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Themes grrrrr

The seeker

The seeker

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Oct 13, 2015
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Northumberland
So whats the deal with pinball manufactures nearly always going with licences themes? From what I can gather it seems too bring more problems and cost to the build than most other things, I for one am not swayed by a "celeb" or even a movie as these things get old and photoshop art ages horrifically.. I have no photoshop are on my games for this exact reason. Woe Nelly's for example was a great theme tho the game was perhaps a little lacking in play the art pack and integration was excellent. it's easy top come up with a theme 5 minutes day dreaming and i could think of 5 decent themes - that wouldn't age or cost the earth or bring with them the hassle of outside influence. So why are licences so important..
 
Yeah, that's not how the world works I'm afraid. People buy familiarity. And I'm pretty sure my wife would not agree about Woe Nelly's big bouncing melons being a great theme.
 
I love a theme, games get boring but marvel survives even the avengers
 
Well if TNA hasn’t made the manufactures think abit then it’s a sad day for pinball. I don’t think I’ll ever be buying the next new melennial blockbuster bull****. As for my gnr and Elvira I was lucky enough to get them if a chap in my village so couldn’t really pass them up. Woe Nelly’s is a beautiful theme that lays a little to much on enuendo but had they wound that in a touch it would have been a better seller.
 
I agree with @The seeker on this too but unfortunately we're in the minority with this view. Most licensed themes either suck or as has already been said age badly. Dialed In and Total Nuclear Annihilation are 2 of the freshest games to come out in years and they're both original themes. Medieval Madness, Attack From Mars, Whitewater, Fish Tales, Cactus Canyon and countless other machines are all timeless well loved classics. Many other great games of the era like The Shadow and Congo don't seem to be so well regarded by many purely because the films were lame. I think licensed themes definitely have the power to draw people in but only to people that love the IP in the first place, to others they are a complete turn off. Take JJP's POTC for example; it looks like an interesting game to me but personally I'd be a lot more interested if it was just a generic pirates theme. Black Rose > any POTC game for me anyday.

I think it's really sad that there seems to be so little creativity these days in any medium. How many watered down PG or 12 remakes of Terminator, Alien, Star Wars or Marvel Superhero films does the world need? All of these licenced themes were an original idea at some point. On a brighter note, Steve Ritchie is working on an original theme so I'm really looking forward to see what he comes up with.
 
The powers that be seem to have decided that themes are necessary to sell games and I guess they've done their research. I can't help thinking that some bad theme choices have had the opposite effect though.
 
Given that original games are probably cheaper for everybody involved - I can promise you it's because they have to.
 
ask Gary Stern.

DE were on its **** before Robocop and the two non theme games hes brought out since - HRC and Striker Xtreme are the worst games

williams didnt see the need from World Cup in 1976 to EATPM but Bally had huge hits with licensed games in the late 70s

I quite like pseudo licensed games that jump on the Zeitgiest without paying royalties. think F14 and Goldwings (Top Gun) AFM (mars attacks though really Earth v the sflying saucers)
 
Licensed themes sell easier to the general public and kill it onsite

And when you look back the biggest produced pinballs were all licensed

Addams Family
Twilight Zone
T2
Kiss
Captain Fantastic
 
Bally produced over 20,000 Eight Ball games, a figure only exceeded by Addams Family. It could be (in fact it was) argued that it featured The Fonz from Happy Days, but it wasn't licenced
 
I think a good game is a good game. Addams Family & STTNG are great games themselves but the theme adds to them for me anyway, because I'm a fan of both.

But I love WH20 aswell and that has no license. But still has a great theme and design. Same as my W?D.

For the public they kind of have to see a familier face to drop cash on something. Same reason celebrities endorsements with clothes and perfume are a huge thing.

One thing I'm personally not a fan of is the photoshopped artwork pins that were all the rage a few years ago. Like Spiderman, Ironman and even GOT. They arnt bad games but they feel like such a cash in and they have no personality, that's a bad use of a licence I think.

Compare GOT to Ghostbusters and you can see which one had a lot more passion and care behind it's design.
 
jack burton said:
I think a good game is a good game. Addams Family & STTNG are great games themselves but the theme adds to them for me anyway, because I'm a fan of both.

But I love WH20 aswell and that has no license. But still has a great theme and design. Same as my W?D.

For the public they kind of have to see a familier face to drop cash on something. Same reason celebrities endorsements with clothes and perfume are a huge thing.

One thing I'm personally not a fan of is the photoshopped artwork pins that were all the rage a few years ago. Like Spiderman, Ironman and even GOT. They arnt bad games but they feel like such a cash in and they have no personality, that's a bad use of a licence I think.

Compare GOT to Ghostbusters and you can see which one had a lot more passion and care behind it's design.
Click to expand...

Yup it’s a shame about GoT as they didn’t make the bar of Ghostbusters ;)


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Themes get folks through the door but the game has to be good. Take two recent examples. TWD which was awful for stern when it came out but after the code was sorted it was selling like hot cakes - at the factory TWD was known as the pin that kept giving. Batman ‘66 lovely looking machine hit the game was pants - a year on and it’s one of the best Stern produced. Both of those games sold poorly to start with but when the game got good - they started to sell again.

The whole archer / iron maiden thing shows that the game being good or perceived as good is key - JJPOTC had that but then they made a change and perception was focused on the three disk wheel now it’s gone perception changed massively.

GoT is a great example too, I hate the theme which put me off - but had the play it in a tourney and now I love it.

Neil




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Good games will filter through no matter if they have a theme or not.


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