I started building my 12 unit business park in 2007, just before the crisis. I had a pile of cash and my bank said they'd loan me $1m to finish it. Well, the crisis came along and they changed their mind ... No loan for RD!

So I sold my house and all three of us (me, wife, 7 year old girl) moved into an empty concrete shell unit. We had all our furniture in a pile and we set up the beds and camped out. The sun would come in the clear roof at sunrise and blind us lol. The beds were in the corner, and we were surrounded by pinball machines and furniture. It was bloody cold down there I can tell you! There was a portapotty at the far end of the site for the concrete contractors and if you wanted a poop, you had to hike 100 meters through the mud and rain.

Anyways, that's what I did. I walked to work every day (I was on the worksite!!) and built the whole business park myself (except the shells which were done by a contractor) I'm not a builder, I'm a furniture salesman. But over 2 years I found 11 tenants and built all the units to suit them. (I kept one unit as my warehouse)

I haven't had a salary since 2007.

And hey, it's all paid off. I've been going to tell this story since all this "preorder/prepay" fiasco started, but I didn't want to come off as a dick or something. But hey, that's how all my businesses have started, the furniture stores, the sofa factory, the property company.

The fact that these guys are paying themselves the big bucks while not delivering PAID PRODUCTS to customers is not on. At all.

rd.

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MG losses = price paid + legal fees to enforce contract + collection fees if needed + + +
A settlement request usually goes well beyond the value of the item or service itself.

Most of you guys sure give JPOP the benefit of the doubt, "Good intentions" "didn't know any better" …
That stuff went out the window pretty fast and the writing was on the wall probably 8-12 months into this scheme. At some point he decided to continue on living his life on your guys' $$$ fully aware of a negative outcome.

I wonder if you're making him sound better so you don't feel dumb for giving him all that cash and not trying to recoup it? Maybe some psychological thing. Objectively, reading through this thread it's pretty obvious what the outcome is here (for a long while) but maybe cause you're stuck it's denial stages stuff.

I think any of you who have $$ into this still have the best outcome following suite and suing the guy tbh. There's no machine on the horizon. Nobody is as stupid as some of you guys hope (bail out plan) let alone a rich entity who wants to eat your bad investment. Either write it off or try and recoup something.

Anyone who feels sorry for this guy is delusional if you think the feeling is mutual. He probably has animosity towards you who freerolled his lifestyle these past few years.

I'm amazed at how many pre-order / buyers seem to be surprised at 100% dollar loss potential. Several hundred posts ago, who had pre-order MG $ at risk?... crickets.

But for those that are in, are you surprised?

JP isn't a business guy - he's a designer - artists and developers get help with the $finance decisions.

These ventures are a bet on the key man - purely gambling. Land speculation, start-ups or gambling with a lot of upside too - return v. risk. Should be no surprise the high reward bets can go to $0.

JJP was a bet, funded by past customers.
Spooky was a bet, self funded by Charlie and Ben. Took $ for a place in line as back-orders (after starting to make the games), not pre-orders. Charlie stayed standard and used known vendors.

Planetary MMr was a bet, less risky b/c it was an existing design, known parts (plus some major improvements like lights, boardset, etc). Rick had to create the subcontractor build process - but less risky as he had a game, and obviously was his own vendor for most parts.

Other projects are/were a bet solely on the person(s), and their access to $funds to buy parts, get a team & production line/space.

My guess is the bet is approaching 99% probability of zero return.

Thought I would chime in.

It is just one lawsuit. JPOP could most-likely offer to make the guy "whole" and the suit could go away quickly. All for less than the $30K in the doc.

I am not an attorney or attorney spokesman....

I think JJP somehow fueled the idea that new pinball companies were going to sprout up all over and that they'd be successful. Never mind the huge initial cost to make a sustainable pinball company, compounded with the fact that the pool of prospective buyers is very small. And Stern is not rolling over and playing dead.

JJP has released ONE pin in the last 4 years, Stern has released 12.

The number of pins shipped by companies in the past 5 years not associated with Stern is very small. WoZ and AMH not sure what else?

rotordave you are my hero.

Anyone know what happens to patents in the case of a bankruptcy? Just curiuos if someone bought the company assets after bankruptcy if they'd be legally capable of producing the game without hinderance. It might be a ray of hope that the games could actually be produced sometime if someone was able to acquire all of the R&D and IP cleanly. Of course those who paid money to Jpop would be screwed and that would be a real shame. Maybe someone could organize a relief fund to pay for the new games for those who already paid for them once.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time".

Things were unicorns and rainbows back when this started. Obviously with money drying up for Alice, the well has run dry and people have learned their lesson either directly or indirectly.

All of Zidware's IP would theoretically be available for purchase in a bankruptcy. Depending on how things play out it could be bundled or sold in pieces, whichever the trustee thought would bring in the most money for the creditors.

That'd be one big relief fund! If you needed to cover ~ $1 million, for instance, every single Pinsider (there are 28k of us registered) would need to donate $35. Nice idea but seems a little unlikely ...

Might consider/look at splitting costs of a lawyer, if anybody else is following suit. Pm me.

Wish I had my refund so I could exit this thread. So simple.

And this may well be the litmus test. Logic dictates he gives the guy his money. If he doesn't, then the financial questions have been answered. Now a run of these would do him in regardless. This is where the rubber meets the road on jpop's future.

