Yeah he said he was staying aboard.

Once the dust settles, most of you will do it all over again.

Dead as a doornail.

I'm sure there will still be people willing to go forward in spite of the risk of doing so, but clearly it is becoming more obvious to more people (see many other current threads on Pinside) just how much risk is involved in pre-orders, and fewer and fewer people are going to be willing to support this kind of risk taking.

Cause that wasn't claimed by Phil; I think what can be interpreted from what he said was the assets provided by universal for john goodman was all there was going to be.. they apparently had no relationship with him anymore so they weren't going to go to John for new approvals. They said they could go get specific approvals for new art assets for the rest of the actors.

Oh I see, thanks for the clarification.

I waiting for Barry or Jaap before I make a judgement
But it's odd for sure.

I'm not defending the preorder model, but there's a difference when an established Stern does it versus an upstart that has a bunch of newcomers with NO previous pin production experience.

Heck, there's even a difference from when JJP had done it in as much as they had people on board previously established in the industry though they hadn't produced a pin as a team prior to woz.

Yep that free rug don't look so good now. Seriously I feel all your pain on this and would not wish this on anyone on pinsude or the hobby. Hope this ends up being a small blip in this games history but that looks doubtful.

Yeah this has me a little worried but I'm in for now. I still have the last payment in April left, so I've got 7k at risk here.. not great, but this is a dream theme. I realize Phil has concerns about licensing and what happens if universal gets pissed off enough to pull the license. That's real ; the rest I'm not sure belonged out on the internet. It seems Phil wants to destroy them now.. him posting an email address to somebody at universal.. that seems too far.. I can only imagine that even if everything was 100% fine before.. a bunch of crazed pinball nerds emailing this woman would now put the license in jeopardy.. so, yeah.. Phil went too far in my opinion and seems to be wanting there to be a run on the bank now.. even though i think everything he mentioned could have been worked through eventually (and I still hope it does).

If you missed it he also blew the top on what I assume is DP's second game, Back to the future. This is gonna be a tough mess to clean up.

i noticed that. hope it doesn't get him in any danger of a civil lawsuit - he MUST have signed some kind of NDA but who knows.

Stern has never produced anything like these TBL prototypes. Bowen has never made a video that captures the essence of a pinball machine before.. because there was no reason to. Look at his sh*t eating grin in the first few minutes of the video including rolling a strike! To think that Barry and Jaap who struck gold are going to let it all slip away is insane. This game has received the most press ever and somehow Universal is clueless as to what is going on with the license?

http://papa.org/2014/12/12/big-lebowski-pinball-machine-by-dutch-pinball/

I'm still in. I'd like to hear from Barry and Jaap also. So much time and effort has gone in to this project and the machine they created is amazing imo. It would be a shame if this pinball machine never got made. I'm still thinking that this is a disgruntled former employee.

I wonder what a TBL PROTO will be worth if this all falls apart?
Talk about unabtainium!

I think there's some truth to that.

So while you have to take some of what he says with a grain of salt to be sure, that doesn't mean that everything that he's saying is crap either.

That's how it came off to me as well, especially considering the accusations of theft, the timing of this whole blowup, the email addresses to Universal rep being put out there ... definitely clouds the larger message I think. There's usually always elements of truth to everything and it sounds like he has reason to be pissed. But this is coming off like an ugly divorce and we're all the kids choosing sides.

I'd like to hear from them also as I'm still in - dream theme and a beautiful game. I wouldn't expect them to address the accusations individually but a complete and thorough status update (weekly??) that continues through the production run is deserved and needed for those of us still supporting an endeavor that just got a lot more risky.

Really? I'd think given the circumstances, DP would want to do a full point-by-point response if they're hoping to get back the pre-orders they just lost, and avoid additional cancellations.

If I were universal and knew this was happening I would just sit around quietly and then wait until they are just starting to ship before calling in the lawyers. DP would be in a horrible negotiating position and universal could make as much as possible which let's be honest is what they will want to do.

No one outside of the pinball community knows there's a Big Lebowski pinball machine. They don't read internet forums all day at the Universal licensing offices. But by doing that launch party, and by getting published in the local newspaper in Europe, they certainly are risking trouble if they haven't received the go-ahead to advertise the game and all its assets.

If what Phil says is true (and I have no stake in the game anyways so I have no idea who to believe), then it sort of shows why Stern games are tame in their artwork. They can only work with movie assets pre-approved by the studios. And those studios don't want to go back to the actors and re-negotiate.

And I'm not surprised how strict the licensors are. Does anyone remember how awful the Sandra Bullock image was on Demolition Man? Or how hard the Pinball Arcade has been working to get The Addams Family Pinball virtualized?

Dunno, I seem to recall a similar situation with a distributor in Australia and everyone said it was a disgruntled employee talking shit.......and look how that turned out.

I personally hope that it's all not true and the game is made and delivered, but at this point I am going to wait until they are at my distributor before I lay down any money.

I re-submitted my preorder payment, Now after reading this for the last 3 hours I think we all NEED to hear from Barry and DP. Atleast this starts the 180 day paypal clock over for refunds and disputes if it all goes south.

Remember all this crap is coming from one individual.

Exactly!

I dunno... He's a smart enough guy that they trusted him with their marketing up to this point... I don't think he'd run the risk of libel on top of possible civil repercussions without knowing where the company stands... If the guy in charge of their US sales, acquiring licenses, and marketing tells you the owners are siphoning off money and are unable to acquire the necessary licenses to sell their product... I'd consider holding onto my money before giving it to the company in question who is offering no benefit for pre-ordering (except possibly a rug...)

This has to be a record... fastest post to 300+ even though Phil accounts for 1/3 of that total.

Forget the Proto... there are less DP T shirts in existence. Luckily I have one of them!

