Important update for Jersey Jack owners only:
Moving forward Scorbit will no longer support live connections to Jersey Jack Pinball machines.
Regrettably, Jersey Jack Pinball has informed us that they no longer value the services provided by Scorbit and connected pinball and have chosen to remove Scorbit from their machines,
As such, effective immediately, Jersey Jack Pinball machines may no longer connect or function with the Scorbit app as they had previously. Existing achievements, leaderboard entries, and other data will continue to exist within the platform, but no new achievements can be earned or challenges played as the service is removed.
Additionally, Scorbit is in the process of continuously upgrading our infrastructure. Our systems were upgraded last year to implement these changes, and all manufacturers have moved to the new connections. Jersey Jack has not indicated they will be accommodating these changes, which may result in service issues, or service failure, at any time, as Scorbit’s old infrastructure begins to run out of headroom.
We apologize for the inconvenience. This is a surprise to us and the community. We are heartbroken.
We have made every attempt to come to a mutually satisfying agreement with Jersey Jack Pinball, but unfortunately they have made their position clear that they wish to go in a different direction, and that connected pinball is not something they are looking to invest in any longer.
We wish Jersey Jack Pinball the best of luck with their future endeavors. We love their excellent games. These are some of the best designers on earth. Any inquiries or dissatisfaction with this decision should be sent to Jersey Jack Pinball. This is entirely their decision and we can only hope they reconsider in the future.
As always, Scorbit is committed to connected pinball and we remain open to work with all pinball manufacturers who value the concept, respect the pinball community and are open to driving innovation in pinball.
Q & A
Q: What drove this decision by Jersey Jack to abandon Scorbit?
A: It’s not entirely clear. We know that in our conversations with JJP up until the launch of The Godfather, we had support from within the game design team. Scorbit was included in the marketing documentation for The Godfather. We were surprised when we were told by the leadership they did not value Scorbit features or connected pinball in early March.
Q: We heard that there are over 10,000 connected JJP machines. Is that true?
A: As of the time of this post in March, 2023, there are over 10,000 active, connected JJP machines on the Scorbit platform posting scores and growing every day.
Q: Did Scorbit try to change the terms of an agreement with Jersey Jack?
A: We have never been under any contractual agreement with Jersey Jack Pinball. Over the years, we have offered them various service level agreements to further partner and formalize our relationship, but they have never been interested in negotiating at any level.
Q: Were there any service issues between JJP and Scorbit?
A: No, we have scaled our platform in line with their demand, and resolved every support request from Jersey Jack’s customers, free of charge, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for years.
Q: What was Scorbit’s last request of Jersey Jack prior to this decision?
A: Due to significant growth and engagement of the product, in mid February we requested some updates to the network code on their end to improve performance and reduce overhead.
The employee at JJP responsible for these changes resigned, so we offered to make the changes ourselves.
At this point they stopped responding to messages. The next communication was their decision to end the relationship, for which we learned more details during a livestream.
Q: Was Scorbit requiring a cost component to Jersey Jack which led to this decision?
A: No. Our API access has always been free of charge to Jersey Jack and their customers. It is true that we have presented options to JJP that included shared costs for accelerated benefits, features and enhanced support, but always offered them a free option. For some reason, they were not interested in negotiating an agreement or exploring ways to continue working together.
Q: What happens to the entire library of older games that currently connect to Scorbit?
A: Jersey Jack has informed us that they intend to remove Scorbit from their game code on all previous titles. The titles will continue to function but will no longer connect to Scorbit.
Q: What data did Scorbit provide to Jersey Jack, and what is the state of that data?
A: We offered Jersey Jack access to anonymized analytics around their games and engagement, and built a custom portal for that use. To this day, no JJP employee has logged into that portal, so we disabled their access to the portal. They never noticed.
Q: I use Scorbit every day on my GnR. Does this mean my game is now bricked? How do I complete my achievements?
A: We are truly sorry but Scorbit will no longer function on your GnR. You can continue to post scores manually via the app by taking photos of your scores as we do on EM machines.You will no longer be able to view new session timelines, earn achievements or engage in challenges.
Q: I am a Jersey Jack machine owner and I use Scorbit pro licenses with my games. What should I do?
A: Send an email to [email protected] and we will cancel the license and offer you a refund.
Q: What does this mean for Scorbit’s future?
A: We have numerous manufacturers using our platform, and the entirety of our business model comes from non-JJP machines. There will be no impact to our operating business, other than to improve the economics. We do anticipate a significant reduction of load on our platform, which will result in lower overall cost for our infrastructure.