He wanted to give the Chinese counterfeitters a head start on running him out of business if the vaporware ever materializes.

I read this in the Predator thread, I read this in the Magic Girl Thread. I still read it in TBL thread and I'm still reading it here. You true-believers need to escape your wishful thinking and move on with your life. If the guy is successful, we'll all have a chance to buy one, but if he failed, many of you who have already paid for the failure will need to accept reality sooner or later. Enjoy your denial, True-Believers!

It's too bad that he has personal as well as business problems to overcome, but that doesn't change the fact that he accepted money for something he's struggling to complete. Is your "investment" insured against his untimely demise? If I was going to do a preorder, I'd demand a completion bond with liquidated damages for late delivery... regardles of the reasons.

Since this is so unlikely, I will never pre-order. If a guy can't source the capital to be in business, the business is a non-starter.

This is total bullshit! Suffering the loss of his wife does not exempt him from previous commitments. If it did, he needed an insurance policy to repay the prefunders. The loss of a loved one warrants one month reprieve at the most. This project is much longer off the rails than that.

When are you pre-order guys going to realize that a contract without a completion bond and liquidated damages provision is only a license to steal..... from you.

Contracts require performance bonds and liquidated damages for delays. I don't think valid excuses are acceptable without cost in the real world. And we all know that pinball manufacturing exists in neverland (except for stern). I really don't know why anyone should believe your secret handshake inside info, rob. We've all heard exactly these things in the recent past from others with the "secret" knowledge. You're probably just an employee or vendor anyway.

In other words, your assurances are worth exactly what we pay for them. I especiallly like how you say "no one's business" when the guy is sitting on prepayments. You should reassess what you know and what you say.

Is this a kind of "I get the last word" argument? There are a lot of sensitivities here...

I just can't help but think of JPOP when I see little details like this.

Do you think a technician repairing a failure will be impressed? These details are the kind of things that culminate into failure. It demonstrates an inability to stay focused on the goal..

And if anyone needs to be reminded, the goal is to deliver games to customers. How can anyone behind schedule spend even a moment on strange and useless things like this? Will the final brackets be stamped, or should we expect to see productions pieces cut with a water jet (or whatever was used) and bent on a press brake?

bracket_(resized).jpg

My Lord, I drained this topic 5 months ago and jumped to the last 100 posts just a few minutes ago. Mike is still making excuses and bitching out anyone who questions why "his" Chinese factory can't produce a game. Then responds with this gem:

"Once all of our "bread & butter" mechanisms are completed we will be in a position to move forward"

This is just 2 days ago. Don't bother responding... already drained again. I'll post back the same crap in another 6 months.