I bet jacks reading this and shaking his head, and its not up and down lol

If I were still in on this, I would be livid that the only progress made to this point is a basic whitewood. I'm not even sure it's a flippable whitewood at this point?

Either way, a whitewood at this point in the timeline means it is 2 years behind schedule. How the hell does it take 3 years to do a basic whitewood?!? Yes, I know that other things are done as well like the cabinet, but still, this is really further behind schedule than I thought it would be.

The way I see it is that many RAZA owners are going to be watching very closely to see what JPop does with MG and his big "reveal" that is supposed to happen next month (December 2014). If that doesn't happen, the natives are going to get (more) restless.

If MG is revealed as a fully functioning pin and it blows everyone away, it will have a positive impact on what JPop is doing and give RAZA owners some level of confidence as well. Just how much confidence is another issue, since revealing a full working proto of MG is still a long way from producing and shipping RAZA.

That's basically what I'm holding onto.

1 month away.

IT's called, cranking it out. At this point, JPOP should be absolutely on the verge of a fatigue breakdown because of his 100+ hour work weeks. No more talking, no more designing, no more storyboards and art proofs. Pick something he has from a year ago and go with it.

Anything else is prolonging the agony of failure. GOod luck to those of you who have been buying his food, fuel and rent for a couple of years longer than you offered. Maybe he should send you all a parting gift of a fat tube of KY.

I'm never going to worship some guy whose name was on some nice pin from 20 years ago with 7 or 8 other people that actually made it happen. If Steve Ritchie promised a pin out of his garage in 2 years to everyone who ponied up 10 grand would you think he could do it as well? I'm just glad I never fell for any of this "pre-pay the master" bullshit or I'd be over there getting my money back in person.

You guys still waiting with baited breath are just lying to yourselves. The December reveal will be another total letdown.. I guarantee it. And to think how you all just shared his come-to-Jesus moment as if that meant anything at all. One big pile of remorseful BULSHIT does nothing to produce a couple hundred machines. It's all flat out dreamland nonsense to keep the suckers from suing him into bankruptcy.

At least that's my take as an impartial observer. Thanks for the entertainment.

Damn Sadsack is JPOP banging your old lady or something? Sounds like you have some pent up rage going on there brosef.... It's only pinball!

Its only pinball ... And $10k-$17k for a bunch of people

Yea and I'm one of those people...
RAZA#54

After seeing inside what jack had to go through to get woz done I bailed. I Was raza #8

I feel bad for the group that still are waiting

I want him to finish but man the time frame is crazy now.

Try $27k.

Yea it's been a long wait! I hope all the owners are rewarded with an incredible game in the end

To make matters worse, it looks like he is spending time and effort with other ventures.
http://www.pinballschool.org/index_start.html
$1895 for the course and he has listed the upcoming dates for the course sessions...

He was also listed as attending this function as a speaker. http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/practice/

Why isn't he spending this time finishing these games?

"All students will be required to sign an NDA"

"All students will pay in full by 1 December 2014. Class will be in approx 2019"

rd.

Maybe this is the production line and the students will be paying to assemble the games for him?

They will get to see cabinets

Sorry for your loss........

Sit back, take (or drink/smoke) a long one, and make the decision. "Am I in this for the game or not?" For quite a while now it has been pretty clear that Jpop is building boutique pins and is absolutely in NO hurry to turn them out. When he's happy with the details, he moves on, if not.... you get the posts on the blog revealing new free association in pinball toys. I've settled on the fact that I will "hopefully" receive a "one of a kind" pin... My wish is that it will be before I have to put it in my Assisted Living facility dayroom...

John just posted on the Blog that he is gunna do a full game reveal on RAZA the first week of January

This was his goal 3 years ago. I don't know how the man sleeps with all the time he devotes to pinball a week (plus I think he still does contract work for various companies including ICE). I think they need to remake the movie multiplicity with John.
multiplicity_parody.jpg

John is developing a real M.O. by throwing out a bone when the heat starts getting raised, but also using it as a way to ignore the questions asked of him on the blog.

I'm not sure if this means "flipping white wood" or what, but we still need a clear answer about where we are in the project, what is left and when we might see our games. This has been asked over and over again now and he never answers.... so, either he doesn't know, or the answer isn't good and he doesn't want to come out and say it.

Looking at the owner's schedule.... "Game Review" in Q1 2013 follows "Playfield White Wood / Software Start". So we may very well be where I thought we were.

From the courseware section it looks as if participants will be building a whitewood in just 1 week....maybe John should sign up for this himself.

Let's hope.

Did he actually say this January?

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image-844.jpg

I don't accept that. I've got the schedule sitting on my desk of the project I paid to get in on. The answer is rip it up, forget about it, and maybe a machine shows up years from now?

