Two teams, play seven games. One team wins 4 games, the other team wins 3. Team with 4 wins gets trophy and the adulation of many fans.

Now back to pitchforkery and bashing.

Or almost $10,000 in the UK, where it is built. Crazy!

andrew please go crawl back into your moms basement. you contacted me and told me my le was ready to ship and had me wire thousands of dollars when you knew my le was not shipping anytime soon. you sir are a scammer, a criminal, liar and a thief. i almost lost 7000 because of you and still at risk of losing it all.
for you to come back here to defend yourself is ridiculous.
anybody screwing me out of my hard earned money would be dealt with and you better hope your friends at heighway come thru and deliver me an LE
because i will personally hold YOU accountable for any money i would lose on alien.

Hostile.

After you test the coils, then go into switch test and confirm the proximity switches up in the orbits are registering. You will need a ball in hand to do this.

Seriously have people gone crazy? Why isn't Andrew still running Heighway? Because he ran it into the ground. There would be no Heighway today if the investors didn't pump their money into the business. If a podcast presenter says something about the company why should it matter if you have a good product. It is one person's review / opinion. If a car company gets a bad review do they cry to the publishing company? No, they prove their cars are good. I've played Alien, enjoyed it, quality was mediocre... It had problems.

You can't lie to your customers, make promises and expect everything to be rosey at the other end. Where would everyone be today if you didn't get pushed out of the company? You would still be making promises that everyone would have machines in 2 weeks. For those still supporting Andrew I question you're position? (I bet you just bought a GOTG LE) btw, MODERATORS , doesn't Andrews new account breach the community rules of having duplicate accounts?

Definitely don’t get all the up votes for Andrew’s post. After the request for the balance on my LE came it didn’t seem right and I requested a refund. Thankfully I received mine, but it took months and numerous emails to Andrew. I’m happy to see that they are finally starting to ship.

Yes, rightfully so.....

Man, how I would LOVE to be able to update the code on my Alien. I know y'all are sick of me saying it over and over, but I am stuck on version 0.94 and can not update the code on my game until I receive updated parts. They were promised to me first by Andrew - face to face - at TPF back in March. He said I'd get them in about two weeks. Since then, the hardware platform evolved more, and it seems I will need to replace all the GI LED's the drop target mech, the Xeno and the PC. I've received many promises from New Heighway and Cointaker, including the promise of a populated playfield and new PC that was to be included in the most recent shipping container to Cointaker ...but like all the others before, that promise was broken, and as of now I have no idea if I'll get anything.

I can only sympathize with you. From Heighways facebook:

If you do feel left out, or want to ask anything, please don’t hesitate to contact us via e-mail (send to [email protected]) or by phone (+44 (0)1495 305634).

Continue to do this until you get a resolution. Ask for a parts ship date.

So far my best is just over 100 million. I finally finished "find Jonesy"...what a cool mode that is with "Jonesy" popping up in random locations, each time with a perfect sound cue. I'm right with you... think I've finished about 4 or 5 modes so far. I'm trying to get to "all out war"...best so far is started all of Aliens and about three into Alien.

Ellen Ripley and cat (resized).jpg

Heighway has quit responding to my emails about the status of the game. I attempted to contact Morgan twice with no response. Concerned at this point.

Andrew reached out to me with an apology. He seems to be genuinely sorry. He states he is no longer affiliated with the company in any way. He believes the new owners will honor my order and will eventually ship my games. I hope he is right. What is the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”... No matter how good their intentions are, I worry that they may be stretched too thin to honor all their commitments. If I trusted them (credibility has been stretched to the breaking point), I might even consider helping the company out financially. The problem is.... the trust is gone. I am considering all options.

While we normally do not respond to questions such as this outside a mod feedback thread, I’ll make an exception in this case. Any comments to my answer must exclusively be in a mod feedback thread and not in this thread.

Answer: normally yes, but he made a request before opening the new account and his request was approved. That matter is closed.

So my Heighway Pinball adventure has come to an end. As one of the early adopters (I owned FT #27) it was one hell of a ride and most of the time I was wearing my pink glasses. At some point they fell of, but at that time shit had already hit the fan.

I have sold my Full Throttle and have a Metallica Pro now. I also had a paid in full Alien kit with upgrades and decided months ago to cancel that order and get a refund. Although the whole process of getting my refund was very unsatisfying due to promises being broken, I must say that the cooperation of Heighway and the communication in the last few days was very good. And today I finally got my money back.

