(Topic ID: 92436)

John Popadiuk update thread……MAGIC GIRL, RAZA, AIW…..

By iceman44

9 years ago


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34 key posts have been marked in this topic, showing the first 10 items. (Show topic index)

There are 24,471 posts in this topic. You are on page 112 of 490.
13
#5551 9 years ago

Great harm. Sure. Good thing all his secrecy and lack of progress isn't doing any harm.

17
#5552 9 years ago
Quoted from jazzmaster:

I guess posting here is one way to get his attention..... from the blog:
"All,
I have had a bunch of folks message me about items from this blog appearing on public forums like “Pinside”. These items are not meant to be distributed but for the owners here only. The items / ideas / designs and illustrations on this blog are protected by United States ©Copyright and need to be kept as “trade secrets” until public viewing is ready.
If you are the person or know the person, please stop immediately as great harm is being done. Jpop"
So much for the "opening of the gates" policy.

What a complete load of crap.

19
#5553 9 years ago

Great harm.

And now he's taken his toys down and gone home. People might have missed out on seeing the lenticular rabbit!

What exactly are the trade secrets? That he uses foam core to mock up playfields? That he ripped off the magna flippers from Twilight Zone?

Or is he just upset because now everyone can see how much time he's wasting on game three when he's screwing over his very first supporters by leaving Magic Girl in limbo?

#5554 9 years ago

Oh my, this doesn't sit well with me at all............icccccccceeeeeee

#5555 9 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

Great harm.
And now he's taken his toys down and gone home. People might have missed out on seeing the lenticular rabbit!
What exactly are the trade secrets? That he uses foam core to mock up playfields? That he ripped off the magna flippers from Twilight Zone?
Or is he just upset because now everyone can see how much time he's wasting on game three when he's screwing over his very first supporters by leaving Magic Girl in limbo?

So the AIW video has disappeared now?

Oh dear.

#5556 9 years ago

AIW video?

#5557 9 years ago
Quoted from jazzmaster:

I guess posting here is one way to get his attention..... from the blog:
"All,
I have had a bunch of folks message me about items from this blog appearing on public forums like “Pinside”. These items are not meant to be distributed but for the owners here only. The items / ideas / designs and illustrations on this blog are protected by United States ©Copyright and need to be kept as “trade secrets” until public viewing is ready.
If you are the person or know the person, please stop immediately as great harm is being done. Jpop"
So much for the "opening of the gates" policy.

Gosh, Jpop, not so much "candy for everyone" eh? But that really doesn't matter.

John, I love you dude. It is possible you are doing more harm than good. A flipping Magic Girl prototype would do wonders for everyone. Please consider. See you in Wonderland.

Lawrence

#5558 9 years ago

Hopefully someone has done a site capture.

You know, for posterity (and legal) sake.

#5559 9 years ago
Quoted from Shapeshifter:

So the AIW video has disappeared now?
Oh dear.

Yep...JPOP killed the vids so I removed the dead links from my earlier post. Took down the playfield pic too. The iron curtain on the Sekret Club has been restored (special thanks to Aurich for the vernacular).

14
#5560 9 years ago

And all hope that JPop had taken any of Ice's advice to heart was lost...

#5561 9 years ago

This guy Jpop is an absolute Nutcase. You'd think he is designing Nuclear Weapons or something. I mean seriously by the time his games come out all of his secret ideas will be thought of and used by other companies already. If Jpop wants to raise money to build his games he could easily get a realty show as this stuff going on just could not be made up! I've been following this thread like a soap opera waiting to hear what the "Nutcase" has to say or what ends up happening. I firmly believe that this is the end for Zidware.

15
#5562 9 years ago

Of all the things said about what is going on there in this thread, THOSE pics are the ones causing "great harm". good grief.

#5563 9 years ago

.. Wow.

-1
#5564 9 years ago
Quoted from Squeakman:

by the time his games come out all of his secret ideas will be thought of and used by other companies

Correction: these games will only come out if all his secret ideas are thought of and used by other companies.

#5565 9 years ago
Quoted from jazzmaster:

please stop immediately as great harm is being done. Jpop

This is a really scary comment. (seen from an outsider)

#5566 9 years ago

I will say it again, you must pay your contractors, & parts suppliers. Has this happened, not from what we hear here or elsewhere. You start burning all your life lines up, & likely no one will have anything to do with you. So you are left alone dreaming endlessly, & producing nothing but vapour ware.

