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(Topic ID: 203700)

deeproot Pinball thread

By pin2d

6 years ago


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#1251 5 years ago
 
BEN

benheck

Pinside member

US Madison, WI

11y 115K 5,507

Quoted from 27dnast:

And it’s not as if a DMD/LCD makes a game more accessible to the 99% of all humans that finds pinball endless confusing. The pinball industry should start looking at new ways to make games easy to understand.

That can be done with design. TNA being a great example. Don't even need the LCD.

I think the sweet spot would be a double high display (like Jetsons) with double res dots (like AFMr) This could probably be done with a single MCU.

Remember normies consider pinball retro anyway. Why not have Dots? There's a certain romanticism to it, it's attractive for the same reason hand drawn art is.

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#1252 5 years ago
 
???

rubberducks

Inactive member

8y 76,150 3,031 1

Quoted from 27dnast:

And that’s exactly why pinball should be moving away from complex display graphics. Reduce the cost, make it more acce$$ible for operators and home collectors... and put some additional resources into what’s happening on the playfield.
The industry is stuck on this idea that it must put resources into the backbox... why not innovate and forge ahead using different, less expensive, avenues to driving player interest??
And it’s not as if a DMD/LCD makes a game more accessible to the 99% of all humans that finds pinball endless confusing. The pinball industry should start looking at new ways to make games easy to understand.

You want pinball to grow or attract new players? You need stuff happening that looks fun on the LCD.

That was one of the reasons WOZ broke new ground.

Also, some of the people saying less resources should be put into the display, and forget it, and it's too costly nevertheless go bananas for ColorDMD and describe it as the best upgrade ever ... which is it?

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#1253 5 years ago
 
GIC

goingincirclez

GIC Pinball

9y 116K 2,835 27

I think Ben is on to something with the "best of both worlds" philosophy.

When I got my run-dmd clock I was truly struck with just how creative most DMD animations really are, and how much was accomplished with so little. The last few Stearns were especially amazing. There's something to be said for a limited palette and what it forces people to do.

This is best seen thru 8 and 16 bit games, which over the last decade have come to be appreciated and celebrated as an art form untu itself. Funny: today's games and consoles can be so photo-perfect realistic and clean, that low res speaks to people.

Dots are part of pinball, a unique medium of graphic expression that only exists with the world under glass. When I first saw Aerosmith and even (to a lesser extent) Iron Maiden, I thought "huh, shitty YouTube flash animation?" - my point is not to disparage the artists who animated those games, but to prove how it was nothing unique.

Color the dots and increase the res, but keep them coarse enough to have charm and require imagination. That will speak" pinball" to all who care to look, not "ooh look, crappy gif loops and flash cartoons I can see anywhere".

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#1254 5 years ago
 
JJZ

toyotaboy

RandOM Pinball

US Allyn, WA

12y 184K 11,936 3 14

Quoted from rubberducks:

You want pinball to grow or attract new players? You need stuff happening that looks fun on the LCD.
That was one of the reasons WOZ broke new ground.
Also, some of the people saying less resources should be put into the display and forget and it's too costly nevertheless go bananas for ColorDMD and describe it as the best upgrade ever ... which is it?

we want color small dots.. like ben said double height display (128 x 64).. i dont need HD. neither does redemption games. some do, but the highest profit ones are those that are fun. display should always be secondary on mechanical games.

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#1255 5 years ago
 
???

rubberducks

Inactive member

8y 76,150 3,031 1

192x64. 128x64 would be a strange aspect ratio. I've suggested it in the past ... for Spooky.

But they've moved, and I'm glad. ACNC looks incredible.

The main thing I'm sad about is that SEGA / Stern abandoned the XL DMDs ... almost 2 decades of games could have had some far more interesting, creative dots. Albeit not that surprising they were abandoned given how expensive they were. I'm doubtful that even now for a small outfit and LED XL DMDs rather than plasma, you'd be able to lower costs over cheapo LCD panels with far more man hours in display work.

