Being self (or privately) financed always gave me confidence in Heighway. Meant there was a business plan somewhere that made sense to people.

I know....at the end of the day, the only person I have any reasonable control of is myself.....he is the only one who can control his end of the situation...each individual can then control how they deal with it themselves.

A very painful reality.....but to try and make sense of it or justify any reason to continue letting time slip away will only make it worse...I'm truly sorry for all those involved in this.....mark

Exactly....I am not a naive business man....look at their business model from day one......they never implied ONCE that they needed our money to build these games, just gauging our commitment level before HE (Andrew) decided how many widgets to buy.

Same way I run my Company.....I'm not buying anything custom ordered until I have a feel of consumer commitment. This approach is very valid and is done all the time.

The preorder model got screwed when " businessmen " ( use that term very loosely) lied, AND pretty much told everyone they needed the " investor" money to build the games....polar opposite of what Andrew is doing....

Any way, the fact that Heighway pinball will host the next UK pinball party at their place next August is a smart move and very strong positive signal - everyone visiting will be able to check the reality of their factory.

I think Diane Sawyer should interview Jpop. He appears quite confused too.

But that is shot to hell now isn't it? I would rather the pin be made in large numbers than to not be made and lose my money.

Yeah, "Option A - John delivering the original promised numbers" went out the window YEARS ago when the business was hobbled by poor business decisions and lack of management. All his talk of "Ultimate Editions" with only creating a handful of machines had no basis in reality and was impossible from Day 1.

If we can get our machines delivered to us now, at the cost that they aren't as exclusive as they were when we ordered them, I think we'd consider ourselves lucky.

Because we're facing the alternatives of:

-Bankruptcy, we get nothing.

-Bankruptcy. Someone buys the pieces and produces them. We lose our money and can choose to buy it a second time from the new manufacturer. The new manufacturer will run as many numbers as they want.

Personally, I think it was a stupid idea to create the pin in limited numbers. The more you make the cheaper they are per unit and the more profit you make on each unit. I get that JPoop is an artsy fartsy half crazy dreamer but money is money. From reading these posts I get the feeling that JPoop does not have the business sense nor the ability to design and produce a pin and get it out the door especially in large numbers. If I were him I would go to Jack and beg him to buy my ideas and produce them. Im not proud, I do what has to be done.

Yeah, I think it's an awesome idea too. Unlikely I'll be able to fly over there for it, I have a lot of travel already scheduled in August in the US, but I really wish I could be there to see what people think in person.

The numbers never made any sense. 100 is generally your minimum point for things scale in a reasonable fashion. And 100 is still very limited.

Can someone sum up the 152 pages in a paragraph?

Don't pre-order pinball machines.

Aurich, what do you do? You are obviously involved in some pinball project. Forgive me for not knowing or if the question is intrusive. You obviously know what you are talking about when it comes to the pinball world and just about everything else.

http://arstechnica.com/

I'm the creative director for Ars Technica, and I've owned my own design company for the last 12 years, with a career in interactive consulting prior to that. I dunno that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to "everything else", but design-related stuff is my professional field, I'm reasonably informed on those topics.

Pinball is just my hobby, but I'm the creative director and artist for Heighway's upcoming pin based on the Alien movies, so I do have a certain amount of insight into what it takes to build a pin.

I've also been told that I'm an "opinionated bastard".

As far a Jpop goes, I was never in on ordering a machine, not something I was ever interested in, but I happen to know a lot of people who've been involved in one way or another. Pinball is a small community, and if you're involved in doing things for it, mods or whatever, you tend to meet and talk to a lot of like-minded folks. So I've kind of taken John's moves personally in some ways, just in that I hate to see the way he's discarded so many people who've tried to help over the years.

Its Ok to be a opinionated bastard when you know your shit. You seem like a pretty interesting person, I had to ask. Take care.

that's one of the things i like best about you...

How long has ars been around? I swear I have been reading it since the late 90's.

Sorry, no room for original zombies,
he wanted more cats and borrowed IP.

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Ars has a home page?

1998. I've been formally involved since 2003. We were bought by Condé Nast in 2008. That's why I know people at Wired. Spent plenty of time at both the SF and NY offices.

The Wired reporter hasn't decided if he wants to do a Jpop story or not by the way. But it's not dead. Not that it matters much at this stage.

U know originally when I signed up it was just 17 games... And $17k each for some reason I thought that was a good idea...there was no talk of anything else at the time

At which point in the previous 7554 posts before yours did you come to this conclusion? Its quite insightful!

Suspect that's a plane trip I'm going to have to make....

I didn't have to read these post to think a 20 pin limit was stupid but it did not pertain to me. JPoop can do what he wants and if someone wants to give him money that is their business. If it were to have come to fruition it would have been great for the buyers.

Obviously there is nothing I can do to stop people from going after me legally or pressing charges at any time for anything in America, personally or in business. I have that same right to go after my critics or anyone. But certainly anything big would shutdown all work here immediately, as my time would be needed for legal items I am sure and to protect the work and pinball IP which is substantial. I probably could not afford either to hire lawyers needed. Never been sued or charged in the past “for anything”, lead a quiet (somewhat) peaceful career, so I have no experience at all, other than the attorneys make out fine financially and not all attorneys are to be “trusted” as I have learn firsthand.