I hope this is the start of Heighway improving their service and communication. And that all of the fellow pinheads who have an Alien or are waiting for their Alien will get informed in a proper way and get the support they deserve. So I wish you all the best and hope for many unboxing pictures of Alien.

Glad to hear you finally got your refund! Let's hope HP comes through for everyone else waiting on refunds ASAP.

Yep, Forceflow ought to know. It is Andrew.

Andrew, why'd you come back? Take responsibility for your actions. Hostility doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's cause and effect. You're the cause. Where your company ended up is because of YOU. I was there at your 2014 Expo seminar where you said games would be shipping April 2015 when you didn't even have a complete design yet. I LAUGHED. I knew you were full of shit right then and there. Nordman quit a week or so later, confirming the insanity of that statement. We all watched for years as you made false promises, took peoples money, and kept telling everyone "2 weeks". I watched for years as my friends got jerked around working on your game.

Get out of here, Andrew. We're done with you. Your company is done with you. People here still have their money in limbo because of you. You come here for what, sympathy? HA! LEAVE.

Who designed Full Throttle and Alien? The designs are outstanding. Is there anything we can do, as a community of pinball loving fans, to help Heighway fulfill its promises? They have two winners, just execution problems. Maybe a trip to SharkTank....
I wonder if Heighway would consider spinning off a U.S. VAR that would start making pins for the U.S.? They could probably get a royalty on every U.S. game manufactured, to help their cash flow. I think there are multiple angles that could help them survive - maybe even thrive - and us get our games.
I’ve got a million dollars to put into a joint venture. Any other investors interested in joining me? Of course, this presumes Heighway would be on board.

And yes, I can afford it and I am for real. I think one of the original founders of TPF, Shannon S., whom I know well, would vouch for me. (I don’t know if he is ok with me posting his full name).

I have a bridge......

A bridge rectifier?

The best way to make a small fortune in pinball is to start with a large one.

Yes. This would be a labor of love. Very difficult to make a profitable business. But, if you control costs with low overhead and use programmers who are willing to develop after hours, at a steep discount - perhaps with some equity.... AND you have an awesome design, then you can probably turn a small profit.
The first thing I would do is try and negotiate a manufacturing partnership with someone like Charlie at Spooky, Gerry at Multimorphic or even VPCabs. This might also be an avenue to getting the I.P. On The Big Lebowski. My goal would be to build high quality, completed games and hopefully not lose more than one or two hundred thousand doing so.

I’m a successful, retired entrepreneur. I started a company ‘in my garage’, back in 1996, grew it to 300 employees and sold it for a nice sum. Today, 55,000 doctors use software that I designed. I know how to bootstrap a business. Pinball is a bit different from medical software. For one thing, we sold our software with training for 20k. People will pay 10k for an exceptional pin. That is probably what it would take to build 200 or 300 of these pins without taking too big of a bath.

Frankly though, if I was trying to make a profitable business out of this, I would concentrate on simpler pins that could be sold for 6-7k while still maintaining 50% or higher margins. Andrew’s biggest problem, I’m guessing, was that he was grossly undercapitalized. That magnifies every other problem that crops up. He then made promises he couldn’t keep. I imagine the stress must have been overwhelming. He also had rather grandiose, expensive designs. The K.I.S.S. principle for the first few pins helps you learn how to walk before you have to run.

This thread is now officially stupid *and* hilarious. It used to just be stupid, but Andrew coming back has been a brilliant finale to a real slog of a second act. I can't wait for the third act where ridiculous hijinks ensue, (hopefully) followed by more machines shipping and all issues being resolved. Maybe if all goes as planned (and we're lucky), we'll even get to see greenhornet and jeffspinballpalace make peace with this thread. I really hope they do, but first I want to see more stupid and hilarious posts.

Edit: If anyone has ever been confused about the term "jumping the shark", this thread just did it.

Hmm........

How long did you have to wait for your refund? I've been waiting since June.

Still waiting.

Almost 3 months. The period was not the biggest problem (they should of course handled this matter in a much shorter time frame), but promises being broken over and over again was. As said, in the end all went a lot smoother and I hope they will continue that behavior.

I had a lot of contact with one of the new management members [email protected]

Maybe he can also help you out. Good luck and I hope you will receive your refund soon.

Get together with those guys and lets make Forbidden Planet!!

I had enough of doing anything with anyone remotely heighway after full throttle.

Oh no....I meant another company. Forbidden Pinball.

Was having such a good game!! ...then, scoop switch stopped registering. Probably a broken wire/connection. Will lift the hood when I'm more sober...

Even on 0.94 code, this is a fun game.

IMG_3864[1] (resized).JPG

Still laughing at this one

IMG_1882 (resized).JPG

Love it!

