(Topic ID: 106728)

ALIEN PINBALL - Game Over, Man, Game Over

By HeighwayPinball

9 years ago


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#18251 6 years ago
Quoted from zeddex:

I missed that part entirely....when was Andrew Heighway accused of embezzling money?

I dont believe he was.

#18252 6 years ago

Seems a simple matter of cash burn and the product taking years longer than his original goal.

#18253 6 years ago

This is probably of no help to any of you, but I recently bought a Twilight Zone from a collector/restorer in the UK who has 2 Alien machines (standard I believe). I got to play on it and agree with what has been said already about it being a very impressive machine. At the time of playing it, and until finding this thread by chance this morning, I had no idea of the scale of the issues in acquiring one.

He is selling them (he tried to sell one to me) but unfortunately as far as I know the UK price for these pins new was higher than the US one, and shipping would of course be prohibitively expensive. It could be an option if someone is desperately after an Alien pin with the cost being a secondary concern. Obviously parts / support would still be an issue in any event.

EDIT: Seems he listed one previously on Ebay at £7995, which is a serious amount of dollars and presumably many thousands more than you guys would've paid new.

-14
#18254 6 years ago
Quoted from zeddex:

I missed that part entirely....when was Andrew Heighway accused of embezzling money?

Andrew’s embezzling of funds is not an established fact - rather it is speculation that is based on logic of the events that unfolded. The only ways you would know for certain that an employee takes funds are 1) a lawsuit is filed and litigated or 2) public acknowledgement by HP - neither of which is likely to occur. Instead we only need to examine what we already know.

Events - In Nov / Dec of 2016 Andrew made a big push to collect balance of funds owed on Alien, which easily amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This might have been an average of $7.5k owed for upwards of 200 games. Without knowledge of specific amount, assume it is a lot of money. In Dec of 2016, Heighway Pinball filed legal documentation showing they only had a few thousand dollars cash balance. Many of the largest suppliers and subcontractors have since admitted they have not been paid. In late 2016, Andrew purchased a license to operate a hydrofoil business. After taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in Nov and Dec, HP still owed its vendors and subcontractors, did not build/ship any pinball machines and had no money. Andrew completely abandons the company and shortly thereafter the new investor group steps up. They have purchased all liabilities and assets and Andrew owns nothing more to do with HP. When CEO of a small company jumps ship, having recently collected hundreds of thousands of dollars, having no significant bank balance and still owing hundreds of thousands in liabilities, indicates to me he was fleeing quickly, and was not even bothering to lock the door behind him. Who does that and what other possible explanation is there?

Do I think Andrew mentions any of this info to his trusted private investors, that have suddenly became owners of HP - Hell No! Andrew likely changed them $1 for the company and the liabilities. The new owners knew about the lack of money to build the 200 games, but probably DID NOT know Andrew had recently siphoned off hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nor did they probably know the vendors and suppliers WERE STILL owed hundreds of thousands. If you were the new owners - would you admit to being screwed by the departing CEO, or would you suck it up and keep going? I think they chose the latter and the lack of cashflow, much of which was likely unknown and underestimated may do them in.

#18255 6 years ago
Quoted from Durzel:

This is probably of no help to any of you, but I recently bought a Twilight Zone from a collector/restorer in the UK who has 2 Alien machines (standard I believe). I got to play on it and agree with what has been said already about it being a very impressive machine. At the time of playing it, and until finding this thread by chance this morning, I had no idea of the scale of the issues in acquiring one.
He is selling them (he tried to sell one to me) but unfortunately as far as I know the UK price for these pins new was higher than the US one, and shipping would of course be prohibitively expensive. It could be an option if someone is desperately after an Alien pin with the cost being a secondary concern. Obviously parts / support would still be an issue in any event.

Obviously, the scale and scope is always exponential on Pinside. I HAVE reached out to Morgan directly, as an advocate for all the millions that havent got their refunds.

Communication is poor....fact

Game is beyond excellent ...fact

Posted my experience of playing one, and as usual, enough is never enough.

Maybe we get lucky, they say f**k it, we will never satisfy everyone, and fold. Everybody wins, right?

Im truly sorry for everyone that has been wronged in this experience...wish I could fix it, but cant.

We destroy games before they are even produced, then never seem to agree on anything ( too expensive, JJP/ Stern suck, on and on and on).

Not justifying anything HW has done except staying the course and building a truly amazing machine. There are times, however, that I cant stand Pinside, our only true community in a small, ever shrinking hobby.

