I can't say that either of those themes interest me one bit... but I'm
not the target demographic.
Whatever they make, I hope they sell a ton of em!
Sure , we the pinball people know RS was already done. But to the
other very casual players , they may not have known. I 'm with John, I
can only hope Stern keeps making games.
Chad
I hope they keep making games too.. I want another NIB experience, but
haven't had one since family guy.. It would be nice,
Spider man had already been done, Simpsons had already been done. Hell,
they've already re-done Avatar.
Personally, I'd rather see a music pin than some lame geek movie theme
but I doubt I'm in the target demographic.
--
"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us
from the animals ... except the weasel."
- Homer Simpson -
The way I see it nothing has "already been done" unless it was done as
a WPC or Stern DMD machine. The previous RS machine does not count.
I think both are good themes. RS is more interesting to me right now
because of the theme and the rumor that Gomez is designing it (not
Borg)...
I won't really get excited about an upcoming pin until I see Steve
Ritchie's name attached.
John
That's really odd thinking, but I'm guessing you just don't like non-DMD
games?
-scott CARGPB#29
True, I am not a fan of EM and SS games. Even still; I don't see how
a 30 year old Bally SS game counts as having done Rolling Stones
before? The Stern version will not even be remotely similar.
John
Not to mention the fact that the original didn't actually have any
real MUSIC! That alone will make this version better. A music themed
pin without music is pointless (cough cough Dolly Parton cough cough
Kiss)
Greg
I think timeless themes should be revisited. Hell, playboy, star wars,
star trek, Pinbot, etc. have all been done multiple times.
There should be a Who pinball machine (other than that custom one!)
since they wrote the pinball fan's anthem (although I am sure sick of
pinball wizard.... mainly because every time a story is on TV about
pinball, some production tool will put pinball wizard on in the
background of it)
-scott CARGPB#29
-Mark
-----
http://pinballpal.com
Which would equate to about 2500 units over a year. Kinda sad.
MattyB.
And they can't base production on what people here like or dislike.
So what ever they make, let's hope they do a good job. LTG :)
"pinballzmylife" <silver...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1a4f164d-ab61-4171...@j21g2000vba.googlegroups.com...
Looks like you will be in debt for awhile. Get ready.
Just because SR left Stern, that doesn't mean he's done designing
pins ;-)
2012 should be his year.
Did people say the same thing when SpiderMan was done. There was
already one made so why do I own the Stern Machine?
I've heard this from a couple of people, "If Stern really wants to
strike with what's hot, then a "Call of Duty: Black Ops" pin should be
a no brainer. The theme doesn't attract me personally, but if it was
a good game, I'd still play it.
Dale
.... Or also Halo, Starcraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Legend of
Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, Half Life.....
The list of huge selling PC/Console games that are also long standing
licenses is pretty long.
That being said, I will definitely try and track down a Tron to play
once they come out. No way I can afford/fit another machine, but I
still want to throw some quarters into them.
-Hans
Well for the 10th time, I'll say Tron will underperform at the box
office and be quickly forgotten. The Stones will never be forgotten.
So lets go with the Stones.
And seriously...Stern should just stop with the TV shows and Movies
for a while. Give it a freakin' rest.
False. See, these are video games, not pinball machines, which is why
they are so popular.
Slapping a video game theme on a pinball machine has never resulted in
a hit, why would it start now?
super mario bros, Joust, those don't count..
Correct.
Joust was a hit?! They made 400 of them. I wasn't aware Super Mario
Bros. was a hit either.
Sure it will. It wont have anything on the pf either.
Well, i don't see any of the other cocktail pins selling for 5k..
