Iceman is right, lawyers are useless except for the rich.

Was it the doctor they interviewed on the Pinheadz podcast?

50 is a lot more than 17 and will devalue it. However, at this point in the pre-order mania, people just need to consider it this way: unless you ask for a refund, obviously the pin is still worth what you're paying for it.

Whatever the production run, if you still buy the machine you are deciding that yes... that is the market value. So no change there. The only thing that takes a hit from an increased production run is John's reputation and his ability to get investors in future "limited" production runs. If he's not worried about that, then it's just something you have to live with as a buyer. In the end, you are still paying the going rate for the product and that's your choice. If the increased production run devalued the pin below 17k, you would obviously ask for a refund, right?

I see what he was going for. He wanted to make something extremely rare and coveted, to cater to the super-rich collector. The problem is he had to get pre-orders to get the game going which ended up capping the price at 17k. In hindsight, if he didn't collect pre-orders and just made the 17 games with his own capital, he probably could have sold them for a lot more money judging from BBB prices. The trick is trying to guess the most economic way of doing it.

He probably could have sold between 10 and 14 @ 30k+ and held onto the rest for himself banking on a huge increase in value over time and letting one go to auction every year. If I wanted to make the most coveted machine in the world, that's how I would do it.

If you think there is no difference between 17 and 50, you do not understand high end collectors.

It's all speculation anyway, only applicable if he actually had the capital ahead of time to do a tiny limited run. Being capped by the pre-orders forced it into the current model (a run of 50+). I'm not sure what you disagree with exactly, but if you think 200 BBB are worth the same as if they only made 17, I guess there's not much else I can say. I disagree, but the only way to find out would have been for JPOP to pull MG off in its original intent, which he couldn't.

I do know this though... when he said he was only making 17, he was getting preorders at a 17k price point. RAZA is a higher production run more comparable to BBB numbers and selling at about 60% of that (10k). So I think what you're saying would mean RAZA is undervalued by 7k per pin. Someone should let JPOP know.

GL Modular has been around since 2007 so it's not just some random dude trying to stir things up. He's saying point blank John didn't pay his bills.

a) if it wasn't true it would be a dumb business (and possibly legal) move to claim that.
b) if John didn't pay because GL Modular failed to deliver their side, they wouldn't want to draw attention to that on pinside.

So in short: bad sign for people with money in JPOP games.

I guess you can hope that John just doesn't keep up with his accounts payable because he's scatter brained? The pinball business is too small to burn bridges though. Hoping GLM gets their money.

Prove what? That John didn't pay his bills? A company with a 7 year history claimed it, so I used it as a basis for my opinion. You just discard everything everybody says because they don't post forensic evidence on pinside?

Your posts are basically "I don't know anything, nobody knows anything but I'm posting about it anyways!" Some people read what people have to say and form an opinion based on it, considering the validity of the source.

Mostly because people don't post their accounting data on public forums...

I just realized that with the Predator drama out of the way JPOP is probably going to take all the heat for a while. Lets be friends instead of fighting all the time. Giving John a call is the level headed thing to do.

Yeah that's all in the SkitB threads

Yes. After two pages of debate, it was finally settled that bi-weekly meant once every two weeks.

It's like an entmoot in there

It would be nice if there were threads where lawyers could bore the crap out of each other away from the general public.

I also sent him my mailing address for the AIW info package and haven't received anything yet. Been about 3 weeks. He is probably focused on his upcoming reveals though, I don't think marketing AIW is high priority right now (and it shouldn't be).

P.S. there is supposed to be a AIW reveal in January so he will probably wait until after that to send out anything.

If MG and RAZA get released, I'd love to jump on AIW. But I'm definitely not going anywhere near it until we see things delivered and happy customers.

I doubt it. People are pretty gun-shy at this point. TBL showed just how messy things can be behind the scenes. Anybody who buys into AIW at this point hasn't been reading the JPop threads and will probably pull out down the line.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dp-usa-refund-still-want-the-game?tu=phil-dp-usa

That's the recap version. Phil runs Dutch Pinball USA and wants out because of various shenanigans, to put it mildly.

Anyway, yeah off topic

First off, I am on the buyers' side here in the grand scheme of things. But as far as what buyers are entitled to, I think a couple of you are talking and thinking as though you are investors in the company. You aren't, you don't have company stock so you don't have the "right" to information about product development. If JPop received money from you for RAZA, you as a customer simply have nothing to do with MG.

