No joking, the pinball community could be real "Artist Patrons" for ZombieYeti's work and generate a shit ton of money, more than enough to make up for toiling for years for low pay for John.

John loves magic.... He made the money disappear!

Best Hitler video ever! Thanks...needed the laugh. "My Lover..." I almost peed!!

Please consider another run of something. Love your work.

Oh and this must be why you're not make the NW show. She put her foot down and said "OH NO, you're not missing our anniversary again. ". lol Give the wife an extra pickle tickle, I'm sure she could use it going thru this disaster as well.

Zombie! Make as many as people want! Don't leave money on the table...you deserve it!

I am definetly in for a BHZA limited print.

Is this strictly a civil case? I'm curious why there is no discussion of fraud or criminal charges? My first response had I been in this situation would be to contact the local AG and file some kind of fraud complaint. After all, people paid for a product and that product was never delivered. Does Zidware have a merchant account? They could lose control of that as well. Did anyone pay with Paypal? Paypal will freeze their account over fraud claims.

I did that 2 months ago.

I am in for a MG print (unlimited or not, I do not care... but preferentially a color one) and for a BHZA (Ben Heck - **not** RAZA - assuming Ben agrees!) print.

Shut up and take my money!

Why not start a ZombieYeti thread? I think he deserves more exposure v. buried in this 13k+ thread of marathon postings.

Maybe. I only managed a semi.

Discussed a couple dozen times - search the thread for "fraud" "criminal" "civil" "complaint" "Paypal"

No, that was Space Mission X.

For those of you haven't read about it yet, several Predator pre-orderers appear to be receiving refunds to their paypal accounts. Prior to this, some were successful with charge-backs through their credit cards, but now it appears that Skit-B is actually processing the refunds. Fingers crossed everyone gets made whole, and though it's not related to jpop, maybe there's still hope of people getting some money back.

Apples and oranges.

If it turns out John Popadiuk was the nefarious thief in all this and Kevin refunds people...just face palm again. Kevin is the buffoon in the basement while John is the evil grinch stealing from the community. Wow. It's still a big "if" to me as I have not received a refund from anyone.

ZombieYeti, I wanted to quote this to make sure you saw it since he is 100% serious! Well, except for the not paying portion, because I would absolutely pay you to do this! Let either one of us know if you are at all interested and we can discuss it via email!

I totally agree. ZY, start a thread for your artwork in the Off Topic zone. Link it to this thread. Your work is awesome, lets see it get its own thread and get you out of this negativity associated with this thread.

Referring to him as Jpoop is so juvenile. I prefer Popadeuce.

Bwahahahahaha "It's been four years! We took over Europe and North Africa faster than this!"

Totally brilliant I'm not even going to try and one-up that. Well played sir!

This is a great idea. Please re-post all the artwork there so we can have it in one place.

Please do not misconstrue this as support for John in any way. I strongly believe John set out to make a pin and just miserably failed. He lacked any business knowledge, it seems, and obviously had such an inflated ego he was delusional in thinking he could do it. A failed business is a lot different than someone who is a intentional thief. Although in both cases the customer gets screwed.

I agree, apples and oranges. At least Kevin made the machines, had the parts ready to go, and just horribly miscalculated the licensing aspects. Jflop has apparently intentionally mislead people, and there is an element of criminal intent. Still trying to sell to people a few weeks back, when clearly he is aware nothing is going to happens is exemplary of that

Not when the owner of said failed business sucked out most of the money to pay himself and his wife salary while he lied to people to get more deposit money.

Heck, just six weeks ago JPop apparently was trying to sell AIW slots. Even if he is as incompetent and many say, by six weeks ago he knew he wasn't making AIW.

It is acts like these that moved him from just being incompetent in running a business and knowing how to get machines produced, to being a fraudster.

To me the biggest crime he has committed is that over two years ago he had to realize he was in trouble, and while he was getting many experience project mangers, business people, etc. offering to help him, HE REFUSED THAT HELP! Often the only thing these people wanted was a machine. Accepting that help would have potentially saved zidware and his reputation. Both are now doomed.

Well most pinsiders only think it's 2 years old, but yes, it's pretty common knowledge that this isn't brand new shit.

They'd stop making 'em if they stopped being funny but after all this time...it's still kind of hard to make a bad one.

It is pretty naive to think that somebody who compartmentalized every person working on the project from the beginning, didn't pay vendors, lied for years about the status, misrepresented the rate of progress, stonewalled the professionals who could help deliver it, and faked having deals with individuals who had nothing to do with the project had pure intentions and genuinely just failed as a businessman. Sure you may believe that, but you have very little reason to *strongly* believe that.

