DP USA Refund - Still Want the Game

I agree with burningman on this. I think the point of the preorder perks of the chrome and rug is as recompensation for the uncertainty and waiting involved.

I'm just saying that for me, in my own personal assessment, the increase in likelihood of sinking in thousands of dollars and getting absolutely nothing to show for it makes the possibility of getting chrome and a rug with a pin inadequate compensation for risking so much money.

But, yeah, that means I'm out for preorder perks, obviously. No problem with that.

If someone wants the preorder perks, the new Phil-free dutch pinball paypal account is online. Simply take your involuntarily refunded money and resubmit it there, with no loss in preorder status. But I see the unsolicited return of my money as a dying canary in a coal mine, and an opportunity to reassess the price in risk and time I'm paying for some chrome and a rug. And I find it too expensive.

That's just me.

I am looking forward to buying the pin when it's finally produced if it survives the licensing process largely intact. I hope I will have a chance to buy a rug and upgrade to chrome at that time. This has nothing to do with my assessment with DP's ability to design a pinball, and choose/implement a great theme.

It has everything to do with my reassessment of DP's ability to launch a company and produce that pinball on an industrial level however.

No doubt.....started mine w $10k 17 years ago....guess my point - Heighway is already a Company, building machines, and don't believe if they needed the money, would have only asked for $1500.00, fully refundable, until your machine is made. Completely agree w Aurich, just giving my take on Alien....is what it is.....mark

well, i pre-ordered the t-shirt. i'm sure i'll get it soon.

Of course you agree with me, I'm right!

I think the "dream theme" bit is still the real tough test. And hey, it's your money, do whatever you're comfortable with. It's just that with Alien I didn't see any indication that you wouldn't be able to just buy one later when they're done. So the incentive to get on the rollercoaster just seems to be missing to me. You're not getting extra chrome or a rug or a price break are you?

Totally respect your decision and your opinion.

I am a reasonable person, and I would say with Roger in the picture, and new shit coming to light, I feel that in the next few weeks, as Barry is going through the e-mails processing the requested refunds, people will have a better understanding of what has happened and be able to make a final decision. As I said earlier, DP wants your business.

But, (for me) it would irritate me to know that I was in on the first day, paid in full early, and have supported them right out of the gate.......only to see someone that may have been in early, be able to get a refund for what they have paid, and kick back, relax, eat popcorn, and when the time is right, take their feet off the coffee table and send a payment to Barry for 8500 expecting a rug and chrome.

DP's pre-order model was designed to give incentives to early orders with the price and goodies. We all know that this is so parts can be purchased, employees can be hired, proto's made.....and without it, the games may have not seen the light of day. Down the road I can see DP not requiring the pre-order model but they really had no choice to get TBL off the ground.

Has Roger Sharpe confirmed this? Has he left WMS?

Anyone correct me if I am misspeaking here.... Roger has a company that does licensing work (Sharpe Communications I believe) that is outside of WMS. So I am assuming that DP has hired Roger's company, Roger, to handle the licensing for TBL machine!

Ha...exactly why I agreed!!!

My incentive is the upfront $$$ not bad, only making 500 overseas, and not many roller coasters around here. But you got me thinking.....I'm going to have to have an Alien Barstool or I'm out!! ...mark

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=2690901&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=bcMj&locale=en_US&srchid=316847211418702407603&srchindex=1&srchtotal=26&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A316847211418702407603%2CVSRPtargetId%3A2690901%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary

President/CEO
Sharpe Communications
June 2000 – Present (14 years 7 months)

Creative services company specializing in licensing, advertising, public relations, marketing, promotions, product design and development
WMS Gaming
Director Brand Licensing
WMS Gaming
December 2001 – February 2014 (12 years 3 months)Greater Chicago Area

i didn't ask for a refund and got one. after all this drama i am sitting on the cash and will buy a machine at the price i initially paid for, including the chrome and carpet. if dp wants to retain customers they will have to eat some shit at this point and show some goodwill going the other way. i would be more irate losing all my money paid in full on the first day. dps future could rely on it.

damage control time for dp trumps your irritation.

