I have to say, skipping launching the game at Expo in favor of having it randomly show up on location for a few hours has got to be the dumbest idea I've ever heard. That's just incredibly out of touch.

Let's see, I could put my game in front of the most influential pinball audience of the year, who come in from around the world, all in one spot, and dominate the media conversation for weeks.

Or, I could put my game into a random spot, where it might be played by some people who have no idea what it is, and then cart it out again before word even had a chance to spread. But lol, it's magical and unexpected because Jpop is a wizard!

Don't hire a PR person who doesn't understand pinball. FFS.

Zidware PR Plan

I should add that we shouldn't forget that Jpop's warranty is voided if the game is ever put on location.

Makin' bold moves

That is sadly all too real.

I assumed he was stalling hoping for an angel to swoop in and buy him out.

Sorry to say it, but that sounds like colossal waste of capital to me. Just buying out the debt alone seems like a terrible investment.

Ha, ain't that the truth!

The flip side of that though is that people are really understanding and forgiving if you just treat them like adults and keep up communication.

If things aren't going as well as you hoped then just tell people. It's hiding it and lying that always gets you in trouble.

I tried to check in with the Predator thread and saw it was still people arguing about the definition of the word scam, and pointing fingers in some weird McCarthy witch hunt over the anonymous group. Keeping it drained.

Hey, we all have different tastes. I bet no very few people in this thread would agree on the greatest pinball of all time. If someone wants to think it's CV then hey, go for it.

I don't know anyone who would personally agree with that, I know I sure don't. It's not even a top 50 for me. Bombed when it came out, which is why you can still find nice ones that are HUO, snatched up at huge discounts from distributors who were eager to dump it.

Way overpriced now, but all the Jpop games are really. There's no gameplay behind the nice prices, just some pretties. TOM isn't too bad actually, you can get a fair price for that.

I thought the only reason John was even going to involved was because he had some toy or mech he wanted to add to the game. No idea how that would work, practically speaking. But let's be honest, Rick wants to sell remakes, not kits for old games.

Already discussed in another thread, nothing has happened with it yet.

Another well meaning person steps in to try and help, confident everyone else just didn't have the right approach, and discovers the common theme in all the failures.

Face it guys, there is no super hero in a cape who's going to bail this out. Plenty of people have been perfectly capable, but John isn't interested in being saved.

That will come in handy to avoid feeling bad about being rejected.

Does it really matter? Whole thing could be made up, won't change the situation. Plenty of people we know are real have tried.

As for John communicating ... he's had plenty of time to work on and shoot videos of vaporware game 3, so there's simply no way he has no time to work on MG or respond to people.

Greg pasted the email to me. He called Jpop a f*ucking nihilist, and apologized for TBL being so late, but at least they had an ethos.

No investor would step in with the ridiculous limits he has in place though. Only way buying him out makes any sense at all is to drop the limits, compensate the original owners in one fashion or another, and open the market.

That won't do much good for $17k machines, you'd have to figure out the BOM and price reasonably.

If I had the money to buy him out I'd making firing him one of the conditions of the sale though. Buy the designs and get someone to finish them and let him go do whatever, but nothing with the games. Because really.

At the very, very least, you have to have complete override and veto power, and the ability to just do what needs to be done with or without his cooperation.

Ice, I'd save your money man. If you're desperate to become a pinball sugar daddy you can do a lot more with your cash than this.

Hey, Heighway has proved that I'm happy to be involved in serious projects!

Seriously though, what would it take to buy out John? A million at least just to cover the debts? And then what else? To get what? Some broken, non-functioncal games and some art. Zombie Yettie does great work, but it didn't cost a million to hire him.

Take that money, and talk to Spooky about investing in getting them a real factory line and some assets, it will go 100x further.

Uh, you do realize Jpop doesn't do any of the art? Like none of it, right? None of the games he did at Williams. None of the games he's not finishing at Zidware. He designs playfields, he doesn't draw them. I think he's probably a good art director, his pins have a certain consistency that says he knows how to work with people and ask for things the right way, but that's it.