Can you imagine if Phil turns out to be JFH!

Got to the party a little late tonight. Just plowed through the 7 pages. Not nearly as fun as my fake preorder thread oh so long ago....

My latest payment (I finished up payments 4,5, and 6 a couple weeks ago) was refunded ($4500) but not the original payments. Where are they?

Probably sticking around for now, but there are a couple of things that matter to me now in the over-shared story.

I would like the licensing issues to get a little cleaned up and some proof that it has been. Doesn't seem like there are irreconcilable differences there yet, but a little transparency on the status is called for now.

Would also like to see Phil completely out from a legal perspective. Very sloppy handling on DP's part to leave a disgruntled partner in place with keys to a lockbox. I cannot believe that my $4500 sent a week or two ago went to a guy (Phil) that was supposedly out of the company. Not good business.

Would like to know what the plan is for the North American partner. Is this something that DP is actively looking for?

Lastly, I would like my Tshirt.

I said it before, "assinine"!

As for liability, I'm sure Phil doesn't care much about that as he battles cancer but there is no doubt there are some issues that have been created today that I can think of.

I agree 100%. I thought it was pretty foul to post her email address.

Keep in mind that TBL is a 15-year old property. Universal isn't going to walk away from royalty/licensing revenue, especially on an older property such as this one. They are definitely no stranger to the world of pinball.

It's still chump change for them.

Wow DP, if you guys lose RTR, you fucked it up! You fucked it up!!

Can we preorder BTTF from DP yet?

This is probably very wrong. If Universal does something that pisses off actors, directors, intellectual property holders they work with, it could cost the millions in movies not made, or lawsuits against them. The pinball licenses are likely very small dollar amounts (I read somewhere, but don't quote me, that the license cost is around $50K for a movie based game for Stern). Universal or any other media company would gladly protect themselves by leaving money on the table if they think a deal would potentially hurt them.

I'm gonna post this response I just got from Barry because I think it should hopefully calm some shit down.

"Just read your post on Pinside. I'm really sorry people are getting involved in this.

Like I said in my email, I really wanted to work this out as adults with Phil, but he decided to do this.

As for your refund. Phil was in charge of the Paypal and I asked him multiple times to do the refund to you. He just didn't responded.

I'm sure you will get your refund and again I'm really sorry this is happening. The only thing I want to do is make an awesome game. "

Don't mean to post a private email but I really appreciate the response. And I agree after thinking about all of this, Phil could have handled this a whole lot better. They have created an awesome looking pin.

I was very excited about TBL. I hope the game gets made. I didn't preorder, but planned on buying it when they were shipping. I also wish Phil the best in his battle with cancer.

Not saying they will walk away more that they will maximise. DP has set an expectation of what it will look and sound like and it may cost them to deliver on it. Universal is in a better negotiation position now.

Universal owns the rights to the movie and merchandise. Why would they be sued?
The license may not cost much, but there's a bigger picture and method to the madness:
http://www.nbcuniversalstore.com/the-big-lebowski/index.php?v=nbcu_movie-merchandise_the-big-lebowski

This is crazy, I *just* watched the gameplay video released at papa's website, and was warming up to wanting to preorder. Seeing the real playfield being played gives me a much different impression than I had from looking at the schematic, and it looks to have the potential of being pretty fun, as long as they had been diligent about balancing the scoring. But these developments seem to indicate it's a fairly small chance this will come out more than a couple prototypes floating around .

Not really, 100% of nothing is ........nothing. I'd be happy to negotiate with them, its what I do

Iceman,

I think its great that Barry got ahold of you. But, I wish he would post here directly. I want to stay in on this, but there are a lot of unanswered questions.

I have $6500 tied up with DP right now (I take full responsibility for that) between BoP and TBL. I didn't receive a refund today from Phil. And I cannot dispute with Paypal because its past the grace period.

So what now??? How do I get my refund?? Who do I contact? Because (as Barry's letter stated), a dispute with Paypal is not possible.

I'm just looking for answers. $6500 isn't pocket change to throw away or at least know where things stand.

I'm so bummed. Was so excited to see what was going to come out of New York this weekend... Now this. F*CK!!!

We were praising them yesterday and today we're ready to hang 'em.
This could be a small hurdle or obstacle. Who knows? It's not like it's vaporware. They made it this far.

"Alex, I'll take "Optimism" for $4,000....."

At ease Erik, I am not lost. Still have 4k in and no refund request.

I don't care who you are, that was funny.

It's a "2.0 Kit" for the Data East version. And yes, you will have to replace the factory speakers and power supply.

Ouch.

Things will looks a whole lot better in the light of day.

Phil is going to have to get his ass in gear on Monday to clean this mess up with paypal. He is on the hook and personally liable, don't worry.

That said, I'd volunteer my time as an attorney/cpa to step in and work out whatever issues there are with Universal for DP if that would help bridge the gap. Not really a big deal.

Not a very classy way to handle a departure in general, but hey that's just my opinion man.

Timing it on the NY trip seems to be a bit vindictive or revengeful. Timed to make the biggest splash, most difficult to address by the DP crew in attendance.

Hitting this thread up with all the posts was gasoline on the fire in a forum that eats that kind of shit like candy.

DP's communications (if not timely) are at least professional and not contributing to the Springer show atmosphere. Give them a little time to catch their breath and get the concerns addressed.

I can tell you this. As a newbie to the pinball crowd and this was my first Expo I went to many seminars. When I saw yours I thought "what a jerk?". If that's your idea of marketing a product then you need to examine your skills. I have pinball machines for my family and friends, just who are you target marketing? I decided right then and there I would not buy a machine from you. So if your marketing idea was to isolate your market then you did it well. One word sums it up, CLASSLESS.