Tell me when its over......

#18256 6 years ago
Quoted from MK6PIN:

Obviously, the scale and scope is always exponential on Pinside. I HAVE reached out to Morgan directly, as an advocate for all the millions that havent got their refunds.

Has anyone reached out to Daniel or Roger as opposed to going thu Morgan?

#18257 6 years ago

Andrew didnt embezzle shit...ran out of money, broke promises getting the game to the finish line, pure and simple.He wanted Alien worse than any of us. I AM a successful businessman, and flags are raised all the time in this hobby. Nothing fiscally solvent about any of it.....ahh....done....dark for awhile...

#18258 6 years ago
Quoted from way2wyrd:

Has anyone reached out to Daniel or Roger as opposed to going thu Morgan?

Yes...damn games are being made

#18259 6 years ago
Quoted from way2wyrd:

Has anyone reached out to Daniel or Roger as opposed to going thu Morgan?

Multiple times and still doing so.

16
#18260 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

When CEO of a small company jumps ship after recently collected hundreds of thousands of dollars and still leaving hundreds of thousands in outstanding liabilities, it indicates he was fleeing quickly and didn’t bother to lock the door behind him. Who does that and what other possible explanation is there?

Your eagerness to fill things in with nothing to support it.

You have NO idea how many people they contacted, or even managed to convince, to send in their balance.
You have NO idea how much money was coming in or out of the business - a simple filing does not paint a full picture
Individual Contractors like developers not getting compensation yet does not equate to 'many of the largest suppliers and subcontractors ... have not been paid'
Andrew did not 'abandon the company'
The mentions filings about Andrew's other companies is a complete leap
Your representation of the new management change is completely wrong

Your misrepresentation of the known facts is egregious and not helpful to the community. It's probably borderline libel/defamation.

#18261 6 years ago

I have to say though, even just skimming the accounts for the company, it looks to be in pretty bad shape. Next to no cash on hand, profit/loss circa -£500k up to last years accounts and trending down from the previous also-negative year, etc. Opinions are just that, but accounts are fact.

It's a real shame because the machine itself is very impressive. BUT it's no use being impressive, even if you got your pin eventually, if you bought it and had zero warranty and practically zero chance of replacement parts or support, outside of every other owner scratching around trying to reverse engineer it. You'd have to be very brave to stick it out I think.

#18262 6 years ago

Has anyone talked to Heighway about bringing on additional investors, or better still, outsourcing the production to a company with a proven track record like JJP or Spooky? I really, really want them to succeed. Not just because I paid for a Full Throttle or Alien already, but also because I think their designs are truely innovative and a breath of fresh air in a stagnating industry. Maybe every other Stern game is worth buying, but their designs as well as quality, have been slipping. Other than America’s Most Haunted, Spooky games are just ‘ok’ and JJP is only now starting to make good titles. Actually, I just watched a YouTube video of Spooky’s new Total Nuclear Annihilation. It looks pretty sweet. They are getting better in starts and fits, but at least Charlie and clan are honest. He is also a pretty sharp business man - knows how to design and build an affordable game that he can still make profitably.

#18263 6 years ago
Quoted from MK6PIN:

Andrew didnt embezzle shit...ran out of money, broke promises getting the game to the finish line, pure and simple.He wanted Alien worse than any of us. I AM a successful businessman, and flags are raised all the time in this hobby. Nothing fiscally solvent about any of it.....ahh....done....dark for awhile...

I'd agree with most of what you wrote except for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that were taken in in Nov and Dec of 2016, that did not show up in the cash balance of HP's annual filing nor was used to pay vendors and suppliers. The money and Andrew vanished, and that is the unexplained portion of the story causing me empuzzlement

If the new Owners purchased HP for $1 and were fully aware they were starting in that deep of a hole, I don't have a lot of respect for their business acumen. Probably safe to estimate the size of the hole as - hundreds of thousands owed to vendors and subcontractors plus $1.5M for 200 games @$7.5k owed to prepaid folks. I'd round the total up to $2M. So new Owners announced they were planning to selling 200 new games @$10k, and implied they would build 400 games with the money to make everyone whole. It is easy to do the math and see they would need to build each game for under $5k, but that is if there are no new unaccounted for expenses. So far what is unaccounted for is the large amount of work left to do (above the planned effort to build the games) needed to SUPPORT the game during its two year run.

#18264 6 years ago
Quoted from Davidus56:

Has anyone talked to Heighway about bringing on additional investors,

Hahaha, nobody would touch this mess...

