Just curious but where did the code stand? How many modes, etc did you see?

Posted 1 month ago:

All these posts about a near completed game are great.

Hopefully these pins will elevate pinball into a whole new level of greatness. If it takes Stern a year to produce normal games, I can't even imagine what will come from 3-4 years development.

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Aaaaaaaaaaaand? Use your words.

Shoot the messenger?

I can't think of a more relevant question to ask at this stage. That was not a personal shot at anyone, it was someone accurately pointing out that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

PDX was the same guy who said that three prototypes were close to completion 6 months ago. Now he says he played one over the last few days.

How is asking him to tell us what differences there are now vs six months ago "shooting the messenger"??

You don't want to know the answer to that question as an owner?

I'm confused. What happened exactly? What did Kim do that pissed you off?

So Jack and JPop couldn't reach an agreement to have JJP build the games I assume? Same with Stern (Gomez conversation)?

Well Rob here is how I see it, everyone one on this thread is slamming their fists on the table for more info (most are not owners) and anytime someone tries to post anything they are met with what I got 2 days ago...

PDX tried to give his best assessment of what he saw at the time he saw it. Frolic is an "owner" and at anytime can fly to JPOP's shop like PDX did and demand answers to the questions he asking... Should Frolic have to do that HELL NO! but it is what it is at this point. All this is JMHO so go ahead and feel free to hit me with more thumbs down if it makes you feel better.

You're dragging me into this again?? It was ONE comment meant more for JPop than yourself (or anyone else) and you want to continue to blow it out of proportion? Get over it.

AND P.S - YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A PRE-ORDER PERSON TO BE VERY CONCERNED (EVEN UPSET) ABOUT THE NEGATIVE IMPACT FAILING PINBALL START-UPS HAS ON THIS HOBBY.

Sorry PinChili! Its all good man, I was just making a point and I have to swing for the bleachers when dealing with Rob because he is a hell of a lot smarter than me (not joking) and he argues with people for a living.

John made this experience for himself. He doesn't want people texting him or leaving 100+ emails a day, than maybe he should look inward. I mean like this if 100 or more people are bitching and John thinks that's unreasonable, at some point when does it dawn on him that it's not the 100+ people who are wrong but just one person himself.

John said the games would have a big reveal 6 months ago, then he said there would be a 'on the rug' type reveal 5 months ago and he said RAZA would have a major reveal in January. Then some people say they are video taping the game several days ago. It doesn't take several days to post a video.

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He argues with people for sport, too!

Concrete, you are one of the best dudes on this whole site!

I completely agreed with you, as pretty much everyone else here did, when you made your comments about PinChili's prior post. You were spot on. It's ridiculous to have positive news bashed on like it was with that post.

But I think you misinterpreted Frolic's post, as I don't think it was shooting the messenger, I think it was asking about the most relevant and important questions that could be asked given that PDX said that 3 MG's were near completion 6 months ago, and that he has played one over the last few days.

So who is in a better position to answer the question about what the differences are from six months ago vs today??

It's an honest question from another owner. One that deserves an answer. It isn't a trick question.

If someone is going to tell us we are all wrong 6 months ago, and then 6 months passes, and they come back and tell us they played the game this week, with no other details, hell yeah I've got some questions for them.

OMG! That's hysterical. I need that on a shirt.

Arguing with the most dangerous game of all – man.

Is pdxmonkey as least posting in the private group? I don't care if just the owners get info, but man, what a case of blue balls. "I played the game that you all paid for and are dying to get even a crumb of info about. See you guys later."

With everything going on here... To walk in say this and not tell anyone anything about what u saw or how it was or any other info..... Jpop must have the Jedi jpop mind trick played on you!

I think maybe Jpop as weeks and months confused, in his mind he still has a ton of days before his next update is due, in fact, he does think he is way behind schedule, in his mind it has not been 36 months, he has been at it for 36 weeks, so he is less that a year into the schedule.

Are refunds going to be issued ? Ever? Soon? I wish someone who visits him or is in his ear would really get a definitive answer on that. I could not wait any longer so I just hired an attorney to get my refund.

Wouldn't it be great if all you had to do was ask for a refund? I have to pay $275 / hour to get my refund. Sucks.

Ever feel like you've been hit by a bus only to have the bus back up over you and run you over again and again? Fun stuff.

Do you not find it a little ironic that you're lambasting me for pointing out Concrete's "update" (where is that video again?) changes nothing with the current situation while you are simultaneously asking for clarification on what the update (game differences) actually were?

All I'm left with is that the lack of info means the game is not "near complete", 6 months ago or today.

Lack of video posted means the video is no good, or needs editing to hide stuff.

No programmer on staff for the past year means the game that people played a year ago is the same game they play today. If anything parts were moved from the white wood to one of the other machines to hobble something together that appears further along than where it was.

John could squash all this in a moment with a real video. That he doesn't or can't tells the story.

For all we know his real motivation for getting Magic Girl hobbled together is he is still holding out for that WIRED visit.

Rob you are right, that wasn't a fair comment by me to Frolics post. Frolic from one frustrated "owner" to another sorry man! The last thing I ever want to see or cause is good people here turning on each other.

You can't refund money that doesn't exist.

John's gambit was take pre-orders, make a bunch of pretty art and patents, and get bought out/hired before he actually had to produce anything.

Didn't work. And now any investor has to deal with 500-600k of unfunded liabilities (building games owed) on top of however much labor it would take to actually finish them.

Did John actually say that in your presence or is that the presumption based on the evidence? If he said it that is pretty damning for him.

