Quoted from luckymoey:My esteemed Pinside advice for the new owner is to transition from the Aimtron board set back to Multimorphic or FAST as soon as possible.
I have zero confidence in the longevity of Aimtron supply or commitment to continued innovation for the pinball market. Maybe their boards are less expensive, but FAST pricing, even retail, is pretty damn good.
Virtually guaranteed some sale conditions were included…
Quoted from luckymoey:My esteemed Pinside advice for the new owner is to transition from the Aimtron board set back to Multimorphic or FAST as soon as possible.
I have zero confidence in the longevity of Aimtron supply or commitment to continued innovation for the pinball market. Maybe their boards are less expensive, but FAST pricing, even retail, is pretty damn good.
I would like to see more standardization personally. We don't need a bunch of different boards out there doing the same thing.
Predator was built on FAST and everyone seems happier with how things play now, but also I feel much better about someone taking a chance on buying a smaller run game from a smaller company knowing it's backed by standard hardware that's likely to be around even if the company stops making games. (Not hinting that Pinball Bros is done, best of my knowledge they're working on multiple game ideas.)
If you bought a Haggis game and it breaks you can get parts from FAST even though they're toast.
It's clear American almost went completely under. If they hadn't been bailed out by a new investor the support for their games wasn't likely to last much longer. If they were using FAST you'd be able to still buy boards.
Could FAST go under? Sure. Anything can stop. But every time a company like Barrels of Fun standardizes on it there's more stability in the market for all of us.
I would consider American announcing they were switching to FAST a positive step just for those reasons.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:his guy engaged with community and absorbed all of its helpful feedback and managed to sell 1 pinball machines to Pinsiders.
You might want to look again - that screenshot is from the planned Merlin's arcade pin, the actual Merlin's Arcade which has not been released that long is the Legendary Edition (12 pinsiders with 16 wishlisted)
Ninja has 45 pinside owners, with 51 pinsiders having it on their wishlist, and as you noted, it sold all 100 copies. Which is 100 more than before he made the cabinet change.
Screenshot 2026-01-21 134758 (resized).pngQuoted from Aurich:I would consider American announcing they were switching to FAST a positive step just for those reasons.
I agree with this but using the Aimtron board might be a part of the sale condition, it would make sense for them to try and recoup development costs for these as I am guessing they did not make a profit with the sale of the company to Bryan.
Quoted from ReadyPO:I agree with this but using the Aimtron board might be a part of the sale condition, it would make sense for them to try and recoup development costs for these as I am guessing they did not make a profit with the sale of the company to Bryan.
I don't know where this "you must use our knock-off p-roc boards if you want to buy the company from us" came from, but that would indeed be a pretty stupid sale condition.
I don't know anything about the Aimtron board system but Bryan did say the plan is to continue to utilize it. I've said this many times but the fact Houdini ran P3 boards made me feel a lot more comfortable buying that game from a startup company.
I feel like I'm being goaded, lol. It's always the same few people too. 3 different threads with the same people sharing their "expert" opinions about Multimorphic products. Welcome to pinside, Bryan, and good luck!
... and just to dispel the same rumors that were shared in slanderous ways when BoF was researching boards, the P3-ROC boards have been in production and available for well over a decade now, including through COVID. We've updated firmware and added features along the way, including hardware EOS support, and continue supplying boards to multiple manufacturers. We also use them ourselves in the P3, which is always pushing the boundaries with new features, which means we're motivated to keep adding necessary features and staying up with new technologies.
An interesting tidbit on pricing: We had aimtron quote pricing on some of our boards early on when they [naturally] wanted to build them themselves to bypass the middleman. The price they wanted to charge us to have them make the boards was higher than what we quoted them! They saved [a lot of] money by buying the boards from us instead of making them themselves, lol. Then operational management changed...
Are the Aimtron boards just P3 boards? Or knockoffs? They're clearly not exactly the same, and yet very similar.
I just assumed knockoffs. If they're actually P3 compatible and can simply be replaced with P3 boards if something goes wrong that would be helpful information.
If they're not ... then I don't care if they move to P3 or FAST, just something that feels like a known quantity would be preferred for future support. Aimtron is not a pinball company and there's no reason to think they will care about any of us in the future. We've all seen what happens to the value of games that cannot be repaired, they tank. Nobody wants that.