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#1256 5 years ago
 
-

27dnast

Pinside+ Frequent

11y 140K 8,597

Quoted from rubberducks:

You want pinball to grow or attract new players? You need stuff happening that looks fun on the LCD.
That was one of the reasons WOZ broke new ground.
Also, some of the people saying less resources should be put into the display and forget and it's too costly nevertheless go bananas for ColorDMD and describe it as the best upgrade ever ... which is it?

Yes, WOZ dazzles... but I've had a ton of non-pinheads roll through my basement and the main attraction quickly becomes what's happening under the glass.

I ultimately think there are other - cheaper - ways to attract the attention of would be players. But the pinball industry has blinders on, stubbornly following the pack.

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#1257 5 years ago
 
-

27dnast

Pinside+ Frequent

11y 140K 8,597

Quoted from benheck:

That can be done with design. TNA being a great example. Don't even need the LCD.
I think the sweet spot would be a double high display (like Jetsons) with double res dots (like AFMr) This could probably be done with a single MCU.
Remember normies consider pinball retro anyway. Why not have Dots? There's a certain romanticism to it, it's attractive for the same reason hand drawn art is.

Great point about TNA not needing a display, btw. I agree.

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#1258 5 years ago
 
KCI

KerryImming

Pinside member

11y 43,300 245

Quoted from rubberducks:

Also, some of the people saying less resources should be put into the display and forget and it's too costly nevertheless go bananas for ColorDMD and describe it as the best upgrade ever ... which is it?

I don't think those are two different statements. ColorDMD provided low-resolution color display; it emulated a DMD on a cheaper LCD panel. It also had the advantage of user-community generated colorizations.

Another cost to consider... 128 x 32 x 4bits (16 brightness levels) is 2KB per frame. 1366 x 768 x 32bits is over 4MB per frame. That's data that must be stored and moved to the display. At those rates you need compression and a GPU. It all adds cost... a little here, a little there.

Overall I agree with you though. Once you've given people high-resolution displays there is no going back.

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#1259 5 years ago
 
DRM

iceman44

Pinside+ Pro!

US Boerne, TX

13y 162K 26,888 28 49

"Cheap pinball" has left the building.

So has the nostalgic past of Dmd's and other inferior options.

Last time i checked TNA isn't "cheap". I don't care how good it is.

It's a unique one off. Like everything else, the bloom will fade off that rose too.

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#1260 5 years ago
 
SBS

o-din

Pinside+ Addict

11y 158K 58,796

Quoted from 27dnast:

Great point about TNA not needing a display

You don't need a display when you've got a tank on the backglass.

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#1261 5 years ago
 
BJ.

Brijam

Inactive member

Unknown

9y 58,300 1,093 26 23

I for one am glad we don’t have those god-awful red DMDs anymore. They looked awful, and the only reason Stern used them was because they were dirt cheap. The LCDs are more expensive hardware-wise and vastly more expensive from content and production.

As an operator I can tell you that people are drawn to the big LCDs, and that alone means we’re never going back to non-LCD machines. I love my old Bally/Williams DMDs, and niche players can pull off a TNA now and then —maybe—, but the age of the DMD is done.

We’re in the infancy of LCD’s in pinball. Most of what is being done is confusing and just wrong. I keep hoping that one of the pinball manufacturers will hire some actual interaction designers who understand user interface and game design. Compared to video games, pinball LCDs are in the dark ages. They’ll improve.

Stern’s early LCD games were pretty bad, but I bet they took a lot of time to design. They had to build a framework from the ground up. That’s a crap-ton of work.

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#1262 5 years ago
 
ABB

Aurich

Mods and Opinions

US Torrance, CA

11y 144K 23,395 3

Quoted from Brijam:

the only reason Stern used them was because they were dirt cheap. The LCDs are more expensive hardware-wise

This isn't actually the case, the DMDs were pretty pricey, the LCDs are cheaper.

