Can I just buy it ?

[Bimnog]

Hey guys, forgive me but im old and struggling to get pinball to run on my recently discovered batocera computer. I can find the folders and I added vpx files and table shows up for a few seconds and I read more files go here and there and DAMNIT !!!  Can I just buy a flash drive  from somebody (here hopefully) that already has it setup ?  I had no idea that this was even possible a few weeks ago 😳 and now its my number 1 bucket list item as I was pinball crazy in my youth .  I gots the PayPal...

[SixOfTwelve]

Short answer: Yes you can.

 

Long answer: You really really REALLY shouldn't. 

 

 

The two main reasons are ethical and practical:

 

1. Ethical: Buying a pre-configured drive is a slap to the face of all the people who spent hours of their free time providing enjoyment to us for free. Someone taking their work and making money off it goes against everything the community stands for.

 

2. Practical: At some point, for whatever reason, something will go wrong. Whether it's a Windows update, a driver update, a table or pinball software update or just some button combination you inadvertently press, or just random computer voodoo: It's not a question of if, but of when. And then you'll be stuck not knowing what to do, and come asking in the forums, and everyone will tell you that that's what happens when you buy a pre-configured drive, and very few people will be inclined to help you. Also, just because the drive works for the person who sells it to you doesn't mean it will work on your computer. Your screen resolutions may be different. Your screen ORDER may be different. Your sound system may be different. They may have an optical plunger, you may not. They may have magna save buttons, you may not. They may have a tilt sensor, you may not. They may have other toys installed that you may not. Their computer may be faster, or slower, and somewhere there may be a delay programmed into the launch of a table that will screw up the table on your end. And again, you will have no idea how to fix this.

 

Take the time.

Watch tutorials.

Ask silly questions.

People are willing to help you if they see you putting in the effort.

 

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a smart man, so if I managed to learn it, so can you.

Welcome to the hobby!   😊 

[rickh]

Allow me to provide you all with the perspective of a virtual pinball cabinet builder.  I have never built a VPX or VP9.x table to share with this community, so I don't have an insight into all the effort or sacrifices to release a table.  However, I have shared all my research and have made several open source hardware contributions to this community.  I also design and build small pinball cabinets that I sell as a monetized hobby.   The issue I have with Visual Pinball is that the  tables require a lot of tweaking to make them work properly.  You want to add DOF and/or SSF, that is going to take even more time.  The effort it takes to get this software to work properly takes someone with knowledgeable skills.  Most people do not have the skills to do this or the time.  They just don't. 

 

Linux software distribution companies like Red Hat and Ubuntu sell versions of open source Linux that is easy to install and provides product support as a value added service.  No one questions the ethics of either of these companies, as they offer a value added product that their customers would not normally be able to use without their service.  Virtual Pinball integrators provide the same service. 

 

Next year, I may be moving to Pinball FX and the added cost will pay in dividends for the frustration and lost time messing with Visual Pinball.   After all, I am now competing with Chinese made cabinets from companies like 1up Aarcade and ATgames that are taking over the market and will eventually kill VPX because the majority of people do not have the time, skill, or patience to mess around with visual pinball.   

 

Regards,

 

Rick, Intense Arcade 

 

[DanLShane]

VPX will never die due to the 1UP and ALP sales because it's a completely different animal compared to commercial machines and programs. It was never meant to be anything but a community hobby, and as long as the community exists so will VPX.  In fact, if it weren't for the ALP I never would have entered the hobby; it provided a launching pad that I could mod and grow with. I'm sure that's true for many.

[christianco]

curious if you ever got a table running. i think using batocera and emulationstation would make things harder for me. given a windows system you could get up and running really quickly

[rickh]

I have gotten hundreds of tables running for VPX, but it takes a lot of effort.   However, I want you guys to walk in my shoes for a bit.  I sell American made VP cabinets. I would love to have a lot of preloaded software on my product, preferably legal software and I would gladly pay for it.  How do I do it?

 

Thanks,

 

Rick, Intense Arcade   

[Rappelbox]

Not possible, except you could get an agreement with zen studios (pinball fx) or magic pixel (Zaccaria). All others are not available for commercial licensing and you’ll better not try to bypass. People will roast you, trust me. And site admins will kick your from their platforms too. Btw, I’m following your pinscape pico builds, like the boards. 

[rickh]

Thank you.  I tried to contact EA games, but they did not mention a VAR license.  

 

Regards.

 

Rick, Intense Arcade   

[Rappelbox]

I’m not aware of EA doing pinball games 🤔

[rickh]

EA distributes many games that it does not author.  I am assuming that Steam is another distributor for online play.  I'm not a gamer, just a hardware nerd.