Tron is a very promising theme, but surely you need to wait to see
whether the game is any good first?
cough cough Roy Clark The Entertainer cough cough
(I bought one kind of as a joke. I can't name a single Roy Clark
song. I'm probably glad it doesn't play his music)
Also I'm prepared to eat my words about TRON being made- there have
been so many rumors about what games/themes/toys/features etc are
DEFINITELY going to happen over the years that have all turned out to
be nothing, and I threw Tron rumor in with all the rest. But it
sounds like one of these crazy RGP fantasies (not saying that stern is
making it because of RGP) might actually happen.
Brad
>
> Well, i don't see any of the other cocktail pins selling for 5k..
Come on man, wtf?
It's a hit now soley beause of it's novelty and rarity.
It was a flop when it counted, 1983, and it's ridiculous to cite it as
an example of a video game themed pinball being "a hit."
But hey if being ridiculous is your thing, go to town.
So, that's what makes a great pin...what it sells for 20+ years later?
Quick, someone call Gary Stern and tell him the secret to success is to
build one of each title so they're worth more down the road.
apeshit definition
1. mod.
excited; freaked out. (See also go apeshit over (so/sth).
Usually objectionable.) : He was so apeshit about that dame!
2. mod.
drunk. (Acting as strangely or comically as an ape.) : The guy
was really apeshit. Couldn't even stand up.
dogshit
noun
obscene words for unacceptable behavior; "I put up with a lot of
bullshit from that jerk"; "what he said was mostly bull" [syn:
bullshit]
>
> Well, i don't see any of the other cocktail pins selling for 5k..
Being a rare collectible does not make something a hit.
Well, probably because Joust was a freak experiement in head to head
games.
Street Fighter pinball just plain sucked.
Baby-Pac was a freak hybrid.
Slap ANY theme on a bad machine, and you end up with poor sales. But
sometimes you still kick some out
Yet Mr/Mrs Pac sold 10k units
Heck even as bad as Street Fighter was it still sold 5,500 and is
Premier's #2 all-time seller
But isn't any outside license, by its very nature, trying to
capitalize on the popularity of something that's not a pinball
machine? IM, PotC, Avatar, BDK, SM, Tron, IJ, T3 those were all
movies/comics originally, not pinball machines. Slapping a popular
movie franchise on decent to good pinball machines seems to be working
to some extent.
My whole point is that if you want to try and hook a younger
demographic, you've got to go after the stuff they are interested in,
and the video game industry is bigger than the movie industry right
now. Just World of Warcraft alone, a single game title, is pulling
in around 180 million dollars a month, around 1.75 billion dollars a
year. It's probably pulled in 3x-4x more than Avatar has since it's
first release, and still continues to grow. Call of Duty pulled in
$650 million in it's first 5 days.
Look at the size of the E3 convention, look at the size of Blizzcon,
San-Diego Comic-Con. Has STERN ever even been to E3? These are
supposedly the core demographic that they want to capture, in big
numbers, some of whom are ready to spend a LOT of money. Why the
hell would they NOT want to try and tap this market?
-Hans
Diablo III is supposed to be coming out next year. Lots to work with
there in that franchise...
But I'm still hoping for AC/DC
>
> Look at the size of the E3 convention, look at the size of Blizzcon,
> San-Diego Comic-Con. Has STERN ever even been to E3? These are
> supposedly the core demographic that they want to capture, in big
> numbers, some of whom are ready to spend a LOT of money. Why the
> hell would they NOT want to try and tap this market?
>
> -Hans
Most of those people only leave the basement once a year to go to
COMIC-CON, they don't hang out at bars to play pinball.
Yeah, and it's their parents basement ;-)
But they sure spend a hell of a lot of money on electronics.
Yeah nobody thinks that about pinball people. pfftt.
--
Cliffy - CARGPB2
Home of the world's finest pinball protectors
http://www.passionforpinball.com
There is a huuuuge potential for sucess, kids nowadays would connect
waaaay faster to a halo themed pinball than a rolling stones or even
tron.
Go ahead (theoretically) put a rolling stones next to a halo pinball
in a movie theatre or arcade. Halo would perform much better than RS,
better even than avatar, because avatar as a video game sucked, and
kids alreay probably dont even give avatar pinball a second look
because of the fact the console game is shitty.
