Quoted from Pinballlew:Does anyone want to purchase one of my preorder spots? Comes complete with an unopened Christmas ornament!
Ten cents on the dollar? Lol....
(Topic ID: 171152)
Quoted from Pinballlew:Does anyone want to purchase one of my preorder spots? Comes complete with an unopened Christmas ornament!
$?
The Christmas ornament was the only thing they managed to ship (it was paper).
Super RARE Limited Edition!
They didn't manage to even ship them to all the backers (similar to Stern's spotty Tshirt distribution in the past... )
Plainfield, IL
Quoted from Pinballlew:Does anyone want to purchase one of my preorder spots? Comes complete with an unopened Christmas ornament!
2ty3om.jpgWhat does it take to start a class action lawsuit? I would name paperflock and stern. Because stern clearly promoted this. I bet something would happen then.....
Quoted from EricHadley:What does it take to start a class action lawsuit? I would name paperflock and stern. Because stern clearly promoted this. I bet something would happen then.....
Not enough money in it for the lawyers.
Quoted from Pinballlew:Does anyone want to purchase one of my preorder spots? Comes complete with an unopened Christmas ornament!
that all depends, are you [paying] people to take the spot (and the anguish that goes with it? 
Quoted from PinMonk:Not enough money in it for the lawyers.
Quoted from j_m_:that all depends, are you [paying] people to take the spot (and the anguish that goes with it?
Did you mean praying and not paying?
Quoted from Spelunk71:If we have to resort to public shaming, Stern’s TPF seminar in about a month could be a good opportunity.
Someone at least take Gary Stern's picture.....
Quoted from MrBally:Someone at least take Gary Stern's picture.....
From the back. That will show him! And meekly ask about GB code as well.
I know this is not really related to the Stern book, but I didn’t wish to start a seperate thread on this. This book fiasco then this leaves me a bit bitter. Sphero is doing a kickstarter for a new toy of theirs? That is just absurd if you ask me. They have the money to fund this themselves
7898E1BF-FCE7-4667-9AF9-BE1604ED47A2 (resized).pngSome kickstarters are more about showing outside investors that there is interest in the product. If you can prove that people want the product via a successful kickstarter, some venture capitalists are much more willing to open their wallet to make a more substantial investment.
Kickstarter is basically free money with few strings attached. Why not take people's money, get some cheap marketing, and prove to investors that you have a product people want?
Quoted from TreyBo69:Some kickstarters are more about showing outside investors that there is interest in the product. If you can prove that people want the product via a successful kickstarter, some venture capitalists are much more willing to open their wallet to make a more substantial investment.
Kickstarter is basically free money with few strings attached. Why not take people's money, get some cheap marketing, and prove to investors that you have a product people want?
Ahh that makes sense.
Quoted from hool10:Film documentary that I backed for $50 back in '15. Backer surveys have gone out as they figure out how to mass produce, sign, shipping, etc. It also has Roger Sharpe in the film. Another project surpassing this book being completed:
Me too.. at least they finally sent out the info for claiming your tier, and they've been good about sending chunks along the way.. I chose the downloadable version. I don't need a DVD, and I felt burned by that silly pinball donut girl movie that was like a measley 12 minutes long.
1 week later
No update this month huh? :p I have to admit Joe has kept us updated via KS e-mails. Some KS I have like a book that I backed updates you out of the blue and it's a LONG update. Unfortunately with this KS the updates aren't really meaningful or confidence boosting heh.
In my mind I’ve written off my loss. IF this ever shows up then I will be pleasantly surprised but probably won’t even open it.
Quoted from EricHadley:In my mind I’ve written off my loss. IF this ever shows up then I will be pleasantly surprised but probably won’t even open it.
Yup, same. Also now Stern has their own Insider Access program.
I don’t think any of us expect regular updates going off his track record. Hopefully he had a nice time with my $125.
what exactly can we do as backers? it's quite obvious that joe isn't putting together a book and ran off with our money. any lawyers want to take up a class action lawsuit pro bono?
paging @pinlawyer 
Quoted from MrBally:New intern whispering "30 Years of Stern Pinball" in Joey's ear.....
[quoted image]
Her right hand keeps the loop inside.
Quoted from OilGuy:I just don’t get Kickstarter; give someone something for nothing? What is wrong with “work hard to make something someone will buy if it is good”. I must be getting old.
depends on the kickstarter. If it's an engineered product, sometimes there's expensive tooling involved. Some just do kickstarters for exposure, some use it to see how much of the public is even interested in buying before they go down the path of doing all the work. Not saying any of it is right, but those are the reasons.
i find the biggest problem with failed kick starters is people completely under estimate how much work is involved in getting a r&d proof of concept product to a proper commercial project. It can be an enormous job and completely different process to creating the demo version.
But in this case its probably just pure lazyness lol
Quoted from OilGuy:I just don’t get Kickstarter; give someone something for nothing? What is wrong with “work hard to make something someone will buy if it is good”. I must be getting old.
The reason for KS is to make a specialized or niche product for a small limited quantity. Now the chance for failure is based on a lot of factors like how many people backed you, what the thing you want to make is, your experience with making a commercial product, etc. The whole point in making a KS is to make something you wouldn't see at Walmart or a company would never mass produce because it would cost too much for such little profit. That IMO is the real reason behind KS and there are other reasons too.
It's your job prior to backing to investigate what the person has done in the past and what backers experiences were like.
