Quoted from drfrightner:

Charlie,
You make my point exactly. Again I'm not dogging on Kaneda here because he's entitled to his opinion but he shouldn't post opinions as FACTS! If Dialed In isn't the single most successful non-IP pinball in modern day pinball history, that its a flop then your entire company, along with American Pinball is a disaster as well. You have goals for each game, if you say you're going to make 200 games, and you sell all 200 for your company, that is a home run. Maybe one day your goal goes to 1000 and you sell 100 yeah that is a disaster. But because you sell 400 games as a goal, you reach it, and because it doesn't sell thousands like Ghostbusters that doesn't mean its a failure or bomb. Kaneda is wrong on these points. He's dead wrong. Dutch Pinball sells what 18 Big Lebowski's that is a TOTAL NIGHTMARE epic failure not Dialed In or Alice Cooper Nightmare. You can't compare Dialed In to AC DC or Ghostbusters and say one is a success and another is a failure. You can't compare an Olympic gold medal runner to an up and coming High School track star both are successful and both are at different stages of their career. See the point?
There are tens of thousands of companies who make limited runs because of their capacity to produce, or to keep the value higher, or whatever. Sideshow toys does this for almost every single toy they make... because they didn't sell 1 million action figures thru Walmart does that mean it was a FLOP? NO... I'm sure Jersey Jack wasn't thinking oh yeah lets sell 10,000 Dialed Ins at $9500 bucks. He doesn't have the ability to make that many I'm pretty sure of that... I'm sure his goal was already achieved and the game keeps selling. Dialed In is one of the biggest success stories in modern day pinball.
You sold all of your Alice Coopers and Rob Zombies, you set goals you met them be it 100 500 or 10 million doesn't matter. Kaneda isn't the sole person to determine if a game was a flop because based on his assessment Houdini is a flop and pretty much every game not made by Stern is a flop as well.
You can't compare Stern to JJ nor can you compare Spooky to Chicago Gaming either. Everyone has their own business model and growth and I'm merely saying Kaneda needs to understand he's offering HIS OPINION he's NOT offering FACTS because he has NO FACTS to base his comments on. He's wrong!
Dialed In is ranked one of the best pinball games in history by this website, so is POTC... so he's WRONG!
His opinion that he doesn't like the game is his opinion. His opinion that Spooky shouldn't take a massive deposit and deliver later, is his opinion and he's entitled to it. I actually would agree with him on that point... if it's taking a long time you should be able to get that deposit back. Again that is MY OPINION! Customers make choices and they're free to make them... if you choose to give Dutch Pinball 10k for a Big Lebowski and you never get the game or your money back well no one broke your arm to do it. That is business and it happens every day across all kinds of industries. You have to take some responsibility yourself for doing something so irresponsible without using an ounce of common sense.
No offense to any other pinball company but I'll go with Stern, JJ, and Chicago and will steer away from the Dutch Pinballs, the start ups, and even this Deep Root. I'm not giving a penny of my money to a company that has never mass produced ANYTHING EVER! Mark my words... Kaneda loves this Deep Root company, but they will sell 200 to 400 games that's what they will sell from their first title that doesn't have a MAJOR IP attached to it. Deep Root doesn't have the distribution network like Stern, neither does JJ for that matter, sorry but you're simply NOT going dethrone Stern because you add a couple new features. Just isn't going to happen... so I wonder THEN will he say Deep Root first game sells about 380 machines, its a FLOP, considering Dialed In at that point might be at 2000 machines.
Lastly, Charlie I'm happy you're doing great. I have not purchased a game from Spooky Pinball, I'm not a fan of the art on your games so I haven't bought any. But love is in the eye of the beholder, and apparently a lot of people have great passion for your games. I'm happy you're doing well because the industry needs more people doing different things and filling needs for every niche of the industry. Good for you!
I've talked to you once before, I have people who can create the most amazing artwork and even CGI you've ever seen. If you're ever looking to farm that stuff out let me know and I'll put you in touch. To me art is everything... it's the first thing you see. I have to be in love with the theme and art before I'd even play the game to consider buying one. My company builds amusement attractions all over the World including some based on Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, James Bond you name it. I'm an attention to detail guy, so every detail counts with me... I'm a collector first and a pinball player second. So I'm a different type of buyer hence why I really like Jersey Jack.
I do hope you do well, clearly it would be great for the industry if Dutch Pinball was still around. I think Big Lebowski is one of the best themed pinball games I've ever seen... I'd rank that in the top 10. Sad to see them go because they had some talent. But talent can only get you so far, you need EXPERIENCE in manufacturing, sales, marketing, there is more than having a good pinball game. After selling 18 and going belly up that proves the point.
PS: For the record I like Kaneda because most of the time he's saying things that are hard truths, many fans don't like to hear but still hard truths. But he's got to STOP confusing FACTS from OPINIONS! He's right about many of this OPINIONS about say Jersey Jack, and all the pinball companies they can all do better and glad he's pushing envelope. But non-stop bashing on one single company and twisting opinions as facts is wrong. Also he doesn't want to go so full of himself that he puts things out there just because someone whispered into his ear... verify first. No offense to Kaneda but there probably isn't a single pinball company that wants to chat with him so it goes without saying someone might want to feed him FALSE info to make him look bad. Just saying so be vigilant, opinions aren't facts, and rumors aren't facts either. Keep that in mind.