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#1263 5 years ago
 
BJ.

Brijam

Inactive member

Unknown

9y 58,300 1,093 26 23

Quoted from Aurich:

This isn't actually the case, the DMDs were pretty pricey, the LCDs are cheaper.

Yeah, now that I've run the numbers I see what you mean. A pin2dmd can be built all-in for ~$120 -- sourcing everything retail. They have to be at least half that price at volume, even less for single color LED. But when you go to a stock SBC to drive everything else, the hardware for driving the LCD comes along for free, so yeah they'd have to be cheaper.

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#1264 5 years ago
 
STK

flynnibus

Pinside+ Frequent

11y 134K 13,234

Quoted from Aurich:

This isn't actually the case, the DMDs were pretty pricey, the LCDs are cheaper.

Now, not really 15 years ago. The crossover was later. Then once those LCD had gotten so cheap, they had already moved to LED panels that had avoided the 'dead tech, so prices go up' that you had on the plasma displays. So they had affordable, with no concern about NLA parts LED panels. Then it becomes not about the cost of the unit - but the cost of the change over itself and total cost to the project. LED 12v displays may not have had a cheaper unit cost than a LCD monitor on its own... but it would have cost a lot more than 'status quo' to go the route colorDMD did.. or change your platform to drive a display natively. And remember... this is all about the time Stern was imploding and going super cheap everywhere. Why on earth would they have invested in all new hardware (and staff) to do exactly what their old hardware already did?

You should know by now... it's not just about COGS, but time and development too.

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#1265 5 years ago
 
BWJ

Oldgoat

Pinside+ Frequent

9y 70,900 1,181

Quoted from Brijam:

We’re in the infancy of LCD’s in pinball. Most of what is being done is confusing and just wrong. I keep hoping that one of the pinball manufacturers will hire some actual interaction designers who understand user interface and game design. Compared to video games, pinball LCDs are in the dark ages. They’ll improve.

Interesting take. If you've ever conducted usability tests on software it is incredibly enlightening. You watch seemingly bright, tech savvy people stumble and bumble their way through things that seemed so simple and intuitive. There are times when you just burst out laughing and want to shout out "RIGHT THERE ON THE LEFT NAV, YOU MORON"

I'm confident there is no usability conducted or tracking of where people are looking and expect things to be. However, as Brijam also notes, the LCD is as much about the observer of the game as it is the player, so interpreting the results get problematic. This is further muddied by, as noted by @27dnast, the usability for a player varies over time.

I imagine the costs to conduct usability studies (and associated tweaking in response to test results) are too high to justify and, as a result, I'm betting that the refinement of the LCD to optimize its value will come about more via trial and error and intermittent epiphany than any deliberate, objective, and 'scientific' analysis.

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#1266 5 years ago
 
MCB

mcbPalisade

Iron Transfer

US Parachute, CO

6y 46,300 771 4

Quoted from Oldgoat:

...I imagine the costs to conduct usability studies (and associated tweaking in response to test results) are too high to justify...

Even "mandatory" testing, like how a machine performs at low 110V AC voltage isn't getting done. Focus groups on how the human interface "makes you feel" are out of the question, IMHO

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#1267 5 years ago
 
CHD

djreddog

Pinside member

US Magnolia, DE

8y 99,050 3,913 20

Deeproot Team,

I know some of you are following this thread and I just wanted to let you know that First State Flippers is sending Steve Bowden to Texas with $325 in spending money. We decided to give him this money for his efforts in our August Annihilation event where he captured 1st place in what was probably his last event before heading to Texas . This should be plenty of money to get him to Texas safely! You picked up a very talented person and I’m looking forward to the machines you will be releasing. I’m also looking for you to prove a ton of people wrong. Best of luck Steve and deeproot!

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#1268 5 years ago
 
KCI

KerryImming

Pinside member

11y 43,300 245

Quoted from mcbPalisade:

Even "mandatory" testing, like how a machine performs at low 110V AC voltage isn't getting done.

