of creating more popular products that people buy a lot more are worth it.

Remember when they said a loop couldnt be done? AIQ said hold my beer...

118762479_10158841538274244_5508298926985137978_o (resized).jpg

Hell modders already figured it out

It's entirely possible, the price point for gtf is the most curious thing and almost indicates they have production issues so might as well price high the limited quantity you think you can make.

Such a shame.... if they had priced GTF at their pre-covid level and done the deluxe first, they'd have moved a couple thousand units (IMO).
Probably would have helped if their launch material hadn't been used at all too.
Should have put the 3D trans on all models, put the signatures on the LE, and not done a $17k sig edition at all.

They could have sold thousands for $10k if they made the tank ETB

A couple thousand is pushing it, but I believe it could have been their best seller. Most people wanted the deluxe, they could have gotten a majority of their sales there. Now its nearly a year later and those sales would have to compete with a ton of other games that have come out since or are on the near horizon, so those potential sales have mostly dried up now too. Sad. I agree with you otherwise, the smart move would have been to sell deluxes first, and only had the tank as the only special edition and a very limited quantity. I think the whole problem there is that Nordman's whole main idea was the dumb tank cabinet. Thats what he wanted.

Did you confuse them with another company ?

LTG : )

Thanks for the nice comments. I’m still on pinside on occasion helping out owners on AP games. I will always support those who bought games I helped develop, regardless of my feeling regarding AP.

Sherlock had a lot of potential as an unlicensed theme that is very recognizable. We had made some progress on it before the plug was pulled to do GTF. That is a long story and some day some podcaster will send me a good bottle of tequila and after a few shots get me to talk about it.

I am not done with pinball, I guess I never will be since I've been flipping for over 50 years, but more on point, not done as a developer, and pretty soon you will know what I have been working on.

Another sad chapter in the book of what could have been, in pinball.

LTG : )

Well, that's a promising teaser!

Princess bride????

PM me your address and I'll send you that bottle so we can speed this info drip up.

The whole interview can be a very special Knapp Arcade Podcast.

I hope someone tackles Sherlock. Seems like a natural fit for pinball and there is a good opportunity to sell additional mysteries over the years as players work through the base content. Imagine a murder mystery of the month

Good to hear someone else was smart enough to get you on a pinball project though

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde runs in the same flavor as Sherlock.

If done properly, a pin with the right artdeco artwork lends to many themes not requiring a license.

If I ever do a retheme Metropolis would likely be it. The artwork is killer.

https://www.allposters.com/-st/Metropolis-1927-Posters_c471_.htm

Crushed beer can levelers it ain’t…

Having met Josh at MGC last year all he would tell me was “save your money”. I’m excited for you Rosh! All the best.

Glad to hear that.

Though I do hope your love of Sherlock Holmes sees the light of day at some point.

LTG : )

I agree! Any WhoDunnit owners would buy one just for the side-by-side. (Myself included)