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.

They might as well to make themselves look as good as possible. The book is already crazy behind schedule and most people who backed it are probably not going to be able to fully enjoy it because of the years of frustration. That's the thing about Kickstarter, they're only pissing off customers that already gave their money. They need to make it as nice as possible for the people who haven't bought one and may be interested in buying one.

He's pretty much been a total failure since he was pushed out of id. He's the John Popadiuk of video games. Great creative mind, decent engineer, but a terrible project manager that needs a team to get things to the goalline. Daikatana is a lot like Magic Girl. A lot of hype, a lot of promises, delayed for years, and the final product mostly didn't work or make anyone happy.

It's almost as if they had no idea what they were doing and poorly planned how to do it...

How the hell does it take a thirty minutes to a hour to photoshop those images? You're taking new photos on an all white backdrop with ample lighting! Does no one on staff know how to use the dozens of tools in Photoshop that could automate the process of going through hundreds of images to remove the backdrop, even out the lighting, etc.. The labor intensive part is physically moving the machine to get photos of it, not the slight touch up work on the photos

Kudos for at least still working on it I guess?

Kickstarter changed some rules so you have to have a "working prototype" before you start a campaign. They should probably have a rule that you must have a rough draft/layout if you want to kickstart a book

I think Stern just doesn't care.

Why should they? This is hardly that embarrassing for them anymore and it's not going to affect their pinball sales in the slightest. It sucks for a lot of people, but I'm sure Stern doesn't seem much value in fooling with it themselves. It's not like this is a book that would have ever been a bestseller. They're a company with revenue in the tens of millions, they don't care about a few grand in book royalties.

But what could they really do? Leave Joe a harshly worded voicemail? Throw money into this mess for a token amount of good will (and the book would still be disappointing for most people if it came out)? They presumably already got paid for participating in the project and they aren't going to fall into a sunk-cost fallacy. They might be able to terminate the contract, but then that will only officially kill the book and make Stern look like the bad guy when their only fault was not vetting Joe enough.

Maybe they could issue an apology and give out some cheap swag to backers? Of course if they did that, people would still complain that they want the book or a total cash refund.

I think Stern rather ignore the whole thing because there's so little gain for them. That said, I would totally buy the DVD of images and docs they gave to Joe for like $15.

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?

It looks like a shitty instagram account of a photographer that doesn't know where to point the camera.

The original layout is clearly just the rough draft of whatever they've cobbled together. I guess good on them for realizing that they should, at minimum, show the whole playfield, cabinet art, and backglass. It's simply mind blowing that it took them multiple years to figure that one out.

Someone could hit CTRL+P on a bunch of IPDB pages and get better results. (We all know that every fact in the book is just going to crib IPDB)

That's a great looking book. Stern should contact them to do the 40th anniversary book.

But can you regurgitate all of them haphazardly onto paper with snippets from IPDB

If so, boy do I have a business proposition for you. Plenty of paid vacation days!

Printing out this thread on glossy paper would be a more entertaining read than this book.

Idk, the expectation of most seems to be thrilled if anything shows up at all. I think most have already written it off as a waste of their money.

If Joe did figure out how to ship at a reasonable cost, he'd pocket the difference. He's already sent out the invoice. You think he's going to fool with refunds? I imagine he's as ready to be done with this as most of the people he ripped off.

And any book that doesn't get sold to a backer will be sold to the dozens of people who asked how to get a copy of the book on the various social media posts it occasionally pops up in.

I'm curious how much this will retail for when it eventually shows up on Amazon. I bet with shipping it's less than $90

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities, out of the 500 books about 56 were reserved for company people, Stern people, Slash, etc... and only 444 are actually for sale.

They will absolutely make another run of this book. (If they start now they might be able to get it ready for the 35th anniversary)

Will the 30th edition book be out by the 35th anniversary? Data East pinball formed in fall of 86. Will these be out by fall '21?

It's sad how you actually have to ponder if they could make that deadline...