Why are pinball animations so basic?

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#21 3 years ago

PanzerFreak

Pinside+ Frequent

Quoted from CrazyLevi:
Pinball noobs: why are they so basic?
Coding pinball animations requires a ton of resources, and the move to LCD has been a giant pain in the ass for the industry and has increased development time and cost more than anything in the modern history of pinball. You are completely off your rocker "expecting more" than the excellent level of animations you've been getting on modern games.
Yes, the answer "is cost" Einstein, brilliant deduction. Your "9K pinball" that you expect more from could not stay at $9k with the added time and resources for the ILM-level CG animation you crave. And frankly it's absolutely insulting to the people in the pinball industry who bring us these high quality animations on a short design schedule we've been enjoying lately in pinball. "Basic?!??!" Dear lord; most pinball LCD animations I've seen do a fantastic job in the context of playing pinball, relaying info, engaging the player, and ramping up excitement, and are of course a million times more complex than the DMD stuff that most of us were previously happy with.
You want movie or video game levels of animation? On top of the already ridiculously laboriously complex and time consuming design of all other aspects of a pinball machine? When pinball brings in a tiny fraction of the net gross and profits of video games and movies?
Why do I have to type this twice a week? It's a mystery, but I'll do my part:
If Pinside ran Stern (or any other pinball company) they'd be out of business in a month. We are all lucky there are actual pros in charge who know what they are doing and what makes sense in the business, so we can continue to enjoy new pinball machines for years to come.
This is what happens when people who don't like pinball somehow end up in our hobby. It's been going on for years. You want video game animations? Here's an idea: go play some video games. You want an authentic theatrical cinematic experience when watching an LCD screen? Cue up some Netflix.

I wonder why JJP consistently makes games with far higher quality animations then Stern with probably 25% of the staff size?

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#28 3 years ago

WOZ

PanzerFreak

Pinside+ Frequent

14y 123K 12,946 19

Quoted from CrazyLevi:
Because they spend 3 years between releases and have made fewer games in 10 years than stern releases every single year?
Not worth the time or effort. That huge screen was their biggest mistake; they’ve spent 10years trying to fill it on 5 games.

10 years? WOZ came out in 2013. It takes longer to do higher quality animations and I think its been well worth it for JJP as it sets their games apart.

Today's NIB prices are crazy and its nice to have those prices backed up in part by high quality animation work. High quality animations also leads to better theme integration. There's a reason people are complaining about TMNT and Avengers theme integration and part of that is due to the basic animation work.

Quoted from TreyBo69:
By having less than 25% of the output of Stern?

By spending the proper amount of time on software development versus rushing code development in order to crank out 4-6 games per year?

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#77 3 years ago

WOZ

PanzerFreak

Pinside+ Frequent

14y 123K 12,946 19

Quoted from CrazyLevi:
These are all terrible fucking ideas!!!
DOn't you understand that a pinball company will ONLY spend time and resources and something that will provide a return on investment? None of these dumb suggestions would increase stern's sales by ONE UNIT. It would be a complete waste of time and money.
Why do you hate Stern and want them to go out of business?

"Leaderboards, achievements, collectibles, friends lists, weekly challenges"

Those things would actually do the complete opposite of what you speak of and only increase pinball popularity + sales.

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#83 3 years ago

WOZ

PanzerFreak

Pinside+ Frequent

14y 123K 12,946 19

Imagine Call of Duty with leaderboards, stat tracking, and weekly challenges?! That would sure be something, probably best though to keep it offline. IT Technogies, maker of Golden Tee, should probably do away with all that crap too.

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#124 3 years ago

WOZ

PanzerFreak

Pinside+ Frequent

14y 123K 12,946 19

Quoted from CrazyLevi:
Look, there are so many bad ideas that get regurgitated here on a regular basis from people who don’t realize how lucky we all are the pinball industry still exists and that their awful ideas would help drive the industry back to death’s door if actually acted upon. I’m just trying to bring a little reality into these discussions. People need to understand why these ideas are terrible or they’ll keep repeating them.

Online player profiles with leaderboards and stats tracking that can be synced to any modern game at any location are bad ideas for pinball? No, that would only bring more people into the hobby and make players want to play more.

Stern, JJP, whoever could charge $100 a year for an online subscription if they made the system deep enough and people would pay it. Have a mobile app to view your stats, friends stats, leaderboards, etc. Something like that done right would be a hit. I bet it will come eventually.

Thank goodness Kodak decided to continue to focus on film instead of that digital crap, that worked out well for them!

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#152 3 years ago

WOZ

PanzerFreak

Pinside+ Frequent

14y 123K 12,946 19

Quoted from branlon8:
What don't you like about Wonka? I don't own the game, but I have thought the film clips maybe get old. I kind of like the way they have integrated so much information about game status into the screen.

The whole screen being the chocolate factory is awesome (great animation work) but the way clips from the movies are used in Wonka is rather unappealing. More often then not movie clips are played on a loop with no actor audio which limits theme integration. Then there's times where you hear Willy Wonka say something and it's being played over a different scene where Wonka is talking with no actor audio. Its all a bit odd, I'm not sure if it's due to some licensing restriction.

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#160 3 years ago

WOZ

PanzerFreak

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14y 123K 12,946 19

The people telling others "your ideas suck", "that would be the end of pinball", "that's not pinball", etc do more harm to this community then people simply discussing what they would like to see in regards to technology in future games. There's nothing wrong with saying online leaderboards would be cool, or stats tracking would be nice to have. The amount of negative comments in game threads over artwork, animations, quality, etc are mostly due to the outrageous prices Stern, JJP and other manufacturers are now charging for pins. As prices have gone up so have expectations.

I still think Stern and or JJP could develop a fun online platform that features leaderboards, contests, stats tracking, and player profiles all tied to a "JJP Player ID" or "Stern Player ID" account that is accessible through an app, charge $100 for a year for it, and in the process make a profit plus grow the hobby.