Must have run out of blow ...

rd

Guys cut Jpop some slack. He's been busy filming the last two years

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Just saw Independence Day Resurgence myself and had the same thought... Jpop and Brent Spiner/Lt. Commander Data separated at birth... Who knew?

Movie was certainly entertaining enough to watch once but not exactly a cinematic masterpiece. Fun popcorn flick though.

I heard that he had changed his looks and gone into hiding.... he's not very good at that either!

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He'd P!ss around, designing, redesigning and redesigning the same part ad nauseam until he burned through that 5 milliion and then of course he would blame everyone around him for his incompetence followed by sweat p!ss all to show for in the end.

This is how jpoop works!!!!!! Useless and stupid!!!!! I believe the technical term is referred to as incompetence.

QSS

It would take him that long just to count the $$$.

Zidware is gone but American Pinball is the new tenant...fishy???

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I don't believe this is accurate. Those who did not sue have not given up any legal right that the others currently have, they are simply not part of the current suit. If it's not a class action, each person is free to sue JPOP individually as well, up to the point that their statute of limitations expire. If it is a class action, once the Class is certified, Class counsel (Plaintiff's counsel) will be required to mail to each other potential plaintiff (the people who have not sued JPOP yet, but who gave that idiot money) a paper giving them a rundown of the case and asking them whether they would like to opt in or out of the class. If one were to opt in, they would become part of the certified class and would now be represented by Class counsel. If one were to opt out, they would still retain any legal rights they have to sue JPOP up to the point that the SOL expires, but would need to retain their own counsel and file their own Complaint separately.

http://www.podcastgarden.com/episode/episode-197-an-evening-with-john-popadiuk_59362

Only those that sued will have a judgement they can enforce (if they win) and/or participate in a settlement (unless the settlement terms are different, which I could not imagine why they'd be different). There are also prescription issues for those that have not filed (I don't know what the periods are, depends on the type of claim - tort, contract, etc.).

For a $5M infusion, JPOP would still not be able to build your games, on account of his high salary requirements and all. However he could sell his $40k house and afford to buy a $40k trailer and to settle in the French Riveria. Thus becoming France's "problem".

Yeah..... his high salary....... or maybe it's cause he's a moron!!!! Yeah,.... that's it.

QSS

I read every post in this thread. I'm sorry y'all were duped. Jpop obv took advantage of his reputation and the current pinball market as of ~2011. Truly despicable behavior/business ethics(or at least, a total lack thereof). I have been fortunate to meet a great number of outstanding people in this hobby in just a few years. As far as I can tell, this hobby is way too small for people like JPOP. They get squeezed out like watermelon seed between a kid's greasy fingers at a picnic, and the rest of us will carry on.

Every time I hear JPop and salary in the same post I want to punch something, anything really hard.

His customers gave him money in exchange for a pinball machine. They did not agree to pay his salary.

Any money left over after all games were delivered to customers would have amounted to JPop's salary/profit.

Yeah you did... That's what happens when you pay for a product.

You're lost.

I can't even engage you in this bs argument.

Yup. Part of the package. Who would have thought it would end up being the ENTIRE package though...?

Hope he invested some of it well so he has something to live on... said nobody ever.

Well you know what he MEANS... the "creator" has to have something to pay bills, feed himself, whatever... but it's built into the final price of the product. With no product at all ever being produced the whole equation goes to hell. Speaking of going to hell... hey Popadiuk!

Didn't he claim he was working 14 hours a day; 7 days a week?

He also claimed he was "battling" Pinside and it was consuming his time. I'm still not sure how exactly he was battling Pinside but whatever...

Don't forget about the 100 emails he got everyday, so why don't you pickup a phone if you needed to get a hold of him, except he ignored those calls and just let his voicemail box get full.. unless it was a new buyer or someone was praising him, then he'd talk his ear off for 2 hours because you know.. he's busy.

translated: you can't even defend your own BS

I get it your upset.. but don't start creating your own realities to try to make yourself feel better. Next you'd be arguing you paid for a pinball machine, not actual TOOLS or SPACE to build it...

People who work for free or put themselves last in line do it because of sacrifice to try to make it work... not because they weren't within reason to take pay. They sacrifice themselves to put the business above their own near-term needs. JPOP didn't -- that's a personal choice.

If it bothers you so much about how the guy ran his business... maybe you should have scrutinized him and his plans a bit more up front. Otherwise, suck it up and accept he wasn't running a 'succeed or die trying' type of business.

