It seems like every time this thread starts to get positive or gain any upward momentum, albeit talk about beer or terrifying food dishes, you come in here and drag it all down. It’s so tiring and unfair to anyone that hopes to learn about the game or just be a part of this community. You continually poison the well. Aren’t you tired of talking shit and tearing everyone down yet?

I guess my last word on it is that when it comes to pinball, I see 2 different kinds of mindsets. There are those who are always creating something of real value, either through restorations or mods or brand new games. Or yes, opening an arcade AirBnB. That’s creating real value. Then there are those who try to capture all that value by squeezing every dime they can out of the hobby. d0n I see more and more of the “squeeze every dime” person in you, and less and less of the “create or share something of value”. It’s not personal, I just don’t like takers.

If I jabbed you in some other thread, you probably said something to deserve it.

ME? seriously. I've surely been critical of haggis missing so many deadlines but beyond that how have I dragged this thread down? Geez. You guys are so dramatic.

Someone I've met and have bought a game from just called me a d*bag because I might make a profit on a preorder and I'm the bad guy?

Youve jabbed at me at least since 2020. Go look at your PMs. Every time you make a jab, I PM you to try to find out the issue and then invite here to play pinball etc etc. You never come. You're all nice for a couple months and then make another jab. It happens over and over.

d0n I pm'ed you telling you to pull your head in as you were being a jerk and getting personal!
But you still keep going, why?

What are you talking about? I didnt see a PM. What's too personal?

Pre order spot has been sold. thanks.

I have 1 more that I may sell but probably won't list it for fear of ruffling any more feathers. You'll have to PM me.

Pinside maybe needs a new for sale category for selling preorder spots. I just paid $55 to sell a preorder spot as if it were an actual $10k+ NIB pinball game.

Could a US preorder be sold to an Australian? Surely it would just be a request to Damian to apply local voltage and ship it locally instead of overseas. May actually save a bit of cash not having to ship to the states.

You just made $1500 selling something you never even owned. I wouldn’t be complaining about a $55 fee if I were you.

See, there's another jab. I really don't get you john? You're saying I'm a D*BAG for wanting to make a profit on a preorder. But when I say I just paid pinside the $55 fee that people pay to sell an actual NIB $10k pinball game ...to sell a much less expensive preorder spot you say I shouldn't complain? And, I'm not complaining. I'm just saying there needs to be another category and price for preorder sales. A $1k preorder is not the same an actual $10k NIB game that you can go pick up in your truck that same day.

Can you please write up a spreadsheet of morals as compared to profits so everyone can see where they fall in your world of pinball profit ethics?

I made $1345 after pinside fees. And someone is happy as heck to have a fathom mermaid spot now. Why must you crab about that?

And what if I physically owned it? What if it was sitting in my livingroom in a box? What would be ok in your world of pinball profit ethics that I could sell it for? Would a $1345 profit be ok then? What is too much for John? Please tell us.

I think a good point has been made. We need Pinside to create a new sub market for preorder spots. One for physical machines and one for “virtual” games. Keep in mind, Stern original sales are 100% preorders too, so maybe they should be categorized as such in the new market too. It keeps the system more honest because it is makes clear that the game doesn’t yet exist.

Aren't you trying to more than double your money on a pair of lotr slingshot plastics right now? You bought 2 sets so you could sell 1 to make up the costs on the one you kept? How can you be so hypocritical? These things are $24 USD and you're firm at $55?! "consider it a $25 convenience fee" Seriously dude? It's only OK for your to make 100%+ profit on pinball I see. Ok I got it now.

https://www.pinball.center/en/shop/pinball-parts/playfield-parts/plastics/8242/slingshot-plastics-for-the-lord-of-the-rings

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I played it. You didn't miss much. To be charitable, it was probably an early prototype.

There are about 3 people in this thread i will be sending a repair bill to for my phone screen, having clicked the same area on it daily only to see more bullshit posts.

p.s. i like beer, haggis (the food, hopefully the company), scotch eggs, and capitalism

2 people in Australia just sold a C8 corvette and made $100k each

That’s coconuts. C8’s are nice but can’t hold a candle to a 73 Falcon GT XB for instance

Yeah it's been pretty ludicrous lately, my mate who's a car broker in Sydney did this with one just last month - had people upping each other to buy it. To think these are just standard Corvettes you can order from a Holden dealership. All because the peoples post covid boredom and slowness of the supply chain. I wouldn't want to be these customers having paid that when the real deal Z06's land some time next year.

Hey man I'm seriously not trying to stir shit here, I have a good friend who is also in on a Fathom Mermaid Edition and hope you and he get your Fathom in the next year or 2 but you mention such things as 'positive or gain any upward momentum" in this tread !! I wouldn't be crossing my fingers after what's been going on with trends in past and some present pinball company's and being hopeful here, I'd be onto Haggis BIG TIME Pal ... they've got your hard earned $$$$$ and you've got Nothing and Know Nothing!!!

Did I mention they have your $$$$$ and have had it for a year or so! My mate has had to pay the rest in full and still...............NOTHING ..........F ALL.