Had he paid people properly he probably would be close to the finish line or complete. Even in his space if he had a lead hand, & a few assemblers (16 Magic Girls). Possibly assigned a office manager to organise everything, & make sure people & bills were paid on time.

I'm sure if he moves forward, contractors will be asking to be paid in advance. Set up change work orders if he changes stuff. I know he won't be on my list to do anything with.

#5567 9 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

Or is he just upset because now everyone can see how much time he's wasting on game three when he's screwing over his very first supporters by leaving Magic Girl in limbo?

Pretty sure this is the great harm he's talking about.

17
#5568 9 years ago

If you missed the Alice in Wonderland videos I'll summarize what I can remember:

They were full cabinet mockups, but all made out of foam core, cabinet included.

Everything was black and white, just a printed playfield with white foam core and drawings cut out and glued down. But it was pretty far along as far as art and layout goes.

I wasn't joking about him ripping off Twilight Zone's magna flippers by the way, there's an upper playfield with two concentric circle areas that literally says "MAGNA FLIPPERS" over them.

There was a cute idea with a card guy printed on the playfield, but his head was a drop target, so you could "knock his head off".

Big LCD screen in the back, like all his new games. Seems like a really limiting design element to me, it means you can't really do much with the middle of the game if you want to maintain sight lines, and the cabinets are crazy deep.

Uh, let's see ... There was art on the inside of the cabinet walls, apparently the plan is to print them on mirror blades.

I can't remember much else.

And really, while it looked cool and all, there was nothing new, special, or crazy. No "trade secrets". A drop target, a stolen upper playfield design (really, that was just tacky) and just a bunch of work and progress into vapor ware game three.

If this was shown after Magic Girl was shown flipping, with a final design, and the announcement of a programmer? Well, and after the same thing with RAZA? And no KISS? And no phantom Kittygirl bowlers? And fake pinball lessons, and redesigned freaking cabinet hinges?

Probably be exciting. Great theme idea, initial design looks cool. Alice is pouty and annoying, but the art isn't final, and I'm sure he'll have Zombie Yeti revise it 7 more times anyways.

But as it is he took down the videos because they revealed just what he's spending his time on. And MG and RAZA buyers should be really pissed. I think you guys are going to get utterly boned on this one. And no one is gonna get money back, I doubt he has it to give if he wanted to.

This is post Predator, the fantasy is over, people need to take these tough questions seriously. Because it will suck for the whole hobby if Jpop collapses so shortly after Skit-B.

#5569 9 years ago
Quoted from jazzmaster:

These items are not meant to be distributed but for the owners here only. The items / ideas / designs and illustrations on this blog are protected by United States ©Copyright and need to be kept as “trade secrets”

He means business. His ip lawyer is an active member here.

Jpop has gall. I'll give him that much.

Nothing like punching an already cantankerous group of owners in the nose.

#5570 9 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

just a bunch of work and progress into vapor ware game three.

John "Ponzi" Popadiuk

#5571 9 years ago

It sucks, cuz the work that's done here is beautiful, but the prepay pin ship is sunk.

#5572 9 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

What exactly are the trade secrets? That he uses foam core to mock up playfields? That he ripped off the magna flippers from Twilight Zone?

Maybe he thinks its 1981, where trade secrets in pinball design would have maybe mattered.

#5573 9 years ago

The reality is that the only way to "force" John to do anything is to take him to Court. The best case result of taking him to Court is that he runs through some money in attorney's fees and the owners who sue get a judgment against him.

If he has his corporation set up properly and he has used it properly (which could be a big if) and the corporate veil cannot be pierced, the assets of Zidware will be used to satisfy the judgment whether through bankruptcy or collection actions.

If Zidware doesn't have the money and the corporate veil can be pierced, then the owners can go after John's personal property to satisfy the judgment.

Given that this Zidware situation comes down to a lack of direction, a lack of business acumen and bad communication as opposed to fraud, I don't want to sue John and Zidware. I have contemplated it and I just don't want to deal with it. I knew it was a risky proposition to send him checks and I took the risk. I saw the serious warning signs and decided I would stay in anyway.

I think litigation would cause a run on the bank and extinguish the small hope that remains that we will someday see the pinball machines we want.

At this point nothing short of legal action will force John's hand and I don't see it in the cards so we have to wait and hope that John will realize what he needs to do to turn things around.

If there is a group of owners who want to band together and sue John, I am not aware of them. I also was unaware of the anonymous group and many, many other things in life so they could be out there somewhere organizing as we speak.