I personally prefer FAST because I know them and have worked with them on things like Predator, so I'm gonna advocate for the one I'm familiar with. Any argument for P3 is equally valid.
Quoted from Aurich:Are the Aimtron boards just P3 boards? Or knockoffs? They're clearly not exactly the same, and yet very similar.
I'm told they're software compatible and mechanically compatible, but that they aren't electrically compatible, which is why machines need to fully run one set or the other and why a few AP customer who received the AP boards accidentally by AP sales folks had no success with them. That said, if they're electrically compatible, then we get into interesting territory.
So they are knock off boards, that much seems to be clear. After that not so much. Seems nobody outside of American actually knows!
Anyways, all I'm saying is if you want your products to be more appealing to the general market not rolling your own boards is actually smart.
It's a waste of resources and support, but importantly to outsiders it's a weakness to the longevity of your games, which is part of what determines their value.
And aftermarket value matters. For some reason I keep seeing people say companies don't care about aftermarket value, which is absurd. If your games don't hold value then they have less value NIB, and that's a direct problem with your sales.
Confidence in the future of a game matters, and so does confidence in being able to sell it for a reasonable price (not taking a bath, doesn't have to mean profit) later.
Quoted from Aurich:We're getting one:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/monster-league-hockey
(They just announced there's enough interest that they're going to build them for people.)
Kind of cool I think
Quoted from iceman44:Kind of cool I think
I think it's super cool! You need the space for it, and people to play with, not for everyone. I have nowhere to put such a beast personally.
Doesn't fit into a regular pin spot, you need space around it.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Yep!
This guy engaged with community and absorbed all of its helpful feedback and managed to sell 1 pinball machines to Pinsiders.
This is the way!
(he did build 100 Ninjas so there's that)
[quoted image]
I just saw a Merlin on location at AYCE Gogi. But it was turned off/broken. 
Quoted from Rarehero:I just saw a Merlin on location at AYCE Gogi. But it was turned off/broken.
It was doing a great job at holding bags though.
Quoted from brucipher:I fully disagree here. While Cuphead might not be a theme people are clamoring for, it's a fun and interesting theme (with great animation), and a cool pin based off of it could have sold well. Nobody was asking for a Winchester Mystery House theme...and we see what happened with that.
I was going to say the exact same thing. Cuphead has enough intrinsic appeal that you wouldn't need to be a fan of Cuphead to be interested in getting the game. It lies somewhere between a totally original theme and a super popular IP. Make it a fun game and people will buy it for that simple reason.
Quoted from wisefwumyogwave:Fixing APs mushy flippers should be top priority.
Amen! You are spot on and fans are not a solution. Flippers are a critical piece of technology and game play. Having the best and most the consistent flipper response is something I addressed with engineering day two in Chicago and future games will benefit from our new design.
Quoted from wisefwumyogwave:Fixing APs mushy flippers should be top priority.
Quoted from gstellenberg:I feel like I'm being goaded, lol. It's always the same few people too. 3 different threads with the same people sharing their "expert" opinions about Multimorphic products. Welcome to pinside, Bryan, and good luck!
... and just to dispel the same rumors that were shared in slanderous ways when BoF was researching boards, the P3-ROC boards have been in production and available for well over a decade now, including through COVID. We've updated firmware and added features along the way, including hardware EOS support, and continue supplying boards to multiple manufacturers. We also use them ourselves in the P3, which is always pushing the boundaries with new features, which means we're motivated to keep adding necessary features and staying up with new technologies.
An interesting tidbit on pricing: We had aimtron quote pricing on some of our boards early on when they [naturally] wanted to build them themselves to bypass the middleman. The price they wanted to charge us to have them make the boards was higher than what we quoted them! They saved [a lot of] money by buying the boards from us instead of making them themselves, lol. Then operational management changed...
Quoted from Aurich:I don't know where this "you must use our knock-off p-roc boards if you want to buy the company from us" came from, but that would indeed be a pretty stupid sale condition.
AP has ZERO restrictions on what we buy. All I want is the most reliable board set and product for our machines. That holds for all components and materials. However, please remember that one user 1 data point with a product does not have any statistical meaning. I have heard the same good and bad about a range of boards. What I will be doing is meaningful testing with a large enough sample set. We will be putting a range of products through complete thermo-cycle and shock testing. This is something I know a lot about. I a recovering Ph.D. Analytical chemist . Cost comes only after reliability!
