Addams Family Coming to The Pinball Arcade on PS4

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Addams Family Coming to The Pinball Arcade on PS4

My name is Mike Lindsey and I’m the Community Manager here at FarSight Studios. Badger and I handle many of the community tasks at the studio, as well as host a monthly Twitch stream where we show off the new pinball table before it’s released. We live in the mountains of Southern California and frequently have to shovel the snow from our driveways before leaving for work. We didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose us. It’s been a little while since we posted, and we have lots of new DLC coming out with this one!

We are proud to announce that we will be releasing the awesome Addams Family, Starship Troopers, Earthshaker, and Party Zone tables for PS4 on March 17th.

The Pinball Arcade

This launch brings the amount of tables available in your digital pinball collection to 56! These machines used to be found in arcades across America before video arcade games replaced them (bummer). That’s why we are here, to introduce a new generation to the amazing themes, designs, and deep rules that come with pinball tables.

The Addams Family was released by Williams in 1992 and is unquestionably one of the greatest pinball tables in the history of pinball, with over 20,000 units sold (More than any table ever!). It was designed by the legendary Pat Lawlor and Larry DeMar (who also designed Twilight Zone, Banzai Run, and Funhouse).

This table was integrated more deeply to the movie than any other licensed pinball table of its time. The Addams Family featured the first ever optical target bank (in the bookcase), and the “Thing Flip” which was the first time a pinball tables flippers could be controlled by the tables CPU. When the “Thing Flip” is active the table can actually make shots for you. Another great feature is “The Power” which causes magnets to dramatically affect the direction of the ball on the playfield. It’s one of our favorite tables ever!

The Pinball Arcade

Thanks to our amazing Kickstarter backers, we were able to raise the funds needed to secure the licenses to digitize this amazing piece of Americana. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the overwhelming support of our fans! THANK YOU GUYS!

The Addams Family isn’t the only headliner launching with this batch of tables, though!

Starship Troopers

Badger and I would agree that Starship Troopers is one of our favorite licenses. The movie came out when we were around 10 (give or take) and it definitely had us running around the yard calling ourselves “Rico.” And don’t even get us started on Denise Richards.

The Pinball Arcade

Starship Troopers (1997): features the license for the popular film of the same name released in 1997. Designed by Joe Balcer and Joe Kaminkow, this table conveys the style and feel of the movie with its vibrantly colored playfield, music from the movie, and custom speech. The gameplay features hardcore sci-fi action with three Flippers, high scoring Nuke ’em rounds, four unique Multi-Ball modes, a moving Warrior Bug live fire battle simulator, and a Brain Bug that pops out of the playfield! Starship Troopers has appropriately been described as easy to play but hard to master.

Earthshaker

I’m sure many of you have heard, we have some pretty crazy earthquakes out here in California. This table was inspired by the semi-frequent earthshakers we get due to the San Andreas Fault. It’s just a little taste of some California excitement!

The Pinball Arcade

Earthshaker (1989): Designed by Pat Lawlor, this entertaining table features a shaker motor built into the cabinet that physically shakes the table when an earthquake is triggered. Early versions of the table featured a building that sunk down into the table during the earthquake but was removed for cost reasons. 200 of these special tables were released. A bright colorful playfield, interesting rule set, and great music and sound make Earthshaker a true pinball classic. 5,265 units of this table were produced.

Party Zone

Sometimes you gotta party, but don’t want to leave the house. Now you can! Just fire up Party Zone and never leave home again!

The Pinball Arcade

Party Zone (1991): Designed by Dennis Nordman, this table’s theme is all about having a good time. Players are challenged with getting the Party Animals, Party Monsters and Party Dudes to the Cosmic Cottage for a Multi-Ball Party! From there, they’ll score Jackpots and shoot for the ultimate Big Bang! Request Time allows players to make way cool musical selections using the Flippers, including Pinball Wizard from The Who! The colorful Playfield includes awesome features such as the Dancing Dummy who bops ’til he drops, the host and DJ, Captain B. Zarr, whose head animates and follows the ball around the Playfield and the Prince of Puns, the Supersonic Robotic Comic. When it’s time to party, there is no better place than Bally’s Party Zone. 4,000 units of this table were produced.

Come hang out with Badger and I on Twitch Wednesday, March 18th at 3:00 PM Pacific! We will be showing off the new tables and the super cool Addams Family Ball Pack which you definitely don’t want to miss. Everyone that shows up has the chance to win some free stuff so, set a reminder and don’t forget to follow us.

We will see you at the Twitch stream!

