Alien (Heighway Pinball)
Heighway Pinball, 2017You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider Astropin.
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Quoted from PACMAN:Like others, my patience has come to an end. Highways shady business practices and deceptive tactics have really pissed me off. I've formally requested my $1500 deposit from Heighway Pinball and will remind them daily until i get my money back.
How about giving the new investors 10 seconds to breath before hounding them? Given the current situation I would think a couple weeks for refunds would be reasonable.....then hound them. Just a thought.
Quoted from Frax:I'd like to point out that EVERY TIME people have advocated this with all the prior debacles... the people that did listen could not later get refunds, or lost their money outright. Stop encouraging people to screw themselves over. If they want to get out, they have every right to do so.
WTF???
I'm not encouraging ANYONE to stay in. In fact I might bail myself in a couple months depending on how things go. A couple of important things:
1) Andrew is gone (gone people) you can't request a refund from Andrew...you can request a refund though.
2) The new people are old investors but they NEVER had any say in how Heighway was run and were not involved in the "day to day" operations....maybe you feel as though they should have been...but they weren't.
The only thing I'm advocating is giving these new managers 10 seconds to figure things out before you hound them on a daily basis for shit they didn't cause. Yes you can request a refund. Yes you should get a refund. But jesus give them a little time to figure everything out. I don't think that's too much to ask and I'm certainly not telling anyone to stay in if they want out.
Quoted from PACMAN:Its basically the same group with a new CEO on the way.
NO IT's NOT! Not at all, not in the slightest. Read above. There was no "group", there was Andrew (with silent investors)...now there is a group.
Quoted from RobT:Bottom line is that anyone who takes over this mess needs to expect that they are going to be receiving a lot of requests for refunds, and that a lot of these people will not be at all happy about how they were treated (lied to?), and therefore are within their rights to vent a bit by "hounding them" for a refund.
So fuck civility. I want my money and I want it yesterday even though you people I'm requesting it from had nothing to do with holding my money and not delivering my product. Got it.
All requested refunds should be sent out ASAP. Not arguing that. I'm just saying the hostility towards the new owners is a little misplaced....if somewhat understandable.
Quoted from PACMAN:I listened to people like you who said to wait on Predator.
I never told anyone to wait on Predator.
I never told anyone to wait on Alien.
In the future I will never tell anyone to wait before asking for a refund. (Never have, never will).
So to be clear... (for the third time), I never said wait to ask for your refund; nor did I imply it.
They only thing I mentioned was giving them a tiny bit of time before you start hounding them for the refund you've requested. Two weeks if I recall. Then hound away. Obviously you are free to ignore me and do whatever the hell you want.
Quoted from DaveH:Waiting now is a bad choice.
Okay, apparently the whole word forgot how to read...
I NEVER TOLD OR IMPLIED FOR ANYONE TO WAIT
Quoted from Hazoff:I think I did for Predator, I paid in full for that game early on, Its pay pal that has a 2 year limit.
PayPal told me 180 days. ???
Quoted from Frax:Good luck with that if things go even slightly south from where they're at now...which is my entire point.
I'll personally be okay...one way or the other, I'm not it for the full amount, just a deposit....which I should be able to recoup (see below).
Quoted from Frax:You have a higher financial pain point than the OP...congratulations,
Not really...I just got in late and I'm still well within my "purchase protection" period from PayPal.
Quoted from Frax:but after your follow up post it just sounds like you were trying to encourage him to stay in longer for your benefit, not his.
See this is where we (or I) went off the rails....where did I imply he (or anyone) should stay in longer?
Quoted from Dee-Bow:you are starting to sound like that Whysnow guy
God I hope not...might need to take a break! 
Quoted from chrisnack:There is a massive mess of supplier issues and lies that have to be unraveled by the new "owners" so I just don't think it's realistic that any significant number of games will ship this year. My opinion of course. All i'll say is that I've learned a lot from offline discussions with various people. There was a lot of crap going on unseen that probably would have caused nearly everyone to bail if they had known. I sure as hell would have never gotten involved had I known.
I don't understand how anyone can be a supporter of the company after all the crap that's gone down. But hey that's just me.
How do you know this? (And how do you know for a fact it's true?)...and maybe some of us (all of us) would like to be privy to the same information.
Quoted from chrisnack:The number of personal attacks on people on this forum astound me... so much fricken drama!
Welcome to the world wide web! 
Quoted from Pinballs:Also, they won't be injecting millions of pounds, so it won't be enough IMO.
None of us have any idea how much they are willing to inject. The game is 97% done (according to insiders). Cash and it gets built and shipped. It's not rocket science at this stage of the game. Again...we've seen this work at JJP.
Quoted from rai:do not have a killer app meaning they have nothing that is proven better than SW, AFM, DI etc.
