Hear ya.. All good points. Maybe remake some older originals.. Could they keep the price down. 5k ? or So.

But what happens when all the new "theme" games are so expensive... The average JOE cannot afford a NIB anymore.. All manufactures included.. How many will they sell then. ?

Wondering if they did a Original theme.. They ??? Could make it more affordable.. NOT Cheaper as we have seen. Plastic this Plastic That..... And more people would-could buy.. Creating more sales. ???? Pro-Cons..

Just asking. .

NT>

I think you nailed it. Its all about sales and $$. I wouldn't think that a non-licensed game would be much cheaper to produce.

Cost is too risky, plain and simple.

Counterpoint.

The licensing costs made it cost prohibited to ever recoup and make a profit and led to the death of pinball.

Look at how much it cost just to reaquire the T2 or TZ license for the Farsight video pinball stuff. They have a much bigger potential audience and they knew they couldn't break even in today's market. Hence the need of the crowdfunding to pay for it.

People speak of a revitalization or rebirth of Pinball, until there is a game licensed or not that can sell 10K units this passion of ours will be on life support.

Most of the games are now going into homes as opposed to on route. Do you think that might influence buying behaviors?

Licenses really do not add that much cost to each individual game.

The average Joe is not meant to afford a NIB, and never was. As Gary Stern always says whenever he speaks. His customers are the operators, and the rich doctors and lawyers who have gamerooms.

Have to remember here, that Metallica provided their own artist. That won't happen often. To do custom art with a licensor is a huge pain because they have to approve every change.

Farsight said the license fee was what, 50k? 50k across 1500 machines, is less then 35 dollars. That is not substantial when talking about a pinball machine.

In regards to Farsight, I have said it numerous times, it is bull that they cannot afford to pay the licensing fees themselves. They should not have to do a kickstarter for each licensed table. They have plenty of customers and should be able to get by with selling the one table at the price normally set for two tables.

Gary Stern said last year that unlicensed themes don't sell overseas.

He said that most overseas distributors only order 1 or 2 of an unlicensed title, compared to container loads of licensed ones.

Thus he said only licensed themes from now on.

I'm a bit confused by your results.
I get different results when I use IPDB...
I did a search on (1976-1991), and production over >10,000: 31 hits.
http://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?yr=1976-1991&prd=%3E10000&searchtype=advanced

I think the main argument against non-licensed pins, is the expected export numbers to foreign countries. One of America's best exports is entertainment, (we crush in this field)... and I'm guessing Stern and JJP fear exports will be close-to-nil with a non-licensed theme.

-mof

AS vid said, G Stern told me personaly, about 4 or 5 years ago that he will never make unlicenced games. He said that kids see a familiar licence, and they go put a quarter in it. The kid otherwise wouldn't have played the game. Pinball lovers will play what ever you make. So by using licences you bring in money that wouldn't have been made.
If it wasn't for shrek, a 4 or 5 years old who playes x box wouldn't put money in a pin.
Thems the facts.

Also as said. Stern just rehired a artist, but before then, they just cut and paste stuff. When there is a licence involved all of the art is cut and paste. No more expensive artrists. This is all old news, you should check the archives .

I agree. Metallica seemed to embrace the pinball machine to a much greater degree than I would imagine most license holders do. They went well beyond just providing art direction by offering up their in house artist for an original design. For the Stones, I'm guessing that a pinball machine is nothing more than another merchandising vehicle. I would be surprised if Mick, Keith and Charlie even knew it existed. Woody, maybe.

As for original themes, I think we will have to rely on JPOP and the other boutiques to fill the void. I think when JPOP gets one of his three originals out there, others will take notice and might be inclined to follow. I could definitely see JJP releasing an original. Stern, not so much.

Interesting take on this, but I think your logic is flawed.

There hasnt been ANY game produced in quantities greater than 10K units on 20 years... and probably never will be again. ALL titles have declined in production numbers.

Also, you only included DMD games? Not sure why... certainly they aren't the only ones that were made in the "heyday". HS, Pinbot, F14, Funhouse- all were HUGE sellers, over 10K and certainly the middle of what Id consider the heyday...

Example, FH was released a few MONTHS before T2... you really think they are front different ERA's?

I think original themes were just more work. They required actual creativity. And, frankly, when Pat Lawlor stopped making B/W games, original titles all but ended with him.

Ok, I just didn't want you to accidentally mislead any newcomers into thinking original titles never sold well.

Here's a Trivia question for y'all -- can you name any of the last 10 non-licensed games (that were more successful than just a prototype...)

Big Buck Hunter?

-mof

Hmm...I thought that was a licensed theme based on the arcade game released by Play Mechanix, Inc. in the early 2000s.

