Given that Stern actively promoted this self-serving project, they must have some liability here—moral if not legal. At the very least, they owe it to backers to turn the screws on Joe and team, share current status updates if Joe won’t do so, and provide us something of equal value if the project goes belly up.

Stern will release a Tron VE with LE features for a pro price before this book gets finished (yes I am making fun of yet another Tron VE thread that has popped up)

You think a large business like Stern cares about moral obligations? I got a chuckle

Yeah, guess not. But they may care about negative PR that could affect the bottom line.

I have talked to George and Gary about it and they know about it and are PO'd about it. Not sure if there is anything that they can really do and I'm sure that is one of the reasons why they are ticked off.

Oh yes they promoted it heavily. Their Youtube page with Slash talking about it to even JT talking about: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZshsND-2vClaAbhY594yNQ

They have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/paperflock/

*The more and more I look at Joe's FB page the more I see him do stuff like JPOP did like take tons of vacations, working on his indie films, doing cosplay photo shoots. It's like he became disinterested in pinball and it was like a small "phase" he went through.

Wow...Joe hasn't posted on the Paperflock FB page in almost two years.

It is good to know they at least acknowledge the situation.

I hope joe is planning a vacation in Chicago in a few weeks.....

I don't think the carpetbagger will be at Expo or Stern.

Well, what do you write on Kickstarter when you want money from your target audience?
Just pretend to be one of them! Which is exactly what he did:
"Subject I deeply care about" (Awesome, so do we!)", I own a pinball machine" (failed to mention which one), "I play it every day" (of course you do), "many of my trips are to places that have pinball museums or an active pinball culture." (uh-huh)

Not true. Not true at all. This guy has a business partner that owns a printing business and Joe himself has funded a few very successful KS.

We all knew the risks we were taking 2 years or so ago. I knew the risks I was taking. I however looked up his partners company and Joes other KS and saw how they did and trusted he would deliver. Plus owning a pinball machine, you gotta be a certain type of person. I mean the thing is huge and expensive I mean you really have to like pinball to get a game rather than going to the arcade all the time.

Then on top of all this I trust Stern and they wanted to see it made too so they helped out by giving them access to stuff and even doing the promos to help them out. So my reasoning was that Stern would support them since even Slash himself was supporting it as well.

This really may be Joe going through a fad like I said because the guy is more interested in making indie films rather than you know do what Orange Photography does and photograph pinball.

I found it rather odd this guy came out of left field too and never appeared at expo to promote the book even in '16. Has anybody ever seen this guy before at their local barcade? Pinburgh???

Again for example "Restoration Games" they are making a beloved board game that I never got my parents to get me but I backed it. They have also done other board games but none quite this big before and that $1mil+ helps a lot too. They put out a very ambitious video to entice you to back it:

They have a snazzy website which Paperflock DOES NOT and only appeared shortly after this book got funded. Now the board game is being shipped from China and it was funded back in Spring. Look at that video! All that stuff! Not just a book! That is a lot of work to pull that off not to say this book isn't but it's just a coffee table book. Also I got all those add-ons in that video for about the same price as I paid for this book which was like $120 or so. Also the 2 guys (just like Paperflock, 2 guys) behind Restoration Games have gone around to various shows to show off the prototype.

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The CD Archive 2
Posted by PaperFlock Inc (Creator)
First, I know we missed our September update and we apologize for that, but we have now secured the completed CD archive from Stern giving us 5 TB of new data!

This doubles the amount of data we had a couple months ago!

I know many people are asking, "What is taking so long?!?". And we know we are WAAAAY overdue on this project. But we also know that if we don't take the time to get it right we will all regret it in the long run.

So, where are we at now?

1. We have a great graphic designer on board till the completion of the project.

2. We have the completed "story" / copy signed off by Stern.

3. We now have 10 TB of images and data we are churning through to pick the absolute best stuff.

4. We have Slash's intro completed and signed off on.

5. We have done the retouching on most of the historic photos we intend to include.

What do we have left to do?

1. Filter through all of the new images we got from Stern!

2. Photoshop / cut out / clean up the images we want to use.

3. Build the layouts based on the layout formats we have established.

4. Get the entire book approved by Stern and all involved.

5. Go to print!

I know waiting has been frustrating, but if we had made this book without this archive of data I think we would have done all of us a disservice.

