I have to admit that all my customers don't get the same level of cooperation.

I'm sure Wayne will say the same.

While the customer support is epically bad across the board, does anyone actually doubt that people down under get better response and support than people on the other side of the earth? It is simply a fact that "talk to the hand" is easier when the paid customer who you f#ck by ignoring can't hop in their car and drive over to the factory.

Really? Really? Pulp Fiction started shipping just a few months late and now are shipping out at a very nice pace. After you pay in full, you get your game within days (not months, years or never). Has there ever been a picture of 40 Fathoms at the same time like there have been of PF at the factory? To even mention PF in this thread is truly absurd. I have a deposit on PF LE and have no doubt that I will get it. I also know that when I pay, I'm paying for my own game and not relying on someone else to pay for my machine a year later! So no reason to worry, despite the haters that do exist in the PF threads too. Fathom I have paid in full 6 months ago and have serious doubts that I will ever get the game.

Hysterical how people continue to deny the communications issues and lack of transparency... "well I got a reply" "did you email them" - same shit, different day.

The centaur looked good at TPF. But so many headwinds for this project... shifts in the market, production uncertainty, price tolerances.

The color playfield looked less garish than the CPR did and is decent in person. I don't know if I'd call it 'better' but it's not an albatross.

Features like the chase lights in the queens chamber are sexy... the lit pops are a bit over the top.. Wish I had a better chance to hear the sound reproduction vs the S&T... The cabinet finish is of course art in itself.

It's ashame to have such a pretty product that isn't a runaway success.

Personally not denying or apologising for anything. Just stating what my experience was. It’s possible distance is a factor. It’s also possible some people are communicating through a distro’. It also appears communication has deteriorated since early on. Obviously I can’t speak for anyone else.

But after publicly coming out and admitting they’re having difficulties they owe their financial customers (ie. investors) updates. Not spin. Regular, transparent and honest updates.

The canned response from some of the gaslighters has always been the same.. trying to shout down anyone who suggests they couldn't get answers. People were contacting Haggis... Haggis was months behind in their commitments to buyers and clearly being selective in what they wanted to engage over.

Now, they finally publicly admit what was clear and obvious... (and months later too).

Maybe Damien needs to get on a plane to the netherlands and hope Barry can be his sugar daddy.

Not sure what to believe on the production numbers. I do suspect that your numbers are much closer than Wayne's. He's obviously trying to stir the pot and has a history which makes him hard to trust to begin with. The real question is not how many have been produced though it's how many more are going to be produced?

Ironically the same could be said for the naysayers who post/reply with equal vehemence!!

But the fathoms were wrapped up and my Centaur was going on the line in late January. Are you implying Haggis lied to me by email to try to trick me into sending full payment......

For anyone waiting on a game that is paid in full I sure hope you get it. Things aren't looking good though. Anyone that has a deposit in DO NOT send full payment, your game is not in production no matter what the email says.

I was browsing Haggis' youtube channel. Overkill to have jumped to such a costly place so quickly.

Not really - they didn't do it 'quickly' this was after they already had product #2 and had sales forecast and manufacturing timeframes that dictated needing a space that could build dozens of games a month. Reality is, that place is actually too small for the kind of scale they were targeting..

They are trying to do cabinet manufacturing, metal fab, inventory, raw materials, sub assembly work, wiring, assembly, test, packaging, and dock handling all in that space. Imagine how many pieces need to be inflight to sustain 10 or more games going out a week.. and where all that needs to go.

Where they tripped up was not being able to sustain production once they had moved into the space. Because of COVID issues, then whatever the story is within Haggis that they never were able to sustain production after that...

Where this guy gets it wrong (IMO) is using a "just in time" supply chain..... which is total garbage.
He's sure feeling it now.

You have to have a solid inventory of every needed part on-hand, or you're at the mercy of a single delayed delivery stopping you cold.
Every industry has had to learn this the hard way...... ain't no cheap shortcuts to building things.
"Just in time" drives up costs like crazy, even though people are deceived by the "lean manufacturing" lie.

nah - it's just not a concept that is universal nor does it scale down the same.

Toyota was still buying parts by the tens of thousands and improved things by doing that... because it was a change from ordering a million at once and then bogging themselves down with that legacy.

That works because you can still work within the constraints of their industry and suppliers so that the batches are still at good effective points, and you work to diversify your suppliers.

That doesn't mean you can scale it down to 20 at a time... because there you do fall below critical thresholds and the good effective operating points for handling that inventory and too small for the suppliers as well. Like, it doesn't make sense to do inspection on so few parts, making overhead bloom, slowing things down. Nor is it as effective for shipping, manufacturing, etc.

TLDR - you have to apply the concepts to your model and your supplier constraints - it's not something you can apply blindly.

Pinball is specialized, low volume, narrow supplier funnels, and heavy on BOM complexity. Trying to scale down to 10s instead of hundreds just makes everything harder.