The owners will gain leverage when John gets to the point that he needs the remainder of the installments to produce the games, but that seems a long way away at this point.

25
#5574 9 years ago

Ways to cause "great harm" to your business:

-have unpaid vendors and contractors that won't continue to do business with you and damage your reputation with everyone who is left

-Go massively over schedule, with no idea when it might end

-Collect money from your customers in advance, keep it for years, spend it, and not have anything resembling a finished product to show them

-Not have any idea when you might deliver said product

-Leave critical parts of the process untouched and incomplete, and run off the people that stepped up to help

-Ignore all customers requests for accountability and any transparency

-Ignore all customers, pretty much completely.

-Ignore business fundamentals and reality of budget and costs.

-Show progress with game 3 while the first 2 languish.

-Make up stuff about new hires to tell your customers so they think there is progress

-Let visitors to your shop tell you how amazing everything is and ignore what is going on in the real world with the lack of anything final to show or deliver while the cash burns every month no matter how "frugal" you are.

#5575 9 years ago
Quoted from boo32:

Given that this Zidware situation comes down to a lack of direction, a lack of business acumen and bad communication as opposed to fraud, I don't want to sue John and Zidware.

The question is, is he still collecting money from people with no mechanisms in place to deliver the promised product. If that is the case - fraud could be an issue.

#5576 9 years ago

I believe Jpop's work so far can be of great use to other companies, simply look at what Jpop is doing and do the exact opposite.

#5577 9 years ago

There was a brief 2 week period where things started to look up, but quickly got back to where it all started: secrecy and overt lack of desire to follow reasonable advice. It's going to be a long haul if he is ever to get a single game out the door.

#5578 9 years ago
Quoted from rai:

I believe Jpop's work so far can be of great use to other companies, simply look at what Jpop is doing and do the exact opposite.

I was already doing that with Skit-B!

As always, the magic word here is "communication". It's really that simple. If you can't do it then people should assume you're hiding things.

#5579 9 years ago

I'm sorry, may not be my place to say as I've no skin in the game, but IMO John is playing with fire. Before Skit-B (BS for short) that is before last week when things went nuclear on Predator, John was kind of happily going along at his own speed. But now, I don't think it will take much for people to call the cops on John. I simply can't believe contractors have not been paid, is that even possible? Wouldn't he be I court already?

If this keeps up the way it has for the last 5 months or so with John, I believe he'll be getting sued for non delivery. You surely can't collect money and not deliver a product literally indefinitely. I mean at some pont the game has to be shipped don't you think! When might that be? It seems like he's at where he would put this game at the first trimester (if this were a baby) he had said building and shipping a pin was a matter of 14 months-ish (these were John's words and John's timelines). How many 14 month periods have past without even a prototype?

#5580 9 years ago

Does a presentation at Pinball Expo which is packed with pinball fans that have pinball friends. Puts up a translight and people take pictures to share with their friends. - Freaks out like he didn't think of that and pulls it down.

6 months later. Puts up videos for the world to see. Pinball guys interested in his pinball projects share the public videos with their friends. - Freaks out like he didn't think of that and pulls it down.

From some past conversations with John, I think it might be intentional. Get buzz going. Show a little and pull it back! Like he's a fan dancer letting people get a glimpse before he covers up again.

#5581 9 years ago

Thanks for playing.
Balls in your court.
image.jpgimage.jpg

#5582 9 years ago

Well since John is pulling information, guess it's time to read through the MG blog before it gets pulled.

Have already found some "interesting" information therein.

#5583 9 years ago

Will that be a lasting picture of a hero, or a zero? His decision.

-1
#5584 9 years ago

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

#5585 9 years ago
Quoted from GLModular:

Have already found some "interesting" information therein.

Care to share?

#5586 9 years ago
Quoted from SunKing:

Care to share?

I'm still in the process of sifting through information, so bear with me. From the looks of things, there is good evidence to support the concept that some of the projects that were assigned to GLM may have also been given to other parties to work on concurrently. That would definitely lend a lot of weight to my theory as to why some vendors (GLM included) weren't paid for their work.

I'm guessing that this is one of the many reasons why none of the Vendors were given access to the blogs.

#5587 9 years ago

All those videos were on a wide open Vimeo channel. I clicked on one and had links to all the rest. If you pay $199 per year, your Vimeo pro account lets you make your videos unlisted and only accessible with a link. Hell, even the plus and free accounts let you password protect your videos.

