I don't disagree with you that if you can't say anything good, when you're the figurehead of a company, it's best to say nothing at all, be the bigger man, etc.

It's obvious that there is a lot of emotionality in this project both for Homepin and for people who have put down a serious amount of money in good faith to buy the product. I don't think anyone is actually happy right now. It doesn't excuse unprofessional or petulant responses, by either side, but it does go some way to explaining them.

I also don't agree with the idea that silence is the right answer either. In the absence of any rebuttal then people might just believe the one side of the story they are hearing. You only need look at what happened with Heighway when there was radio silence about Alien - people just assume the worst and it becomes an echo chamber of pessimism.

That being said there are avenues for customers to get their pins, reasonable ones it sounds like, they just need to be prepared to work with them to get to the finish line.

Constantly ripping on the company and highwaygames when they seem to just want to resolve the impasse seems like a very strange strategy to me when one is already $5000 in the hole. It's a bit like complaining about the chef before you've eaten your food...

That was a very long time ago. If I remember correctly, some people were really going after Mike at the time. I think partly due to his comments regarding the use of PC based control systems in pinball machines, like JJP, versus dedicated hardware like Bally/Williams.

He has since explained away those comments and made his machine compatible with the US.

Turn your tongue 7 times in your mouth before opening it is the quote that comes to mind on that one. Pinball is a niche and passion market so personal stories and relations are as important as the product itself.

Well stated.

To me, Mike comes across as a passionate, no BS person who doesn't suffer fools and doesn't play nice just because it would be the "smart" thing to do.

Before he started on Thunderbirds, he would comment on how other manufacturers were doing it wrong and how he could do it better.

Never met him, so don't know if I would like him, but I do respect him for putting his money where his mouth is and for pushing forward through all the set backs and heart ache.

Sounds like a guy I would like to meet.

self confidence is important when settung up a business
but it can come across as arogance when things dont go as planned

" a poor tradesman blames his tools"
you should not blame your customers if you dont explain yourself clearly

I hear the same old lets not be negative, give the guy a break, then why has this thread turned out the same way as all the other ones I have seen. Mention Thunderbirds and people go homepin and homepin goes people and mods then shut down the thread. WTF I say, no mention of the game really. If someone says the flippers are week, they're shot down as being an idiot or a troll (as again recently mentioned). I don't see many detailed positive reviews and why is that? I am sure trolls can't shut them down but I don't see them.

And I can tell you I have asked for positive reviews and pretty much get, it's great value for the money.....is that it?

How about homepin do a bit of PR stuff and get a stream going or video people's repsonses to playing it or something FSS. And don't repsond with "we're busy or we don't care what people say etc etc"

I'm sure others would like to hear the good, but I don't want the bad withheld just because homepin doesn't like lit. Buyers need info to make decent decisions, ATM I wouldn't touch a homepin product because all I hear is predominantly negatives and negativity back as repsonses.

As far as trying goes, that doesn't cut it as the only reason to support a company, there's lots of tryers out there that don't get my money or respect. It's how you conduct yourself and how good the product is that counts for me

embryon did u manage to catch recent twitch broadcasts from UK Pinfest,.. and the video of a unbox/setup done at a recent UK pinball show? They,.. and some of the US reviews have been what I was most interested in,.. good and bad reviews, while subjective,.. exposes useful patterns of opinion. rotordave also pushed some straight shooting feedback recently.

Thanks will have a look

Thunderbirds is listed as one of the games at the Vancouver Flip Expo in September. If I go I'll probably stand in the line to see how it plays.

I'd never buy this machine though. Maybe if you rethemed it to Team America... ( - :

Vancouver Tbirds (resized).PNG

Did not think i would get an answer
Mike, rather than read more of your lies and BS, just refund my money and we part ways

Mike I'm happy if you can work some magic between with Highway & PopBumperPete where no 46 ends up in my name against my current order... everyone needs to focus on working towards a good positive outcome & amicable outcome for PopBumperPete. It's hard unless you have walked in other peoples shoes & its hard to compromise when it's cutting against your values. Anyway just a thought if it can help & everyone is comfortable .

We will have one at Chicago pinball Expo

I went and quoted the wrong post didn't I, it was meant to be guessing the second game's theme. I put it to Mike after the Pinfest talk that it was Saiyu-Ki, the Monkey King legend. He didn't comment.

please understand, at the moment highway has no plan on shipping any games to Australia

hmmmm
the latest news from the Australian distibutor is that the factory has been closed down and is being relocated
nobody is getting games before xmas

Nobody in Australia Only You Mean?

I feel sorry for Highway (the local distributor)
not only do they have to organize the preorder shipping (which Mike should have done), they now get shafted over who gets games first

Organising some Magic can take some time lets see in a couple weeks time what Mike & Highway can arrange. We are all living/working very busy lives these days & from what I hear we need to be mindful about the uncontrollable logistics Homepin may/is be dealing with that we have no visibility or understanding. So my expectations at this point in time is to give them some time...they are busy with priorities which may not align with ours at this point but they will get to in due course...
My current expectations re TAG shipping "expect to be shipping in October" now I'm not holding them to it & understand many moving parts us but will be disappointed if my kids don't have TAG for Xmas but worry about that if we end up there.

