Oh snap! Did I call it???

If this pops up as a standalone app on iOS or something, I hope hope HOPE the people who paid get their money back.

Got bored of the TOTAN I guess?

But yeah - people are looking for somebody to blame now. People imagine the game being moved at night from one "safe house" to the next... nobody wants to see anybody actually profit from this mess and that's understandable.

Plus I think it was your partner's comments about knowing where the game was that set people on edge.

In any case... I need more bulbs so I'll be in touch

So legal action is really the only avenue left.
How many "owners" are attempting to pursue this course of action. Would be nice to get a number of folks really involved.

Please upvote if you are and downvote if you are not.

BUT if you have no scratch in this please do not vote.
Just "owners"please.
Wow that term really bugs me. Owner.

Ownee?

The word to use is "Victim"

Yes those comments were just plain stupid

Oh, you do not know the half of it. I tried to give him advice in February without any luck. He talked about needing a mba etc.., I told John to be honest and stop the secret bs. I said why not expand your business model and sell artwork etc.., was talking allot of needing some sort of cash flow. Also told him to ask people for help. The guys head is so big that he refused the help of countless well off people to help save this thing.

Hey DCFAN-
You are correct, it did not deserve a thumbs down, I removed it. I was reading too quickly and missed Keefer's reference to the display patent in your quote. I wrongly assumed you were insinuating StevenP was representing John in matters other than Patent filings. My bad, I apologize.

This was suggested from day one. He could have easily funded his entire operations from t-shirts, prints, neon, whatever. But as far as I know, he gave all of that stuff away. Pre-order money (not) well spent!

The likelyhood that the game is covertly getting moved around so it can be illegally copied without zidware's knowledge... I would believe to be zero. Can we stop with all the hollywood movie plots and remember these are real people?

16,000 would be poetic.

No problem. Thanks for the reply and much respect to you. I also respect StevenP and don't want it to sound like I was implying he is/was doing anything that is wrong. He was in a position to help JPop with his business which would have been good for pre-buyers and it is a shame things have not worked out for everybody because John was not capable.

WTF is this? Pinballbulbs is not associated with the magic girl game or jpop in any way, shape, or form. Nor are "us guys associated with Pinballbulbs" hiding it planning anything regarding the game. The fact that I know where the game is and refuse to tell doesn't mean anything more than that. The person with the game told me this in confidence and it simply is not my secret to tell. Especially to an angry mob. I have no control over what happens to the game from this point forward and couldn't benefit or walk out with the game even if I chose to do so. Plus the game is unplayable enough that I wouldn't want the dammed thing in this form and I don't have the mechanical engineering skills to fix it.

This hobby especially is full of 'back channels' of relayed info.. and plenty of people who like to flaunt they know more than the average joe. Too many circles to keep track of. Sad unfortunately as such behavior usually ends up being destructive.

I think here tho people are just so wound up in all the wild turns this thing has taken they are just so quick to latch onto the next 'possible' drama point and want to believe it.

As for someone having it and being labeled toxic for having it? Give it a few years and it will just be another novelty people will gawk over like all the other prototype/etc stuff out there. No one is going to slay someone who managed to secure it eventually. All the people up in arms about getting OTHER people's bills paid will fade away.

It's understandable in the end.

It was the secrecy that made this project fun and inviting from the start, but has ultimately killed it in the end for us customers and vendors alike.

I think the shittiest part in the end is all us customers may never see a dime at this point Obviously can't be sure, but I don't expect any money to ever come back. It's so depressing to think some guys are out north of 30k. Jeez if I was fully out that I may be financially wrecked. I suppose I wouldn't be buying in 30k then, but just the thought of it is highly upsetting that it's gone.

Dude,

That is Badass to admit when you are wrong. I admit I jumped on pinballbulbs when I should not have.

John is so toxic, he brings us all down. Why can't we all be honest in what remains?

Close to 15k posts.

John may be able to generate some income by reading all of our commentary. If he does id like him to read this

I John Popidiuk do not deserve your respect and I am sorry for my arrogant behavior. John Borg is a great designer that did not rip off my Totan design. I realize that I am not the pinball god I think I am. I am sorry to all of those that I hurt and hope that everyone can except the fact that I made huge mistakes, which I will live with forever. Knowing I will never work in pinball again, deeply saddens me and I kindly ask your forgiveness"

One question I have/had regarding the JPop display patent application and interaction with the ball, was that feature to be implemented in both both Magic Girl and RAZA pinball machines?

I always suspected that PPS, which I believe still owns the rights to Williams Pinball 2000 patents, would have been after John once he started producing games.

Nothing would be done without permission. I do not have access to take the machine apart. The idea was a vp table could help multiple software guys code the rule set without each person having a machine. The idea of a vp table for development, not release, was discussed with jpop of course.