Proven? No. But everything points to it potentially being a better game than AFM or SW. How are we even comparing SW here? We have not even seen gameplay footage yet...talk about unproven.
Quoted from rai:Stern has likely sold more SW pins in the last 10 days than HW has sold in the last 4 years.
(I made that figure up, but bet it's correct). SW is probably going to sell at *least* as well as ST.
Sure...I can agree with that. Doesn't mean it's a better game or that Heighway can't eventually sell a lot of Aliens.
Quoted from PACMAN:Day 5. No contact.
Quoted from sed6:Me neither. Why have some gotten multiple emails and others none?
No idea but it's possible that Heighways record keeping wasn't the greatest. Try contacting them directly. I'll PM you guys an email I have for one of the new investors.
Quoted from HoakyPoaky:As a longtime paid in full Alien LE customer, I thought I would post one last time to give an update on my refund. Hopefully some of you will find this helpful.
I've been waiting on my refund for several months, and I've been pretty vocal in these threads. But when the new ownership group asked for patience during the ownership transfer, I was willing to give them a chance. Realistically I figured the transfer of ownership wasn't going to happen overnight. I never threw a tantrum or tried to do a fast chargeback. I just stayed in close contact with Morgan & Daniel as the weeks passed by, making sure we were both on the same page.
Well they finally came through on their word, and my full $7900 refund was finally wired to my bank account. It's been fully processed, and I couldn't be more thankful. While the refund process took much longer than I hoped, it all worked out in the end. Daniel & Morgan really wanted to make this right for me & they were very accessible.
If you are still waiting for your refund, I'd say just give them a chance. I'd be shocked if everyone who wanted a refund didn't receive theirs soon. And if you can get a refund, I don't see any reason not to.
So what were the lessons I learned from all this? Well you've heard them before...
1) Never preorder a pin again.
2) Never let dream theme hype influence your decision making.
3) Never buy a pin without playing it first.
4) After you've come so close to losing your money, you quickly realize that spending $8K on a pin is just plain stupid.
This whole experience for the last 2 years has left me pretty jaded. I won't even consider buying anything new for a while now. I'm just turned off in general. There's no rush to buy any of these new games. No more LEs for me either, it's just a marketing ploy to get you to buy now. No more new companies. No more drama for me. If I can't buy a pin today & have it shipped tomorrow, then no thanks.
With that said, I really think the new Heighway owners are going to turn things around. In my opinion, they seem genuine,, but that's no guarantee of success. I really hope they are able to mass produce these Alien pins at some point. But I think the most important thing is that they need to create a reliable quality product with excellent customer service & support. That's my main concern for the company. I wish them all the best, because Alien really looks like an awesome pin.
And most importantly, I hope every customer gets the pins & refunds they've been waiting on.
So if you actually gave the new owners 10 minutes to breath you do get a refund. Good to know.
Quoted from Dee-Bow:10 minutes?
Clearly an exaggeration!
Anyone who knows anything about a takeover knows it normally takes many MONTHS (not weeks) just to get things squared away and begin moving forward again. From what I have seen so far the new owners are moving much faster than I would have anticipated. I still have money in. I personally think Alien will ship and begin to ship in larger numbers before winter.
I can tell you that the new owners don't post here and are not following these threads. They understand they have to "talk" with action and results...not words.
Quoted from jonesjb:I'm in for the pin. Not the refund.
Me too...for now. I still think it looks better than anything else new right now.
Quoted from RandomGuyOffCL:That's pride for you...it's probably not even about wanting the pin at this point...you know the type...lost like a motherf'er, but won't dare stop and ask for directions...
I still think it's the best NIB game right now (or soon will be if you prefer). I don't have my head in the sand on this one...I'm in for a deposit that I can still get back if I want it...guaranteed (for now). Future support could be an issue but if it's a good game it will get supported one way or another...even if Heighway is no longer around. It's not rocket science making these things work. Might become a bit of a PITA but there will always be a way to keep it going.
Quoted from TheLaw:be a PITA making your own alien head
I won't be taking delivery without an Alien head in it. Done & done.
Quoted from MrBally:The two-week carrot dangle act CONtinues. Maybe this time is real.
Quoted from TheLaw:Yeah but this time it's for real dude...um hellllo Facebook said so!
I'll let you know when I actually get a tracking number. (And, no mine has not shipped yet)
Quoted from o-din:Apparently they haven't invested that money to pay back all those still patently waiting for refunds while they continue to take new orders.
A lot (probably most) have received their refunds...some havn't. But you and I are not privy to the details. I know a lot of people who've asked for a refund and got it in a reasonable time frame since the takeover. We've seen reports of others not being so timely but we don't know any of the details on those. I do agree that anyone asking for a refund should get it ASAP.
