What in the hell is that contraption in the middle? Is there an elevator to the top? That looks like one of those wishing funnels that you put a coin in and watch it magically roll on it's side down and down and down and down........Seems like a bog down to wait for that thing.

It also took a 3rd party to come get involved to get BBB done and out the door. Kerry Stair swooped in and saved that one.

Maybe Rick gets a full head of steam (already has a big head full of......) I KID!!!!

We need someone to ramp up real production. Not this trickle of one-off game stuff. Someone to compete with Gary straight up. I just don't see it happening. Not unless one of the game companies with huge pockets decides that there is profit in pinball now.

JPOP was an idea guy. He wasn't the wrench turner. His best games had a top notch co-designer and programmer. Silver made CV happen. JPOP just had his name on top bill.

This whole boutique pinball thing is full of idea guys just like him. Not enough wrench turners. And while Kevin might have been a wrench turner, he was too much of a mouth breather to make the business deal stick together. It isn't surprising to me that someone like Kevin got closer, though. He was ignorant on the actual process and just kept plowing ahead. Hell, not even falling to secure the license got in his way. He didn't know a roadblock when he saw it.

Like Rarehero said above, you have to have the logistics in place to manufacture already, before you even think about dipping your toes into this water. If Midway or WMS or EA or some gaming giant decided to throw $25M at retooling a factory, they have a prayer. But they hire the JPOPs of the world to design. Not to run the whole shabang.

gambit3113™ has never heard of deeproot®. Who in the hell is deeproot®?

Not gonna lie, I might need to see these sentences diagramed.

® and ® alone is the only entity with the ability (but also the only entity with a legal right) to make declarations containing factual basis for itself. And ® refuses to make such declarations containing factual basis right now. Errrr, except for the declarations made in this thread by ®'s account.

Who shot who in the what, now?

I am so lost. Clearly the Matrix is glitchy tonight. I am not chasing the white rabbit, Morpheus.

There are like 14,000 posts in this thread. Someone could claim that Nipsy Russell was defamed in this thing, and who could possibly prove otherwise?

Ok, so they were the Bill before Bill. And JPOP burned that bridge. Sheesh.

Somebody put all that RAZA art in a box and send it to me, while you are there raiding the joint. That stuff is tits.

I remember someone on RGP that used to post rambling, link filled posts like that about people. That is some Loose Change stuff right there.

Ben Heck loves traffic fatalities. Totally goth.

Suits will put Zidware into bankruptcy, which will mean that Zidware can't license MG or any other machine. They become assets for the trustee to collect and decide how to liquidate and pay off the creditors and convenience creditors.

Long story short: possible, depending on how he set it up and what method of incorporation he used. But unlikely. The protections are there for a reason. Small businesses start up and fail with investor money every day.

So, you propose a bankruptcy that is indefinite and runs into perpetuity? That isn't how this work. That isn't how any of this works. The trustee will gather all assets, publish and invite all real creditors, choose a course of action that maximizes the satisfaction of the hard creditors (those with outstanding and unpaid bills for services and goods provided), and then throw the scraps to the convenience creditors (those suing for personal damages). Any asset with value is going to be on th auction block for all to bid upon and buy - including any tangible properties, intellectual properties, and/or rights to same. The trustee is not letting Pintasia have a perpetual license to produce MG. MG is being sold for whatever value it has, including all rights that run along with it. Pintasia could just intend to wait around for the year or so that the process would take, and hope they can get the assets in auction. Or they could attempt to avoid having the assets forced into a bankruptcy proceeding altogether.

He's been auditioning for a gig and hoping someone with an assembly line brought him on and his games. Pat took his garage game to JJP. Pop was just adding games to his garage haul until someone bit. KISS license was a home run swing. If he could wow them and secure that, Uncle Gary had to come a callin'.

He obviously never listened to the Topcast episode with George Gomez. Gomez made it very clear that he blamed John for effing up SW1 and not using the Pinball2000 platform competently. There was no ambiguity to his feelings toward JPOP. George wasn't signing off on bringing him into the Stern fold.

I couldn't remember how Python fell on him. Python liked "artists", so I was thinking that he liked Pop's ingenuity. But he might have thrown him into the Useless Fraud Shuckster category. It was one or the other with Python. Artist and Genius or Worthless F@*+.

Did I see "Unicorn Fur Collected"?

True story, Apogee/3D Realms' offices were about 2 miles from where I sit typing this, replete with a big bio-hazard symbol cut in marble laid into the lobby floor. When they were going belly up, a Scared Stiff popped up on Craigslist in my ZIP, at a price that was nothing spectacular. But the listing claimed the machine was never on route. I recognize where it is and drive over. The one lonely, sad guy left to box up all the stuff and clear the building before the padlocks got slapped on the doors, was trying to get the machine sold b/c he had no idea what else to do with it. The machine had been a gift from Bally/Williams in 1996 or so, to Apogee. They sent it in the box and the Apogee guys set it up and played the absolute shit out of it over the years. They also threw the keys away with the box, so the glass had never been off once. It was a wreck. I have never seen a non-routed machine that was more blown out.

Really? This story isn't common knowledge? Jack got pissy with Charlie for starting his own pinball company. Jack was working with Charlie as a kind of middle-man for cabs (and maybe PFs?) through the place Charlie used to work, and somehow felt that meant Charlie was beholden to him to never do such a thing.

Good lord, we get it. DFRF. OffshoreAlert. Ponzi. It's on the radar.

That tinfoil hat website with no known author and lack of legitimate news source isn't exactly Woodward and Berstein level authority.

Zane Smith probably needs to have a talk about staying off public forums in discussions regarding a party opponent. Aiming at your own feet here.

Everyone has the right to do whatever they want. If litigation against Zidware and JPOP smells and feels like justice to someone, so be it. Personally, I don't think there is a prayer of getting to him personally, and his wife being included is borderline unethical, absent some suggestion that he is transferring assets to her as separate property and that there is legitimate cause to consider piercing the veil as legitimately feasible. I have my doubts, but don't know enough one way or the other. I do know that business ventures fail every single day, and vendors and investors and people holding nothing but an empty wallet and a fist full of promises end up getting in line to divvy up bankruptcy assets, if they are lucky. There is a reason that there was a fee over contingency for the attorney pursuing this stuff, in my opinion. But again, my opinion is only mine and is based only on my understanding of the facts that are common knowledge. But turning on one another is no way to solve this. Bankruptcy is inevitable, it would seem. So everyone might as well sit back and see where that plays out. The machine is there and is an asset to be purchased. Someone will grab it, presumably Bill.

Anyone with suit pending when he enters bankruptcy will be a convenience creditor. They might get 4% of their claim value.

yeah, Ben obviously has a personal axe to grind with JPOP. But that was kinda dickish.

...

That Japanese president of Capcom was apparently not amused when he saw it on his tour of the Chicago facility. It wasn't long after that before the doors got locked. According to some, just a matter of a few days.

Walking in with a receipt for a paid preorder from a failed business would not entitle you to ownership of the prototype. Stop with the bad advice and hyperbole.

I am continuously amazed at the public discussions and comments here, by people actively engaged in litigation (or at least pursuing claims that will likely result in litigation) toward a party defendant. If I was John, I would be printing every page of this thread and storing them.

This thread is stupid now.