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TAF - the one that got away

I don’t think any one machine is responsible for rescuing or saving Pinball. It’s the same sort of nonsense as people saying PlayStation saved video games.

I’m not really a big fan of Pat Lawlor’s games - any of them. Shoot me! Tell me I talk ****e - good for you as I still think the same :)


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mark9 said:
How did the bestselling pinball machine of all time nearly kill off pinball? Please explain.

TAF is still taking more than most of the new machines on site. My father was an operator and I know that TAF was the biggest earner, it was the last machine to be pulled from site in the early 00's.
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I think that was the supposed issue - basically TAF was so popular the ops had no reason to replace it, why replace a known earner with something else?
With TAF out and about making good money, the newer games didn't sell so well.

I took this straight out of TILT - The Battle To Save Pinball - but that's the argument they make.
 
Thereby proving that TAF and TZ are awesome in most people's eyes. Not everyone is going to like everything, but it is why I've had a TAF for 15 years and am looking for a TZ.

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ChrisH said:
I think that was the supposed issue - basically TAF was so popular the ops had no reason to replace it, why replace a known earner with something else?
With TAF out and about making good money, the newer games didn't sell so well.

I took this straight out of TILT - The Battle To Save Pinball - but that's the argument they make.
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Yeah that makes sense. So they tried to innovate with Pinball 2000 but it didn't work, the decline still continued.

A few years ago the situation was similar in the fruit machine market, so they came up with the dongle system to carry on charging the ops for the whole life of the machine. Don't tell Gary or Jack...
 
mark9 said:
Yeah that makes sense. So they tried to innovate with Pinball 2000 but it didn't work, the decline still continued.

A few years ago the situation was similar in the fruit machine market, so they came up with the dongle system to carry on charging the ops for the whole life of the machine. Don't tell Gary or Jack...
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Didn't scientific games buy Barcrest? don't think I've played a fruit machine (that i didn't own) since the mid-90's. It all went downhill from there. guess the manufacturers needed to create some kind of operating income, rather than relying on capital purchases (which in turn create an OpEx for the operators).
 
mark9 said:
Yeah that makes sense. So they tried to innovate with Pinball 2000 but it didn't work, the decline still continued.
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I don’t think we really know if that worked or not. It’s clear that WMS made an uncertain decision - although looking at the worst of the stern years during the 2000’s shutting down the Pinball division might have been genius. Hard to generate a counterfactual for this period with only one wobbly manufacturer.
 
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I've always liked TAF, I didn't used to get on so well with TZ, but having now leant NOT to go for the skill shots my love for it has increased as each ball now lasts more than about 10 seconds :rofl:
 
It wasn’t pinball or a pinball machine that was responsible for killing pinball, it was video games. I played a helluva lot of pinball and video games in the 80s and 90s in pubs.
During those long stints of play I would see the technicians and operatives turn up.
They were undertaking one of two tasks.
Task 1: open machine and take the cash out. Took em two minutes.
Task 2: open machine and spend nearly an hour going through tests modes and trying to fix the machine.
Of the two tasks, one was for video games and one was for pinball machines.
That’s why pinball machines lost the battle - profit isn’t just about the ‘take’ that a game achieves, it also about the money paid to maintain them.
If stern or JJP could make a machine that, despite heavy steel balls being flung around, it never broke, then pinball would be more popular than video cabinets.
The moral ? Well, the public do not decide what they like. Profit does.


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Arcade machines killed pinball.
PlayStation killed arcade machines.

It's a bit more complicated than that of course. I would say lack of value for money for players is what actually killed pinball. Overly complex game designs, excruciatingly expensive to play with games over in the blink of an eye. Not great when you're a skint student in the 90's.
 
Pinball flatlined for a while because it just wasn't cool. It became a bit of a relic. Arcades were full of people playing Tekken and Daytona USA. 3D video games were it. Whacking an actual ball around a playfield just lost its sense of wonder. For a while at least
 
Games like Tekken and Daytona also offered a tangible bang per buck. You know when you put your money into those that you'll be playing at least 3 rounds or until the timer runs out. The goals and objectives were immediately obvious. These are issues that pinball still hasn't fixed. Get rid of the side drains and relocate them further up the playfield TWD Woodbury style to give players a better sense of fairness and encourage skillful shooting. But designers seem to want to go the opposite route with huge drains and ever widening flipper gaps to punish players and supposedly maximize revenue. With that approach I don't see it getting mainstream again.
 
