Lots of credible, informed opinions from this talk show host though... even about the hammer test...
https://www.captiongenerator.com/1495592/Has-Stern-taken-maximizing-profits-too-far
(Topic ID: 203700)
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2 months later
Pricing that humbles the competition probably assumes their competition are Stern premium or JJP std: skeptical a newcomer can compete with Stern pro pricing. Maybe they will shoot for under $6000, and can claim they are more than $1000 cheaper than the competition. I'd be impressed if they can come in at a $5999 price point.
Quoted from Darscot:That screen size and aspect ratio is baffling?! Why would they not go with a standard easily sourced size, that just seems like a lot of additional cost for virtually no value.
It's also amusing they actually squish the speakers in the vertical space to maximize horizontal availability. I could see a case for making the display as wide as the playfield, but wider? I could get on board with ultrawide but how about a more-common, not-as-extreme 21:9. I was imagining what it would look like if you flip the speakers vertically to the sides, and have the LCD the full height of the speaker panel between those.
I wondered where these formats are used. Looks like these are for advertising or supermarket / merchandising displays, likely used in Asia. It seems 16:3 is one of the aspect ratios, which looks approximately what this might be: about 4.5" x 24". But yeah, seem to be at least 3x the price of more common aspect ratios. Some seem to have Android hardware built-in, so might be an easy way to get your video/animation platform.
One of those JPop things? Different = innovation? The rest doesn't look that innovative, just an amalgamation of classic features from various games. Remains to be seen how fun the result will be.
10 months later
That thing is infected with jpopitis all over! You know those front grills aren't for speakers, right? They're the new patented jpop cooling vents! But now the jpopitis has spread from the superficial to the primary organs!
I wonder if they left it as pinball-as-we-know-it, and concentrated on the -playfield-, they might have actually kept their timelines and promises, and been cost competitive. How much time and money did these "innovations" suck up?!
First go around, might want to KISS with some evolutionary updates, like the wraparound translite which seems cool. But they don't want it to be easy, they insist on making this rocket science. Maybe Robert has the same defect as Jpop which is what he found so attractive in him. That seems to be what this design suggests. Two peas in a pod?
Quoted from benheck:PinBar is stupid. It's ugly, uncomfortable and shows a very Boomer-esque misunderstanding of why Millenials and zoomers enjoy location pins in the first place - BECAUSE THEY'RE MECHANICAL AND RETRO.
In fact i'd argue pins would become more popular on location the FURTHER from a cell phone they get, not CLOSER.
This is also why I wondered about your preaching that pinball should be more like a video game during AC development. I basically had the same response to that. Do you still feel that way? Seems a bit contradictory.
Quoted from Palmer:Yo dawg, I heard you like innovation, so we put a touchscreen in your pinball machine!
LOL... yeah, didn't we go through this all already, when Jack (edit, or maybe it was more Pat) put a smartphone into pinball?
Reminds me whenever I play a DI owner's game. "Can't you control this with your smart phone too?" Usually get one of two responses, "you can?", or "Oh yeah, I forgot about that."
Was that both birthed and passed away with DI? I honestly don't know if it's gone or a forgotten part of the standard platform.
Quoted from benheck:Video gamey as far as game rules. You go through the mansion and can collect items that act as modifiers for the boss battle. You can never collect every item per boss run so the modifier stack is always different.
I guess it depends what video game, the AC implementation seems fun, but sounded like it was supposed to be a bigger selling point. Not saying it was for that reason, but did that game ever even sell out? Seems to have fizzled, and that philosophy didn't make much difference in overall popularity.
Quoted from benheck:I mean, I think Rampage would make a great pin. Just whack the ball around and buildings fall over. You don't need to explain anything. It's why Jerry's best game by a country mile is Cannon Lagoon - balls sink ships boom done!
