People taking peoples money years ahead of delivery when it could be spent elsewhere is what is bad for the hobby.

I think TBL is a great theme but the reason DP is getting such positive reviews is not because of the theme - it's because they built a great game. Lots of people were sceptical about the theme when they announced it but now, after seeing the quality of the prototype, even those who don't particularly care for the theme are jumping on board. Now, it's all hypothetical but ask yourself if the situation would be the same if Stern had licensed the theme instead of DP and produced a TBL game? I don't think so.

ban this guy!!!

Yup, I'm just a regular guy and I got my NIB AMH last month. They are out there and I didn't have to wait years between paying and receiving my machine. I'm not sure why everyone keeps overlooking this game. It's awesome!

If Stern had made the game ops may have bought it to put in bowling alleys where it could have actually been seen and played by the GP instead of it being a boutique game most will never see or play.
I really wanted this title but @ almost 10K to my door I had to pass.

Borg is my favorite designer by far....I have all of his LEs. Unfortunately he completely whiffed on this one.

One of the major design flaws shots from the right flipper. If you bankhand Well it seldom if ever registers the hit. You can sneak the shot by Well for the prison if you roll\stop the ball off the tip of the flipper. It's tight but you can get it through...which turns into a suicide shot with the magnet.

Now you 3 options..the inner and outer loops which BOTH leads to the pops (BLAH). The last option is the ramp shot which leads right back to the right flipper...then here we go again.

How long was it from the time you ordered until the time you received? Just curious because I know *someone* who just ordered one.

hehehehehe...
i think i got a 2 hour lock-out on the thread

I put my deposit down in January, so it was about 9 months. They didn't really start shipping games until May-June, though. I'm not sure what the backlog is at this point, but I'd be curious.

Thanks for the info! I'm hoping 3-ish months but delivery on December 24th would work fine too!

Let's face it - PPS didn't market the game to operators *at all* (thus the no coin mechs), so it's coming out with the ONLY purpose of it to go into people's homes and have them play it. You could argue that the original MM wasn't intended to be a collectible - and I would agree with that - but I don't think that you can argue that the intent for this machines was for it to NOT be collectible.

Again, we'll have to see how it holds up, but the intent is for home collectors to buy it. And, like I said, I also expect that home buyers will still favor the original, it just remains to be seen by how much.

I'm not in (yet, I hope), but from what I understand, they got more of a backlog once they started shipping, so if you had ordered in say, May, it might not have been too long, but I bet it's still a while now.

It's still the only NIB game that I really want right now. Nothing against anyone elses stuff, but no game has gripped my like AMH has.

Few people would buy a BK remake and there is one out there already NIB you can get for 6K.
I spent silly money for one but I wanted new on this title and pulled the trigger.
I bought the NIB Hyperball at the same time one game I know will never get remade.BKHB2.jpg

My dream for PPS is clearly different then the average person. I'd love to see them reproduce as many parts as possible to get all of these old games back up and running. Once their inventory is complete. Then I'd like to see them offer kits for hobbiests. Offer multiple "game packs"

1)Sell one generic cabinet for all games, flat packed and shipped for a decent price.
2)Pick your o/s MPU and any other boards needed. (Even team up with rottendog for these).
3)Sell a wire harness. Each o/s will have its own harness, that matches wire colours from original manual.
4)Sell a game kit (including a playfield, translight, cabinet decals, and all components.

Most of us can populate a playfield, solder some connections and plug in the connectors.
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I heard a story a while ago, someone built 2 MM from scratch. He collected all the parts available and assembled the games himself. Why can't the licence holder of all the parts sell them individually? Does PPS need to have games manufactured? A lot of these old games have had more then half of their pieces replaced over the years, why not let customers buy kits of these old games?

If I could buy all the pieces to a williams system 11 game for +/- $3000 I would. If I had to pay $5000 or more for a sys 11 remake....I don't know, is it worth it? At that point I'd just save my pennies and buy a new stern.
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PPS could maximize their licence without competing for dollars with other game builders. Hobbiests could save beat up games, rather then parting them out.

