Yeah I think the coders are doing an amazing job, as did David Thiel and Aurich.

All this really probably falls on Andrew Heighway, not the people he hired. I imagine he didn't give anyone the resources or time they needed to do their job properly.

HP had some cool stuff like the modular, tiny inductive sensor switches for balls.

But there was a lot of over engineering and waste. Connectors everywhere, which cost a fortune and are less reliable than just soldering wires on.

Each of the node boards had a fairly beefy PIC32 on it. The same MCU we used to control the pinHeck games. Except HP games had 5 of them! Some doing tasks as mundane as reading the flippers. (bias alert: I hate node boards in any game)

Also the modular cabinet is ultimately pointless. This is a hobby where people worship at the altar of edition # and rarity. They see games as a complete package not a Lego set.

I don't have any money in this game, but the guy had me duped. The hype was palpable and I was watching all the videos with excitement and went to Expo that year mostly because of Alien. I even loved the reusable cabinet. All the delays and problems were just another indication that pinball was hard. Andrew's charisma obfuscated all of the now obvious problems and chicanery.

I've never watched a scam like this unfold this closely and it worries me because I foolishly thought I had a better judgement of character. I will never be affected like those that lost money, time, or reputation by this travesty, but it does slightly tarnish the unbridled joy and wonder I had for the silverball. Reality 1 - Innocence 0

Maybe it was Paul Reiser's character that had the biggest influence on this game. In hindsight, maybe his picture should have been on the backglass.

Yes, the price difference sucks. This post might interest you if you are sold on a Hobbit though:
http://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/nib-hobbit-black-arrow-%C2%A36995.39456/

just buy your game in $ (convert some £ when the conversion rate is very favorable to £)
but you could not do anything with custom charges and 20% TVA (except if you are a company)

Plenty in the UK knew exactly what was going on, and yet played shill to him, right to the very end.

I still find it extraordinary that people were prepared to vouch for and defend him, when they knew a good deal of what he was up to, and had done for years. They seemed to think they might get something out of it, if they did. Others had his back because he was 'one of theirs'.

But that wasn't limited to the UK. This forum is evidence of that.

That's the tip of the iceberg, IMO.

What was published on TWIP, has appeared here, and Kaneda has revealed ... it's nowhere near all of it.

One good piece of news, if the investors do intend to try and go on in some capacity, is them possibly no longer pursuing Alien. In my view, it should have been scrapped from the get go. The game was so compromised from its development during Andrew's tenure, that without a total redesign it would always be unreliable and a huge pain to support.

Also, per the article, license for Alien definitely was originally only supposed to run to the end of December '17. Since I can't imagine they were producing the latter examples without a license, I assume they probably had some clemency, given the situation, from Fox, and a small extension. However, it's difficult to imagine them paying big money for a bona fide extension (possibly of years), given their predicament.

For the record, I think they're mad to try to continue.

Most licenses you have 90 day window to sell remaining stock even longer if ordered before deadline

If they sold games to a 3rd party company like a distributor, the distributor can take as long as thy want to sell

Whysnow Take it for whatever it is but I think that part of the reason that people have polarizing opinions on you is that I believe that you like to be the straw that stirs the drink. It is obvious that pinball is a big part of your life and that you are very enthusiastic about it. You are out cheerleading hard for specific companies, events, etc. We get that. You want to be a personality and get some notoriety. However, when you backtrack comments, weasel word things, shout people down, and troll things it makes it very easy for people to turn against you. When you make thoughtful comments, I enjoy reading them and find you to be knowledgable. When you make inane comments, that is when people pile on you. I think deep down you want to be thought of as a made guy in the pinball community and that you carry weight. If that is the case, you might consider changing some of your ways to get better results.

Not a shot at you, just the outside looking in.

I think that cabinet idea was DOA when they announced you needed to update the PC on a FT. I like the illuminated cabinet sides.. and the glass can be removed in a way that let's you place a game in a tight spot where you couldn't get the glass out on a traditional game.

So, is there no chance at all that ALIEN will be resurrected in the future to finalize this extraordinary Pinball Machine?
The idea was good, the development was good, the team was good, just the management was a disaster!

