This shows you why you pay a real designer to design. There appears to be several areas of the design process skipped. Step 1, brainstorm

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Yea they moved most of their games to the new location which keeps getting pushed back, but look forward to the larger space dedicated to pins. I believe those few games left at Glitch are also going to be moved out once it opens from what I heard.

It also sounds like they don't know the fourteen or however many references to other Barry games contained within bbq. If you simply return to the bar with a tablet and show them one of the streams where Bowden tries to list them off, then I expect their opinions will change and they will each buy the game NIB (or at least an apron to wear sexily).

so you upset that you did not get a band or movie pin?
so what is acting sensibility mean to you?

narrow mindedness in this hobby. we have one company that ends up being different and everyone head cannot fathom, fathom a theme outside of the "Norm" i have a term to describe you.

Band and movie pins are the musical tooth brushes of the pinball world.

Everyone thinks that their theme is going to revive the hobby and we are going to usher in the new era of pinball. get that thinking out of your head. its not going to happen that way, i keep going back to the walking dead.

you people are shallow and narrow minded when it comes to these things python was right. their is no creativity in this hobby. a company takes the chance to do something else and and instantly roasted on the spit because, they did not cater to the "Formula."

you people squeal about instant buy in, its pinball talk for "I cant control myself" look at Haggis Fathom, yet the buyer wants to put their money instantly and gets burned but you people cant learn a few things, the people on this forum like to put up a good talking but yet went comes to actually putting your money where your mouth is, you people cave, because, theme.

its the self righteous empty talk from this forum that makes it hallow.

Go to the stern thread and most of the time its about what is "Popular" newsflash just because an IP is "Popular" does not translate to pinball. you would think that every stern release would grow the hobby.

this stuff is utter vanity. (Ill finish later).

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On the list of desirable themes that can potentially sell some games Hotrod BBQ would be a close 3rd after Bands and Movies.

There is a BBQ thread on Pinside.

LTG : )

This bit I don’t get: the hate on the theme itself. It’s BBQ? What man DOESNT like to bbq? Who doesn’t like eating it? It’s delish.
So why not a game about?

I mean, pinball WAS fun to us all when you’re picking up Gorbie. Or running red lights to get away.

Theme isn’t as horrible as you all make it sound. Gameplay? That may be another debate.

That’s ok. You don’t have to.

The only person talking about “band and movie pins” is you. The rest of us are talking about our experiences playing BBQ and how awful it is.

There's two sides to this, there's people that love original themes, and appreciate what American Pinball is trying even if they fail in key areas(the lcd and callouts are the big failings, and kind of falls to them being a small team that thinks they are cool drunk guys with a great sense of humor but more veer into the lame drunk guys category with cringe worthy senses of humor).

Then there's the business side, where people see where American Pinball are making mistakes and aren't actually saying they should die and go away, but are more suggesting they might die and go away if changes aren't made.

Their biggest plus is they absolutely can make fun playing games, they can produce and ship the games. One huge failing that is hard for them to recover from is their inability to market their games properly, the second is the embarrassing stuff on the LCD, and finally the lack of a license which is especially troubling since if they actually got a license it would help them in both the marketing and LCD departments.

I guess this is why they attempted the live action stuff with GTF, cause they lack the talent for making decent animation and interface stuff. It's strange as other companies seem to just keep getting better with time at this stuff, they almost seem to be going backwards.... almost. I know Oktoberfest and Houdini were not amazing but these last few games it feels like stuffs gotten even cheaper looking.

What looks like flash animations from 20 years ago is not really gonna do you any favors

If I had $1 for every time Umad confuses "Their" and "they're" and "Your" and "You're" I'd have like...400 bucks.

Fucking up "Their" and "there" is certainly a new one. That's gotta be worth five bucks.

Translation: he can't come up with any meaningful retort.

Here is a meaningful one then...

I will gladly give B.O. BBQ C. a fair shake when the piss stops dripping from the tip...

How's that for a retort?

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Houdini is the goat bruv. Don’t sleep on it!

Interesting, none of the 6 locations to play this game in the US is known for BBQ? Ok Georgia, but it's on the coast below Savanna which is seafood. I guess Louisville KY since it's known for Burgoo which the jury is out?
Where's Texas?
Where's Tennessee?
KC?
SC?
NC?
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The one in Louisville is at a brewery where a local pinhead has a handful of machines.

Burgoo, that's a first for me. To be fair, I've only lived in KY for 5 years. I guess that kinda makes me a local, lol.