We are very excited about the material we have and the direction the book is going in, and we know that when you get your hands on it you will be pleasantly surprised

Thank you all for your patience, Dameon and Joe, The Paperflock team

a small sampling from the archive
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A bit of irony is that George showed off a bit of the prototype LOTR pics there in the Pintastic panel this year. This is what it used to look like under the apron:

The Flockers are keepin' it alive and keepin' it real! I figure after a few more discoveries of lost information from Stern, another group of spunky interns and a new graphic designer (or two), this should be ready for X-Mas........2019.

Doesn't seem like this book is anywhere near finished.

Holy crap, that seems like a ton of work.

Anybody in South Central Wisconsin want to take bets if the I-39/90 expansion project or this book will be completed first?

Let's see, one CD probably holds 670 mb. 5,000,000 divided by 670 = 7,463 discs. No wonder they are behind schedule.

2019????

Sounds like that could take YEARS to sift through.

I think that he meant 2119. seven years after we've been all part of the solar federation and then subsequently freed from their tyranny in the year 2112

It'd be easier to list what they have done instead of what they have to do. Like it sounds like all they have done is received some digital photos from Stern, touched up some photos, wrote some text (who the f knows how much), but have done zero layout...which is really the vast bulk of the work.

Hell, Stern could have probably cut out the middle man and sold a DVD of the photo archives. Toss a copy in every machine sold so people have something to do while they wait on code updates.

don't give joe any ideas. at this point, I have the feeling that he's going to deliver a blank notepad and a box of crayons and tell everyone its a "choose your own adventure/make your own pinball" book

Foreword: "The journey is the reward".
Oops - wrong company. That was JJP/WoZ.

On my side I don't even remember how much I contributed.

Just curious what will be the final name for this book. 30/31/32/33/34... years of Stern pinball ?

I think Stern 3? Year’s is the working title.

Yeahhhhh

It looks like many people who preordered PINBALL ADVENTURES received Volume One today (although I have NOT gotten my copy yet!) It turned out to be 245 pages (we advertised 200 pages). You can order from www.pinballbuzz.com Hope you all enjoy it! Volume Two is on target for a December release! I will be signing copies and have it available at the Chicago Pinball Expo next week also! And don;t miss my seminar too on Friday 4pm! Todd

Congrats! Looking forward to receiving my copy.

Somewhere Gary Stern is weeping...

ordered.

Sweet! Ordered. At least this time I get something for my $

Received my book today Todd! Great book with lots of information. Great job . Looking forward to the other volumes.
(Looking forward to my "Speed Buggy" also. Looks great!)

It's amusing to me that this thread has become the place to discuss other successful Pinball books being published and delivered to customers. Pinball Magazine's 360 page tomb, and Todd's volume 1, with more to come.

Gary should have Todd finish paperflocks book.

I called dibs on that a few pages ago.

You can't finish what hasn't been started

Burn!

Ha! Word has it the newest batch of interns and the fourth graphic designer are just about ready to begin some serious prepping to get ready to start working on the book...

Almost

I got my copy today! (Yes, I had to wait too!)

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hey! wait a second, that's not the paperflock coffee table book

oh that's right todd, this is the first of the 10 volumes that you'll probably have complete and printed before paperflock gets their sh*t together

I’ve published 32 magazines since I supported this book two years ago. I think many of us could have completed this book by now!

Todd I just bought the Front Line that you did a video on!

And Pinside in the background, great promotion of both Mr. T!

Brad

The cabaret or the full size? I have a sad story about one Front Line...we delivered it to an office in the World Trade Center in the mid 90's..after the first bombing...he bought 5 games for his office. He sold his business in August 2001 and our guys went to the WTC in late AUGUST to get three of the machines he wanted to keep...we left two games there for the new owners...I cannot remember if Front Line was left there or not...but two of those games were destroyed of course! SO we were in that building about three weeks prior to the final bombing!

The full-size you sold about 3 years ago.

Anybody ask Stern about this book at expo?

This is its second anniversary of not being finished (or even started). Woo Hoo.

I left saturday morning and stern's seminar wasn't under 8pm saturday night and I never saw george walking around to ask him