The chances are less than zero.

can we talk about management when you learn about Andrew's foolish in TWIP paper? To move from a garage to a multinational according to his words shows that he lost his mind, spending without counting the money that did not belong to him in a kind of Maddoff style. Who could have suspected it but from inside?

I appreciate your feedback. I assure you I am just a passionate pinhead and not sure what a made man is in pinball, but I ain't kissin no ring. I just like pinball; you take the good with the bad with me

I fully understand that I am a polarizing person and sometimes may stir things up a little (it is an online forum where we are all just having fun after all; pinball is an outlet from real life and never to be taken to seriously). I think some people like to have a person to pick on and that is just how it rolls. When one person becomes that scapegoat then others often like to pile on. I get that, but when people are still pulling up quotes form 5 years ago, I dont think any amount of change on my behalf is going to change how this online community views me. Let's be honest how many times do I need to apologize for my influence regarding SkitB for people to give it up? I dont think it will ever happen.

Luckily, this online community is just ONLINE. It is a place I come to pass time, screw around, sometimes make value added comments, sometimes be overly passionate, and often done so with a reasonable amount of sarcasm or snark. Life is too short and too many real world things to have much concern about an online persona/personality. Lets hang in person, play some pinball, and have a good time in real life Pretty sure we are all more similar than we are different

What a shame... last year I visited EXPO in the Netherland together with a friend and we used to play this ALIEN more then all the other Pins there. Again and again and it was really impressive.

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Many of the business failures Ive been on the consulting side of have failed because of uncontrolled/managed spending.
Simply running out of money to do the job, often misappropriated.

I learned early on, for me personally, that supporting others financially, that have a history of failures, went against my
frugal business mind.

Hindsight and History does however, make us all smarter people, I hope.

If you read what I wrote, I am not blaming him for anything other than the hype, which is well documented. I specifically said I doubted he had any idea as to how far Andrew had run the company into the ground, and I don't believe he had any idea how this would end up.

I understand your point of view. Food for thought on one comment that you made:

The line between online and the real world has gotten very blurry throughout the years and actions in one world tend to have effects in the other. It sounds like you are able to compartmentalize the two but others may not. When people read reviews of products (good or bad) online, that can impact purchase decisions. We see it on Amazon, we see it on eBay, and yes, we see it on Pinside. You and others when you cheerlead or deride products can have an impact on purchasing decisions even if you do not pull out the credit card out of their wallet (paraphrasing a prior comment). Your enthusiasm for products and companies can be interpreted as shilling, particularly if there are difficulties with that product or company that arise. In some cases, it can even have the opposite reaction then you intended (Hilton likes product/company x, is it because it is good or is he over enthusiastic? Maybe I don't trust what is being said).

Like I said, this is not intended as a shot at you (we will have time for that later ). Just an observation and an outside perspective.

hype? like dozens of new threads opened for each new game, for each new hypothetic revealing date? you can blame all of us.

"i doubted" is already too rough imo. nobody knew except from inside. why don't you blame these persons that could have been alert launchers?

Whysnow did not deserve your comment. it was insulting imo.

Is anyone else following this back and forth that just seems to be going on and on? I’ve been skipping over.

I honestly think the reason we were able to see some success with our efforts is that we were isolated from Wales. That made a lot of things difficult, we basically were doing everything for a game we couldn't even see and had no access to, but the more crazy stories come out the more clear it is just how insulated we were from the madness. Every time I think I have a handle on what was really going on I learn I still have no idea.

The more things overseas broke down (from our limited perspective that was mostly evident in people we had previously been working with leaving the company) the more we stopped asking for permission or feedback and just took more initiative to do things the way we thought they should be done.

Before Heighway had delivered a pinball machine, their main marketing item was the "kits" that would allow you to swap one game (PF) for another in the same cabinet.

But the very first time that someone could buy one of these kits (FT owners could buy an Aliens kit) it wouldn't work, as the CPU that was used in FT was not up to the task. Was that issue ever resolved?

