And here's the deal with the move from FX3 to FX... I don't want a second storefront installed on the cabinet right now, so I'm clearly out of their market space for at least a year... and I've already determined that they have to be offering something very special besides "the new physics on all the tables we're converting" to buy in once they return to Steam. And if a paywall for cabinet mode is introduced (which, honestly, I would have no issue paying for because it should be GUARANTEED SUPPORT for the mode going forward), it will shift that equation even further into "must be something very special", and having to rebuy the tables for the new physics and engine is a very big part of the "wait and see" I intend to take. When they announced that the next pack of tables for Star Wars was going to be the very last table pack for FX3, that immediately put me "on the fence" about buying it, even with one of the tables being for The Mandalorian. Ironically, the issue with Zaccaria is what tipped me into "don't buy it", and I can honestly do without it - even with me curating tables on my cabinet, I'll still likely have 500+ tables to play anyway between FX3 and Visual Pinball, so I don't really have to shell out for anything more. In fact, my intent for the next year is to just not buy anything Commercial Pinball Simulation, I've even lost interest in watching what Arcade1Up and AtGames are doing in that space - I have my own cabinet anyway, that does what I want it to, and I can keep adding onto without having to seek permission from anyone but me, myself, and I, oh and my loving husband, plus I was looking more out of curiousity about how they were approaching the space and that they were going to be a serious threat to the Lazy Commercial Pincab Sellers.
Also, I did have to send off for a cabinet code, I believe, on FX2, so it's not a thing they just rolled out for FX3 (the code worked on both). And I'm sure they tried to negotiate on the licenses they had to "abandon" in the move to FX3, there was also Ms Splosion Man, Plants vs Zombies, and Football that were also abandoned.
PA having the "paywall" for Arcooda cabinet mode was a bandaid for the fact that they'd negotiated with Arcooda to make the official cabinet for them - it was originally never going to be available except through buying Arcooda's actual physical cabinet - but Bally/Williams decided to let the license expire before the cabinets would actually be released, so there was a scramble to salvage the deal monetarily for Arcooda to reduce the impact of the kick in the teeth they were going to receive losing 2/3 of the available tables for the actual cabinet. Part of why I didn't buy it is that it was an expensive thing to get for tables that are honestly significantly better in Visual Pinball, and wouldn't likely have played nice with my cabinet anyway.
And note that I have zero sympathy for Farsight and Arcooda over what happened to them - I now consider myself part of the cabinet market space, and I expect to be catered specifically to in that regard to open my purse. Farsight more or less has shown that cabinet is nowhere near their focus. This also has negatively impacted my view of Magic Pixel - they clearly paid lip service to me for four years over cabinet mode, that they never intended to seriously service me on that score, and it can and will seriously color my review process of Commercial Pinball Simulators going forward, even Zen's offerings, although they have made abundantly clear that they will support cabinet users as a primary part of their market - I'm sure their Cabinet Mode Code process helps them to determine how many of their users are actually cabinet users, and they've stated publicly over the years that they like seeing that aspect of the community. We'll see going forward given their recent corporate overlords.