Agree

Seems consistent.. This whole thing feels like what happens when an grumpy engineer type (I know many, and will eventually become one) who thinks nothing of and downplays: optics, customer relations, marketing, etc.. Goes off and thinks it's just the end product that counts.. I.e., classical quality vs romantic quality (per Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance)

It's a gamble, maybe it pays off and maybe it doesn't.. It means Thunderbirds better be really awesome game though.

I'm in if... I get a credit of $4,750 and balance due when shipped NIB

Sort of like telling potential US customers to stick it up our asses.

Yeah, he's a marketing genius isn't he?

He belongs in prison....not working (and making one dime) in the pinball industry.....that's why.

What he did (literally stealing over a million dollars from pinheads) does indeed 'taint' what he has done in the past. He should be persona non grata in the pinball world going forward.

I don't agree with the previous history logic.

I still love De Loreans. regardless of John D's past.

Like I said. I'll buy all those POS CV, TOTANs out there. 4k a pop.

I don't think anyone who now hates jpop dislikes any of his previous games or thinks it takes away from their greatness. But I also don't think anybody is clamoring for anything new from him anymore either just because of what happened. I think it would rub A LOT of people the wrong way if he managed to pull off designing a game after promising 3-4 games that never got finished after countless lies and walking off with over a million dollars that wasn't his.

All that said, I don't think jpop is the mystery designer, but it sure is a bizaar way to drum up interest and get people talking about your product.

I just do not get it.

You don't think he belongs in prison?

There were sighting of other things John was working on at his shop (wasting time and money on), but Thunderbirds was never one of those sightings. I think this entire discussion is moot.

That I get. The not liking his older games is the part I don't understand.

When you think about it, it makes sense. Mike has to design every component, Jpoop has already done that, so you never know

Copy, not design

From what we have seen, the component parts of Thunderbirds are copies of what already exist

I think it's easy. Like if you had a favorite restaurant you went to with an ex.. And now you don't want to go ever again as it brings up too much baggage / not enjoyable anymore regardless.. The food is the same; your enjoyment and perspective is not.

Being swindled out of 10+k has got to be a gut punch.

I guess if the restaurant was owned by your ex wife and she stole your money to open it ..

I can 100% confirm neither Dennis or I are in anyway involved with this project, or John Popadiuk. Wish everyone involved the best of luck, looks like a cool project.
Paul

Thanks for chiming in. It was a good guess .

We shall see. All the peeps that got burned here are old timers...no kids don't remember this at all...just the new title

Oh yeah, I remember this!

I'm excited for Homepin to start production. In less than a year from then we'll be able buy thunderturds knock-offs off ali-express for $3 grand shipped.

Too much fiction and not enough facts from Homepin. The only Thunderbirds I can see are the ones in all the pictures!

I would say "no". I don't think he had any intent to steal. He was just dumb with business. I don't think he was running a scam or such. He just couldn't get it together. I think he honestly thought it was all going to work out in the end. I don't think any laws were broken. Otherwise I think he would be in jail now.

You must realize that just because the police decided not to take action doesn't mean he didn't break any laws. The police have plenty on their plate and if they're going to prosecute a "white collar" case, my guess is it has to be either open and shut, or very high stakes. The ZidWare fiasco is neither of those.

I don't agree. There were enough preorders up in arms that the police would have been hounded to do something. It's not a case of waiting for the police to pursue it on their own. If no one pursued him criminally it's because there was no evidence to support it. Not because the police are too busy.

I don't see fiction. I am a pre-order customer. Mike has always said he would only reveal game specific details when complete. Mike has posted updates, photo's of manufactured parts. Mike has also provided updates to customers which I think is no secrete most would prefer them to be more frequent than thay have been to date.

Mike has set up a factory from scratch, manufacturing most parts in-house and already shipping product(arcade games) I don't care who he uses to design pin as long as it's well done.