Man, not sure referencing P3 as support makes a lot of sense. It seems to be more of a counter example: video-gamey style pinball, and no one really cares about it (relatively speaking). I've come across P3 numerous times, even had a friend own one, wonder why none have ever had Cannon Lagoon on them: I've never seen or played that one.
I get you mean more the rule style, but video games vary so much there, not sure how to generalize all of them to pinball. You seem to be referring to two very different rule styles: AC is more something that requires some explanation and Cannon Lagoon is self-explanatory.
The other one that comes to mind, Stern's Star Wars, has software that seems more reminiscent of a video game. More often than not, the average pin head refers to it as pin chess, and not something intuitive or immediately fun. Some learn to love it though.
I'm still not convinced on this philosophy. It does sound like some of the DR titles will be going down this path, so let's see how they turn out. Maybe they will get a better balance of pinball vs video gamey feel. P3 seems to have gone too far.
Quoted from GuiitarMan:ACNC sold out and has only gotten better with code updates. It's a great game with beautiful artwork.
The time it took to sell out doesn't suggest it was exactly popular...
Quoted from Napoleon:They sold out in a very short amount of time.
LOL, uh, no... AC was available for a long time...
By the way, while Spooky claimed R&M was sold out in a matter of hours, distributors still had them a couple months later as well, and that was their hottest game.
Quoted from frolic:Debating how long something takes to sell out, or if it did, doesn't really matter as long as games are going out the door.
You seem to have missed the context, that video-game style rules would make a game more popular. The lack of demand for AC didn't support that.
There's also nothing to debate: AC was available for a long time, despite someone putting their foot in their mouth claiming otherwise. He lost all credibility.
Quoted from metallik:Now you're just being disingenuous. There were people clamoring for that game the minute it went on sale (literally), and IF there was any stock leftover at dists, it was simply because buyers were unaware, or the dist marked the game up. I don't think there were really any games available past the first hour... it just took dists (and Spooky) a while to make up their buyer lists.
You're wrong: not disingenuous at all: that's 100% factual. You could still order a game a couple of months after the proclaimed "Sold Out" from a distributor. I saw a distributor advertise availability and even inquired.
Quoted from metallik:Who was the dist and what was the price?
I mentioned it at the time when so many were whining about not being able to get one. His ad was up for weeks on local craigslist, before I inquired to double check availability. I inquired what spots he (Nitro) had available, and he said "In the 500's". The price was the same as everywhere else.
If you want to go back in time, follow the thread from here, and others said the same thing.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/rick-amp-morty-pinball-from-spooky/page/160#post-5414260
Edit: maybe it wasn't a couple months, just remember there being plenty of time to still order, someone else can calculate the dates, don't really care.
Edit: just checked my email, I inquired 12/29/2019, and he verified availability.
Quoted from metallik:And if you read the thread, you'll see a bunch of people asking WHERE DID YOU FIND ONE?! Even then people were clamoring for the game. Looks like a spot opened up after the initial flood. Spots open up even today... doesn't change the sellout status.
Be cynical and speculate as you like, the immediate "SOLD OUT" was just hype. Nitro's ad was up with availability and re-posted multiple times on craigslist, so didn't appear like cancellations to me. Others in the thread on calling around also found availability with their distributor.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/rick-amp-morty-pinball-from-spooky/page/161#post-5414427
3 years later
Quoted from jamesmc:The bigger picture is his future working for inmates doing torts and shit. As long as he's humble and doesn't piss anyone off, (good luck with that) he might have a future in a law library prison in his time off from work. I think illegally preparing law work for inmates pays something like a $1 per legal sheet prepared or something like that. He could easily make $50 a month if he stays under the radar. That's on top of the probable $25 bucks a month for his inmate day job. That law degree will just keep on paying dividends.
Burt Pugach apparently did this and made thousands, under the table I imagine, getting convicted criminals off on technicalities. I happened to get hooked watching "Crazy Love" on late night TV recently: fascinating story about another nut-case, ambulance-chasing lawyer.
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