Quoted from AMpinball:AP has ZERO restrictions on what we buy.
I stand corrected. I guess Aimtron couldn’t get this albatross from around its neck fast enough.
I like what we are hearing from you and there seems to be well thought out direction going on. Looking forward to seeing what you do.
For the record ever since I played Hot Wheels and heard such great things about robust American builds my first NIB was going to be GTF but we all know how that tale ended… Beautiful game though.
Best of luck New American Pinball!
Quoted from AMpinball:Amen! You are spot on and fans are not a solution. Flippers are a critical piece of technology and game play. Having the best and most the consistent flipper response is something I addressed with engineering day two in Chicago and future games will benefit from our new design.
For flipper feel ("snappiness") you can use bigger coils and/or bigger capacitors to drive them.
But if you want to be serious about flipper fade, you need to concentrate on bushings with tighter tolerances (so less energy is wasted per flip) and a board that can drive sub 1ms duty cycles. Only Stern has that at the moment (they can do microsecond duty cycles, which is why you can hold a spike system flipper up for an hour and the temp won't appreciably change - try THAT with a Bally/Williams or any PROC3/FAST machine, they can't hold temp in that test).
But even microsecond duty cycles only helps with flippers in hold, not flips. They still have issues with fade in long sessions. The problem is accumulated heat and electrical resistance working in a kind of feedback loop that happens when there's not enough time between flips. That reality is why you see some games that don't have much of a fade issue at all - the ball isn't back at the flippers quickly, or there are timed pauses in scoops or vuks or hold posts, etc., while other games have severe fade after only 40 minutes or so due to the ball coming back to the flippers quickly and/or lots of multiballs. You can overcome that for a while with bigger coils or bigger capacitors that still push power in when electrical resistance is great, but ultimately heat IS the real enemy, and they will fade.
Quoted from PinMonk:For flipper feel ("snappiness") you can use bigger coils and/or bigger capacitors to drive them.
But if you want to be serious about flipper fade, you need to concentrate on bushings with tighter tolerances (so less energy is wasted per flip) and a board that can drive sub 1ms duty cycles. Only Stern has that at the moment (they can do microsecond duty cycles, which is why you can hold a spike system flipper up for an hour and the temp won't appreciably change - try THAT with a Bally/Williams or any PROC3/FAST machine, they can't hold temp in that test).
I'll do you one better. I'll run a test tomorrow with a P3 flipper held up the full work day. (We have a feature where you can flip, open up the coin door, release the button, and the flipper will remain up - handy for pausing gameplay during a good ball to take a phone call or whatever). If we have a thermocouple handy, I'll put it on the coil. Otherwise, I'll measure periodically with an IR thermometer gun. So I'll play for a couple of minutes to heat it up from the cold start, then leave it up all day. What do you expect I'll see?
Quoted from gstellenberg:I'll do you one better. I'll run a test tomorrow with a P3 flipper held up the full work day. (We have a feature where you can flip, open up the coin door, release the button, and the flipper will remain up - handy for pausing gameplay during a good ball to take a phone call or whatever). If we have a thermocouple handy, I'll put it on the coil. Otherwise, I'll measure periodically with an IR thermometer gun. So I'll play for a couple of minutes to heat it up from the cold start, then leave it up all day. What do you expect I'll see?
Depends on the mechanism/method you're using to lock the flipper when the door's open. The point of the hold up with a flipper button test is to torture-test a cradling simulation. Good players can cradle for long periods of time, and even with lower hold power and 1ms duty cycles, the heat still builds on all systems I've tested EXCEPT Spike. On older SAM and Whitestar doing that would risk blowing a transistor.
I know that the P3 board in hold on the standard pins that use your P3 system have heat creep in hold and fade over time with long plays. So it's not really a useful test if it's something specific to Multimorphic machines (using P3) that lock a flipper when the coin door opens because the board has the same shortcoming for hold in gameplay (as seen with cradling). No one cares about hold with coin door open because people don't play pinball like that.
Look, I know nobody wants to hear my bullshit so I'll keep it short: this is no way to run a pinball company. Engaging back and forth with the consumer (not community) in real time and laying out your detailed "plans" for the future...what kind of business runs itself this way?
You don't need to tell us you are fixing the flippers. Just fix it and then show it off in a year.