Whatever information is being sent out would fall under customer service, which is obviously very bad in this case. Same with timelines and whatnot.

As a pre-orderer in pinball, as in anything else, you are just paying early for a game so you get "dibs" when it's made. If you pre-ordered a new assassin's creed video game from ubisoft, do you think they would appreciate getting letters and demands from you on how their new game "Santa's Quest: Chimneys of Fire" or whatever game they're working on is doing?

Pinsiders are using their pre-orders as leverage to try and get "inside" John's business. And I fully understand that, I would be trying to get in there too after this long and that much money. I'm just saying John will not let you, and he obviously doesn't think your preorder entitles you to it.

The only real "right" I see is the right to your deposit money back. If you signed an agreement to waive that right, then you don't really have any rights left unless you can show that he has no intention of delivering the game. Then he would be guilty of fraud.

Once you sign away your right to a refund, at that point you are pretty much depending on John to be a decent human being and a responsible businessman who respects and values his customers.

Those pictures are looking really cool...

Maybe for pennies on the dollar haha...

Spooky should pick up AIW and do it with American McGee.

He isn't following too closely, he hasn't been on pinside since Sept 30 according to his profile. He should be getting generally warned by some of the people around him though, I would hope.

I honestly don't know how you guys got baited into responding to Kaneda again. We should try to get back on topic.

Everybody who is in on MG and RAZA have had years to go visit the shop and see what's happening. If you are freaking out, you should probably take a weekend and do a road trip. Compile a list of owners and see what each of them knows, who has viewed th studio most recently and what the status is. If you have questions, establish a schedule of one person per month who is going to do a studio tour, send them a PM with your questions and have them ask them to Jpop directly and report back.

If the owners are going to accuse Jpop of being disorganized and not handling business, they should take their own advice and start getting organized themselves.

You realize all you people talking about Kaneda are worse than he is. For every 1 of his posts there are 10 of you who get your post counts up by making this entire thread about him, or thread banning, or sitewide banning or all kinds of things unrelated to this thread. Just stop and move on, it's been taken care of. I hate having to read entire pages of your bullshit between posts that are actually about Jpop games. There are 3 or 4 of you who should have been banned from this thread for feeding the troll.

And now I hate myself for even having to say this and wasting more space on it, but obviously a lot of you are lacking self awareness just as much as he is.

Adobe told them they wouldn't be releasing the video until March. So I guess they kind of ruined johns surprise a bit by releasing it yesterday. He meant to reveal to his buyers before this got out but adobe kind of spoiled the surprise i guess.

Of interest to RAZA owners;

I have been talking with JPop about Alice in Wonderland, so this is a direct quote out of an e-mail from him.

"we started Alice so I can keep the artists busy (as we are almost complete RAZA and MG has a few
small tweaks)"

Some people didn't like that a 3rd game had work happening on it when RAZA and MG were still not complete. Seems like for the most part *only* the artists have been diverted to the AIW project, and RAZA art is complete.

Magic Girl - He says he will be showing it publicly soon.
There is apparently a lot of symbolism and hidden meaning in Magic Girl artwork, and he intends for AIW to have the same depth.

AIW deposits are $3895 and total price is x4 = ~$16k

I am not sending money for it until I see games shipped and people happily talking about how good they are - so I am not an official AIW pre-owner.

Thought I would report back what I know for the rest of you. I will jump on AIW as soon as MG and/or RAZA are proven successes.

Yeah, I know. I had seen an earlier post from you saying you put 1895 as your deposit.

The brochure didn't mention the total price, but asks for a $3895 deposit. So I asked him directly and he said it's broken into 4 payments. So unless there's some wacky payment scheme, I assume that means 4 payments of $3895 (ish). Might be time for you to give him a call and please correct me if he says otherwise. I'm going off assumptions here.

See, I have a similar page with my brochure but the price has been removed.

Also yours is called Original 10/6 "Mad Hatter Model" Velvet edition

Mine is referred to as Mad Hatter Edition 1/133 in the top left corner. On another page it is referred to as "The Mad Hatter 10/6 edition"

I don't know if you guys got in early enough that there are 2 seperate editions and you got a price break.

But I can directly quote him from an e-mail saying "We do not make an LE, but make just 1 model and load it up as best I can with art, features, ideas, mods, etc. So no "bait and switch" or upsell." So like I say, one of you with a deposit down should probably get it straight from the horse's mouth how much these machines are going to cost you.

