Maybe John's just a genius comedian, and he's pulling this big video stunt because all of the machines have actually already been shipped!!!

Kind of like how everybody thought Scoregasm was a April Fool's joke.

Wow wow wow. That video would make me concerned if I was an owner regardless of all the other issues! Theatre of the absurd just got pathetic.

It looks like the flipper switch is/can make contact with the shooter rod.

Yes, he discovered his glass doesn't hit the shooter rod!

But he hasn't yet discovered the extra speakers in the cabinet will make the glass rails rattle like crazy...if he's pumping anything decent for power anti rattle tape won't fix it...

I have to give JPOP credit for keeping on posting; hard to criticize him for not speaking, or keeping everything secret, then jump on him when he does speak.

Also listening to his voice, and his continued joy/pride was nice, reminded me of listenting to Jpop's talk seemingly forever ago at the NW pinball and gamroom show. It was a terrific, passionate pinball presentation.

That is why it is so hard to hear he was "lucky" with the shooter rod. Looking at it seems to be too high and too far to the right. Not knowing what parts might be missing, I am happy to be wrong. But LUCKY you can get the glass on and off???

WHAAAAAAAT?

Could the issue with the shooter rod distance to the playfield be that the playfield does not have its hangers installed?

I changed out the lockbar cabinet assembly on a BW game and when I rested the playfield down without the hangers, it looked similar to whats seen in Johns video. Just a guess...

He hardly ever posts, which is a big (one of many) reason(s) this blew up. "Keeping" might be a bit too much credit.

Yeah, but this is the thirdish post in the last few weeks?

But this bit of "luck" makes me wonder even more what the odds are of the ramps turning out perfect on the first go. Oh well. If he is hauling his game for the Pacific NW show, I can see in person.

I hope he keeps it up, but he has a poor track record which makes me not have much faith.

he will probably freak out when cameras come out

Should we spoil the public reveal since owners already have the pic of the play field with paper ramps

Lockbar receiver may interfere with high/odd placement of the plunger (he holds up the lockdown bar, but there's no receiver).

I also am surprised that he doesn't intend to make a custom piece of lexan to fill the gap between the extended length of the cabinet and where the standard length glass stops. It looks like (but who can tell from these pictures) that you could put I highly ornate (lazer etched, perhaps) piece of plexi that has a glass lip along one edge and put it either at the head or down at the apron and not obscure the view of anything. Then folks could get their standard glass, invisiglass, etc. and it might even look cool..? I can't think how you'd deal with the seam where the glass and lexan meets without it looking visually off though...

I'm sure people will feel the need to respond that there's no machine so it's pointless to be so pragmatic about this. I hear that. fair enough, but at least we have something constructive to discuss for a change.

The higher slope on normal DMD glass compared to EMs causes more reflections of lighting, etc to be seen. I wonder how this even higher slope will affect things. A lot of people have lighting set at just the right position to be out of sight in reflections and the higher slope will bring the lights into view.

The places around here have to send out to have it done. Still it only takes 2-3 days.

That video is, literally, the definition of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

This video is what I would have expected during the first 3-4 months of development not after 3-4 years.

Look at the Wooly video and those guys were *not* working 84 hrs a week on their machine.

Absolutely amazing John is at this early stage.

It's amazing he isn't embarrassed making these kinds of videos. Just shows how out to lunch he is and how we got to where we are.

It's surprising such a simple thing... I would have thought he had glass on them at Expo at least. Sheesh. This is more proof the water gets to full boil before the frogs realize.

I sure hope this trip out West is a Lebowski moment. Not holding my breath though.

Why does that test playfield not have inserts in it?

These games were advertised and pre-sold with a 2013 done/delivery date in writing by John.

We know it takes guys like JJP, DP, Heighway 1-2 years to start shipping after they reveal full prototypes my only hope is John is much farther along than he's letting on and he's planning a Stern type reveal plus immediate delivery if not these games are still 2-3 years from delivery (if ever).

Based on people seeing glaring issues like the shooter rod, seems impossible that these games would jump magically from first prototype to shipping game.

Look at how many prototype revisions WOZ, Hobbit, MMR, Full Throttle, etc, have had.

untested ramps that still aren't done, no one has played an actual "game" on these things other than batting a ball around an incomplete white wood.

It's a joke that it's even being presented that these games are almost done and he can manufacturer them immediately.

Seems like we're still delaying the inevitable here.

According to this...

http://www.pinballschool.org/enroll.html

... Pinball School is in session today!

Is anyone attending right now? Or does the NDA prevent students from even telling people they are there?

In my experience tempered glass can be obtained with about 1 day turnaround. But expect to pay twice as much for glass that's just a few inches longer.

It's shocking John didn't pot more forethought into spacing. He's really good at Solid works I'd assume he has an assembly of at least how the cabinet goes together. Wood, minus divet, plus ball / 2 that's where shooter rod tip goes.

Anyone attempting to save this project needs these things at minimum:

1) Project manager who kicks asses instead of kissing them
2) BOM and supplier chain
3) A full time programmer for one year
4) Audio video company for animations working with programmer
5) Someone to manufacture the games (add 1k on BOM for this)

He was busy watering his garden with Brawndo.

Just thought it was an interesting topic to discus irrespective of the game ever getting completed. That is, if you had this as a design challenge, what would you do?

But, that's fine. I'm sure there's another meme you can reply to this with

And apparently: 6) a pinball designer who understands the engineering of spacing issues.

I'm concerned the "measure three times, cut once" ramps will have issues. I don't think JPop has these games nearly as far along as some seem to feel. Best I can tell, he (at least the last couple of years) did not intend to actually manufacture anything himself (he's been sitting back waiting for a buyout it seems) so he figured the engineering issues would be other people's problems.

