Just what I was hoping for. Take the JJP technology but apply it against a much more exciting theme. This should be their big hit.

took my best crack at it

hobbit.jpg

If it makes you feel any better I did order one .

I believe historically a designer can hand over a white wood and be done with a game, but it can only help if the original designer is there to see his game through to release.

There is an "end date" on his employment, as opposed to "Present" (pasted GG's for comparison)

Capture1.JPG

Capture2.JPG

Careful, you might get a C&D for misrepresenting the product

For a month after expo, this is a lot of change. Very impressive.

Does Smaug still work the same?

Thanks, now that's what I'll be seeing when i look at it.

Looks like a winner to me.

With WOZ, we saw prototypes out in the wild for months before release and changes continued to be tweaked. Is this still the process for Hobbit? If this is prototype 2, how many more iterations will there be and how long is the testing phase before production?

I'd be curious as well about what Pat's involvement in Hobbit is. What was telling was at expo Pat was there and Joe wasn't. Pat was on the panel and also in the group photo.

This is not a negative, the machine needed refinement, and if they were both working there Pat would likely still be offering his input. It's just Joe's exit that was odd.

Well, apparently Joe was AT Expo... walking around, just not invited to sit in with the team talking about his game? That's all. I get that he's not currently working for jjp on a new game. That part makes sense, they have to switch things up.

I think the ship is an ingenious way of repackaging tried and true (read: RELIABLE) pinball parts and turning it into a great interactive toy/experience that ties into the game perfectly.

WOZ GI was improved with aftermarket mods. Seems like it would have been simple to keep the multicolored GIs, and bring in a few more additional lights to make sure the game is lit properly without giving up the colors.

If they wait till Expo at least to show Pat's game, that at least gives Hobbit some time to shine and sell.

By Stern pumping out ~50 machines a day. Impatient buyers can pick them up cash & carry, not wait a year for Hobbits to trickle out and fulfill all pre-orders. Hell, by the time Hobbits are generally available, Stern will have released 2-3 more titles.

JJP NEEDS to get their manufacturing issues figured out.

Well, likely they can do more in their new facility. I believe at the old place they would average 35-50 a day. But that really was all that the market needed.

I can see the real power of the swappable playfields for route operators with multiple locations. Bring a new playfield to Location 1 in your CAR, swap it, bring that playfield to Location 2, etc, etc... would allow you to freshen games on location a lot more often because it is simple. That alone should increase coin drop.

But then that even translates well for home owners, swapping games becomes a lot easier, transporting easier, stairs going to basements are not nightmares, etc.

Duly noted.

It always seemed like expo was the goal date for JJP3 reveal, but with hobbit barely, or not even being produced by then, it will put a lot of pressure on those plans.

I guess we'll find out how much stock is in the "Lawlor won't allow them to do pre-orders on his game" rumor and how much that can be danced around. Maybe they start taking pre-orders for it when it is showable, with promised production X months later?

So "technically" they aren't taking pre-orders for an announced game, but a showable "near complete" game. Still doesn't mean anything will be produced quickly.

There are many times more pre-orders for Hobbit, so no surprise the criticism is much more amped up than for Heighway and DP. Both those companies are probably grateful for their relatively low pre-order numbers while the months drag on. Also why the MMR threads were so heated, at 1000 preorders.

JJP was a text book example of crowd funding. Nothing wrong with that. As Jack has told many times, he needed 1000 people to get on board and pre-order WOZ. And they did, and as stated, everyone has gotten their (WOZ) games.

The slow roll out with Hobbit obviously is a big problem, but hopefully with the outside investment there won't be any more needs of crowd funding rounds and no big delays with future titles.