This goes for everything else. We don't need to know how many games a year you "plan" on making. Just do your thing and we'll see how it goes.
You can be a nice guy without making day 1 promises you might never be able to live up to.
We've all seen this before. And it often doesn't work out.
Again, I'm just a nice guy handing out some free advice!! The sugar high of podcaster attention and immediate positive reinforcement from random pinsiders...it ain't worth it!
I was never a huge fan of AP games but I was always incredibly impressed how they rebounded from the initial Jpop disaster, kept their months shuts and brought a viable product to market quickly and efficiently. They almost made it look easy. That's how you do it.
Quoted from gstellenberg:I'll do you one better. I'll run a test tomorrow with a P3 flipper held up the full work day. (We have a feature where you can flip, open up the coin door, release the button, and the flipper will remain up - handy for pausing gameplay during a good ball to take a phone call or whatever). If we have a thermocouple handy, I'll put it on the coil. Otherwise, I'll measure periodically with an IR thermometer gun. So I'll play for a couple of minutes to heat it up from the cold start, then leave it up all day. What do you expect
Look, I know nobody wants to hear my bullshit so I'll keep it short: this is no way to run a pinball company. Engaging back and forth with the consumer (not community) in real time and laying out your detailed "plans" for the future...what kind of business runs itself this way?
You don't need to tell us you are fixing the flippers. Just fix it and then show it off in a year.
This goes for everything else. We don't need to know how many games a year you "plan" on making. Just do your thing and we'll see how it goes.
You can be a nice guy without making day 1 promises you might never be able to live up to.
We've all seen this before. And it often doesn't work out.
Again, I'm just a nice guy handing out some free advice!! The sugar high of podcaster attention and immediate positive reinforcement from random pinsiders...it ain't worth it!
I was never a huge fan of AP games but I was always incredibly impressed how they rebounded from the initial Jpop disaster, kept their months shuts and brought a viable product to market quickly and efficiently. They almost made it look easy. That's how you do it.
Hey- I am just trying to be responsive and honest since this is brand new change for a lot of our customers. There was not a lot of transparency before. I am not making promises - just answering questions. Seriously - check out the name of the thread though - the people on this are because they are interested in AP and our plan to get it on track. This may not be the thread for you. In all sincerity - I hope a year from now you want to buy a machine from us. Thanks.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Look, I know nobody wants to hear my bullshit so I'll keep it short: this is no way to run a pinball company. Engaging back and forth with the consumer (not community) in real time and laying out your detailed "plans" for the future...what kind of business runs itself this way?
You don't need to tell us you are fixing the flippers. Just fix it and then show it off in a year.
This goes for everything else. We don't need to know how many games a year you "plan" on making. Just do your thing and we'll see how it goes.
You can be a nice guy without making day 1 promises you might never be able to live up to.
We've all seen this before. And it often doesn't work out.
Again, I'm just a nice guy handing out some free advice!! The sugar high of podcaster attention and immediate positive reinforcement from random pinsiders...it ain't worth it!
I was never a huge fan of AP games but I was always incredibly impressed how they rebounded from the initial Jpop disaster, kept their months shuts and brought a viable product to market quickly and efficiently. They almost made it look easy. That's how you do it.
Hey- I am just trying to be responsive and honest since this is brand new change for a lot of our customers. There was not a lot of transparency before. I am not making promises - just answering questions. Seriously - check out the name of the thread though - the people on this are because they are interested in AP and our plan to get it on track. This may not be the thread for you. In all sincerity - I hope a year from now you want to buy a machine from us. Thanks
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Look, I know nobody wants to hear my bullshit so I'll keep it short: this is no way to run a pinball company. Engaging back and forth with the consumer (not community) in real time and laying out your detailed "plans" for the future...what kind of business runs itself this way?
A smart one.
You are a walking case study for why these forums matter. You are here, day in and day out. You are so invested in Pinside I half wonder if you took it personally that I took a little break from it. Either way, you are in every single thread, reading them all, so that you saw that I mentioned said break in a few different places so you can keep bringing it up.
Which is fine, I'm happy to play footsies over it.
But the point is you live here.
And so do a lot of other people.
I have data that says the number of lurkers who read and don't post is probably a lot higher than you imagine. They're taking in this info. When you reply to someone you're talking to the room, not just whoever you're arguing with. I know people even read my stupid long posts, because they send me private messages to tell me. I'm only writing this because I know other people are reading it.