>John
You are so right. Steve, as a musician and a designer, would be the
only one to capture that theme and put it to plywood with quality and
insight.
Mario
Pinthetic
Video games make more money than hollywood movies. That old
stereotype of the loaner in the basement is pretty outdated.
I don't think that the kids that are interested in COD or Halo have
any interest in pinball. Pinball and today's multi-player home
videogames are completely different markets. Last year I rented out a
room in my house to a guy that was 23 who played 5-6 hours of Modern
Warfare and Halo 3 daily with his friends. They had zero interest in
playing any of my 10 pinball machines. If they don't want to play
them for free, why would they drop quarters into a pinball machine in
an arcade or movie theater?
I think it's funny that people always suggest that Stern needs to make
themes that target the younger generations, yet anytime I play pinball
on location, most of the people playing are older people aged 30 and
up even if it's a theme like Spider-Man, Shrek, or Avatar. I think
it's mostly a pipe dream that the younger generation will catch on to
pinball and why would they? They didn't grow up in the arcades. It's
the same reason that I have little interest in collecting Lionel train
sets or Wurlitzer jukeboxes. That stuff was before my time.
Right...but if they put halo stickers all over the trains, all the
kids would be magically attracted to that hobby!
When will these companies learn?
My opinion, they should really get away from Licensed Themes and start
coming up with more original ideas again. Just my opinion though...
If Tron underperforms, Stern will have enough time to change the
license of that game or make a new game. That is the smart part of
what they are doing by not releasing it (if this is true) until March.
> And seriously...Stern should just stop with the TV shows and Movies
> for a while. Give it a freakin' rest.
Seems to me that when they did NBA, everyone on here hated it and
thought it was a bad theme.
To be fair, there are still some Super Mario Bros pins on route, which
does mean something even if they sell for pennies on the resale
market.
I do think that a Halo theme would work well. The others that were
named are too realistic to be interesting as a pinball machine. Call
of Duty: Black Ops is about a war in Cuba I think. While themes that
have adversity in them are definitely popular, I don't think a "Desert
Storm" pin would have worked in the 90s. It would feel too weird to
have fun while playing. Halo on the other hand I think would work
extremely well - The games are extremely popular, there are popular
books, and it is spawning a movie in the future. Good signs for a pin.
Oh, I totally forgot about this -- regardless of your feelings for the
machine, and I actually quite like it, when it came out it was the
bees knees for pinball machines. Gottlieb hopped on that wave at the
exact right time, and SF2 was HUGE in the arcades, and even though the
pinball was different, it was definitely a game that got people to
drop coin, and it sold quite well too.
Mr and Ms Pac-Man as you also noted sold enough to be considered a
definite success. I don't know how it did on route though.
Where do you play pinball? Every location that I play at, I'm
generally the oldest guy there playing. And, I'm under the "most" age
of the people that you say are playing pinball.
As for the Lionel train sets comment, I went to TrainFest two weekends
ago in Milwaukee, and you would be surprised how diverse the crowd
there is. My nine month old son was most definitely not the youngest
one there, and there were TONS of things for the littler ones to do
to attract them into the hobby, yet there were also men there who had
been collectors for decades and decades. If you don't try to attract
the younger audience somehow, there is no way the hobby will continue.
I love the Stones. Vinyl, CDs, bootlegs, you name it. Not interested
in a Stones pin at all from a theme-perspective, maybe if the gameplay
is fun. It would have to be exceptional gameplay though.