Not trying to provoke, but I am curious as to the source for this comment. Most games are using switching power supplies which have typical input voltage ranges of ~90V to ~260V. Unlike transformer-based supplies their output is independent of line voltage. Not to say you souldn't vary the line voltage down to 110VAC as a test, but extensive testing shouldn't be needed.

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#1269 5 years ago
 
MCB

mcbPalisade

Iron Transfer

US Parachute, CO

6y 46,300 771 4

Quoted from KerryImming:

Not to say you souldn't vary the line voltage down to 110VAC as a test, but extensive testing shouldn't be needed.

If you don't test for it, you won't find it. Witness Houdini and others looking at factory recalls/retrofits now. With a toy they featured prominently I don't know how this testing wasn't done against the 20" catapult success rate. Missed the test plan I guess. Maybe the whole test plan was missed.

Sorry, I'm an old HP engineer and at the time QUALITY was everything to us. Plan the work and work the plan.

Know how HP defined quality? Not some complex differential equation but rather simply: "SUITABILITY FOR USE."

"Enough testing, launch the Hubble Space Telescope!"

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#1270 5 years ago
 
-

27dnast

Pinside+ Frequent

11y 140K 8,597

Quoted from Brijam:

I for one am glad we don’t have those god-awful red DMDs anymore. They looked awful, and the only reason Stern used them was because they were dirt cheap. The LCDs are more expensive hardware-wise and vastly more expensive from content and production.
As an operator I can tell you that people are drawn to the big LCDs, and that alone means we’re never going back to non-LCD machines. I love my old Bally/Williams DMDs, and niche players can pull off a TNA now and then —maybe—, but the age of the DMD is done.
We’re in the infancy of LCD’s in pinball. Most of what is being done is confusing and just wrong. I keep hoping that one of the pinball manufacturers will hire some actual interaction designers who understand user interface and game design. Compared to video games, pinball LCDs are in the dark ages. They’ll improve.
Stern’s early LCD games were pretty bad, but I bet they took a lot of time to design. They had to build a framework from the ground up. That’s a crap-ton of work.

If pinball really wanted to attract massive amounts of dollar dropping customers, they’d ditch the entire concept of a head/backglass and look to redemption machines. Put in some super flashy lights, and use the head to house prizes... and make games simple to understand. That would attract attention.

But the industry has stubbornly gone down a completely different path to try and preserve this notion of history matched with ever increasing complexity. That probably has to do with the fact that everything the industry designs is made with the home collector in mind. If the industry was serious about making attractive locations games for the public, they’d be heading down a totally different path.

To put simply: the LCD screen isn’t going to make pinball massively profitable with kids and newbs.

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#1271 5 years ago
 
AER

OnTheSnap

Pinside member

US Los Gatos, CA

6y 53,550 590 6

I replaced the lcd on my TNA, and it cost me $50 for the display and controller.

LCD doesn’t add to the bom cost in reality. It adds to the development. But as operators already noted, lcds get way more coin to drop..

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#1272 5 years ago
 
???

rubberducks

Inactive member

8y 76,150 3,031 1

Quoted from KerryImming:

I don't think those are two different statements. ColorDMD provided low-resolution color display; it emulated a DMD on a cheaper LCD panel. It also had the advantage of user-community generated colorizations.
Another cost to consider... 128 x 32 x 4bits (16 brightness levels) is 2KB per frame. 1366 x 768 x 32bits is over 4MB per frame. That's data that must be stored and moved to the display. At those rates you need compression and a GPU. It all adds cost... a little here, a little there.
Overall I agree with you though. Once you've given people high-resolution displays there is no going back.

There are integrated GPUs or media processors on almost any CPU (APU) or SoC you'd consider anyway. It's not an additional cost. They're also getting very capable.

