Unfortunately this kind of fits how the JJP code department seems to operate. No communication and not wanting to work too much on code.

Huh. JJP’s communication is just as good with their own vendors as with us. Revealing.

I must point out that no one should throw the designers and developers under the bus at JJP. They have always been strong supporters of Scorbit and we don't actually know how things go down over there. A lot of those guys work really hard and the results have been some extraordinary games.

Just know that we are sincerely, deeply heartbroken.

https://www.kineticist.co/post/jersey-jack-severs-partnership-with-scorbit

Agreed. Designers and developers aren’t controlling things.

Anyone else wondering if JJ is going to introduce their own version of Insider/Scorbit?

Not sure the optics or necessity of publishing FAQs as raw with your feelings on JJP is the right way to go, but best of luck with AP.

Will this have any effect on the use of one’s cellphone to interactively play Dialed In?

This sucks! I’ve anlways enjoyed Scorbit and saw it as an added perk to owning and collecting JJP titles. To me Scorbit was an integral part of their ecosystem. What a loss.

Actually it is the best time while the iron is hot. JJP could have planned this announcement in the background and posted. They revealed it on a live stream. Not a good look, not good communication. If JJP actually cared about their customers they would have posted so Jay wouldnt have to.

Same. It's not going to feel right starting a GNR tonight without Scorbit. A portion of the game's experience just died. The addition of Scorbit was pretty damn good. I liked it. I've mulled over the cost to add Scorbit to other games, but haven't pulled the trigger. It's a bit of chew to dive in. I'm excited for what may arrive in a Hot Wheels update. Your product is pretty cool.

Thanks everyone for the support! We aren’t going anywhere, only have more exciting things planned to announce in coming months. We will never leave the community hanging!

I agree, that this decision, and the way announcing it was handled, impacts any calculations I do with regards to machine purchases. JJP machines are already expensive (more than I'm normally willing to consider spending), and they've decided to take away a premium feature, including on older titles, despite offers to take up the cost of maintaining them, so now it's really only the gameplay trying to justify that price, rather than gameplay and a host of online community features I've already really enjoyed.

What a drag, sorry to hear this. I enjoyed unlocking achievements on all of my JJP games. A step backward for Jack, perhaps they’re developing their own online connected platform to compete with Stern? I seldom play my JJPs and now I doubt I’ll play them at all

At least this forces JJP to finally release some game code updates, if not to just remove Scorbit from the machines. It’s still a code release. So GnR owners can still be happy about this news.

LOL watch the change log just be “ScoreBit removed”.

This is heart breaking, Scorbit definitely brought value, fun and engagement and made a big difference. To me turning off Scorbit is very short sighted, as releases from all makers intensifies and the race on quality and loaded playfield is one, Scorbit was typically a great way to make a difference

Scorbit still works on over 400 titles across 50 years of pinball, including new machines, outside of JJP, so rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated.

Not surprised - par for the course for JJP. Dump Lloyd, dump Scorbit , Jack up prices to 15k and watch the suckers drool over a new underwhelming game.

Support is weak, warranty is weak, Mirco PFs failing - good thing the games are “fun” I guess.

More and more backlash with every JJP title release. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

This is so disappointing - especially when a selling point of these games we purchase is that it HAD Scorbit installed.

I've sent off JJP an email of my displeasure and encourage everyone else too as well, and while, JJP doesn't give a rats ass, this will most make me 2nd guess ever buying from them again - primarily for their arrogance.

But maybe they have something bigger planned that will dwarf Scorbit and IC?

They're definitely developing there own system. They've made some strange decisions in the past but if they think the way to compete with Stern, or any manufacturer for that matter is to go completely off the grid? Then they all need to take 2 weeks off, then quit!

They dropped support for that a few years ago ?
They removed the app from the app store.
No official way to install it anymore.

One of the upgrades (before wifi support) dropped the error message when the Bluetooth dongle isn't installed).

It's sad they removed scorbit support. Bought a wifi dongle for it and enjoyed it.

When they dropped the app but added scorbit it seemed an upgrade. Now you get less game than when you bought it new.

This news is a bummer. But truth be told, scorbit only worked 10% of the time for the past year (or more) on my GNR. I believe it was said in the owners thread that it was a JJP code issue, not scorbit. Fwiw; it worked fantastic for the first 6 months or so of GNR’s release.

In either case, it was nice when it worked but at least I know now I shouldn’t spend 5 mins before a game trying to get it to work lol.

We identified some issues in the JJP game OS related to how the network stack synchronizes time. The current OS uses an older version of NTP code. When people have the problem you're describing, 95% of the time it's related to this time sync issue. The remaining 5% of the time it's related to network connectivity issues, sometimes interference of where the dongle is sitting, sometimes local wifi problems.

