Maybe were at the end of time!

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria.

oh wait maybe that is another thread.

At the same time we have those who wound up with the Predator prototypes being treated as pariahs. Last I heard they were going to have to cough them up, or pay for them again plus a penalty if they want to keep them.

Just an interesting contrast, not saying anything disparaging about either group!

MG were first in line paying people.

Predator prototype people were not only cutting in line in front of paying people, they did not have receipts.

Absolutely Debatable...
Also...
The World May Never Know...

Just for pinball history in reference to Mr. Heck's comments:

"Do the original (BBB) 10 ever change hands?"

Although the correct number is 14 an enthusiast needs to look more closely.
Out of the 11/13 known owners (as one was lost in a fire), the answer is rarely, but do happen. Average price is $25K. Two are still "missing" most likely with former Capcom employees or management somewhere. This is just not even private information even for those that have been around for while. It is even possible the last two absent games are no longer existing as well. These type of things happen.

"Also the same hobby where 80 people couldn't give Stern 15k fast enough for BM66SLE."

The interesting thing about the this aspect is Stern had nearly 400 submissions, not that I can say they were all serious in actually buying the game. Some were sarcastic jokes. It is not like I want Stern using my collection as a poster child for free marketing, nor do I wish my privacy to be invaded. There are many more collectors with affluence than than there are active regular posters on PinSide. Many have just "gotten into the game" in the past 10 years. They do not care if Stern knows what they own. They are excited to be in the hobby. It is not "just one more game" that is common after a while. Did people notice nearly NONE of the owners are actually talking about MG or BM66 SLE? I am not particularly surprised at all, simply as there is no point. They already know what they received. One MG is less than 10 minutes from my house. Another is less than two hours. If you move in the hobby, you know the people. This is still a fairly small circle of collectors. They are not always the "new money".

So what is truly rare? What is valuable?

People just need to understand what constitutes rare, what is collectable, and prototypes which MG qualifies. It is not about money, and never will be for those that are truly interested. There is no "limit". Anything can be valuable, but their has to be a perception of worth. Smart collectors know what will become valuable, simply due to experience, regardless of personal worth to themselves. My article regarding pinball production categories just makes this a bit more clear. BM66 SLE is an example of artificial rarity taken to a level where the value of what you are receiving is marginal in comparison to the game of other versions. This type of action in other collectible markets would not be accepted, as owners would laugh at what was offered for equivalent cost. This is not the case in pinball, where the percentage of new owners outweighs the old. The "value" is not even perceptible from the standpoint of actual knowledgeable collectors. They simply do not buy into the hype, unless smitten by the theme. This is a common mistake by new owners of said items in any type of market.

Marketing is building block of the hype for MG to become even higher than the legend in the past 6 years, and will not stop for some time. Coupled with latest generation of "cookie cutter" collectors who want to stand out in their own circles uniquely. I can list dozens of people who in the early 2000s did the the same thing as the "new Stern collectors" of today. There are other example games and periods in pinball history.

Watch this movie in its entirety:

What is "the hype"?

The best example I can think of "the hype" that many people will more easily remember in the past 20 or so year was not BBB. This happened very slowly at first. It was CC. When WMS made the game, distributors actually REFUSED to sell the game to people, knowing it was the last "standard" DMD title to be made prior to Pinball 2000. They were asking DOUBLE the MSRP right out of the gate, for those few that actually had orders filled. Quite a turn of events from the standard "wait until the game goes into closeout from operators" up to that time with only a couple exceptions in the waning years of production. Even some collectors got into the feeding frenzy in 1998. It tooks several years for the game to go beyond double its values, after the initial jump. People often forget how much pricing has changed in the last five years alone, which in some cases has TRIPLED. Many were not around, so how would they know anyway?

What is the future of Zidware?

GLWA to Rob Berk on the first official PUBLIC sale of the MG game.
Several have already exchanged hands at very high values offline.
The games will be flipped around for the next couple of years, until every person has their fill of "they have owned a MG".
The same thing still happens with other games as well.

