Bath
Technically quite a few people on here and elsewhere own a part of that boat I reckon.
(Topic ID: 213643)
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3 weeks later
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:Makes sense for CT to fold. They probably made a small margin on each game, but with repeated quality issues from HP, CT customers need replacement parts and had to go through CT to get them, and CT was being ghosted by HP. Parts were promised to CT's Alien customers dozens of times for over ten months and they weren't flowing, even by the request of HP's biggest distributor. It is not hard to ship parts so HP either didn't think it important, didn't intend to send them, didn't have money to buy them, didn't have credit to get them made or something else unfavorable.
HP had the opportunity to make this company work, yet it seems like they were grossly unfunded and never made it out of the gate. HP also and came in thinking their product was 100% when it still needed physical tweaks. Hopes for a turnaround were high, yet have since crashed and burned. If you were paid in full and counting on seeing your Alien, that option is forever gone. Sorry folks but it's over at HP, and somebody needs to turn out the lights on the way to the parking lot.
That seems to be the critical problem there.
CT appear to be taking the stance that they aren't willing to pay upfront for all the machines ordered because of the QC issues and parts availability. Understandable, CT customers are the ones they're legally responsible to, the people who are going to shout at them if things go wrong. CT are (wisely) not willing to risk their reputation by precipitating what is obviously a huge, unprofessional mess.
HP, for their part, seem to be operating hand to mouth - which is never a good sign in business - so they aren't prepared to send these pins to CT without full payment. That's their choice of course, but their reputation is such that they don't really have the luxury of operating like this. Sometimes companies have to burn cash, or offer preferential payment terms, just to repair relationships or to right the ship. HP doesn't seem to want to do this, perhaps the investors have a line draw in the sand, perhaps they simply can't financially. Neither is a sustainable state of affairs.
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