Phoenix, AZ
Quoted from unigroove:Allow me to suggest a maybe stupid solution that you'll probably gonna laugh at: We've all seen what is likely to happen when an anrgy (pinside) mobs starts hiring lawyers and such. Nothing productive, lives get ruined, no games get build, interesting designs will never be taken into production, no positive outcome for pinball in general. I have no horse in this race, which may actually allow me to still look at the situation with some sort of helicopter view.
So John admits he can't produce the games and he's looking for a solution (at least he's looking for a solution). The solution being offered is not favored by many, which is understandable. So, to turn this into something more productive, why don't the people that pre-ordered one or more games unite as a group and come up with an alternative plan to get the games made? If it's unlikely that you'll get your money back, you may as well look into that, so you at least end up with something. I don't know the details, but could the pre-order group as a whole say they 'own' the MG design? If so, the group could then also find a manufacturer for the game. Obviously you'd run a larger run of games, but the end result would still be you get your game and maybe (call me an optimist) end up making some money too. I'm not sure such a construction is something that could be seriously considered, but if it could then there might actually come something good out of all of this.
Nothing good can come out of this other than partial refunds. The guy has shown that he can't run a company or even manage a project. Any solution that still involves him will likely still result in no games being made. If there was an actual 1 off fully developed pinball that was made at this point (Predator did have as least 1-3 fully finished machines) then there might be something to take to another company, but from what I have seen he doesn't even have half of 1 game done, so there is nothing here to take to someone else. Best solution here is to dissolve everything and try to get some money back by liquidating whatever J-Pop has that the courts can get from him.
