Are you sure you have the right guy? Or do you mean art director?

Scott Goldberg was probably the connecting point between Aimtron and Dhaval and Jpop/Zidware.

Correct.

But he does deserve credit for having a good eye for artwork, and he knows what he wants. If it wasn't for JPop we probably wouldn't have the Zombie Yeti artwork on GB.

I am curious what the secret is behind the artist for Houdini. AP was asked pointblank twice in the seminar and I heard Dennis Nordman ask again in the oak room who was the artist. They declined all three times saying only it's someone who never did the art for pinball but has been around the industry. They flaunt using zidware ip but the artist is a no go. LOL

John kept zombie yeti a huge secret until ZY outed himself on Pinside. Likely not revealing the artist is all on John and possibly he's not even told AP cause that is how he operates.

didn't his involvement get revealed when the Adobe video clip that featured him was found . . .

http://create.adobe.com/2014/12/18/zombies_yetis_pinball.html

Is there enough info(Pf scans, etc) to make a Visual Pinball version of Magic Girl? Just for the lulz?

I almost feel guilty for thumbing you up for this. Sick world...

My bad. I've made this mistake before and for some reason I repeatedly gravitate back to thinking John does the art on his machines.

I guess he's more like an interior decorator, more interested in picking out the drapes than building the house to hang them in.

Have even AP claimed they are "truly passionate about pinball?" That's obviously not why they entered the fray.

If there were no Jpop they wouldn't be ahead or behind. They wouldn't exist at all.

Was this recorded? I'd love to see the seminar with AP. Link anyone?

Possibly, but things were going to hell by then and he showed up on Pinside around the same time. Regardless, he was kept a secret for years, to the point that people thought John was the one drawing his art when John would send prints out.

You need to follow PinballNews.

The show writeup and video recordings from expo were great. If you scroll down half page until you see
8:30am - American Pinball - Scott Goldberg & Dhaval Vasani. link is http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/expo2016/index.html but appears it is not uploaded yet.

Bottom line, i feel sorry for Scott and Vasani. I hope they have a crap pile of $$$ to fix all of this because thats what its going to take.

Even though i have lost $$$ and feel terrible for everybody, i think if AP really wants to start a pinball company they should forget MG and the prior pins.

If they think getting MG out is going to satisfy everything, think again. It was a boatload of $$$ from RAZA and AIW that helped get it there.

Now i realize there is some self dealing going on by a few shills in the MG secret society ring decoder club to help only themselves, but that ain't gonna work out.

I got booted out of the secret society again by its ringleader, thankfully, because i didn't care then and i don't care now, especially the more i learn about what is going on.

How about the irony of secretly trying to cut a deal for their own interests and hiding it from everybody else?

Well, Bill Brandes deserves EVERY penny he put up to salvage Johnny boy the first time BEFORE anything else happens and I hope that he sticks it to those guys re MG and the rights to make that pin.

At the end of the day, here's my advice AP, forget John, he's scorched earth, never could create a pinball machine that is functional, ask Balcer and what Heck saw of both pins.

Move on, I wouldn't pay a dime to us Jpop victims, especially unless you pay Bill first.

There will be plenty of people that will line up to buy a $7k Houdini now, especially after the recent price reveals

Ignore the shills trying to lead you down the wrong path.

75% of what a Pinball Machine actually is functionally is the CODE!
Without it, it is just a funky piece of furniture with lights!

I find this truly heartbreaking. I've been holding out hope that AP was viable and Jploop was trying to make amends on the up and up. What a colossal clusterf*{k and so damn disappointing. I just hate this development.

I know harry personal and that he is working on Houdini but i couldn't speak about it.
Yes it is correct that he workt at heighway for 4 months. He did some reprograming to speed up some things on FT.
I played the FT he did and the flippers responding better than the other FT on the dutch dpo 2015.
If you like TOM and CV you are going to like Houdini to, its going to be great.
Give them a chance and lets see how it play's next year.

Well for me it is not. I think it is a start wat can become a great game.
My MC is made of some prodution level ramps and people like it alot.

What i dont like is that there are boutique companies (spooky on kaneda podcast)
that are complaining about every other big company's new machine's. Alien looks 90 and so on. Spooky can only make good and funny machines, but they still look like 1985 machines.
So before judge some one look at your selve at the mirror.

The same for your AMH, fun but emty.