So yeah, lots of people can touch him for his art. Frankly you could probably hire any of the people who've done art for him.

Beyond that, I happen to know who's doing the art for Spooky's next pin, and if I had to choose between a game done by said artist and Zombie Yettie (who's work I really like) I'd take the Spooky artist. The package for their next game could be absolutely killer. Spooky can absolutely compete, they just have to hire a bad ass artist, which is all Jpop did. It's not that hard really.

Of course not, it take good art direction. A good theme helps a lot too. And John's obviously good at it. But he doesn't have some kind of monopoly on that talent. I'm disputing the notion that "no one can touch him" on art. Sure they can.

Ha, no pressure indeed.

And yeah, I'm sure I'll get back to mods later, but right now Alien is obviously the priority.

As for buying out John ... the thing that's crazy to me is we still haven't even seen a game flipping. For all the pretty art we still don't know if these games are even any fun. Do they shoot well? Who knows!

No designer nails it every time, with maybe the exception of Brian Eddy, who retired batting 1.000

If you take away the super crazy limited collector thing, and yet they're still pricey games, how much interest will there truly be?

No offense to anyone who's offered to help, but can you program a fun game?

Just so many unknowns. That plus the baggage makes it seem like a crazy venture to want to jump into with a lot of cash.

Definitely an art to making it all gel together. We have really high expectations now as home players for sophisticated rule sets. When a new Stern comes out we're just as (if not more) interested in who the programmer is compared to the playfield designer or artist.

I'm not saying no one in this thread could do it. But it's just another big unknown.

Pretty sure John is registering cocktailpinball.com even as we speak.

Wow. At last, the reason the first game isn't done and you're dicking around on game three has been revealed! Pinside! Damn you Pinside!

Imagine how different things would be right now if there was a flipping MG. Not shipping. Not done. Just flipping with some music and lights. Lebowski at Expo style.

FAST could have done it over a weekend.

Would have staved off so much negativity. If he's looking to sell out it would have been a huge boost.

But nope. Had to be stubborn and refuse help. And now he's f%^ked and blaming anyone he can. Such a pity.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to bleep myself, my bad!

That's the biggest tragedy of all of this in a way. It's not that he failed to actually *build* them, because he never even got that far. That's the crazy hard part too!

Hell, Skit-B showed a flipping game. I played it!

We never actually saw a second of gameplay. Not one. Some pathetic white wood footage of the slingshot area and a ball bouncing around in it, and that's it.

Now that I've read the email again I can't see it saying anything other than he's broke. He's out of money, it's over, and he's just hoping for some last minute angel to save him, and he's mad that Pinside has revealed all the dirty laundry and failings that he's tried to sweep under the rug, because it's making it harder for him to get bailed out.

Sell out or declare bankruptcy, those are the paths that seem open from that email. He almost sounded like he was sad that he wasn't forced to liquidate.

I do. Definitely. The whole thing is very sad. No one is cheering that he failed. I'd much rather he succeeded and people were happy with their games.

I don't think he's a bad person. He had good intentions, good ideas, and he got in way over his head, from the start. If you look back it was really doomed to failure from the beginning.

But with a business partner or two, that he actually allowed to have power of their own domains? Could have been a very different story.

As it is, he's fully to blame, for all of it. His name and reputation in pinball are ruined, probably forever. And that's a pity. But people have the right to be mad at him, he lost them a ton of money, and created years of frustration.

Dead on. So stupid, if he'd just admitted the issues from the beginning people would have found ways to help. Instead he refused help and pretended nothing was wrong. Congrats, you controlled the whole thing, all the way into a spiral straight into the ground.

Man, I was feeling ranty that day!

I also have two Shadow translites I need to pack up.

Pretty sure if you can find a post that's more worked up than that one it's probably in this thread too.