This is a complete lie. No one stole the game.

It's like John's reach has poisoned us all. Like I mentioned above, we all lost money and that is a tough pill to swallow especially since it wasn't some few hundred bucks, right? Thousands!!>?#@!

All I think is how many pins I could've bought for that(or currently how many diapers lol)

It was definitely a let down seeing magic girl in public as I had thought it was way further along. It felt like it was a most basic mockup of a game you would take to someone like Stern or JJP and super hope they took it on for development, not production, but development as there looked to be a ton to do still. At that point I had a feeling RAZA and AIW were lost causes as I was in on one of those, not MG.

Sucks Jpop is so poisoned at this point because that AIW art yeti posted was just effin killer and is a mega shame it may never be in a finished game.

Looks like markmon confirmed he knows where it is. Again, I personally don't. We don't sit around discussing Magic Girl. We actually live an hour away from each other and I do not make it over to his place often. If I do it's for led kit work.

This is still the real story here. I've seen a handful of people shrug their shoulders and say "well, it's gone - let's move on" and a handful of people expressing interest in lawsuits.

Where are the rest of the almost 200 people who paid for these games? I can't imagine most of them just walking away....they will want their money back or revenge. Most people don't just "walk away" from $10k-20k. Those who want revenge clearly aren't going to post about it. This story is far from over....

Of all the pre-orders by check or paypal
The saddest are these:

Um. Wait, I forgot what I was talking about.

-John Popadiuk

I fully agree with you by the way. I imagine most folks going forward with lawsuits are not posting about it. I'm guessing they were advised not to. I'm no lawyer, but that seems to be something they always tell you.

I'm just coming from the standpoint of I guess what is there to be obtained that John has? Hopefully enough so people can at least be partially compensated in the end. I just don't know enough of what he has left that can be taken. Idk if wages are garnished later on, no clue how any of that works personally.

The old saying is: "Living well is the best revenge" (it actually goes back to the 1600s). I've always tried to live by that, and it's worked out pretty well for me. I suspect that most JPOP buyers will continue to live very well, whether or not they get their deposits back.

I would like John to pay financially, but I'm only in ~$1800 before I stopped sending payments and demanded a refund that obviously never came. It's not worth my time or money really at this point to pursue anything, so I'm just going to "walk" and not look back. For those with $10k, $20k, even $30k+ in??!!? I'd pursue if I had that much in just to make sure John didn't get away with anything. Hopefully enough pursue it so I can cheer from the sidelines.

Morgan Freeman should read all of our commentary and record this as a book on tape.

This thread will hit 20k posts before it is said and done. Just wait for the petition and pleadings in the lawsuit to be discussed...

It's unfortunate but I see no way I'll ever get a cent back. I'm only in $6500 but a lawsuit is pointless. When jpop goes in bankruptcy he will have to pay out whatever his assets are worth in auction. The distribution might go something like this:

- government takes the back taxes first and there are back taxes
- court costs taken off the top
- vendors get paid next and there's enough owed here to zero out the funds and still have vendors owed
- owners get partial refunds but we're long out of money.

Due to the above its not worth my time participating in a law suit. I'll walk away.

I am guessing many like myself understand there is zero value in posting about it on a public forum.

There has been too much pain...too many posts. But I have an honorable compromise.

Just Walk Away.

Leave the deposits...the Magic Girl prototype...the cardboard KISS...the entire Jpop compound...and I spare you another 14,000 posts on this dead horse.

Just walk away, and there will be an end to the horror.

I give you one full day to decide.

Lord_Humungus.jpg

(Love this movie!!!)

While I knew there was no way in hell anyone was going to finish MG a part of me was secretly hoping it could have been finished just to see if the magnetic ball lock gimmick I came up with for the ends of the ramps could actually worked. I gave him that idea when after working for him for a couple of weeks, he finally showed me his unfinished playfield design for MG and asked for some input and ideas. I guess he couldn't get it together in the nearly nearly 3 years after to prototype something together to see if it could even work.

Only? Seems like a lot of cash to me...

Release the design public domain, if I can I'll work it into Spaceballs for you. Unless you are looking for money/fame... I don't have that.

Yup and the 14k I lost is a SHIT TON of money to me as well but when there is almost literally nothing you can do to re-coupe your money then....

You have to laugh or cry about it. I choose to do a little of both but online we'll definitely stick to laughing.

Still got that hat for sale guys

In fact, it gives me even more motivation to kick-ass at life and try to generate more cash-flow into my finances. Besides, Karma is a bitch and JPop has a lot of that headed his way....

yeah it's crazy when $6500 - an entire Stern Premium, is considered "only", when compared to some of the $20k hits people have taken.