FYI all, Mike does not 'hate' American's and I'm sick of this being brought up each time Homepin or Mike are mentioned. You need to move on from a couple of posts made years ago, accept Mike is a better engineer than communicater! If you have any compassion you should be able to accept reasons for delay. Let the pin do the talking...and less speculating!

The show went off the air 50 years ago. Do you think its going to appeal to kids or the crusty old guys? Besides, JPop ruined his rep like 2 years ago, its not forgotten by anyone.

The only thing I will say is to please read the LAST PARAGRAPH of the article and PLEASE take note of it. The rest is gossip.

This is true for magic girl. Taking pre-order money for 2 other titles (AIW especially) WAS stealing knowing there was no way in hell he was ever going to be able to have any money left to buy parts much less manufacture either of those titles. Look up ponzi scheme, he was just avoiding the inevitable by taking future money to pay for the previous projects.

If this is true, then he's REALLY bad at business AND engineering and should just stick to freelance artwork. Before I design a product, or make changes to an existing one, you better believe I have costs down to the penny based on volume before any tooling is even started. How the hell can you predict if you're going to be profitable if you don't know what it's going to cost you to design and build?

It's not stealing if he really figured it was going to work out.

That's right. You are a sensible person though. Let's assume John's mind just works differently. I don't think he was even a freelance artist. He had ideas and some understanding of how to assemble them. He didn't do his own art nor did he have any concept of schedules or practicality on running a business or project.

It's a failed business. We fronted our money to a crazy person. I can accept that.

However it does not let John off the hook that he:

-Lied to and deceived his customers about the state of the games
-Posted BS about partners getting involved
-Paid himself a handsome salary for over 4 years and delivered nothing to any customer
-Announced "reveals" and production start dates for the games, just to buy more time
-"Lies to his customers, just to make them go away for a while" (paraphrasing his words)
-Blames others and never owned up that his failure is his alone
-Now is threatening to sue his customers for defamation
-can go on, but we've been down this road many times

He deserves his ruined reputation, and should be persona-non-grata in pinball. Shrugging his shoulders, saying "my bad", walking away and picking up a job for another company designing pinball as if nothing had happened would be a joke.

Agreed.

I am one of the ones that thinks JPop's previous work is tainted now as well. I didn't really care for CV or TOTAN to begin with, now I really don't.

Check out this link: http://www.tdcaa.com/journal/general-contractor-gets-three-year-sentence-false-statement

Saying he just figured it would all work out in the end isn't enough to say no crime was ever committed if he lied to get or keep money and committed elements of other crimes...he doesn't have to be a burglar and break into your home to have committed a crime. There is a lot of prosecutorial discretion in cases.

*i fixed the link

This is a great post, and I agree with it completely. From having known John *sort of* when he was designing these games, I could tell that he in no way intended to not come through with the games. Perhaps the same things that sunk him are the reasons that Stern never hired him, but I believe that he really wanted to come out with some amazing games and have people at Stern think "Oh man, look what we passed up by not hiring him! Now he's a competitor." I really believe that he wanted to make good on it so that he would forever look like a conquering hero.

It just turns out that perhaps because he was more sheltered at Williams, John had no idea what it really took to get a pinball company off the ground in any meaningful way.

What you've then said about all of his missteps during it is exactly right. John deserves the "reputation bashing" he is getting not because of his failure to deliver games, but his cover ups of that failure for as long as possible, and his refusal to bust his hump for someone else to try to fix it. More than enough people came to him willing to help because his games at Williams were and are still VERY unique with sweeping ramps and different designs than you usually see. I would LOVE to see what he could have done today. But his own pride stopped him from accepting help and sunk him.

Will any of this cause a delay in getting my Magic Girl?

Personally I think John has ADHD. He has a hard time staying focused on one project. He has all these ideas, and starts 20 different things and never finishes any of them. He's like mr. sixty %. gets about 60% with things, then gets distracted by a new idea. I don't think he ever has the intention on not finishing, or screwing people over. He just doesn't have the ability to actually finish anything on his own, without someone else there to monitor and keep him on course. He needs to put in a standard work week and collect a paycheck to keep things moving. If he has full reign to work when he wants and work on whatever he wants...nothing will get done.

