they were on Poorman's Man Pinball Podcast

- will be a Kickstarter at $10kUSD limited to 300 units to be launched was to be Oct 2021 and now around March 2022
- pay half to kickstarter = $5k USD and then $5k USD and then you have to pay shipping on top
- suggested to be space theme, non licensed like a Houdini type open license
- husband and wife team and don't think they own any games
- haven't built a pinball yet
- hasn't looked into sheds yet
- have a number of patents for new pinball tech in the process

http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/quickSearch.do?queryString=ian+bartos&resultsPerPage=

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I for one tried to reach out via email and was just steered to respond via webchat only as you felt this is the only way to get to know someone and you never acknowledged my ideas, tips and info given to you - which is alarm bells. You have to be open to using different mediums and have those discussions by whatever people feel comfortable with. I get you have some patents in progress and hence are protective of information and dare say you record video chats to protect yourselves.

I agree totally with Frax - kickstarters and people funding the business will not work - where is the guarantee of people's money.

My recommendation is design a game and reveal it and then launch your kickstarter if you must showing the wow, then try and gather support or build smaller numbers of games at your expense in a smaller workshop like Riot Pinball. But your price of $10k USD + freight is even more than Haggis pins and beyond JJP and other companies who are established companies. I think your product is already targeting the LE buyers and based on the interview you don't want to show much of the game just tidbits - you just won't get the support.

Why not design a game and get Haggis to build giving you a head start and get more self sufficient for game 2.

How about on Pinside and Facebook share with the community what games you own and some art samples etc.

Agree, and based on the podcast:
- game sounds like concept, ideas & dreams,
- no game made yet,
- haven't looked at rental build space as was basing on looking around a few years ago - price and availability could be an issue
- and sounds like no one in the team experienced in mass manufacturing of large complex items like a pinball and basing production from knowledge in the door lock and handle industry.

I am struggling to see you Ballarama can cost a product and your production space, tooling when you have no production staff or knowledge in building a pinball game or mass producing a large complex product not to mention then electrical certification = delays, etc.

And for the buyer they have to add freight costs from Melbourne / Australia to around Aus or around the World on top of the $10k USD.

You either have alot of meat on the bone included in that $10k USD per game or alot of hope / positive thinking that you won't blow out.

That said nothing wrong with dreams, goals and positive thinking, but there has to be some realism in there and then believe in yourself enough = mortgage everything you have to support the venture not just rely on everyone else's hard earned cash. It also can't be viewed as a CAPEX venture where the shed, tooling, wages is all paid off with the build of one game x 300 in a 2 year period.

Grants first homebrew battle pin looks sweet and and his next homebrew Get Smart has loads of potential but the concerns are more the manufacturer to be

- I saw he invested in a set of Cobrapin Board Set
- if he is sourcing parts from Taiwan then I reckon it will be Homepin parts
- the issue is people are trying to engage but there is no discussion back which doesn't go well in a forum (a place of discussion).
- the podcast was done too early and come across more like - we have got dreams.
- your Facebook / Instagram are to focused on buzz words and getting followers but reckon that a very small percentage of those are actual pinheads - so build a awesome game and show it off then do your hype - do not concentrate on media at this early stage as the pinheads want to see build results not chatter about horse themed pins and other random stuff.
- look at Damian he documented building a game before switching to launching a company and that built up a following

and this is the cone of silence mech for his Get Smart game

have to agree with the others, the Facebook images, posts and hashtags are terrible

also while I am not knocking Marco at all, huge range of parts but the postage is a killer most of the time - you have 3 pinball parts suppliers in your local area especially RTBB who gets alot of parts from Pinball Life who have a whole homebrew section.

agree with the music, but then the game could be slow and floaty

the likes and followers is really just a false sense of interest like you said a heap of clicks and then you head to the group page and whole 9 interested people 1-2 are the Ballarama guys so 7 people and out of that probably 1 person interested because they don't know about all the Deeproot and other company's drama and failures

pretty sure he probably didn't know who Jon was - given he asked send me something to impress him with

Ian will take all your info and keep it close to his chest and give you nothing back in return.

If people like to get patents they are like secret agents - do not share a thing - are extra cautious. I had 2 bosses in previous jobs both very similar in their secrecy. One was nicknamed the Dolphin as highly intelligent but can't communicate to humans.