As an example, a new maker board is coming out soon that can do 4x4K display output on HDMI 2.0, and costs ~$210-330. The CPU's also miles more powerful than the ones the UP2 uses - which is what TNA / ACNC / think Houdini? / probably Kingpin use.

Give it a couple of years and you'll get that kind of capability for half the cost again. Couple more. Halve it again.

Spike 2 is absolutely paltry in comparison. But likely on a very lightweight close to the metal OS with minimal abstraction.

SS storage is very cheap for the kind of asset sizes you're talking even with something like Pirates. It was more of a cost issue when WOZ shipped in 2013. Now? No.

----------

As to the future of the media ... I don't think we'll be seeing 4K and 8K content on pinball machines. 1) Because the monitors aren't big enough, and 2) because assets would take more time and money to make.

However, as processing power gets cheaper, we're likely to see more and more of a push towards rendering fully interactive content on the fly. It'll take a while though.

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#1273 5 years ago
 
LEV

CrazyLevi

Crazy Levi's Pinball

US New York, NY

10y 148K 33,539

Quoted from 27dnast:

If pinball really wanted to attract massive amounts of dollar dropping customers, they’d ditch the entire concept of a head/backglass and look to redemption machines. Put in some super flashy lights, and use the head to house prizes... and make games simple to understand. That would attract attention.

The idea that pinball needs to become a redemption game is ridiculous.

Redemption games have ZERO room for skill, simple as that. They are completely different concepts.

A pinball-style redemption game might be cute but that's as far as it goes. You are never going to cross-polinate actual pinball with redemption because ops don't want to give away free stuff to skilled players.

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#1274 5 years ago
 
DMM

DS_Nadine

Pinside member

DE Düsseldorf

8y 72,800 4,105 2

Why does the Deeproot link link to the LCD vs DMD thread?!

Pinside broken?

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#1275 5 years ago
 
JAM

Wolfmarsh

Pinside member

12y 134K 10,956

Quoted from djreddog:

Best of luck Steve

+10000x

I hope this adventure for Steve turns out to be fun and enjoyable!

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#1276 5 years ago
 
CJB

Topher5000

Pinside member

CA Thorold, ON

10y 45,300 900 1

Quoted from mcbPalisade:

Witness Houdini and others looking at factory recalls/retrofits now.

Just being curious, what happened with Houdini?

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#1277 5 years ago
 
MCB

mcbPalisade

Iron Transfer

US Parachute, CO

6y 46,300 771 4

Quoted from Topher5000:

Just being curious, what happened with Houdini?

From what I understand (I don't own or have access to one) as the wall power varies the game needs adjustment. Flipper & catapult strength changes must be made for normal operation. They might be working on a retrofit, I have no direct knowledge of this.

This is a case where what a power supply is "supposed" to do varies from what it actually does.

How many times I've been in a group of engineers that were saying "It isn't supposed to do that!"

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#1278 5 years ago
 
BOB

bobukcat

Pinside member

9y 99,550 5,463

Quoted from mcbPalisade:

How many times I've been in a group of engineers that were saying "It isn't supposed to do that!"

Unintended features.

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#1279 5 years ago
 
BEN

benheck

Pinside member

US Madison, WI

11y 115K 5,507

Also why put an LCD on a game when everyone is carrying a smart phone in their pocket?

It's like LaGuardia's new Delta terminal that attaches an iPad to every table for the 0.0% of travelers who don't have a smartphone.

I thought it was weird that Dialed In connected to a smart phone but Pirates had an LCD built into the apron. Why not set your phone on the glass and the Compass appears on it?

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#1280 5 years ago
 
MCB

mcbPalisade

Iron Transfer

US Parachute, CO

6y 46,300 771 4

Quoted from benheck:

Why not set your phone on the glass and the Compass appears on it?

Wastes valuable battery life that could be used on social media ( - :

For that matter why don't new pins have USB chargers? People might play pinball just to charge their phones.