The new beta OS that JJP was working on as of a few weeks ago seemed to resolve all of these issues by using what we use on the Scorbitrons instead, and it's very stable. We provided code and consulting on this and got them over the hurdle. I'm sure a lot of these issues would have been resolved in the next release. Unfortunately, I don't think Scorbit is going to be in the next release anymore...

jsa what is the possibility of a plug and plug type option for people who still want to use Scorebit with JJP games? Something that can run independent of whatever JJP does with code?

I’m very sorry to hear this. I had hoped to see Scorbit gain increased momentum, but that seems to have just hit a speed bump.

This is what we do for Stern Spike 2s and other classic games today. There are two ways this can happen:

• We use a Scorbitron in the game, which runs the network stack and communicates with the game either wirelessly or over a serial cable. This requires that the game runs some kind of patch that sends us the information locally.

• We port the Scorbitron code into the game itself, either via our SDK/libraries or from scratch, so all you need is the wifi dongle and no Scorbitron. This depends on the openness of the game's OS and ease of installation.

We can do this, but it's a fair amount of development work and support to execute on it. If there was support for it amongst the owners, we certainly would consider it.

Sounds promising. I’m sure there’s support from those who use it and are about to lose it. Thanks for the quick reply!

Maybe JJP just didn’t want the added complexity of Scorbit taking up resources, and they needed to focus on just the game related code. Just a guess. Not sure if they have a resources issue. They certainly are taking a long time to release final updates for some titles.

Is there a generic JJP thread which we know is followed by JJP employees where we can post our displeasure?

I would advise doing so by email and in the independent game threads.

I just purchased a Dialed In LE and it is being shipped to me right now. As a new owner of this used game, I was looking forward to trying out and showing off the cell phone / blue tooth / wi-fi interactive capabilities which were heavily marketed features of the game when it was released. Just look at the flyer which focuses on touting that Dialed In was "the first machine to feature Bluetooth connectivity, a camera, and additional player capabilities through a smartphone." These were the ONLY three features specifically mentioned in the Dialed In flyer, so this was clearly key to their touting the Dialed In product and a key to the linking of the features to the game's cellphone theme.

If I understand what is going on correctly, two of these three features highlighted in the Dialed In flyer will no longer be possible on a Dialed In machine. Does Jersey Jack have any plans to either return to supporting the Jersey Jack app that was created at the time of the release of Dialed In specifically for that game or doing something else to allow one to utilize these heavily marketed features specific to the Dialed In machine? What looks like it might be the company decision to cut-off the ability to use two of three features heavily touted when Dialed In was being sold would provide evidence of Jersey Jack's lack of interest in servicing and supporting both customers and Jersey Jack products after the sale.

This evidence would make me think twice before ever considering owning a Jersey Jack pinball machine in the future. In other words, a Jersey Jack pinball machine would become "an offer I could refuse" because I would not be comfortable with assuming the company would provide sufficient support and service after the sale.

Just some unorganized thoughts on this whole situation

1. I didn't hear exactly what was said on the Godfather live stream
2. IMHO portions of Scorbits "announcement" bordered on unprofessional
3. Scorbit+JPP (the combo) was terribly unrelaiable for a year+ after JJP released the functionality, at least for me
4. With the recent JJP betas and, especially, the hog mode from Scorbit, it was very nice -- so it's rather unfortunate it goes away shortly after working well
5. (removed)
6. It was stated in the Scorbit "announcement" that there has never been any contractural agreement between JJP and Scorbit. This is exactly the type of thing that occurs when companies work together yet decide to hold off any formal Master Service Agreements, etc. Either party can walk away and the other shouldn't be upset.
7. I am interested in any legal exposure JJP might have given people purchased these games advertised with this feature. Would need to read the fine print somewhere.
8. For me, the best parts of JJP+Scorbit integration were just 2 things: automatic name/initials for high scores and, to a much lesser extent, achievements.
9. One other thing, partners like Scorbit have unique insight into the internals of a company like JJP. The info they inherently glean, such as number of machines sold, how often they are played, general locations, etc. is valuable. JJP might have decided to keep they don't want 3rd party knowing this, as part of their decision to move away. Of course, NDAs and requirements around keeping this information proprietary would have been addressed in a MSA, if one had been performed.

EDIT NOTE:
I've removed item 5. I wrote it after having found GNR wouldn't connect to Scorbit on the night all this information came to light. This made me believe that Scorbit had disabled JJP games. Turns out the inability to connect was a temporary fluke and JJP GNR can still connect to Scorbit, at least for the time being. The original text is below, for reference.

5. Let's be clear here, at least from what I can tell, Scorbit decided to cut off JJP yesterday. I personally feel Scorbit could have handled this much better (not saying JJP couldn't have either). It was an opportunity for Scorbit to own the message, make it clear that the functionality stopped when the customer installed a newer JJP release. Focus the feature removal on JJP. Instead, the message is Scorbit has turned off the functionality yesterday.

On your point 5, it's the reverse. JJP publicly announced they were removing support. It's not Scorbit who disengaged. They did not even give Scorbit sufficient forewarning on when this would happen.