Hey Ferret,
I tried the pop test in the menu. The left post goes up and stays up for a second or two. The right only goes up for a fraction of a second. I know someone that owns a new Alien and has the exact same issue and does the exact same thing in test. The orbit switches were tested and they worked fine.
I also know someone that has one of the few original Aliens that came out a while back. He says his posts work fine and don't have this problem. We all started to think this is a code issue since and It's only the newer Aliens that are having this problem.
Let me know what you think. I'm probably wrong but I'd love your opinion.

I tried playing Derelict Ship. The green orbit shot would divert into the pops the first time. After that, the green orbit would activate the pop for a fraction of a second and wouldn't divert the ball anymore.
I'll try queens nest tomorrow.

I can confirm my production game behaves the same as yours.

There is no way to have a profitable pinball company if it isn't manufactured in America...

May have been discussed and I missed it, but Morgan told me today that to make up for the fiber optic ramp lighting in LEs, the 27" backbox screen will be included. That's fine by me as I wanted the screen in mine, but obviously as an option some may not want that.

Unfortunately still no-go on a downgrade to standard (without paying higher price) so I haven't decided if I want to stay in or not. Production of LEs supposed to start by end of year, so, given I'm deposit only, chances of xmas delivery pretty much zero however this isn't a surprise to me. I personally don't think the LEs add much value, but guessing an LE at previous pricing is a better deal than a loaded Standard -- haven't done the math yet.

Its the first I've heard of that. Wonder when they made that decision as he told me over a month ago that they'd let us know as soon as they reached a decision on it.

Shame about no downgrade to the standard, but the screen seems like a decent concession. Guess I have a decision to make.

Wonder what will happen to Cointaker LE customers, as the 27" back box screen was included in their pre order price.

I'd have to do some digging to recall what the 27" screen add-on price was, but for some reason $400-500 comes to mind. CT would need to drop that price for all LE buyers, even if it was baked in to a fixed price offering. Its really just throwing a bone anyway, since the fiber optic addition was 600-800 (again I would need to dig back). Throw in the PDI glass as well as the screen and I'm pacified on this aspect of this cluster-fer.

Seems like $550 was the screen price that I always saw.

And $800 for the ramps. Also, was it ever confirmed whether PDI/Roman glass is truly an option yet? I recall there was some lack of clarity on this point...

Apparently Heighway may show their next game at TPF.

http://thisweekinpinball.com/twip-guardians-galaxy-reveal-heighway-pinball-next-game-timeline-john-trudeau-update/

If that's true, there really needs to be some substantial movement in shipping, refunds, QC, and customer service in the next few months or that will go over like a fart in church, imo.

It's an achievable goal, but the things you listed need to be dealt with soon.

CT LE price higher than the early adopters.....

Yep....and $800.00 was advertised add for the fiber. The early adopter LE price still best, if you consider powdered armor, shaker, lit side blades, etc.

Morgan stated this morning they were still targeting Christmas delivery, but couldn't give an exact date.

Long, long wait, but will still be the best value, if you wanted all the bells and whistles....

It has changed, but the original Cointaker LE price was $8400 and included the big 27" screen and shipping to your door (US only of course)

3rd Game will be called Hydroball - loosely based on the perils of shipping pinballs via Hydrofoil before the money runs out.

Featuring:

- Man overboard multiball
- Abandon Ship and Flogging Dead horse toys
- 2 More Weeks Hurry Up Mode
- 17 Screens

Yeah, I did the math and there's pretty much no point in cancelling the early LE and ordering a standard from CT (assuming the "free big screen" concession is true at a minimum). If they'd downgrade me to an SE for the early preorder price though, I could still save around $750-1000 after the upgrades I wanted. That's not insubstantial, but I feel like I'd really have to fight with them for either a change or refund at this point.

Unfortunately, I'm not as interested in most of the remaining bells and whistles anymore. Art is kinda still up in the air since we haven't seen the "small" LE art with a big LCD, and if the powdercoat looks like those renderings, I'll likely be requesting mine bare so I can get a better finish done locally. Even seem like the beacons and lit blade art might be DIY-able, and those would really be the only upgrades I'd make to a standard.

Great to hear they're still aiming for Xmas though. I'd probably be fine with mine even shipping next year if we could at least get some concrete info and maybe pics. It's just frustrating to still not even know what's included or really what the full-package will look like. Still a few variables so I guess I'm still holding out to see what it looks like before making a decision.

And one of those screens can run constant train derailment memes while another does an animated "pinside babies" rant podcast