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#1281 5 years ago
 
DGH

DudeRegular

Pinside member

6y 111K 3,415 108

Quoted from mcbPalisade:

Wastes valuable battery life that could be used on social media ( - :
For that matter why don't new pins have USB chargers? People might play pinball just to charge their phones.

Then some dedicated trickster would make an app to drop quarters through that usb connection!

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#1282 5 years ago
 
JLG

JodyG

Ramp-O-Matic

6y 143K 4,612 6 21 1

Quoted from mcbPalisade:

How many times I've been in a group of engineers that were saying "It isn't supposed to do that!"

Our wannabe EE's famous saying is "That can't happen!", as it does it 10 times right in front of him. It is rather comical at times.

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#1283 5 years ago
 
JJZ

toyotaboy

RandOM Pinball

US Allyn, WA

12y 184K 11,936 3 14

Quoted from mcbPalisade:

For that matter why don't new pins have USB chargers? People might play pinball just to charge their phones.

i actually thought about that.. 5v conversion is easy, so is adding a port somewhere. some airports still charge a fee to charge your phone (if u dont have your cord). i think a usb port could actually help. didnt the coinbox podcast guys try that on route?

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#1284 5 years ago
 
DRM

iceman44

Pinside+ Pro!

US Boerne, TX

13y 162K 26,888 28 49

The LCD effect will eventually be part of the glass

A world on the glass

Think about slot machines today

Deep root probably already has it implemented

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#1285 5 years ago
 
LRP

lpeters82

Pinside+ Frequent

12y 132K 5,287 8

My favorite display style to date has been The Big Lebowski.

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#1286 5 years ago
 
???

rubberducks

Inactive member

8y 76,150 3,031 1

Quoted from lpeters82:

My favorite display style to date has been The Big Lebowski.

IMO it was foolish. Very expensive custom aspect ratio LCD (it wasn't a larger one running letterboxed). Simulating dots from higher res. content when there were loads of movie assets ....

To me it was the worst part of the presentation, and silly unneeded extra cost. All they need have done was change the backglass / speaker panel ratios and used a vastly cheaper laptop like screen a la Stern / Spooky / Houdini.

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#1287 5 years ago
 
KCI

KerryImming

Pinside member

11y 43,300 245

Quoted from mcbPalisade:

This is a case where what a power supply is "supposed" to do varies from what it actually does.

I've never seen the insides of a Houdini. Is that a custom power supply or off-the-shelf?

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#1288 5 years ago
 
KCI

KerryImming

Pinside member

11y 43,300 245

Quoted from rubberducks:

and costs ~$210-330.

That is way too expensive. Plus you still need the equivalent of a Solenoid Driver Board.

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#1289 5 years ago
 
BEN

benheck

Pinside member

US Madison, WI

11y 115K 5,507

Quoted from iceman44:

The LCD effect will eventually be part of the glass
A world on the glass
Think about slot machines today
Deep root probably already has it implemented

Really the end goal should be to remove everything mechanical and simulate the game with a high-quality 3D 4K LCD glass.

Use head tracking to change perspective on the fly.

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#1290 5 years ago
 
???

rubberducks

Inactive member

8y 76,150 3,031 1

Quoted from KerryImming:

That is way too expensive. Plus you still need the equivalent of a Solenoid Driver Board.

No. It's the same price range as the UP2 which the machines I specified use.

Nothing like as cheap as Spike2 (likely absolute max of ~$60-70 for their MPU board) ... but then Stern can afford to develop their own software that will run efficiently on low end hardware.

But I agree, that is a LOT of money for the small players to be spending. It'll get better for them though, as I said, as 'maker board' type solutions become more and more powerful, and the same or better level of spec gets cheaper and cheaper.

The new board I referenced is this:

http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/119273-udoo-bolt-maker-board-packs-amd-ryzen-embedded-v1000/

By the time 7nm Ryzen3 based embedded versions come out in ~18months, you'll probably see the cheaper one's spec dropping well below $150. Faster and cheaper Intel ones will almost certainly launch in the mean time, too.