I'm w/ you on that, it's just that NObody saw this coming (although some said Phil leaving was THE flag).

I have a lot of interests and could easily spend my day sitting on multiple forums, w/ that said I have never seen anything like this, ever in any of my hobbies. Never seen an attack and accusations like this and think most haven't either.

I think everyone has the right to feel the way they feel - angry, scared, sad, whatever. I still want them to succeed, pinball in general deserves it and pinball deserves better than this.

I just don't think dp would be making the right move telling those that want refunds to hit the back of the line because of this unprecedented occurrence.

Trust me, if I get my money back I'm not sitting out on any sideline eating popcorn laughing at this, my concern will still be here. I have kids that are growing up around pinball, I want them to have an industry and community should they want to engage a passion.

But we all looked at the risk vs rewards when entering, and that landscape has now changed some may say dramatically.

Rod

Roger does license consulting. The way I hear it this isn't even the first time he's worked with Dutch Pinball. Easy guess what that means.

We haven't heard from Phil for about 10+ hours. I doubt he's said all he'd like to say on the subject. I can't help but feel for the guy but I don't like how he handled this. Hoping his silence means something positive is happening behind the scenes.

If I'm not mistaken its may be Tues there and I believe he said he's got a treatment. Could be gone for days recouping.

Right or wrong biz wise, time will tell, in the interim he's got a personal fight and on a human level u have to feel for him man.

Rod

Im in a bit of a bind regarding my pre-order, I was refunded my money back to paypal without requesting it so those funds immediately said refund processed on paypal, that is going to a debit card that was compromised a couple of weeks ago but listed under credit cards on paypal(not debit card, because its easier to add it to the account that way in paypal) so I received the new debit card added to paypal under credit cards and now those refunded funds are sitting in limbo for possibly up to 30 days. Even if I want to stay in on TBL I wont have the funds available now, so this whole thing is a big clusterf@#k.

I also need to see a little more and also have some kind of reassurance that my money is safe(not sure thats even possible). I get your passion for this project and I would love to see it made but I was sold on a game that we all just found out could be completely different from what DP and Phil sold us at Expo. The least of my worries is the place in line I keep, you can have game #1 for all I care but this company has done nothing to build confidence. If anything they should be extending payments to a later date until they get this whole thing straightened out and make the price $8500 period and get rid of the 9k price tag.

There is also the question of whats gonna happen with all the US buyers? Are we now gonna get screwed on shipping and exchange rates? That wasn't what I was sold and it is sounding like DP USA is gonna be absolved and also our deposits are going overseas now, what recourse do we have if we want to get a refund? Does it change everything or nothing? These are the questions I have.

Wow, you perfectly summed up 30 pages in a 2 min video.

Btw "lose" not "loose"

Wow, a whole lot has transpired since I've been able to view the amazingness of this thread.

First thing, to clear it up for everybody, here is the difference with who is liable for what:

What DP USA should have is an LLC taxed as a partnership, they can share profits and losses disproportionately to their ownership %'s, certainly an enticement for any "new owner" coming on board.

With an LLC, depending on the state law, all you can get is what's called a "charging order" against the member's interest. What that means is that they don't get squat, other than a K-1 and the profits that go along with it, WITHOUT the cash to pay the taxes, thus, the best asset protection vehicle out there.

With a C corp or an S corp the creditor gets to step into the shoes of the shareholder and "take over" the operations of that ownership %, voting privileges, etc.

As for PERSONAL LIABILITY, there is no liability with any corporate entity from a personal standpoint UNLESS the creditor is able to pierce the corporate veil, no matter what type of entity it is.

You pierce the veil by the owners NOT following the corporate formalities, shareholder meetings, proper accounting practices, etc....