Sadly their business plan is built purely on the kickstarter approach and using everyone's money to build the factory, business setup and building the pins etc

the facebook page has over 5000 followers, which I am sure many are paid to tick / like and are not into pinball so not really a safe guide for setting your business plan on and then their enthusiast page has 10 people. I highly doubt this will be successful via kickstarter.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ballaramapinballenthusiasts/members

made me laugh one follower is a fraud investigator and another is the marketing manager from Stern (so they say)

old video relisted, nothing new

well they got the clicks / followers, though I scratch my head at the colour schemes used for the updates and website, they have the artists but no enticing pinball art

I think it is a case of people volunteering their time until project money comes in

she is hosting the interview though and offering services to help write a book

Looking at the history of his patents with 44 placed and only 5 granted, and based on his approach for this project you could assume he does not do the best research.

I would not be surprised that some of these ideas put into now patents have been done either commercially or homebrew style already. I have a feeling they want to do swap-able playfield toys and playfield sections. P3 are the experts in this and FAST did a larger playfield version for there personal development.

I also thought that the patent process took 18months to properly file so will be interesting to see some sort of reveal or if that gets pushed out and reckon ther process of placing patents in Australia, USA and Europe gets very expensive - there goes alot of money. I had a mate patent something about 25 years ago for those 3 country areas and cost him $50k AUD and then his competition just designed his product into another product removing the need for his product and getting around the patent = alot of lost income spent on patents.

Here is todays update on Facebook, mmm research - amazing technology for 1975-76

Update 30-12-21 (resized).png

a good watch, enjoyed the episode guys.

that was embarrassing double downing on Attack From Mars

Well gotta wonder based on the avatar picture if their game is licenced and if it is matrix. We do know that it is a sci-fi theme...

game (resized).png

totally agree with you, that is why I joked that it was amazing technology for the 70's

I am also curious of what the patents are, as based on Attack From Mars from 1975/76 I wonder what they have patented that has already been done. It sounds like one of the patents is swap out playfield sections which is what P3 are doing. If you look at his long patent list of door locks etc only about 5 out of 44 were approved.

Here is this mornings update:

13-1-22 update (resized).png

I am sure people wanted to be involved early on but want to be paid, so finding a free labour team is possibly their challenge

latest update educating people about spinners and switches

update1 (resized).pngquestions (resized).png

Ian might be an engineer and involved in lots of patents but only 4 or 44 made it to be secured and actioned - got to question the research done to gain them and they are door locks and handles

He loves the Spooky story and wants to be the aussie version but there are some major differences:
- he doesn't discuss with the pinball folk,
- he doesn't know many if any key pinball people in the industry to assist in his plan
- he doesn't have a chunk of land for $1 and
- just does not have the same passion and knowledge as Charlie did at the same stage.

I don't think he is at the scammer level rather at the dreamy / head in the clouds thinking all this is easily possible when you are positive. If they still go the Kickstarter route they need to show a full game and it needs to be incredible with an insane license to have a chance of taking anyone's money - but doubt they will get 1-10 machine sales let alone the required 300 as so many people in pinball are very wary of these type of start ups as we have seen it so many times - Jpop, SkitB, Heighway, Dutch Pinball, VonnieDPinball (kickstarter), Deeproot.

I am amazed that he could already cost a game and factory investment a few months back when they hadn't built a game yet nor looked for a factory yet - that rings alarm bells alone and the price will only go up due supply line issues affected by covid etc. Then to say in the interview that they are not interested in making a profit and will give left over money back to the investors ????.

If they want a chance to capture people's interest: they need to have people spell check, design a much better layout and colour range as the current presentation does not show any flare and show something of interest. I dare say we won't see anything meaty until the patents are approved and then reckon it has already been done before.

2 more Patents submitted though could be adjustments as they are repeated ???

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I believe what ever he has patents on, most probably have already been done before and this ends up being a gross waste of time and money. He has over 45 patents over time and roughly 10% have been successful and still stand. After his AFM research you have to wonder about his patent research and forum research but also watching what the homebrew community does as there are some clever folk there. One of them sounds like playfield removable panels / features which Multimorphic has done commercially, Fast Pinball did for proto-typing designs and concepts and even I did a homebrew idea a while back and then did a facebook look back at it recently. I shared what the 2 above companies have done in a way of reducing expense to pinball and adding game variety. Then I noticed 2 patents having been updated or additional to original ones he placed a year ago.

Like what Rotodave stated people find work arounds or contend a patent and it is squashed.

Spend that time build and release your game. It was going to be released late 2021 but they needed to raise facebook followers and then were going to release via kickstarter in March this year, if this doesn't happen then this project will most likely never reach release dates they aim for.

This mornings update:

Screen Shot 2022-02-17 at 7.22.25 am (resized).png

Innovation, patents and then people find ways around things.