I just can't for the life of me understand getting pissed that someone shared links to your wide open public videos. But then again I don't understand a lot about how zidware works.

#5588 9 years ago
Quoted from GLModular:

I'm still in the process of sifting through information, so bear with me. From the looks of things, there is good evidence to support the concept that some of the projects that were assigned to GLM may have also been given to other parties to work on concurrently. That would definitely lend a lot of weight to my theory as to why some vendors (GLM included) weren't paid for their work.
I'm guessing that this is one of the many reasons why none of the Vendors were given access to the blogs.

So I got a PM from John's lawyer Steve the other day, and he told me nothing in it was confidential and that I could share it. It's really long, and I don't think there's really any point right now in pasting it all. But I thought back to this quote from it when I read what you just said:

"Some vendors are probably upset because he has checked out many, going with the cheapest option for quality parts when he can, and those that were not on board after prototyping are understandably unhappy."

I'm guessing that whatever the truth is behind that statement is the source of the problem here.

#5589 9 years ago

It is a good thing to ask the tough questions and hard to avoid a good joke here or there but man this has really turned ugly fast. Not sure how some of the trashing is helping Jpop or the buyers.

#5590 9 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

So I got a PM from John's lawyer Steve the other day, and he told me nothing in it was confidential and that I could share it. It's really long, and I don't think there's really any point right now in pasting it all. But I thought back to this quote from it when I read what you just said:
"Some vendors are probably upset because he has checked out many, going with the cheapest option for quality parts when he can, and those that were not on board after prototyping are understandably unhappy."
I'm guessing that whatever the truth is behind that statement is the source of the problem here.

I don't see how there can be confusion about unpaid bills. Who on earth would design and ship electronic prototypes for free?

10
#5591 9 years ago
Quoted from Kneissl:

I don't see how there can be confusion about unpaid bills. Who on earth would design and ship electronic prototypes for free?

I'm sure Chris ships $7000 worth of LEDs to every start-up and does not expect to be paid.

#5592 9 years ago
Quoted from DCfoodfreak:

man this has really turned ugly fast

Welcome to post Skit-B pinball. That's why I got the above mentioned PM, Steve is smartly concerned about it, the landscape has changed.

Right now the best thing for John is to just get honest about these issues. Because ignoring them will just kick the can down the road, when the options are fewer and the situation is worse.

#5593 9 years ago
Quoted from John_I:

I'm sure Chris ships $7000 worth of LEDs to every start-up and does not expect to be paid.

Steve promised me he was going to specifically look into that. I haven't heard a response yet though.

#5594 9 years ago

Ehh, Popaduik is fine and won't do squat because this stuff is all online. There's no one showing up on his doorstep, in person. Which is the only way anything will happen, period.

#5595 9 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

Steve promised me he was going to specifically look into that. I haven't heard a response yet though.

Maybe Steve also look into my refund request. The one where john didn't send the refund, but instead said everything was coming along nicely and this game is his best work yet.

The dragons are coming, you just wait. They'll be here soon.

10
#5596 9 years ago

All bills should be paid. Until then he has literally stolen time and money from everyone with an outstanding invoice.

#5597 9 years ago
Quoted from DCfoodfreak:

It is a good thing to ask the tough questions and hard to avoid a good joke here or there but man this has really turned ugly fast. Not sure how some of the trashing is helping Jpop or the buyers.

Quoted from Aurich:

Welcome to post Skit-B pinball. That's why I got the above mentioned PM, Steve is smartly concerned about it, the landscape has changed.
Right now the best thing for John is to just get honest about these issues. Because ignoring them will just kick the can down the road, when the options are fewer and the situation is worse.

This. The days of taking heaps of pre-order money and then doing whatever you please are over. If JPop doesn't produce substantive communication and real results very quickly, it's hard to imagine that at least some of his buyers won't resort to legal action.

#5598 9 years ago

So now even those who have pre-ordered AiW (and have a right to see the private blog) are in the dark now?

#5599 9 years ago

No communication, vendors not getting paid, website content getting pulled...

And I'm pretty sure all the popcorn in the world got used up in the Skit-B thread.

This all really sucks. I can think of five friends who are paid in full in these fiascos.

#5600 9 years ago
Quoted from John_I:

I'm sure Chris ships $7000 worth of LEDs to every start-up and does not expect to be paid.

That's actually a very good point. What exactly was given to John with zero prepayment? Has Chris posted anything indicating what happened precisely? Of course, I'm not saying either side is right here, just that that is a damn good question.

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