I think I probably wrote that post after talking to people who were personally getting the run around from John and just couldn't stand seeing friends and people I respected getting the shaft over and over from this guy. Yes, I do feel a little sorry for him. But I've got so many stories how of the way he constantly pissed away opportunities, discarding people along with them, and in an arrogant and ridiculous way to boot, that I just can't put this on anyone else but squarely his shoulders.

Look how he turned his back on Ben, and then who shipped a finished pinball? I played America's Most Haunted in 2013! John can't even show Magic Girl flipping.

The irony of being mad over Chuck working on his own zombie-themed game, when now it's not even going to come out as Pinball Zombies anymore. And you know what? The art on that one is going to be killer, and it's gonna ship, and John still won't have a game to his name.

You're getting me worked up again!

I dunno, I don't think it really takes more than we already know.

John wanted to build way too few games, for way too much money, and he wanted to reinvent the wheel on every part, requiring custom manufacturing and tooling every step of the way.

The hinges for instance, not something you can just order a bunch up of because they're standard, you have to send the prototype to the factory, have them build a one off duplicate to approve, and then set up the tooling so you, what? Order 100? The scale makes no sense, the investment makes no sense.

Maybe you ditch the hinges, no one cared anyways. But every part and bit might have the same mentality. Giant headaches and tons of cash. Not worth it.

I think Mr. 68 has the record for shortest time between posting one of those hopeful messages and lapsing back into despair. His posts were like an hour apart. (Sorry Kim!)

This. I have cool, exciting conversations with people about pinball projects all the time. I just don't post about them. Maybe some day some of them will come to light. If you can't say what it is, just keep it to yourself. Because honestly there's no benefit. No offense, but no one at this point will believe you, you're not making anyone actually feel better. And if you're wrong you just end up feeling dumb.

Better to just be hopeful if you have reason to hope, and see what happens.

Edit: Just re-read this, and I sound like a total douche with the "cool, exciting conversations with people about pinball projects all the time" comment. Just saying, I chat with people about their ideas and plans, and lots of it sounds awesome, but it's not really cool to share that I had some conversation. Best to keep private conversations as private.

He can't refund. You have to have money to do that, he clearly has none.

You need money to build games too. Let's face it, none of them are remotely close to done, it will be years before they are (if ever), and he doesn't have the funds to do that, and build them.

An investor steps up, he sells off the games to someone else, or it's over. I can't see any other reasonable scenario. If he's mad that Pinside is messing up his deals he really has no one to blame but himself.

Here's my disconnect. I don't believe you. Sorry, just don't. But it's simple, can be proved with 20 minutes of effort. Mr. I WORK 8 DAYS A WEEK can find 20 minutes.

Post a video, of both games, flipping. Right now. Tuesday night. If they're mostly complete he can do that.

If he doesn't then I assume you're wrong, don't understand that there's a lot more to do and are dazzled by his LSD that he exudes from his sweat.

He's broke, the games have easily a year to go before they're even ready for production, he has no factory, and no money to buy one, it's over. You have to see this. There's no path for him to ride solo on this anymore, if there's even a path at all.

Don't even post it publicly! You have people who signed an NDA and are apparently crazy enough to still be following it, even though it's utterly invalidated, and he couldn't afford a lawyer if he wanted to.

Put it on the sekrit blog. Isn't that what people ponied up $20,000 to see? They paid for all the access, Steve is telling us they're practically done, and no one has seen one. It's like a freaking unicorn.

Steve, you know I'm not trying to pick on you here, but what you're saying is insanity. If you're right, and I seriously have trouble believing, but if you are, and he's not posting that for the owners? He's a psychopath. People are ready to <edited> him, they're ready to take him to court, they want to burn things to the ground, and he won't even show them the thing they're paying to see? It's madness.

This is setting aside the fact that both games could be 100% done and he still couldn't build them. Again, I played Predator. Finished game. No one got one in the year it took to drag Kevin down. This isn't about "it's just missing a few toys". Oh, and code. That pesky code. All that, and you're still a long way out from done, and requiring a lot more money than he's already spent. That he doesn't have.

Explain to me how any of this makes any sense, because you still seem to be holding out this thought that he's *so close*.

