Alice in Wonderland
Gottlieb, 1948
Houdini
American Pinball, 2017
Magic Girl
Zidware Pinball USA, 2017
Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland
Zidware Pinball USA, 2012You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider cooked71.
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AIW would be a great JJP sequel to WOZ. Imagine AIW built to the same JJP standard as WOZ (The quality of my late run WOZ is flawless - makes other manufacturers look like they are making "toys".)
With the price tag on these machines (were they $20K?), surely it would be feasible for JJP to make them, even with the really small run.
Looks impressive....i love the PF art, but the cabinet looks like something from a Sega console game cover. Would be great if the cabinet was also drawn by Yeti.
But the thing that stands out most to me is that this game is ALMOST finished. What happened? I understand that the new licence holders put a few solid hours in at the very end to get it assembled, but realistically, John almost had it complete. He just couldn't take the next step.
The whole thing could have been handled so much better than John's narcissistic melodramatic implosion.
Quoted from rai:3-4 years ago, John sold a game called MG to be built sometime circa 2013. Said game was limited to 13 copies making it uber rare, later he upped the number to 26 copies. He charged $16k for this limited edition game.
A short time later he sold another games called BHZA in slightly higher numbers 99 later increased to 124, at a price of $10k. Later the theme and title of the game was changed to RAZA, this was also supposed to be completed around 2013.
Later John added another game AIW to be completed, accepted deposits and payments on that too.
All during this time, John kept everything as hidden as possible, said he was working super hard and the pins were going go be great.
Also during this time, John made a Kiss pin which he had no license for, did not collect any deposits for, so he used all the other money collected to fund this game.
John from time to time would show a few bits and pieces of the game, but never anything as finished as a white wood or even a basic alpha prototype.
Many customers began to get worried or frustrated when 2013 came and went and no games were delivered, ditto 2014. To dissuade people from seeking legal means of getting refunds from John for breach of contract, failure to deliver. John had people post that they'd been to his workshop and the games were comming along well and were worth waiting for.
When this began to wear thin, John promised that at the 2014 Expo in October he would do a big reveal. Then at that expo John brought two totally empty cabinets. People freaked out.
So John promised he'd have real prototype reveals in Dec 2014 and January 2015 for MG and RAZA respectively. Predictably John showed nothing whatsoever.
People like myself said John was bluffing and he had nothing to show, while people like PDXmonkey said there were 95% complete prototypes and he'd played them and all was well, just taking longer than expected.
More time goes by, presumably dozens of people demand refund and/or start legal proceedings against John, John says he's working 14 hrs a day 7 days a week and is tired or perplexed that he's also getting hundreds of emails or texts or phone calls a day regarding the lack of progress. But things are still good.
Then maybe 3-4 weeks ago, John posts a letter saying he's completely broke, no one will get a refund and he's allowing an outside entity (shell) assume production of MG and that they can only proceed if you all (owners) agree not to sue anyone and any owners of RAZA and AIW should forget that, but can now get a MG for $16k (less what you have paid towards RAZA or AIW or MG) and that MG will no longer be a super rare game of 26 units but perhapse 199 and then an unlimited number after that.
People rush out an unfinished alpha prototype of MG to the NW show that has most features disabled, that is broken down most of the time at the show, that no one is able to even make a ramp shot except with glass off by hand, that has a laminate playfield that is totally warped or not stuck down properly.
I think that's this whole thread in a nutshell. Insiders like PDXMONKEY please correct anything I missed or was untruthful about.
Mods, can you just delete the remaining 14433 posts in this thread and replace it with this one?
As it stands, the idea that Pintasia can take over Johns disastrous pre-order pinball project by offering another pre-order pinball project is ridiculous.
The only way this project will succeed is if Pintasia turns up at XYZ Pinball show in 12 months with a number of finished, new in box Magic Girls to sell (and of course to give to those who have already paid). I pay my $10K and I walk away with a new Magic Girl. They do that, they will sell some games.
But that would require Pintasia to invest/risk alot more than $100K upfront. Based on the history of those behind Pintasia, I seriously doubt any more Pintasia money is going to risked for this project.
Quoted from YeOldPinPlayer:Would anyone send money if they got a phone call or email saying their game was ready? Who would trust them to ship a game? It would have to be cash & carry, maybe selling at shows?
IF this is legit, it would be interesting if AP could offer $6-7k games cash and carry, at the same time Stern have bumped prices to $9-10k with a deposit/pre-order model.