I noticed they have a flip up target patent, details are not yet available but here is my mech for a custom pinball one day. See how close his is to mine

Had this flip up target mech on my mind for a while now and recently designed - just had to work out capturing it in animator. The switch and servo which are not shown can lock lock the target in the up position but you get the idea - allows for a show running playfield and no big and bulky mechs. Am planning a custom build and using this mech in there but in a bank of 3 across in a row. This type of mech would be cool as a James Bond with 3 of them in a row one behind the other for a shooting range with ball lock capabilities.

Flip Up 1 (resized).png

Flip Up 2 (resized).png

so they do, but can those lock in the up position? or do they swing and trigger a switch under the metal plate and return to the vertical position?

here is today's update

Screen Shot 2022-03-19 at 12.26.22 pm (resized).png

What they have said is:
300 x $10000 USD = $3 Million USD = $4 Million AUD

but via kickstarter
300 x 50% of machine cost = $1.5 Million (absolute no protection of getting your money back)
minus I think 10% kickstarter fees = $150000
leaving $1.35 Million to cover of the 50% deposit and then Ballarama charges the 50% remainder at some point in the project?

- finding a factory and setting up
- building the game (all materials, board sets, programming)
- wages
- insurances
- electrical certifications, etc etc
- and here is the beauty what they left they are not interested in keeping but giving back to the investors effectively reducing the cost of the game

A while back the kickstarter release was going to be Dec/Jan but not enough followers and then they said at the end of March and they weren't going to show a game but then stated they will show elements but not whole game. This approach will not do well in support on kickstarter.

Currently the team is working on favours and donating their time.

BUT
- no mention of shipping expense, taxes and so on

NOW
- $10000USD = $13400 AUD = highly doubt many Australians are going to invest in a game not shown by Aussies as it is LE prices by reliable companies.

I will be shocked if this is successful via kickstarter.

Didn't Heighway Pinball have a 2 level pop bumper plus it has come up in discussion in the past of a pop bumper and then raises up to be a scoop

no it was full throttle - maybe it was the proto which I thought was a 2 stage pop bumper, it definitely spun --- maybe it was sunk and lifted to be spinning???

awesome looks like a lot of wasted time on patents, just build a game and show it Ballarama...

remember this kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2065029795/pinball-gremlins-pinball-machine?ref=discovery_newest&term=pinball

he aspires to be the Spooky of Australia,
- difference is Spooky knew people and had friends in the industry, had a great deal on a starting property in their home town and worked on and understood pinball and was on the forum - actively talking to the people
- Ballarama is on Facebook only and all about getting page likes and not showing any of his pinball but calling themselves pinball manufacturers and already got a 5 star rating already ??? how ???

I think the thread is staying alive to protect new people - so when new people come into the hobby they don't make the same mistakes some of us have with the likes of Heighway, SkitB, Jpop etc.

Hats off to any new company that wants to have a go but, but build one first, show it off - be dedicated. Not state in yesterdays Facebook that they have spent only $12k so far building the business ..... while they have people doing the design, the programming for free hoping to get a return.

Today they are so proud they hit 10000 followers = and I bet nearly all of them will watch the company fade away

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here is the enthusiasts page - 1 question and answer since Oct 2021 out of the 10000 followers

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ballaramapinballenthusiasts

yeah figured that - not doesn't give a sense of the real support

totally agree

totally agree rosh

I doubt we will see a proto-type as they intended doing a kickstarter without showing a pinball just select features

probably will be released April 1st and joke is on us.

They just posted a short powerpoint, here is the main screen shot.

After all 10000 likes they have 95 people on the interest list - they are happy - I would be super worried.

Screen Shot 2022-04-09 at 7.02.11 am (resized).png

I got on the list very early on out of curiosity before this thread really started, there is no commitment, they just think they are serious inquiries....

I think 95% of the people who are on the list are just that curious but I have never received any information haha unless they already scratched me....

haha - they removed their post from their facebook on thanking the 95 people on the list - maybe they have realised the numbers are not great

Screen Shot 2022-04-09 at 7.02.11 am (resized).png

Pretty sure that is the same website, nothing exciting at all - would not know it was about pinball really - has no pinball soul.

They may have started a whitewood as Grant would of got on to that but I reckon Ian is one of these types that since he has patents in place we won't see a thing until they are locked in as he sounds very cautious and protective which is fine. I reckon the excuse of the process of patents changing is BS - I reckon some chat here and then he did some research he has probably realised some things are not as original as he thought so he has had to go back to the drawing board and re-submit which only extends the time until reveal - lucky to be this year. Given these delays on just releasing the kickstarter and showing us images shows that what ever he promises in build and deliver time will not happen on time.