Gah, I hope not. Writer hasn't even decided whether or not he's doing the story. It's definitely not a big priority for him, I can tell you that after chatting with him. And fair enough, pinball isn't exactly a huge traffic generator, and there's a lot of work on this one to unpack it if he really feels like covering it.

It is exceedingly tough to sell a business based on IP alone.

No one wants to assign value to just artwork and patents unless there is revenue to back up the IP and show it has value and I don't think expended pre-order deposits would be considered actual revenue by anyone (I know none of my clients would categorize it as such, it would be categorized as a liability...).

If that was indeed JPop's plan, it was the single worst idea I have heard during the month of April this year (and I hear bad ideas all the time).

I think we need another Adobe type video to hold us over for another few months.

What are the odds this is the same discussion in 6 months?

Just curious. Is this a highly educated guess based on what you have seen, or were there actual conversations with John to suggest that this was, indeed, on his mind?

If the latter, wow. And wouldn't it be the case that if the plan had actually worked, whoever bought/hired him would have the same unfunded liabilities? There was never going to be a time when a bigger player could buy out and fulfill his current orders and still turn a profit without throwing his original contracts for limited runs out the window.

If this was really his plan all along, he HAD to know that his original contracts would have to be thrown out in order to get that to happen. That to me goes beyond naiveté into outright dishonesty.

He seems to be a man of few words.

This is very similar to the few people who supported skitb until the very end. They were fed mis-information and willing to go to the wall defending it. I would suggest not to believe reports of progress until you can see it with your own eyes.

I saw this and figured it was just one of us speculating without much basis. When I saw it was Ben, it was pretty disappointing to think that was johns actual plan.

I formed this opinion through observation and analysis.

When you see where things are now, and look at things he's said over the years in interviews, seems like he always planned to get bought out.

Not saying he PLANNED to fail, but he got himself into a situation where a buyout was the only way to succeed.

As GLM said, his business model was never sustainable. Nuts and bolts aside, certain one-time costs are very high, specifically code. It's tough to amortize these across 100 games, let alone 20! It's just not worth programming 20 of something.

John compounds the problem by adding RAZA and AIW into the mix. Now he's got THREE games that need code, when even ONE was impossible.

And yes, assuming the money is nearly gone, even if the games were done he'd need the inventory to build them. They're complex so let's say 5k BOM each (plus labor)

That's where you get an "unfunded liability". He owes 100 RAZA, but the money isn't there to build them. Thus unfunded. Sure the back end of the RAZA deposits is still due, but if it's less than 5k each, you still don't have enough money to build them.

"The solution is to just sell MORE of each title!" In theory, yes. But you can't just say "we need 500k, so let's sell 50 more RAZA at 10k each!" because then you don't have the capital to build the 50 you just sold. (This is how many, many businesses go under)

What you'd have to do is this:

1) Need 500k?
2) Profit per RAZA is 4k
3) 500k/4k = sell 125 more games

4) Don't have the resources to build games in this quantity so #Fail

Good point Ben. Here is why the pre-order was bad, in John's case.

Let's say (pretend) John does make both MG and RAZA and they are tasty and people are willing to pay the rest of their deposits. But to make it happen, let's say now John has to sell 100 MG and 300 RAZA.

The end result is happy because the pre-order people get their games which is better than not getting their games.

But look at the late buyers. They get a chance to see the completed games, maybe play before they buy and here's another thing they got to hold onto their $10k+ all these years and not have their ass in the fire over if they are going to get their games or if they are going to be any good. If they are not any good they won't buy it. Guess what if the games aren't any good the pre-order people already bought it no matter how bad it plays.

Plus, the pre-orders were hoping for 24 MG games not 100 MG games so they foot the bill and yet don't get the benifit of super low production numbers and don't get the benifit of seeing the game before they buy it. John's money is not at risk, it's not his hard earned money it's the pre-buyers, and John didn't sell these games on a 5 year schedule and open ended production run, he sold them as super limited and in a 1.5 year timeframe.

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Agreed. Video or bust! What's the hold up? Takes minutes to upload a YouTube. I could take a video of writing this post and follow up with another one in 5 minutes showing me writing it.

So, what's the point of PDX saying "I just played it" and nothing else? Haven't we learned that silence allows everyone else to fill in the blanks?

Does the silence mean it sucked? Or does it mean Jpop somehow convinced him to stay quiet. Either way - cockteasing like that doesn't accomplish anything.

It's like when Stern posted the cellphone WNBJM video.

Everyone was crying "You tellin' me they can't just shoot a video and post it???!!!!!"

Then they posted the cell video.

Then everyone was crying "What a crappy video. Can't they spend some money with the millions they make??? Can't they get someone who can play?????"

...

I read this and stopped there.

You started out phrasing these suppositions as fact, making some pretty heavy assertions... but they are still grounded only in opinion.

Say what you will about John (I sure as hell am not defending him here), but let's keep the rabble rousing to a minimum -- there's already plenty of anger/uncertainty to go around.

To me at least, it looks a little self-serving when you are running a competing pinball company.

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Edit (as I posted below):
Indeed, "competing" probably is a bad fit, but "has a vested interest in seeing Zidware crash and burn" seems a little wordy.

it usually provides a hard on. Well maybe not in this case!

competing?

Ha, indeed, "competing" probably is a bad fit, but "has a vested interest in seeing Zidware crash and burn" seems a little wordy.

I don't see how that's true. Frankly even if John's company was doing well he's honestly not competition for anyone else. People who are paying $10k-17k for highly limited games? Just not really affecting the market that much.

That's $17K that could have been spent on (several) Spooky or Heighway pins. It's not like that money is intractably glued together, and can't be split up : P