This is a probably a silly question, but has it ever been asked / answered what exactly giving up 51% of the "company" really means? Does it mean ARA simply profits off the rest of the game built? What is the worth of dutch pinball anyway if it's in debt?

What I'm getting at, if giving up the majority of the company gets games built, couldn't the founders simply let "dutch pinball" do what it does (finish manufacturing the only pinball that was designed), and they start up a new company called "dude pinball". This time they learn from their mistake and develop a fully working pinball before taking any pre-order money. It's not like ARA owns the designers and can force them to work on title two. If ARA wants to continue to be in the pinball business, they'll have to hire people to design the next title.

Wouldn't it be ironic if all of the CM's respond with "No Quote"?

DP gets squashed like cockroaches. Business write-off. Deal is void. NIB TBLs get placed in the Nivoge breakroom and Managing Director's house.

Who is wrong or right in this dispute is largely irrelevant, by the time it goes to court (if it ever does and I predict it won't see below for why) DP will be done. They have no money, the accounts above point to the direction they would have been going in.

The need a new CM, to do that they need finance, to do that they need to disclose and most likely resolve whatever liability they have against ARA. They have decided to do nothing on that, if they had a strong position there +are+ processes in dutch law that they could use (injunction to name one of many).

As they have written off the only real option that ARA proposed - they now URGENTLY need a rich pinball angel that believes in the company and believes in pinball, much like what happened to JJP and just recently Heighway. If that doesn't happen they are done, its simply the only choice they have, sadly that will mean giving up equity and I suspect as much as ARA has asked for...

Neil.

how is that different to the current situation?

I feel you man. But this is a math problem. Love and hope won't get us there.

And FTR, I want the game I paid for, not some scaled down version.

Is Nivoge hiring? Asking for a friend....

Again you are only taking into consideration one side of the story and we don't know all the moving pieces. What was that 1k to cover? What was the justification for it? We don't know - hence we can't really judge its validity.

Changes and or misses are not always so one sided in their cause.

I think such a statement is extremely premature given we know virtually nothing about the agreement and the interactions prior to the breakdown. One or two cites does not cover what was a nearly two year relationship.

And I see you didn't add any information beyond what I outlined in terms of the money?

I would love for someone to make the case for DP to move on to a new CM and live happily ever after - using numbers and available real information. I would love to get behind that idea! I don't want it to be the that way I see it and would LOVE LOVE LOVE to be wrong.

Love of pinball, dreams, good intentions, eloquent ramblings that are not always true, ARA portrayed as boogy man (without ARA's side of the story), ignoring the financial contractual realities that we know (ARA/DP has a contract in place and there is no "DP walk away" provision lol), but embracing financial and contractual 'realities' that we don't (ARA would surely lose! DP isn't Broke!, ARA broke all the rules and DP didn't break any!) doesn't do us or DP any good.

I know some people think I am being a little harsh on DP, but giving them a pass on virtually anything they say doesn't make sense to me.

Without knowing DP's true cash position and debts - something I advised DP to provide evidence of - we are left to guess. sorry RTR

Zero cash, zero owed to suppliers and a liability to produce another 120 paid in full games. Substitute your own numbers, the principle is the same. Even if new CM will self finance and agrees to pay setup costs and parts, once they build 120 games, they will expect to be paid. 120 x $6.5k is approximately $800k DP would need, and doesn't have. What about the 40 delivered games ARA claims they were not paid 40 x $6.5k = $260k? Easily $1M obligations owed.

Short of using a Ponzi scheme - finding new people to pay in and actually fund pre-existing orders, fast and furious until the funds dry up and the wheels fall off and people are left empty handed. I can't envision a bank or CM volunteering to build them out of this hole either. The numbers don't add up and this money has likely been missing for between 12 and 30 months. We are having a healthy debate now because enough facts have come to light and the absense of TBLs.

The only way out for DP is to find an angel investor who is willing to pay more than what DP is worth. How much more, evidently $1M+. But they are not taking that approach, instead they mention a plan to target banks and wealthy CM's. Imho, whether you've paid in full or simply have a deposit down, DP's f*@k a stranger in the a$$ approach cannot succeed. The sooner they realize they need an angel investor to pay the bills and a CM (not self funded) to build the games, the sooner these games can be built. until then, everyday that passes, DP is yanking your chain.

There is still 120 games not paid for with Cointaker and nitro , I think at 9grand or 9500......thats over 1 million to still collect if they can produce the 248 games left or whatever the number is , 3 years of this shit makes me tired !

IMG_5851 (resized).JPG

You don't need to speculate to see how bad this situation is. They are talking about getting more money to build machines that are already paid for in full. They need to have enough money to build those at least to not be completely fucked.
DP: We'd like to borrow some money to build pinball machines!
Bank: And how much do you expect to profit from each machine once built?
DP: Nothing on the first 150 units.
Bank:...

