Quoted from Richthofen:I am not happy to see this game. Does it look good? Sure. It might even play awesome. But you know how you build 19 kickass machines? You con and rip off dozens of vendors and hundreds of collectors trying to get a different game. Nothing has been made right here. This is literally the first round of ponzi investors getting out early. In a bankruptcy these would be clawed back as preferential distributions. I hate that 19 people who are already rich enough to shell out 16k are gonna get a highly collectible game while the developer is getting stiffed on 11k plus a game. I'm a developer and I've been stiffed on contracts. It sucks and it costs > $11k to even retain a quality attorney for a long court case.
Quoted from AtomicChuck:I have waited 6 years for this game, thought my money was gone. My game will be on LOCATION at CP Pinball. If its good it will stay, if it sucks it will be gone.
Richthofen's not blaming or hating the rich people who can afford the game. He's making an argument based on FAIRNESS.
He's complaining that a small subset of the Zidware Inc creditor pool (~19 "lucky" people) are about to receive "preferential transfers" of Magic Girl pinball machines (i.e., providing 100% recovery on their outstanding claims), when the REST of the Zidware creditor pool (e.g., artists, software coders, parts vendors, RAZA/AIW customers) are getting stiffed (i.e., 0% recovery on their claims).
Richthofen views that as UNFAIR treatment, and other Pinsiders on this thread probably agree.
For what it's worth, the U.S. Congress believes it's unfair, too. That's why they wrote provisions into the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to allow a bankruptcy trustee to recover preferential transfers for the benefit of the debtor's estate, auction off the assets to the highest bidders, and then distribute the net proceeds to ALL creditors based on the priority and amount of their claims.
What might such a scenario look like? For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that all creditors are classed as general unsecured creditors (non-priority claims). If the net proceeds generated from the bankruptcy process end up being less than the total amount of claims outstanding, then the net proceeds would be distributed on a pro-rata basis (i.e., based on an equal percentage of each outstanding claim). Under that scenario, you and the other Magic Girl customers would receive the same percentage recovery as zombieyeti (the unpaid artist), applejuice (the unpaid software coder), GLModular (the unpaid board designer), other unpaid parts vendors, and the RAZA/AIW customers who also paid money to Zidware for pinball machines. The highest bidders at the auction, likely collectors willing to pay up for collectible games, would take home the Magic Girl machines. Creditors receiving pro-rata distributions may choose to bid in the auction, or they may choose to simply end their involvement with Zidware altogether.
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