RobZombie said:
Games like Tekken and Daytona also offered a tangible bang per buck. You know when you put your money into those that you'll be playing at least 3 rounds or until the timer runs out. The goals and objectives were immediately obvious. These are issues that pinball still hasn't fixed. Get rid of the side drains and relocate them further up the playfield TWD Woodbury style to give players a better sense of fairness and encourage skillful shooting. But designers seem to want to go the opposite route with huge drains and ever widening flipper gaps to punish players and supposedly maximize revenue. With that approach I don't see it getting mainstream again.
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To an extent I do agree - the overall first impression most new people get of playing pinball is that it's bastard hard to keep the ball in play ....when non pinball playing friends or family are at mine they are always saying 'oh I m rubbish at these' as the ball drains *again* - some persevere and maybe get a good ball and some confidence, others just find it frustrating.

But it's always been that way. EM machines could be brutal to play with massive flipper gaps, no ball saves.

Maybe 'der kidz' just need to man up and learn to deal with it. 'Mwah mwah mwah mummy the nasty game wont let me win' ...Snowflakes ! :D
 
I used to be in arcades all the time in 80's and 90's but only played pinball when I saw free credits:D

No way was I going to spend money to watch 5 balls drain quickly, and also having no clue about rules etc.

Much more fun playing the video games.

Fast forward to home use and it's the complete opposite.
 
RobZombie said:
Games like Tekken and Daytona also offered a tangible bang per buck. You know when you put your money into those that you'll be playing at least 3 rounds or until the timer runs out. The goals and objectives were immediately obvious. These are issues that pinball still hasn't fixed. Get rid of the side drains and relocate them further up the playfield TWD Woodbury style to give players a better sense of fairness and encourage skillful shooting. But designers seem to want to go the opposite route with huge drains and ever widening flipper gaps to punish players and supposedly maximize revenue. With that approach I don't see it getting mainstream again.
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I think that this is a really good point. If you were good at an arcade game you could probably play it all the way through on one credit, or a small number, consistently. If you weren't very good you could get better over time, and therefore spend less money. You were rewarded for your perseverance.

Pinball does of course have skill levels to it, but it also has things that you basically can't do anything about. TZ in particular with those bastard pop bumpers, you can actually get penalised for your skill shot. They are so close to the side drain that there is nothing you can do if the ball gets fired down there. The scores I get on TZ are all over the place, often from extreme to extreme.

There is also the issue of variable rules. You could play a pin in one location, and go to another and find that the arcade owner has played with the settings to make it even harder, or simply just alter gameplay to something you aren't expecting. It can quite easily add up to a lot of frustration.

Reliability wise - arcade machines had a screen, a JAMMA board and a joystick and some buttons. Realistically the only thing that would break are the joystick & buttons, and in my experience you'd have to be really abusive to break either. Pins on the other hand stop working just from playing them, and TZ in particular must have been a total nightmare for any operator.

RobZombie said:
Video games ramp up the difficulty in stages and increments. Pinball is difficult from the moment the game starts. That's the key problem.
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Also a great point.
 
To me it was much more about seeing new video games come to the arcades and just being blown away. I remember first seeing Virtua Fighter in an arcade on holiday and being completely blown away by it. Pinball looked antiquated by comparison. It wasn't really to do with difficulty or rulesets.
 
Taf is probably the best game ever produced when you have all those big hitter new games in tilt and taf is consistently the highest earner says it all but Neil knows it all as always
 
TAF really rewards skilful play and can also be very (very!) mean (magnets) - due to this it has that 'one more go' appeal, few pinballs have that. I guess on site it has to be the right theme/IP and a great, addictive game to make people keep popping quids in and feel driven & entertained.

Also I think TAF is on average one of the shorter play-throughs because its quite tough, but long enough game to still appeal.

It's a very hard balance to meet and I'm sure was a happy coincidence at the time otherwise every table would have followed the recipe.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again. TAF is the Porsche 911 of pinball machines. It has its flaws and it's kind of boring in some ways, dangerous in others, but it's a classic. In fact its an icon.
 
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chris b said:
Taf is probably the best game ever produced when you have all those big hitter new games in tilt and taf is consistently the highest earner says it all but Neil knows it all as always
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yeah I know it all about my own opinion Chris ;)
 
lol

I spent about an hour and a half playing TAF on Pinball Arcade last night, until about 2am :( I've got a real TZ sat around.
 
And as I read this thread I remember saying no to loads of super nice examples at around £1800 plus:oops:

Darned pinflation;)
 
Neil McRae said:
I don’t think any one machine is responsible for rescuing or saving Pinball. It’s the same sort of nonsense as people saying PlayStation saved video games.

I’m not really a big fan of Pat Lawlor’s games - any of them. Shoot me! Tell me I talk ****e - good for you as I still think the same :)


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The NES saved video games!
 
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