You should stay away from lawyers then, they love this one.

Have you ever sold a game for more than you had into it? If not, then carry on, at least it's an ethos. If you have though you shouldn't be lecturing him for trying to turn a profit.

Rich or poor, no one likes to feel like they got ripped off.

You've just made an enemy with our SJW members for using the "R word"......

This argument about RAZA and AIW buyers "funding" MG is ridiculous. MG buyers paid first and paid more. They were first in line, so they were always going to get their pins first.

It makes zero sense to me to have RAZA/AIW buyers act like MG buyers are the evil ones because they actually got their games, and, God forbid, sell them for a nice profit.

Exactly. If the owners sold them at their cost, a flipper would buy it and sell at a profit.

Well it's clear MG wouldn't have been built without RAZA/AIW funds. RAZA and AIW won't be built. If I were a RAZA buyer you bet your ass I'd be seeking a clawback. JPOP admitted insolvency over a year ago but instead of winding down the business and prioritizing creditors he conned American Pinball into making MGs. That con won't work twice.

I am not so sure that he conned AP very much. When Houdini was first announced AP went to bat for JPOP pretty hard even when they admitted to knowing the back history of MG, RAZA, and AIW. I just don't believe they knew the depth of the damage JPOP had caused and only then did they realize they had to distance themselves from him. This is all speculation though as the majority of us doesn't know the inside information.

If I add up all the money I have in AIW / RAZA / MG + legal fees + transportation costs then I'm into it for mid to high 20's.

So even if it sold for 30k I'd be making a few dollars when I've had my money tied up for 5+ years. I don't (and shouldn't) feel the least bit bad about making a couple bucks.

Unless you've sold every game you ever bought at a loss then don't act like making a few dollars on money invested over time makes me an asshole.

"Welcome to the Theatre of Magic...Girl!"
"In ancient Baghdad, there was a ringmaster who was defeated for his marvel, but not before he created an albatross of pinball sequenced through darkness of a creation black hole."

There are more than just several years here in this circumstance.

The answer is no, he does not deserve another chance.
His induction to the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame is justified, and should not be taken away as he did earn his rights in that area, namely his prior designs.
He is not the "Pete Rose of Pinball".

However...

He already had multiple chances to correct matters regarding Zidware for over 5 years.
He had multiple investors beyond the original buyers of his concepts.
He refused assistance at critical junctures of development.
He outright can be impossible to work with in regards to design (his way or you are out).
This was reported repeatedly by others at the WMS factory long before Zidware.
At least WMS had some measure of throttle control, but if you know the design history of ToM, TOTAN, or CV, there are similarities.

Every opportunity he was provided was squandered.
Those that have watched or were a part of the process, got the $#@! out for a reason.
There are plenty of people unspoken that can validate, and only a handful speak out, as they simple do not care anymore, embarrassed, or wish to forget.

Those that entered the hobby long after the process began in only the last few years may not understand what happened.
This thread is only a tiny fraction of the actual events, and is mostly useless comments, and a convoluted mess.
You cannot even decipher from this website thread what happened due to absurd bullshit.
It is not a surprise there are more MG machines available for sale than every other "high end collectible" machine right now across all markets.
This is not common in this market.
It may become a "glut" until a price determination of this unfinished game is stabilized.

Those that decide to jump in and try to "RE-RE-RE" jumpstart the process again are the new pintards of the hobby and industry.
There are tiny percentage that actually believe there will be another resurgence of the remaining game concepts, granted less than before.
I suspect in some desperate hope that they can reclaim their losses.
However, this simply not a feasible option.
This has nothing to do with opinions, just logical reasoning and financial backing.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent alone to try and get MG to work and it still "does not work".
This goes beyond physics, missing assemblies, or loss of coding.
It is all three areas combined.

Hopefully, this circle does not repeat as others as I have seen in the past.
It just makes people distrust development, and pushes people out of the hobby and industry.

NOTE: The author you are referring to regarding Harry Williams documents, was Duncan Brown, another very influential, knowledgeable and historian of pinball. He also was able to secure a large proportion of the Steve Kordek library (manuals, documents, and designs), of which some has been scanned prior to said documents basically falling apart on large flat bed scanners. Many other designs were lost permanently, during the WMS purge in 1999.

Oh well; SJW's are retarded too

In this day and age, it seems like it would be more prudent to start with a base pinball program, program the pinball game you envision, all the objects physics and rule codings and whatnot will already be correct at that point, and then transfer such into the creation of a real pinball game.

Steve Ritchie and other designers will be at the Texas Pinball Festival. You should seek them out and discuss this. It could be an enlightening conversation.

Just my guess, I would think old-school designers prefer their way. Witness Jpop and his endless tinkering with foam core.

I would also guess the virtual first method sounds like what AP is envisioning with their professed desire to become the go-to boutique manufacturer. If they release a standard "roll your own" program they can then use the output from to build the real thing, it might work!