There will be no efforts to make other "contributors to the JPop equation whole" in terms of the other games paid for development but never received. Logistically, financially, or for purposes of marketing it makes no sense by anyone, not just American Pinball. If "investors" start to try and get serious on this subject, they are walking into another MG minefield, and the results will end badly, as they are simply repeating history again. I do feel badly that history's mistakes get repeated due to lack of knowledge.

They do deserve something good...absolutely. So do the BHZA/RAZA "owners." But those of us who sank money into BHZA/RAZA came in at the wrong level of the pyramid.

$60k any takers?

losangeles.craigslist.org link

wew lad

Yeah, just as depressing as the RAZA blog. Bunch of popped bubbles.

What happens now? There still must be legal action against Zidware over Raza and AIW right?

Sure seems like he ran a pyramid like scheme... But since he did put out something and ran it as an LLC I wonder what kind of case the bottom of the pyramid has.

Considering the potential selling price for Magic Girl would you rather have a Medieval Madness, Twilight Zone, Monster Bash, and Attack From Mars (pinside average of 30K) or a Magic Girl? I know what I would choose.

Some people want to eat a Komodo dragon for dinner.

Seems like Magic Girl (as it currently stands) is similar to eating White Castle. It's good at the time but you may end up paying for it later.

On a side note I have a question. If these pins are wrapped up and on their way to owners is JPOP still working in his allotted space at American Pinball or has he been asked to leave?

In the collecting world, nothing makes sense.

This blue painting with a white line down the middle........ sold for $43 million

If collectors want something they gotta have it.

blue (resized).jpg

you do realize there are fundamentally different things going on here.

In the case of Predator people paid After the fact in order to get games. In the case of parts, it appears they were sold to a single individual whom then resold them to the people than now have them. These 'pariahs' (I would use a different P word) have in all cases helped to give funds to Kevin after he already scammed the community for a minimum of 400k. They did it for their own greed or ego it appears. In some cases these 'pariahs' seem to have even aided Kevin in hiding the facts of where money, parts, and assets are.

In the case of MG, these appear to all be 100% paying customers that paid in full 5-6 years ago and are finally getting games.

The similarity in both case is that their are pending legal actions and the potential for all people to have the courts come take back assets in the future. With both issues there is still the potential for things to get messier before they get cleaner.

Where did you hear this? Interesting take on it. I assume this is in reference to the pending legal actions against Fife? If so, I dont think he has the option to keep given the sale of licensed material without the rights to do so. That is one big ace in the sleeve of Predator cases that sadly the Jpop people dont have.

It doesn't matter that I sold MG, I am full steam ahead with my lawsuit to recover RAZA money. And I say money because its my firm belief RAZA and AIW will never be made. Never.

Which suits me just fine after this nightmare, as I don't want any of these machines in my home especially when they're missing parts, not functioning and likely to never work.

He has been asked to leave and under dark circumstances. I recommend AP splash his work area with bleach and then set it on fire.

Yes...it's like this in EVERY area of collecting. Baseball cards ...$1 each EXCEPT for that special one that only 100 were make...$1,000!
or Vinyl Figures. $5 each EXCEPT for the Limited PINK One....$2,000. Or Movie Posters...Mummy Half Sheet $400,000! No matter what, there will always be collectors out there with DEEP pockets that want the rare or Limited Version. WHY this is a surprise or shock to anyone is beyond me.....

This is a total win for MG buyers. I would never unbox it. Start the sales process now but don't be in a hurry. If it's gonna go up, it could be north of $40k in a month. Hard to see the downslope from here. What, if anything, could cause it to drop in price now? The market is fully informed. If nothing could cause a drop in price, I would argue that then it is destined to go up with sky (pinball market sky) as limit. Inevitable.

Congratulations Universe....You win.

agreed. Every collectible hobby has these uber rich collectors. Reality is that a few of them are around these parts but the majority are just regular working stiffs.

