Hate to jump threads but think my point in the expo thread has more merit here so moving it here for larger discussion point. From my post there:
The company is seems to have set a strategy that leverages the high emotion, history, and intensity to promote their entree into the community. They know enough to try to address building the machines, so understand at some level the scope of the problem. Yet, they turn righting that wrong into a spectacle in front of their overall announcement. ????
Instead of treating those people with respect and understanding of the damage done, they appear tantalize with new whiffs of hope which appear very much exactly like previous false hopes. Its wrong in my opinion and seems to stem strongly from the same secretive and rumor driven proclivities JPOP exploited to get his Zidware buyers on the hook already. Its more of the same with a new front in my opinion and those signs show a continued blatant disregard for the impact that has occurred, the strategies employed that magnified it into a very harmful community scar, and that seems to imply with good reason that's getting driven by the same source, JPOP. Its the same and if the company could do it differently its not, why? Maybe because its not a different company, because it looks at lot like a JPOP strategy to a problem JPOP made. I'm just not seeing anything 'new' that sets 'American Pinball' separate from JPOP and all that harm and problem.
I just don't see what about this entire 'roll-out' is different than JPOP's other games. Same secrecy, same confusion, same disdain for real impacts.
I'm honestly disappointed that the current victims are getting roped into further trauma and public exploitation and as I stated in the Expo AP announcement, it should be at expo until the victims are addressed and done so less publicly. Fixing JPOP's wrong should not be an asset to the new company that gets leveraged in my opinion, its ultimately their penance for choosing to hire him and should be handled with respect not celebrated with overt greed at its production of noise and notice in an increasingly crowded market for high end luxury toys.
I think I generally want to forgive and forget, but this company didn't set out to do that. They announced their new game first, setting that as the primary goal, and knowing about the damage and chose to lead with the 'panic/outlash/high activity strategy and so far share just enough info to fan the flames and continue the attention. It doesn't show any sincere signs of regard for the victims which has me wondering is it not really more of the same and from the same source, just a bit more removed...or maybe shielded.
At this point, for me, if this were the best game in the world, I have so little respect for the management of this messaging, it's hard to imagine its redeemable. I wouldn't put my money there on principal. Not all buyers consider that, so can understand the differences. Like I said, I'm prone to turning the other cheek but not seeing any cause or reason to do so yet. Maybe that will change.
If I were them. I'd back out of Expo - adress the JPOP victims, build community respect, and put their new game out on its own merits with a ton of good will. That's not happening and if I had to guess because it JPOP leading the show, setting direction, and nothing at all has changed. I just hope we don't loose more sheep to that wolf.
Consider this, if you were starting a company would you start with a toxic asset and agree to inherit and even resolve it, absorbing it as 'start up' costs? Seems improbable and there's no reasonable logic that makes that a realistic. If you start to ask WHY AP would do this, well the only reason you would, is because you HAVE to, and the only person who does is JPOP, so AP is probably JPOP.
Portland, ME
