Conyers, GA
Quoted from Classic_Stern:I was offered a contract for this show. Not quite what you think.
Yes, the contracts for this were effectively selling yourself into slavery for a year. In the OFF CHANCE that the thing went multiple seasons, you might make some bucks...course, they might just kick your ass to the curb and find some other schmuck to sign up for a year with a pipe dream of another season before they're in the money too. The whole idea was that if it took off, the "group" would try and force the hand of the producers, basically say "we're not going along with this contract, it sucks, we want a new one with better pay".
I did the math on it, they basically wanted unlimited access to all aspects of my life and for me to be available to them without any notice at all, did not want to pay my wife for appearing on the show, we didn't want the kids to be on camera, and the producer is such a ditz he couldn't even provide us a valid place to send him the intro video we were requested to record and wasted hours on. Basically, they were asking me to work more than full time, tell my primary job to go screw dogs while I was off shooting ridiculous TV episodes, and all for less pay than I make BEFORE overtime at my current job, which is laughable. Not to mention that I was basically going to be cast as the "dickhead", which no doubt would be AWESOME for future potential jobs, right?
Here's my honest opinion of each of the people involved. I think you'll be able to tell that the producers did not do a fantastic job of taking the strong points of each of these people and making it something immediately interesting to those outside the hobby...
Jared - Going to write the most about Jared, because I frankly have talked to him and been around him more than the other people involved, and that he's far more active on Pinside than anyone else on the list. Regardless of whose "fault" it was, Jared's direct actions and attitudes clashing with "the establishment" early in the hobby that basically destroyed any sense of community we had in Dallas between competition and non-competition players due to the interactions between him and a few other people. The competition players have gotten over the whole damn thing, and we all still hang out and talk and go to league and do things. The non-comp players? It's a miracle if I have seen the vast majority of these people more than twice in the last year. Most of them turned into cave hermits after "The Jared Incident", including the moderators of our local groups. These "casuals" don't hold events, don't plan events, don't bring new people into the hobby, and for all intents and purposes basically DO NOT PARTICIPATE in the community at large anymore. Was -that- good for the hobby? Nope. Could the whole situation have been avoided by two or three people realizing that their actions were fueling this inferno? Yep. Is Jared one of those people? Yep. Jared is a marketing guy, to the BONE. That will never change, and anyone that thinks they can change that behavior at this point is really just a moron on every possible level. He does shit on a ridiculous level, and yeah, it doesn't always go according to plan (truck height.. 
) but at least he is doing SOMETHING, which is more than I can say for a lot of people. Love or hate his attitude, it won't really matter in the end. I've gone back and forth on it several times myself. Won't change anything at all what you decide, as he is going to do what he wants to do....which is to frequently be over the top, both in his personal manner and with his events. If you think Jared is much different in person than in his online "persona".....lol....not so much.
Craig - The less I say here the better. We don't get along. At all. He tried to get me in on the show, I was interested enough to shoot the intro footage after talking to him and Marc, it didn't go any further. Craig shows up to league nights, occasionally to other tourney stuff. He's capable of fixing games, doing maintenance and playfield swaps. Will take consignments from "non-hobby" people and fix and sell their games and take a cut. Other than that.... I have him on ignore here and facebook.
Marc - I'm pretty sure for a while Marc was the most evil'est guy in DFW to me, because he bought every damn pin I tried to go after, it seemed like. He offered an honest opinion to me about the show and the proposed contracts after Craig tried to enlist me. Marc buys and sells games, and AFAIK, has a metric SH-TON of projects in storage somewhere that he gradually pulls from, fixes them up, and sells them at TPF and from his company Elevation Games. I'm pretty sure we've come to a mutual understanding that we're both dickheads that don't tend to pull punches, and in my book, I'd rather deal with brutal honesty than a two-faced jack---, so we're all good. The interaction shown between him and Barry is not something that would NOT actually surprise me to see off-camera, but as stated elsewhere, they know each other, and this *is* Texas...
Rusty and Shelley - Seriously, you want to talk about people dedicated to the hobby....you don't even know. They're not real active here, but they are two of the most arcade/pinball dedicated people I have ever known. Their house is a shrine to gaming in a way that pisses me off.....because it's not mine. They are serious socialite/partier type people, which at least in this area is sorely lacking, especially as of the last two years. If you ever get invited to anything they're running, you can pretty much be assured that something awesome is going down and they are 100% invested in the idea of whatever crazy theme it is this time around. Both are incredibly smart. And they are totally bringing the jello shots.
Ed - Frankly, out of this group of people I've probably spent the least amount of time talking to Ed, which is almost ironic considering that he runs TPF, which is just bonkers. I don't know how the hell he finds the time to build a MM, plan and organize the cluster-f that is TPF, buy and sell games, build a Cactus Canyon, and have a full time job and 3 (Is that right?) kids? Good lord. I can barely handle my 2 kids and one league night a week. Not afraid to mince words that I've ever seen, but also is not "in your face" in the way that Jared would be....he knows where his limits are due to his deep association with TPF, and what to keep close to the vest. The show is presenting him as a restorer? Well, okay...yeah, he's done that. He built Medieval from scratch, and like I said, is working on CC. He's more than capable of filling that title in real life.
Steve / FUN! - Fun doesn't have auctions at the store, much less for single machines...what the hell was that? LOL. I've sold a game to FUN, I've never bought a game from them, not directly anyways. I bought a game from TPF, who gets their tourney game NIBs from FUN, so technically my Metallica came from them as the distributor. They have been having some local events for new game launches recently, which has actually attracted a ton of people that don't typically show up for launch party tournaments....to the degree it was actually hard to get a game in. Met a lot of new people last time I was there for one of those. Ultimately, they're a retail business, and they're going to do what they need to do to stay in business. I don't have any beef with what they do as a business, but I share the sentiments with some other posts on this thread....trying to make it look like a non-HEP restored Monster Bash is worth 12k+ at a fake auction that never even happened is just.....ugh....
We had a set number of spaces available for our league. Jared, along with several others, expressed interest and did not make it to a majority of the events. Jared DID host one of our league nights, which went awesome and was the highest attendance all year (the guy is absolutely hated, I tell you what!) if I'm not mistaken. This year, Xerico is running an open league (which I can't do because of space limitations of my tiny condo!) at a local location, Jared has shown up 2-3 times, but he's also got a new baby, and I didn't even leave my house to associate with the public for like 2 months after my kid was born, so I can't even fathom all the work and attention that a preemie has taken. 