I think a good portion of the stuff mentioned in this thread has no chance of being out in 2015, so the original premise of "27 titles, omg!" is a bit flawed, but to me that's actually part of the problem.

All these titles & projects get announced, people sign up or plunk down money and then ... nothing. For a LONG time. I think that's already done a good bit of damage and it's only getting worse.

Every time yet another game is announced I see comments like "what an exciting time to be a pinhead". But is it? Really? Or is it just turning into a larger and larger cluster F*#! with more waiting and more bitterness?

They may not be out by 2015 but it will certainly tie up money.

Eric,

What do you think realistically will have some games delivered in 2015?

I think there will be quite a few in the next year, I just don't think it's going to be the full list mentioned in the start of the thread is all.

I doubt PPS will sling out 2 more remakes before the end of 2015. Alien, which just got announced is unlikely to be done and selling by then. Experts of Dangerous seems highly unlikely given that predator hasn't started rolling out yet. Pinball Circus is awesome and all, but I wouldn't expect them to be shipping finished games in that timeframe either. I'll be stunned if anything from John gets completed. Multimorphic hasn't put a bow on Lexi yet, so I wouldn't expect Kart racing inside of a year.

But the specifics weren't really my point. The culture of announce and wait and delay and fumble that's really starting to rub a lot of people the wrong way was more my point.

Yeah, I am not a fan of the buy and wait, but am now admittidly in for both Predator and WOOLY.
I expect my Preadator to be home by turket day weekend so the wait from real cash in (june-ish) till delivery (late Nov for first games to likely go out) is reasonable to me. Wooly is real cash in now and a year wait, but I am guessing spooky will be running them out the door even more efficiently at that time???

With both of those games I see it as the only way they will make it to the real world and the limited nature makes it internally justified.

I would like to see us get away fromt he preoder model and think that JJP will get closer to that over the next year.

AMH is suprisingly close to that already as they ramp up production and are still maintaining quality.

Lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have yous lotta games man lotta games runnin' through old Duder's head.
Can't wait until these hit the secondary market until then the Dude has no choice but to abide.

For collectors, there's nothing to worry about. The only thing endangered is pinball on route.

What I mean is, there is always going to be someone who loves pinball and wants to make their own game - the boutique builders. They'll make one or two, then probably drop out because it's a crap business model. But there's always going to be someone new right behind them.

Making pinball machines from scratch is easier than its ever been and it's only getting easier - tech shops with CNC machines, metal working tools, 3D printing, and cheap Chinese electronics. Direct printing. Most of this equipment you can get in your home workshop for under $10K. So, boutique games will be coming out.

That's great for collectors and home buyers, because it's a small market feeding a small market. But route operators and people who make a living from pinball, well...

I guess it depends on if you care about pinball on location. To be honest I don't. I think I've played 5-6 games on location in the last 10 years (they're hard to find!) and without exception they were all broken, dirty and unplayable. Pinball on location is DEAD.

I remember when WMS closed down, Gary was saying that there was room for only one manufacturer. I think he's right, and anyone trying to sell games on route is doomed, Stern included. Either Stern or JJP is going to bite it, or have to downsize to serve the boutique collectors because that's the only real market left.

I'm with Zampinator......it's going to be a great year for those looking for 90's and early 00's DMD pins!

In some ways I wonder if the boutique guys may have the better chance of surviving then the 'mid size' guys who want to go head to head with Stern and JJP. I say this as long as they team together or partner with the big guys and can keep their price point reasonable. The fact that Stern is building MMr (and I guess they are building Whoa Nellie) and JJP is going to be building Skit-B's second game, is one of the more interesting developments in the last few months and bodes well for boutique pins.

You can certainly see why Stern would be open to building machines for other players, since to a great extent they are not a huge threat to their share and it lets them leverage their production assets, without the sales and marketing expenses of those machines. They take no risk in those things selling and as others have said, those games are not going to distributors and ops, which I believe is still Stern's bread and butter. JJP obviously has similar reason to want to partner with the small guys.

