Because the lack of delivering or SHOWING anything after all these years has nothing to do with the customer's loss of confidence.

It's so frustrating to be a logical person and try to interact with someone who isn't. Popaduik is clearly living in a bubble of his own ego and no amount of reality will penetrate.

It reminds me of Steve Jobs "Reality Distortion Field" except that one worked on *other* people!

While I certainly feel bad for pre-order people on one hand, they knew the risks (even if they didn't give those risks enough credence.) If you think any manufacturer relying on pre-order money is immune to going bankrupt you're wrong. Accept that you're taking a real risk. The manufacturer obviously does not have to disclose to you how financially healthy they are. When you see red flags don't dismiss them just because the next guy (or gal) does. History will repeat itself as we're seeing here.

Also not responding to refund requests. Not paying vendors.

How about as a decent person? The things that have been reported go way outside the bounds of what is acceptable as a person, forget as a business. He took time and product from small business owners, good people, and he doesn't pay them. A month late, OK, oops! But months and months and months is intentional and is has nothing to do with being bad at business.

Well, I've lost a lot of respect for him in general.

And the only thing this 'pinside group' did was to show me that he hasn't delivered, being far, far behind in everything.

So, granted, without this 'pinside group', I may have been an idiot and sent him money. D'oh.

Was it not the PINSIDE community that gave it the initial support, and allow discussions that only further enabled sales?

And you now blame it?

What a crock.........

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.

Well, yea, but when I'm buying something I generally read the reviews. If the reviews are bad, I don't order that product. John is blaming the bad reviews for not finishing, not himself. He had more cash flow than he needed at first. To blame the cash flow drying up on the reviewers is what I take exception with. No one will buy Alice in Wonderland now, because people have heard that he takes money and doesn't finish. Whose fault is that????

Pinside giveth, and pinside taketh away.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Why is it that, in a VERY small way, I feel sorry for this guy?

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I'd feel a bit sorry for him if he would just admit to *some* culpability in the situation, but he's blaming everyone else but himself.

That's one of the most frustrating aspects of this whole thing. If he'd just *be honest* and own up to it, I bet everyone would forgive him. That is, if it wasn't all just a scam all along for him to tinker around in his sandbox on other people's dime.

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.

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From Page 1 of this thread, Posted 10 months ago:

All one has to do is look at page 1, and then follow the steady descent this thread had. Truly avoidable which makes it a real tragedy.

Ugh. He called himself an "artist". What an inflated ego.

If you walked up to Steve Ritchie and called him an artist, he'd laugh at you.

I came to the tough conclusion I ended up becoming a literal Artist's Patron some time ago. Unfortunately I never got anything to hang on my wall out of it.

Your $100 appears to be safe.

Man, I was feeling ranty that day!

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

Holy crap, the last time I saw Aurich that worked up it was . . . never.

But he is spot on right.

More than ever I think a deal with stern is his best, and possibly only, option. I know some of you don't agree but I don't see any other way his machines get built. Spooky pinball as a long shot possibility but not likely.

It really pisses me off that he thinks being an "Artist" excuses the absolute bullshit he has pulled. Being an Artist doesn't force you to overpromise. Being an Artist doesn't force you to outright lie about the state of your projects. Being an Artist doesn't force you to run a ponzi scheme to make late customers pay for the projects of your first customers. And being an Artist doesn't excuse complete and utter incompetence when people gave you money in good faith because you assured them that you knew what you were doing.

Yes there are character traits that come with being an Artist, but it's total assholes who hide their fuck-ups behind their "different wiring" that make life hard for the rest of us Artists who are actually honest professionals.

The doors are closing...Jjp can't help him, stern won't help him... And the vendors that do want to help him he brushed off..... Sucks

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!

Are you kidding? Who in their right mind would put up that kind of money after all this? Not I, said the cat.

Believe me, I had not forgot about that post, or the other one that was posted with it, and I still stand by my nomination:

This-

artist.png

I think that's this one:

It would be great for JPop and the buyers, but why would Stern step into this situation now? How would a deal even work? Clearly a partnership's not happening (see posts by Fast, Ice, and others that have tried to work cooperatively with JPop). So a straight sale of everything he's done so far, with Stern then finishing design/coding/production? Even if JPop would agree to that, would Stern really be willing to pay enough for whatever he's done so far to cover full refunds for all of the pre-order money already collected?