#18265 6 years ago
Quoted from hank527:

So sorry for the lack of a response. We are aware of your request for a refund. We will try to process your refund as soon as we possibly can, this process can take up to 60 days to complete but we will endeavour to get this completed for you as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time and I hope to be in contact again soon. If you have any additional queries or questions please feel free to contact me.
Morgan Potter | Customer Services Executive

Boy if that isn't a generic sounding, cut-and-paste response. Just awful. I really feel for you guys waiting on refunds. It's the dark cloud issue that won't go away & truly shines a light on what's going on there.

I hate to make assumptions, but the only rational explanation to me is that they are low on funds. That's why refund requests (which were processed quickly when new group took over) have now been ignored or put on the back burner. Early customers aren't being supported with replacement parts, mechs & boards (which should be simple to drop in the mail) because they probably don't have a large supply of parts, or the money to buy them. Or maybe they're just trying to do board revisions that have led to delays before they order more stock?

And that's why you've only heard of one container shipping to North America, because they don't have the parts to crank them out. And perhaps that's why so many are arriving with various issues. If you're low on parts & you discover some boards are bad, better to ship them out now & deal just with the customer at a later date. And that would be awful, but might explain some of the NIB issues we've heard. I really have no idea at this point, but the silence only adds fuel to the fire.

Quoted from rubberducks:

Whether intended or not, the pre-existing staff will have developed many bad habits under the previous regime. Some of which are probably all too easy to continue, especially as the job is probably hard, thankless, and there is little good news to give anyone; even if they are now paid consistently.
There needs to be new, permanent on-site management that can be trusted, and a team, not one person. None of the investors are going to permanently relocate.

I found rubberducks comment in the service thread pretty insightful as well. Just leads to more questions on what's going on there since they stopped communicating.

IDK. All these stories just seem to add up to them treading water at the moment. I think they just handed out way more refunds that they expected, and when they raised the price of the game, they did not get the amount of new orders they were counting on. IMO they have 60 days to get some of the pre-paid LE's to these patiently waiting customers before the shit really hits the fan.

It's a fantastic pin, but I wouldn't even consider buying anymore. If everything does implode in the end, at least the pin itself is a winner & they can have a real manufacturer build it for them.

-1
#18266 6 years ago
Quoted from flynnibus:

Your eagerness to fill things in with nothing to support it.
You have NO idea how many people they contacted, or even managed to convince, to send in their balance.
You have NO idea how much money was coming in or out of the business - a simple filing does not paint a full picture
Individual Contractors like developers not getting compensation yet does not equate to 'many of the largest suppliers and subcontractors ... have not been paid'
Andrew did not 'abandon the company'
The mentions filings about Andrew's other companies is a complete leap
Your representation of the new management change is completely wrong
Your misrepresentation of the known facts is egregious and not helpful to the community. It's probably borderline libel/defamation.

Your arguments are based entirely on opinion, mine is partly opinion but is based on known facts. I stand by everything I wrote and have qualified this. We will NEVER KNOW the complete truth, but those facts we know from public record and Pinside, tell me everything I need to know to draw the conclusions I did. Once you have some facts and learn some truths, come back here and report it. I won't hold my breath.

By the way, the purpose of a cash flow statement is to show how much money is coming and going from a business. While it doesn't show the actual bank account #, the sources and uses of all funds need to be noted. So incoming cash should have been shown as an infusion and IF it was used to pay bills, an offsetting reduction in liabilities should have been noted. Both of these aspects are absent and we know Andrew collected lots of money. Hell he got $7k from me.

Time to quit shooting at the messenger and focus on Heighway Pinball. Are they building and shipping Alien pinball machines? Are they providing support to their customers? Are they issuing refunds? Are they effectively communicating?

#18267 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

I won't hold my breath.

try it

#18268 6 years ago
Quoted from Shapeshifter:

Oh boy, the dreaded word 'try' which usually means ( meta-language ) someone is telling you in advance they are going to fail.
Just say 'will' instead.

do or do not, there is no try.