A couple of 250 to 500 game runs of boutique titles each year would be great if it brings themes to the market that would not have happened by the big guys. They are not going to flood the market with too much supply. TBL, Predator, Aliens would never be done by Stern, just not enough of a market for older titles like those for them to pass up doing something like TWD. The bigger question effecting that happening is the first few of these games that make it through production. If the build quality and reliability suck, well, that will have a hugely negative impact on all boutique makers, another reason why partnering is key.

The more the boutique guys (and mid-tier) use 'common parts' the better as well. I think they also need to demonstrate that for their custom parts, there will be a reasonable supply available down the road. If pinballlife or Marco announced they had a hundred of custom part X from game Y in inventory, we would all feel better about buying a smaller run pin. The fact that Skit-B also has said they will open source their code, reduces concerns about the long term maintainability of their pin.

Lets be honest, while there is plenty of joking about JPops machines making it to market, the reality is that hangs over all boutique companies as a negative. Predator is well behind schedule, but at least seems they are now in production. Spooky is now delivering games. Dutch pinball has shown, that in a year, they could produce a prototype that is as far as long as it is, so it it does seem we will see this part of the industry come to life.

I do put DP in what I call the 'mid tier', since my impression is they have a much larger team working on it vs spooky or skit-B. Not sure about heighway, but given they have built so much technology, I'd also call them 'mid-tier', in this new world of pinball.

The one thing we all know at this point is that whatever time frame we think something is going to happen in, you need to triple it (or in the case of JPOP you need to (insert large number here)). Occasionally someone will do it 'on time' but I'll believe that when I see it. So, if we see even half of the games on that list in homes in 2015 I'd be impressed.

Lucky for them TBl is using Bally William parts
The bowling plastic is CFTBL
Flippers ball, throughs, etc

Bowling mech, boards, LCD glass, ramps etc.

Agreed in large part. Those who have the most to lose are the mid-size players, needing lot of $ to build a factory with important overheads.

On the other hand, developing a game in your garage as a side job (or as a hobby) using a known platform such as P-ROC means limited overheads. You can come with a nearly finished game without having to ask for money.

Now comes the tricky part: producing the game. Either you keep the production very low (a few dozen) and do it in your garage (Captain Nemo) but past 100 I guess you need to scale-up. For that you need $ and/or partner with someone else for production (Spooky for Wrath of Olympus).

Would a "P-Roc" assembly line make sense ? Someone ready to produce the cool P-Roc games currently developed? Even if the runs are limited, there has to be some money saved on scaling. This would make sense to me. Did Multimorphic consider that?

Maybe the old Segasa plant could be fired up.

They have a US warehouse,
I doubt replacement parts would be hard to get or even shipped from Europe

The cost of manufacturing in the UK is not necessarily higher than the US and may be cheaper considering lower wages and taxes. The Netherlands is a different story.

No one is 'taking' the money... the buyer makes the decision to 'give' the money years in advance! Stop pre-buying!

Route ops have a long memory. The Zaccaria fiasco was incredible. Their ads in the trade rags made it seem as if parts were available just like Bally, Williams, Gottlieb and Stern. It was a clusterfcuk. At one point the op I worked for had all of them (8) in the shop waiting for parts. When we finally got them back up, we kept one in the shop at a parts machine.

Didn't they shut down in the 80's?

It's 2014 we have internet, overnight delivery, and a team of Dutch folks who have their shit together.
Again i would be surprised if service parts were an issue

If you look at what has happened with P-roc, you already have two machines well on their way into production, Predator and Lebowski and you now have WOOLY announcing a production run. These three have created a path for others to follow (you also have the P^3 which is also using P-roc). The p-roc community is a very supportive and collaborative group, although we have seen that the guys/companies that are now producing their games seem to be far less active on the board, primary because they are so focused on getting their games into production, but they are always willing to help.

As far as an assembly line, I think a 'service bureau' would make more sense, where game developers have resources to help with things whether getting parts made, art, software features, custom lamp boards, etc. Some of that goes on now informally, but I could see a more formal process/business created around doing that. The fact that we now have somewhere around 6 firms doing assembly (Stern, JJP, DP, Spooky, heighway and skit-b (at least for their first game)) seems there is now more than enough production capacity. But creating a more formal process/template to partner with these manufacturers would probably help make these games come to life.

