Make FX3 tables free to those who own them already.

[vacantcode]

Or 90% off.
There is no way I am buying this stuff all over again.
Feels scammy.


================

UPDATE 11/24/2023

"Just chiming in to say that between the current sale prices, collections and legacy bundles, I was able to grab all of the tables on offer for about $100.

Now shower me in the Faygo of clown reacts for we have come full circle."


Let's let this thread die now, can we?

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

FX is not any worse than FX3 because FX3 had bugs too.

[Endyr]

Léon Cleaner's a écrit :

I think there is no need to argue about the marketing strategy chosen by Zen... This Saturday at 19h (European time) there were 68 players around the world on this game on Steam... I think there is nothing to add, this ridiculously low number indicates that there is a problem and we can turn the problem in all directions, it remains a very big marketing failure :-(

My dude, there isn't a single pinball game on steam that has impressive player counts right now. The player numbers are fine for FX and I guarantee you it will surpass FX3 overtime. You also need to keep in mind that the consoles combined almost certainly have a larger playerbase than PC and we don't have those stats, nor do we have Epic Games stats. I wouldn't call the steam launch a massive success or anything, but the numbers are fine right now.

[⎛⎝⎛-||-⎞ ⎠⎞]

Léon Cleaner's a écrit :

I
I play on a real pinball table, you have to stop saying that the new pro physics are perfect, we are still far from it.

No one says FX physics are "perfect", rather that they are a solid upgrade from FX3, which will not be updated.

Also, they're available (at least in some form) on the Zen originals, which was never (and will never be) a thing for FX3.

I knew pinball in arcades and cafes now it's in the bowling club which is in my city (Game of Thrones, Batman66....) I try to play as soon as I can, it's a passion for me.

You're far from the only one who is familiar with real tables. I've played them (regularly) for over 45 years now (since the 70's) and I suspect some here might be able to exceed that...

None of this is on topic, which is the OP claiming that they should be entitled to free (or nearly free) ungraded FX tables, simply because they bought a six year old product (FX3).

[⎛⎝⎛-||-⎞ ⎠⎞]

Vampire a écrit :

If you have the opportunity to try the table in real Monster Bash and compare that of FX with that of VPX of VpinWorkshop the latter and much more realistic in the behavior of the ball and the rebounds.

VPX is hot garbage. I try it with a few tables every year hoping it gets better and I'm always dissapointed. I have no issues with the physics (FX) on Monster bash.

Trying to get VPX up and running well (hah!) is more of a job than a game. It's like the linux of the pinball world in terms of setup/maintenance, albeit without any of the advantages. And don't get me started on how ugly it is when you want to uninstall the darn thing.

And it requires that you steal (basically pirate) the table roms for the licensed tables, which are not approved to use them.

So the only advantage (if you're willing to pirate tables roms) is that it's technically "free", which means little if you value the time it'll take you to constantly fuss with this messy emulator.

No thanks.

[⎛⎝⎛-||-⎞ ⎠⎞]

Vampire a écrit :

⎛⎝⎛-||-⎞ ⎠⎞ a écrit :

VPX is hot garbage.

Trying to get it up and running well (hah!) is more of a job than a game. It's like the linux of the pinball world, but with much less stellar results.

And it requires that you steal (basically pirate) the table roms for the license tables, which are not approved to use them.

No thanks.

There are videos on youtube you can compare without installing VPX even like that it's obvious

Watching youtube videos is no substitute for actual playing (and yes, I've tested VPX with other tables and it's pretty awful).

But what does that have to do with the topic here? (i.e. OP demands free (or nearly free) FX table upgrades because they bought a six year old product (FX))?

I quite like the physics on all the Williams tables on FX and find it a nice upgrade to FX3.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Those VPX videos also show the ball looking like an egg. No thanks. No offense, but no thanks. I really couldn't care less about playing these in a real cabinet. For one thing, because I don't have the room. Don't get me wrong I'd love to have my own personal arcade, but the majority of users don't have the money to do that or the space.

[Knusperzwieback]

Which game (other than Pinball FX 2 to 3) actually offered everything for free (or almost free) in the last few years when a new version came out.

There must have been a lot, if the list with which self-understanding is demanded to continue to get everything for free.

But I'm not up to date with current games because I almost only play old stuff and niche stuff.

Maybe it's actually the case with the big manufacturers. I would be interested to know how it is today.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Knusperzwieback a écrit :

Which game (other than Pinball FX 2 to 3) actually offered everything for free (or almost free) in the last few years when a new version came out.

There must have been a lot, if the list with which self-understanding is demanded to continue to get everything for free.

But I'm not up to date with current games because I almost only play old stuff and niche stuff.

Maybe it's actually the case with the big manufacturers. I would be interested to know how it is today.