Indeed. (I don't care for DeLoreans, but agree with the logic.)

Disavowing JPop's prior work would be like refusing to ever watch The Naked Gun movies again, or covering your ears at the sportsball arena when "Rock And Roll (Part Two)" is played. That's not a world I'd want to live in.

Jpop is not the designer of Homepins Thunderbirds

Good thing it wasn't Stingray " Anything can happen in the next HALF-HOUR "

How is JPop a good designer?

WCS - Williams for the only time in their history took the project from him and gave it to someone else to finish.
TOM - Rules suck, it is a snooze fest.
TOTAN - Rules suck, also a snooze fest.
CV - Rules are better, but ultimately still shallow.
EP1 - Ok, Lucas crammed Jar Jar down his throat, but still rules suck. RFM is considered the better pin 2k and its rules also suck.
RAZA - never finished.
Magic Girl - never finished.

So out of 7 games he has started, he finished 4. Of those 3 are considered to beautiful designs with neat toys, but shallow rules. 1 is considered a total turd. Great designer is a farce.

Somewhat good analogy.. both were designers at known companies, decided to start their own business based on what they did earlier in their career, both failed.. Delorean desperately needed 17 million to keep the company afloat so he went down a bad path (he was setup, but he could have said no). However John Delorean actually built product (almost 8600 of them), yet it's probably only beloved thanks to the BTTF series. If it weren't for that, it would be about as desired as an edsel.
Growing up I never played a CV or TOTAN so I have no attachment to either of those titles (nor do I care to own them). I do have some nostalgia for WCS94, but still wouldn't own one because it feels so tainted. I don't know why, it just feels different.

Two respectable pinsiders, highly likely to be accurate have written:

I now have no doubt Jpop is not involved. And that makes me feel better.
Why is Mike not confirming? That was a mystery to me, until I reread the thread and found that post:

So... who's the mystery designer ? (adding myself a free bump to Homepins...)

To be fair, Jpop didn't write the rules for his games. Based on their prices, the rules being shallow on some of them seem to not affect them at all.

I don't like most of his designs for that reason, but I can say that his designs stand out from everyone else who was designing games. He has a much bigger "signature style" to his games. Whether you like it or not, it is what it is.

For the customers burned by jpooop, I would understand if they never want to see or own anything associated with his name.

Those items are a reminder of him, and from that, the acts he did.

In pinball, his name is now akin to Benedict Arnold, Borden, Nixon, Booth, Blackbeard, and Dillinger.

How about Homepin game #2 or #3 and so on?

The police will say that it's a civil matter and you should take him to court.

If you call the police that you gave a roofer $5000 and he never repaired your roof, they won't go to the roofer's house arrest the roofer until he pays your money back. They will tell you to take him to court.

"Although fraud is listed as a crime in the criminal code, generally the only time law enforcement will prosecute someone for fraud is for high profile cases or situations where they have already arrested someone and the law enforcement agency adds fraud charges to the other charges they already have against the person. Examples are the Bernie Madoff and Enron cases. It is very rare for law enforcement to do otherwise. "

Not a clue

@jlm33
Mike posted on an Australian forum (Aussie Arcade) that Jpop was not involved in any way
He did not indicate who was either

Fraud charges are especially unlikely when it's obvious that fraud was not the intent.

Those who keep telling us to look up "Ponzi scheme" need to look it up themselves.

Thanks!

Precisely! PD's failure to bring criminal charges ≠ no criminal conduct occurred.

[EDIT: I see that it's now been confirmed that JPop's not involved in Thunderbirds, which can only be good news for anyone that's interested in this project. With that, I'll sign off, no need to rehash the JPop discussion over here.]

I agree. Lets see the pin do the talking. I hope that you are patient.