Wondering if that last part is a dig at Iceman.
Hoping the owners stop taking crap from John sometime in the near future.
1) he threatens "critics" with legal action, then turns around and says he can't afford a lawyer to sue. So basically just trying to stop free speech on the internet by using empty threats.
2) Setting himself up to use the inevitable lawsuit as the scapegoat we all know he's been looking for in order to wash his hands of the project. i.e. "whoever does decide to sue me, it will be your fault the project fails and people don't get their pins!" Same as Kevin and his supporters did with the AG. Try to pass blame.
3) "I've never been sued in the past for anything" so what, you are to be trusted? Have you ever taken millions of dollars in cash from people before?

John is a delusional self-serving crook. He will never admit to wrongdoing, as his narcissistic and paranoid personality disorders do not allow him to accept he can be in the wrong. If he still had your pre-order money, he could definitely afford a lawyer to protect his IP. This should be considered an admission that the money is gone and the company is broke.

Thanks for clarification I was quoting another post that posted Johns letter.

To remove my name from your post just edit the first quote part (I left out the 'e' at the end of quote but put the 'e' at the end. Just on the first quote tag.

<blockquot >

Too late. You're being sued already by John's imaginary attorney. Oh, wait. Scratch that. It looks like the imaginary attorney hasn't been paid.

What has John done the 10 years before his idea to try his skill set at being a pinball manufacturer?

Goat rodeo.

Don't bring whizbang into it. They actually made games.

already edited.

Interestingly, from his LinkedIn account he was mainly a teacher. First as the Director of a tehnology based collaborative exploring socially rich ideas in mobile learning, game design and education technologies for kids. Then an Adjunct Faculty for Columbia College Chicago teaching Toy Design as part of the BFA in Product Design discipline.

Before that he worked as the creative director at Zizzle Electronics, best known here for the cheap home Pinball machines.

I found it interesting he lists himself currently as Vice President of product Development for Zidware. Does that mean his wife--the only other "potential employee" is President?

I saw that a few days ago when somebody brought up her resume and what it might qualify her for. Very interesting that he is not at the least the co-whatever.

Sometimes it's a strategy to list yourself as something other than president or CEO to make a company look more than a one man operation.

I figured it might be for when the lawsuits come, well he's just the designer

They made a movie about Zidware's problem: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117108/

I have hired a dozen lawyers over the years to help with simple matters. One thing I've noticed is that they expect to be paid for their services, usually with a good sized amount up front and they'll let you know when to deposit more as you proceed. If you don't pay, you still have the original problem to address but added to the load is a disgruntled attorney with all your personal info and with the full weight of the law behind them.

Given John's track record of not paying vendors, his refusal to refund money as promised and the steady flow of complaints, I don't believe he has the funds to hire an attorney. Adding to the fire - John's refusal to face facts or to provide an honest assessment to buyers, legal action sounds like the only recourse to recovering part of your funds back.

Yeah, funny how that works, isn't it?

I just got an email from JPOP it sounds like he has a couple pinsiders there and they are "playing MG"... He said they are shooting video, hopefully it gets posted to to the blogs & Facebook soon.

Whether he can prove there is a working game or not, what is the point? He doesn't have the money to manufacture everyone's games, correct? So until he can provide a solution for how he plans to deliver what he promised for the price paid, who cares? He has clearly mismanaged this from the start and anyone getting false hope from this might want to temper their excitement IMO. Albeit I agree it would be nice to at least see video of how Magic Girl came together.

Ok your right "what's the point" I won't post info in this thread anymore as it has clearly upset you! I will keep any new info on the private owners group.... After all its not like this is the "JPOP update thread"

Best case: He switched back to PROC and programmed new code from scratch
Worst case: He moved the the hardware from the whitewoods to the new playfields, same code as before

Showing us something he said he had three years ago changes the current situation how?

Easy tiger, I didn't mean to insult you. I was only pointing out that John trying to show progress is just more delaying of the inevitable. Folks are no closer to getting their games. He needs a solid plan right now. What he's showing now should have been shown a year ago.

Just ignore that stuff.

Positive updates are positive updates. We can't whine about not seeing gameplay footage, and then complain when he works to provide it.

It's important to keep perspective, a flipping MG doesn't actually solve anything right now, it's too late for that to be enough. But hey, take what progress you can, why not?

I know I still want to see the video.

Me too; who knows maybe things are not as bad as they seem?

Nah, they are. Flipping MG doesn't change anything really. But might as well see the game that we're not getting for the time being, maybe it will help people decide if they want to try and figure out how to save it or not.

Pinchili, you do not always need the last word. That was a real update that we were glad to receive.

Everyone knows John needs a solid plan, but people seeing he has a playable game (if he does) is the first bright point in awhile and would open up a couple options...as it would mean he was at least a bit further along than he hitherto appeared to be.

The inevitable of which you speak likely is that John will not be manufacturing these games. That does not mean that the games can't be manufactured at all and the further along he is with everything the more likely it can be finished off by others if JPop will play ball (big if based on history but it could happen).

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Does this mean MG is now 96% done?