Still, just because a game shoots well virtually doesn't mean it will using actual physics...

See Wrath of olympus. He started out virtually, and most of the shots were about 90% good. The only reason you need small tweaking the real world is because virtual physics aren't perfect, but they are dam close.

If I remember right if you do it on visual pinball it translates to PROC very well (I believe you can run real PROC hardware to control the virtual one, then just transfer wires to real hardware)

Dave Sanders is a name that should be better known. Mostly in vpin, of course, but he designed Full Throttle and Alien pins. A modest man, but a pinball design genius IMO.

His pins are great examples of virtual tested before becoming real.

I'm guessing they have designer booths set up? I'd have to mentally run through the processes first, but designing virtually first would come with the added benefit of having 3D models already ready for 3D printing for cheap prototypes components during the transition phase.

Yeah, I could see the desire to keep doing things the original way, which for boutiques such as Spooky, that seems good, but MG was very ambitious looking and done with, seemingly, only preorder financial backing. For stuff like such, it would make more sense to seek a means that minimizes expenses accrued by tinkering and testing physical components over and over as they are changed, modified, and replaced.

It would depend upon the physics engine used. Better engines cost more money. Remember, engineering uses some of these same engines to outright design systems that we use on a daily basis.

Heck, if you started with a virtual version, you could use the virtual version to put full-blown game replays on the actual pins displays by having the pin relay back ball locations and times back to the virtual version.

AP did seem to think that the Houdini "box of lights" they showed off was playable and just needed a little fine tuning to go into production. Plus they didn't see a problem with all the "Zidware" markings (until after the fact). Those things seems like a pretty big con to me.

Oops CON!

You aren't supposed to roll the cost of RAZA, AIW, legal fees, and transportation into the price of the game. LOL. Everyone is looking for a profit these days on pins in general. It used to be you'd buy a game, fix it up and make it nice and feel great to sell it at the same price you bought it (without adding in the cost of parts or time you had in it). You seem like a nice dude and it will sell at what some sucker is willing to pay...but it still seems wrong that vendors, RAZA buyers, and AIW buyers are left holding the bag while MG owners are reaping profits. In my opinion, these games should have been seized and auctioned off to be split amongst all. It sucks that you were duped not once, not twice, but THREE times by JPOP. I'd like to say that's all on JPOP, but the third one is squarely on you. I'd venture to say the second one is too to be honest. You're lucky, be happy with that. I'm entitled to be a little bitter as I'm out money for a never to be existing JPOP game. If that makes me an asshole, I can live with it.

The "first in line, first in right" rule only applies if a creditor is secured (i.e., the creditor has a lien on specific assets). Most of the creditors here are unsecured.

If the company was insolvent (i.e., Balance Sheet Test: Liabilities > Assets; Cash Flow Test: The company cannot pay its obligations when they become due) AND IN BANKRUPTCY, then all unsecured creditors, without a lien on specific assets, would fall into the same creditor class, and all the creditors within the class would be treated equally, regardless of the specific times the claims were established.

If the company did not have enough cash (or product) to satisfy all claims within a creditor class, then the claims would be addressed on a 'pro rata' basis. For example, if the creditor class had a total of $1,000,000 of claims, and the company only had $200,000 of cash (or product) to distribute, then all creditors within the class would receive 20% of the value of their claim (i.e., $0.20 per dollar owed).

Buying 3 preorders for tens of thousands of dollars?

Makes me wonder how people stay rich...

It's really not clear that MG was funded by the other games. John paid himself for years. He built a stupid KISS proto. He bought lavish dinners. He went to the movies. The way MG actually turned out doesn't reflect some massive investment of other people's money.

The MG people can sleep at night as it's clear as little money as possible was invested in it.

Designing, developing and building Pinball Machines is hard.

Who are they conning? They haven't taken a cent in preorder funds.

Pinball at its finest? No sir.

Pinball at its finest is POP getting pinball machines into children's hospitals.

Pinball at its finest is a gentleman opening the doors to his private collection so people can have fun.

Pinball at its finest is a bunch of people playing alternate formats like Pingolf or Critical Hit, laughing and having a blast

Pinball at its finest brings people together

This is you just getting mad that Magic Girl didn't shake out the way you expected. Go back to your first post, read it, and come back to your recent posts.

I appreciate iceman's passion, but I think his anger is misguided. The fault does not lie with the MG owners who are selling their games. It lies with the buyers. They are the fools that are paying up for this half baked piece of s**t.

You do realize that was a joke right?

Somebody else said it before...hot potatoes. I will not feel sorry for the suckers that end up with the so called games and have paid more than the market will bare.

I think iceman44 was being sarcastic! But I agree with the sentiment @cornelius.

JPonzi ended up screwing everyone to some degree.