Oh I believe he showed you something, I don't think you're a liar. I just don't believe they're close to done. I think it's a facade. People have been walking out his shop talking about how things are *this close* for over a year now. I think it's weaponized aerosol psychedelics in the ventilation system.

But let's just say you're right. Totally dead on.

Games are done! And ... he won't show them to the people who paid for the access. That shouldn't make anyone feel better, that should make them feel angrier. They guy isn't bumbling about, in over his head, instead he's purposefully holding out finished games from you so he can dink around on foam core Alice in Wonderland designs. That's how little he cares about you.

You see how there's no winning this scenario?

Who's flipped it?

Who's lifted the playfield, and seen that the parts are real, and wired up?

Who's seen the inserts work?

Who's see the LCD screen interact with the game?

You know what I'm saying? What have we really seen? 3 machines in the background of a video.

How can we know if we're not really just looking at:

this?

Does anything at this stage deserve the benefit of the doubt? Show it flipping, or it's not real. That's what I think.

Been busy and so has the writer for Wired, but we're going to try and talk in a couple hours, he's apparently still interested in the story even knowing it's a trainwreck. We'll see.

Good luck man. Hopefully you at least get paid. Like I said in my email, maybe we can find an opportunity that isn't vaporware based for you.

Welp, good work, you just lost the owners another $20, John's off registering zidwareglasses.com now.

Need to just make it a page with this image:

rose-colored-glasses.jpg

One way or another we'll get your art on a shipping game.

Your work has basically been the only thing sustaining anyone on this project.

I'm not saying it will happen, but I've already exchanged thoughts on the matter with both parties. See where things go.

He'd also be an awesome fit for a future Spooky title, you never know.

Great artist, loves pinball, and my personal fav, he's an Ars Technica fan. If I can help him get onto a pin that goes into production I will.

For the record I take zero offense to any of this. I've said it before, say it again, there are lots of people who are better illustrators than me. I know where my strengths are, and where they aren't.

But yeah, the reality is as much as I think ZY is a great illustrator, when you start dealing with licensed titles it becomes tricky. Without discussing anything specific with regards to Alien, just dealing with films especially can be hard. It's not impossible to do hand drawn art for them, but it's way harder to get approved. Brands can be very picky about how they're represented, and you have to go through a lot more channels if you're straying from certain styles.

I can tell you that ZY is very talented, and versatile, he has work that doesn't look anything like what he's done for John, and I imagine he'd be up to a lot of challenges. My hope would be that if he got involved in another pinball project (and if I can help make that happen I will) it would be one where he was able to shine with what he does best, instead of having to work around restrictions that didn't play to his strengths.

Edit: Didn't read this page before replying, I see I'm being a bit redundant. I can't talk about Alien, but I will say that it's not going to be a copy paste job.

Not to beat this topic to death, but for the record I'm not jealous or protective of anything, and I'm definitely not trying to push ZY into some corner because he's threatening me or anything ridiculous like that. As soon as I found out what happened I sent him an email offering whatever help I could, I'd love to see him do more games. I'd be delighted to see him do a big Heighway game, I already told Andrew that.

But let's not insult Spooky here. I'm predicting their next game will be sold out within a month of announcement. And it's not going to be a slouch in the art department either. Remember this when it's announced, and tell me I'm not right!

I suggested they'd be a great fit because the subject matter they love is right up ZY's alley. Who's the pinball company that's dedicated to horror, monsters, sci-fi, etc? I'm sure he could draw a great Xenomorph. But I'd rather see him work with ideas from his own head, and bring to life something more original.

I'm personally very excited to see the art revealed. I haven't seen it myself, but I know who's doing it, and I predict it will be awesome.

I know this isn't a Spooky thread, but I don't like how they got kinda casually tossed under the bus here. Who has built a game and who hasn't?

The artist for Spooky game #2 is a bad ass. Zombie Yeti is an awesome illustrator. Pinball is better for having both of them involved, and I hope they both end up on (shipping!) killer games.