This exchange was a blast from the past. Gotta love how Whysnow told me to "settle down" because I had the audacity to comment on this issue because I was not a FT owner (and I believe that I did so in a civil manner).

Considering I'll likely never have an Alien kit for my Full Throttle, that would be a .... "no" .

I have no idea what's going to happen yet in the future, what I can say for sure is that if Alien and Full Throttle are both canned just like that, it'll mean an utter waste of five years of my life under Andrew, right from the very start, for less than no benefit whatsoever and nothing to show for it, either personally, financially or productively. With what I had to spend to get here, I could have sat on my arse in Northern Ireland doing nothing and been around £20k better off in the long run than I am now, and from promises I was given to join in the first place, I'm out a potential six-figure sum, and I *wasn't* an investor. No salary, nothing ever made official, just vague assurances of 'royalties' that I refused point blank to ever agree to. I finally got a contract once he'd gone, but the one thing you can't put a price on is all that *time*.

Waste of time.

Hopefully someone else realizes you are a talented designer and we see a game from you, produced by a real company.

Andrew Heighway , please seek immediate help. You have a problem and it fucks over everyone that comes in contact with you. You are a disease to this world.

Out of all of Andrew's stupid ideas I think this has to be the dumbest. It sounds neat for the first 10 seconds after you hear about it, and then logic starts to kick in and you realize just how fraught with issues the entire thing is. It was a huge stone around the neck of making games. I never liked it.

Unfortunately, I think that is the case. Your situation may be uniquely shitty, save perhaps that of the investors, but you'd hope they were playing with money they could afford to lose.

As far as I could ever tell from what various people associated with the business told me, the only people (and then not all of them) that Andrew ever tried to make sure were not too hard done by were the guys in the US. Not because he cared about them, but because that's where the rest of the industry is based, the largest market, and he had crazy dreams about moving there and making it big, and didn't want to shit on what he hoped to be his new doorstep.

Everyone else was both expendable and abusable. Staff, suppliers, customers, contractors, investors; all of them. Indeed, the whole Welsh operation was. If you gave an inch, he'd take a mile. He seems to have taken many in your case, and appears to have had absolutely no shame or scruples about doing so, as he lined his own nest.

Your point about time is a salient one ... I don't think so many people who were burned, mistreated, or left after witnessing alarming practices were afraid of either NDAs, or what he might do to them if wronged (though some seemed legitimately fearful) or they exposed him ... it was more to do with not wanting to waste a single second more time on having to communicate or deal with him. Most seemed to want to forget that they ever had any contact with him.

I'd like to think so, but the whole affair has also left me with an insane case of imposter syndrome on top of my inferiority complex and all the other personal issues. There's also a lot of outstanding work that if everything were to stop here would become pretty valueless now to anyone other than myself.

I was too deep down the rabbit hole, didn't have anything I could just walk away back to, and was legitimately terrified of the consequences of doing so anyway, if it all came tumbling down once I pulled the keystone away. I just couldn't face the idea of having so much of my life come to naught and potentially taking the blame for it. That last point was something I don't believe Andrew actually saw, and I think the point of realisation for myself was when you yourself began using the phrase 'Stockholm syndrome' to describe the impression you were getting.

When I first heard about it, it actually appealed to me. But this was at a time when I was busting at the seams in terms of space for any more pins. So the idea that I could (supposedly) store a PF that would be a completely different pin under my other pins would have helped with my space problem. But I always had doubts as to how well the system would actually work, and how much of a pain it would be to swap PFs.

Appealed to me too. Well executed, I would have felt for it.
I may eventually move to central Paris soon where every square inch is worth a fortune; won't have a lot of space for pins. Add to that that I am not getting any younger: swapping PF is way easier than swapping pins when you're living in some places.

Anyway, I'd love P3 concept to succeed.

Sell me your Wooly, it would help you.
Still waiting for a trip to Bdx

Thank you for posting this and digging into the details. Absolutely crazy and really tells how horrible of a businessman Andrew was.

Except there are requirements under our Australian consumer law for a commercial seller in cases when a manufacturer enters insolvency/bankruptcy and liquidation.