I'm not actually sure what you're referring to but, even the FX2 tables that carried over into FX3 I had to pay for. I didn't pay much for them but I still had to pay for them. I think one of the major problems here is a lot of people have gotten used to paying for the stuff for cheap or either getting it for free.

At first I was pretty upset knowing that I was going to have to pay again for tables in FX. However, as I've stated many times in this thread and others, the 50% discount isn't that bad. Furthermore, there is even a 50% off discount for the Indiana Jones bundle which is the only Williams table that I didn't have in FX3. So if I buy that bundle I'm basically getting two tables for the price of one.

I also didn't have to pay again to get The Addams Family in Steam, since I bought it on Epic. So I really don't understand why people are getting so upset about pricing. Bugs? Yeah I could see people getting upset about that. The pricing seems to be pretty fair in my opinion.

[FoxyLoxy]

Pinballwiz45b a écrit :

Regarding no table transfers, 5 minutes in:

https://youtu.be/2ndzIPd0d9I?t=277

Suddenly, those third parties who said "no", that subset of tables is officially out of Zen's hands.

Thanks for the link. Very interesting.

A SUMMARY

- DOOM is coming (i.e. Bethesda pack, presumably).

- 30 tables in development.

- Zen couldn’t get license holders to transfer titles.

- Zen are considering a one day or a weekend pinball pass.

- Zen couldn’t keep user's platform table entitlements when they moved to "Pinball FX".

- The tickets system will not be revisted.

- The in-game cosmetics store will be "built out" with some of the new licenses they have.. “Think Addams Family Gold version. Stuff like that”.

- Zen are not in any business-related discussions with Stern. “Licensing gets in the way”. At some point in time, there may be something happening. But nothing now.

- Zen are “thinking about” bringing back classic PC/console pinball games. Can’t say more. They tried to get Space Cadet, couldn’t, harder than Indy to acquire. Would give it away free if they could.

- Nintendo Switch version had to be delayed to, hopefully, July. Too much optimisation work to be done. Zen really have to pay attention to font size…

[Steam Deck? Same issue.]

- “Could we see like an explorable gallery of all the tables you own, that you can walk around, and digital games like Space Cadet, maybe license other games as arcade standalone games, minigames.” Answer: YES. “Pinball machines are very lonely by themselves.”


MY VIEW


Mel didn't go in to detail about the entitlements. He implies that going to Unreal 4 required a new product. (And thus, loss of entitlements.)

Modernising to Unreal 4 is one thing. Creating a new product with Unreal 4 is another. It would have been nice for Zel to explain why they couldn't modernise PFX3, in-place, keeping existing platform entitlements, and thus not require table transfers in the first place. Maybe it was technically infeasible, who knows?

Mel was not asked about the EGS exclusivity decision, or the decision to keep Steam users in the dark for a year.

So, really, the big issue for me is not about whether license/platform holders are willing to transfer tables -- you can't really expect them to -- but rather about Zen's decision to create Pinball FX (and go exclusive with it) in the first place.

And then, as you say Wiz, there's the issue of the transfer of Zen's original, non-licensed tables.

I think this situation could have been mitigated with better, more transparent communication from Zen some years ago.

[Jambon Emmental]

⎛⎝⎛-||-⎞ ⎠⎞ a écrit :

Wrong. Moving to a new engine entails reprogramming the tables, and often updating assets (i.e. 4k), which costs money, staffing, time, etc. UE4 (and UE5) engines offer the ability concentrate on programming new tables rather than constantly maintaining, updating their custom engine.

It's not an easy, free or automatic process, and as such, it's not free for you either.

I totally get that Zen has to cover its costs. Presumably the Epic money went some way toward that but who knows how much that was. So assuming that only went so far then they would obviously need to look elsewhere for additional revenue. However, I guess the extent to which the remaining costs needed to be covered by the "legacy" FX3 (and FX2...) customers remains an open question. Especially when it's clear that a lot of those customers don't greatly value the improvements that have resulted from the move to FX (like you say, nobody is forcing them to re-buy the tables in FX).

However I do wonder what would have happened if Zen had at least given the old Zen original tables away for free to their legacy customers, and then maybe just charged them a small fee for any previously purchased licensed tables to go towards the cost of renewing the licenses (my thinking being that maybe the legacy folk might be more understanding of having to pay at least something for those as they can blame the rights holders rather than Zen...). Then the legacy customers might have had more goodwill towards Zen and might have been more likely to spend money on the new tables because they didn't feel (rightly or wrongly) that they'd been nickel and dimed. They might also have been more likely to leave positive reviews, which in turn might have helped attract more new customers. Of course, we'll never know how that would have played out because we don't have a time machine but it might have been that revenues ultimately increased, partly due to legacy customers buying more of the new tables and partly from there being more new customers as a result of the more positive reviews. Just a theory anyhow and i know nothing about business so i'm probably spouting nonsense.