No no, that silly post from the new guy here:

Like doing a game for Spooky is getting sat down in the corner or something.

Just to be clear I'm not announcing he's going a Heighway game or anything. But I did mention him to Andrew when I saw what was going on, and I did email ZY and offer to do anything I could to help. Just don't want any rumors circulating or anything.

I don't know that Heighway has any titles coming up that would be a good fit. If I knew of one I'd be stoked to make that connection work though. And I do seriously think a Spooky game would be awesome.

All that's down the road though. Be nice if his work for John was able to be appreciated in the meantime, it's just feeling like a long shot.

I think it's more about the terms of the license. Maybe they'll find a way to make more, I think it will sell out pretty fast. We'll see!

It's definitely not impossible. I'm a Mondo collector myself, one of the posters hanging behind me is from Alien. It's an incredible illustration. Make a terrible translite, way too dark, but I love the art.

My understanding is that even if you can get a brand to play ball with that, it's often a much harder (and longer) process to go through for approvals. I don't know how Mondo does it, but they can afford to spend however long they need for a poster to get approved I would think, they sell out in 4 minutes, they practically should be investigated for printing money.

When you have a pinball that's on a schedule, where the art is just one part of a lot of other moving parts it's not really as easy to do that. If a studio says to you "you can go this route, and we can fast track approval, or you can go this other route, and it's going to be a long process" it's hard as a manufacturer to want to pick choice 2. That's a long delay before you can show art to people, it's a long delay where your line isn't building anything, it's a real headache for working out the playfield design, etc.

When Alien was announced, long before I was involved, I posted that I'd love to see hand drawn art myself. Andrew replied that it wasn't in the cards, see reasons above for why that's probably a reasonable answer. I can't really talk about what's going on with it now, but I will say that I'm doing my best to bring something original to the table, and not a copy and paste job. I'll talk about it more once we're free to show things. I appreciate everyone who's been ridiculously supportive of me being on the project, and I'll try to meet the expectations you've set to the best of my ability, within the limits of the project.

I think it's fabulous that the community is rallying behind Zombie Yeti, it does my heart good to see hand drawn art on pinballs championed. If there's anything I can do to further that then believe me, I will. I'm a fan too.

Yeah, $50ish is about right, a little more for some of the variants. They obviously do well, but not quite *that* well. The aftermarket is where it gets nuts, and unfortunately it's kind of ruined the whole thing. There are sniper bots that snatch things up faster than anyone can compete with, and then they're flipped on ebay for those kinds of crazy prices.

Sucks, because the people buying them are just looking to cash out, and the collectors get soaked, and Mondo doesn't even see that money, and neither do the artists. It's soured me quite a bit on the whole thing. I have 4 framed behind me now, and a 5th in a tube still, but I'm probably not going to keep buying now.

That's only true for some of the posters though. You're right, they do cool Alamo Drafthouse stuff for certain dates, but I think a lot, if not the bulk, of what they do isn't tied to a specific event. Of the 5 I own only one is actually from an event (Army of Darkness).

I imagine they have awesome contacts and connections now, and probably have the whole thing down to about as smooth as such a bitch of a process can get. I'm sure there are still awesome ideas left on the cutting room floor though.

This is so true. Want a movie license? Sure, pay this. Oh, you wanted to use a line from the movie? Negotiate that with the actor separately. Oh, you wanted the music from the film? We have a separate subsidiary that handles that you'll have to talk to.

I'm used to working with brands and style guides and all that, plenty of huge companies you've all heard of, but the movie industry is an entirely different beast.

Hey, it's a much more interesting, and positive, conversation! And it's really not that off topic if you think about it, because the whole beauty and allure of John's pitch was freedom from all of that. Original ideas, no corporate chains, pinball free to be pinball.

Yeah, no reprints, closed editions, with very few exceptions. Like they did that Superman print as a limited run, but limited to as many pre-orders as they could get.

I imagine they're at the point now where there's a certain prestige in getting a Mondo print of your film. It's less commercial, and more fine art.