Levi said it correctly that MGs and the current state of that aspect of pinball has little/ nothing to do with the rest of the hobby for all us regular folks. I actually hope Stern and other manufacturers contine to rake in the big bucks off the SLE crowd. Maybe that will help offset on the PRO models cost down the line (I know, wishful thinking and not going to happen).

I actually think it would be smart if SPooky started offering 25 SLE for the new games they put out. I see no reason they cant do something special or cool and sell 25 of game #3 at 12k. That extra 6k becomes 150k extra profit to pay for the super cool mech in the other 475 standard models. Just customize that mech for the SLE folks and add special powder/trim. Seems liek the smart thing to do to cater to the uber rich in the hobby.

Aside from the windfall that reselling a MG would bring, I'd rather have any one of those games in my lineup!

But pinball isn't that big.. so how many of these uber rich collectors who will leap to spend 30k on a title are there? Stern's recent experiment would suggest less than 100...

I guess the magic number is how many times the games will sell before that market is satisified..

And I again point at other truly rare or unique titles.. that don't pull this kind of coin. This is people still being swooned by the JPOP spell.

If I were him, I'd be finding another partner ASAP and get his next titles out there. He can tell people he sold his game for 3x the going price of other titles, and even once it was complete, it immediately doubled in value in the second hand market... and since then the 'collector' games are even hotter.

This is manufactured collectibility... and the same kind of runaway train that sinks many hobbies. When people value and pay.. for artificial collectibility.

completely agree and think this is yet another cut on the hobby as a whole.

Luckily I continue to find, restore, collect, and enjoy largely oddball decks that are a fraction of the price and drama as these 10k plus machines.

Markets often move in irrational ways because people in charge of the money are often irrational. Stock bubbles, housing bubbles, tech bubbles. Yahoo was worth billions at one point, Twitter's market cap is how many billion and they've yet to turn a profit?

"Big" money is a relative term in any market and the big money doesn't evaluate risk and value the same way that many of us do. If I had to keep Magic Girl I wouldn't take one if it were free. It's a reminder of all the people who have been screwed and I don't want it in my house.

Whysnow, Taxman, you're right, the MG buyers deserved to get their games, while the Predator protos are tainted. But RAZA/AIW victims might not see the distinction to be so glaring.

I thought one of the court documents said give the protos back or else their value plus a penalty, I dunno, maybe it was late. You're certainly more on top of it than I, Hilton.

On Ebay, current bid is $20100 with 7 days to go.
"THE HOLY GRAIL ,THIS IS IT.....NEW IN THE BOX, NEVER OPENED ,ONLY ONE OF 19 TO BE MADE THIS IS NUMBER 3 HAND BUILT AND ASSEMBLED BY THE DESIGNER JOHN POPADIUK.DONT LET THIS ONE GET AWAY..... "
Hopefully JPOP had a better hand building this one than in his last ventures. But obviously there is a market out there for anything as long as it is rare.

Reminds of when I watch Curious George with my daughter. There's this episode where Mr. Glass wants a painting made by a painting elephant for his building lobby. His primary requirement is that it be "UNIQUE !". If it isn't unique he doesn't want it. In fact when curious george rips the painting and makes a copy to try to cover his mistake Mr. Glass doesn't want it anymore since it isn't unique. I think that's a general commentary on most of the deep pocketed collector market. There is no better way to show you have more money than other people than to have what they can't and pay ridiculous prices for it. To hell with functionality or actual value/merit.

Always been that way and always will.

Jpop/Zidware still lives under the Pintasia contract. That has not concluded as far as I know. A new company comes along and they will have to deal with Pintasia just as AP had to do. And when the new company verifies with AP about Mr Popaduik's dealings, I'm certain they will speak freely of how they were duped and it cost them multiple thousands of dollars. (Hundreds of thousands my guess)

I suppose anything could happen but I still believe it is highly unlikely RAZA, AIW will ever see the light of day.

Because no one had a clue these 19 would be worth the kind of money they seem to be going for. More power to the owners for getting what they can get.

And diminish the "value" of the original MG 19?