That said, the vids, MODERN vids, are where the money is. COD and
other combat games are big sellers but for some reason (long drawn out
wars maybe) there's almost no combat-themed pinball games. You have to
go back to the WW2 era to really find any. I would be highly surprised
if Stern or anybody would make a warfare themed pin. I could see a
Diablo pinball selling though. Fantasy themes have always been popular
and "non-offensive". It's cool to slay dragons & demons. Zombies have
pretty much jumped the shark though so please, no zombie pins. You
missed the boat by not making a Zombieland pin. Double-tap! :D
Maybe somebody at Nintendo has a surprise up their sleeve. Remember
when the Wii came out and pretty much everybody dismissed it because it
was so lo-def compared to the competition? Guess what, it was FUN
(still is) and people loved it. Pinball is pretty lo-def compared to
the PS3/360...maybe some pin-obsessed engineer will create something
unique. :rolleyes:
--
bjsilverballs
This USENET post sent from http://rgparchive.com
I mostly play pinball in bars/restaurants/bowling alleys and rarely
ever ever see "anyone" playing the pins. And when i do, the people
are always age 30+. The younger kids I see are usually on the
redemption games or driving games. I'll quite frequently get a kid
that will want to watch me play pinball while their parents are belly
up at the bar but that's about it. Sometime these kids will get money
from their parents to play a quick 30 second game of pinball after
seeing me play, but that's about it.
As far as the train shows go, I'm sure most of the kids/younger people
are there to support their middle age dad that collects trains.
Either that or they're just passing time to check out the "neat"
trains on a Saturday afternoon. I've even been to the model train
show here in Madison.-but i have no intention of breaking into that
hobby as it doesn't really fulfill any childhood fantasies of mine.
The trains are really cool, but it wasn't part of my culture growing
up. I think the same thing goes for pinball. I'm sure some of these
kids with dads that are into pinball will enjoy the games when they
are younger, but once they become a teenager and discover girls or
move out to college I doubt many of them will actually pursue the
hobby later on in life. Don't you know that it's not cool to do the
things that your parents think are cool ;)
-Mike
Granted, im a bit of a rarity, as I dont see lots of other people my
age doing this, but I know that im not alone.
In portland OR, where our pinball community is the largest in the
country, most of our players are under 30.
Pinball is on an upswing here in the pacific northwest, and it would
be wise for stern to take notice of this demographic and cater to it.
Well, if sometimes the kids play and you barely see anyone... well...
Pinball does skew higher as a demographic, but from years of working
at, managing, and working at places that have arcade machines (and I'm
still under your 30+ age requirement), I rarely see anyone that is 40
purposely walking into these locations and playing for long periods.
There are a few locations that are the exception, mostly large truck
stops, but beyond that -- parents do drop coin in pins on children's
birthday parties, but it's generally the older "kids" 15ish or so to
the young adult 25ish or so that drop the most coin.
Admittedly, that is only my knowledge from locations in Milwaukee and
Illinois, but it seems to hold very true from my visits to lots of
other locations too.
> As far as the train shows go, I'm sure most of the kids/younger people
> are there to support their middle age dad that collects trains.
> Either that or they're just passing time to check out the "neat"
> trains on a Saturday afternoon. I've even been to the model train
> show here in Madison.-but i have no intention of breaking into that
> hobby as it doesn't really fulfill any childhood fantasies of mine.
> The trains are really cool, but it wasn't part of my culture growing
> up. I think the same thing goes for pinball. I'm sure some of these
> kids with dads that are into pinball will enjoy the games when they
> are younger, but once they become a teenager and discover girls or
> move out to college I doubt many of them will actually pursue the
> hobby later on in life. Don't you know that it's not cool to do the
> things that your parents think are cool ;)
We get free tickets every year - my dad knows some of the guys who run
it - and we just walk around and look. The kids who are aged 6 and
talking about this stuff with details I've never heard are definitely
not just in it to humor their parents. The kids who come in conductor
costumes and are happily sporting them are not just supporting their
parents -- more like, the parents are supporting the kids. I guess we
can just shun the lower demographic and say that pins are only for the
really old, but then again -- why did pinball last so long? The
flipper was created in 1948. My grandpa played pinball. Shouldn't
your logic mean that I should shun it?
