The money problems were probably clear to John more than a year ago when he stopped paying his programmer, and other vendors like GLM were getting stiffed. So he kept up the facade that everything was great, he was going to do his "reveals", we were a bunch of whiny customers who don't appreciate that art takes time, meanwhile he was living a lie.

Its all hypothetical but for him coding the machine even for free would have been a win. It would be a great way to show what they can do. Street cred would be high.

You talking about John or Jenner?

Based on everything we've seen about how John operates, they wouldn't have been allowed to succeed. They would have been stifled and wasted months of time and opportunity costs.

I'd also be interested in some back glass type art, probably from MG more than RAZA.

8001 posts, and not a lot of fluff like Skit-B boob thread.

Me.. 5 minutes ago, I told him to get on the blog and answer his customers question. John said he would, we shall see

That would be Mission, not FAST.

Either way, it's way too much work for anyone to be expected to do it for free.

Spending a weekend getting a game flipping for free is one thing, spending months of your life working with John is another.

To themselves, thinking that keeping it private gives them some sort of special privilege, but the reality is they have privileged access to something that is never going to happen.

Correct. We wanted to work together to get things all set up. Then FAST was available to hire above and beyond that, same with Mission for full game programming.

Since no formal agreement was made, things stalled and we all moved on.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Can you enlighten us with a little bit more of the conversation?

In reply to razorback (quoting does weird things on my phone when they are huge), we moved on from our initial effort to work together at the end of last year. The flurry of activity since then was the result of buyers who reached out to us to see if we could help. With their support and the desperation of the situation we thought we could give it another shot. Maybe this time John would be compelled to take action (shit or get off the pot!) and, with the support of buyers, maybe we could get things done.

Over and over again, when it got down to "getting real" with a proper arrangement and game plan, things would stall... Only to pick up again weeks later like it was all fresh and the whole cycle would repeat.

We didn't have much to lose other than time. Our hardware wasn't created for John or tailored for him in any way. So we weren't in the same boat as others who put up hard goods in good faith and were left hanging.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Oh so they really owe it to themselves to share everything with you in order to deal with reality of this project. Gotcha

+1! After reading over all these software related posts you took the words out of my mouth.

No, more that they're fooling themselves that keeping it secret and staying in Popaduik's good graces is somehow worthwhile, versus helping the owners.

I read Chris (cointaker) post on the blog and then snapped a screen shot of the post and emailed it to JPOP and told him he needed to get his ass onto the blog and talk to his owners and address questions. John emailed me back within 5 min and said "Ok!!"

The Blog post that Chris made deserves answers!

Lunch time

Maybe pdx is in line for one of those 3 prototypes. looks like the only person going to get a MG out of this is john and 2 of his closest bootlicks.

Looks like PDX was pretty quick to down vote your post. It would be nice for him to actually post something of substance and not just a quick post to say "I played MG yesterday". He does seem to be very close to JPOP. It would be nice to hear an in depth reason for still believing in these projects and what exactly JPOP plans to do going forward.

What the hell guys. Projects bad enough but now its all about beating up the customers and how much they owe a bunch of people sitting on the sidelines. What a crap fest!

damn...still no video?

You can go on Cointakers website and order a RAZA CT edition. At least I could add it to my cart.

So what did Cointaker have to say?

There is a video of the MG playfield flipping, though it seems like a very old version of the game (video may be from a long time ago?)

https://magicgirldev.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/flipping-you-didnt-last-long-did-you-huh/

Sad that he isn't giving Chris the same courtesy responses.

He was on the Skit-B thread yesterday telling people that he saw right through the Kulek family BS back at EXPO in 2013 and immediately afterwards requested a refund...

Surely you can understand that he's too busy to answer silly little follow-up questions about JPop's MG prototype.

Aren't you all glad that John spent time and money for artwork on the KISS prototype now that stern made its announcement ?

What info are you expecting? There is none.

It should be obvious from all the owners venting here there's no info shared with us so none trickles to Pinside. John cuts off communication with anyone who asks him a difficult question. That's it. There's no secret info you guys aren't aware of. The magic girl blog is public, you know everything we know...as sad as it is, that's all there is.

You know Kiss doesn't work for free.

Ha!

Technically there are flippers moving a ball on a whitewood, but the ramps are still made of paper.

Ok, even if the machines do get made, who is going to be on the other end of the line to fix whatever warranty issues these have? Geez john can't even communicate to his customers, before he gets them out the door! Scary! Someone almost needs to throw a hand grenade in to get his attention. WOW.

I've had these types of concerns for a long time now, even before shit went sideways.

In hindsight, this entire venture was doomed from the day it was announced.