Same reason JPOP's original 16 magic girls was such a stupid idea from the start.

I agree.
Just don't see how you could possibly do lots less than 100 at a bare minimum with pinball.
In the video he talks about having parts on hand (wood) for doing four at a time and not having to hold/store inventory. That implies the same or similar outlook for the rest of the production. Just can't do that.
And the cost for doing a handful at a time..... just staggering.

Of course you can have the opposite problem too.... those videos of Fix with boxes of hundreds of parts and they aren't building a darn thing......
That's the thing with manufacturing: you gotta be building, building, building, and never stopping. No stoppage allowed.

It's what Gary Stern understood, and every boutique besides Spooky learned the hard way.

I wish I remembered Gary's original quote.. it was something like "we are a manufacturing company with a pinball hobby" or something like that.

Too bad AP has appeared to be so mismanaged... they could have been that contract manufacturer to work with design studios. Instead we finally have FAST games coming to market, and being built by others instead of one manufacturer being able to productize boutique titles from multiple different sources.

“Just In Time” sounds like ordering parts from Marco…

I think he phrased it as "we're a manufacturing company that happens to make pinball"

Its not really about how many they build or dont build, or how many titles they release and take deposits for.

its about asking for FULL PAYMENT and still not shipping the game 4-13 Months later,

Even if they had a deposit for a long time, it's the ship your game within 6-8 weeks knowing they will never be shipping the game in that Time Frame.

They should be borrowing money from the bank and refunding those people except the deposit and when the game is ready to ship then ask for the balance.

There has been more than a dozen reach out but don't want to post in fear of never getting the game they paid in Full for.

Correct. I wanted one but not with all the hassles.

Hmm. I'd have to cross reference this against what spooky did. Pretty sure they were in a tiny box of a place. According to pinside Alice Cooper sold 300 games and it was 2017 - 2019 manufacturing lifespan. So 2 years for 300 games, 3 games velocity per week. One of the Fathom editions was limited 250. Spooky didn't run out of money, so I would say yea it seems like they got an expensive and oversized warehouse if they aren't done and ran out of money. They have no money, how do we claim they didn't scale too fast? A company dead in it's tracks that says they ran out of money, means they literally outspent their profits.

And Haggis planned to finish them in 6 months if I recall. There should be a Haggis video where he outlines the build expectations and their plans for the facility as they first moved in.

Spooky was a different scenario entirely - not sure what they have to do with anything Haggis. Spooky started in a local business incubator spot (aka subsidized costs) as a side gig while Charlie still ran his day business. Then when they moved into the first dedicated space, it too was part of a local business initiative to give them the real estate (in the backyard of the incubator). They also were getting "free" labor from family and contributors early. Charlie specifically kept his business small so they wouldn't overcommit and kept the company growth inline with his planned expansion of their capabilities. Spooky had both help and good leadership. But this isn't about Spooky, nor is it really relevant to anyone else, especially Haggis.

Because their problem wasn't too much overhead expenses. Their problem was their inability to use that facility to actually produce product at a rate that would sustain themselves.

They had a business plan to build X games a month, and follow that with additional titles already planned. The facility was a necessary part of that plan. A smaller facility would have been even worse because it would have made the production expectation even more impossible.

Their problem was the 2+ years of failing to build and ship product - not their rent. They already had a plan to self-fund the business for the runway before they were shipping games. The problem is when you add multiple unexpected years of NOT invoicing customers because your manufacturing model is failing.. your business plan goes to shit.

They didn't run out of money due to missing margin goals - they are in trouble because they weren't producing which means lower revenue, and now lack of customer confidence creating a death spiral.

500 units. deliveries started in mid '18. I wanna say they were done within 18 months.

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Yes I do

and i am sure i am the only one shipping games this week

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Also do you collect payments in Full 13 months ahead when you build a home and not complete it?

Pinball games produced per sq footage per week. As the other guy pointed out, my google search was wrong, apparently 500 games were made. 2x my calculated product velocity. Giant warehouse not necessary at this point in time. Be intelligent when you plan a business.

See Spooky as case in point again. The numbers it sounds like they are putting out could be done in Spooky OR smaller sq footage.

No sense. In July 2023 they took pre-orders for a new game that hasn't seen a dime of production. I already estimated this dollar amount before. Let's just say it's $100k. If you already have a product named Fathom being built, that they say will 100% be finished (AKA done and profit in the bag), then how the do you not only lose all profits, but lose an additional 100 thousand dollars? It doesn't work, their numbers do not make sense. If you build a ship a single fathom that should profit. If they aren't profitable after shipping an ENTIRE production line of their flagship big ticket game, then what are we even talking about. It's a business. It's not working. Why is $100k of extra money completely blown? How are you expecting 500 Fathoms to take a loss? They made 250+ games just to break even?

That video from two years ago when production was halted really did show the amount of capital that was put into this business. In order for some of those outlays to make sense you need a volume, which this company has never even really been close to achieving. If there was growth, then you could reason continuing, but in a "retracting" market you don't consider throwing what would be good money after bad.