#18269 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

I'd agree with most of what you wrote except for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that were taken in in Nov and Dec of 2016, that did not show up in the cash balance of HP's annual filing nor was used to pay vendors and suppliers. The money and Andrew vanished, and that is the unexplained portion of the story causing me empuzzlement
If the new Owners purchased HP for $1 and were fully aware they were starting in that deep of a hole, I don't have a lot of respect for their business acumen. Probably safe to estimate the size of the hole as - hundreds of thousands owed to vendors and subcontractors plus $1.5M for 200 games @$7.5k owed to prepaid folks. I'd round the total up to $2M. So new Owners announced they were planning to selling 200 new games @$10k, and implied they would build 400 games with the money to make everyone whole. It is easy to do the math and see they would need to build each game for under $5k, but that is if there are no new unaccounted for expenses. So far what is unaccounted for is the large amount of work left to do (above the planned effort to build the games) needed to SUPPORT the game during its two year run.

Your last few posts have been nothing but mountains of pure speculation. You're not helping anyone... Just stop already.

-3
#18270 6 years ago
Quoted from Astropin:

Your last few posts have been nothing but mountains of pure speculation. You're not helping anyone... Just stop already.

Speculation or fact or something in between? Your saying my comments are not helping anyone makes some big assumptions. With probably half the readers on Pinside lurking and not actively engaged, what basis other than your opinion do you have for this attack? How is your suggestion about what I or anyone should write add any value? Weak sauce.

11
#18271 6 years ago

Jesus Christ. Someone needs to delete this thread, make a new one and add a moderator that only allows posts discussing Alien Pinball. If you wanna bitch and moan about HW Pinball or speculate as to their future. Use a different thread. Fuck, enough is enough. Some people just wanna read about alien Pinball and be excited.

#18272 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

Speculation or fact or something in between? Your saying my comments are not helping anyone makes some big assumptions. With probably half the readers on Pinside lurking and not actively engaged, what basis other than your opinion do you have for this attack? How is your suggestion about what I or anyone should write add any value? Weak sauce.

This is what I think when i read all you none stop bs comments:
63B191D7-EB3B-42ED-819C-6A475DDF25DB (resized).jpeg63B191D7-EB3B-42ED-819C-6A475DDF25DB (resized).jpeg

#18273 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

Your saying my comments are not helping anyone makes some big assumptions.

Yes...it's making the assumption that you're talking out your ass...which never helps anyone, ever.

#18274 6 years ago
Quoted from Nethawk86:

They're out of parts, guaranteed! No more in their inventory. And no new cash flow (games still sitting unsold), to fund more parts...especially LE's (which is why they dropped the fiber optic ramps I bet).

Can you prove any of these assertions? Wondering what facts and data you have that the rest of us don't.

#18275 6 years ago
Quoted from VividPsychosis:

Jesus Christ. Someone needs to delete this thread, make a new one and add a moderator that only allows posts discussing Alien Pinball. If you wanna bitch and moan about HW Pinball or speculate as to their future. Use a different thread. Fuck, enough is enough. Some people just wanna read about alien Pinball and be excited.

Go back & read all 18K+ posts. This became the go-to HP thread years ago, and these types of topics get discussed here. Alien, HP....it's all related.

#18276 6 years ago
Quoted from nwpinball:

Can you prove any of these assertions? Wondering what facts and data you have that the rest of us don't.

If you'll go to post#18254, you'll see the facts laid out under events. In case you want the simple answer, I am posting an excerpt and I will separate fact from opinion. ->

Fact - In Nov / Dec of 2016 Andrew made a big push to collect balance of funds owed on Alien (I personally sent $7k and many others mentioned having done the same.),

Opinion - which easily amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This might have been an average of $7.5k owed for upwards of 200 games. Without knowledge of specific amount, assume it is a lot of money.

Fact - In Dec of 2016, Heighway Pinball filed legal documentation showing they only had a few thousand dollars cash balance.

Fact - Many of the largest suppliers and subcontractors have since admitted they have not been paid.

Fact - In late 2016, Andrew purchased a license to operate a hydrofoil business.

Opinion - After taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in Nov and Dec,

Fact - as of Dec, HP still owed its vendors and subcontractors, did not build/ship any pinball machines and had no money.

Everything else is likely opinion so I am taking facts and trying to connect the dots. Regardless of whether Andrew embezzled money or told new HP how much he was in the hole, either way new HP is on the hook for producing the game. Based on all accounts I've seen, his bookkeeping looks suspect. I hope for new HP's sake he was upfront with them. Anyways that is a matter to be resolved between Andrew and Heighway Pinball.

Sorry if my interpretation differs from your own. As stated multiple times - we will never know the truth without litigation or a confession from HP (even if we all lived to be 100, this would be unknown) - so we are left to SPECULATE . The facts above are separated to assist people in forming their opinion of the facts. If anyone is so butt hurt that they can't handle hearing something that conflicts with their own constructs, then maybe they shouldn't be on Pinside.

