Bally Cybernaut had it in 85. Perhaps the worst cabinet on any game - it's also fully made of particle board, so it gets dented and dinged up ridiculously easily. It's almost impossible to find one in even halfway decent shape.

As for all of the complaining or cheering or whatever you want to call it that is going on, it's true - this area has had some crazy weather lately. And it's also true that if you are making a product, you don't stockpile 2500 cabinets just waiting for the build to begin, you get them in shipments so you don't have tons of unused inventory sitting on the floor.

About the decals, I can totally see how some route operators would want that, and since the game has been doing so well on route with everyone I've heard of, why not make some with the decals too.

None of this seems worth going nuts over. I understand how hard it can be to wait to receive something as awesome as a WOZ, so I get the frustration, but they are coming. As for those of you that aren't in it that seem to have some morbid desire that this whole thing blows up in Jack's face or whatever, I don't get it. Clearly you don't remember what the state of the industry was before Jack announced his entrance into it, or if you do I can't imagine why you want to go back to that time... unless your goal is to go back to reasonable prices on games, I guess.

Can you store 1000 cabinets in your garage while they are waiting to be built? Chances are neither can the manufacturer nor Jack, thus they make them in time to send them out. Same idea applies to almost anything manufactured.

Quick, without looking can you name the company that did the exact same sort of investment in Stern Pinball?

Based JUST on Stern, before investors they had just completed the games 24, CSI, Big Buck Hunter, Iron Man and NBA. And for the record, everyone in the collector community except for me despised the "cost cut like crazy" Iron Man, it didn't have the reputation it does now for being awesome. There had been massive layoffs at Stern, and the rumored end was in sight.

If you're seriously out there rooting for this to fail, you should be heading to a different web site and getting a new hobby, because you are also rooting for Stern to fail.

I see no reason for alarm, and quite frankly I think this is a hugely positive development. As I've said before, I get the wishing things happened quicker, but without going into a (more) giant post, if when you bought in you thought that they could get 1,000 LEs out the door on the same day or even in the same month, you would be crazy. It's taken time because every step of the way, Jack has done what is best for the game, and it shows to anyone who has seen it. He thought things would happen quicker, but he has been transparent about why not the entire time.

I really just don't get why people feel the need to take sides here. If you don't have a game ordered, stop posting with exuberance if you feel that something is or isn't working out. If you have a game ordered and you have an issue, I am positive Jack would be more than happy to take your call and discuss it with you.

First to whomever edited this, thanks - if this is the nice version, I really wonder what the not so nice version was like. For the record if the original poster sees this, I was never attacking you directly and I'm sorry that you somehow took it as I was. I don't and still don't get why people really seem to be out there cheerleading anyone in the industry doing bad. I have friends who work at Stern, JJP, and some of the smaller groups, and I don't want *any* of them to fail.

I'll also point out before I make a few quick replies to the parts that weren't personal that I don't have any JJP games pre-ordered, nor probably will I. I *love* the JJP model where you don't need to pre-order, can wait and can see what the game is like and get a standard with the same features just less bling. To me, that's a great model. Anyway...

The flaw with this argument is that it sounds like your expectation is that the instant that the games were ordered, JJP should have printed and stored every large piece for them, but that simply doesn't happen. There are supply chain problems in manufacturing all the time, and there is no easy way to take care of them.

Sure, Stern took white knight money during the death of pinball and staved off the grim reaper. WTH does that have to do with JJP taking angel capital when their production is running wide open and the majority of it was cashflowed years in advance, [insult removed]?

Stern's production was running wide open when they were invested into, it's just no one was buying. They helped change the direction of the company so they could sell more games. JJP's production sounds like it can be increased with an increase of capital. This investment sounds like the goal is to change the direction of the company so they can make more games. I really don't see it as a huge difference.