Ben, if JPop would just turn these over to Spooky (without charging a royalty...JPop has paid himself MORE than enough for his lackluster efforts) what do you think the total cost would be at this time to actually get these games finished and manufacture them? I'm asking for an educated "best guess" based on what we are actually seeing right now.

My uninformed opinion is about 700k if everyone was switched to Magic Girl.

"Students will eventually move into designing and building their own pinball playfields to be hand wired and completed, good enought to flip and take home. The basic skills of pinball design will leave the students feeling accomplished and knowledgable with a basic RUBRIC that will be used to measure performance, undersatanding and goals."

good enought to flip...

Jpoop is a stubborn noob.

"Deep Root Pinball" was John's purported investor.

http://www.octafinance.com/deeproot-pinball-just-had-published-form-d-regarding-6-00-million-fundraising/

Though the deal supposedly blew up, the company recently funded itself to the tune of $6MM. The point is, they do exist and do have money. Anyone know if the original deal is truly dead?

I'd love to know their reasons for taking a pass.

TigerLaw:

All "best possible scenario" guesses here:

8k to get a game built (7k BOM + 1k labor) * 150 games owed (possibly more AIW is ???) = $1.2 million

Backend payments on RAZA 4k * 125 = ($500,000)

So your 700k is a good starting point. But then you have to add a PM, programmer, audio/video development, plus overhead. Probably more like 1 million investment + 1 year to start shipping MG.

The real problem is going to be return on investment. (unless it's just a tax write off) Margins are going to be SLIM even on a 10k game with all the custom crap, so 2k profit per game you'd need to sell 500 more (at 10k???) just to recoup what you spent originally.

Thanks for the honest assessment Ben.

From a pure numbers perspective, with the initial "capitalization" (I guess we can call it that) seemingly exhausted by John's personal salary and/or other self dealing actions I just don't see this as salvageable any longer.

At this moment John looks like a straight bozo/buffoon. Nobody with any level of competency or sophistication is going to take him seriously in the investment world, regardless of their affection towards pinball. Just my opinion of course.

I'm going to retire myself from this thread for a few days gang.

Correction, "IS trying to fund itself". The Form D filing is an intent to sell securities to raise capital. In this case, 6 million. The terms of the funding are 1 year and currently no securities have been sold. Minimum buy-in is $25K (if you feel like investing).

You can find the Form D filing on the SEC website. Just do an EDGAR search for "Deeproot".

I think you are right on the switch slot. But after a second look I think the playfield is just sitting low without hangers attached. Hard to tell from the video aspect but the playfield angle seems to be off from the shooter rod angle. I suspect that once the lockdown bar receiver and hanger brackets are installed, it will line up.

Good point. We don't know what the PF is resting on. The hangers will lift it up, and also push it back.

The cabinet edge, being at a higher angle in the back, is hopefully what made the glass closer to the shooting rod, not the rod's placement itself.

There is a Pinsider named "deeproot"

https://pinside.com/pinball/community/pinsiders/deeproot

Same person?

let's say MG x26 games and RAZA x 124 games that's 150 games.

I've calculated the respective costs $16K and $10K each and come up with $1.65M (that's the number John would have collected if everyone paid in full)

let's assume Ben's numbers are correct $7K+ $1K to build each one. That's $8K then, another $1,300 per game to code.

Obviously MG has 1/5 the sales number but cost the same to code as any game. So game code (per game) would be like $1K for each RAZA and $5K per MG (small number runs don't make a lot of sense John).

<Wooly was coded and Predator are coded and they didn't spend any money on code or very little so I am not sure how accurate $200K for code is. Maybe John thought he could noodle through this with no budget like Skit-B did>

but let's assume BOM plus labor is $8K and code is another $1K that's $9K per pin (Cost to build and code. **Note: I'm rounding way down on code). ------------- Grand total outlay still to come 1.35M

John only had (total, not counting AIW money) total potential from 150 pins $1.65M

So if the math is to add up, at these numbers (and they might actually be less because some people have got refunds). John would have to spend (under) $300K for the last 3-4 years. If he is to have the $8-$9K reserve to build and ship these games.

Small runs are scary (stupid) if you figure it costs the same to code 16 games or 160 games or 1600 games, the small runs super crazy.

Pinside said mean things.

I don't believe it has been confirmed.

Pretty sure it is. Investor was in Texas, so is that account, and if you go back in the thread that's the same account that was sending cryptic messages to Kim, which in context look like investment related.

http://deeprootfunds.com/

I worked with a company like this in Chicago. If it's the same type of thing, which it seems to be, it's really an investment group that has a pool of rich clients looking for high risk/high return investment opportunities. The place I worked with in chicago suggested funding a company I helped start in this way. The company in Chicago was brought up on charges. They had a really large group of investors though. IMO, dicey stuff if you ask me. Of course there's zero correlation between this group and the company in chicago. Or at least that I'm aware of.

I went back and looked for this video, is it posted on his blog or something?

I'm aware of the situation, but there are also elements (such as the altered logo, the cryptic messages, etc) which either make it seem less-than-genuine, or as Chuck nicely put it "dicey stuff".

" Despite Robert J Mueller’s reporting disadvantages, Deeproot Pinball, Llc could benefit from this reporting. First, it helps potential customers feel more safe to deal with a firm that is well financed. The odds are higher that it will stay in the business. Second, this could attract other investors such as venture-capital firms, funds and angels. "

Angels?

Yes.

If you're an angel looking for a high risk / high return investment I can't see this being it. The high risk part is there, but the other half is missing.