Only thing is it was a different era back then and maybe things could change today just like it has with so many other products.

Do we have any recent aprox sales figures? How many were sold of:
Tron
X-Men
Avengers
Lord of the Rings
Spider-Man
Iron Man
Avatar
AC/DC

The average joe was never supposed to afford a NIB pin. They were meant for arcades. times have changed, but you can't expect anyone to cater to average joe.

It's been in production since mid 2010....still in production. I imagine it would have passed 2,000 by now.

Poor Joe...

Literally and figuratively

17,410 firepowers made

Why would it still be in production if it wasn't selling? Games that didn't sell well quickly went to the Out of Production page, even if distribs still had stock.

Pinside probably accounts for ~5% or less of NIB buyers. Just cuz no one here is talking about it doesn't mean it's not selling. A non-hobbyist with a gameroom who wants one game might get Avatar. We'd never hear about it here....however, it is the top grossing move ever made & it hits all demographics (male/female/adults/teens/kids)...it's certainly a game that would be appealing for a family gameroom. It's a good location game (top theme, low maintenance) & has worldwide appeal. They could be selling a ton...just not to this particular community.

Maybe because they still have cabs, PFs, parts, etc. still sitting around. Might as well keep it "in production" until you run out of the components. Who knows.

While it appears that Avatar is 'still in production' according to Stern's website, the truth is they have a cache of Avatars on hand. I just bought one a few months ago and it's production date is March 2012. . .drop shipped from Stern.

All good examples.. If the arcades and bowling alleys are closing everyday...And no one is really making any money doing so...

And the operator and or route man. Cannot afford to invest in newer games. ???

Then who is Stern's and ???? target in 5 years..? You can barely find a NIB pin in a Stern Dealer.

Just a general comment: Sure licensed themed games may be easier to sell to distributors / operators, but that doesn't mean they are more fun than original themes. As for licensed themes I prefer the way they were done on games like MB or SS: familiar characters, but still a lot of creative freedom for the design team. That's often different these days.

The thing that is the most lamentable about licensed themes is the use of photographic imagery. It's understandable that license holders mandate the use of stock art assets but it leads to a worse looking machine that is an order of magnitude less timeless than illustrated artwork. Metallica broke the mould but that's only because the license holder was okay with it. I don't expect any future film licenses to use illustrated art because they're trying to promote the film.

They were just collecting some free cash.

$50k IS probably typical for a license. Predator is selling 250 machines. That's $200 per machine, and you pick up a ton of content that you get to use without creating it from scratch.

Licenses are worth the money (from a biz standpoint).

The "Pin" is for the average joe!

I don't mind what FarSight is doing. I just consider it pre-ordering.

I've mentioned this before, but, I have many friends in the bar and restaurant business. I always bring up getting a pinball machine in there. They are a bit interested until I tell them a new Metallica or WOZ is $7k. ....then I get THAT LOOK.

They should go through an Op. Split the money coming in. No up-front investment for your friends.

Not sure if that is true. Are there stats to back this up? While the home market has grown, there are loads and loads of pins bought by ops.

That is EXACTLY what an op is for. Plus they'll rotate the games, maintain them, etc.

See how well Judge Dredd holds up today compared to, say, Demolition Man... Most of these photo backglasses from the 90's Premier/Data East machines are a disaster today. IMO, the modern day photo op Stern machines won't age quite as nicely as well drawn machines.

For sure. To be fair, though, many DE machines have poor illustrated artwork. So illustrated art does not necessarily mean better art, but it has a higher potential to suit a pinball playfield, and a proven effect of being more timeless.

I think the problem with this logic is that the market was about to die, licensed themes or not.
Probably never going to be like that again, but it is again on the rise and nobody is really trying unlicensed themes yet.

High Speed ~17,000
F-14 Tomcat (is that considered a license?) ~14,000
Space Shuttle ~7,000 (pulled that from IPDB and it seems way low)
Black Knight ~13,000

1932 Bally Hoo. 75,000

LTG : )

Have you seen the bitching that people do for spending $5 on two tables? There's no way in hell they'd get enough people to pay $10 for 1 table to make it worthwhile.

I don't know... I like most of the drawn Data East art. Certainly not in the same league as Playboy 35th anniversary or Torpedo Alley...

Do they take care of everything? Does the bar need some kind of insurance? ...or does the OP take care of the whole shebang?

All this seems to prove is that more licensed games were designed than unlicensed, and that there's a similar proportional distribution of titles across the sales tiers in both categories. Not really helping your case.

If you also included games with sales under 5k, you might be able to draw some kind of correlation between licensing & sales.