I was a "true" jpop fan who sent the man $6500 and got nothing except to be listed in his bankruptcy papers.

From one "true" fan to another, I hope it works out better for you this time.

Good observation. January 2022 at minimum sounds about right.

The challenge over the next 6 months is that they can't ship a game until they have 100% of all parts, and parts at agreed upon specs. Those final .5% of parts that need to be sent back for quality purposes are going to hold up everything.

If there was good news (machines going out shortly) that would have been said. I predict the delayed update is because there's only so many ways they can explain more delays. That Spooky had an incredible day makes it even more embarrassing for the update.

RM says a lot of things.

The villain changed from Ben to Neb (Ben backwards, as the alien). The deeproot version still has "Ned" as the villain.

It was a magical time to be a Zidware customer 10 years ago. I'd even call jpop once in a while, and couldn't believe I was talking to Willy Wonka himself. And then I'd be surprised how long he'd want to stay on the phone for... like, doesn't he have work to do?

I can't remember when the shine came off. It was before Expo 2014, that simply made it real for everyone.

but... but... but... the artwork!!!

Shocking that they didn't have a clue, and were surprised at the expo response.

I lost money to jpop, and refused to get into bed with deeproot. There was a literal few people that took deeproots refund, and they were smarter than me.

I learned some lessons that I hope will serve me for the rest of my life.

You're described as a sewer if you try to do that.

What a piece of garbage (him, not your work).

And look at the entire body of work you've had the opportunity to finish while with Stern. Thousands and thousands of games in the world with your artwork.

Good job.

It's fascinating to me as well as a parallel to the outside world and how people cling to beliefs.

Fair. Might they have sold more games if there hadn't been a tire fire thread? Quite possibly.

This very thread, which was the attempt to "keep clean" of the sewer, the warnings were stated at the very start. Let alone the "other" thread.

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FOMO and the BBB story definitely was what got me into RAZA during the original zidware phase. As much as $10k was at the time for a pin, I knew it was a "now or never" decision as I wouldn't pay BBB prices later for it. I wanted a Zombie game. And I was a jpop fan (like a lot of us were, or at least the Wonka fantasy version of him we had in our heads).

I wish the original zidware blog was still up, to review that about when things started to crack. It wasn't just Expo 2014 empty cabinets, that was definitely the "Emperor has no clothes" moment, but the suspicion and doubt were creeping in.

From memory, it was a slow drum beat of John simply avoiding the questions he didn't want to answer. And that suspicion continued to feed on itself.

But not before I happily sent him $6500.

I'm wiser now because of it .

Honestly, if I put myself in the mindset back then... there had been no pinball failures yet. It was rainbows and unicorn time.

That's the biggest lesson, and why I had zero room to give to deeproot. I didn't bother signing their zidware agreement because none of this made sense. Some people did get a refund, so my hardcore suspicion didn't pay off as well as it could have. But at least I've never lost money again.

Despite the promise of "Ferrari at Kia prices" the deeproot prices were above market, and rising fast (they announced the pre-order prices were "intro").

You went to the source to get some answers and he was denying any big problems only a few weeks ago and that somehow this "legal mess" wasn't his creation and he could resolve it quickly. Days later the building is empty and of course we now know the scope of the "legal mess".

I'm curious, at the time you received his email, how did you receive his words then? Did you believe him?

It's really unfortunate when we get betrayed by people. I certainly understand wanting to take someone at their word when they directly answer you. Hard to protect yourself from that type of deceit.

When I think about my time with jpop at Zidware, he stopped answering the questions he didn't want to answer. He dribbled out crumbs of art on a regular basis to show "progress". He never said he was weeks away from delivering my machine.

The time frame here isn't years either. I'd say good odds.

That would be really difficult. For what there is to show after all the money spent... it was literal destruction of wealth.

I don't know if any pinball company could dig out of a hole of tens of millions of dollars.