I've had multiple conversations with people offline about this thread already today.
The people here are customers for a product. They are evangelists and advocates for products.
If you treat them with a little honesty, like adults, you can earn a hell of a lot of loyalty. People do in fact want to hear that you're looking to fix the flippers. Of course you have to follow through, but informing people up front and then doing it matters more than just doing it.
They will buy things from you, support you, defend you, tell other people to buy. This isn't the CEO of Coca Cola talking to some soda nerds, this is a business where a few hundred sales matters.
Every message you write here can reach an audience companies pay money to figure out how to get to. Stern plays cute about Pinside, but they're reading it all too.
Spooky figured this out years ago, they're in the threads for their games. They can't even keep their new releases in stock for a couple days now.
I would posit, based on my 23 years of experience in community management, that being the new owner of a legacy company and deciding to talk directly to many of that company's customers as well as potential future ones is in fact a fantastic idea.
Quoted from Aurich:A smart one.
You are a walking case study for why these forums matter. You are here, day in and day out. You are so invested in Pinside I half wonder if you took it personally that I took a little break from it. Either way, you are in every single thread, reading them all, so that you saw that I mentioned said break in a few different places so you can keep bringing it up.
Which is fine, I'm happy to play footsies over it.
But the point is you live here.
And so do a lot of other people.
I have data that says the number of lurkers who read and don't post is probably a lot higher than you imagine. They're taking in this info. When you reply to someone you're talking to the room, not just whoever you're arguing with. I know people even read my stupid long posts, because they send me private messages to tell me. I'm only writing this because I know other people are reading it.
I've had multiple conversations with people offline about this thread already today.
The people here are customers for a product. They are evangelists and advocates for products.
If you treat them with a little honesty, like adults, you can earn a hell of a lot of loyalty. People do in fact want to hear that you're looking to fix the flippers. Of course you have to follow through, but informing people up front and then doing it matters more than just doing it.
They will buy things from you, support you, defend you, tell other people to buy. This isn't the CEO of Coca Cola talking to some soda nerds, this is a business where a few hundred sales matters.
Every message you write here can reach an audience companies pay money to figure out how to get to. Stern plays cute about Pinside, but they're reading it all too.
Spooky figured this out years ago, they're in the threads for their games. They can't even keep their new releases in stock for a couple days now.
I would posit, based on my 23 years of experience in community management, that being the new owner of a legacy company and deciding to talk directly to many of that company's customers as well as potential future ones is in fact a fantastic idea.
I agree. - results matter. Don’t think I’ve argued with anyone and don’t plan on it - I have been in business a long time and I don’t mind advice and criticism. I have gotten some great advise and ideas from the community on Pinside. After a long time of almost no communication at AP, I feel a little over-engagement is warranted in the short term. A week from now everyone will go on with their business! Excited about what we will deliver - we are working hard. Please feel free to PM me as well if you have other suggestions. Bryan
This is a niche industry; there is virtually no cost efficient medium to conduct focus groups, open ended surveys, etc. that would provide meaningful results. But in any business, you want to hear from the customers; in the pin industry, even for all its warts, pinside is that vehicle.
Based on his interviews, articles, etc., for those who have built a business, they know Bryan is the real deal as far as developing and running a business. Spooky Luc, Spooky Bug and Chris Turner have been masterful in engaging with the community and getting feedback.
Now it’s about executing and results. But I like this guy’s chances.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Look, I know nobody wants to hear my bullshit so I'll keep it short: this is no way to run a pinball company. Engaging back and forth with the consumer (not community) in real time and laying out your detailed "plans" for the future...what kind of business runs itself this way?
You don't need to tell us you are fixing the flippers. Just fix it and then show it off in a year.
This goes for everything else. We don't need to know how many games a year you "plan" on making. Just do your thing and we'll see how it goes.
You can be a nice guy without making day 1 promises you might never be able to live up to.
We've all seen this before. And it often doesn't work out.
Again, I'm just a nice guy handing out some free advice!! The sugar high of podcaster attention and immediate positive reinforcement from random pinsiders...it ain't worth it!
I was never a huge fan of AP games but I was always incredibly impressed how they rebounded from the initial Jpop disaster, kept their months shuts and brought a viable product to market quickly and efficiently. They almost made it look easy. That's how you do it.
