People are appreciative of your help. Obviously you don't want to get in the same situation as the Predator crew, the sounding boards there (Fast pinball, the cabinet maker, etc) got kind of blindsided in the whole situation.

This is really concerning that John thinks this is a trivial part of the process. Not to mention no real work has gone on with it in who knows how long.

FWIW, and I'm sure GLM will clarify, I did a double-take on that 1122 number as well and then realized the intent was to convey that the total for the invoice was $1122, which was the cost of 4 PCBs. I don't think 1000 boards have been ordered. I could be misreading it, of course.

Smart man. If anything could be learned from the Predator fiasco (lots to be learned there actually), this is one.

No. I think the was lurking on Pinside and caught this within an hour.

Doh!

StevenP, as John's lawyer when you make comments like there is no cash crunch and money is not an issue producing the games and other positive news without knowing for certain, I don't think that is helpful. We have legitimate concern with the money we have invested and when the guy who has our money goes dark and we are getting information through you, his lawyer as a 3rd party, no offence but we don't want fluff and guess's, we want facts.

Thx, and i *hope* I'm not that situation. I really did see MG and RAZA recently, and apart from having the "guts" (cpu/i-o/driver stuff) hooked up and flipping, the rest looks basically production-ready: cabinets, playfields, mechanical parts, audio, plastics, lighting (except for a few new toys and position adjustments to be finalized on RAZA and the main plastic ramp on MG). Not saying the control aspect is trivial, but it seems like John worked thru the design aspects first. You'll never see a flipping "whitewood" for these titles because the playfield and parts are already production-quality. And many of the components were tested in sub-assemblies rather than on a bare-wood layout.

Please don't shoot me for just sharing this non-proprietary info and some speculations here!

Jpoop presents:
Magic Girl (Now you see her- Now you don't)
"Take a look in the box." She's gone!" - FOREVER!
image.jpg

StevenP many people have tried to help John but he won't let them.

It's a small community - he's burned through just about everyone.

With no final boardset and no code this game is DOA.

FAST Pinball was going to help but John wouldn't even send them a MG PF.

Maybe because it wasn't done? If the PF can't be shot it can't be programmed.

Nobody wants to see John end up like Skit-B. But unless he's ready for change - or the project is taken over - he will.

I see. Unfortunately the way Aurich posed the response (to my post) it came across as being a bit more directed (at GLM) than it should have been taken. I do apologize for any confusion it may have caused.

No, the numbers are as I quoted them. As this was intended to be the first major round of "production" boards, it was for boards that were to be used between both MG and RAZA, hence the higher quantity. Also, they would have been multiples used in each game.

I get the uncertainty and frustration with lack of communication. I was relaying general comments made to me, speaking as an individual and not as his lawyer/representative in these topics, without having gone thru the books or anything like Ice is proposing to do. Figuring maybe some indirect info was better than none. So, if that level of info is doing more harm than good, message received. I'll stop posting in JPOP threads/topics, period. it already seems like the best course of action from my personal perspective.

I. Will. Stop. Now.

Ok, so that is 1000 boards likely to be junked?

Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying. I guess I was surprised that so many boards would have been ordered at this apparent stage in the proceedings and my brain went looking for alternate explanations. In summary: wow.

Hey StevenP, we can appreciate your insight and help but please just give us facts.

And you haven't been paid yet?
I would be sending a collection agency to his business, that's nothing to sneeze at.

Check out this video:

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/xxlV4Gep/magic_cables_std.mp4

It's posted on this page (from 05.02.14):

https://magicgirldev.wordpress.com/2014/05/

All of the pcbs you see in the video are from that production run (a year earlier and not paid for).

Don't know if that answers your question or not.

I don't think anyone here really wants you to stop posting in this thread. You are a smart guy, you understand what people here are saying, and I'm sure you are sensitive to how things went down in the Predator thread with a few vendors taking a hit in credibility along the way. Being sensitive to that and being careful with what you say as fact is all people are asking for.

Like you said earlier, you refuse to do anything other than "guess" from now on.

Amen!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I'm curious to know if any people have requested refunds from John recently, and if so, did any of you receive a response? I know people were ignored when requesting refunds in the past, but in light of the Predator situation, this is something that should no longer be taken lightly.

My bad, I was just trying to figure out if John's perspective and yours were different, and maybe that was the source of the confusion. It's pretty clear that your side is crystal, there's no "well it was just some bidding work" here, you made him a ton of parts and invoiced him.

The fact that he's paid 8 invoices and now suddenly refuses to pay 2 of them, and then is showing a third game ... well, it's hard to read it as anything other than him being broke and trying to use the 3rd game to raise capital.

Edit: I don't mean to be alarmist by the way, and I have no other facts, it's just that we know he owes Cointaker $7k, he won't pay GLM for obvious work, and he's pushing something aimed at new buyers who aren't maybe burned out. Not really any good scenarios based on that info.

It's been stated many times that John is using the QPC, and all of his prototypes are wired for it. First hand accounts have described prototypes as having /some/ working code. Changing boards sounds like a huge change for a project that is already overdue. And I'd be shocked if FAST would want to write software for a different boardset than their own.