* Parts manufacturers didn't get paid.
* Employees/contractors didn't get paid.
* MG buyers didn't get what they paid for. *
* RAZA/AIW buyers didn't get anything.
* Investors lost their money.

I'm listening to 'Ponzi Supernova' on Audible about Bernie Madoff and even after his trial and conviction for running a $65 BILLION dollar Ponzi scheme, Bernie (from prison) claims "he's a good guy, and he was just trying to help people make money". THEY ALL DO! I've watched every episode of 'American Greed' on CNBC and time and time again these guys all say the same thing after they've been caught and convicted... "I'm not a bad guy, I really was running a legitimate business!".

*It's entirely up in the air on what the future value of MG will be. It could be ridiculously valuable or worth much less than the original price tag.

Obviously, it went right over my head.

But while we're on the subject: if MG was a well-thought out game that delivered on the promises JPOP made, would it be pinball at its finest?

If JPOP followed the above dream with: next we're working on AIW/Zombies, those with preorders should expect their games by summer '17, would it be pinball at its finest?

If Skit-B actually secured the license to Predator and didn't run off with with a bunch of peoples money, would it be pinball at its finest?

So it a joke, or is it sour grapes?

I really hesitate to call anyone who invested in Magic Girl a "fool". It's not like there was a historical precedent for boutique pinball, and there wasn't a historical precedent for boutique pinball manufacturers to rip their client base off.

People who invest in something they believe in shouldn't be considered "fools" or else no one else will ever be willing to take a risk again.

Can we get a gofund me going so we can hire somebody to film Ritchie's response to this? O.K., Thanx

Are you sure he has no RAZA or AIW ready to ship? OK boys search the place. Well?

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/721/333/5d1.gif

I find it hard to believe people are not taking legal action for what they received. Or was there some papers to sign upon getting this abomination.

30k-50k is ridiculous, that's why these machines are not moving. It is like the eBay BTTF for 100k. It is a joke of a price and I can't see them being bought at these prices.

Please re-read my post. I never called the people who originally ordered MG fools.

The entire thing is ridiculous. Any person, place, or thing who associated with Jpop lost. We all lost. AP may not recover as they surely supported some of this nonsense. John should have been bankrupt two years ago. I wish him the worst. I really do. I have spoken with him and he is a complete narcissist. Always has been. He had no business even starting this mess. His business sense is zero. I think he committed a crime by shipping those Magic Girls and time will tell.

I did misunderstand what you were saying. My apologies.

But I still am weary of calling the people who buy these MGs "fools". This is a part of pinball history, after all. It's like people who pay big money for sports cards with unique defects on them. It's their money, they can do what they like with it. It's not up to you or me to decide whether they are foolish for spending it the way they want to.

Normally I would agree with you. People can spend their money any way they want, and who are we to judge. For example, I would never pay $15K for a BM66 SLE, but I have absolutely no problem with the anyone who did. This is a completely different scenario, though. MG was built on blood money, and a ton of people have yet to be compensated in any way, shape or form. I am part of this group. As such, I am personally offended by anyone who would pay a large sum of money for one of these games when so many good people were left holding their dicks.

Your point is well taken, over, and over, and over again. You are turning into a broken record over this. Like they say, you can hope in one hand and shit in the other. Guess which one you will have a hand full of 1st? Quite frankly, whatever ANY of these owners do with their MG purchase is none of your business, or any of ours for that matter. Unless they want to make it public, like Mr. 68 did, they should keep it to themselves what they sell for. Stick to taking a dump in your own hand and quit shitting all over the MG buyers/owners. They have the right to do as they please with these machines. Oh, but it's not personal right?

I wasn't aware of your relationship to the whole fiasco. If you don't mind me asking, are you owned a MG and didn't get one, or were you in on the other games?

Not trying to be crass, but I kind of see Magic Girl as being the DeLorian of its time. Shitty, overhyped, doesn't work as advertised... but people still buy them.

Vdojaq:

I was not in on MG, only RAZA.

Would you still be interested in RAZA being made?

I checked it out. That looks like a fun game. Reminds me of jersey jack sorts. Looks way more fun than the Sterns to me.

I don't think MG could ever have come close to what was being promised. However, let's just assume for a moment that every magnet worked, the tiger saw blade was motorized, there were no dead ball stucks, PERHAPS it could have been one of the best pinballs ever

BHZA would have been pretty cool had JPOP not burned his bridges with Ben, and some of those features actually came to life (and Matt Andrews did some killer artwork). The ridiculous collage of robby robot, clowns, zombies and horrible pukey GI colors turned that game into a nightmare. Seems like when he changed directions, a lot of owners were pissed it changed direction so badly.

Predator had some nice coding features, the playfield layout wasn't all that special (plus the standup targets were too far apart and the ball would sometimes get jammed in-between). The idea of building a boutique pinball for only $4800 seems unrealistic unless you were willing to wait for Kevin and a couple of his buddies to get 2 built per week in their basement.