Toyota, designers back then made a lot more than they do now. Figure more like 150k.

If you reorder these pins by release date, things look interesting. As most of the titles are about equal funwise, it would seem the quantities should be flat or rising. Other factors come into play such as pricing and roi, but it also looks like the market was contracting sharply.

WCS94: 8,743 units
TOM: 6,600 units
TOTAN: 3,128 units
Voltaire: 2,704 units
SWE1: 3,525 units

Did I miss something? Has American Pinball pull out of working with jpoop?

Wouldn't that be $1M invested / $1M salary = $1 ? So JPOP's lawyer could argue JPOP's theft should be limited to $1 per machine Maybe this is one of those logical arguments that isn't so logical.

Analogy is not decent. It even borders on misogynistic, if you ask me (failure = Sharon Stone, success = Robert Downey Jr. or Steve Jobs).

Did Sharon Stone rip off anyone investing in her by not delivering what was required of her? Not that I'm aware of. Has her star been diminished over the years? Sure, but she also was dealing with a brain tumor. I don't THINK Jpop has a brain tumor, but that would explain a lot.

BTW this isn't some ridiculous "SJW" posturing, either. Just taking issue with the analogy.

No wonder why he never made a deal to work with Stern (if that even ever happened), I'm sure adjusted for inflation, nobody at Stern makes $250k (volume isn't there), probably lucky to clear 100k.

and why he chose $90k as his salary.. In his mind, it was still a paycut. "Yes! I shall pay myself.. eighty.. No ninety thousand a year, and I shall hire artists and programmers, and volunteers shall come do my bidding.. and I shall build a giant office and production floor from scratch with my own two bare hands, and I shall blog about progress. but FIRST! I shall design the greatest pinball cabinet in the hisTORY OF PINBALL!!"

Forbes has Johnny Depp listed as the 2015 worst returns for a star actor, as far as ROI.

And considering Johnny Depp once played Willy Wonka, I think the comparison is much better!

Awesome Ben..
Point taken

Please, @iceman44.. you wouldn't know an analogy if it was at the bottom of whatever you're drinking. Thanks for the neg!

Dude I don't know know what you're blathering on about at all... perhaps you should read back a few posts rather than drunkenly lashing out at me.

EXCEPT if you are dividing dollars into dollars, which cancel each other out and you end up with a ratio of numbers and no units associated. In this case it is 1 and that can be converted into percent as 100.

I thnk what you meant to compare was his $500k salary / 24,500 units sold = $20 / pin for the cost. But that is not accurate either, because salary is only a part of cost. Also estimates of how much collateral damage was caused by his incomplete work, rework, required bailouts by fellow employees and missed deadlines is hard to put a number to. Better to focus on the hard costs.

You want to look at burdened cost - since benefits, insurance, taxes, overhead, retirement etc are essentially tied together with every hour of labor expended. I'll wager 2.5 times employee salary - or $1.25M was closer to the fully burdened costs to B/W ( a legitamate company and legal entity) . You would then want to convert this into todays dollars because you intend to make comparisons with today's dollars. Getting out the old inflation converter, I see the present day value of $1 in 1994 is $1.62 today x $1.25M = 2M in today's dollars, plus change.

Finally ... JPOP's employment at Bally Williams cost buyers $2M / 24.5k units = $82.65 for every JPOP pin sold. Also $82.65 labor / 3k $/pin (average cost per unit) shows JPOP was likely 2.65% of every sale. That is reasonable in my book.

Now back to your present day fiasco. $1M / 0 units produced approaches infinity, so yeah, that's a bad return on investment.

Hey! Cut it out!
Pm eachother!
This is a happy place where we barf on jpop!

You're right. I can't think of anything more ridiculous than spending the day before thanksgiving arguing with a drunken men's rights activist. My bad.

(Still a shitty analogy though)

I don't have a stake in this fiasco and certainly JPOPs lack of any response really speaks poorly of him. But, that said, this was a startup business, and most startup businesses fail. He undercapitalized the company, he (based on what others have written) poorly allocated available funds, and he obviously didn't know how to manage a business. Anyone who promised three separate machines, fully done, on the funds raised clearly had no clue about the cost to do anything. Manage business != design pinballs. JJP succeeded because he fundamentally knew how to run a business already and could rely on income from that existing business to help support the development effort. People can rightly get mad here, but 90% of all startups fail. This one failed, and for all the reasons you could predict it might (though perhaps evident only in hindsight). The final result of all of this, which the thread will hopefully serve to memorialize, is don't invest in a startup if you can't afford to lose every last dime you put into it. Chances are, that investment isn't going to deliver. And while I would love to be optimistic, from a simple business point of view it makes no sense for American Pinball to ever fill a single order here. They are making the same mistake -> see existing assets with already sunk costs -> calculate added funds needed to bring said assets to completion -> profit. I have little doubt they have no idea what that number really is because unless Stern or JJP opens their books to them they have no real knowledge of the cost of doing business.

