Of all the owners, frolic, you seem the most reasonable in both your demands and expectations on Jpop. If the others had your level of concern I bet MG would have been out already.

Okay, but sometimes nothing is better than being a loudmouthed twit.

Not that I personally take that to heart very often, but hey. Nobody's perfect.

I respectfully disagree

Logistically... Stern makes more sense.

I agree with this, but there is an inordinate amount of collectors who favor exclusivity over accessibility. I can't blame the guy who wants to be the only one in the world with a complete stormtrooper costume from Star Wars Eposide IV, but I'd rather everyone get a chance to have one at a reasonable cost if there is a way to do that.

He should completely stop work on RAZA and AIW until MG is delivered. Does he owe RAZA and AIW pre-orders a timeline? Probably, but his track record on timelines is not good, so delivery of anything is worth more than any timeline he can come up with.

The other item that no one mentions is the code. It's obviously a substantial amount of work as we've seen from every game delivered in the past x number of years, and it becomes the key make-or-break feature of a game. Does Jpop have a good handle on that?

John needs to pump games out and Stern has a Pinball Manufacturing business to run, a hop and a skip away from each other... its a perfect match! Good old greenbacks will make them best of friends

Your right I would feel like a douchebag if I had my money tied up for 3 years and all of the sudden my limited production pin isn't limited any more and anyone can order one, no money down no waiting...
But wait! I get a key chain or a numbered plaque for my 3 year interest free loan? Your right who wouldn't want that deal. The risk to putting your money out years in advance was that you could lose it all and get nothing, the reward is that if all went well your would receive a truly limited machine not some mass produced machine.

So I will turn the douchebag comment back on you, if you want to "enjoy one of these cool new games" then stop blathering about it! get your wallet out and buy someone's preorder.

The stuff he wants patents for, is that all been done? Or still in the patent system some where?

Id love to see a fully playable magic girl.

will it be a "magic carpet"?

This is very exciting. I absolutely can't wait to see this thing. Minds will be blown.

Anyone get their J-pop game yet?

You get your handjob yet? just playing Flank

Sorry if we're not as rich as you.

Why do you torture me so?

I've got a pending patent that is probably going on three years. Not saying that is normal, but the process can be long (I think my first patent took around 3 years). He could release what he is doing as patent pending, but that would not offer any protection at that point, but does put others on notice that once approved they would have to cease what they are doing. Be risky for some other pinball company to "borrow" his idea, and suddenly not be able to sell a game due to the patent being granted. Accordingly I see limited risk him in showing/producing stuff with the patent pending. Of course it is always possible it does not get granted, which is a whole other conversation.

rosh - you have your terminology mixed regarding patents. Patent Pending - means the patent has been approved. Patent Applied For is what you are looking for.

Patent pending is the term used to describe a patent application that has been filed with the patent office, but has not been issued as a patent. Patent pending indicates that the inventor is pursuing protection, but the scope of protection, or whether a patent will even issue is still undetermined.

http://www.richardspatentlaw.com/faq/preparing-and-filing/what-does-patent-pending-mean/

Did he explicitly promise a fully playable game in December, or just a "Lebowski style reveal"? If it was the latter, I would highly moderate your expectations.

terryb -- got it -- patent pending and patent applied for are the same.

With a development project bringing a new product to market, patent applications are normal during development and production (production technique patents) and do not slow the development, production or delivery of the product to market.

Idea protection paranoia can be common within development organizations over preventing the theft of an idea before a patent application is generated.

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So I guess you were the one who had the terminology mixed up, not me. Glad I did not call my patent attorney to tell him he was using the wrong terms

I am basing my advice to moderate expectations just on common sense. I also think while people obviously have a tendency to read a bit of information and automatically assume the worst, the inverse is also true.

Most of us don't have access to the NDA protected blog, so I think it is important to get clarification on what he actually said. If not, you might be making promises to yourself the JPOP never intended. We've already seen an instance where his interpretation of a "Huge Reveal at expo" didn't align at all with the rest of the community's interpretation of that statement. I think it is equally plausible that his interpretation of a "Lebowski style reveal on the rug" might be different from our interpretation of that statement. Unless he explicitly stated that the game would be fully playable, I think it is wise to not expect that, and instead set your expectations to something along the lines of a full artwork reveal, or nearly complete non-operable game (both would be big leaps forward compared to what zidware has historically revealed). If you want JPOP to succeed, I would think this would be incredibly important, because it's much better for him if he exceeds expectations rather than falls short of what people promised themselves based on mis-reading the intention of his words.

