Quoted from DaveH:

This was supposed to be a very special game from a popular designer who worked at Williams (a pinball company that went out of business, but made some of the greatest games in the 90s). (Others may argue other eras of Williams were better, but I consider that their best times). So JPop decided to build a custom game for a butt load of money (16k I think). Then he went bonkers spending money. Instead of using off the shelf parts he would meticulously design parts and got so lost in time that he could never produce a game. In the end he could not deliver anything, and the people that ordered the games got shafted for all the money and no games. The whole process is still ongoing. However, about 5 years after all this started, games got delivered. These games. It was all kind of a surprise, and the games were not fully as they were intended. However, in the history of pinball, they are distinctive.
So now there are a few of these very rare games. They are singularly distinctive in the history of pinball, and quite rare. They will now be traded among collectors that live in the stratosphere of pinball. Kind of like Kingpin, King Kong, Krull, and even Big Bang Bar. Regular folk like me won't ever own them because although I dig nice games, they also have to have value to me. Personally I'd rather play a beat up players game I enjoy to one of these. But I do enjoy the fact that I have played some rare games, and they are all distinctive.
So really it was 5 years of interest or lies or malfeasance depending on who you ask. 5 years ago when I first heard of it I thought it was nuts. Then when I heard about the 10k RAZA I thought about buying it, but then said 10k was too much for a game. And with AIW I started to feel like it was a scam.
So these are priced high because they are rare, and they are historic at the same time. These might be a small chapter, or a big one. We won't know about that part of the story for a few more years.
And if anyone needs to go into the particulars like Bill trying to bail it all out at the end, or American Pinball and their involvement with JPop, there is plenty to read online. It has been a huge story for a long time.