Pinball, for better or for worse, is a commercial amusement thing. Not many people see them as we do, or appreciate them as we do. Get your brand on a lunch box, a video game, a pinball, a box of fruit snacks. Not all that different. Maybe with the collector market growth that's shifted a little, but you're still dealing with the same licensing department.

Look at this example. We're talking about a company that does comic books. They sure as hell understand hand drawn art. There were like 50 variant covers for the Star Wars comic launch recently. And yet they're shutting down ideas that aren't "on brand" etc. License holders can be very particular and protective.

Jeremy are you going to the opening?

I'll just put on a zombie mask and wander around clutching a Cintiq Companion, no one will be the wiser!

Ha, that's awesome. My younger daughter is in second grade, and I coach her soccer team. Same deal, just a bigger ball.

Lucasfilm has a pretty awesome rep for being super open. They've really embraced all the fan films etc and given people a lot of latitude, which seems incredibly smart to me. I think the Disney acquisition is a really good thing for the movies themselves, they know how to put the right smart and passionate people in charge of brands and let them do their thing, it's why the Marvel movies have done so well, but I do worry a bit that their rep for being tolerant of people using their IP isn't nearly as friendly.

I guess the question is what has to happen to stop that? I mean, I think we all know John's out of money now. Not paying Zombie Yeti has to be the final straw for that. Can he keep paying rent on that huge workshop? It's not like he was working out of his basement, there are costs that have to be maintained. The Texas investor seems to have walked, JJP passed (if that was even serious), what's left really?

I just can't see an outside investor coming in, there's no end game there that makes sense as far as ROI. It would have to be a passion project. And that leaves what? Owners banding together? Does anyone feel strongly enough about this to risk more money in trying to buy John out?

I mean, normally the pinball designer is pretty done at this stage. You pass it on to the next people. So in theory you could buy out John, meaning get everything and *not* him along with it, and put together a team to finish the engineering and production hurdles and find a programmer. But it really only works if you either:

a) Just take a bath, pay more for the game then you planned, and get the process going

b) Throw out the limited nature of things and try and get the BOM to a point where you could reasonably put them on the market to recoup the investment.

Both come with some pretty big downsides for the original owners, assuming that such a plan could even be pulled off. Lot of ifs.

I can't see any other option right now, John's simply not gonna get it done. We have to all agree on that by now, right?

It's gonna be all over the map, but generally speaking figure ballpark $50 for a new one if you got in before it sold out. And we're talking most things selling out within minutes of being announced. You slip on clicking that link from Twitter and forget it.

After that it's just what scalpers are charging, and what you're willing to pay.

There's only one run, no reprints, but often there will be a "variant" print, that's got some alternate colors, or metallic ink, or glow in the dark or whatever. Usually the variant is more limited, and sold for a little more (say $75 instead of $50).

Obviously you'll see people trying to flip those for more. The variant isn't automatically "better", just different. If you're trying to measure value it might hold it better, but no guarantee, and they're all so limited it doesn't really matter much IMHO.

These are the Mondo prints I have behind me right now:

IMG_3107.JPG

50% pinball rate, I'd love to see 100% of them as pins though!

Basically, yup. High demand, limited production = flipper heaven. If you want it badly enough you pay, otherwise you pass.

I have this one still sitting in a tube, no idea what I'm going to do with it, no wall space left, but I couldn't resist it:

Edmiston_Batgirl_finalpress_1024x1024.jpg

Ha! I'd like to say it's a little cleaner now than when I took that pic, but I won't lie, it's not really that different.

More like "all about art", not about me! And really, if you think about it, what else has this thread ever been? What have we even seen besides Zombie Yeti's art? We don't even know what the most basic shots look like. Closest thing to a ball moving on a playfield has been some ancient whitewood video that had the camera fixed on the slingshots, and some dumb video of a ball bouncing around inside a circle.

I hear your frustration, sorry if I contributed to things veering off course, but what else is there to even talk about? Has the private Facebook group ever tried to organize a group showing up to his studio with a video camera and demanding to shoot the ball flipping?