It takes a LOT to get a machine fully working.

It takes a LOT to get a machine fully working.

Ya, but everyone else has done flipping games in less time. Regardless of how crazy his will be

A flipping prototype that they can touch would probably make most people happy for awhile.

article on Jpop, I do think his cabinets got ignored at Expo, I mean look at that art.

http://pavlovpinball.com/john-popadiuk-pinballs-steve-jobs/

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jpop.jpg

The art with aliens and clowns instead of Zombies?

There will be Zombies as well, the alien shoots a gun and turns people into zombies.

Perfect example of over thinking and going down a long dark road.

As for the martian rip off I think its embarrassing. The blue chick was cool though.

Reading that article.. about him being the "steve jobs" of pinball. um ok, whatever.. but let's continue the analogy... where is his Steve Wozniak.. i.e., the engineer half of what he started. It could of been Ben Heck, but it didn't work out for whatever reason. Without that counter balance.. well, we see what happens.

Stevie Jobs is dead...

Even going back to the original flyer for the game it was clear there would be Zombies, flying saucers & Aliens. I love the blue alien girl but still hope "NEB" gets tweaked..... We shall see
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Steve Jobs said as a developer, he always kept in mind a quote from Pablo Picasso.
“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

"Frax said:

Jpop is going to team up on a joint venture basis with JJP"

If you are going to quote me, then quote things I actually said, not quotes that *I* quoted.

3 weeks after this thread blew up, I still never got any of my questions answered unfortunately. Still have no idea what year I might see RAZA.

It will be helpful for MG to be shown to the world next month. But I have no idea how much is left with RAZA, and how long it will take to produce 120 machines. If the Spooky standard of 2 machines per week is realistic, and without a factory or huge workforce that probably is a reasonable number, and RAZA isn't completed till end of '15... it is likely '16 before many if any see their game.

But I am GUESSING because I have NO IDEA on any of this. John's response at the time bought a few weeks of quiet, but we're pretty much at the same spot. Are MG owners seeing any more info about anything?

The only thing ur going to see is two more Christmas seasons go by before u get ur game

Aliens and saucers are secondary to the Zombie theme in the flyer. Quite contrary to the side cab art.

This has been my biggest complaint all along, well I guess aside from the delays. I keep hearing it is going to be a zombie pin, and I get that the story is supposedly aliens converting people into zombies (hey the virus had to originate somewhere). However, it's still called zombie adventureland, so it needs to be zombies with some aliens, not aliens with some zombies. I'm guessing that Jpop realized that zombies are ugly and his desire for stunning art kept pushing him toward the alien forms. If I ever get my game, and it doesn't feel like a zombie pin, I'm going to be pretty disappointed.

I guess if people want a true zombie experience they should go for TWD, but I was a pre-order on the LE there and dumped it after seeing and playing. Zombies was a dream theme for me and I'm starting to feel I might not own a true zombie pin.

Interesting analogy

Being compared to steve jobs isn't necessarily a good thing. Anyone that's watched the movie knows that Jobs would noodle over the most inane detail like what fonts the word processor should have, and he hemorrhaged the company's money trying to develop the Lisa OS and eventually got let go.

Also Jobs would never show an incomplete product, imagine if he showed up with the first IPOD that only showed the case, with no functioning hardware at all?

You're right meant for Iceman...lol

At least Jobs managed to actually produce something.

Perhaps the "owners" (I use that term in quotes because right now all you own is the right to bitch on a private blog) should start raising more hell again and ask for actual updates.

I suspect, however, everyone will wait for whatever time in December he's promising to show more. Perhaps he might show an insert or a ramp next.

Maybe he will show the tnuts and screws he is custom designing for his machine?

I've heard the first iPhone was pretty close to nonfunctional at announcement.

fingers crossed

I don't like the Steve Jobs comparison, I think he's more like Francis Ford Coppola making Apocalypse Now.

That's a bad analogy as well since it did actually get made.

Perhaps the Winchester House is an apt analogy.