Just hard to imagine all the work that was put into this, but what was the volume seller that was going to make these investments make sense? You just cannot drive demand through re-making early 80's SS machines right now, no matter how improved they are.

You can add me to that list. I paid in full in July 2023. I originally signed up and put down deposit money back in May 2021 and then got cold feet later that year and sold my deposit. But then as they finally got production going and people were receiving their games I thought they were on track to make all the Fathoms, so I bought somebody else's deposit in April 2023 after playing the game at TPF and enjoying it. Big mistake on my part as it turns out. Didn't realize that things were not as they seemed.

Spooky didn’t tackle what haggis did. Spooky wasn’t building cabinets from scratch in their building or cutting PFs. Spooky wasn’t doing metal fab or painting in their building. And spooky building #2 is probably bigger than Haggis’s building. Haggis, like homepin, have been unique in how much they were trying to do under under one roof because of their respective locations vs other pinball parts suppliers.

I don’t think you understand how this works. Most companies don’t profit nor expect to with their first products because they know the ramp up and investment to build the capacity and technology will exceed the margin they can squeeze from the price point they can charge. But in doing so your investment is already there for your next product so your time to market improves, your startup and dev costs all shrink because of reuse.

They’d expect to still burning money. It’s why they planned on making a bunch of games built on the same platform - not hop around and build Dr Who 2.0 or something.

All of this would be part of the business plan. You don’t start from scratch and be able to be price and margin competitive with established companies right away. They either radically simplify the product to reduce costs to fight to keep their prces somewhat manageable… or you exoect to run at a loss until your economies of scale and reuse bring your product dev and startup costs down.

Let me apologize on behalf of the bozo cheerleader crew who promised everything was flowers and roses with this company and their games since they obviously won't do it.

You're just being antagonistic for funsies

mostly true lol

The guy got in twice. Not a lot of sympathy in my opinion although it sucks.

So basically you just admitted to being a troll just to be an idiot yeah??

Not always.

Thats not what I said at all lol. I've meant every word I said. It is antagonistic though, and I just don't care that it is that way because of the absurdity of the clown show thats been on display in the Haggis threads. Like, did I have to apologize on behalf of the bozo's? Of course not, it really does nothing other than further drive the point home that many of these cheerleaders should be ashamed of themselves. Doesn't mean its just trolling to troll or that I didn't mean what I said.

Lolwut? I've been moderated numerous times because of things I've said. Often unfairly IMO, as my open ended comments could technically be directed at anyone, but some people are real mad and report me. Believe me, I'd have plenty more to say if I didn't have rules to follow

Your behavior yesterday and for the last few weeks has been disgraceful. I'm not the only one to tell you that.

If it isn't the gourd calling the pumpkin orange.

Yes, sure. I'm the one calling people childish names. Or trying to disgrace them on their living arrangements and otherwise behaving like a schoolyard bully?
Saying things like fugly about pinball machines and then admitting i don't think that at all but was just trying to be mean about it?
Acting like an admitted troll above and then trying to justify it?

Or i'm the one who is savagely defensive when poked and just fine when left alone?

This person has been stomping through these threads, purposely trying to provoke people for weeks and is left unchecked to do it.

He/she brings nothing constructive to the discussion and gleefully runs around provoking people and tearing apart these threads that are here for people who are hyped about these machines. Fucking the experience up for one and all.

Trolling is free of justification by it's very nature. You're just being trolled harder.
Dude! You take the bait time and time again until you pop a rivet and blogpost like this, if it's such a disgrace on your day, block Haymaker and move on.

P.S. - If you don't like the pumpkin jokes, I'll gladly stop, <3 - Still will lurk and post here about Haggis's missteps.

RulesforTheeNotForMePunkin

Sounds like I'm still doing better than you around here then

Let me be clear- I 100% think that. I never said I didn't think that at all, not sure where you even got that idea. I absolutely meant that. I will absolutely give credit where credit is due, so please don't mistake this for me just saying that because of our scuffles either. My thoughts on those games are completely objective and outside of whatever love affair we have going on. Thats what I meant by not trying to be mean. If I thought they were good or cool or whatever I would undoubtedly give you high praise.

Blocking is childish.

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Moderator's Comment:

The team has decided to lock this thread for a couple days. This thread has become more about trading barbs than discussions about Haggis.

[edit]: The thread has been re-opened. Any personal attacks on each other will result in getting booted from the thread. Please try to be kind to each other. We're all just here for pinball.

Anything happen while we were gone?

The most annoying part of the blocking functionality on pinside (to me) is if the person that blocks you posts a fair amount, your feed becomes almost unusable… it doesn’t refresh correctly and you just have these one-way conversations with mystery dialog.

Never having blocked someone myself, I have to imagine those who do feel the same annoyance? Maybe it balances it out then?