What I don't like is all the people who whine about other people having an opinion. I didn't know you had to cut your balls off when you make a game. I haven't heard that podcast, but if Chuck or whoever from Spooky has an opinion on Alien then good for them. They're grown ass men, they can say things.

Why don't you get off your high horse? You talk shit about people having an opinion, and then your next post is trashing a Spooky game.

I checked the mirror. Saw a guy who helped Spooky ship twice the # of games John promised total, in half the time, with our own money.

Crappy receding hairline though...

Ben heck for president.

Yes, so many machines in 1985 that had jump ramps and servos, and an elevator that slowly rises not driven by solenoid, and open source code, and freely downloadable cabinet and playfield artwork, and 3d printed parts (also open source and downloadable in case yours breaks 20 years from now). name a single manufacturer that has ever done any of those things.

Haha, no you whine about my opinion to.

Yes thats true but i don't care i want a game that looks like the competition, ful with shots ramps and toy's.
Its to simple and emty for me.
Thats a opinion that i may have.

Drop the F ing Mic!!!

I am ROLFLMAO right now

Yes also very true.
But for that price you can buy more bang for a buck games like gb or walking dead.

So what i mean is make a game that can compete whit the competition.

Here is the reality, like it or not. Just trying to shed some reality.

1) AP can't/won't take care of ALL of the John BS as a business owner. Just can't. Plug one hole in the dike and the next one squirts through. It's a never ending abortion

2) If AP wants to be a real pinball company, turn the reigns over to Balcer and let him go. Put up the $$$

3) After this weekend at Expo, I'm 1000% convinced if AP can roll out a Houdini pin for $7k versus a $9k JJP fiasco then nobody will care who is behind this pin or any other they do.

-Even Charles Manson could get creative, design a pin like this and it would sell at $7k

4) Why? Because 85% of pinball people are cheap frugal people. Hear that Jack?

So, I got caught up the F ing swath of Jpop destruction. I honestly don't want to or care to relive it. It's game over

What i would F ing like to see are people like Bill Brandes and Chris and Cointaker somehow be made whole.

And other vendors that got F ed along the way. We are talking about 6 figure F jobs.

The selfish crybabies that worry about the mistake they made need to get over it. Yes it sucks. So does life sometimes. Move on.

It's the DB's that try and profit, behind the scenes off of this fiasco that are "irredeemable". It makes me sick

Even though people should be smart enough to know, they aren't.

So secret decoder ring dudes, you are F ed and done, good luck.

Thanks!! I guess I'm guilty of leaning too heavy on Pinside for news

75% done ? shipping in 6mths. My Arse. The code would be worse than KISS.
It's clear to me that this pinball company needs to die in a fire as no good will come of this. ever.

It is a sign of intelligence. It is not a receding hairline. It is a proceeding forehead.

If I am getting this straight, AP is not zidware, and it is clear they are now trying to make that clear and distance themselves. They say they are a contract manufacturer and that jpop hired them to build games and that he is doing some consulting/contract stuff for them and yes, seems likely that is some form of quid pro quo. Assuming that is the case then zidware buyers are still stuck with jpop and zidware as far as getting satisfaction, and jpop's ability to get these games produced, with the big issue being the needed capital. So while it seems AP might be able to build the machines, you have to wonder where the money is coming from to pay for it.

We know that Bill has purchased some rights around getting these games produced, so that is another factor in all of this and I have not seen any comment from him or anyone regarding how that fits into this. One has to assume if that is worked out, that these machines, even if they were complete enough to build, which is hard to believe, and even if AP has contract manufacturing experience, pinball is a different breed, so hard to see things shipping this year, at least not a machine that would be good. Regardless, hard to ever see MG being a machine worth what buyers have paid for them, other than the rarity factor.

The big positive, is that at least this news gives a glimmer of hope for those who believed in jpop, and that is more than they had a few weeks ago. Also seems we have a new manufacturer, who is targeting a price point, for now, that is more reachable for many.

No quid pro quo. Ap specifically said it was a barter arraignment, Houdini for magic girl.

No offense, but what do you think quid pro quo means?

It's clear to me that they have NO idea what they got themselves into. They're not pinball people, but John likely spun stories of magic and money to be made...and they fell for it.

