I swore to myself I wouldn't comment on the Phil/DP thing again, but this comment made me break.

I guess I'm sensitive to this whole recent story because I'm in the position of a hobby-business-partnership that people seem to equally follow and like (like DP and TBL). I was into reading the Phil thread early (like 3 pages long early) and had the meticulous opportunity to see it unfold in realtime. Not a rush-read. Not "War and Peace" or Cliffnotes. To follow it slowly, as each little snippet of information/evidence was revealed.

Being in the role I am in, I HAD to imagine how "bad" it must have been, backed up by the explanations and proof Phil was showing, and think of it in terms of "what would it have to be like for ME to reach this point" ???

Think about that for a second.

What I'm getting at is, the drama and millions of opinions/posts has seemingly diluted the original move (and motives) in the first place. It's seemingly forgotten (already) what it took to make a partner of a very positive/cool/groundbreaking project actually WANT to leave. And not just leave, but to get outta there - keep all my money I put in - and keep the future earnings.

Think about that for a second.

So again, from a CPR angle, if anything close to this ever happened here, say with me reaching some kind of point where I want to get as far away from CPR as possible and demand my name off everything... well, what in the hell would be going on inside CPR that caused that? Where I don't even want to be bought out? Where I don't want a penny, a stitch of product or gear, and I go and give every customer their money back that I can? Wow. It would have to be bad. And of course, to complete this analogy/scenario... I could only assume that the other CPR folks would send out email blasts that "everything is fine" "Kevin is disgruntled" and "he's handling this the wrong way" and smooooth everything over as quickly as possible. My original first-move statements and evidence would get whitewashed... and suddenly it's simply "a meltdown" (lol) and I can only sit there and facepalm, after I gave everybody EVERY detail... now whitewashed and overlooked. Merely the moves of an overreacting disgruntled ass, and the ship is *totally fine* and *nothing much to see here*.

I guess I'm still waaay back at the original inception to the Phil thing, and I haven't left there. It strikes me that something was truly bad enough that this kind of a jump-ship would take place. Something where a guy could not risk having his name on it, or peoples' money in his possession. Ask yourself - what would it take to get YOUR risk-meter that high, where you'd literally want out of one of the (or possibly thee) coolest pinball projects of the decade? AND leave your money behind. How "bad" would it have to get for you? I'm just wondering. I know my threshold - and it would have to be pretty bad for me to abandon CPR. Something really risky would have to be going on, and something that I couldn't control/stop. I've racked my brain for days now, trying to put my self in Phil's spot. Which makes me think nothing of Roger Sharpe stepping in at the moment. Just window dressing after-the-fact on what is still a mystery in my own mind - what it took to 180-turn a partner (an invested PARTNER) to jump ship in such a way.

I'll leave with an analogy:

You are a top chef.
You get together with two other top chefs.
You partner into a restaurant, with AMAZING food creations.
You put in $100,000 from your own pocket.
It's successful, and customers are coming in droves.
Every new dish/update you provide is cheered and encouraged.
Then after a while, there comes a point where you cannot work with the others in that kitchen.
The greatness by the public view on your place be damned, you can no longer participate.
But it was the coolest restaurant in the country.

You want out.
You don't even want your $100,000 back.
You forego all future successes.
You just want to be released.

So the question: what was going on in that kitchen that changed you?

I'm still trying to think of what it would take to make me want as far away from CPR as possible. None of it is good. None of it could be something that Roger Sharpe showing up could simply wash away.

Maybe this WAS the biggest overreaction in history. Over teeny concerns. But I doubt it.

Always think about that original premise. Putting those shoes on. What would it take for you.

Sorry if this is out of place for this thread. Just another couple pennies from a hobby biz point of view. I really hope they can forge forward and fix whatever it was. Get other money and finance/finish this puppy. They'll definitely all sell. And not many industries have the luxury to have such guarantees of revenue at the end. So that's a really good thing. Make the product and they WILL come.

Man, this stuff moves FAST.

No, I had only been in this thread tonight. Thought the other thread had just dwindled on to a downward spiral of quibbling, animated GIFs, and zingers.

So there WAS some new information.

Thanks guys, I'll go take a listen.

EDIT: Listening now. I've never had time to follow pinball podcasts before. I've got to say, this Nate guy has a great radio voice. I used to be in radio on campus during my 4 years of university. Loved it. He's got a way better voice than me, tho

I think it's been said he has a week of treatments going on right now. I have a fuzzy feeling that I don't think sunday & monday was the last PinSide will hear details from Phil... and I don't think his mission to refund will end until every penny in that account is given back, so he can close it. It is true that PayPal won't close an account with money in it.

_{Post edited by KevinCPR: the great Nate !}

Okay, listened to the #126 show. Likely enough for me. At least for tonight.

So my takeaways are that a) due to the close contact of Nate, I can consider his insider viewpoints to hold a good amount of water b) perception of how "bad" or "good" things are, simply happened to differ as polar opposite viewpoints between the partners. Everybody involved being uber-intelligent and uber-talented guys having good intentions, but there were opinions/methods that were stubbornly held to on either side with no compromise. Smart guys tend to want/need to be "right". c) One side, due to their own makeup and personality type, saw things completely opposite to the other side, due to their own makeup and personality type. One considered the sky is falling (to them) and the other completely not seeing it the same way (to them).

What might turn somebody 180 degrees from seeing something as an awesome project to suddenly horrible boat anchor, is obviously perceived different person to person. In this case, Phil's view should only be taken as his personal perception (at least that's what I'm getting from the story being told in the podcast). OK then.

If that's the story from behind the scenes, then I guess it fills in a lot of the blanks for me.

So I'll fall sleep a little easier tonight (these major hobby conflicts really bother me, cuz I don't want to see hobby biz brethren collapse).