Edit - all items posted as fact are based on multiple direct accounts on Pinside and publically available financial documents on internet.

#18277 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

Your arguments are based entirely on opinion, mine is partly opinion but is based on known facts. I stand by everything I wrote and have qualified this.

Incorrect - What I stated is what we KNOW from the pieces of info we have... what you posted is what you extrapolated and speculated BEYOND those pieces of info we have. The difference between "Knowing what you know, and knowing what you don't know..." - you apparently don't know that distinction. You can speculate beyond what we know from the established information - that doesn't make it factual.

Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

By the way, the purpose of a cash flow statement is to show how much money is coming and going from a business. While it doesn't show the actual bank account #, the sources and uses of all funds need to be noted. So incoming cash should have been shown as an infusion and IF it was used to pay bills, an offsetting reduction in liabilities should have been noted

The documents posted were annual reports which showed the business state at the time of filling, not a report on the overall activities or in/out cashflows of the business... nor anything about the balances before the time of filling. This is a classic example of using information incorrectly because you don't understand the information being shared. There was no 'cash flow statement'. Just annual reports on the assets and liabilities of the business.

Please just stop with this speculative "conclusions" you have drawn from the information you have... and then stating it as fact.

#18278 6 years ago
Quoted from greenhornet:

the only reason people are waiting for refunds and/or communication is because the new investors are still there. if Andrew had closed shop, nobody would be waiting for anything today. but to blame HP's poor customer service on Predator?? now that's a stretch.

Missed my point totally Greenie. Predator comes to mine with pinsiders when you think of putting money out to a person (or company) and not getting anything in return. At first, I was nervous as hell when I sent in my total payment for WOZ to a new upstart company and waiting a long time for it, but luckily Jack came thru with flying colors. Those poor pinsiders with Predator didn't get nothing.

16
#18279 6 years ago

I received an email from Helmut today about My resetting problem when shaker is set to 70%. He said to lower it to 50% and all should be good until there next code update. Just keeping the thread updated.

#18280 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

If you'll go to post#18254, you'll see the facts laid out under events. In case you want the simple answer, I am posting an excerpt and I will separate fact from opinion. ->
Fact1 - In Nov / Dec of 2016 Andrew made a big push to collect balance of funds owed on Alien,
Opinion - which easily amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This might have been an average of $7.5k owed for upwards of 200 games. Without knowledge of specific amount, assume it is a lot of money.
Fact2 - In Dec of 2016, Heighway Pinball filed legal documentation showing they only had a few thousand dollars cash balance.
Fact3- Many of the largest suppliers and subcontractors have since admitted they have not been paid.
Fact4 - In late 2016, Andrew purchased a license to operate a hydrofoil business.
Fact5 - After taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in Nov and Dec, HP still owed its vendors and subcontractors, did not build/ship any pinball machines and had no money.
Everything else is likely opinion so I am taking facts and trying to connect the dots. Regardless of whether Andrew embezzled money or told new HP how much he was in the hole, either way new HP is on the hook for producing the game. Based on all accounts I've seen, his bookkeeping looks suspect. I hope for new HP's sake he was upfront with them. Anyways that is a matter to be resolved between Andrew and Heighway Pinball.
Edit - all items posted as fact are based on multiple direct accounts on pinside and publically available financial documents on internet.

Fact1 - True - but what the money taken from that is you have no idea. Reality is, no matter how much it was, it wasn't enough to pay the debts the company had
Fact2 - True, but the documentation doesn't tell you anything about the cash IN or OUT of the business.. This is you falsely interpreting the cash balance to mean the money "disappeared". Reality is, the guy was running a shop that requires CASH outflow every month to pay bills and expenses... and was facing lots of debts. None of this supports your claim.
Fact3 - Fake News. Classic "take a sliver of truth and extrapolate it... then defend the claims with just that sliver of truth". Reality is, the company had way more liabilities than the ability to pay them. None of this means the guy took money out of the business. The Debts were always bigger than the income because they couldn't ship a damn product on time.
Fact4 - WTF does this have to do with anything? Reality is, people start businesses so their personal assets are separate from their business. Failing HEP doesn't mean Andrew was broke... nor unable to have other business activities. Newsflash - Andrew has had multiple businesses up and down before HEP. You keep bringing this up, and reality is you have ZERO idea what that business venture means in terms of costs to Andrew.
Fact5 - Fake News. You have no idea what they took in. Second, failing to ship final product does not mean the company didn't incur costs.. and you 'forget' about all the past liabilities. Failing to ship final product does not support any claims of money disappearing. The company had been operating for years in the red... and was trying to spend money to finish games. None of this supports your claims of money disappearing.

