It really does sadden me to say it, but unlicensed games just are tough sells. People claim they want them, but then they see them and would rather talk about their favorite movie instead.

I think it's really because anything unlicensed brings the baggage of unreasonable expectations. Witness this thread. People want a zombies game! But no, not that kind of zombies game! When there isn't a license for you to kind of box the concept in mentally it's free to wander, and you can become disappointed easily if it doesn't wander in the direction you personally love.

I have themes that I would love to do if I was crazy enough to try and build my own pin. And I'm reasonably certain that I could build some excitement around them. I'm not a pinball designer, but I do know design and branding, I've built a career around it.

But I know that no matter how well I did that, and how slick my marketing and art and presentation was, I could generate all the excitement and probably double it with almost no effort by just reaching into a hat and picking a popular and visually interesting 80s movie.

Ever since I heard the C2C pinball interview with Ben where he mentions a Tesla theme, I have been hoping he and the Spooky guys would announce something. From this, it doesn't look too good for this very interesting theme (at least to me). Guess I will have to stick with someday getting a virtual pin running Zen's Telsa table.

I completely agree! Rarehero is a posterchild for that.. If u read back through his posts he contributes nothing, fuels the fire of negativity and owners frustration, and battles Kaneda! Well done!

FYI. John recently "hours ago"posted a blog update, answering zero questions owners have been begging for.

I think just as all licenses aren't equal, all unlicensed games aren't equal.

When people are chanting "unlicensed theme" what they're really saying is "unlicensed WMS/Bally 90s DMD era-esque theme".

Ill acknowledge Williams's empire of artists, designers, engineers, software developers, etc. In their renaissance era of pinball. I mean Medieval Madness is an unlicensed theme... with Tina Fey doing some of the voices. Shoot. Nowadays companies secure licenses and cant even get authentic actor's voices!

What would you rather have, a No Good Gophers or a Teed Off? That's a good example of how two unlicensed themes (golfing gopher hijynx) can yield totally different results in demand.

It all comes down to the core, art, design, music, replayability, etc., But it has to be a marriage between every aspect to work. People aren't thinking of "Wipe Out" or "World Challenge Soccer" when they say unlicensed theme, they want another WMS/Bally DMD-era, quirky but cool, symphony of sounds, mechs and lights.

IOW a cohesive, great design including all the elements of a great game will always sell. A ringmaster with fangs and a turban??? Maybe.

What about a zombie ringmaster with fangs and a Von Dutch hat?

Wanna see some MG and AIW head ove there and check it out.

http://inspire.adobe.com/2014/12/18/zombies_yetis_pinball.html

Welcome to Pinside. Hope you've enjoyed your first few weeks.

John is active on the RAZA blog today has posted several updates.

Is it me, or anyone else think jambi from pee-wee's playhouse with the latest magic girl "ringmaster"?
zidware_genie_jambi.jpg

Wish? did someone say wish?
Yes, I wish that magic girl was finished
Alright then, repeat after me..
meka leka hi meka chiney ho
meka leka hi meka choney ho

I don't know whether he's trying to be funny or meta by showing the (empty) cabinets again. And no acknowledgement of the dozens of questions from his customers.

Jesus, that's more of the games and artwork I've ever seen, and he's allowing THAT to be public?

And yet all I see is artwork...

Thanks for the link.

Exactly my thoughts as well. Why not show us this stuff. It would help his cause immensely.
Suprised to see he is diverting resources to aiw to the level of having a foam core cabinet with art while two pins are treading water.

Some wide open shots of john's shop in here. Surprising.

WTF... we've paid thousands of dollars and get bread crumbs and that video showed me way more than I've ever seen.

Not really. He's good at hiding things he doesn't want people to see. Every shot was very carefully planned to only show you a glimpse of something interesting or cool, but no major detail.

Not sure when this was filmed, but those wavy ramps on MG are very different than the original test ramps he built and had on the games earlier this year. There's quite a bit shown that surprised me.

Wonder if Jeremy is paid up.

Zing!

magic_girl1.jpgmagic_girl2.jpgmagic_girl3.jpgmagic_girl4.jpgmagic_girl5.jpgmagic_girl6.jpgraza1.jpgraza2.jpg

Great commercial for John. If I was a new enthusiast and saw this, I would be ordering an AIW.

imo, it's a rather useful feature...

there's only a small percentage out of the couple hundred "regular posters" who irritate me... why should i let them urinate in my cereal? it is much better just to ignore that small percentage and enjoy interacting with the rest...

there is enough irritation in real life...

Post pics of the RAZA pf cad drawing. That one is fairly detailed

Magic Girl doesn't even look like it's any further along than that Kiss game he brought to MGC last year. Both look pretty and light up and do some basic scoring but are FAR from complete. If I had to guess I'd say JP really enjoys the creative side of pinball design and coming up with ideas but once it gets to the meat and potatoes portion of actually building machines and doing the difficult work his pinball ADD kicks in and he moves on to a new project with new foamcore/art. I don't think he has the self discipline to focus on one project until it is complete and I highly doubt that more than a handful of games ever get built. Will he have any money left to pay employees to actually build games and rent warehouse space? I think there's a reason that Stern has never been interested in working with him on a game and that is becoming evident throughout this process.

That's incredible! There are at least 3 MG prototypes in those videos. And they look freaking awesome. Now JPOP doesn't really get to reveal himself as this video trumped him. He should just release the goods at this point. Still have manufacturing questions too.

JUST today, John posted FISH EYE photos of the shop where you couldn't see jack. This video was way better than I've ever seen. I can see why people get so excited visiting the place. There is some cool looking shit there.

