This was a double fail because not only isn't it funny but you can't even spell. Give up your failing career in comedy and spend that time learning the difference between their, they're and there.

With so many lawyers on this board I find it hard to believe no one has found a way to get their money back. File a lawsuit if you have to, surely one of the people claiming to be a lawyer on this board could do this.

I hope everyone gets their money back somehow or the game they paid for someday.

Wouldn't that be everyone who sent him money?

One thing is for sure, I won't be wearing the Zidware shirt John gave me when I was working for him a couple of years ago anymore. That might get me killed, especially if I wore it to Expo. I can just imagine the heel heat I'd generate walking into a room full of pinheads, some of which were JPop's victims. I consider myself very lucky that the timing worked out that he flaked out on me and started blowing me off after he paid me for my work up to that point so I walked away not being owed any money. I feel horrible for everyone of you who got ripped off by him but I can't say the outcome surprised me. My one big takeaway from my time there was I had no idea how he was ever going to finish a game based on how scatterbrained he was and how one week he'd be working on something totally different and unrelated to what he was doing the previous week.

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.

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.