The business was in the red... had expenses every week... and was trying to get games shipping. There wasn't enough cash available to function fully and get the product produced and shipping. That doesn't mean the guy took the money and ran. None of the things you cited support your "conclusions" in a direct way. It's purely you speculating.. and accusing someone of criminal activity with effectively nothing to support it. Not a smart thing to do.

#18281 6 years ago
Quoted from flynnibus:

accusing someone of criminal activity with effectively nothing to support it. Not a smart thing to do.

Friend of mine had to spend $30k defending a slander lawsuit because he used the word "pirate" on a message board to describe the person who was bootlegging his products to sell on ebay.

-5
#18282 6 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

Friend of mine had to spend $30k defending a slander lawsuit because he used the word "pirate" on a message board to describe the person who was bootlegging his products to sell on ebay.

I thought a few people already argued (about 50 posts ago) that 1) Heighway Pinball doesn't read Pinside and 2) posts made on Pinside don't have much effect on a company's outcome.

As a special note to flynnibus - When you claim my facts #3-#5 are incorrect, you are incorrect. Myself and others have seen an application for a hydrofoil license submitted by Andrew. If you go back in this thread and others, all points have been made before and I have verified each by either finding multiple sources or reviewing what is public record on the internet. Sorry, you can say fake news all you like ... but an apple is an apple.

Final points - it is my CONCLUSION based on the facts, that Andrew embezzled the funds. Since I am not prosecuting him, I won't need to submit my reams of evidence, but I have done some legwork and am entitled to my opinions and conclusion. Andrew might have been a good apple, right until the end, but the pressure was likely mounting and where's the f*ck1NG money Lebowski? Separate from this view about HP, my opinion of Alien pinball is that it may be one of the greatest pins ever made. I hope HP doesn't mess it up by failing to communicate with their customers.

btw - I gave my conclusion and then have been asked to explain.... and of course it belongs in this thread.

#18283 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

I thought a few people already argued (about 50 posts ago) that 1) Heighway Pinball doesn't read Pinside and 2) posts made on Pinside don't have much effect on a company's outcome.
As a special note to flynnibus - When you claim my facts #3-#5 are incorrect, you are incorrect. Myself and others have seen an application for a hydrofoil license submitted by Andrew. If you go back in this thread and others, all points have been made before and I have verified each by either finding multiple sources or reviewing what is public record on the internet. Sorry, you can say fake news all you like ... but an apple is an apple.
Final point - it is my conclusion that Andrew embezzled the funds, based on the facts. Since I am not prosecuting him, I won't need to submit my reams of evidence, but I have done some legwork and I am entitled to my opinion. Andrew might have been a good apple, right until the end, but the pressure was likely mounting and where's the f*ck1NG money Lebowski? My opinion is that Alien pinball is maybe one of the greatest pins ever made.
btw - I gave my conclusion and then have been asked to explain.... and of course it belongs in this thread.

Again... not understanding what you are working with.

Forming a second business - doesn't mean anything. HEP wasn't Andrew's only baby before or after.. Forming a business doesn't take much. You can start a LLC today by filling out some forms. What on earth do you think this has to do with HEP's assets?? Again... you have no clue yet you keep touting this as 'evidence' of some nefarious actions.

You are oblivious to the difference between what you "think happened" and the true legal liability of libel and defamation. Running around saying "he did it" because "you concluded from the information that's what happened" is not a defendable position. You're just lucky the guy is overseas and probably has bigger fish to fry than wrrying about the few that would listen to your "facts".

#18284 6 years ago
Quoted from flynnibus:

Again... not understanding what you are working with.
Forming a second business - doesn't mean anything.

sure, I formed a couple of hydrofoil businesses last week, just for the fun of it and for the pleasure of filing fees I am sensing your point is that not enough evidence exists to make a conviction or to prove the truthfulness of my conclusion - and that is true. However this isn't a court of law, it is den of public opinion. If no more info comes out (and I don't think more will be forthcoming), then it would be impossible to ever prove. But if it went to trial, a lot would come out in discovery. And whether you can prove it, has no bearing on whether it HAPPENED. We are forced to draw our own conclusions, and in my case, I've seen enough.