Did you get your $2500 in for hobbit? Are you going to get another $1500 in in the next 30 days? You just keep sending in the checks and I'm sure your Nigerian Prince will deliver. For those of us who have eyes that see and ears that hear, we won't be buying your WOZ parts with our Hobbit money. If JJP is cashflowing, why do they need anything more than the initial $2500? Do you have a definite ship date with liquidated damages for missing it? I didn't think so. "It's called doubling down".
I wish them success, but their sales/funding structure almost guarantees failure. And like I said before, a deposit on a future order is nothing more than an unsecured loan to the unethical salesman who took your money prematurely. Don't be surprised when something goes wrong and a simple bankruptcy filing washes away your money while the slippery company keeps selling and producing into the future. Don't you understand the business process? Ask the Ozzies that paid in advance and aren't getting their machines. I say, "Too f^(king bad!" Do you pay a contractor 2 years in advance for building you a garage and then cry when he moves to Hawaii with your money?
Why is this obvious to only so few of us?

There are three flaws in your thinking here - the first is that what are your real "damages" for missing an *estimated* ship date for a product that is ultimately a toy, and which at any time you could call the company and ask for a refund from? I haven't heard of anyone who asked for a refund and was told "no."

Secondly, in what world could JJP take money for 1000 machines, declare bankruptcy thereby keeping the initial money and then keep producing machines. Who would buy them?

Finally, the Australian thing is super unfortunate, but it doesn't have anything to do with JJP. A distributor, who did not pay Jack, stole people's money.

What I'm really saying is taking in an equity partner is a bad, bad sign on the heels of JJP's funding model. The only thing that could possibly justify it would be a massive increase in their production levels. I didn't see any announcements of increased production space or automation to be bought with the capital in that press release.

Whose to say that this investment isn't so that JJP can change the investment model to something different?

Look, I'll said this before and I'll say this again - I don't understand why people are trying to say this is a bad bad sign. If Jack's business was as horrible as some people (who aren't directly involved with it) claim that it is as bad as it is, the equity firm isn't going to invest in it. Clearly, they believed in the model, and Jack believed that the cash infusion from them would help them in some way. Based on how a similar investment greatly helped Stern, I see no reason that anyone should be pulling out the pitchforks about this. Let's see where it goes, and I hope that every company out there makes some awesome games in the future.

For those of us that were around when Williams closed, that news was NOT cool, and it's just sad to see so many people that seem to be giddy about the idea of it happening again to a different company.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear.

By wide open, I simply mean that Stern was manufacturing games to meet 100% of the demand. Which at the time, there was very little demand. They didn't take on the money to ramp up production.

Right, but I think it's also worth pointing out that generally, investors do not invest in a company unless they see it as a growth opportunity that will give them a return on that investment. This isn't guaranteed, of course, but the simple simplification of that would simply be that some sort of expert looked at the JJP model and decided that it was solid and worth investing money into, and JJP agreed to accept the money because the belief is with it they can still grow at a rate to make it worthwhile.

If they had been in trouble, and for the record I'm not saying that they were, but generally investors don't float loans to companies that are about to go belly up.

Well, right - and perhaps I put that incorrectly - I meant failing as in a business that was going to die no matter what. If you are an investor, and you are presented with an opportunity and you look at it and go, "Man, there is no way I can make money off this one." you aren't going to go into it. With any investment there is risk, but if you are sure it's going to fail you don't make the commitment.

My point, which I don't think we're arguing, just perhaps that I'm not overly clear about it, is that if this was some "Haha, Jack is going belly up, Stern's for everyone ONLY EVER HA!" situation, the investor would not have invested. Clearly, someone other than just Jack believes in Jack's business model.

Great example of the above. Stern was bordering on closing down because there was no demand - why invest in a company about to close the doors? Because its cheap (buy in the downtime, sell high at the peak), and the group coming in had new ideas about how the games should be built and sold (and probably were willing to gamble on a market remaining) - strip the expense out, create LE hype, and we're at 8k+ Stern machines with a BOM smaller than TSPP
Again all speculation. I know nothing about JJP's position, but in my experience private equity loves struggling companies with good ideas and intentions because they can often find the exact causes of the problem.

Right. But the idea behind the business is positive enough that there is a way to earn money on your investment so long as the company does what you believe that it can.

Again, my whole point is just that if the investors looked at JJP and said "wow, this thing is definitely going belly up!" they wouldn't have followed that with "How do we invest?" I have no idea if they were or were not having money issues, nor do I care to speculate. My entire point is that this confirms that JJP has a solid business plan.