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#1291 5 years ago
 
MCB

mcbPalisade

Iron Transfer

US Parachute, CO

6y 46,300 771 4

Quoted from KerryImming:

I've never seen the insides of a Houdini. Is that a custom power supply or off-the-shelf?

The pins have all been busy at Festivals so I've never looked inside, but I'm 99% certain it is a [cheap] toroid supply from China.

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#1292 5 years ago
 
???

Sinestro

Inactive member

Unknown

7y 59,400 2,410 1

Folks, the LCD isn't going away.

It does make for a better experience, both for the player and to attract new people.

Some of you really need to get over this.

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#1293 5 years ago
 
JJZ

toyotaboy

RandOM Pinball

US Allyn, WA

12y 184K 11,936 3 14

Quoted from iceman44:

The LCD effect will eventually be part of the glass

A world on the glass

So a few years back I was saying no (they were horribly expensive). I'm seeing some of the smaller displays are getting reasonable (24" for $400):
http://store.apollodisplays.com/store/ProductDetail/KI-37-120_236-Inch-Innolux-V236bj1p03--Pmediaecorhd004b

This is measured diagonally, so actual width is 21" (would be good for filling the back half of a widebody), maybe they sell even smaller ones. I wouldn't want transparent just for scoring. If you're gonna do that then just squeeze a 7" LCD in the apron. However, the transparent means you could potentially bring back Pinball2000 without needing special mirrored glass (which makes the entire playfield dark), the only section that's dark is where the LCD lays on top of.
KI_37_120 (resized).jpgKI_37_120 (resized).jpg

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#1294 5 years ago
 
LRP

lpeters82

Pinside+ Frequent

12y 132K 5,287 8

Quoted from rubberducks:

IMO it was foolish. Very expensive custom aspect ratio LCD (it wasn't a larger one running letterboxed). Simulating dots from higher res. content when there were loads of movie assets ....
To me it was the worst part of the presentation, and silly unneeded extra cost. All they need have done was change the backglass / speaker panel ratios and used a vastly cheaper laptop like screen a la Stern / Spooky / Houdini.

I know nothing about the costs, but in terms of looks I prefer that aspect ratio. I also like the pixels.

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#1295 5 years ago
 
SBS

o-din

Pinside+ Addict

11y 158K 58,796

Quoted from benheck:

Also why put an LCD on a game when everyone is carrying a smart phone in their pocket?

I have no idea what you are talking about.

download (1) (resized).jpgdownload (1) (resized).jpg
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#1296 5 years ago
 
M C

pbwizard14

Pinside member

Unknown

6y 31,400 112 5

Quoted from CrazyLevi:

The idea that pinball needs to become a redemption game is ridiculous.
Redemption games have ZERO room for skill, simple as that. They are completely different concepts.
A pinball-style redemption game might be cute but that's as far as it goes. You are never going to cross-polinate actual pinball with redemption because ops don't want to give away free stuff to skilled players.

I think there might be something there. What is a company had two heads, one for home use/collectors and another for redemption games. The players score would determine their prize and they should be allowed to stack their score to have them continue putting money in the machine for a better prize. The head could be used to hold and distribute the prize on location. This would be a real money maker for routes and even some collectors might want this instead of a regular machine. Skill would be involved or a lot of money or both.

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#1297 5 years ago
 
M C

pbwizard14

Pinside member

Unknown

6y 31,400 112 5

Quoted from 27dnast:

If pinball really wanted to attract massive amounts of dollar dropping customers, they’d ditch the entire concept of a head/backglass and look to redemption machines. Put in some super flashy lights, and use the head to house prizes... and make games simple to understand. That would attract attention.
But the industry has stubbornly gone down a completely different path to try and preserve this notion of history matched with ever increasing complexity. That probably has to do with the fact that everything the industry designs is made with the home collector in mind. If the industry was serious about making attractive locations games for the public, they’d be heading down a totally different path.
To put simply: the LCD screen isn’t going to make pinball massively profitable with kids and newbs.