Yes, Scorbit could have managed the transition more smoothly, ie not turning access off just yet. But I believe they were genuinely hurt by the decision and the way it was announced.

Wouldn't matter. They don't care.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ltg-loyd-appreciation-axed-after-9-yrs-by-ruthless-jjp 263 posts and no response. Not even a F U.

LTG : )

I'll only address this one point for clarification. I don't want any misunderstanding.

We totally appreciate your thoughts.

We did not turn off functionality yesterday.

We aren't happy about the way this had to be released as well. They contacted us with a decision to retroactively remove Scorbit from all titles, as stated in the blog post, which was a total surprise to us. We never expected that to be the direction they would take. The decision was sent as an email from the top of the company in response to a request to meet and have a discussion about what our go-forward plan would be.

So in case the Q&A wasn't clear on this, it wasn't the other way around. Regarding yesterday's communication, we wanted to handle this together, after they made that decision, in a thoughtful way. Everyone at JJP was busy, so we were patiently waiting for next steps.

Unfortunately, they stopped responding to our messages entirely in mid February, leaving us completely in the dark of what was happening and when, and announced this on a livestream on Friday. It was heartbreaking. We were immediately flooded with questions and concerns and this forced our hand to communicate and warn our customers what was going on, as we do have that responsibility as an operating business and take it very seriously.

Importantly, unlike a manufacturing company, Scorbit is a live service. We have thousands of live customer connections simultaneously and we absolutely need a real-time relationship with all of our partners, contracted or otherwise. When we need to make changes for performance, reliability, security, or even cost/scale reasons, we will do so for the sake of our customers, relatively frequently, sometimes hourly. We let JJP know in November, December and January that we had a critical change we needed to implement immediately. They began work on it. We wanted to make sure everyone involved had plenty of time to address this so we wouldn't run into a wall. We don't know if this was the breaking point, or if it was related to their own strategic plans, it's up to them to explain this in time.

This entire situation, at least in our opinion, is unnecessary, but unfortunately is reality.

I was an early adopter in JJP and waited 2 years for a wozecle. JJP promised things to us for game #2 and renegged. I suspected I was dealing with Stern the 2nd and cut ties. After watching this shitshow of a company get worse and worse I am sadly reminded that was a good decision.

Hell of a way to ‘fondly’ remember a hobby manufacturer. Good luck with all your ‘ new and shiny’ when issues happen.

I turned on GNR last night after all this discussion and it didn't connect to Scorbit.
I just turned it on now, and it did connect. Not sure why, glad it did connect. Was it briefly disabled or was it a fluke?

I've edited this post because the info above changed what I thought had occured. I thought Scorbit was already disabled for JJP.

What is the timeline for JJP games no longer being able to connect to Scorbit?

Ask JJP. They are the ones pulling the plug and removing the code. They have cut off communications with the Scorbit folks a month ago so Scorbit won’t know.

We did not disable anything, at least not yet. That was a fluke, sort of. We are now hitting the threshold where the old method of connecting will stop working at high volume times. As I mentioned, everyone else has migrated to the new connection type except JJP machines. I think six months is a fair amount of time to migrate, and we even offered to do the migration for them. In order to protect our customers, there will come a point where the traffic will need to be actively cut, as it effectively acts as a DDoS.

As for the timeline of them releasing versions without Scorbit, we have no information, this is up to JJP.

Thanks.
I was incorrect on my #5 point. Or at least it was based on a data point that was inconsistent. I'll edit that post to acknowledge this.

Likewise, we'll add some clarity to the blog post.

Its possible that JJP is working on its own "insider connect" type of system?

Only explanation that would make sense to me. Unless Scorbit seriously slowed down code production?

If you mean new features, that’s definitely true. Our primary feature developers were in Kyiv last February and we lost them all. We definitely took a hit to schedule, I’m not going to lie. However, it didn’t really have anything to do with the JJP relationship, unless they were dissatisfied with our features and schedule, which we never heard from them. The #1 requested feature was hog mode which we released, hopefully you all enjoyed it.

Anything is possible. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I simply don’t know.

Hog mode was a game changer IMO as it just let you play and not worry about making sure it connected each game. I remember early on being bummed out because I would have that one great game only to find out it didn’t count for anyone else to see . Of course that was solved quickly and then Hog mode took that stability to the next level. Scorbit significantly increased the replay-ability for my games.

The good news is that I will still be enjoying it on my VPIN tables and the expansion that comes in that world - thanks Jay! Blood Machines was a great time last night and I’ll be trying to get on the global leaderboard again tonight!

You want to sell me some of that stinky POTC?

It makes sense that JJP wants ownership of its customers connected experience. I'm guessing that they will roll out their own platform. It's hard to understand why they would stop supporting Scorbit until this happens. Even then, allowing customers to have options makes their products even stickier. As others have said, poor communication and timing by JJP, which is the de facto standard.