I guess this thread can be closed when all of those who put money down get it back, when all vendors get paid and Jpop is serving time for fraud -- so, that will be a long time from now, if ever.

John, we will never forget how you ripped everyone off.

Quit trying to bury the evidence.

I found this cleaning the shop today. Came out of our bin for shows. I'm guessing been in the bottom since Nw Show somehow.

We could stamp set we steal online and sell it to recoup our deposit money! Fool proof right ?

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Anyone know what John is doing these days? Has he gotten a real job or still living off what he "earned" from Zidware and doing arts and crafts?

been wondering along these same lines of thought myself as of late ...... his pinball inventor web pages have been taken down ... does anyone know if he is still renting the shop space ?

well, this site is still up

http://www.johnpopadiuk.com

No changes on his linkedin page.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpopadiuk

Well, LinkedIn got it right......

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BWAHHAHAHHA! Is that for real!?!? That's amazing...well, no way he gets a job offer through LinkedIn!

Er, it had some help......

This is the bed he made.

Oddly enough, I've run into some people that are still friends with him and think he just made a mistake.

I'm not going to call them out, but it surprised me.

Hehe ... Thieving Scumbag. but isn't that two skills rolled into one category? Wish that when this search is rerun, category is renamed Lying Thieving Dirtbags.

People own up to mistakes and take blame for their mistakes. People who intentionally defrauded other people won't own up to their actions and will just shift blame to others.

Which is JPop doing right now?

Wow. Cults have a strong hold on the brain. John should segue into polygamy.

His inability to deliver probably extends past pinball....

Oh snap. You went there.

JPop sounds a bit crazy/loonie on the C2C Podcast. Some his reply's from Nate's questions make me go

Here's a old email I found

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Wait.. He's only the Vice-President??

He was President, but then he had to demote himself because of poor performance reviews. His dog made a play and took over the helm.

Now he can say:" But, I was only an employee!!!!"

John! You suck!

That's like those people posting to the MAD Amusements thread "Well, I'VE never been ripped off by him".

This isn't some story of a customer that couldn't be satisfied and is now ripping you a new one on yelp. This is 100+ people screwed out of a million dollars, much of it sent under false pretense ("games will be built next month", "playable prototype behind the camera", "these people are now on my team", "big reveal coming at expo", etc), and a huge chunk of which went straight into jpop's pockets for delivering NOTHING. He did not fail honorably.

Yeah, I'd suggest his "friends" take a good look at themselves if they're ok with this.

Its the same group of hero worship pinball groupies he has always had.

All those that made apologies for him or interviewed him after the fact which did nothing for his clients and everything for his ego.

remember how he described his clients as "fans?"As he comes to the conclusion that he's out of pinball for good,where is he gonna find folks to stroke his ego?

"We are not jerks to work with"

can someone who does not pay their vendors, or copies their tech rather than pay, claim to be 'not a jerk' -- I don't think so.

Some of those people may not realize the extent of what has happened. My buddy who got me hooked up with MET thinks John is the best designer, but when I tell him what has happened, and continues to happen, he cant grasp it like I can, because Im here reading about it. He just knows that John used to have some input into some really good games a long time ago.

Now if they are on here and see the carnage and still believe he is a God, then ya...

1 skill says "FUTURISM"... .. .

Clearly he does not have that skill, or things would not be the freaking mess they are.

Isn't that what started this whole mess?

Maybe he did. Since SKIT B skated away with $$$$, he saw his future and did the same, sadly..

Well, I think that if John had sent us the playfield we would have been able to get our FAST hardware controlling what was there pretty quickly. We would have had the "flipping whitewood" in days. I think that this would have exposed any problems with the design from an engineering standpoint. I expected that there would still be work to do on that front. Keep in mind, we didn't know that there wasn't enough money to finish the job at this point. I think that if we could have got the playfield flipping and could have started a good steady march through refining the game and developing the game code, I think things could have turned out differently.