It's a chupacabra.

I think it would have done a lot to keep things positive, which might have led to money appearing. Either from owners or investors. It's still madness to me that owners haven't seen it flip.

What happened to the people who claimed to have played it at his workshop? They all drained the thread in denial?

I liked this part:

"But the knowledge and experience it takes to create a physical product--one that often needs to be manufactured overseas--relies on a different set of skills and relationships. Simply put: Entrepreneurship isn't art.

To the uninitiated, manufacturing physical products can be an incredibly tricky business, especially when it comes to contract manufacturing, designing product runs, managing inventory, shipping, logistics, etc."

That felt particularly relevant.

Also:

"It seems obvious now, but 'there's a huge gap between having an idea, and designing a product, and actually manufacturing something.'"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nah, Heighway is legit. Games are on the line now, just waiting for a few parts that weren't up to spec. Last I heard shipping was within the next few weeks.

No sh*t, right? A flipping whitewood, what a unicorn!

Arguing with the most dangerous game of all – man.

Is pdxmonkey as least posting in the private group? I don't care if just the owners get info, but man, what a case of blue balls. "I played the game that you all paid for and are dying to get even a crumb of info about. See you guys later."

Gah, I hope not. Writer hasn't even decided whether or not he's doing the story. It's definitely not a big priority for him, I can tell you that after chatting with him. And fair enough, pinball isn't exactly a huge traffic generator, and there's a lot of work on this one to unpack it if he really feels like covering it.

Agreed. Video or bust! What's the hold up? Takes minutes to upload a YouTube. I could take a video of writing this post and follow up with another one in 5 minutes showing me writing it.

I don't see how that's true. Frankly even if John's company was doing well he's honestly not competition for anyone else. People who are paying $10k-17k for highly limited games? Just not really affecting the market that much.

Eh, a handful of people who have really large pinball budgets? I don't consider anything John is doing competition for Alien or Full Throttle (AMH is sold out). And that's being generous and pretending he's actually "doing" games, like they're still going to ship, which feels pretty unlikely.

If you're in on any of these games you're pretty much an "elite" collector, and can probably pick up any machine you feel like.

Predator for sure. That's a real shame, and I hope you get your money back, or at least some/most of it.

Nothing to be gained by arguing abut it though really. I'm going to focus on making Alien as compelling as I can for anyone who's interested in a real game, that will ship. When we can show things, we will. No years of secrets. And if you don't want to pre-order I'm happy to try and earn your business the traditional way.

In that sense I don't see companies like Heighway and Spooky competing.

I am of course generalizing. And I didn't mean to imply that losing money on this venture wouldn't sting. That sucks. I guess I just see people who were up for paying $17,000 for a super limited pinball that might takes years to make as being people who were pretty immune to standard market logic.

But I guess money is money, you're right, and so is anyone else. Money sent to Jpop is money that could have gone to other games. I guess I just don't really see Zidware as real competition for the players with factories who think about games by the thousands, instead of by the tens.

Yeah, that's true. And you're right, not everyone is already in for $17k or whatever, that's a small %. I concede the point, pinball money is pinball money.

That's kind of the point, the money hasn't lasted, it's gone.

So what happened to the video? Supposedly there were multiple pinsiders there, right?

We know pdxmonkey doesn't want to participate in this thread, who else was there?

I don't get why it would even be mentioned in public if no one actually has any intention of posting a video, let alone describing what they saw.

So true. As we like to say, but often forget, it's just pinball.

The money is real! But this idea that the game has to be perfect is just silly.

Look at ACDC. One of the most beloved and best selling games of the modern era. It's unlovely to put it kindly, and full of clunk. And yet, people just love it. Because despite the warts it's awesome. You don't care that the cannon blocks the view of the inlane when you're stacking the shit out of that jackpot.

At a certain point you need to not worry about the damn hinges and just make something you can play. You don't fold the game up and down every day, you want to flip a ball.

