The difference between Heighway and JPop is experience.
H didn't have experience designing playfields (afaik) so had to learn from scratch what works and doesn't. Then you need a whitewood much more and will spend a lot of time in this phase.

I think John has enough experience to already have a good idea what works and what he wants on a playfield. And yes you still need to flip a whitewood and see if it actually flows like you thought, but it'll probably need smaller, easier to make modifications to fine-tune, and not drastic changes like leaving out complete toys or changing the whole layout.

And about software - I guess it depends on the liberty the developer would get ?
I have no idea how it works ie at Stern or how it was at WMS, how the creative process goes - maybe someone who knows can give me details as I'm interested to know ?

I guess the designer sits together a lot with the developer and they both come up with modes (and even names for modes ?) but once the whitewood is ready, the software developer has a lot of creativity himself and continues on the 'guidelines' the designer made.

You don't really need this - I get the impression JPop designs everything, the whole rulesheet is already in his head and he only wants to decide on it. He just needs someone who will implement what he wants. Then you don't need a developer who's also a good player.

Not that it's the best way to go - you probably get more creative designs when you combine the ideas from a large team, now you'll 'only' get what John will come up with. But that's what people signed up for, a custom game totally designed from scratch to finish by John.

I tought I read here somewhere (about 30 pages back) that this was his original plan but then discovered that other manufacturers didn't want to cooperate with him ?
So he couldn't just go to Stern or their supplier and ask for cabinets or brackets or other parts, so he had no option but make his own (which delayed everything)..

Something I do wonder - is the sudden change of some people here over the last days really because there is good news to expect, or because in the super secret nda there's maybe somewhere a clause that buyers may not post anything negative online or get sued for full damages or never get a refund or game or whatever ?
I really hope it's the first but was just thinking about all possibilities..

Really ? Have you done this ?

Maybe everything changed with 3D printing but as pinball ramps were traditionally expensive (and years ago couldn't be made again until the original tooling became available) I'm still under the impression that vacuum forming ramps are expensive.
If you can get them for 'a few bucks a piece' then why are ramps for other games always $100 and more ??

What

I also get the feeling this is just the same as JPop has been doing the past years.
Show some nice things and everyone thinks the game is finished and almost produced.

I'm happy the project is not dead yet and really wish there'll be a solution and the games will be produced, but part of me also thinks the project should just be cancelled as I don't think anyone will be happy and truely enjoy these games if they ever get produced. Just too many bad memories ?

And basically - how far further are we now that ramps are ready ? Ok there's maybe a playable prototype.
But still no-one to manufacture and to program rules. Same thinking as JPop 4 years ago - Once the game is designed I only need a programmer and someone to assemble it.
That's the hardest part.. Now there's a new company but no guarantees the game will be made in 2 or 4 years and if it'll run out of money it's just more money spent towards a dream that was not realistic from the beginning..

I'm just wondering - did any of the unpaid suppliers do any legal action ?
Not sure about how it's legally in the usa, but can't they just go to court with their unpaid invoice (and certified letters following this up) and force Jpop into bankrupcy ?

It seems none of them does, why ? Does everyone just want to stay friends with eachother in the pinball business ? Didn't want to burn bridges ? Did they hope that Jpop would continue and they'd get more business from him later ?

Not really stupid, patents are useful.
If he would've been bought out (which seemed to be his plan for a long time), having (useful) patents makes the company a lot more valuable. More than just having an idea / design for a toy.
I'm not sure if patents can be used to trade/negotiate with other companies. Say he wanted to use Sterns cabinet design, he could've negotiated that they could use one of his patented ideas on their games, instead of getting permission and paying royalties.

Although it was probably a dumb idea as you'd also need money to fight someone infringing on your patents..

He may just have patented everything because that was how things were done back at WMS, and that the only professional way in his mind.
Maybe someone who knows more about how things went at WMS can tell us more about designers and patents - did designers financially benefit from having patents in their name ?

http://jalopnik.com/guy-sells-fake-cars-online-ends-up-on-fbis-most-wanted-1716494952

if selling non-existing cars is good enough to get on the fbi's most wanted list, can selling non-existing pinball machines also get you there ?

People, pinside will automatically tag any links here on the forum as nofollow, which means it won't help searchengines to find them or make the link more important.
So no need to post the link here once or hundred or a thousand times, it won't matter.
If you have your own website / homepage or other blog where you can make links that are not nofollow, do it there, then it matters.

Stop spamming links here please..

This forum automatically tags all links posted in messages with 'nofollow', so search engine crawlers will not follow them.

Success !
Well you already have a logo and tshirts, that's what John also had.. now you're a real pinball company !

Back when machines brought in a lot of money, as an operator you want to be sure your machines stay in a good location.
So this trick of lending money to a bar owner and paying it back with his profits, means for the length of that loan your machines will stay in that location and earn a lot of money.

After all when you don't have anything like that, any other operator can come in and tell the bar owner he'll give him a few percent more, and you're out of the location, losing the income..

Here in Belgium something similar still happens. Bingo machines are still legal here and big business. Still being made brand new and most of them earn a lot of money. The rules are very restricted (only a number of operator allowed, they need to put in a big deposit before they can start a business, ..) but it earns a lot of money (for some, maybe not for all).

More than one operator own properties where bars are in. Being the owner they're sure their bingo machines stay on that location and they can set how much percentage of the machine they'll earn. And sometimes the bingos bring in more money than the rent.

Did http://www.zidware.com/ change again in layout ?

John's ads for zidware are also still showing on vpforums.org but that's probably because they never removed them..
I don't think he'll keep paying for them ?

Looks like the zidware website changed.. just a teaser picture, in the html source is the name: Zidware Games : The Forever Land

One of DR's projects ?