If it was me I'd be proactive and be getting onto them because hopeful and positive might be reactive and too late.

Respect and Good Luck...

the common problem here is FOMO.... if you cant wait .. buy something that's built and you can have now ... investing in start ups or preordering in a pandemic is just stupid ! I'm sure Haggis will come through no guts no glory !

Isn’t that basically the same as those scummy scalpers that buy multiple tickets at concerts just to jack up the price & make a profit?. Who’s to stop someone in the future buying 50-100 ( or even all the spots) & jacking the price up? I don’t like it .

Most sellers of big ticket items limit sales to 1 or 2 qty. Smaller items purchased $200 like pinball mods are usually pretty self regulated loo and you’d be hard pressed to have bought more than 2 from a modder.

When quantities are bountiful, you can probably buy 10 of a big ticket item if you have the $. Startups don’t sell more than a couple of a preorder pins to an individual.

Ok thanks. Sorry , I wasn’t sure if someone could just come in & buy everything.

Neither is he. He's making it up as he goes along and has no idea what Haggis's policy is in this regard.

Will Planetary Pinball Supply be carrying the standard version? If so, can one pre order it?

Any realistic production updates beyond the Celts being finished and supply chain issues?

Something good is coming!
The Stoke is real!
Yeeeeeeeeeew!

I know nothing by my Froth meter is overflowing.

Totally agree with this!!

Bump..

Yes you and seller would need to contact Damien to transfer ownership.

Hey man, are you OK? All of those yelling, CAPITOL LETTERS and dots and the dramatic pauses...... Wow!!!

What makes you think you know pinball history better than others? I was in on Big Bang Bar in 2006 and we heard a lot of hysteria from the know-it-all critics back then.

Just as there are similarities to failed companies for Haggis, there are similarities to the successful ones also. But of course the drive by panic babies don't talk about that. Also consider there is a huge disconnect between Haggis and the failed companies too. Again, not spoken of.

I'm not happy with the situation and I have expressed my concerns to Damian in private conversations including one today. I'm also not naïve and for you to claim I ""Know Nothing!!!"" is rude and you are the uneducated one.

Just because we're not publicly commenting on our situation doesn't mean we are blind, unaware or even unconcerned. We are concerned or at least I am. But I'm not a child, I'm better informed than you and I can handle my own shit.

I admire and give credit to our critics Flynnibus and Jeffspinballpalace because they give reasoning and thought to most of their comments.

Your comment, on the other hand, has no substance to it and you are mindlessly parroting what you've been told by others. How embarrassing for you.

Yeah, but remember BBB finished not because people were patient and loyal to the end... but because CHANGE happened.. in large part in the form of Kerry

BBB faced criticism and rightly so - but unlike other failures like DR... they made changes and ultimately found a formula that got it done. BBB isn't a role model - it was just a story of a journey that ultimately had a reasonably good ending. Lots of bodies still got buried along the way.

Gene's BBB story of course shares the similarities of missed deadlines, poor forecasts, lack of experience, and poor communications.. but it also shares the unwavering dedication to get it done. Let's see if Damien has been able to make successfully make the necessary pivots needed to navigate the storm.

The lack of comms given his history is disappointing. I mean, it's not like BBB where people had to rely on fax machines at IPB

Jesús christ, Flynn. I was citing an example to make an over all point. Perhaps you would like to also explain why its fair to compare Damian to RM at Deeproot. Comparing Deeproot to Haggis is a common theme here also. After that please write a dossier comparing Spooky and JJP and the complete pinball history.

Your right, each example is unique unto themselves. I'm sorry you missed my larger point.

Depends, you talking about the customers or the companies? Because I think the guy was talking more about how the customers were acting. And so your cite of BBB and naysayers struck a cord... because it basically tried to cite as an example where the critics were 'wrong' because BBB shipped. BBB critique wasn't wrong - the project was failing and was eventually salvaged. (ETA: Yes I know some would say it would never ship, etc... there are always outliers/extremes)

Where were people comparing Damien to DR? My take away was the retort about people either taking the passive blind faith path vs being more critical. That's the pattern you see over and over in these product stories... those that 'want to believe' to the point of head in sand and eventually start lashing out at those challenging the faith. The company details change... but the customer behavior repeats over and over.

Flynn. I'll shoot you a PM.

Upvoted! PM is the way to go when it seems necessary!

Did some weekly service work at the local barcade. Good to see more locations open up for play. I wonder if there is KFC in Australia. Here we call it the Dirty Bird. I have it 2 or more times a week. Waiting on more pictures, or news on Fathom builds. As usual I continue to pound back the beers!

We have most of your unhealthy fast food conglomerate exports, Mcd's, KFC, Hungry Jacks etc. Many people of towns and cities across the country are banding together to keep them out though, so there's that.

But their rubbish is spread across the country for miles and miles nowhere near their franchises from redneck morons throwing bags out the windows of their cars.

Tell me John, without intentions of rancor, what's your interest here besides being a fan of pinball? Do you have a fathom ordered?