[RedBoyke]

Embracer group saw a failure in saints row. So they decided to be extra greedy with Zen pinball. And now they have LOTR Mmo to worry about. Wich makes Zen pinball not realy important to them anymore.

[punchobastardo]

C²C^Guyver |NZB| a écrit :

Those VPX videos also show the ball looking like an egg. No thanks. No offense, but no thanks.

...
that's "perspective" you know, it's the same in FX and you are overexaggerating...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt_uWbWpnnM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBjCCmYV7c
There's a setting for it in the preferences if you want the ball to look always like a sphere despite the viewing angle, a thing like many that you can't do with FX.

VPX not only looks better and more realistically, especially with the VPW project, but its physics are miles better as well especially those nFozzy physics are the real thing. Metal and mass like in reality, not that hard-rubber light mass of FX. Ball comes down and ...booooing.
Not to speak about its superior audio, flipper, slingshot, bumper, ball sound, and how it doesn't need 35 GB of space and utilizing more than 75% of a 3080Ti GPU power for inferior graphics and performance.
FX is just "fake" everywhere, and "ugly" in every department.

(added bonus video: the VPX to VPW improvement https://youtu.be/ZQgEbsB-E5I?t=134 )

[ANGELICA ZAPATA]

Not to mention FiZX in FP...

[Pinballwiz45b]

FoxyLoxy a écrit :

MY VIEW

Mel didn't go in to detail about the entitlements. He implies that going to Unreal 4 required a new product. (And thus, loss of entitlements.)

Modernising to Unreal 4 is one thing. Creating a new product with Unreal 4 is another. It would have been nice for Zen to explain why they couldn't modernise PFX3, in-place, keeping existing platform entitlements, and thus not require table transfers in the first place. Maybe it was technically infeasible, who knows?

Mel was not asked about the EGS exclusivity decision, or the decision to keep Steam users in the dark for a year.

So, really, the big issue for me is not about whether license/platform holders are willing to transfer tables -- you can't really expect them to -- but rather about Zen's decision to create Pinball FX (and go exclusive with it) in the first place.

And then, as you say Wiz, there's the issue of the transfer of Zen's original, non-licensed tables.

I think this situation could have been mitigated with better, more transparent communication from Zen some years ago.

I don't think it's that simple of an answer. I think a similar analogy would be trying to run a VPX 10.7 table on VPX 10.6, as an example. Or a VPX table on VP9.

I'm not sure if assets suited for a custom engine are that simple to port. Beat Hazard 2 uses UE4 as a custom launch option, but in Zen's case, you're rebuilding near 100 tables in Unreal 4. Stack that on top of building new tables, original and WMS.

There's also: you'd have to apply those same physics and gameplay changes to the other engine. Zen was going to run across those physics issues regardless. On top of that, Zen was already having trouble getting non-DMD displays in FX3, given Space Station's creation before Volume 5 / Universal Monsters. It's a LOT of unnecessary work creating new tables for two engines, and you need a lot more man hours for that. Zen creating a new game, here, is the best course of action. FX3 remains completely functional; if they messed with the physics on all the tables in that game, there'd be about as many unhappy campers there as it is here. Sorcerer's Lair comes to mind, as an example.

Zen built Indiana Jones twice, per the December 2021 announcement. Zen's also been using Unreal for pinball since late 2019/early 2020, given Mandalorian's teaser in October. Mandalorian IMMEDIATELY follows Volume 6.

As for why they went exclusive [SPECULATION]: All you need to do is look at the table catalogue, at Early Access launch. 6 new tables, 3 of them are licensed. 2 of those licenses exist in VR. It's likely Zen had plans locked in place as far back as 2019, and the Cabinet Mode table numbers as enough proof as I can get. If Farsight couldn't get Indy, that automatically means it's more expensive than the value from the Addams Family Kickstarter campaign.

https://twitter.com/Mel_G_Kirk/status/1186685854082666497

There are more available sources online for putting the puzzle together, but that's just my take on this.

Licensing/third parties might also have a say in this. Sticking with the BH2 comparison above, Zen's creating new assets in a different engine. Maybe the exact same in looks, but different in a way such that they're two completely different products. You might have something like "MARVEL_CIVILWAR" as a table name in FX3, but Unreal names the tables/pak files differently. I don't know the exact process, but it's something third parties might not want Zen doing, creating Unreal assets specifically for FX3 and handing them out for free.

[AndyMcDandyCDN]

No one should trust what Mel Kirk says. For 2yrs he kept saying table transfers not possible because of different engine. Now he's drop that response to blaming rights holders.

He lied about cross purchase can only be done with in-game predatory payment system.