Pretty sure your in the minority one that but must say I respect your enthusiasm! Just seems crazy to me to have so much money tied up for well over four years when there are so many great games out now to buy/own. As always to each their own.

Yeah...what is it, $16k for a MG? 7-8 years of tied up cash and you're hoping for a CV?? Buy a CV right now for $6000-$7000 if that's all you want. Hell, buy two! You'll be lucky to see a game period!

I tought I read here somewhere (about 30 pages back) that this was his original plan but then discovered that other manufacturers didn't want to cooperate with him ?
So he couldn't just go to Stern or their supplier and ask for cabinets or brackets or other parts, so he had no option but make his own (which delayed everything)..

Something I do wonder - is the sudden change of some people here over the last days really because there is good news to expect, or because in the super secret nda there's maybe somewhere a clause that buyers may not post anything negative online or get sued for full damages or never get a refund or game or whatever ?
I really hope it's the first but was just thinking about all possibilities..

Since when does PR ever include all the realities?

Whatever is happening with these games, I don't expect anything to change any time soon (no playable prototypes). Still no final ramps, I'm going to guess now that the lack of money has stopped them from being produced, and the well documented no programmer.

The games can't be shown until those 2 items have been addressed, and I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff we don't even know about holding them back.

OMG Kanadas pr plan to just put the game on location randomly?? By the way Kanada games did not jus show up. They were marketed to distributors . Direct home consumers did not exist . Williams did. Not drive a game to the arcade to advertise it.
Piss poor idea and not relevant to these games as they are sold already. This is more stuff that Jpop can sit around and worry about vs just building a game.

Seriously that PDF is laughable. The game pops up at different locations for a few hours at a time? Kaneda has tried to float that idea several times already, saying that's how he would have done Wrestlemania, etc...

It's wrong and it won't work.

Kaneda PMd me to tell me that insulting his professional life was bad, and I challenged him to prove me wrong by revealing his Zidware plan that would blow me away. Anything he is taking personal credit for was obviously the work of a team of individuals and he doesn't want to share credit.

He originally posted two pdf's; I clicked the second one out of curiosity (sparked largely by that awesome artwork on its first page), but by the time I browsed through it and wanted to click the first one, he already removed his post entirely. Could anyone who happened to catch that first pdf upload it again as well? Cheers.

This is spot on

This is my favorite part of the PR PDF:

"But we’ll never be in one place for very long. Just a
few hours on location (or less if any pesky pinsiders show up and start snapping pics of the game)."

On a side note, I am thinking about reaching out to JPOP through Kaneda and pitching the idea of a "Great Harm" themed pin as the 4th, 5th, or 6th title (not sure where we are at now).

"It would have worked if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"

Scooby_Doo_Villian_Umasked.jpg

I have to agree that if he does make the games even if it's 3-4 more years that's better than the alternative of never getting built.

I have asked for a refund and received no response. After Predator, it is time to go ahead with legal action to recover my money. What else are we buyers, who now appear to be victims, supposed to do?

He won't respond at all.

No progress has been shown to us.

We hear of others not getting their money back.

This is circling the drain and I need a lawyer. Start with demand letters and move it up the scale with ic3 report of fraud if he does not respond followed by...can't believe this...filing suit where he lives.

What has happened? Pinball is now lawsuits and attorneys and police reports? A Legend in the game is doing this to FANS?

Sick.

You guys will have the patience of Job if you can wait 3-4 more years on top of the original 3. That's what, 7 years of having your money invested. Yikes!
If Jpop has run out of money, and the word is out that he's in a bind, who in his rightful mind is going to invest in title #4, 5 etc, to ensure he has the money going forward for those next 3 or 4 years to finish title 1, 2, 3?
This looks really bad for those invested. I sure hope jpop gets his act together and comes up with a quick solution for everyone, because I cant see the waiting game working, but hey, I don't know all the facts so it's all speculation. Good luck to all.

John has always stated he was going to reinvent the wheel on everything, making it his own. The only force driving that strategy really was his desire to make it different or "better."

Many of the patents on items you mention are expired. Ironically he ran into issues with how the display was mounted because of his own patent from WMS used in CV.

Churchill would likely not want to help out partially due to their relationship with Stern.

There's something to be said about "let's not reinvent the wheel". Pinball designers from the EM era built some pretty good reliable proven mechanisms. If you want to innovate some things on your own time/dime, fine. For magic girl, JPOP should have just stuck to as many off the shelf parts as possible (and he could have still had his flare of curved ramps, plastics sticking out from other plastics).
Look at the team at Stern pinball who work on a single game (with all the other departments already in place to take a working whitewood in to a final product), and think how it takes them 1-2 years to develop a game.
Now imagine JPOP (from what I can tell is just himself, an artist, and possibly a prototype helper), and think how much longer the timeline is (reinventing parts, setting up vendors, setting up manufacturing, procuring machines to prototype, sourcing help). Looking back, I'm actually amazed he's even where he's at currently after 4 years. And that's not giving him slack, that's me saying he didn't have a clue thinking he can build a pinball from scratch in 2 years, or 4 years, or even 8 years with a skeleton crew (there's only so many hours in a day).