So maybe the new 16 Magic Girl's are just "SuperLe" versions of the unlimited Houdini - same game, different art like b66le. That would seem more likely than this new company building 16 completely unique games before producing whatever else they are going to make.
The whole thing seems unlikely though.
The real question is why would an organisation completely unrelated to Jpop/zidware agree to reimbursing all previous customers/suppliers of Zidware? The debts were incurred by Zidware.
The only possible answer to that is they are doing it in return for John Popaduik's time/salary/intellectual property that will be incurred designing future games for American Pinball. And also to build good will amongst collectors that will mean the Jpop name is not toxic going forward.
Assuming the cost of reimbursing everyone is $1-2million. Is it possible Jpop's intellectual property and the goodwill is worth even remotely that figure? What is a Jpop design worth? How many games must he design before American Pinball has returned their investment in taking over Jpop's debts? 5 games? 10 games?
The whole thing sounds really strange to me.
Quoted from goatdan:If they are a boutique manufacturer, I don't see how the value can be there. If they are planning on rivaling Stern, I can see it easily...
That's it..... comes down to volume. And whether Johns IP is really so revolutionary compared to what's already available, or can be sourced elsewhere. Is his cabinet design so much better or cheaper than the standard cabinet? Is his "Magna save" design so unique that it ads real value to a game compared to one that doesn't use exactly this design?
As far as I can tell, the biggest barrier to entry in pinball manufacturing is the manufacturing. I don't think John had some revolutionary manufacturing methods under wraps, just waiting to be implemented. If he did, I'm sure we would already have seen unboxings of 26 Magic Girls and 200 Raza's.
Design is obviously important, but there are other designers available.
Quoted from rotordave:The photo shows 16 cabinets... Ben reported the BOM was around $7000 per machine so that's $112,000. I'm sure you'd get that BOM down with standard flipper mechs etc, rather than crazy custom ones.
There could well be more money to be paid by customers on those 16 machines too. Who knows who is paid in full? Some may have only paid half. I don't think even JPOP knows who has paid what.
rd
Plus unpaid debts to suppliers and Raza payments. Not sure where I got the $1m-$2m but was somewhere on Pinside....which is of course fact. Tracking it all down will be impossible.
No doubt they can get the BOM on MG down, with a re-themed houdini being the most obvious way. Buyers who forked out $16k might not be happy. I wouldn't be. But I'd be more happy than having no game at all.
It's weird all these buyers are getting personal calls from AP.
Quoted from iceman44:BM66SLE and LE blows this POS away all day every day.
If you actually like to play pinball. What a F ing joke.
LOL. Us B66 owners have suffered too long in the B66 thread. Time to equal things up a bit - when are you hitting the TBL thread iceman44 ?
Quoted from flynnibus:This really just opens up the door for the next sham pinball company.. when people see people selling MagicGirl for many thousands more than they put out.. every Tom Dick and Harry is going to throw money at a project hoping for a payoff... no matter how sketchy it is.
But without Jpop and the intriguing debacle that led to this game I doubt any other boutique will see this level of collectibility.
Quoted from MotorCityMatt:Really, what about BBB. Didn't the price of that game start the boutique preorder nonsense?
Sure, was talking more about future releases from other boutiques in reply to Flynn's post. BBB also has a great back story and it is very rare. But nothing compared to MG - 25 made, a legendary "artist" behind it who has most likely made his last game, legal action, but plucked from the depths of unobtanium by AP (someone should make a movie about this).
Not any boutique maker can look at this and say "Magic Girl/BBB sold for this therefore we can also sell for this". Apart from rarity, to achieve the collectability of Magic Girl or BBB, there needs to be some real back story and personality behind it. Look at B66SLE/AMH/RZ - they have rarity, but no real back story. It's debatable whether or not any of those will even hold their value.
Quoted from Concretehardt:Ahhhhh it's a profit deal!
» YouTube video
Great way to build hype. Costs nothing to advertise in order to create a value. Doesn't matter if it sells. Up to $55k is now the benchmark price for MG. If I manage to get one for $40k, what a bargain.
Quoted from guyincognito:Serious question... If I went on Craigslist right now and listed a Baywatch for $100K is the new benchmark price for a Baywatch $100K?
No, because plenty of Baywatch games have already sold at $xxxx and can be verified.
MG at this point has no benchmark. We have the unsold one on EBay (which I'm guessing will be ended early) and this $55k one.
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Sydney
Albuquerque, NM