Hello, everyone. I'm certain a lot of you guys are starving to hear from us, as we've been very quiet publicly for some time now, and I apologize straight-away as I'm sure it has made many of you feel very uneasy about the situation as a whole. There are a lot of things going on over here and while I was personally hoping to break the silence with an earth-shattering announcement that we have games moving out the doors at a regular pace and everything is ahead of schedule, every small delay and challenge has amassed into a pretty significant delay in getting finished games out to everyone. I've been pondering long and hard how to address this in a proactive and comforting way for weeks without much success. That being said, with the help of some close friends, I think I finally have an answer.

Since day one, we have generally been regarded as "Pinball of the People," and that wasn't because of our awesome ability to lead people on or butter folks up with outlandish promises. We were given this illustrious title due to how accessible and open we are and the fact that we always lead in with straight-up and open honesty, no matter what. I know, without a doubt, that it was this openness and honesty that earned us your support so early on, so I guess, in a way, I'm going to go back to those roots to just lay it on in one heavy, quick sentence.

Manufacturing pinball machines is hard.

Seriously. There is no other way to spin the fact that even though we now have a firm grasp on what we need to do to take this thing to the finish line, there was no way to know the monumental tasks we faced in making this crazy dream into a reality. There are just so many variables to consider, many of which carry variables of their own, that we weren't even aware of until they caused a roadblock for the project that had to be surmounted immediately or else the entire plan would fail. It's a harsh and humbling reality that has been the most significantly life-changing experience I've ever known.

Over the course of this project, I've learned many things and had many responsibilities. As we push further and further into the production cycle, many of the "fringe" facets of company representation and operation have unfortunately but unavoidably suffered as my time was needed on the shop floor getting everything ready for the build, and now personally building games and quality testing them. This means that all of my other tasks were heavily neglected, and admittedly continue to be neglected. Tasks such as website updates, correspondence, appointments and even my personal phone has gone whole days without being tended to.

To rectify these problems, I'm very excited to say I will be personally sending out bi-weekly build updates to everyone on the list. I'm sure these updates will vary in significance from one email to the next, but if you're into the idea of seeing the nuances of pinball production or if you'd like to see a bunch of guys working on your games, it should be at least entertaining If you have a vested interest in the project, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to add both [email protected] and [email protected] to your email address book. The amount of issues we encounter due to spam filters is unbelievably staggering.

Even though we have built a very strong team over the years, we are still a small, dedicated team with a passion that is undeniably unmatched. This affords us the unique ability to control and fine-tune our vision to a degree that has yet to be achieved by anyone else. While we are still working through the build process, I am thrilled to report that there are a handful of games already in various stages of assembly. More on this in the upcoming newsletters!

So what is the takeaway from this incredibly long-winded post...?

Am I making a return to Pinside?
Unfortunately, no. While I never intended to "turn my back" on Pinside, and I sincerely love the pinball community, it's simply not healthy for me, and it sets an unreasonable standard for communication.

Is this a production update?
Not really, although I believe this is the first time I've officially stated that there are games being physically assembled, so there's that.

Is this a public apology?
Sort of. As I stated above, it was our open and honest communication that won us your support in the beginning, and I would be lying if I were to say we haven't betrayed that in some way, even if it was with good intentions. The silence has been deafening for too long, and for that I most sincerely and personally apologize.

At any rate, it's now onward and upward, my friends. We undoubtedly have some serious work ahead of us, but I will not let the hills ahead of us blur my view of the mountains we've crossed. It's time to move on from schematics and sourcing. It's time to put our nose back to the grindstone. It's time to get hyped up again.

It's time to build some games.

I'll leave you guys with a single, simple photo of the contents of just one of the many shipments of parts we have over here. How many machines do you think is in this pile??

parts.jpg

Predator.

I wasn't aware that the rumors had reached that point. A re-theme? Really? Sure, YKpinballer, I think you've said it best already, so I'll just make your words my own:

The game will look great and meet everybody's expectations with no surprises like a re-theme or whatever people have been talking about.

Somebody did their homework

This is exactly why it is unhealthy for me to regularly check in here. I can understand if you personally don't feel satiated by what was posted above, but "that pile of parts" certainly does prove more than "nothing," and there has obviously never been any mention of deposits for anything related to the mythbusters or their upcoming game. An open forum is no place for any person of any level of public scrutiny, as I can assure you that all of these types of jabs, however unfounded they are, are certainly felt and taken on a very personal level. At the very least, this post did bring up an issue that I feel needs to be addressed directly.

We have been working very closely with PayPal for a long time to make sure that every penny that goes through us is well-protected and secure. They have been extremely helpful and have developed a strong personal rapport with us that affords us the luxury of open and direct communication in any and all situations. With the security of all funds being absolutely paramount in ANY foreseeable case, there are processes that must be followed and while they can take a bit of time to work with, the end result is that even if we were to literally die or encounter a license issue or disappear to Venezuela or whatever other rumors there may be, we do so without risking a cent of your money.

Doesn't matter to me. You can waste your time however you want, and I wasn't trying to appear salty or upset with you directly, it's just that your previous post was dead-on with why we shouldn't really use the forums as a primary means of communication and it was worth pointing out. Also, this is my third post in two days, showing just how addictive a keyboard and a text-box can be, so this is likely my last for quite some time.

For sure. That was the primary reason for coming on here yesterday and dropping the message I did. Trust me, I know all too well the value of reputation management and public appearance control and all that stuff, and I personally am not very good at handling that myself. I felt that, instead of trying to approach in a PR direction and risk blatantly screwing up, it would be better if I just came over here and laid out exactly what was going on so I could ease everyone's mind the only way I know how, while giving me the space I need to breathe and get back to work.

You're certainly correct here, but it was different at that time. We never did anything to drum up capital, we just shared what we were doing and where we were at and the general excitement and appreciation for the game did all the capital by itself. I guess the point I'm driving at is that we never deliberately used the forums to help us out financially, we were just showing what we were doing and everything else happened naturally. So again, you're right, it's just not as direct as you said.

Of course it does. I'm not doing anything for money here. Money sucks. It's a necessary evil that is required to do what we all love to do, and all I want is for what we do to be appreciated. I didn't wake up today thinking about how awesome my job is cuz I get to swim in money and drive a fancy car to a yacht club. I woke up today thinking how awesome my job is because I got to take the glass off of a Funhouse and show my daughters how Rudy's mechanisms work and teach them how to play pinball.

They're getting better