Tigers2017
the problem i have is that has been so much bullshit and bluster from Mike that i dont believe a word he says

Mike has shipped containers (of cocktail cabinets), Highway ships regularly. they can both do it. it is not magic

Take it PopBumperPete , this is what you have been asking for for what seems like ages and with full refund finally.
Wonder why this all of a sudden changed?

He didn't offer a refund...he offered to give it to someone else.

Well they should and then life will move on.

Just a quick thought. The preorders were offered an exclusive topper. Also the el lightning back box sides were on the brochure. Now they must be worth dollars. So I'm proposing seeing these two items are now not available, surely Homepin could kick in that money towards shipping, if in fact, it doesn't cover it already. What do you think

I'm sure that's just semantics. I doubt very much he meant that he would just give the pin to someone else with PopBumperPete having paid for them to have it.

@oldsckool, there was no offer of a refund
there is also no free shipping on the table at the moment
Highway is now offering to bring them in for less than $390, but not before xmas

He said above there is free shipping. Free shipping means it will turn up when it turns up - weeks or months from now, with no guarantee as to when. That's the trade-off for it being free.

$390 to ship a pin does not sound unreasonable. I was quoted ~£450 (~$576 USD) to ship a pin from Italy to the UK.

So you have options - which are you going to choose?

Sounds like progress.

Did the first North American shipment arrive?

Why didn't all original buyers get their first?

Will North America in the long run be the region of most owners?

You threw in free shipping to get more preorders up front. These people essentially gave you a free loan for the last few years while waiting for their machines. Then when the machines are finished, you throw the little "*" in there that they won't be getting their machines until it suits YOU.

There is literally zero timeline for when these early supporters are getting their machines...next month, or even next year. But they can get their machines now if they pay the shipping cost. Thats a blatent bait and switch, it's pretty darn rotten. These people took a big risk in pre-funding your venture with no collateral, and now you are just waving your middle finger at them incessantly because you would rather chase new money over doing the right thing and get your supporters the machine they paid for YEARS AGO. I am sure many of them dove in on this "deal" because you offered free shipping. If you would have been honest in the beginning and told everyone they may be waiting several months longer because of this "deal", they would have never agreed to it.

Good luck getting anyone to put money up ahead of time on your next venture.

I wish this pissing match wasn't so public.

If someone starts a new topic where information about the game is discussed please share the URL here.

Make sure it is "OFFICIAL" ( - :

once again Mike, you blame the customer for your own poor communication

What option are you choosing? Did you ignore the options?

not that it is any of your business, but shipping deals hafe been offered 4 times now and yes i have made my decision

That's cool. I genuinely want you to reach a conclusion with it all. It seemed from the tone of your posts that you weren't seeing those options being laid out, that's all.

Mikes original shipping offer that he made in April was;
air freight at $1800, and do all the paperwork
LCL at $600 (not sure if that included taxes and fees), and do all the paperwork
sea freight, free, no paperwork. but there was no mention of special conditions that Mike has added later

Do you happen to have copies of that communication?

yes

if i was lying, Mike could just report me to the moderators and have me ejected from the thread
he knows i am not , so he is trying to bully and bluster his way to quiet me

All pre order customers have this info, plus a lot of other communications Pete is not lying so I’m not sure why Mike keeps shooting him down. Last communication from Highway stated they could not give us shipping details as they could not get timing for when games would be available off Mike. Games are not being made due to issues at Homepin.

Time to fess up and tell the truth Mike...lies turn this thread to shit. You need to take some ownership and stop blaming others for this situation.

REFUND PETE and any one else from Australia ( you know that place that supported you ) who wants it from the first pre-orderers. Simples.

Homepin

Then this thread can go back to the game.
Don't you have any more orders to fill that these machines could be used for as you seem to have a shit fight with authorities in building these at the moment in China?

But after the time the Australian pre order guys had handed over their money you were publicly stating that you would NOT sell to USA or Canada.. its all archived in this forum as well as the Aussie Pinball Forum. It was quite a public statement made at the time and yet despite this public statement, a deal must have been done with Nitro at the very same time for your words to have any ring of truth to them.
Please excuse us if we find this scenario somewhat confusing.
Games are ready.. choose your shipping or shut up statement is concurrent with present day.
Highway don't have your games or know when they will have them to ship.

Again, excuse us for finding this confusing.

We would all love to see an end to this public fiasco.. it really isn't good reading. But someone, either pre order guys or Homepin, is not presenting the real facts.
It will all come out in the end.. it always does. The only question is just how much damage will be done in the process. As it stands right now, its a hell of a lot because the huge amount of support shown to this venture right at the start is long gone.
Wonder why that would be?

If you just read this thread you can see where Mike is contradicting himself. He offered ridiculous air freight terms but then said he would still have to figure out all the taxes and tariffs, and had no timeframe for that. The other option was to wait for enough new Australian orders to fill a container of games and then if there was room hitch a ride. If there was no room then wait for a future container, rinse and repeat. So both options allowed for unlimited delays at Mikes discretion.
Edit: he was looking for future orders to subsidize the shipping of pre-orders.

Threads (and vendors) like this make me embarrassed to be an Aussie.....