Quoted from wisefwumyogwave:Nothing wrong with the mechs at all, its electrical and or code
If you go over to the GTF thread, a lot of people were complaining about the flippers and it was traced back to the power supply. If you had the cheap Chinese one, then people had problems. If you had the meanwell power supply, or replaced the Chinese one with a meanwell, then the problems went away.
Quoted from Hammerhead1550:If you go over to the GTF thread, a lot of people were complaining about the flippers and it was traced back to the power supply. If you had the cheap Chinese one, then people had problems. If you had the meanwell power supply, or replaced the Chinese one with a meanwell, then the problems went away.
Agree with this the new power supply solved many issues, code updates changed the game that had a bad roll out - love my GTF, few things in this world get a second chance but for those who have nor played a tuned in GTF lately it’s a great game. If the code gets some more updates its will be awesome.
Love that the new owner is engaging here and I wish him luck. A good theme, a good product, good support, good community engagement and you got something. But BOF proved it doesn’t have to be what everyone thinks will be a hit, I think shooting to be boutique in this industry now is the way to go. You don’t have to have top gun as a theme, maybe a decent theme at a decent price, you will get customers to a reasonable volume and you could capture the soul that people are searching for that many people say is now missing from Stern games.
To me soul in a game, is a shot or mode that keeps you coming back to a game. A satisfying shot or fun mode that is not always achieved but fun to reach, Air Strike multi ball in GTF is that. Stern Star Trek captains chair, Ghostbusters storage facility or mass hysteria, etc. Good games have that…everyone can name something from a game they like. Being niche, boutique seems in line now with what the consumer wants (maybe operators differ - that could be Stern’s place) I think the collector wants something special for the $$$$ a modern game costs. Think being oversold games (too much production, too many new releases…cough cough Stern) won’t create FOMO or a special feeling of something collectors pursue. No one rushes out to get new Levi’s jeans, or stands in line for the new iPhone anymore because they are always available, they don’t go up in value, they are not something special. Doesn’t mean it has to be rare, or expensive, but a good value, a fun brand goes a long way.
AP built solid games, themes hits and misses, burned some employees too but no one said the games quality was poor so you have a foundation to build on. Good luck, you’re engaging with potential customers which is always a good thing. Happy you are here!
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Look, I know nobody wants to hear my bullshit so I'll keep it short: this is no way to run a pinball company. Engaging back and forth with the consumer (not community) in real time and laying out your detailed "plans" for the future...what kind of business runs itself this way?
You don't need to tell us you are fixing the flippers. Just fix it and then show it off in a year.
This goes for everything else. We don't need to know how many games a year you "plan" on making. Just do your thing and we'll see how it goes.
You can be a nice guy without making day 1 promises you might never be able to live up to.
We've all seen this before. And it often doesn't work out.
Again, I'm just a nice guy handing out some free advice!! The sugar high of podcaster attention and immediate positive reinforcement from random pinsiders...it ain't worth it!
I was never a huge fan of AP games but I was always incredibly impressed how they rebounded from the initial Jpop disaster, kept their months shuts and brought a viable product to market quickly and efficiently. They almost made it look easy. That's how you do it.
And if he didn't come on here, I'm sure you'd have something to say. SMH.
Quoted from RMS1977:He has almost 40k posts in 12 years. That's insanity.
And you have at least 5 banned accounts in 5 years, and are working on on your 6th.
Wouldn't call that insanity, just persistence!
Good old Dirtbag66, APfan, pinpin8990, Xero, etc...
Quoted from RMS1977:He has almost 40k posts in 12 years. That's insanity.
iBtxf_ (resized).pngQuoted from RMS1977:Exactly. It's best to just try to ignore him at this point.
Advice you should take. You can't seem to ignore me no matter how many accounts you make, APfan.
Quoted from Aurich:Are the Aimtron boards just P3 boards? Or knockoffs? They're clearly not exactly the same, and yet very similar.
[quoted image]
I just assumed knockoffs. If they're actually P3 compatible and can simply be replaced with P3 boards if something goes wrong that would be helpful information.
If they're not ... then I don't care if they move to P3 or FAST, just something that feels like a known quantity would be preferred for future support. Aimtron is not a pinball company and there's no reason to think they will care about any of us in the future. We've all seen what happens to the value of games that cannot be repaired, they tank. Nobody wants that.