Quoted from drinkduffbeers:It's this inconsistency that's really pissing me off. I requested refund 4th May so that's over 12 weeks so far
The last email off them was the usual appology/we are on it/ will get back to you
It's an absolute joke
So that was back when Andrew was still in charge. I'm assuming you've made direct contact with one of the new owners since then?
Quoted from Oneangrymo:I tried to order an Alien LE from Heighway. I give up. They said talk to cointaker.. cointaker said they will contact me Monday. Sent another email to Cointaker on Tuesday, still no reply. Can't believe I have to chase them for an order. Oh well.. forget it, I give up. They don't want my money then fine. Guess, this company has a ways to go before becoming reliable. lates!
Mo!
You order $8000 toys by email?
I'd just call Melissa at Cointaker by phone and actually talk to someone.
Quoted from 27dnast:That was quite a podcast posted by Kaneda last night (he interviewed the artist that drew the LE backless). Crazy how deep the lies and deception go.
Good thing Heighway is no longer Andrew Heighway's Heighway.
I think you meant "how deep the lies and deceptions went".
Quoted from chrisnack:Warranty is only as good as the company, and if they are still around. That being said, people have reported having trouble getting parts for Full Throttle, and those that do have an Alien have reported the same, it's in various threads.
Quoted from TheLaw:Yeah, the parts that should have shipped with the damn game!
Good thing Heighway is no longer Andrew Heighway's Heighway.
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:Most would agree that starting up a factory from scratch, producing a new pinball machine and then ramping production is hard. How Heighway claimed they would quickly ramp from building a few pins, then quickly reaching 1000 pins a month, with a straight face, I don't know. So we know building pins is hard, but claiming you are going to be flooding your product out the factory door is easy.
Case in point - Tesla's model S sedan. First 30 cars were released in July. Plan is to make 100 in August, then 1000 in Sept and by Dec - 20,000 cars are planned to be built each month. In spite of this being a new product, new factory, using new materials, engine powered by battery, no public marketing etc. Who in their right mind would claim that four months following launch of a new model car, they would be building 20k cars a month? I believe Elon Musk has a chance to make it. Back to Heighway Pinball ... they have a chance to make a lot of games, maybe 100 a month is a worthy goal.. and that will be good enough.
I'd be happy to see 100 a month. More than that... great, less than that and I don't think they'll survive.
Quoted from Jvspin:I'd like to see them put out enough games to keep their business running. Doesn't matter if it's 10, 20, 50, or 100 games per month.
For example, say they have 500 games on order, at 100 games/month they'd be finished in 5 months. Then what do they do? Lay off all the workers and shutdown the production side of the factory until the next game is ready?
I know that was just an "example" but if they get Alien shipping and everything works on it like it should, they get the code update sent out AND they provide support...well then they will sell WAY more than 500 games. If all four of the above don't happen?...well they will simply fail to remain in operation. If they can do all of that then Alien will keep them busy for quite a while...but they will need a 3rd game in the pipe ready to go when sales of Alien do start to drop off (obviously).
I'm still in (for now), If I get a working game and the code update I'll be thrilled. Even if Heighway ends up failing in the near future I'll still be happy with my purchase. I'm pretty good at keeping games going and others in the community are WAY better than me and will find a way to keep the games that do ship running well into the future...we've seen this before so why would a Heighway game be any different? Hell there are people out there keeping the Pin 2000 games going and they didn't sell a ton of those and those game have some very unique parts/issues.
Quoted from delt31:OK I guess the price really hasn't gone up too much based on that. I thought it was 7500 or less for what you're mentioning (shaker too, no invisi).
I'm a little under $7500 (not counting shipping) with LCD, and EL blades. And that's with a 4% PayPal markup.
Quoted from TheLaw:People saying they're pi King theirs up today
Just confirmed that mine is at Cointaker as of today. Shipping to my door very soon.
Quoted from TheLaw:Yeah we heard you the first 20 times Congrats man, enjoy!
lol....just seeing a lot of posts still questioning whether or not these games will ever ship...when some have already shipped (recently).
Quoted from madscientist101:LE buyers who have been in it from day one have no idea when to expect their games?
I believe this has been discussed to death. LE's are coming after the initial SE run. Highway had no choice but to do it that way (parts issue). The LE's should start shipping next month.
I can't tell anyone what to do with their money but I can tell you that Alien is a fantastic pinball machine. I own/owned some great machines and I've played just about everything out there...Alien is right at the top for the overall package - theme/code/sound.
When will the LE's ship...I have no idea.
Will Heighway be able to keep the ship afloat...I have no idea.
But if you do get one you will be very happy with how it plays.
Quoted from Damonator:So maybe 50 are stateside and almost all of those are SEs.
IMHO there is almost no difference between the SE and the LE. Some paint, some art and a plack. The beacons can be added.
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