If it were me. with the large amounts involved i think i would want to make absolutely sure that John has NOTHING. the million number kept being used. in reality it could easily be more like 3 million, and with not much to show for it. i guess i would really want legal folks to see the books and make sure it wasn't all arts and crafts time while most of the funds going into his 401K.

The space mission framework was built by me and ran off a raspberry pi running arch. It also used custom gottlieb system 80 displays (the large blue ones) interfaced via a controller board I designed, a proc/mpux board and a 16 (wpc design) driver board. It also used the same lamp os controller as mg and raza. I built a functioning game base and Eric helped expand on that. I am still gutted ( along with all the other stuff that upsets me) that we never got to see the playfield art ,finished playfields, or the game completed. The cabinet art was seriously cool though

You're a chill dude to take it that way. Has John reached out to you or anyone via Email or phone to just APOLOGIZE!?!? You'd think he could at least do that much...he's really messed with people's lives. They didn't get into this as a "gamble" (as some have suggested)...they paid for a "collectible product" with an expectation of receiving that product. Ice is saying that lawsuits are pointless as you may not get your money back....how about just a plea to John as a human being to do the right thing and do what he can to give people their money back? Maybe his lawyer is telling him to just keep quiet....or maybe he's just too much of a coward to confront those he screwed....I know an apology isn't money - but man, it'd be nice to see if he has a sense of human decency left.

It wasn't something I drew up on any paper plus since I came up with it while working for him it technically is his. He showed me the MG layout he had which was unfinished but probably 3/4 done and asked what I thought and asked if I had ideas. He had been telling me of all kinds of cool things you could do with magnets and I came up with the idea of having magnetic ball locks at the ends of those ramps that would be a timed lock (since you can't hold magnets forever without burning them up). The idea being you did whatever we would come up with for lighting the locks. Once lit you shoot a ball up the ramp and it was held on the magnet and then a timer starts. You have that time to shoot the other lock to make a 3 ball multiball (worth more points in everything) or if you didn't make it and the timer runs out, the held ball is released for a 2 ball multiball that has less points awarded for jackpots, etc than the 3 ball one. On that same day I unsuccessfully argued that two ramps on that playfield (at that time) would have been way better than one. He was pretty stuck on there being only one ramp. We started talking about what rules there could be but he was more fixated on what the story of the game was. I tried to steer him back to basics saying we can fill in the story later once we flesh out some basic features/rules. When I left that day he said next week when I returned we'd work on rules, I showed up next week and instead of that, he showed me a mock up something completely unrelated he was working on and had me organizing parts in the shop and putting together mechs with 3D printed mounting plates he made, to which I asked him why he was reinventing the wheel for parts someone only sees if they are servicing their games.

Now that I think about it, I think the reason he flaked out on me was my occasional questioning of things like staying on track and not spending time remaking parts that he could just use off the shelf, proven, parts for. When I was only available one or two nights a week he was always asking me when my contract day-job was ending so I could work more for him, then when it did end, every Sunday I'd text him my availability and he'd never reply. I simply give up trying after three weeks in a row of being completely ignored and sought work elsewhere. It was just luck that he happened to have paid me what I was owed for time worked the last time I was out there before he flaked out on me.

As for where the money went, I wasn't there long enough to tell you but I can say he bought a lot of stuff that was related to his projects. He had special side rails made for the cabinets and other hardware, he bought a ton of "common" parts like targets and flasher domes and he had lots of various LEDs around he was toying with, he had a fancy 3D printer and other cool gimmicks, he probably bought some used games to use as "reference", he had one other person working for him for a short spell in the time I was there that I only met two times near the end of his run before he went back overseas (I forget his name or what he was doing but he was a nice guy), he had someone make him wiring harnesses so it doesn't surprise me that 3 years later that there's nothing left as I'm sure he was paying himself a good wage for his time as he came from WMS/Midway which was a company that paid people quite well.

Got any pictures or video of this space game?

Thanks for sharing your story. Hopefully more guys will come forward with their stories... there are plenty of them out there.

Im not interested in a lawsuit as I feel all the money is gone, but there are rumblings of criminal charges brewing. JPOP may be losing more than Zidware here, he could find himself in prison depending on what gets unearthed in this investigation.

The ones I installed had the proper locking headers.

To be blunt, and appropriately crude, Jflop doesn't give a shit. The legal action will make him give a shit, however, because he will lose his house and possessions, and go to prison, as well as being shown for what he is. Hopefully. And then, guess what? I won't give a shit. Tosser.

That's justice, with a sprinkling of citrus revenge

He bought a Stern "The Pin" so he could look at their Spike system.

Now we finally know who bought the only The Pin ever sold

Well to me, "took the F ing game" feels just like "steal". So yes, you basically accused me of stealing the game. Knowing where the game is does not equate to stealing it or having any part in that. I'm going to be out money just like everyone else here and will not end up with the game as it is not mine.