This isn't a bad idea. They could build two versions of the head.

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#1298 5 years ago
 
BJ.

Brijam

Inactive member

Unknown

9y 58,300 1,093 26 23

Quoted from Oldgoat:

Interesting take. If you've ever conducted usability tests on software it is incredibly enlightening. You watch seemingly bright, tech savvy people stumble and bumble their way through things that seemed so simple and intuitive. There are times when you just burst out laughing and want to shout out "RIGHT THERE ON THE LEFT NAV, YOU MORON"

I do regularly conduct usability tests. Mostly they are silent over the shoulder and take notes-type, but I’ve done some more sophisticated work too. Good UI is very, very hard and even more expensive.

Every time I look at the UI of a pinball LCD it makes me cringe. There are so many opportunities for improvement.

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#1299 5 years ago
 
BJ.

Brijam

Inactive member

Unknown

9y 58,300 1,093 26 23

Quoted from rubberducks:

Give it a couple of years and you'll get that kind of capability for half the cost again. Couple more. Halve it again.

No, you’re not thinking like a manufacturer. You’re thinking like a consumer.

A manufacturer has to decide on a hardware platform that will last them years and have guaranteed suppliers. They make massive investments in things like firmware, in-house tools to support their production pipelines, and in training and support.

Stern invested in Spike probably because they were stuck with ancient unsupported tools and were starting to lose their suppliers or costs were getting out of hand.

JJP didn’t have Stern’s infrastructure and could afford to design their internal pipeline around LCD production. And it shows. It’s like the difference between a Tesla and an EV from GM. The one from GM feels like an old car, the one from Tesla just feels better, because it was purpose built with no preconceived ideas.

Strictly by what they’re saying, Deeproot may be doing something like that. At the very least they will be able to standardize on newer hardware, where Stern and JJP cannot without a substantial investment. I’m very interested to see what they come up with.

Quoted from rubberducks:

As to the future of the media ... I don't think we'll be seeing 4K and 8K content on pinball machines. 1) Because the monitors aren't big enough, and 2) because assets would take more time and money to make.
However, as processing power gets cheaper, we're likely to see more and more of a push towards rendering fully interactive content on the fly. It'll take a while though.

That sounds a bit like “the total world market for computers is 100.” Of course we will see high res content on pinball machines. It’s just a matter of time.

If you’re just working from 4K assets with a 2d target, it doesn’t take more time or money in production to stay at that resolution. There’s a marginally increased cost for storage, and your system needs to be able to render it. It’s when you increase the resolution and render in real time in 3d that your production costs skyrocket.

You kind of casually throw out this idea that pinball companies are going to switch to including 3d video games. Being in the video game industry, I’d love to see it. But I don’t see it coming from any of the established players because the costs are at least 10x that of producing the kind of 2D crap they are doing now, and they know it.

I saw a mind-blowing prototype at NWPAS that was basically Pinball2000 with modern hardware. It was really cool. But none of the existing players are gonna take a risk like that.

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#1300 5 years ago
 
BJ.

Brijam

Inactive member

Unknown

9y 58,300 1,093 26 23

Quoted from benheck:

Also why put an LCD on a game when everyone is carrying a smart phone in their pocket?
It's like LaGuardia's new Delta terminal that attaches an iPad to every table for the 0.0% of travelers who don't have a smartphone.
I thought it was weird that Dialed In connected to a smart phone but Pirates had an LCD built into the apron. Why not set your phone on the glass and the Compass appears on it?

Probably because it would be absurdly expensive to try and get a pinball machine to connect to a phone in any meaningful way. I sure wouldn’t want to try to debug software on all the flavors of Android + iOS. Nightmare.

Plus you’d have to convince people to download an app on their phone, which is just more friction to getting a quarter dropped.

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