Is there really no way for owners to come in and do a hostile takeover on any of these projects? Seems like until there are goods to be delivered owners are investors and have some claim to what is physically and digitally there. Won't ease the pain of figuring out how to get them made, but it would at least end the circle jerk that is going on.

This was supposed to be the Holy Grail game of all and attracted a lot of people to see what was going to be shown. Now Camelot is in ruins and it seems like the ride will just spin forever. This isn't to poke fun or cause pain, but is there ever going to be a resolution?

Forced bankruptcy is as close as you would come.

I like what is written on JPops webpage below that video of the white wood.
"Quote"
You may notice the game music, sfx, effects are all “powerful”. That has been the guiding force in all of the design. Most powerful pinball made and a powerful score, effects, art, voice and pinball majesty. "Unquote"

The only thing I am sure of is that JPop has made a 'powerful' sad situation, and a lot of 'powerfully' frustrated customers. Whatever powerful magic John had, years ago, is long gone.

.

Yep, and it's probably not that close to what desertT1 suggested! The court could order a sale of Zidware's designs/art to generate cash. The money from that sale, plus any other cash that could be wrung out of Zidware, would be split up by the court among everyone that Zidware owes money to, based on standard criteria that probably don't favor the current "owners" much (it's conceivable that unpaid programmers and artists that worked on the designs/art might have a priority claim on particular assets, but hard to imagine the pre-order folks would). And whoever bought the IP would be unlikely to owe anything to the current "owners." So a forced asset sale in bankruptcy might be the best chance of Magic Girl, etc. ever being made, but might not do much for those that sent money to JPop.

You could always hire a Crow to break in, copy the hard drives and swap the router on the way out for ~$800.

-I'm not suggesting anyone do this -

Or just sit in a car nearby, work a little wireless magic, take what you want, and drive away.

I'm also not suggesting anyone do this.

Great minds scheme alike.

Or just show up as a group, kick the door in, and load everything you paid for onto a flatbed truck.

Totally suggesting you guys do this*.

_{*Not really. But you have to admit, it might be the only way anyone will see anything.}

John doesn't allow photography in his studio, and he won't let the public take photos of his backglasses at expo. Either he's hard wired to the internet, or if he is wireless he has 64-bit encryption installed on his router.

I didn't say a grandma with an iPad would be able to do it.

What would you get out of this? The KISS slide show from MGC 2014 and some Magic Girl animations?

There's nothing worth taking.

Ton's of digital artwork. Many, many revisions of said art.

30 revisions of MG, RAZA, and AIW art, and 6 other pinball project websites HTML coding

Ninety-four thousand linear feet of pointless banners with words like "Wow" "Zap" and "Believe!"

Ben, love you on this thread.

The priority ranking of claims in bankruptcy might surprise you.

Unless those unpaid programmers and artists can establish a secured claim (e.g., mechanics lien for labor and materials, or judgment lien following a successful lawsuit), or they can establish a priority unsecured claim as W-2 employees owed back wages & benefits, then their claims would likely be classified as general unsecured claims, along with the claims of other 3rd-party trade vendors.

Section 507(a)(7) of the Bankruptcy Code actually gives a 7th priority to "allowed unsecured claims of individuals, to the extent of $̶1̶,̶8̶0̶0̶ $2,775 for each such individual, arising from the deposit, before the commencement of the case, of money in connection with the purchase, lease, or rental of property, or the purchase of services, for the personal, family, or household use of such individuals, that were not delivered or provided." [11 U.S.C. §507(a)(7)]

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title11/html/USCODE-2011-title11-chap5-subchapI-sec507.htm

The initial $1,800 dollar amount in the original Bankruptcy Code has been increased numerous times over the years to compensate for inflation, and it was subsequently increased to $2,775 in 2013.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-02-21/html/2013-03998.htm

Pre-order customers who paid deposits would likely have their claims "bifurcated" (divided in two) into: (1) a priority unsecured claim of up to $2,775, and (2) a residual claim for the remainder, which would likely be classified as general unsecured. So the priority unsecured claim would likely be paid after all secured claims and some higher priority unsecured claims like administrative claims of lawyers/professionals in the case (Priority 2), and some wage & benefits claims of employees (Priorities 4 & 5), but before lower priority unsecured claims like taxes owed to governing bodies (Priority 8), and before general unsecured claims (e.g., trade vendors).

For a pre-order customer, this might be better than expected under the circumstances, or for a trade vendor, it might be worse than expected.

Disclaimer: I am not an attorney. The above is just my personal opinion and should not be construed as legal advice. Always speak with an attorney for legal advice.

And lets not forget Lebowski Effect!!