No I was never a fan of Fathom, way too hard of a game. I am a diehard Bally pinball fan. My teen years I lived to play Bally pins, & promoted them the last 26 years. I continue to service & play them. Tonight I continue to try & get reliable on Xenon. I love servicing pinball for beer. I hope Haggis the best only on bringing more classic pinballs back. Centaur, Xenon, Skateball, Eight Ball Deluxe, & Paragon only the titles I would do for a start.

We are very close in our fancies. I am a B/W guy too, some of my fav's are the Lost World i had restored not long ago, and my Sorcerer that has the last of your playfields in from Alan in Ca. Also have a restored Taxi, a Diner on the way out, Whirlwind, Hurricane, Cyclone, Spy Hunter, Spectrum.

Not thinking about Haggis right now because they don’t fit this category, but when a person has a ‘completed’ pinball designed, they usually decide to build it themselves, without any prior experience. So they start a factory and scale up a pinball company from ground zero. Then, if they are able to ship a few games, they exert effort to scale up further to be able to make 20 a month. That is a big stretch too. But all this effort to create and build a company from scratch, when they should have taken their complete design to someone else to make. Because after they have built their game, they should disband the company and close their doors. Does this sound like the right way to do things? Designing and building a disposable factory in order to sell a pinball machine and hopefully making money?

There are three companies to approach about contract manufacturing a pinball machine: American Pinball, CGC and P3. Certainly you could strike a deal with one to build it, without you having to create jack shit from scratch. If you can’t work a deal, then maybe your economics are bad. Alternatively you can try a non~arcade contract manufacturer, but then the designer must manage the outsourced process to completion. I said earlier the Haggis does not apply because their plan was to produce a five game series. So a factory will allow Haggis to roll from title to title and spread out early sunk costs. Also many tools and setup are common and needed for all titles. Also Haggis is building classic games with proven designs and then it is upgrading them further. Many great aspects to Haggis’ plans.

My hope from the start was Haggis would perfect their hammer tested playfields and would be cranking them out by now and starting to make playfields for other companies. Also they would have perfected building drop target banks, metal ramps and chrome plating. So why this need to start a pinball company, just to lose money? Starting a pinball machine company is dumber than becoming a farmer or opening a restaurant. You will work long hours, lose money and get into a mountain of debt.

How-to-Tell-if-Someone-is-on-Drugs-and-Which-Ones (resized).jpg

Why this, now? I think the popcorn phase of this thread was 2 weeks ago when I caught wind. It's basically died down, although we are creeping back into beer territory. Let's just let the Haggis guys banter about while we wait to see what happens.

Or use that plan and start a pin co.

You're kidding right, we had Kentucky Fried here in the early 70's when I was toddler lol -and we also just as you, delight in referring to it as the DB . These days we've got a darn fair representation of global fast food brands, even Carl's Jr has got a foothold nowadays. I've been hoping for a KFC to go in a couple of suburbs away given my closest is now 15Km, which is certainly a pain when you get a craving. We see some of those 'small town', anti development/fastfood crusaders here locally like Punkin referred, but they don't get too far normally. We've got a group right now trying stop a redevelopment of the crustiest daggiest micro shopping centre into a nice modern one with a small apartment tower on top.

Krusty Creme, StarFuckinBucks......

They just stopped a Maccas in Toormina (wrong side of the track in my local City Coffs Harbour last year. They have 3 or 4 in town already, owned by a franchisee, but they stopped this one in the home of heartbreak with a community movement through council.

Vote “yes” for Popeye’s. Deny all other visas. Except for McDonald’s of course. There’s no way you’re getting them to leave. And…their double cheeseburgers and filet o’ fish are delicious.

If we kept just one i'd vote for the bird. There is not a better way to cheer up everyone when camping than to pull out a cold bucket of chicken.

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BirdIsTheWordPunkin

Yep, that's for sure. Or but then go next level and sit yourself in an L34 powered A9X Hatchback. Aussie built GMH baby!

These literally ran rings around the overweight Aussie Ford Coupes (which evolved into Australian XC Cobra). More than 6 laps back to the nearest Ford in this race. Holden LX A9X (non L34) Kerb weight: 2608lbs . 308ci L34 Holden V8 176 kW / 236 hp (SAE gross) @ 4800rpm, 434 Nm / 320 ft-lb @ 3400rpm. Stock from production line.

You have Starbucks up your way? I've never seen a Starbucks outside of the major airports. Of course they are located in the airports for the overseas tourists who are used to seeing Starbucks, almost everywhere else Starbucks failed as Aussies like real coffee.

For the Americans who don't know and don't want to Google, in his previous post "Hungry Jacks" is "Burger King", we already had a Burger King here in Australia so your American company needed to use a new name.

COLD??? I mean, I wouldn't turn it down but wouldn't a hot fresh bucket be better?

Any other series ticket holders out shoot me a PM. Would be nice to get a group that bought the game to chat about what’s coming or actual communications from Haggis ans Damien.

I can’t keep up between the beer and all the other things going on in this thread anymore.