If one guy gets his money, won't many others also go the same route to get their money as well? This is one scenario where you don't want to be any where near the end of the line.

I can't believe the patents are seriously being discussed. What do u think a patent on tall cabinets with custom glass required and an lcd in the back of a playfield are really worth in the pinball industry? Even if they were valuable, they are only worth something if there's money to enforce them. Not to mention there are work arounds to patents

They are worth nothing.

Yes a run of lawsuits would do JPOP in, but I think the current lawsuit is being filed by a lawyer. Not everyone wants to go to court. I think most would still want the game if they could get it.

I fear, now that it looks like one person is taking the legal route, others will follow suit in short order, then the proverbial run on the bank will happen. It's like a sled going downhill. Those first feet are slow, but then the momentum kicks in, and wow it goes fast.
Good luck to those involved.

Yep. That's why I also said this:

The law suit(s) could do in the customer as well, especially if something good is being done behind the scenes which is why we haven't heard anything as of yet. just saying

If something good was being done, it wouldn't be behind the scenes.

I am so glad you don't work for one of my companies! I would think in cases where legals are involved you might want to perhaps retract that statement

At this point, if you get a refund, put it in savings. A bankruptcy would likely claw back any refunds.

Is that even possible?

doubtful.

Jpop is not in bankruptcy now so likely it's just like a refund. Did a person who returned something and got a refund from Circuit City have to pay back other creditors their percentage?

If you receive your refund within 90 days of the bankruptcy filing, it's possible that you'll be required to turn that money back over to the court to be shared among all the creditors along with the rest of Zidware's assets.
http://apps.americanbar.org/buslaw/blt/2010-03-04/taylor-henderson.shtml

Kind of a moot point here though, since you don't read much about JPop handing out refunds these days.

The lawsuits were started early this month or month before. We are just witnessing the wake...

I hope there is positive news and games get made. That won't stop the lawsuits, though it may all just be part of what has to happen to get the games made, lawsuits and all.

A few refunds should not kill the project if it's going to get done.

What happens will happen regardless of trying to get a refund, so I am going to keep trying through counsel. It's out of my hands anyway.

Oh yes.

This is the American legal system we are talkin' about here.

That's a rather huge if followed by a massive it's possible . Certainly would not want to discourage someone from seeking a refund. As slow as jpop is 90 days might be the impossible hurdle for him.

90 days is like a minute to John.. He's still working on the December/January reveals he promised.

ironically i split things off with mine today so that is somewhat prophetic.

I agree with you for the most part & Yes I don't think he set out to deceive in the beginning , but the dude was glad to take an AIW deposit from me 2 weeks before Expo 2014 right before he showed up with the empty cabinets .... cant help but feel like he saw me as a mark & pounced on it .. who knows maybe that payment help pay the rent for a month or two but I doubt any of it was spent on the game I bought in on

Sorry if I jinxed you....

For the record. No matter what happens, somebody_ is going to post on here trying to sell us the malarkey that a hail Mary last minute deal was *this close* to saving the project but, alas, it got torpedoed by impatient and selfish customers who had lost faith.

If only they could have held out for another 6 months, and been quieter and more polite in their demands, because I have inside information that the angel was on his way down from heaven to right the ship and take over the project and pay the vendors and get JPop on task and so on... Calling it now.

This is exactly correct.

But...think about the effect of this one lawsuit even if JPop offers a full refund to settle the case. What message does that send? It goes back to what I said months ago: if you are going to file suit, the sooner the better. Others will follow the lead and file their own lawsuit in order to get the same outcome (a full refund). How long can that continue before Zidware declares bankruptcy?

I wouldn't be surprised if other owners reading this thread have contacted the attorney handling the case for ZNET to see if they would represent them in their own lawsuit (and this would be a good idea, since he already presumably knows the facts/issues in the case).

Edit: Shapeshifter beat me:

Bingo!

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How many times does Popaduik need to cry wolf before you stop running out to help?

I hope your right about the first part Ice and I also agree with the throwing good money after bad..... I did call & speak with the attorney that filed the case today , considering getting added on to it , but IDK if will be worth it as I'm am not in as deep $ as most others ....

When are people going to start watching his work shop in case he starts sneaking prototypes out the back door?

Did I miss something that happened that made a bunch of people optimistic? Is it pdxmonkey? Cause this all happened with predator... it's deja vu all over again.

It is still possible you might think that a investor(s) comes in, & takes full control. Starts the refund process to those who want out. Pays all the contractors owed money. Then moves forward with production, of those still in for pinball machines. You get the process moving forward, & can learn from what has been done for small production. Once you get those games out, you can start selling more of the models.

I think most of us at one time or another has had an awesome looking girlfriend who was out of our league and of course it did not last, she met another guy, yada, yada... Even though she totally dirted you and you told your friends how much better off you are now without her, all it would take was one phone call or for her to be nice to you when you run into her out at a party and you are suddenly back under her spell. All of this to find out that once again it was a mirage and your heart is broken once again.

exactly! & that's where the $good 4 bad comes in , never met you Ice but your cool dude .. Iceman is a fitting moniker & I like your style , wish could have met you @ TPF //// Always hope 4 the best !

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