At the end of the day, this isn't even a central issue. New HP has swallowed the old HP and is now responsible for making, delivering and supporting Alien pinball machines. Until another batch of 25 games shows up in three weeks, we have nothing else to discuss. .... except for the status of refunds and ideas for fixing broken Alien and Full Throttle pinball machines.

#18285 6 years ago

HFS.....could someone post some more videos to drown out all of this.....?

Please?

#18286 6 years ago

All this nitpicking... The guy absconded after taking money for something he never provided. He didn't declare insolvency or sell his crap to pay people back or even apologize as far as I have seen. Stop defending the loser.

#18287 6 years ago

Let it go.

#18288 6 years ago
Quoted from libtech:

I also had a lightboard die on my Alien the other day, have to see if I can get it working... sigh...

On a positive note, I fixed my lightboard - reflowed all soldier joints, mostly worked, replaced a few LED's and its working 100% now.

For the Xeno, I tried replacing the stepper motor, however it still operates the same. My guess is the code comes into play since the limit switch on the tongue registers in the switch matrix however it does not fully retract the tongue so the switch engages and the ball drops. (if someone with 1.xx code would send me an image of their HDD that would be sweet )

Also seem to have an issue with my game stopping play mid game as if the ball has drained and flippers die, however I did replace the balls a while ago so they may have a magnetized one - will test that theory tonight.

#18289 6 years ago
Quoted from SadSack:

The guy absconded after taking money for something he never provided. He didn't declare insolvency or sell his crap to pay people back or even apologize as far as I have seen. Stop defending the loser.

didnt stop the collective here from making Andrew Heighway the all time thumbs up percentage leader in the history of pinside.

267 posts in this thread.

5781 thumbs up
12 thumbs down......... 99.8%.

#18290 6 years ago
Quoted from SadSack:

He didn't declare insolvency or sell his crap to pay people back or even apologize as far as I have seen

Correct - instead they raised more money and changed management. As you'd expect a business to do in trying to save itself.

I still don't think they are out of the woods. There should be more news of even more games ready to go by now... not hearing that makes me worry.

-1
#18291 6 years ago

Guys...go start a "hate" thread....that would at least filter out all these long conspiracy posts that have no relevance going forward. I think people want current status reports and game info. At least let the Andrew thing go. That's done. It's over Johnny.

#18292 6 years ago

Geez this thread should be called, [deleted my Staff]

Helmut reaches out to me as well this morning to help my launch button light and get me a US coin door. That was quicker then JJP to address my minor Dialed In issues. That’s got to say something.

11
#18293 6 years ago

Oh a lot of talking about Andrew Heighway and what happend to the company.

I have no facts to put in this case , but i took a trip to Merthyr Tydfil from Sweden when i found out that this man was going to build pinball games in UK ( wales ).

As i love pinball games and was selling arcade games in Sweden i thought this will be a nice product to sell , usually we buy products from China.

What i meet over there was a man who had a dream ( and he have had that for a long time ) of building his own pinball machine with his own name on.

I told him "who can you be so stupid to do this , there must be 1 miljon bettre ways to make money then getting the ide of making pinball games in UK" well it was not the money that was the ide for him , it was his dream.

I was offerd a part of the company , but turned it down. I am not the ideal factory owner but we can handle the distribution in Sweden .

I paid for 100% up front for some full throtttle games and it took over 2 years for me to get them.

Its more expensive then most people can imagine to start up something like this.

Its bad tha they "spent" or "invested" the money in the product and did not got to the production they promised.The company probebly was bankrupcy long time before they undersand that and its not easy to find investors to a "crazy" project as it was ( i did not put my money into it , just for the games well knowing that the delivery time will be long )

I am amazed that the new owner putting in booth money and most a lot of work to get this working , as i said before great work guys.

And they will have hard with getting games out and clear out all the old problems ( my guess is that they have loads of issu to fix , and propebly more then they where told when they decided to save the company)

I cant defend Andrew all the way and not all his broken promesis, but in the end i think he realy tried to fix this Alien game and hoped that it would solve all the economical problems for the company.

But i can say that i have full trust in the new managment and i hope that in 6 month from now we all who have been waiting for games , refound and right now is not so happy will se that they did it and we got what we all wanted.

Its not easy to be patient when you have not got what you want , waited way to long time for it and still not feel for 100% that you will get it.

I hope i am right on this point

Just my thoughts.