He wanted to keep the same artists for AIW, they are basically irreplaceable. Who knows if he could get them back if they didn't keep working for him. Whether they are on salary or contract is irrelevant, he didn't want them moving on to different things.

Whether three flipper designs are good. Also one guy thinks the adobe video is Jpops big march reveal for some reason. I think it's a thread for people confused about how forum threads work. Or confused people in general.

My guess would be that he can't possibly have the money for it to take that long. Either he gets these moving fast, or he will have to fold.

If problems were Mogwai, Lawyers would be water.

He will say "I can't really talk about it, but I'm excited! Don't worry guys, it's going to be great!"

I wanted the first two to be a big success so I could buy AIW with confidence. Now they serve as a warning. Right now I'm just hoping somebody jacks the AIW project and gets it done in the next 10 years. Not like JPop is in a position to defend it. I feel bad for the owners but hopefully an organized effort by them will right the ship.

He hasn't made one title. I'm not sure if you realize this but people have been "holding onto their hats" for about 2 years longer than they expected. If you have some general info that actually legitimizes your opinion and actually want to help, either state it plainly or you are part of the problem.

If he spends all his time at the studio and eats a bag lunch, he probably lives on 1/4 of what the rest of us spend.

I realize your comment is deliberately obtuse, but since you need people to spoon feed you information - if you spend 12+ hours a day at work you aren't spending money on personal costs of cable, cuts down electric, you're not going out to eat, going to bars or movies with friends/family, spending money on furniture, your house, travel or whatever.

The simple fact that he is always at the office cuts his personal expenses close to zero, not just bringing a bag lunch. Therefore he has no need for the 100k + that Tiger (and I guess obviously you?) seem to think he's paying himself.

Anyone want to post it?

Haha, like 1 week ago it was all "F the NDA the contract is in breach anyway!" now it's "ooo, bright shinies. Better not break the NDA"

Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but all of this stuff seems like old news.

The PF art should have been done years ago.

He realized how much work it was going to be and settled for requesting a conference call haha. Sobering up sucks. Someone send him a bottle.

I think that was proven by WOOLY not getting off the ground, and that was a pretty developed game. Much better prospect than all the stuff that sucked up the pre-order dollars years ago. IMO if everybody could get a refund for predator and Jpop games, they would actually be able to get a WOOLY.

Not to say that WOOLY wouldn't have its issues but they actually seem to have their stuff together on that project besides a few sound issues.

P.S. I do not want to derail into a WOOLY discussion just making a single point and move on :p

And each 8k price point

Wow, seems like once Ben Heck was off the project all of his concepts had to be replaced. Except for magnets... I think?

Pretty sure people would settle for stick figures if there was a flipping pin with mechs and ramps involved.

Is that Spaceman Spiff's ship on the right?

I'm just gonna say it... Stern would probably have art just as good if they spent 4 years on it. Hell, even if they spent 1 year on it. In fact, Metallica was great and didn't set the game back. With multiple designs.

I don't even know what the current RAZA theme is... I'm probably not alone in this. I'm fairly sure it's not zombies. Unless there's some serious metaphorical depth in all this.

Not in the slightest. I have huge confidence in spooky and can't wait for #2

So you shouldn't really be surprised by this at this point?

MG Cab looks sick

I disagree, it is something. We are seeing areas of the pin that make it seem a lot closer to completion. That's a good thing.

Ya, it's a cautionary tale for sure. i think AIW will get off the ground judging from these photos. But I have decided I'd rather have 4-5 pins today than pay 21k (Canadian $) for AIW and possibly wait 3 or 4 years with no info, hoping the project is funded by games 4 and 5... it's all too big a gamble for me.

I like that girl's personality...

Maybe it's a magnet that switches polarity

Leaf fans are prone to losing all hope. I hear there is an epidemic of that going around.

I'm under the impression that the theme is about incorporating a bunch of old pin themes into one pin. Maybe I'm way off base here.

Maybe he just doesn't want to ruin the surprise.

It sounds to me like he did his poor john shpiel and iceman is so desperate to believe that he is doing johns dirty work for him now. What I heard from all this is that john needs you all to give him your final payments or the project is sunk. If I were involved there is absolutely nothing that could get me to send the final payment without seeing games shipping out the door.

And one more thing. He had to fire his assistant and hasn't paid himself for months? The company is broke, plain and simple.