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46 Comments

17 Author Replies

  • Sweet baby jeebus my favorite table growing up. This and funhouse represent hundreds of dollars in quarters in my youth. Now I will own both. Thank you!

    • The fans made it happen! We have all the physical machine here at the studio and since we’ve brought this one in, we are all addicted. Definitely the best selling pinball table of all time for a reason! :-D

  • Can we get an update on when Vita owners will get the season 4 tables?

    • The massive amount of content we have available in our game has finally caused us to reach some limitations of the Vita hardware. We are currently optimizing the game and should have thing ironed out in the next few weeks. We don’t have an official release date, but we will be announcing in our newsletter and on our social media pages soon.

  • Are these only for PS4? Will the PS3 version not be supported anymore?

  • Farsight isn’t supporting PS3 & Vita with new tables anymore?

  • It is safe to say I spent well north of $100 in quarters playing Addams Family Pinball in my college’s arcade back in the early 90s. I’ve been waiting for many years to own it in my home, and this will probably be as close as I come. I hope you did it justice, because it is so clearly a day one buy for me!

  • Mr. Lindsey, can you imagine playing Earth shaker with the DS4 rumble feature, how awesome would that be? I would like to have controller vibration and friends leader board included with update for the new tables.

    • I can imagine! It won’t be in this release, but you can expect rumble and possibly friends leaderboards in the next patch.

  • Kusoge.

  • I had change of mind from after reading.

  • I was a backer on Kickstarter and have been patiently waiting for this announcement! So psyched!

    Will Earthshaker have the original building that “falls” down? or the cost-reduced version of the table? Will the DualShock controller vibrate when the table does?

    Any word on when PlayStation gamers will get to play the Ghostbusters table you released on iPhone/iPad? Ghostbusters is a Sony property, and PlayStation is a Sony platform, so…

    Looking forward to playing Addams Family on my Vita as well. It would be awesome if you have one of the developers on your next Twitch stream to talk about the technical challenges and some of the cool low-level optimizations you’re doing on that platform.

    oh, and when will 3DTV support be added to the PS4 version? I love playing Plants versus Zombies and Tesla tables in 3D on my PS4, would be great to do the same with “real” tables in Pinball Arcade!

    • The version we were permitted to make under the license does not include the falling building.

      Vibration will be added with the patch following this one.

      We currently do not have any official news on the Ghostbusters table coming to PlayStation.

      Having one of the programmers on the steam is definitely a possibility!

      I believe we do intend to implement 3D as we did on the PS3, but don’t have any official date set.

  • This is awesome, I remember playing the heck out of this thing when I was a kid. Now if ya’ll can do me a big favor and bring back Elvira and the Party Monsters to go along with this I will be very happy.

  • The Mamushka!!!!

  • would love to see the tmnt one.

  • Any chance of doing any other versions of the brilliant ‘Pin*Bot’ Table? GOD i LOVE that Table :P Think they are called – ‘The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot’ (released in 1991) and ‘Jack*Bot’ (released in 1995) ;) (just posted this on the UK/Europe Blog to)

    • We can’t say what we are working on but we’ve already done “Pin*bot” and “Bride of Pin*Bot” so it should be very possible! :-D (answered on the Europe Blog as-well)

  • Right in the feels! I remember spending hours and hours playing The Addams Family. Every time someone asks me if I’m fond of pinball tables, this is the first one that comes to mind. :’)

  • *snap, snap*

  • One of the coolest features of Addams Family pinball is that Thing Flips would get more accurate over time, as it used basic AI to adjust the timing of the shots. How does that work here? Does it persist between sessions of the game?

    • The digitized version learns just like the physical table. If it does not score the shot within 4 tries, it dumps the memory and starts over. The memory should persist until you change to a different table.

  • Alright, cool. Didn’t see the other questions asking the same thing until the page refreshed.

  • I messed up :D I meant can you do ‘Jack*Bot’ (released in 1995) to ;) It was ‘The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot’ i got not Pin*Bot. But i see you can buy Pin*Bot so i will later :P

  • I’m using PS4 version and have some questions, and some of them already mentioned here.

    1. When you fix table bugs, reported by many users?
    2. When you fix built-in purchases in european version?
    3. There is still no rumble support and friends leaderboards, but you already answered…
    4. Why game interface looks like some alpha-version? Scrolling tables one by one with low-res table pic – it is laughable. Just look at that “interface” – even your logo is very deformed and have wrong aspect (i forgot, but, probably, in options menu – I’m far from console to check). Do you have proper designer to make interface with good usability?