Originally he was going to release the kickstarter late 2021 but wanted higher facebook followers - he has doubled that since that podcast, and he stated it would be at the end of March / early April 2022 but no show.... yet

Paying for fake followers is a real head scratcher as does not mean people are going to buy their pinball - people want to see pinball content, play the pinball, and the longer the smoke and mirrors is around the more people will move on

Look at Spooky, they have 11k followers but they build games, go to shows and are in the US and have lots of connections

Look at Haggis, they have 3.5k followers and have showed a heap of videos, made some games and have a factory and are in Aus

Screen Shot 2022-04-12 at 7.23.14 am (resized).pngScreen Shot 2022-04-12 at 7.04.57 am (resized).pngScreen Shot 2022-04-12 at 7.05.51 am (resized).png

but there is no interesting, meaningful content just yellow and blue words .....

no updates / posts for a month now and they will have to repush the socials as there numbers a dropping a little due to no activity and will soon be under the 10000

also their patents are starting to lapse as well

Screen Shot 2022-05-12 at 8.24.16 am (resized).pngScreen Shot 2022-05-12 at 8.28.35 am (resized).png

have been watching the patents from early days of the thread, they claimed the patent process changed and needed re-submission around the start of this year BUT I reackon based on previous poor investigation and research he discovered that his design already existed so had to amend and re-submit and start the process again. This is the person who thought the original AFM came out in the mid 70's and wanted to challenge the person who corrected him.

yeah agree TreyBo69 it is misleading and I think people are thinking it is their establishment = red flag

I made comment on progress so now they say 18-24 months before games roll out

Screen Shot 2022-05-23 at 8.26.17 am (resized).png

agree,

??????????

#nowords

writing is on the wall....

they said back in the interview back around Sept 2021 I think that the kickstarter launch was going to be new year, then it was going to be end of March 2022 if their social numbers were up, but numbers are now slowing dropping off and we are now end of May 2022.

https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/episode-105-ian-and-barbra-join-drew

then they stated 2 weeks ago that it will be 18-24 months time (= between Dec 2023 and June 2024) that machines will be going out the door. No way this is happening at this rate, delays and excuses AND also totally dependent on a successful kickstarter.

Wait for it, Wait for it

"with flippers working and just putting together some bumpers"

and FANS has dropped down below 10000, so expect posts to lift the followers up.

Screen Shot 2022-06-16 at 7.10.23 am (resized).png

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I agree, you shouldn't say your a manufacturer when you haven't made a thing...

soldering on ........

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like watching the pinball book debacle

oh the face swap...

here is there latest update, I think this will be a jpop timed release.

Screen Shot 2022-07-11 at 5.05.15 pm (resized).png

too busy moving house .... would be around that time

Checked the link of their patents and 2 of the 3 are available to view - going to be some mech heavy playfields and potential nightmare to service with pass through mechs.

http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/quickSearch.do?queryString=ian+bartos&resultsPerPage=

Here are a few screen shots of the Multi Faceted Arcade Device - like a multilevel drop / pivot back target

Interesting idea but makes the layouts seem a bit repeated

Multi-Faceted Arcade Device 3 (resized).pngMulti-Faceted Arcade Device 4 (resized).pngMulti-Faceted Arcade Device 5 (resized).pngMulti-Faceted Arcade Game Device 2 (resized).pngMulti-Facted Arcade Game Device 1 (resized).png

Here are a few screen shots of the Multi Aspect Arcade Device - multi level pop bumpers

Could really see many companies wanting to use this idea.

Multi Aspect Arcade Game Device 1 (resized).pngMulti Aspect Arcade Game Device 2 (resized).pngMulti Aspect Arcade Game Device 3 (resized).pngMulti Aspect Arcade Game Device 4 (resized).pngMulti Aspect Arcade Game Device 5 (resized).png

Here area few screen shots of the Multi Aspect Arcade Device - multi level pop bumpers

Could NOT really see many companies wanting to use this idea

One thing I trying to wrap my head around is they developed these to reduce on mechs in a multi-level playfield and also that these will increase the field of view.

So unless they have a clear upper and upper upper playfield these mechs will have to be close to the upper playfield forward edges to be able to see the double or tripped up targets and pop bumpers.

If they are set back away from the edge and the playfield were to be wood you are going to loose the view of the lower playfields which defeats the purpose. Plus repeating targets and pops seems like it might be a bit repetitive and boring after a bit.

That said I might be viewing this wrong, interesting ideas but still going to be heavy and expensive, and a potential service nightmare....

the above screen shots came from the 2nd and 3rd patent

it is interesting but reckon impractical for servicing and 1 to 2 playfields would need to be clear.

Also I meant to say "Could not really see many companies wanting to use this idea....

yeah that has been on previous pages...

I checked the patents and he has let many of them lapse - think this is dead

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sold out already