I'm not going to repeat myself over and over but this is a coffee table book backed by experienced people who have done similar books in the past. What has transpired is embarrassingly bad. My theory is Joe doesn't care for the book, doesn't care about pinball anymore (a phase he went through), and doesn't care about the KS because not many people backed it for only $50k and now there is no profit in this book. If this was made by like Jonathan Joosten you know this book would be done right.
I'm thinking we might be better off if Joe did blow all our money taking the interns to Bora Bora and the Cayman's. Keep the photos coming Joe, that might be the best return we get. If this book does make it to print, I'm visualizing an amateurish hack job resulting in a big dose of disappointment.
If someone starts a kickstarter for Joe’s Vacation Book - I’m in. Haha! Can you list me in the lost over $200 club?
1 week later
Sydney
Project Update # 36 - check your inboxes:
Hello Kickstarter Backers!
We have made a lot of progress in the last two months!
As you know we got the Stern CD Archive a few months ago and have been working hard to integrate all of the images into layouts based on each machine. The Archives are great and have original artwork in them making the pages SO much more dynamic, but they don't have pictures of the completed machines, at least not at the resolution our print quality demands, so we have been shooting every machine ourselves!
We had another shoot last month at the Vegas Pinball Museum where we knocked out 15 more machines!
► Play video
They gave us a corner of the room to work in and unlocked each machine for us so we could take the glass out to photograph them without glare, and were overall extremely helpful!
And we have already completed the cutting out of all of those machines, and finished layouts and basic color correction too! This was ALOT of work. And now we have a test print of all of our pages to date!
Finally, Jeremy (Zombie Yeti) has been working with us on the art for the other incentives, which should be ready to send to print / manufacture before the end of this month!
We have a meeting with Stern to review pages next week.
We have more color correction to do (things look different after you see them printed).
And we have a little more layout detail to do like captions and other things, but the work is over 90% of the way done!
We know this has been a long haul, we know people are waiting, but you haven't seen a pinball book like this before, we promise!
Thank you all for your continued patience and support, Joe, Dameon, and the Paperflock team.
Quoted from MrBally:Well, that's proof positive for me......
Same here. This is more like the kind of updates they should have been doing to ease us supporters. Maybe we'll end up very happy with the out come after all.
Quoted from ronlisa:Same here. This is more like the kind of updates they should have been doing to ease us supporters. Maybe we'll end up very happy with the out come after all.
I think "....." meant sarcasm not approval.
Quoted from cooked71:Project Update # 36 - check your inboxes:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paperflock/keeping-the-ball-alive-30-years-of-stern-pinball/posts/2444621?ref=ksr_email_backer_project_update_registered_users
Hello Kickstarter Backers!
We have made a lot of progress in the last two months!
As you know we got the Stern CD Archive a few months ago and have been working hard to integrate all of the images into layouts based on each machine. The Archives are great and have original artwork in them making the pages SO much more dynamic, but they don't have pictures of the completed machines, at least not at the resolution our print quality demands, so we have been shooting every machine ourselves!
We had another shoot last month at the Vegas Pinball Museum where we knocked out 15 more machines!
► Play video
They gave us a corner of the room to work in and unlocked each machine for us so we could take the glass out to photograph them without glare, and were overall extremely helpful!
And we have already completed the cutting out of all of those machines, and finished layouts and basic color correction too! This was ALOT of work. And now we have a test print of all of our pages to date!
Finally, Jeremy (Zombie Yeti) has been working with us on the art for the other incentives, which should be ready to send to print / manufacture before the end of this month!
We have a meeting with Stern to review pages next week.
We have more color correction to do (things look different after you see them printed).
And we have a little more layout detail to do like captions and other things, but the work is over 90% of the way done!
We know this has been a long haul, we know people are waiting, but you haven't seen a pinball book like this before, we promise!
Thank you all for your continued patience and support, Joe, Dameon, and the Paperflock team.
I still don't get the shooting machines again when Stern gave them all the assets from the flyers already. If those were print ready, the ones in the last 15-20 years should have PLENTY of resolution unless they're blowing up the playfield on all the machines. And if they're shooting machines at the PHOF, those machines may or may not be in an original configuration, so as a reference, this book will be worthless.
I also hope their "color correction" is better than the single example they posted a year or so ago...
Quoted from cooked71:We have a meeting with Stern to review pages next week.
Great! After they make sure they look good you should be ready to go.... 
2 weeks later
Lol, I was the guy at the Steve Ritchie panel in Texas wondering if Steve has heard from Paperflock recently. 
The answer sadly was "no".
2 weeks later
The interns just came across another treasure trove of photos, so it may take just a short while longer... 
Quoted from EricHadley:[quoted image]
Yes you complain now that you don't have the book but just think when you do get it how much thicker it will be and how many more machines will be added to it!
(Disclaimer: yes this is sarcasm so please take that into consideration before down voting.......ok go ahead now!)
Quoted from MrBally:Intern....
[quoted image]
so... that's where our money's been going. joe's a member of a "rent a date" club and we've been paying for it
1 week later
As far as I see it, they’re a bunch of fags that can choke on the bag of dicks they eat.
They keep repeating the same bullshit whenever they do an update. The money is gone, and I don’t see any of us getting what we paid for.
Fuck Kickstarter and crowdfunding. No one is accountable when projects fail, and we’re still being strung along.
Reply
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!
Donate to PinsideGreat to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