1) It's not that I don't believe people, but if that's true why haven't we seen it? Or at least the owners? No disrespect intended, but people visit him and leave all starry eyed. It happened to me at Expo when I hung out with Dutch Pinball. I thought they were pinball geniuses with their shit together! It happens.

2) Who cares what they're wired with? That's Aaron problem. He can take it apart and fix it, no one else has to cry for his work.

3) No of course he wouldn't do a non FAST project, and he shouldn't!

4) The bottom line is we're talking PROTOTYPES. And we haven't even seen a single ball flip. So "changing horses" shouldn't be an issue. Not if that's what it takes to get the game done.

5) This is all moot. John's already re-burned his bridge with FAST and Mission. Because people trying to help him get that treatment. Ask StevenP.

Steve, you single-handedly raise the signal-to-noise ratio of this thread threefold, your presence is appreciated.

Steven this owner appreciates what your trying to do! I hope you will reconsider and continue to participate in this thread.

No worries, Aurich.

As for non-payment vs. cash flow, the two should not be taken as having any "direct" relation. Keep in mind that somehow Zidware expanded and is now leasing twice the space they had when I was last there, so somehow there is justification (and money) to pay for that, but not to pay the outstanding invoices for GLM, Cointaker, etc.?

Not getting refunds sends a strong alarm signal. Says a Predator'ed customer.
At least I have CC (Amex) protection.

We are living in interesting times.

Well it makes sense that they would lease less space during development stages and have to expand the workshop for manufacturing later on. It doesn't mean they have more money, it's just a case of not wasting money on unnecessary square footage until its necessary.

I think StevenP is welcome to continue contributions to this thread, but I would stay away from "I guess" or "John told me".

There's been several pinball industry people that have spoken up in this thread about how much road there is left, despite how polished some of it looks. None of that matters unless it's ALL polished.

John's way of doing things would be fine if it produced results. If he had MG at expo 2013 as he intended, the narrative would be completely different.

funny how he's still trying to get people from posting pics here...or that he's actually worried about it with what's going on should be his focus

Yeah it looks like he had put up a couple of new videos on the AIW blog but he took them down before I got to even watch them ... I guess because of what was posted here?

Jpop post exactly where you are at with MG Porto type and best estimate to showing it. Do it now!

So the videos have since been removed from pinside, but the punishment still gets doled out to all the owners on the blog.

Maybe the "bunch of folks" that reported the videos on pinside in the first place could report back to him that there is nothing here now.

Problem with that theory is he's nowhere close to being ready for manufacturing.

Exactly. The confusion really stems from John doing things backwards. He's prioritized the art over everything else. That's why we have all the pretties to look at, and yet are still having a conversation about what hardware will drive final games.

And of course no game is anything without software. There is no programmer for the game. Nothing has been done. This is not some trivial last 5% thing.

That about sums it up, yes. If you go back a page or two I summarized the video content. Why he took them down after people had already seen them and effectively punished owners I couldn't tell you.

Assuming we have production, will we end up with the first boutique giving us hardware while we are posting here twelve months from now asking when the software will be complete? At this point it would be a good problem to have because it would mean that there was at least production.

Yes....this is exactly my line of thought, too. With MG so close to at least being a code-less prototype that, I guess, everyone hopes flips (would really suck if it turned out to be a brick after all of this, wouldn't it?), what else can we assume here? MG and RAZA owners are fed up and tapped out when it comes to these projects but he might be just crazy enough to think that there are some AIW owners who are still suckers. He sent a second installment for AIW back in December. IIRC, he was very vague on the blogs about whether he was actually expecting anyone to pony up. That payment would have brought the total investment to around 40% of the total cost of AIW. If John thinks that he is 40% complete... well, let's just say we have a difference of opinion on his progress. I am not sure I would put MG and RAZA at the 40% mark.

NO. YOU. WILL. NOT.

Edit: Pinside maybe but certainly not the owners group. I will spam your email and auto dial your phone.

I hope you will reconsider your position. I, for one, value the opinions and information that you bring to this thread.

I'm confused. I thought John told ice that he was opening up all the blogs to the public, and that he no longer cared if stuff from the blogs was shared with the community. Is this not the case?

Open and then instantly shut.

That was before the 'great harm'

It's scary to think that MG/RAZA might be considered "done" with barely flipping code. Look at how it takes 1-2 years of the best pinball programmers at Stern or JJP to polish a game properly.

And somehow we're going to get a fun playing game equal to the artwork by some programmer that doesn't even work on the project currently?

John has been outright dismissive about the role of a programmer on his games.

So what happened? Did people start criticizing what they saw, so he closed everything back up?

A few post up. People became upset at seeing all the work he was doing on AIW with not even a protype out on game one. AIW showed alot of art work and a foam layout that obviously has taken a lot time and effort.
Summary, Stuck designing games but ability to move forward : (

The Great Harm

No we were asking on pinside why he was spending his time on AIW instead of finishing MG and RAZA. And he freaked.