I don't think we should necessarily shun the younger generation, I
just think it's a bit naive to think that the younger generations will
carry the pinball torch, once us gen X'ers are dead and gone. When
choosing a theme, I would go for something that appeals to generation
X first, like Tron that younger people could also enjoy, rather than
picking a theme like Halo which appeals to the Gen Y'ers, but is
mostly foreign to the majority of collector's that actually purchase
the games.
-Mike
Hey Dylan,
I'm not knocking the model railroading hobby at all. I actually think
it's pretty cool! I just notice that it's mostly people around my
dad's age (60's) that are into the hobby. Sure there will be some
exceptions (as there also is in pinball), but i think the majority of
people that enjoy the hobby are in it because it is something they had
a passion for their whole life and grew up with it in their culture.
I think the same thing goes for pinball.
I've heard a lot of good things about Portland and it sounds like the
pinball community is really great there! I wish i could say the same
for pinball around Madison, WI! We have a handful of places with 1-2
machines, but not a real good selection of games and nothing i would
consider a pinball community. I've bought and sold quite a few games
in the WI/IL/MN area (probably around 20), and I don't think I've ever
dealt with somebody that was under 30 nor do I know of any younger
people that regularly play route games or collect games that are young
around here. But I guess just because i don't see them, doesn't mean
they're not there :)
-Mike
I guess I could also mention that the University of Wisconsin is
located in town here. 40K students, and not a single pinball machine
on campus. There used to be a couple of games in the student union,
but they ripped out the arcade and put in a coffee shop. I just don't
see pinball as being a big thing with students like it used to be in
the pinball hey day.
-Mike
I think you're onto something here. The best thing for pinball may
very well be to move away from what appeals to the stereotypical "dad
pin geek" who loves Funhouse, Addams, Attack, Creature, etc. There
has to be a radical shift in pinball awareness/culture for it to
gather in a new generation. Serious pop culture/motion picture/music
product placement or reinvention. That is what will accomplish what
some of craving: the next pinball boom. It won't come from licensing
Rush and making a pin design that TAF owners will fawn over, I assure
you. It will come from something that a new generation can sink
their teeth into and that the "older" generation has an overall
disdain for. That's the sad, unfortunate truth. 13 year old smoking
their dad's on some pinball machines that the dad's don't "like" and
don't "get." But without the core support and basic, overall pinball
appeal, how is that accomplished? That's the question Stern needs to
find an answer for. Pinball may have faded out of pop culture
awareness to the point where it's currently caught in a Catch 22.
-K2MDC
-----
http://pinballpal.com
To me, that sounds like uptapped potential. The UW-Milwaukee campus
had between two to four pins on campus the entire time I went there
and they were very good earners from what I heard. One year when I
was working there, the campus put on "Pinball Expo" and had a local
route operator bring in 14 games and set them up for free play for
three days. There were lines at all of them to play, all from
students and none from professors.
On the other hand, yeah, it's not the 'big thing' like it was back in
the day, but arcades in general aren't the 'big thing' like they were
back in the day. Route locations are basically what is left, and a
considerable number of those are there to attract younger players to
drop coins into them.
Come to the Midwest Gaming Classic on Saturday and walk through the
pinball hall and you'll see that a ton of people playing are younger.
And what has been our most popular and highest rated section of the
show by all age groups since we started polling them? The arcade
video pinball machines hall. In fact, in general this hall is the
strongest in the 18-25ish demographic of any demographic at the show.
Between what I've seen on route, what I know from route operators that
I know, what I know from the locations that games are put at, what I
know from the Midwest Gaming Classic, and from having worked at places
that have arcades for more than 10 years, I believe that on route 75%+
of your play comes from people who are not in the "traditional"
pinball collector demographic.
I agree. I'd consider buying a new Stones machine long before a Tron.
The Stones machine would become an instant rock classic.