$1 million insurance on the pin, car falls off cliff, everyone gets a refund. The End.

IMO I don't disagree that good intentions probably turned into intentional fraud. But I think we would both agree his stupidity led him to what may be criminal. My point was he didn't have criminal intent initially.

So your point is John went into this with criminal intent? I completely disagree if that's what you're saying.

John went into this with no intent

According to posts earlier in this thread, he was still trying to take orders after it was obvious the game was in trouble and not going to get built. If that is true (no reason to doubt it) that is CLEARLY criminal intent.

You don't get off the hook for starting out un-informed before morphing into a scumbag. Seems like ripped off everyone helping with the project too. That wasn't accidental.

I don't think Popaduik actually put any real thought into it at all.

I suspect it started and ended with "You know what would be cool?"

OT: Are you sure Kevin has anything to do with these refunds?

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/downfall-hitler-reacts

People have posted quotes from him before where he waxed poetically, in response to other boutique builders' inexperience and lack of understanding of the manufacturing process. I don't think there's much room to be sympathetic at this point.

Also, I was reading through the Skit-B thread, and those people are apparently now getting refunds? I couldn't help but notice how much more aggressive they were in harassing everyone continuing to associate with the fraudulent operation, whereas with JPop, his associates show up and everybody's wishing them well despite not knowing what the relationship is with a group like Pintasia. If you respond differently, you're going to get different results.

I don't know all the details of the skit-B debacle but supposedly the FBI dropped the case and people think it's also a waste of time pursuing similar recourse with Zidware? I would beg to differ From what I read, the FBI couldn't find any evidence that Skit-B repurposed funds for projects other than what were promised customers. Everybody knows that's not the case with Zidware - customers' money was spent on a wide variety of stuff that had nothing to do with the products they purchased. I think there's a stronger criminal case there than there was with Skit-B. Customers should be acting appropriately IMO. And this notion that if one criminal investigator says it's not worth pursuing, that means give up.. that's not valid. They're all public servants - if enough people bitch and moan, they WILL act.

John went into this without the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to do it. His inability to create a team that could work together as well as bring in the individuals needed to make it happen, is his biggest weakness. It is hard to understand how he could understand he needed a developer, an artist, etc. but not a business manager and a project manager. But I guess he did not want the latter two, since he did not want anyone who would tell him what to do and how to do it.

At the end of the day, it was his ego and need for control that made failure a fait accompli

What does his original intent matter? So you're saying someone who signed up for aiw right at the end would be ok being screwed since jpop didn't initially have criminal intent? Put another way: A guy doesn't plan on cheating on his wife but he goes out with the boys, gets drunk and cheats. Is he less a cheater because when he left to go to the bar he didn't intend on cheating and more importantly; he was drunk?

I'm saying that from the very start he put the systems in place that would allow him to operate dishonestly. Take that for what you will.

From one of my earlier posts.

Original intent does matter in a number of ways. Also read my earlier post:

Only a couple of days left to see the reality of the situation!

If the Nigerian businessmen who keep e-mailing me knew about this site, they would have a gold mine. Because there is a huge population of people here who are extremely "trusting." And even when that trust is betrayed they turn a blind eye or jump to the defense of their betrayer. I am willing to bet that a lot of people are going to end up handing over money to pintasia, even though it is common knowledge their financial planner is tied to numerous ponzi schemes. Because some people just can't believe somebody would just take their money and run.

latest info is that Kevin (and his Lawyer) were NOT behind these refunds. Unclear why paypal has been doing it. His lawyer keeps saying he is still planning on making the games and they are working through the details. If you do believe he will make these games, I have some ocean front property in Idaho for sale that you may be interested in, both Atlantic and Pacific views are still available, but they are going fast, so don't delay.

grrr me angry at pinballs now!.jpg

Money gone,me angry at pinball now!!!

qbert:is all our money gone?

aa mg 9.jpg

Dude hate the player (JPOP) not the game

Pardon my bluntness, Kevin and John are both idiots. Kevin for thinking he could slip a game or two .. hundred.. under Fox's radar, and John for having no production plans and thinking some magic pinball company would come bail him out.

Neither went into their respective projects looking to rip anyone off, but as the wheels fell off each train, the conductors started to get shady to prop up their failures. Both should have come clean far earlier than now, but ehh... humans hate admitting failure.