One other thing I think would be important for the P-roc boutique guys is to be coordinating the release of these games, so that they are coming to market in a stream and not all at the same time. I think there is an appetite for boutique games whether based on theme, rarity and even just great game play/rules, but there is of course a limit to the size of that appetite. Ultimately the biggest challenge is going to be producing a game that is commercial quality at a price that is attractive enough for buyers to be willing take a boutique game over a Stern or JJP machine, and the smaller size runs these games have will make it tricky to keep the price low.

To me, SPOOKY will be the key to the success of any botique game looking to be produced.

They are ahead of the curve and could really become the partner of choice, assuming that is a role they want to fill.

Spooky does seem to be a great option.

Making a deal with Stern or JJP for their factory is too risky and big a deal for most boutiques. You would need a pile of cash and orders, all set to go.

Spooky seems like a good compromise to do smaller runs.

Great thread.
I've been inching towards a "guess" at the total number of NIBs the Pinside market can bear here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/nib-club-poll-1
Please take a second, and participate in the poll.
-mof

After seeing the Stern factory tour Stern is producing far more games then people thought or the boutique firms will put them out slower then people thought.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-factory-tour

So out of this ENTIRE list, how many will realistically be released in 2015??

Obviously Woz and new Stern titles. The rest, who knows? Delays have become the norm it seems, so shooting for 2015 may be a tad unrealistic.

More like; "If I put this much stuff on a machine people will pay 12K for it by Christmas."

The new price is $9k. Plus shipping. Plus tax.

Per my calculations, I would be paying more than $10k to get it to my door.

I would now be out ~$11500 CAD shipped with our awesome exchange rate, our 5% GST in Alberta, the duty due to the product not falling under NAFTA (which could be higher or lower than I estimated depending on how the item is classified), and the new 9k price tag. Probably a hundred or so more in brokerage too. No thanks! Anyone not in Alberta gets another hit on provincial tax. Almost unattainable imo.

Shame because it look great and I would kill to have one, but I only see it going up in price, not down.

You should still be okay on duty from my limited understanding. Should be coded under 9504.30, no duty on MFN, which is all you get charged from with Netherlands (or UK for Heighway people). It gets even fuzzier if they have US factories that assemble and ship.

Oh that's interesting... My understanding of duties is obviously minimal at best but my understanding was, if it's not assembled in Mexico or the US but you are buying in the US, there's going to be something charged. Is this code and MFN tariff thing here suggesting there is in fact an exemption for arcade crap (i.e. - pinball machines?) from MFN countries?

And yeah, the US distribution or possible assembly (ie Heighway?) could add confusion.

EDIT:
So one MFN duty requirement states:
"8. The goods must be shipped directly from a MFN beneficiary country to a consignee in Canada on a through bill of lading (TBL)."

Which would not be the case here being that the purchase for NA is FOB Chicago. MFN only applies (to my VERY limited knowledge) if a free trade agreement does not exist (which there obviously is for the US + Canada), so I would still be expecting duty on this thing at this point since it would not qualify for MFN to a Canadian purchaser after being landed in the US, nor would it qualify for NAFTA.

The 100% clear way around it (I think lol) would be a Canadian distributor buying direct from the Netherlands, or buying direct from the Netherlands and paying the shipping and exchange directly to DP in Europe.

Cliff Notes version: it's too much money and now it seems more complicated that I thought too

I want my stuff to be out sometime in the future, but it won't be for a while I believe.

Yeah, duty or no duty it is higher than I would pay. But I think if you were serious about it you could just call Canada Customs and get the skinny. I have before and they are generally pretty helpful.

Everyone not in the the EU, is paying for import duties and currency exchange. It is merely "included" in the price. Just like buying a car made in Europe. Even though you buy it at a dealer, for example, in the USA . The only reason you don't see the price vary during a model year based on exchange rates is that the importing division hedges currency.

duty stinks !!

poo-1.gif

there was another thread with all games coming out listed and some details about dates, pricing, etc... pretty comphrensive... i can't find it - i wanted to read it - can anyone help... thank you in advance... i've been searching for 20 min and i'm out of patience !