Just look how hard it's been for ACTUAL pinball people to get things manufactured and shipped. If American Pinball is truly committed to being a pinball company, I don't think we'll see Houdini shipping for 2 or 3 years. My prediction they have a "what the fuck did we do" meeting, and this whole thing dissolves.

The difference there is Stern is making a ton more games and can charge less because of that. I don't how this became an argument of what Spooky is doing but they have done things the right way. Start small and simple and build from there. If you look at how Stern started it's very similar.

For a couple of years Gary Stern was just making conversion kits with Pinstar and then started making full machines with the backing of Data East. He made a few original theme games and built confidence until he got some licenses.

Spooky has already jumped in front of Stern with a contracted game for Domino's which Stern hadn't done until Pabst Can Crusher. I deeply admire Spooky for their hard work and patience. Someday I would love to support them with a game purchase. The same cannot be said of American Pinball yet and with an abundance of choices to spend money in this hobby it may never happen.

While AP might have been duped they are not completely innocent. They were telling people at Expo Houdini is %100 their game. But then people saw Zidware "Z" cutouts in assemblies and spinner artwork stolen from a Houdini playing card deck. So they know they took stuff from JPop and Zidware stuff was developed with other people's money.

HoudiniBehindTheCurtain (resized).jpg

I agree. Rich people looking for a hobby and convinced by John they could make a quick buck by working with a legend. This is quickly gonna reveal itself to be a major headache (it probably already has) and this will turn out to be another pie in the sky failure. Sorry gang.

But someone will end up with a cool Houdini playfield to hang on their wall. Any justice and it'll be Corny Tim or some other intrepid journalist!

So, they're either dumb, shady, or both.

Bye AP.

That might be a touch strong and unfair. Very well could be that Scott trusted John, based on past experience and (can't recall his name) trusted Scott, but that makes me think of Ronald Reagan's 'trust but verify'. And has others have said, just google John. What is likely, imo, is that John was not forthright with all of the details (e.g. things like Bill holding rights, readiness of game), which everyone here would have no issue believing. And It may be that AP has shifted its position based on what has now come to light over the last several weeks, and thus the reason they are further distancing themselves from him, and now need to change cabinets, brackets, etc, to remove zidware IP from AP machines. Not that the jpop cabinet, with non standard glass, legs, etc. would make sense to use.

While MG machines may actually get produced, based on what we have seen and heard (not saying it will be a good game or even 'complete'), but it is hard to see how the AIW/RAZA buyers get made whole. There is just no money to pay to build these, and if AP is distancing itself from John, means no real opportunity for john to do anteing for them in exchange and I just don't see the capital from him to get these games built. But since AP plans to get their first game out before even talking about AIW/RAZA, that does give john plenty of time to raise capital (okay, that is a big stretch)

Yeah I flubbed the definition. As much as it's in the news; I should know better. I attribute it to surfing while in a meeting. Thank god we got this sorted out.

Bye Felicia!

The Pabst Can Crusher is just a re-theme of WNBJM, a Stern contract pin released in March, 2015.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-the-pabst-can-crusher/page/6#post-3378293

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=6252

Spooky Pinball's Domino's Spectacular Pinball Adventure is about to launch in 4Q 2016.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dominos-pinball-launch-party-and-tournament-buffalo-ny

Whizbang is more like Ka-Pow. Stern is just licensing the game. Domino's and Pabst are actually the companies selling the pin, not Stern, Spooky or the distributors.

I see where you're coming from. When you refer to "contract", you're focusing on sales and distribution, whereas when I refer to "contract", I'm referring to manufacturing. Stern has contracts with parties like Pabst, Whizbang, Ka-Pow, and PPS/CGC to manufacture pinball machines, because those parties don't have the internal manufacturing capability to do it themselves. But even if you define the term "contract" based on who is selling or distributing the pin, Stern's contract with PPS/CGC for MMR was still before Spooky's contract with Domino's.

Sure CGC contracted Stern to do the assembly of MM but MM is not a promotional product. Pabst and Domino's are promoting a brand. An equivalent is getting a bunch of pens or coffee cups with your company name on them. Obviously pins are more complex.

Companies that contract manufacture an item to promote someone's product is different from licensing IP. It's similar to what companies in China do.

If this game gets released I will staple monkey glands to my own testicles.

If this game gets released I will watch a video of guyincognito stapling monkey glands to his balls.

I streamed it to face book let me see if I can grab it and share it.