    • We bug fix on one platform and port fixes over. We try to fit as many fixes in as we can each release.

      We have informed Sony of the issue. It’s up to them when they will fix it. Sorry about that. :-(

      Yes. Rumble and friends leaderboards should be in the next patch.

      The current interface is has been with us from the beginning. We are definitely due for a new one and have somebody working on it as we speak. :-)

  • You guys are so awesome! Can’t believe the love this series continues to get.

    • It really is truly amazing. We are very grateful to the fans for helping us keep pinball alive and well!

  • Will these tables have trophies? When will we be seeing trophies added for all the other tables from Season Two and Three?

    • We ran into the maximum amount of trophies allowed on PS3 and Vita. I believe we will be restructuring the trophy system to be a bit more across the board. No official date on that yet.

  • Glad to hear that these table are coming to the PS3 version of the game. I personally think that Pinball Arcade is one of those good games that have such a long shelf life after the trophies are collected (which isn’t easy, let me tell you).

    I do have to ask: Will all four tables be released at the same time on the PS3 version or will there be a pack of two tables in mid-April and the other two down the road?

  • Everything up to Addams Family will be in the next release.

  • is Spotify going to be on ps3 and everyone I got some news flash to tell you march 29 sony music unlimted will be closeing and ps home is closeing on march 30 sony music unlimted will now be Spotify so if you want 30 days free go to there site so you will have it on ps4 and ps3 and smart phones on march 29

  • Sorry me again :D Yeah ‘Bride of Pin*Bot’ is just AMAZING :P It puts me in a Trance(for some reason) when i play it :D
    + I tried to download just the ‘Pin*Bot’ Table but it said it’s not available :( I guess you have to buy the whole ‘Season 2’ pack to get that Table? + ‘Season 1’ & ‘Season 3’ you can seem to buy each Table separately. Odd that. Oh well.
    (again sorry i posted this on the other Blog to) :D

    • It’s all good. :-) It’s worth answering because everyone else is having this issue as well. Currently, the in-game store products are pointing to the incorrect product IDs which causes that “Not available” message. We are working with Sony to get it fixed. You can purchase the table directly through the PSN Store. If you have any issues just email support@pinballarcade.com and we will make sure you get taken care of.

  • Is season 4 cross buy ps4, ps3 & vita?

  • Speaking of changing the UI…

    It would be great if I could sort my owned tables by date of release (and have the sort preference persist). I’d love to be able to work through the ‘history’ of Pinball that way.

  • Hello. Why can’t I try out or do a free play on the tables in Pinball Arcade? I always get a error when I try. What gives?

  • Great table, and great followup Q&As.

    Mike, obviously you are not ready to announce the next Kickstarter project since Addams Family is still being released, but can you say if Indiana Jones Pinball has any chance at all of being acquired one day?

  • Just a quick update for you guys :D I found the PS3 & PSVita versions of Pin*Bot on the PS3 PSN Store(the Pin*Bot and Centaur one) But it’s not on the PS4 PSN Store(the only thing on the PS4 PSN Store is the ‘Season 2′ Pack) & if you try & buy it direct from the PS4 Game it says ‘Not Available’. Hope that helps. Bit confusing & my head hurts now :D

  • By the way…can someone please explain what the difference is between standard tables and pro-tables in Pinball arcade? I see te option to buy both for older tables on my vita, but i have no idea what the difference is between the two. Thanks!

  • Can we get a sale on past tables and/or season packs sometime soon?

  • my friend that’s a sony mod told me ps3 will be going offine next is that true because I just paid 120.00 for a ps3 because of free online playing and it has more free games on there for plus id hate to waste my money again

  • its going offline in 1 yr

  • “+ punkmusic2009 on March 14th, 2015 at 2:57 pm said:

    my friend that’s a sony mod told me ps3 will be going offine next is that true because I just paid 120.00 for a ps3 because of free online playing and it has more free games on there for plus id hate to waste my money again”

    Highly doubtful this would happen in a year.

    82.7 million PS3 systems are in circulation compared to less than 20 million PS4 consoles.
    It would not be in their best interest to cut off the PS3 until PS4 numbers are much higher.

    There was also this quote from Sony on GameStop from less than a year ago:

    “”People are still buying PS3s,” Rohde told GamesIndustry International. “All the different parts of the world just adopt new technology at different rates. We don’t know how long the PS3 tail will last. We don’t know how it will be compared to the PS2. The PS2 lasted very deep into the PS3 cycle. There was a broad price difference between PS3 launch and PS2 end of life. We don’t know where all this is going to go, but we will continue to support the PS3 through first- and third-parties as long as there is a good business there for us.”

