It's not yet the end of the World but it's definitely the end of digital pinball. While visiting the Ars Technica page (a site I follow regularly) I stumbled upon the awful news: FarSight is losing their license for the Williams-Bally pinball tables. After June 30th 61 tables will disappear from the FarSight catalogue. We are talking here about the main bulk of Pinball Arcade and a collection of the best games out there (including the Pat Lawlor ones).
I don't know if FarSight will be able to weather this out. Of course they are are already talking about Season 8, on track to launch this summer, based on Stern tables, but I am not very optimistic. Just look at what will disappear
The Addams Family
Attack from Mars
Banzai Run
Black Knight
Black Knight 2000
Black Rose
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Cactus Canyon
Centaur
The Champion Pub
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Cyclone
Diner
Doctor Who
Dr. Dude & HIs Excellent Ray
Earthshaker
Eight Ball Deluxe
Elvira and the Party Monsters
F-14 Tomcat
Fathom
Fireball
Firepower
Firepower II
Fish Tales
Fun House
The Getaway: High Speed 2
Gorgar
High Speed
Hurricane
Indianapolis 500
Jack Bot
Judge Dredd
Junk Yard
The Machine: Bride of Pin•Bot
Medieval Madness
Monster Bash
No Fear: Dangerous Sports
No Good Gofers
Paragon
The Party Zone
PIN•BOT
Red and Ted's Road Show
Safe Cracker
Scared Stiff
Sorcerer
Space Shuttle
Spanish Eyes
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Swords Of Fury
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Taxi
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Theatre of Magic
Twilight Zone
White Water
Whirlwind
WHO Dunnit
Wild Card
World Champion Soccer
Xenon
The list is depressing. Hell, Eight Ball Deluxe will disappear for the second time.
What can one do? Well, I for one downloaded all the tables I own and will not update Pinball Arcade on my iPad anymore. I suggest you do the same. Moreover if there are tables you would like to have now is the time to buy them. Still I am afraid digital pinball is going the way of the dodo and in a few years this blog will become one of palaeontology.
I don't know if FarSight will be able to weather this out. Of course they are are already talking about Season 8, on track to launch this summer, based on Stern tables, but I am not very optimistic. Just look at what will disappear
The Addams Family
Attack from Mars
Banzai Run
Black Knight
Black Knight 2000
Black Rose
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Cactus Canyon
Centaur
The Champion Pub
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Cyclone
Diner
Doctor Who
Dr. Dude & HIs Excellent Ray
Earthshaker
Eight Ball Deluxe
Elvira and the Party Monsters
F-14 Tomcat
Fathom
Fireball
Firepower
Firepower II
Fish Tales
Fun House
The Getaway: High Speed 2
Gorgar
High Speed
Hurricane
Indianapolis 500
Jack Bot
Judge Dredd
Junk Yard
The Machine: Bride of Pin•Bot
Medieval Madness
Monster Bash
No Fear: Dangerous Sports
No Good Gofers
Paragon
The Party Zone
PIN•BOT
Red and Ted's Road Show
Safe Cracker
Scared Stiff
Sorcerer
Space Shuttle
Spanish Eyes
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Swords Of Fury
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Taxi
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Theatre of Magic
Twilight Zone
White Water
Whirlwind
WHO Dunnit
Wild Card
World Champion Soccer
Xenon
The list is depressing. Hell, Eight Ball Deluxe will disappear for the second time.
What can one do? Well, I for one downloaded all the tables I own and will not update Pinball Arcade on my iPad anymore. I suggest you do the same. Moreover if there are tables you would like to have now is the time to buy them. Still I am afraid digital pinball is going the way of the dodo and in a few years this blog will become one of palaeontology.
Same here, I downloaded all the tables to my device and turned of automatic updates for all apps. That sucks though, I can’t just disable auto updates for one app.
ReplyDeleteFarsights mentions in the app that they continue to support the tables for everyone that bought that them before the end date. I guess I can safely update my app then?
ReplyDeleteIndeed. They aren't going to delete them from anyone's desktops :-).
DeleteAfter Vasili's "sky is falling" post I got the impression that You couldn't even update them or you'd lose them altogether!
OK tho, seems as long as you already have them installed you can keep playing them forever (or as long as MacOS still allows 32 bit games.. - is TPA 32 bit only or also 6 bit?)
The next Mac OS is going to be 64 bit exclusively, so after that you can kiss all your 32 bit apps and pinball games bye bye! :-((((.
Well, I ought to make sure Vasil is aware of the situation. From how he was writing in the next entry it seemed he wasn't.
However, if there's any tables he really likes he better get to downloading them pronto.. we got 9 days!
Regards Marco, from Doc.
Podcast on the subject https://youtu.be/4dMZzv4cBjo
ReplyDelete