In a "partnership" the liabilities are "joint and several".

They should shut down DP USA, Inc., distribute the deposits back to the original depositors, file the articles of dissolution, get a certificate of good standing from the comptroller and it could be done tomorrow.

Then DP should set up a proper entity here in the US, as an LLC, with Roger or whomever as partner and move the fuck on. It's really not that F ing hard and can be done in a few days.

Give Phil a promissory note for what he's "out of pocket" and be done with it.

Next, before anybody dropped another DIME into this project, i would expect a "trust account" to be set up with monthly accounting and full disclosure to all the owners as to how the funds are being spent.

Make sense? Really simple yet transparency seems to be taboo with pinball.

The Jackie Treehorn LE with "DP Multiball" and custom art package cannot be far behind.

If I'm Barry or Jaap, at this point Id not be sure how to even communicate with Phil. They can't trust him with a written correspondence of any kind (no letter, text, or email) and I can't imagine they want to talk to him...

A lot of people have commented on Phil's level of professionalism in how he handled this matter, my question is more along the lines of how good is Barry's and Jaap's judgement in bringing him in to begin with. At some point, they not only selected him as a partner but gave him broad monetary controls and authority, he was (in fact) their mouth piece.

Did DP exercise good judgment in partnering with Phil? I'm not giving my opinion on that either way...but I certainly have one.

I never knew that Mein Fuhrer translated to Barry in the English language.

Oh, I think you're giving your opinion!

SWING...and a miss

+1

See post above, demand a "trust account" with a 3rd party administrator like Roger and monthly accounting of your funds.

Your $$$ should not go to fund other projects or an unreasonable amount of monthly overhead without you knowing about it.

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Haha. Lame joke.

I hope all parties get this sorted out ASAP. Best to Phil, and best to DP.

Phil needs to focus on his health, DP needs to focus on TBL, and the rest of us need to go play some pinball!

This has been one EPIC thread.

Thank you, and goodnight.

Business plan for making and selling TBL
A) get preorders done, promise some cheap insentives
And get interest free financing
Keep preorder customers waiting 2-3 years

If that fails, plan B
Go to a bank and ask for a business loan
Make your product and sell it
Sell mods on the side such as : chrome trimming
And floor carpet

Time frame 1 year , since bank wants their money
Coming back from sales

What does this tell you ?

That your 2 ,...... no, 3 sheets to the wind..?

After all this pinside drama, I decided to unwind with some TOTAN. I played my best game ever, 40mil, battled the genie (and lost), but the important part is that I HAD FUN. It helps to be reminded every once in a while why I'm into this hobby, and it puts threads like this into perspective. I hope I get my money back through PayPal soon, but right now, I'm just buzzing from a great game. Think I'll duck out of here until new shit comes to light.

So here is my take. I really don't care about the amount of truth in Phil's statements. I don't care about Barry's supposed unscrupulous business practices (allegedly). What I care about is friction in a project. Regardless of who is right or wrong, who is lying, etc., the truth of the matter is that these things like; mysterious refunds, changing incentives, a price change, and a host of other things spell problems.

I prepaid almost the whole machine and I have asked for a refund. I am in "wait and see," mode. If I have to lose my place in line, big deal.

The whole thing just seems odd and I don't like nesting several thousand dollars in it.

We'll see how quickly I get a refund. But, as a fail-safe I have already contacted Paypal and my credit card. This is not a knee jerk reaction. This is spotting a potential shit show and not wanting to be part of it if, in fact, things go way wrong.

In all honesty, I really hope the machine gets made. I was excited about it...but $8500 can buy some good machines that already exist or are made by a company who is not literally trying to kill each other from across the world.

Here's a theory:

Assuming no TBL get built in 2014 / no parts or labor, wouldn't the money collected this year be completely taxable as there's no losses incurred yet against it?