  • Hey Mike,
    I can’t wait to play this, but I’ll still be pushing for one or both Simpsons tables. I think Pinball Arcade can use a nice colorful cartoon themed table to go with the rest.

    Also, is there any chanced owners of Season 2 on the PS3 can received a discounted pack for the PS4 like you did with owners of Season 1? I waited for several months for it to show up on the PS4 and finally gave in and bought it on the PS3 hoping you would extent this same discount as you had with Season 1. I’ve probably spent $250 between PS2, PS3, PS4, Kindle, iPod tables! I’m nearly out of pinball money! :P

  • Still no crossbuy between PS4 and PSVita.
    Still not buying. Nope Nope Nope.

  • Haven’t seen any form of the Addams Family pinball machine in about 20 years ago. Always play it at a Video Rental store when I was living Blue Earth, MN. But the last time I went there it was running down badly and selling lot of old games for really cheap prices. Plus will never forget about the arcade machines the old owner used too put in the store.

  • MAMUSHKA!!! Its about time some new tables grace our TPA library on PS4 and soon after on the PS3.

    Any e.t.a on bug fixes on the PS4 tables? The box looking thing on the left middle/upper playfield on Cirqus Voltaire PS4 version is really annoying. Also would like to see the varied neon colored lighting on CV like the PS3 version has. That has been over a year with that issue. Make it random just like the PS3 on what colors appear when selecting CV or add the colors to choose from in CVs in-game option list.

    That as well as other bugs to be fiixed as reported on TPAFans etc.

  • Super excited to finally play Addams Family. Thanks for doing it!

    My next request (and I hope many others have as well) is the other pinball game I was addicted to for years: Jurassic Park by Data East. I would love if you guys could get that one off the ground, even if it means another Kickstarter!

    Another one that would be awesome to get would be WWF Royal Rumble, also Data East. Although I read that a new WrestleMania is being built as we speak.

    Anyway, love your product and will continue to support!

  • Mike, over on the Pinball Arcade forums we’ve been discussing potential license expirations. We know that for the big licenses such as T2, Twilight Zone and Star Trek, you originally had 2-3 year contracts for the licensing. Does that mean that in the near future (those 2-3 year terms start to expire in a couple of months as far as we know) those tables will no longer be available for purchase, or do you have renewal agreements in place? If I were to buy those tables and they did in fact “expire”, would they still be downloadable if not purchasable?

  • Pinball games are a weakness for me. I love to play them but I can never seem to make the ball go where I want to. Which ultimately results in a lot of fun and frustration.

    Invasion from mars is my personal favorite.

  • Ah, Raul Julia. Great actor. Cool parent both in character and in real life. Without him, we would’ve never had a great Live Action Dictator like Street Fighter’s.

  • —————————————
    JuntMonkey on March 15th, 2015 at 2:54 am said:
    Mike, over on the Pinball Arcade forums we’ve been discussing potential license expirations. We know that for the big licenses such as T2, Twilight Zone and Star Trek, you originally had 2-3 year contracts for the licensing. Does that mean that in the near future (those 2-3 year terms start to expire in a couple of months as far as we know) those tables will no longer be available for purchase, or do you have renewal agreements in place? If I were to buy those tables and they did in fact “expire”, would they still be downloadable if not purchasable?
    —————————————-

    I can’t speak for Mike, but I don’t think he’s going to reply anymore on here so I wanted to help out if possible.

    I’m doubtful the tables with expired licenses will still be available to purchase, but I am 99% sure they will still be available for download to people who have already purchased them. This is the case with other content which has expired licenses such as The Simpson’s Arcade game by Konami and Sony’s Q*bert, for example.

  • I love Pinball Arcade. If I used my PS4 solely to play this series and GTA V, it might be worth the purchase right there.

    Things I might just be imagining:

    1) Did the PS3 versions of many tables get a upgrade in resolution / frame rate / detail at some point last year? I could swear I was unable to play my tables and had to download them again, but after that they looked better than they used to.
    2) Is the PS3 version slightly better, in that the console has an analog output option that reduces display lag on an HDTV? Or am I just noticing the lag more because I’m running my PS4 through a receiver now, and could reduce it with a direct-to-TV HDMI connection (using a headset if I want to insist on surround sound)(which this game doesn’t use anyway)?

  • Looking forward to those on Vita! any chance we could get the season 4 pass live before too long?

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