Yeah true -- except moot point. He would have easily not paid himself a salary out of the money and STILL have little to show for 5 years of work. It only had a chance of working if someone was managing him the whole time.

Whether you call it salary or unearned profit or something else is just semantics and not worth arguing over. When you buy a pinball from a Stern distributor, you are not doing it to pay Jody's salary. Zidware was a special case since it was basically just one unemployed guy. I suppose it would be expected by some that John would take a small stipend, but he went way beyond that.

Many people said his wife was rather wealthy and he didn't need to work or draw a salary. That is during the early days of his project when he was pushing the love of pinball BS.

yeah, definitely was said, even towards the end.

I suppose now his wife is supporting him since our money is gone. Unless he started working at Subway. Something tells me he is still hiding from the real world and not doing real work.

LMAO what makes you think he is qualified to make a sandwich?? I don't think he would ever get past slicing the bread, the cut would never be quite right so he would have to throw the bread away and start with a new piece.

Dude, why are you in here arguing with victims about how much of a victim they are or how at fault they are?

Bad form man. It's the equivalent of "if you didn't want to be raped, you shouldn't have worn that or gone down that street at night. Suck it up and accept it's your fault."

We are all sitting here with the advantage of hindsight. Don't be a dick about it.

Why the hell are we rubbing "Salt" in old wounds anyways? Beating up on those invested does nobody any good. We as a pinball community should be working together to protect the integrity of this hobby, and keep out douche-bags (JPOP) like this out of the hobby.

Salary had no effect?

90k X 3 = 280k, Bill tells us 900k came in so easily an entire THIRD went up in smoke salary alone.

If you're a startup and paying yourself anything more than "ramen and electricity" you're doing it wrong.

A prototype game (all he made, barely) can be accomplished in a basement or garage - just ask the dozens of people who have done it!

The shop I guess was all about appearances and ego? Sure, maybe if he was actually building games there, but he never even got close to that point.

What's the deal with this new investor we've all heard about? I mean, at least JPOP hasn't given up.

Holy crap. I'm just learning about all of this but how can this guy even show his face at any show or dare to go out in public?

What a piece of garbage. Seriously.

Im not arguing, just stopping the runaway train of crazy sh$& people drum up to try to rile others up to their emotional level.

Sometimes reality sucks, but that's no reason to live in fantasy.

Like that he was calling out DP for their "downfall" .. my TBL is late (on a boat headed here this week), but I sure as hell did better than his own customers.

I think AIW is a great theme... as a side note is anyone going to pick up that theme down the road ? i.e. JJP or Stern ?

i remember playing American Mcgee's Alice on the PC that was fun...

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I like your math, sir!
I'm sure your employees enjoy their rounding error bonus!

I'd love to see this theme resurrected and done by someone else. It's open IP so anyone can do it and it doesn't have the negative connotations associated with it like Predator (since it was a non-licensing issue and for other reasons).

Oh yeah math fail, whoops!

Wonderland could be a strong title.

If it's true John has new money, maybe he should pick one game and use that to make everyone whole.

Started looking into this topic more as the entire story just blows my mind but it looked like Magic Girl although late was almost ready?

Did nobody buy this or did he not forfeit the IP in any lawsuit so it could be released? Looks kind of cool.

As I recall it was a mock up and pretty far from ready. Read back thru the posts to where it was hauled to a show.

LTG : )

Yeah, nevermind:

"John spent more than 4 years and over a million dollars of pre-order money developing a working prototype made. This included rent on a giant studio, capital equipment, playfield parts, cabinets, salary for himself and contracted employees. At the same time, he worked on 2 other "official" pinball projects (retro zombie adventure and alice in wonderland) which he also took pre-order money on. In May of 2015 he finally announced he was out of funding, and not only couldn't finish the magic girl prototype, he had no way of funding the manufacturing of them. One of his buyers (Bill Brandes) tried to make a deal where he would license the theme and find a way to manufacture them. Between various volunteers, they took one of the prototypes as far as they could in a few short weeks (which included getting the vacuum formed ramps completed) so it could be shown at the northwest pinball show. Not only did the shots not work so great (the mylared art was bubbling), but there was no ball search turned on, and many of the features were turned off since they weren't complete. On June 10th, Bill announced that after analyzing the status the prototype was in, and the immense amount of custom parts and mechs, that he could not move this project forward and it would be cancelled.

John Popadiuk is currently under multiple lawsuits for failure to deliver a product that was promised in this contract with his buyers."