I personally prefer FAST because I know them and have worked with them on things like Predator, so I'm gonna advocate for the one I'm familiar with. Any argument for P3 is equally valid.
Takes you back to the old Bally - Stern Solid State boards
I love pinball, I love hearing about and seeing new pinball machines. Any company that can provide me those things is doing me a service in this hobby and I appreciate that.
Take care of your customers, take care of your people and I firmly believe the rest will pan and play out as it should.
Quoted from Aurich:A smart one.
You are a walking case study for why these forums matter. You are here, day in and day out. You are so invested in Pinside I half wonder if you took it personally that I took a little break from it. Either way, you are in every single thread, reading them all, so that you saw that I mentioned said break in a few different places so you can keep bringing it up.
Which is fine, I'm happy to play footsies over it.
But the point is you live here.
And so do a lot of other people.
I have data that says the number of lurkers who read and don't post is probably a lot higher than you imagine. They're taking in this info. When you reply to someone you're talking to the room, not just whoever you're arguing with. I know people even read my stupid long posts, because they send me private messages to tell me. I'm only writing this because I know other people are reading it.
I've had multiple conversations with people offline about this thread already today.
The people here are customers for a product. They are evangelists and advocates for products.
If you treat them with a little honesty, like adults, you can earn a hell of a lot of loyalty. People do in fact want to hear that you're looking to fix the flippers. Of course you have to follow through, but informing people up front and then doing it matters more than just doing it.
They will buy things from you, support you, defend you, tell other people to buy. This isn't the CEO of Coca Cola talking to some soda nerds, this is a business where a few hundred sales matters.
Every message you write here can reach an audience companies pay money to figure out how to get to. Stern plays cute about Pinside, but they're reading it all too.
Spooky figured this out years ago, they're in the threads for their games. They can't even keep their new releases in stock for a couple days now.
I would posit, based on my 23 years of experience in community management, that being the new owner of a legacy company and deciding to talk directly to many of that company's customers as well as potential future ones is in fact a fantastic idea.
TL DR 
All kidding aside Thank you AMpinball for posting here and letting us know your intentions. Thank you for listening to your customers. Aurich is very right about this. If I owned an American machine I'd like to know the direction it's headed.
RMS's constant cheerleading just looks fake and planted by now. It's really not helping.
Quoted from Sandman33:RMS's constant cheerleading just looks fake and planted by now. It's really not helping.
It's not fake. He genuinely LOVES American Pinball. It's his most prominent, consistent trait over his four other banned accounts.
It's not hard to spot him, he's literally the ONLY AP nutswinger here; there's more P3 nutswingers for Pete's sake! He's not an AP mole, just a guy who really loves American Pinball, hates the Chicago Bears, and worships the Cleveland Browns. He's also extremely opinionated and surly, which kind of makes him a natural for this place!
You'd think we'd get along better!
Quoted from Aurich:. You are so invested in Pinside I half wonder if you took it personally that I took a little break from it. Either way, you are in every single thread, reading them all, so that you saw that I mentioned said break in a few different places so you can keep bringing it up.
Which is fine, I'm happy to play footsies over it.
But the point is you live here.
.
You have 25,000 posts here, and that's factoring in the numerous "sabbaticals" you are always so proud to bring up here (you always seem annoyed that nobody ever even notices that you've left)
Why does everybody think their shit don't stink!? If I "live here," it's at least safe to say you have a long-term lease.
Quoted from Aurich:You are here, day in and day out. You are so invested in Pinside I half wonder if you took it personally that I took a little break from it. Either way, you are in every single thread, reading them all, so that you saw that I mentioned said break in a few different places so you can keep bringing it up.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:You have 25,000 posts here, and that's factoring in the numerous "sabbaticals" you are always so proud to bring up here (you always seem annoyed that nobody ever even notices that you've left)
Why does everybody think their shit don't stink!? If I "live here," it's at least safe to say you have a long-term lease.
I don't like it when Mom and Dad argue.
Quoted from zh2oson:I don't like it when Mom and Dad argue.
just remember it's not your fault and they both love you very much.
Quoted from Arteboy:just remember it's not your fault and they both love you very much.
But I love your sister more than you.
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Derry, NH
Mississauga, ON