Seller must have adequate supply of spare parts and authorised replacement stock to guarantee and repair/replace at their cost any subsequent defects or parts breakages in sold product for a period of a minimum of 12 months FROM THE TIME OF SALE.

Or

Seller must disclose to the purchaser at the time of sale and prior to sales contract completion that parts supply is no longer available due to the manufacturer dissolving previously. Failure to do so can allow the contract to be rescinded by the purchaser due to fraudulent omission.

Fair dinkum.

Yeah, there's a definitely appeal to the idea for that reason, I totally get that. I too doubt people would do the swaps all that often, but it makes a certain amount of sense still. Every other month you change games, okay, cool. Still don't think it's all that great of a sales tool, pretty limited in terms of moving actual units out the door, but fine.

The bulk of the issues are on the design side. Like a big one is by promising your games will be modular and swappable, you basically tie down every mistake and issue with your very first game to everything else you produce in the future. As we saw with the Full Throttle computer that was immediately a problem. The IO boards changed. You have to stay widebody. You have to keep the playfield LCD, because the modular cab wasn't design to have a screen in the backbox by default.

You don't have full cab art, so you're limited in design, makes it harder to do a proper LE. Or, if you go all out and do say a red cab for Full Throttle, it looks dumb with Alien, and the modular part becomes kinda pointless. I could go on.

I don't think anyone else should bother trying it. I honestly feel the same way about the P3, but they're such a different design that it would be a whole other conversation. I wish them luck.

I think you're far, far too charitable or good natured - or still sympathising with your 'captor'.

If you were an isolated case, maybe. But you're not. You're one of many, and arguably the pinnacle of his 'achievement' - getting valuable time and money without having to give a dime.

If he didn't know how to take advantage of people, use leverage, or twist the knife, he wouldn't have got away with it for so long.

It's pretty galling when you meet someone who's prepared to lie right to your face, and deliberately mislead and take advantage of you. Not only is it unpleasant, but it's embarrassing. People go into denial.

Hopefully the investors find something for you to do - in a paid capacity, if they really do wish to continue imperilling their reputations as well as their fortunes.

In the mean time, take comfort in that you were far from being alone, and that now more of the truth is coming out about what was happening, and the conditions that staff had to work under and deal with, both the community and industry ought to be rather more impressed with your work.

I will say that I have experimented with modular on many levels. I use a modular design for pinball development, but in real life, it has challenges. For one, storing a playfield takes almost as much room as a pinball cabinet itself. I have attached some photos of a metal playfield design where we used magnetic toys and let kids rearrange a playfield on the fly and then try it out. But as you will see by pictures of the crate to hold a playfield... it is huge! This crate is very minimal, as well. Not rugged like a gig case. When you factor in the supporting frame AND the heigh of the playfield backwall, the crate must be tall. The worst part? Sliding the playfield crate under a pinball cabinet was not possible due to the legs. Even uncrated took some twisting, not the "slides right under!" like you want it to be.

I haven't seen anyone selling a modular playfield system post the "case" for the playfield components. If that is not the case, send me a link. I would love to see how others tackled this.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

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why did you stay?!

Can you really store a playfield in less room than the playfield itself?

When will their be an official communication on the standing of all preorders?

If you're looking for a statement from HP, I doubt there will be anything.

My bad. That should have read, "For one, storing a playfield takes almost as much room as a pinball cabinet itself."

I have corrected the text in my post. Sorry about the unintentional melon scratcher.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

The perception I have is that unless an “official” announcement benefits the investors financially you wont see anything.

Has anyone who lost money contacted their CPA to see if they can claim a loss and/or their attorney to see if there is any legal recourse?

Here's the official communication-F you, we stole your money and not giving it back! Every one of these 'new' investors and Andrew should rot in Hell

BOOM!!!

Oh denial, just not a river in Egypt.
Sorry bro, Im pretty sure all pre-paids money went ro Andrews lodging, airfare, Porsche and imaginary lifestyle.

Why is it when this shit goes down with rotten companies it comes down to Lord of the Flies with fellow Pinsiders?

A lot of things were imaginary in this company, but Andrew's lifestyle was not.
May be you mean "imaginative" ?