As an example, let's say 1 million collected to build something a company will make a 20% margin on. That's 800k in parts, 200k profit. A company (or employees taking the profit as salary) would pay tax on the 200k. At 30%, say 60k tax liability.

But without operating expenses perhaps they would be facing taxes on total revenue? So 300k taxes instead of 60k? That's a pretty big hit!

Please chime in as I am no tax expert, but I've always heard it's a bad idea to do Kickstarters near end of year for this reason.

I own 2 LLC's and that is exactly correct. An LLC can be set up on-line in less than an hour and approval can take as little as a day. However, I don't know how that would work dealing internationally.

There is an in depth post on this lost on all the pages but you can withhold profit claims on it till a real product is made.

If Inc. doesn't have enough assets (i.e., cash proceeds) to fully satisfy all liabilities of the estate (e.g., unreimbursed customer deposits, unpaid taxes, unpaid vendors), then Inc. is technically insolvent, and the alleged upstreaming of funds to related entities could be considered grounds for piercing the corporate veil. Of course, that could be cured if the funds were returned to Inc., assuming funds are still available.

holy hell !

i stroll away for a couple of days and all hell brakes loose

barry-1.jpg

No rugs or chrome...You get puke green armor with a couple construction lights up top, some kind of tron le light up ramps and 1 of 500...Worth the ride for you? Probably not...Me and a decent number of others, ya why not...From what i understand you signed up for TBL and backed out right?..Smart move! .I know, I know, you touched it, flipped it, and the lights twinkled in your eye...But after the past couple days here, what was all that worth?

The truth of all this pre-order mania is that its simply a product of our own desires. We all loathed stern's monopoly on the market for years. So much so that we ran the prices of 90's dmd pins up so hard that light bulbs started popping off in these guys heads. BBB was the pre-order kickstart that everybody missed out on so when JJP showed up in town the pre-order floodgate opened and here we are today.

I'm torn on the pre-order thing, half of me wants to think like you...The other half of me feels like its the least i can do to better the pinball community by helping some of these companies get off the ground...Plus im child of the 70's...so yeah, Alien sucked me in..

8 year olds, dude.

That makes sense. I thought TBL was a slam dunk home run, want to see it get made. Just trying to deduce WTF is going on here!

Maybe Inc. is reporting on a cash basis?

Perhaps the December 2nd date on the two screenshots below is not purely a coincidence?

Tax Delinquency Notice 12-02-2014.jpg
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All i want to know is if the playfield will still have the handgun, marijuana leaf, and Kahlua branded white russian on it?

Kahlua is out unless something changes
Been that way since expo so unless they get it I wouldn't plan on it

The other two ????

I wishing nothing less but the best for DP..!!

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Most of his posts are inspired.

Great synopsis. Pie in the sky idea:
What if each limited partner had a TBL pinball represent their units of the LLC (i.e. the equivalent of customers of a C-Corp) and the group of general partners be the ones that run the company and make the game ? The units distributed to the limited partners are the pinball machines. Perhaps State/Federal law requires that units be non-physical entities, just asking. If it doesn't require this (probably varies by state), then the limited partners could vote on the way the pinball is designed in the same way that non-physical unit holders vote on the direction of the company.

post script:
why is John Goodman being a holdout for licensing ? He doesn't strike me as being a Michael J Fox/David Copperfield type of guy.

Collecting deposits on pins is not revenue, you receive cash and it goes to a liability account (i.o.u 1 pinball machine). When you ship the product to the customer, you then debit that liability account and credit revenue on the date that the product ships.

Buying materials to create pinball machines is also not an expense until the pinball machine is actually manufactured (the parts inventory is an asset, once you build the pin it is expensed by debiting cost of goods sold on the date the materials are put into a pinball machine).

So until the pins are being produced on the line and shipped to pre-order customers, you are just shifting assets around and therefore there are no net revenues to tax. DP's income statement right now would just be a bunch of overhead, promotion and travel expenses with no realized revenue.