Yeah, explain to me again how keeping pinside in the dark has been effective in the past?

a) If you had any knowledge whatsoever you would know that you can't silence someone on an internet message board with "slander" accusations. Your semester at law school before realizing you couldn't hack it doesn't intimidate anyone, so you can probably stop trying to use it as an appeal to authority 30 years later.

b) Yes, if I were JPop I would want to post here - it's called client management and public relations.

c) Freedom of speech is a valid defense. We are all glad to hear your professional advice is to throw money at a frivolous lawsuit against somebody who offended you on the internet. I can see why you are so successful.

So this whole project is about to go dark?

What I see is a bunch of "nice guys" optimistically trying to get in and solve the problem with teamwork. I get that, good for you. The problem is you will have to wrest power from a control freak with zero integrity as documented by his manipulation and deceit from day 1. My guess is he would rather blow the whole thing up than let somebody "take his project" from him. I hope to god people do not send in more money... if it works out that's great. But do not get into this any deeper than you already are.

Have you ever considered that maybe it's you that this thread doesn't pertain to? Somebody not interested in public opinion of this project? The blog was made for what you are describing. Go ahead and drain this thread if you want.

Sound familiar? You don't want to be part of the community, go be in your buyers club. The community is not limited to those who specifically paid for MG and RAZA.

I'm finding the non-buyers to be the ones willing to point out the reality of the situation to the starry eyed owners who have been run over roughshod with gag orders, legal threats and the possibility of losing their money if they speak the truth. At the end of all this if any actual games get shipped it will be because of the people who questioned John and forced him to reveal the truth after 4 years of using the investors money as leverage against them. Some of those are owners, some of them are jilted vendors or partners, and some of them are just concerned members of pinside.

I said it before and I'll say it again... as an auditor and accountant I see this often. When vendors aren't getting paid, assistants are released for no reason, and an owner/manager stops paying themselves, there is no money left in the business. If he collected 17k*25 Magic Girl = $425k. RAZA $10k*100? RAZA is supposedly a run of 124 but I don't think they're all paid in full, same with MG. Say there is $1M for RAZA dollars.

Total cash: $1,425,000
Annual cost of studio: $100,000
Annual Employees (Artists/John): $80,000
Annual Computer/software/equipment: $5,000
$185k * 4 years = $740k

Capital assets over the 4 yrs (machinery, tools, furniture & equipment)
Ball park another $35k

Used in the above: $775k/$1,425k

So even excluding the ENTIRE cost of putting ANY part of ANY pinball machine together, before even counting a single switch or wire, excluding ALL parties outside of John and his immediate employees, using the most conservative estimate I can possibly imagine, we still see well over half of the cash is already gone. Add the cost of third parties for development, plus the actual cost of materials to build the machines, lawyer fees, patent costs, scrapped gadget development. And these pins haven't even gone into production yet. You can assume another year or two of these annual costs before MG and RAZA are even out the door. So say by the time the last RAZA is shipped and all money collected is end of 2016 $1,145/$1,665 is spoken for just in wages/salaries and the annual cost of the building.

Assuming John makes $0 profit, that leaves $520k for the cost of producing 149 machines, or $3,500 per pin. That includes all of the extra costs I mentioned above. If you disagree with some of my calculations, at least you have to admit the picture doesn't look good.

Yeah I wanted to use an absolute minimum. And if using that minimum assumes he's buying everything at garage sales and liquidation auctions still makes things look bad, the true situation is much worse.

I think you are forgetting a lot of JPop's lies as well. They are a similar stripe, but Kevin was promising something in a tempting price range so may have gotten more people who can't afford to lose the money.

Yeah, one thing you might worry about is that he pays himself a monthly paycheque out of the company so that when the company goes bust, he has a nestegg in a personal account. Of say... hundreds of thousands. That would be a very good reason for him not to want to open his books.

R&S was my favourite childhood cartoon. I own the comic books from #1 to about #30. Guy was amazing. How about a JPop Ren & Stimpy pinball next?

After every phone call everything seems fine with John. Then you realize he just knows what to say to make you believe. Nothing has changed, it's been groundhog day for years. He's the same guy that blew you off and caused this shitstorm the last couple days, no phone call is changing that.

JPop is in this position because nobody can wrangle him. If Gary Stern can't wrangle him, Ice probably can't either. I was going to go on a long winded rant again, but basically anything short of JPop putting himself on live-cam so we know he's working will make this project move forward. Maybe you can talk him into making a reality show.

This kind of secrecy and pussyfooting around is a) what allows John to be in control and b) what enrages pinside about this entire project.