They / He definitely won't be making any more and part of the reason they will fetch the money that they do is because of the rarity. If there was 200 of them, nobody would care.

I understand there is still a huge debt owed to RAZA and AIW buyers. No doubt. But items are being shipped in the order they were paid. There has been no bankruptcy filing so the court should not see a problem here.

The Predator prototypes and merchandise do not have any receipts. Therefore no established date of sale and there is a bankruptcy filing. If they can't prove an actual sale it simply looks like Kevin it giving his friends assets to hold onto while he says he owns nothing. Kevin was already found [and I don't think allegedly at this point] using Predator money towards purchases put in other's names for the purpose of obfuscation. This is such a huge difference between these fiascos.

This is bad business versus possible criminal activity.

Are there really 50 collector's out there that would be willing to pay $20K or more for one of these? I can see there being 10-20 of these "super collectors" out there with super deep pockets but I think once you start increasing the numbers available the prices will fall flat. Prices are high now because there's only a handful for sale but I think even if all 19 were available to purchase right now for $20K that many would sit unsold.

Ice isn't calling for 200 more. He is calling for 30 more (55 in total then).

Doubling even from 25 of them to 50 of them is going to have little impact on secondary market. When Stern can sell 80 BM66SLE in no time flat then it seems there are plenty of collectors/ uber collectors willing to take up the extra stock of 25 more of these.

With some owners stating secondary flips of 30k plus, I am pretty sure Jpop has no legal obligation to hold fast at 25 built (heck he already increased that number 2x in the past). This honestly seems like the simplest way for him to put this all behind him and extricate himself form the mess he got in.

I would guess there is zero legal reason for him not to make 25 more and slowly leak them out over time. He could even do so and not disclise it to anyone.

Just because there's 80 people willing to pay $15K for an actual working "limited" pinball machine doesn't mean there's 25 willing to pay $16k or more for a project game with no shooter lane groove. I really do think it's hard to compare the two things. I mean...there's a Batman SLE on Route in brooklyn for god's sake. It's a real, bona fide, actual pinball machine in every sense. I don't think you could stick a Magic Girl in a bar and expect to function as an actual working commercial pinball machine for even 20 minutes.

We'll never know I would bet. Jpop is once again a man without a country and I'm 100 % positive he'll never have anything to do with pinball production again!

(that of course is at least half a joke. Jpop is the Cher of pinball)

But who on earth would pay for another 30 to be built? There isn't any money apparently.

1 at a time. I am guessing Jpop would/ is. Make one and it costs him 5k. Sell it out the back door for 20k. Build 3 more with that money and out the back door again.

Ok,my 2 cents..
Magic Girl has been created with our Raza and Aiw money.
Where is MY item where i can fetch $20.100 dollars for?
Very happy for people getting THEIR pins,but they walk away with FAT profits and to tell you the truth: it feels kind of wrong?
What's up with that?
We are in this crap together...yeah right...
We have been loyal and paying you for years while you were tinkering jpop?
Were we sponsors for magic girl?

IMG_3317 (resized).JPG

I wonder what that Kardboard KISS machine he made (complete with the scabs on the artwork) would fetch. I mean, it's only slightly less playable than MG. And you'd get the KISS Army bidding on it, and those guys will pay thousands of dollars for a Kiss RC van toy. Anybody see that thing lately?

Didn't that go to a sick friend/family?

John make a game himself? That's some funny shit right there.

Yeah. And my dad gave the misbehaving dog to a kindly farmer.

? Whom made these current MGs?

I thought peopel said AP guys were not helping?

A lot of this secrecy is just that. I believe AP obviously helped to save face but they are trying to maintain the distance from jpop. It is a bizarre situation but I don't believe jpop built these in his own.

I don't disagree with what you are saying. At the end of the day, some people got very lucky and others got screwed. Are the MG people entitled to that money more than the RAZA/AIW people? Hell no, but it's not like all the MG owners were going to get together and say, "Hey, let's auction off all the games to highest bidders and split the profits among ALL the pre-order people". In this dog eat dog world, that was simply never a realistic scenario.