Bad News for People looking to purchase new tables

[locutus442]

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Official Announcement. (WMS)

Our longstanding licenses for the Williams and Bally pinball trademarks will finally come to an end on June 30th, 2018. Therefore, after this date tables from these manufacturers will no longer be offered for sale within the Pinball Arcade. However, customers who purchased any of these tables prior to the deadline will continue to own them and have access to them within the Pinball Arcade, and we will continue to support them as we do the other tables in our collection. This change will affect all of our devices and platforms.

So if you’ve ever been interested in owning these great tables, please purchase them now, before they disappear!

FarSight will continue to release new tables for the Pinball Arcade. We are excited to announce that Season 8 will launch later this summer and will feature all of the recent Stern tables in Stern Pinball Arcade along with several new tables.

We’d like to sincerely thank all of our customers and fans over the past decade. Your amazing support of our game has helped build the Pinball Arcade into the greatest pinball simulation of all time. Pinball forever!

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Everyone,
Here's the list of what will no longer be available for purchase after June 30th, 2018. (In no particular order)

1Tales of the Arabian Nights
2Theatre of Magic
3Medieval Madness
4The Machine: Bride of Pin•Bot
5Cirqus Voltaire
6FunHouse
7Gorgar
8Monster Bash
9Black Knight
10Creature from the Black Lagoon
11Elvira and the Party Monsters
12No Good Gofers
13Taxi
14Scared Stiff
15Twilight Zone
16Star Trek: The Next Generation
17Attack from Mars
18Dr. Dude & HIs Excellent Ray
19Firepower
20Cactus Canyon
21Space Shuttle
22White Water
23Centaur
24PIN•BOT
25The Champion Pub
26Whirlwind
27Terminator 2: Judgment Day
28Fish Tales
29Black Rose
30Black Knight 2000
31WHO Dunnit
32High Speed
33Junk Yard
34Diner
35Bram Stoker's Dracula
36The Party Zone
37Earthshaker
38The Addams Family
39Cyclone
40Jack Bot
41Xenon
42Red and Ted's Road Show
43Safe Cracker
44The Getaway: High Speed 2
45F-14 Tomcat
46No Fear: Dangerous Sports
47Judge Dredd
48Fireball
49Hurricane
50Inianapolis 500
51Eight Ball Deluxe
52Doctor Who
53Swords Of Fury
54Paragon
55Firepower II
56World Champion Soccer
57Fathom
58Spanish Eyes
59Wild Card
60Banzai Run
61Sorcerer

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WMS Licensing FAQ's

1. Why has the license not been renewed? Whose decision was it?

The company that controls the WMS IP chose not to renew our agreement.

 

 

2. When will the Williams/Bally tables stop being sold?

June 30th

 

 

3. Will there be discounts on the tables before the contract expires? If not, why?

No, our agreement with WMS prohibits there being any sales on their tables before we have to take them off the market.

 

 

4. Will there be any updates/bug fixes for the tables before/after the contract expires?

Yes, we will continue to support all of the tables in Pinball Arcade.

 

 

5. What will happen to the tables that are already owned (or unlocked, as with the Kickstarter rewards) once the contract expires?

Everyone who owns a WMS table will still own it, and have full access to it. We will modify the game via updates before June 30th on each platform so that players can no longer buy WMS tables if they haven’t already. In most cases, if you don’t own a WMS you won’t be able to see that table in the game at all.

 

 

6. Would future hardware (iPhones/iPads, Android devices) be updated to allow the Williams/Bally tables to work correctly, or will there be a time when these are completely unplayable?

We will continue to support all of the tables in Pinball Arcade for customers who bought them. This includes support for users who need to re-download tables they’ve already bought.

 

 

7. With the loss of the Williams/Bally tables, what's the future of the app? Will we see it continued with new non-Williams/Bally tables?

Our “Season 8” release will include all of the Stern tables that we’ve done to date for SPA plus a couple more. We will continue to develop and release non-WMS tables. Once the WMS tables are removed from sale, the remaining tables for sale in the game (Stern, Gottlieb, and Alvin G) will be restructured into different packs based primarily on the table manufacture.

 

 

8. What's happening with the staff at FarSight? Will there be layoffs?

There are no plans to lay off any FarSight staff.

 

 

9. Is FarSight working on other projects?

Yes, in addition to developing many more digital versions of Stern tables, more Gottlieb tables, possibly more tables from other manufactures, and an awesome 2D pinball experience for mobile, we’re working on a couple new cross-platform games that are yet to be officially announced – primarily for console.

 

 

10This sucks, right?

 

We are very disappointed by the WMS license holder’s decision – so it’s not great. But we’ll be working to enhance the players’ enjoyment of all of the tables in Pinball Arcade for years to come.

[cris3f]

At least in Europe there's 2 Pinball Arcade (season 1 and 2) physical releases, but this doesn't help for Vita and PS3 versions and it still only includes a fraction of the 61 tables mentioned.

 

[snakebacon97]

Though the PS4 digital version was drastically changed, the Vita version still lets you play the trials of (and buy) Tales of the Arabian Nights etc. 

[JumboWario]

Looks like the Season 1 and 2 tables are still up for purchase on the Honk Kong PSN store. Cross Buy PS3/VITA. I did not own any of the tables before hand, only the base game. Now own all DLC with trophies. $233 HKD for each complete season.

[Velheim1334]

I am very fortunate that I own about half of these. I am missing most of the later set of games (everything after Fish tales) minus Bram Stoker's Dracula.