Pinball is hard, REALLY hard. Why make it a steeper uphill battle than it already is?

Post 6666.

I love you man

Fear not. We've got contestants 14 and 15 who are confident that they will fix everything quickly. We've got another 7 - 10 days left before they start posting about how impossible it all is.

Did you see Kaneda's PR job for Zidware? You were gonna get your machine first!

Has anybody tried selling their pre-order spot?

Makin' bold moves

I think Popaduik allowing the most hated person on Pinside to do PR for him is easily the funniest thing I've seen here since the NuCore guys got caught using GPL code in their project.

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If someone had actually told him his game was not coming until 2017 he may have a heart attack before they could actually surprise him with his game. #PRfail

It's sad that 2017 can be thrown around at all as a date. No one has a clue.

What's sad is that people are still hanging on to the possibility of any of these games actually getting made, when everyone should band together to try and salvage their money.

But then there's still Predator people who think that game is possible!

That is sadly all too real.

You announce one game and take preorders, then #2, then #3 without even getting close to delivering #1.
How many people are in for #4?
Did his dog eat the whitewoods?

I had thought he was oblivious, but if he's saying stuff like that then he's fully aware what a situation he's in is. Makes it that much more inexcusable to just ignore everyone.

I assumed he was stalling hoping for an angel to swoop in and buy him out.

Sorry to say it, but that sounds like colossal waste of capital to me. Just buying out the debt alone seems like a terrible investment.

He needs to go on Shark Tank.

I think the most logical conclusion would be that if he showed anyone the clear financial picture, the gig would be up. Stall tactics are just buying time, putting off facing the inevitable for as long as he can in the hope that a miracle comes along. The longer this goes on, the more damage he is doing to his reputation in the field he loves, but I think most of that damage was going to happen anyway because of how he managed this venture.

In his last poor business decision, he is choosing to make this death as excruciating as possible.

I can only come to this conclusion, because he steadfastly refuses the transparency needed to prove that there is any hope left.

what possible shred of "positive reputation" could he have at this point?

also, even if by some miracle, games appear someday, are people saying "oh well, since we got a game, jpop is back to being a legend again"? really?

His appearance on Shark Tank would most likely look like someone going through a revolving door! I'd love to see the segment though. Even the historically worst pitch on Shark Tank thus far would probably get a better reaction from the Sharks.

.

I was pondering this. His business is mortally wounded. He'll never pre-sell 100+ games by crowd funding again. Even if he delivers Magic Girls and RAZAs, there won't be enough people wanting to get on the ride again.

He can sell finished games, yes, but that isn't his model. He needs pre-sales to fund the games. There won't be any profits from these to carry the next games.

So the likelihood of failure increases with each title. Magic Girls... still a hope in hell that 19 can be made. After that, who the hell knows. But even if RAZAs were delivered, there won't be 100+ people paying for Alice in advance, and at some point he won't be able to keep the lights on.

This is what I'm talking about. *there is no hope in hell of them getting made*.

The sooner people accept that, the sooner you can get around to suing him and putting this whole debacle to rest.

Then I'd have to retire from pinside for lack of anything to talk about.

If you have full payment made on MG for 7 years, your cost for the game is $33k (using historical average annualized rate of return for S&P 500).

19+ games spread around the world and restricted from being on location means if you have not preordered MG you may never see the game.

In other words, I struggle to find "value" for anyone, but ironically that doesn't diminish the high level of interest in his projects for everyone.

Wasn't he doing pinball related aps at some point under Zidware? That may have dried up, but it might have helped carry the float at some point in time.

Now I'm wondering who programmed those, since I doubt he did.

I had a whole lot written about how this community has responded to shitty treatment by so many pinball companies, but rather than start more flame wars by people defending their "Pinball-Sports-Team", I'll just say this...

It's amazing how forgetful and forgiving people in this community can be because they really want a game and hope still exists that they may get it.

Ha, ain't that the truth!

The flip side of that though is that people are really understanding and forgiving if you just treat them like adults and keep up communication.

If things aren't going as well as you hoped then just tell people. It's hiding it and lying that always gets you in trouble.

I don't know about that. Predator is the first time this has really been put to the test (complete failure where people are out thousands).

Every other bad thing, was just huge delays (WOZ, BBB), and even the original MM remake, as far as I know anyone who requested got their money back?

So we are in a new era for pinball with real losses. I don't think those will be easily forgotten.

Just remember that the only reason John is even doing this is for the good of the pinball community. When the end comes, I'm sure he will remind us of that too.