Probably time for me to go... if refunds were available.

One does not simply get a refund lol

I'm sure if he shows a game in January someone will get excited and buy ur spot

Well, John could at least be forthcoming and answer my and others' questions.

As a businessperson myself, I can't think of any other business or industry where this type of behavior towards your customers would be acceptable. That is what really gets my goat.

If I entered this as literally an "Artist's Patron", well, then that is the situation and I'm throwing my money away to create art. But that isn't what was pitched, I came in to buy a game promised for delivery a year ago, presented with a time table created by someone who's been in the business for decades.

We're not far away from both games' reveals, so I guess we'll see what happens.

After that I'm likely going to drain all the jpop topics and delete his blog and try to forget about it until the letter shows up looking for my final payment. Play the games I've got, and look forward to the Heighway games coming. Seems like that is the only way to handle it. Yay fun.

baited breath

breath.jpgworm.jpg
I couldn't believe that this actually was a saying, so I looked it up a few years ago, and low and behold, I was kinda on to something - http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm
Perhaps this spelling is better, as we dropped the usage of the verb "bate" in its original form. Now it has an entirely new meaning.

This is what I did. I talk to John a lot actually. Have before he started these endeavors as well. I have no horse in this race, and I will not berate John from behind a keyboard as some seem to want to do. I think you will all be happy in the end. At least I hope you are I do understand the rollercoaster you guys are on though.

It is obvious at this point that he underestimated the entire process, and it has hampered certain things like a time line. I feel bad for him because at this point the torches and pitchforks are on the time line, but if things are rushed they will be on an incomplete game.

In the end it seems like nobody is winning

Chris

I don't feel bad for the guy. Self imposed time line from an experienced pinball guy.
Staying in for now.......

I wonder where all the money is? The guy needs to eat, live and have a house etc. For years...... With not selling anything, so no extra income but pre orders.

He did not have large pockets if i am correct. How is he gonne build all those pins when the pin is gold finaly?

This man needs to have a very good job at stern or some other pin company. Cause he has skills. But cant run a company.

He is losing track in his own forrest of art.

I can only hope that the last payment I have owing will cover the BOM.

Again from what I understand Zidware has other revenue sources, I believe they write apps ect.

They made an app. It was called Pinball Wizard and it was free.

that's a good question. I used to live just a few blocks from him. Our kids went to middle school together. He told me a couple of years ago that I didn't need to pay him any more towards my spot , implied he didn't need the money. Now I'm wondering how he can afford to live.

Anyone else with a similar story?

Here's an email I sent on October 21 and I did not get a reply

John,

I applaud your efforts and love your games. I have $ 6500.00 invested in RAZA and would like to request a refund. I signed a contract, but I signed a contract with the intent to purchase based on scheduled production dates. The lack of progress and the waiting on RAZA, I believe is a breach of contract on your end. Therefore, I would like to go about this in a civil manner and request a full refund and to absolve this contract.

I will also go on and say that I think you are an amazing designer and this really saddens me to cancel after about two years of waiting. I do not see any end date in sight and I cannot continue to wait on good faith. My alternative would be to get a group of owners together and file a formal suit. I in no way want to take this action and am hoping this can be handled between the three parties currently involved. I also assume you do not want that headache as I wish to avoid any and all attorney's, when possible.

Let's call all of this what it really is. There is an apparent lack of focus in getting any of these games complete and ready for final production. I was holding out, hoping a full working version of Magic Girl would be finished for Expo. I also know that in two years time you have collected $ 812,500.00 from the RAZA group and know you have expenses, which may involve rent and purchasing equipment to build the games. My fear is that half or more of this money may be gone and that you may never produce these games. I fear that the lack of progress is going to stop any new capital coming in and that it may be only a matter of time before your current capital is gone. I'm very worried you are on the edge of bankruptcy and would suggest you take action and restore people's faith in your company.

I would suggest posting pictures to the public and putting out a realistic completion dates.

Please let me know how we can proceed.

So what is your next move?

Probably was ignored

Very well said.

The continued failure to respond concerns me. How is he going to handle a situation like JJPs board failure issue which lead to them sending out re-designed boards at their cost?

Sending an email to Jpop telling him your speculations about his finances, expenses, and "impending bankruptcy" strikes me as pretty foolish. If you want to cancel, fine. Telling him you're doing so because you're afraid he's about to go bankrupt is nothing but pure conjecture on your part.

Believe me, I'm as frustrated as anyone on this. But cancel based off what you know (or in this case what we don't know), not based on what you make up in your head.

We do know he needs to raise the game quantity to build the mg cause he ran out of money to build them. We don't know when he will actually build them. Frustration was expo... Few more weeks should put things to bed on some issues but likely raise more!

hank I will call you later today