I just can't imagine Stern wanting to get involved when there's money to be made making Fast and Furious or Game of the Thrones without getting mired in the mess JPop has created.

Round and round the preorder bush
The investors chase the weasel,
And when they ask for a refund of cash
JPop! goes the weasel.

A penny for a pop bumper cap
A penny for a pixel,
That's the way the money goes,
JPop! Goes the weasel.

A half a pound for cabinet design,
A half a pound for the hinges.
Mix it up and make it nice,
JPop! Goes the weasel.

Up and down the pinball show aisles,
In and out of the Eagle,
That's the way the money goes,
JPop! Goes the weasel.

I've no time to plead and pine,
But take the time to wheedle,
Kiss me quick and then I'm gone
JPop! Goes the weasel.

Stern wont. Gary is a smart business man. He's not that stupid. The volume is not there to make it worth his while (god knows the legal and other mess).

At this point, "boutique pinball"; has been great for Gary. He gets a lot of crap at times here on Pinside, but he continues to prove he is one of the smartest in the room.

Pinside as much as anything enabled him to show off his shiny new business, created a fever and collect a ton of money. Pinside stuck with him and defended him for way longer than it should have - until just recently in fact. Pinside did not collectively change their mind until long after even JPop himself had to have known the project was in serious trouble. Now he is blaming Pinside for his downfall? Sorry, but Pinside reacted to the downfall, not the other way around. What balls on this guy.

Jpop got owned.
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But I wonder how many melons do they believe they will sell?

The point is it looks like a good design and stern would not have to limit it to 15 machines. They could make 1500-2000 of them and make a lot of money. They wouldn't have to pay John, they would just have to give the 15 machines to the people who paid for them. It's pretty simple, at least in thought Egos tend to screw things up at the worst times though.

IMO, he's in denial.

Which design are you referring to? There hasn't been a flipping whitewood yet, right? So aside from some cool artwork and theme what else is there? Stern would buy incomplete game designs? And do you think John considered BOM cost in his designs like Stern does? And how do the pre-order folks not feel screwed regardless since they were expecting a game with exclusivity and they paid significantly more than what Stern could sell them for.

No way this option happens despite it being a nice thought that someone would bail John out.

Even if Stern were to help out, I would expect JPOP to probably have unreasonable terms and end up shooting himself in the foot again...

Jersey Jack visited him just a couple of weeks ago. Not sure what all transpired but the net result was NO deal.

That says a lot right there, because if there was money to be made I would imagine JJP would have snagged it.

That was my take away. Jack isn't in the position to leave money on the table. So there is more going on than we realize.

I posted this in the private facebook group:

I spent 90 min on the phone with John today and I must say I went from total despair to somewhat hopeful! I still think these games can be built, John is working on a few things and I felt good about our conversation. I told him the same thing everyone else has been telling him Communicate with your owners & show your work to all.... Now is the worst possible time to cut off communication! I think he gets it but we shall see.

EOM

That is too bad. The JJP quality and JPOP design could have been a real winner. Looks like JPOP wants his cake and eat it too, instead of knowing when to call it quits, and to know when it's time to walk away. Maybe pride is getting in the way.

If Stern bails him out, they deserve a congressional medal of honor because they sure as hell won't make any profit out of it...

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.

Thanks Concretehardt,

Unfortunately we could copy and paste your message and repost going back in this thread from many different authors.

The sad thing is he keeps talking about being "too busy" to update the net, but then we'll hear about one 90 minute call after the next. I've had those types of calls with him as well. He probably spends a lot of his day having long phone calls with just a few people.

What are the 5 phases of grief again? Oh yes, stage 1, denial.

Wow, after reading that e-mail/response, JPop just reminds me of Barton Fink.

oh and PS.... we can't continue with the "I had a great conversation, can't tell you what we talked about but I'm excited!"

I don't expect you to spill what John told you, but whatever he had to say he needs to spill his guts and turn this around (if it can be turned around).