#18294 6 years ago

^^^ the irony is Andrew and Team did A+ work and the game is phenomenal. It is a modern day 'Miracle'! If HP continues building and shipping pins, things will right themselves. Big delays in shipping and stagnation without communication won't bode well.

Of course the best news would be for a principal from HP to come on Pinside and announce that their pockets are bottomless and that they will be doing whatever it takes - reassurance we don't need to worry. The 200 prepaid people certainly deserved this long ago. That would be my definition of what a leader could do to demonstrate they've heard rumblings and are committed to doing whatever it takes. Now that might be an unrealistic expection, but if true, a public statement to that end might calm 99% of the jitters going round.

#18295 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

If you'll go to post#18254, you'll see the facts laid out under events. In case you want the simple answer, I am posting an excerpt and I will separate fact from opinion. ->
Fact - In Nov / Dec of 2016 Andrew made a big push to collect balance of funds owed on Alien (I personally sent $7k and many others mentioned having done the same.),
Opinion - which easily amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This might have been an average of $7.5k owed for upwards of 200 games. Without knowledge of specific amount, assume it is a lot of money.
Fact - In Dec of 2016, Heighway Pinball filed legal documentation showing they only had a few thousand dollars cash balance.
Fact - Many of the largest suppliers and subcontractors have since admitted they have not been paid.
Fact - In late 2016, Andrew purchased a license to operate a hydrofoil business.
Opinion - After taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in Nov and Dec,
Fact - as of Dec, HP still owed its vendors and subcontractors, did not build/ship any pinball machines and had no money.
Everything else is likely opinion so I am taking facts and trying to connect the dots. Regardless of whether Andrew embezzled money or told new HP how much he was in the hole, either way new HP is on the hook for producing the game. Based on all accounts I've seen, his bookkeeping looks suspect. I hope for new HP's sake he was upfront with them. Anyways that is a matter to be resolved between Andrew and Heighway Pinball.
Sorry if my interpretation differs from your own. As stated multiple times - we will never know the truth without litigation or a confession from HP (even if we all lived to be 100, this would be unknown) - so we are left to SPECULATE . The facts above are separated to assist people in forming their opinion of the facts. If anyone is so butt hurt that they can't handle hearing something that conflicts with their own constructs, then maybe they shouldn't be on Pinside.
Edit - all items posted as fact are based on multiple direct accounts on Pinside and publically available financial documents on internet.

You're likely opening yourself up to litigation with unsubstantiated facts, I think that most people who were asked for money didn't pay (I know at least 4 personally who didn't, I imagine that's spread fairly well), some probably did but I hardly think hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken in and if they were and Andrew took them, they would definitely sue, nothing like that has happened.

Read this article, hardly reads like "running away and vanishing":

https://www.pinballnews.com/site/2017/06/04/andrew-heighway-steps-down-from-heighway-pinball/

More like the only way the investors would continue to invest was if they took full control

I'm not keen on the scaremongering, I want people who are owed them to get refunds, Morgan tends to try to make things seem rosy but that's his job I guess, I went to Roger and Daniel until I got answers but even then I was pestering on a daily basis, it shouldn't be that way, but I suggest anyone who wants their refund to pester.

I have spoken with the production manager and he assured me games are being built daily, a schedule is in place and production is increasing. 16 people in America have got their games before me (I have a confirmed record of my place in the production queue) but whilst I'm happy they got them, it still pisses me off I still don't have the game, but, I have confirmation that it is coming next week. I think they're probably making something like 10-15 games a week at the moment and with some of the issues that have surfaced, maybe that's not unwise?

12
#18296 6 years ago

jeffspinballpalace : your personal opinion has been heard. You are reaching broken record status. Please move along from this issue without further debate.

#18298 6 years ago

Could someone do me a favor who owns alien and check your middle board and see if this thing has solder on the left and right side? It's called JP201 and it's right below the LCD screen. Also post a picture of the LED sockets around that area as I want to compare to mine. This is what I'm referring to JP201 and I also posted a socket pic from that area.
Thanks

20171101_192203 (resized).jpg20171101_192203 (resized).jpg
20171101_192210 (resized).jpg20171101_192210 (resized).jpg
20171101_192151 (resized).jpg20171101_192151 (resized).jpg

#18299 6 years ago

This good enough?

EDIT: I broke out the meter and it's like it looks, the left two are connected and the right two.

IMG_20171101_195032940 (resized).jpgIMG_20171101_195032940 (resized).jpg

#18300 6 years ago

that's good - thanks! Seems like that is normal. OK.

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