If we were able to manage the project and get full transparency on the financial state of things, I feel we could have delivered a real world "this is where we are and this is what it will take to get us to the finish line" outline to the owners. Maybe there could have been an arrangement that got the games made that required more time and money, but at least got them made. I think that there could have been some way to restructure things with the owners if the project wasn't left in John's hands alone. I told John that I wanted to bring my small business experience to the table for him and not just help build the game. He needs to be a designer and that's it. He needed help on most fronts.

I got to know a lot of the owners through the experience. A lot of great people in a tough situation. Each with their own background and expertise that could have been used to help drag this project to the finish line. Many people were willing to help, as we all saw, there was just no way to help John with John in charge.

All in all, I learned a lot. It's no secret that FAST wants to build pinball machines. We want to be the engineering/manufacturing back end to pinball designers/design studios. John could have worked with us and not against us and things could have be so different. Designed by Zidware, Engineered & Manufactured by FAST Pinball. It could have been a match made in heaven? Maybe?

A lot of great people I have met over the last few years have encouraged us to keep on track with our plans. Moving on without the baggage of John's problems would probably be the best way for us to keep focused and reach our goals someday.

I look forward to taking delivery of our next manufacturing run of FAST hardware tomorrow (assembled in Seattle, WA!), updating our website (finally!) this weekend to show all the latest developments and keep on the steady crawl/walk/run approach to making more pinball.

Not sure if I really answered your question. Haven't thought about this stuff in a while. Let me know if I can try to answer any other questions for you.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I met and talked to John a few times at different shows. He seemed like a good guy...until the autograph session at the 2007 Chicago Expo. I asked him to autograph my fliers. He said "pick the number behind my back and I'll sign them." At that moment, I knew he was pulling my leg, but mentioned a number anyways. He said "sorry, I won't sign them." No surprise there.

I didn't want to argue with him, so I continued getting my stuff signed by the others. I don't know if I said or did something earlier that gave him a hissy fit, but I thought it was a major dick move. I told my other friends about it and they couldn't believe this great designer was such a narcissist. I don't know if I'm the only one he did that to, but I didn't dwell on it. I became one of his many Facebook friends and followed his then-running Zidware page with anticipation.

From what I saw, I expected magic girl would wow the masses. So much for that...Thieving acts aside, I still think he's a top designer who could've gone far if he followed the other designers' paths. But seeing this reminds me of that one day long ago in 2007. His narcissism has grown exponentially. Instead of asking people to guess numbers behind his back, he told them to give him money instead and hope they got it right. What a shame...

I bet you wish you, and these guys, could tell him he's number 1, if you know what I mean

You mean #2

Good one! He really is full of it. That would've been the perfect comeback...

Didn't a lot of people pre-order #2?

It's funny that no matter how low you think a person can get, you learn to dislike a person even more. He wasn't a jerk to me when I met Jpop, but of all the designers I talked to at the show, he definitely was the most awkward - I told him how I liked World Cup Soccer, and his response was that it doesn't sell for as much as it should, like his other games.

All the other designers were just cool to say hello or shoot a game with.

He acted like a jerk to you so you friended him on F.B, OK......

"For tha love of pinball. For tha love of pinball, y'all ! "

...and that's exactly what they got!

In truth, they ended up with a big "0"

This guy must have had a lot of people under his spell.

seriously, WTF.

As time passes, john-gate is getting more and more bizarre.
His friends think john just made a mistake?
A silly one million dollar mistake?
Really? Pfff

Believe me, it caught me off guard as well.

I think he should be rotting in a prison somewhere.

i think we need to rename is popadiuk gate not john as give us guys name john a bad name lol

I think in his mind he thinks he did nothing wrong which is insane.

You can't make this shit up! "John.... I pissed all your money away on my own salary for 4 years of puttering around in my shop building prop games that don't work and there is no way I can build any these games, sorry making pinball is hard!"
Next day John gets an email from an unsuspecting victim...
Hey John I'm interested in AIW "John.... great I will send you an owners packet send me your money ASAP no credit card or pay pal check or cash only"

That's not a mistake its fraud & theft and John should go to jail for it, very sad to see his apologists still out there defending him... Shame on them!