I'm not seeing anyone lining up to hand over cash unless somebody else who is trustworthy is building these machines. No surprise he has spent it all by now. There is a LOT more expense to go before anything is shipped. There is also the matter of his lawyer coming on pinside and claiming there is NO shortage of cash. But I guess at this point we have to get over being lied to by multiple parties.

Haha yeah 1k to have jpop assemble the machine plus room and board for a year

Everybody appreciates the leadership you've put in here. But knowing John's difficulties, he could put you in the "go down with the ship" situation if he uses you to give people confidence to put more money into the project and then it dies anyway because JPop is JPop.

There are a lot of concerning similarities between John and Kevin.

both projects have dragged on for years longer than necessary with little to show for it
both have charismatic personalities that allay fears with personal/emotional interaction
both rely on third parties to relay calming messages to the masses
both withdraw from direct contact with the public (the victims? a guilt thing?)
both have "closed books" and the financial situation and transactions are known only to them
both have multiple projects running at once
both have preorder $ that will expire past a dispute deadline due to the extended project time
both have been caught lying to delay/extend deadline dates indefinitely
both use vague or evasive language

That's enough for this post, but maybe more people can play the "similarity game" if you can think of something important or relevant.

There was a hard lesson learned on Skit B, you can be sure people will be doing their due diligence on Jpop.

I just want to make something clear. To all the people who are pissed at the Anonymous Group who didn't warn people about Predator fast enough:

GL Modular has been the canary in the coal mine on this project for months and hasn't been taken seriously enough. Consider yourself officially warned a la an AG type warning. This project is on life support and fading. Ice and some of the owners have gotten serious as of late, but they need everybody's help, and that help has to be serious. I.E. force John to open the doors wide open and let you into the chocolate factory now. Not in "2 weeks."

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

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

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

John "Ponzi" Popadiuk

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.

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.

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

Yeah, it's looking like game over.

Seems like most people have lost all illusion

Too late now to leave, is that a reference to refunds?

Pretty sure once John realizes that if nobody is sending money for AIW his ponzi is over. Time to gtfo.

I'm guessing that Jpop doesn't have enough money for a lawyer, and would not have enough return on investment if he sued someone to even attempt it. I agree with earlier opinions that he wants a scapegoat to blame for the projects' failure so he can walk away and pretend to have the high moral ground. He is delusional and narcissistic.

I'm thinking a new Elvira.

Is that a cat or a platypus?

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.

The sad fact is, at the 11th hour when he's out of money he is now "scrambling" to put out a video showing a working MG game. The customers should have been allowed to follow the design process and have full knowledge of the progress of their game all along anyways, which has not happened. This video is not a true Mea Culpa, in that John believes he is doing the customers a favor by showing it. I have a feeling the only reason we are going to see this is so he can try and access more pre-order $, and collect final payments for MG and RAZA.

Nobody is going to give more money to somebody who manages his timelines and business in the way John has, which has necessitated this hail mary sneak peek. It's not that it doesn't matter that he now has a working game to show us, but more importantly whether he has one or not, there is no trust in his business or ability to take it forward successfully. There is no more pre-order money coming whether MG is flipping or not.

All thanks to Concrete who came out with the news (and if you're annoyed by pinchili just put him on ignore, don't stop posting news here).

Exactly what I was going to say. One possible reason he is vice president, and not owner or president is so that he can draw a salary as an employee and have no personal liability from the company. His wife is arms lengthish, could say John was a poor manager and the business failed. If Zidware declares bankruptcy, wife could claim a business loss on her personal income tax, reducing the amount of tax she would have to pay for her other (presumably successful) business. It is also a possibility that Zidware might be "renting" the building and equipment from a holding company owned by a John, his wife, or a close relative. This way even if Zidware (a pinball manufacturing company) goes bankrupt, the holding company (a capital asset investment company) gets to keep the money from rent, and keep the shop and equipment.

This is only one possible scenario and I don't know anything about how John runs his operation. I am merely stating that if this were the current arrangement, one company could easily have transferred all of its assets into another arms length company which would make it very hard for someone to go after the assets via a lawsuit once bankruptcy is declared. There is a possibility that Zidware owns zero assets to liquidate aside from some pinball parts. There is no limit to what John may have been paying himself, someone would have to physically delve into the books and bank account to be sure.

I'm sure the limited numbers are about as reliable as the promise that Ben would come to your house.

Whoever played the mythical flipping MG can't have been too impressed by it. I'm going on the pics or it didn't happen assumption on pdxmonkey's claims.