Distanced themselves at Expo. Said there was a lot of work to do on Houdini, layout wasn't right, designing new board sets as not using Zidware ones, Joe Balcer announced as employee to fix Houdini (he acknoledges it's nowhere near ready). Said they had nothing to do with MG except that they were contracted (by arrangement with JPop) to build it.

I havent been on here in months and I come back to find this thread still has life. Wth is going on in the pinball world where JPOP still has any opportunities? Unbelievable!!!

ya ROI, Radio On Internet! Tres coma!

How about Solyndra? Minus the part where I was an unwilling investor.

I'm still awaiting contact from 'American Pinball' about the MG they are delivering to me in the next 5 weeks. I smell a rather obvious case of 'the bullshit', and hope no-one falls for these scammers' additional bullshit about Houdini (who incidentally despised magic, taking pleasure in debunking it, despite Jpop lathering magic all over the machine light show, incompetent that he is).

I hope Jpop is prevented from hurting other pinball collectors. The prick has done a lot of damage.

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What a crazy ride? Goes on for years now?
One moment you lose your ass,next moment you have hope that some new entity is going to deliver magic girl in a few weeks.
Then radiosilence...
Why is this all so shady?
Nobody steps up and explains what the plans are?
Superweird..i hope some day soon we find closure.
And call me a fool,but i am still hoping for closure in a positive way.

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The amazing Carnac has a prediction.

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Well..,better than linger on.
It is also closure!
Not real positive though

Ok thanks. I know the "reveal" at the expo was a disaster, but hadnt heard much since.

At this point I believe it is relatively clear that anyone contemplating working with JPop should consider having him subjected to a fitness for duty evaluation.

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Bizarre, he's starting to do website updates again. He's claiming Magic girl is in production, and zombie and alice are in development. "In production" implies you are currently building them.
http://www.zidware.com/pinball.html

zidware (resized).png

Honestly, it's like the guy just lives to torture these people (Zidware "owners")

In production means nothing. They sent a batch of junk improperly printed playfields to be clear coated and that is where production stands.

So you're saying, there's a CHANCE?

In production = row of empty cabinets sitting at the back of an Aimtron facility.

omg, his new website is in that tell-tale hand coded html (with tables) that John spins his wheels making. He's probably worked on this new website for all this time since expo.

And it's the same circle jerk stuff as before... promises of photos, etc.

No actual games of course.

I can't believe the year will soon be 2017 and this is still going on.

Wow, I just realized.. We have only three weeks before the end of the year. Games should be shipping now..! Anyone get a UPS or FedEx tracking number?

I would have to assume anyone here local to Streamwood IL could take a ride over and ask for an update or to see an update? That's assuming anyone is even there. While the chance is remote, it could be that AP is in "radio silence" mode.

Even if someone was there, if you asked about magic girl, I guarantee the response would be (based on expo):
"We are a contract manufacturer. If you want to know about magic girl, please contact zidware"

Also would imply he's worked out whatever issues remained with Bill (which seems unlikely).

I would conjecture the main thing he's doing is trying to keep his ass out of prison.

As a nation, we have gone soft.. How the eff can this guy walk around, jerling people around, and no confronted, even in a non-violent situation?

On the 16th day of Christmas, I knew we were getting close....

I think if john delivers the mg's to it's customers, there is a bunch of cash coming in and zidware can proceed building the other stuff.
Still don't understand why he doesn't open up to the public to tell us how he plans to struggle forward.
Any news is welcome at this point?

LOL

Been there, done that. Didn't find out much - that was August. Could be different in December, but I'm not motivated to visit again - besides, I think all the interesting stuff is being done at AimTron's site.

The time line in this project now exceeds America's involvement in WW2.

Next milestone: longer than the moon mission?

Might be a fun challenge for me, see how many pins I can build before John "the master" finishes one.

How many can you make before you die of old age? It's the same number.

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Good point!

lol

I remember back around 1994 I had filed a Motion for Dismissal for Lack of Prosecution on a civil case that was filed against my client. The Complaint was filed in 1988. These Motions are rarely granted, as there is a general preference to hear a case on it's merits.

When oral arguments were heard, the Judge listened to the attorney for plaintiff give all the reasons why the Complaint should not be dismissed. After listening to all the reasons he gave, the Judge turned to me and asked me for my response. I said "Your honor, Ronald Reagan was still President when this case was filed!" ....I had more to add, but nearly the entire courtroom giggled a bit, the Judge smiled, and said "case dismissed with prejudice!"

There is something very effective about putting the passage of time into perspective by comparing it to some historical event that people are familiar with. Reagan was old, he was a two term president (8 years), and by 1994 there had been 2 presidents since Reagan left office (Bush and Clinton).