John is like the picture of "don't let perfect be the enemy of good".

Never gonna happen. It's just too much money. How low would it be priced? It's what? $16-17k now? Even if you slash that price to $10k it's still crazy expensive.

I was in on the TBL pre-order. I bailed before the drama. I won't be getting back in, as much as I think it's an awesome game, because I just can't stomach the price. I could afford it if I wanted it, but can't justify the expense. There's a limited number of people willing to pay that much for a game.

That's final shipped price for all intents and purposes.

This is just a funny anecdote, but the person you're talking with happens to be someone who's a big Metallica fan and bought his first pin because he was a fan of the band.

And it seems like the Metallica fan club did actually move a decent amount of units. What does that mean though? Is 100 people buying their first pin a significant number?

Yeah, once I dropped out of the pre-order the chances of me owning one plummeted, the price just got too high.

The thing is, what are the hints? Zombie Yeti artwork, and ... how many people have actually seen the game flip? Apparently a few Pinsiders, but they don't feel like sharing any impressions, let alone this mythical video.

Seriously, what do we have besides art? I'll help a group commission some original ZY prints if that's all you're looking for.

This idea that John is secretly sitting on a finished games and just not showing them makes zero sense. He's desperate, there's nothing to be gained by trying to spring a surprise on people.

Absolutely nothing.

That would be Mission, not FAST.

Either way, it's way too much work for anyone to be expected to do it for free.

Spending a weekend getting a game flipping for free is one thing, spending months of your life working with John is another.

Or just show up as a group, kick the door in, and load everything you paid for onto a flatbed truck.

Totally suggesting you guys do this*.

_{*Not really. But you have to admit, it might be the only way anyone will see anything.}

Not to be too much of a giant cock (this is a little cockish though, I admit it) I do think it's funny that a couple years ago I would get 30 downvotes for saying something about how the Jpop stuff didn't feel right to me. Then fast forward two years, I say the exact same things, and I get 30 upvotes.

It's hard when you're caught up in the excitement to see the context. I experience that myself for a brief period with TBL.

After Jpop, after Predator, I just think we should be better about not trying to shout down skeptics. Sure, some of them are jerks and trolls. But look past that and try and look at the arguments, some people might be pointing out uncomfortable truths.

Ooh, you found a much better photo than I did though!

Terry is dead on about the production number making zero sense, lots of us have said that, but it's great to see some real world figures from someone with experience to give that notion context. Thanks for taking the time to break that down.

Okay, I'll bite. What do you consider "a game" specifically? Maybe you just have a different definition than the rest of us.

Man, I drained the Predator thread when it became nothing but pages of people arguing about the definition of "scam", sad that it's still going.

The last time someone showed up in this thread promising that things were gonna be awesome and just be patient, not only was he full of shit, he ended up banned from the thread (twice).

Either show some hard proof, or just keep it to yourself, no one wants to hear vague platitudes and reassurances.

To me the JPop games are like my Scared Stiff. Fun to own, great to look at, really nice packages, but not really big on deep play. If you own enough games or are a really casual player then they work out just fine. In a smaller collection it can be tough, because they don't really provide enough challenge.

Sure, you can skip wishing away jewels, but that kind of thing gets old when you play it a lot, you don't want to feel like you're avoiding playing the game the way it's offering things to you.

Yeah, it's a simple math problem.

Games Spooky has designed, built, and shipped: 1

Game Zidware has designed, built, and shipped: 0

Spooky will have game 2 out, and Zidware will still be sitting at 0.

lol, the comments. Half people kissing his ass, the other half trying to sell their spots to get out ...

No shit. I'm not ready to be thinking about Expo yet!

My wife took me to see them live for my birthday once, we really enjoyed it. They're truly top showmen, and real artists of their craft.

John may not have even worried about that stuff. The warranty is only good for keeping the game locked in your basement right? No location play allowed. So rare ball hangups mean you just pop the glass. Nothing stuck for a week until a tech maybe swings by.

Same way you order any glass? Just tell them the size you want cut.