JOHN.... PLEASE.... answer some your customer's questions about how these projects are going to end and be produced so we can get excited again. The ignoring us is bad business.

Looks very recent, as one of the posters he mentioned was for Aug and the other for November. Also it looks cold and there is no corn anymore.

I like his artwork and some of the game art looks very, very cool.

Thanks for sharing this, very interesting and the art looks great (of course). I hope we do get to see the various toys and features in action one day, they look pretty cool.

well the apron is done... that certainly deserves lots of more pre-order money be sent in.. you know what to do

To be fair, this is nowhere near true. The Kiss game was artwork on foamcore with a few laser cut plastics. Actually flipping that thing would have destroyed it. The software was just an attract mode and skeleton code that would make the game score points and make noise when switches were hit, if you did start a game (which he said was crashing anyway when he had it at MGC - which was odd because it was working ok before that) ... ANYWAY ... MG is a full on real playfield with real mechs, they're just not all finalized yet. And the software has a decent amount in it already, including a fully operational service & test mode. No where near as rudimentary as the Kiss 'demo' model.

That's way more than I've ever seen on here. The fact that he allows this to be public and is generally so secretive about everything is bizarre.

I wonder if Adobe signed a NDA. Wtf?

I wonder how much John paid that guy to design the KISS machine.

The video is the first real update ive seen in this thread.

Definitely more than whatever MG reveal is happening this week.

Did anyone else choke when Jpop said "it's perfect, let's just move on"?

I totally dig the art. I think he found someone with great sensibilities for pinball. The video looks super fun, totally get the hype.

But man, I kind of winced every time I saw how much time was going into AIW. On one hand, he's asking for money for it, so I guess it's good that something is being done one it. On the other though, here you have owners screaming for just a little info on the first game, and you're messing around with a third game?!

It's nuts that you guys are paying thousands of dollars and all NDA'd up, and yet you're seeing shit for the first time clearly in an Adobe commercial.

Is he using materials that aren't RoHS compliant?

I am so torn about what I saw in that video. Parts of it are.... "YES!!! this is why I am in on this!!" and the fact that this thread is 2000+ posts of customer issues.... TOTALLY AVOIDABLE and bad business.

That shot of the RAZA playfield is more than I've ever seen before. The "patented" lighting system we get to see quite well in the video for the first time.

Magic Girl looks cool visually and seems interesting layout-wise.

Taking too long? Sure, but looks cool none the less.

There was more revealed in that video that in the blog "reveal" or on the actual owners blog. Thank you for posting that!!

There you go folks, playfield art, backglass, plastic art and cabinet art. Everything revealed. So why couldn't he just send US THAT VIDEO?!?!?!!!!!!!!

That video brings us back to the point that John is sincere making these games. He is there working. No one has ever called it a scam.

But he refuses to answer owner's questions and concerns about the schedule and other points, and a in general has no accountability to anyone.

I was dazzled by what was shown in that video, just as everyone is when they visit the shop, and I've said before I suspect that is part of the problem. People are blown away with what they see, no one holds his feet to the fire when they visit.

Hate to pipe in with vague info, but from what I know (and I'm not speaking in any official capacity), JPOP is currently taking steps to address many of the issues raised in this thread. Can't expect comments right away while things are being arranged. But I can say that the stuff he's doing, as suggested in the video, is pretty darned cool and new. He isn't just slapping a popular theme onto a generic layout with standard playfield features. (And nobody has mentioned the music/audio, but the early stuff I heard was amazing.)

I don't think a flipper flips or a ball is seen rolling on any of the games in the video. John's fear of being copied must have disappeared once Adobe said they wanted to make a slick video in his shop.
Why wouldn't he announce this on the private blog? How can John claim the ability to enforce an NDA when he violates it when it suits him?

Things are flipping, whether you've seen them or not. As for your NDA comment, that was pretty silly. He's free to reveal his own info whenever he wants to. Maybe he just feels its more ready to be shown now?

So funny, that Adobe video was the most exciting thing we've seen yet (without being at his shop in person).

It would be fantastic if John were subjecting himself to an NDA as well. But I don't think a contract with yourself is legally enforceable.

I've always believed JPop is the greatest pinball designer ever and from what I'm seeing my view is far from changed...

Just posted this to the blog. He doesn't acknowledge them but I know he reads them and at least I get it off my chest:

John, we're entering farce territory now when Adobe shows the world more of your games than we (you know, the guys paying for the party) have ever seen:

http://inspire.adobe.com/2014/12/18/zombies_yetis_pinball.html

Your owners have been begging and pleading for some answers and changes with how things are done and we get fish eye lens photos and a revisit to the "empty cabinets" that started the big broo-ha-ha 2 months ago after expo.

Then there's the whole issue of you pretending you don't see the comments or questions in the blog recently. But I have these quotes from you from 2 months ago, but still no answers:

On Oct 21, 2014 I posted:

"Thanks for the updates, John. I do want to keep insisting for some answers to questions asked including an updated time line for the project. I appreciate your heart felt post, but I still have no idea what YEAR i might expect the game.

I’m sure I can speak for all of us when I say we all know you have the best of intentions, the quality of the work is beyond debate, but the transparency has been poor and questions have gone unanswered, and still are.

Not trying to be a ball buster. Just want some straight answers to some straight questions. Thanks."

To which you responded:

"Morning Chris, yes from your earlier post I diid note and we have began on clarifying these and I will report back. Jpop"

Also posted by you on Oct 21, 2014:

"Well getting kicked in balls by fellow Canadian Chris was hard, but it is what is needed now. Lying to customers is not the way I work, to make them go away for a while. "