Pinball licencing 101: how much, why – and Harry Potter

[Pavlovpinball]

Hi all,

There's so much talk about pinball licencing these days that I decided to talk to Roger Sharpe (Williams' old licencing guru as I am sure you all know) to the lowdown on what they cost, how you get them and so on. He also talked about the possibility of a Harry Potter game at some point in the future.

If you're interested, the resulting article is here:

http://pavlovpinball.com/pinball-licencing-101-how-much-why-and-harry-potter/

Cheers,

Paul

 

[CJBob]

Thanks for posting this, I'm reading a few articles over there now. Good stuff.

 

[Pavlovpinball]

It's my pleasure. Glad you like it!

 

[Chris Bardon]

I'm a little surprised at the numbers there actually-less than $100 a game? Is that per licensor though? What about games where you get talent to do custom speech-is that part of the package, a one off session fee, or a whole separate per-game license?

 

[FastEd]

I would assume it would be all licensing related costs.

 

[REVOLUTION]

The JJP seminar I saw, Jack said Stern offers ~$80 per machine for a license, and Jack got the Hobbit license by offering $200 per.

 

[Chris Bardon]

See, $100-$200 per machine when they cost 8000 isn't really that big a deal, expecially if that gives them access to all the assets they need, and possibly even time with actors for speech. I'm sure costs were ower back in the day (given that pins could be seen as advertising in lots of cases), but now it's closer to the collectibles market.

 

[Fifty]

*Reposting here as I didn't get any reply or comments over at MAACA.

Very cool read Pavlov. I've wanted to know about licensing forever. Glad you asked him about Harry Potter, although most of us already knew the answer to that one. It does seem there is a glimmer of hope there thought.

I would have liked it if you would have asked about licenses for Ghostbusters, How To Train A Dragon, and Disney IP's. I really think there is a market for games like Cars, Frozen and Big Hero 6. If you want a new generation of pinball players after all us old bastards die out then they (pinball manufacturers) need to start thinking a little younger. Not like age 6, but in the 'teens'. Most kids don't know what a pinball machine is, but I guarantee you that if they saw a pinball machine at an airport singing "Let It Go" they'd bug their damn parents to play it. Parents would be more inclined to buy child friendly themes as well as long as the theme has staying power like you stated in your article. Heck, if Frozen pinball became a reality I know my wife would give me the green light to buy one new and she still thinks pinball is a waste of money luxury item.