They are looking for places to “house” bbq pinball machines !

Didn't it launch in more locations than this? Were those temporary promotional loaners?

AMERICAN PINBALL MARKETING

With Summer quickly approaching we want to take advantage of the time of the year to promote and sell American Pinball's new game BBQ. We should have some new assets to post on your website soon, as we are constantly looking for new material.

What we would like you to do is forward us any information regarding BBQ Restaurants in your area that possibly could house a BBQ Pinball Game. Our Marketing and Sales Team can help reach out to these establishments to help add sales to your business.

With BBQ still less than 2 months on the Market, we want to push and drive the sales for this game to the highest level they can be. So, send me your Local BBQ Joints information and let's get these BBQ Pinball Games all over your town.

As always if you have any questions please don't hesitate to as

Have a wonderful day.

AP sent this e-mail out to distros a week or so back and I am confused. What does "house" a BBQ game mean? Is AP just letting BBQ joints have machines on loan, or are they suggesting that distros put one on location at BBQ joints to help drum up sales, or is he simply just asking distros to approach bbq places about purchasing a game?

If AP is willing to put games at BBQ restaurants, theres a new one that opened up locally to me. I'd go there and get bbq sauce crammed into the flipper buttons every once in a while. If its anything other than that...good luck.

The double-shot of GTF and BBQ shows AP has no business building and marketing pinball machines.

I'm starting to believe what we've all heard; that AP is a huge money-loser and only exists to keep some billionaire's kid busy.

If only there was some kind of system or data repository where AP could find BBQ joints located near their distributors, complete with restaurant ratings, photos, and contact information.

to me it reads like they are asking the distros to provide them with BBQ restaurant contact info, and then AP will call them up and try to convince them to buy a Barry O's BBQ pinball machine. Clearly, this is a foolproof sales tactic that will send orders through the roof!

I am pretty sure they have already achieved peak sales for this title and it is all downhill from here.

Can you imagine what it would be like for some random BBQ restaurant employee to answer the phone, thinking it would be someone placing an order, and instead hearing Fix or one of his sales minions trying to pitch them on housing a pinball machine at their location? Just boggles the mind....

This is what happens when the Yellow Pages die dude.

What is the source of that bonkers text? How much would they pay for a scraper that gets them all that info at once?

Mentioned on some podcast was a flipn awesome pinspot or some such other horribly-named Stern Army knockoff concept and also a promotion for businesses to save $400 on older AP machines if they put them on location. So they're definitely trying to increase sales. But the execution. Woof.

Even if they manage to keep Bubba Joe on the line, they’ll hit the same snag: “Who the F is Barry O.?!” *click*

Wrong company.

LTG : )

Why limit yourself to selling BBQ, they probably sell ice cream, GTF, people get there in cars, Hot Wheels, they sell beer, Oktoberfest and they'll probably never escape the financial burden this purchase puts them in, Houdini.

Y'know, I never thought of it this way but they truly are AMERICAN pinball: beer, cars, ice cream, tanks, barbecue.

Ugh, the flipper buttons are gonna be sticky af. Part of the experience I guess. Bites between balls!

Pinball machine???

"They still make those?"

I'm going with tax write off or some real world testing operation for Aimtron's electronics.

It was an e-mail sent to distributors from AP from what I understand.

Come on man, distros are going to make bank by searching google for "bbq restaurants near me" and then forwarding that information to AP, then AP will call them up and convince them to buy a BBQ pinball machine from said distributor. Its a win win win win! AP gets a sale, distro gets a sale, BBQ restaurant makes a ton of extra income off their $7000 pinball machine, and patrons will get to get the buttons all sticky while having a great time!

I think they were making good games, I just am talking about presentation being lacking. Oktoberfest, Houdini, Hot Wheels, all solid games, but yea they are behind everyone in presentation on the screen.

Get the bugs out of the code and GTF is a great fun game as well - IMO anyway .

Cary nailed it!

I thought Hot Wheels had excellent display work. Existing show clips were fun. Overall typography/design style and custom game-specific animations were miles beyond Oktoberfest's clusterfcuk of CD-ROM menu screens.

Didn't love how HW shot and never quite understood the scoring, but it was a clear step up from Houdini & Oktoberfest in all departments, for my money.

I mean, sales is always a numbers game, so most people saying no shouldn't be a gigantic shocker.

It's just funny that they didn't already look up what BBQ restaurants they could sell to before they ever committed to this idea.