Now for some speculation:

Per the "live broadcast" (Why make it live when questions cannot be asked in real time?) it sounds like ARA has not been paid for the completed machines or parts. It seems very plausible to me that DP doesn't have enough money to pay for the completed machines and the to-be-completed machines from the parts ARA has. It sounds like they need ARA to float them the machines so they can send them out on the promise that they will pay them from the profits realized from the 100 or so non-achiever games that were sold for $10,000 each. ARA must not think these numbers look good.

Also, do they really think they can go to another CM and leave ARA with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of parts and machines that they cannot sell? This seems to be a weak threat to get ARA to budge and I doubt it will work.

And to anyone saying they aren't broke: my definition of broke is owing more than you have. With the BoP 2.5 attempt, talk of getting more money and multiple other signs I'd bet my bottom dollar that DP fits this definition of broke.

This is another story of sad failure in the boutique pinball world where a few people made out like bandits with super-rare games, DP never gets to make another machine again and a few dozen people get screwed out of $8500. Count on it. I don't see how this goes any other way. I don't think DP are bad guys, they are just bad businessmen and were foolish with spending your money.

about 50 people fully paid and have the machine. About 140 of us are fully paid without receiving anything. Alot more then a few dozen, 140 at risk of losing $8500. It's worse then you thought.

News flash, for all those who keep trying to claim it's a pyramid scheme, those who have machines better hope not. Just ask all the early Bernie Madoff investors. Everyone gets shafted if that's the case. Even if you sold yours, you are still liable.

I think DP has to have something more to offer investors/banks than the revenue generated by the completion of 300 TBL machines if they're going to make it.

By most accounts, TBL is an excellent machine. If they could make and sell say a 1000 of them, maybe that could do it.

Liable for what exactly? Buying a product and selling it?

We are not investors. We are customers, those who got the machine got lucky. How are they liable for buying a product? None of us invested to gain profit. We bought a product, and the company has let us down by going though our purchase money. Not paying their bills and not delivering the products already paid for by us, the consumers.

Inorder to label it a pyramid scheme, it has to be an investment. Nice to see everyone switch gears rapidly when reality is invoked.

Do as much math as you need but (I know it's canned and cliche') hold onto your inner dude that got you into this mess. Hope is a powerful thing.

I'm with you. I absolutely want future TBL's to be made as advertised and exactly as early builds. I bought in over 3 years ago to play the hell out of this machine one day not to have some rare oddity dream theme.

I was aware of the numbers. I should have written "dozens of" instead of "a few dozen".

In regard to the 40K salary story. I checked this with a bookkeeper.

There is no minimum salary you have to take out the company but but but the government will tax you like you took out 44KEUR as a salary. So even if you take zero salary taxes will have to paid compliant with a 44K salary. So you might as well take it out as when you leave it in the company you have to company tax on it.

Reason for this taxdepartment wants to avoid people using their company as a saving account (company tax is lower as salary tax). I think an average salary in NL is approx 37K so 44K is not an outrageous salary if you take it out a company.

Except one might argue it's not theirs to take

There are situations where yo do not have to pay the salary to yourself, this is what I learned. For example if you want to take a ''Sabbatical''
When no activities take place in your company (there are no commercial activities that bring in money) you could/must reward yourself with a dividend. The amount of the dividend must be in-line with the activities you did in that particular year. There is always some admin, acquisition, visiting trade shows and so on. So if you can ''prove'' there was no more labor put in than 100 hours or so, you could ''reward'' yourself with 10K or less. Tax would take 40% instead of 52% of the 44K salary.
That is of course only possible when there is ''profit money'' in your company's bank account.
Assuming DP had 500K profit at some time, (from EA's payments) they had to pay 100K to tax, the remaining 400K sits there in their account, they can chose to pay 2x the salary or pay a little dividend to each for this year.

Not sure if that 500K is seen as profit or that they managed to book it as some kind of a loan against 0%...
Probably the latter I hope

And now something pinball related

Had a friend over last night, we played for 4 hours straight on TBL. No issues anymore. Ive spend some serious amount of hours to get it ''Dialed in'' and it did pay off. He made it through all modes including all the bowling challenges. What a blast!

If I may say so

It still creates no compulsion to take it out. If you leave it in, the company pays taxes on $44k. If you take it out, the company or individual pays taxes on $44k, plus the company loses $44k. It speeds up the bleeding.

Once money is regularly coming in, THEN it's the time to take out a (reasonable) salary.

Have you read my post? what are you talking about, keeping this subject going on and on to keep you busy?

Jesus, and I thought our government bureaucrats were trying to kill independent business and entrepreneurship.

If ARA was in such breach of contract and DP is so confident they would win. It makes no sense at this point not to refund everyone, let the dream die and take em to court. Then with large sum of winnings as ARA ruined their company. Then start over.

The bullshit runs deep with the reasoning. The love of pinball yeah right.

Because they do not have the money to refund us.

I'm curious to know how many existing Achievers have open service tickets needing closure or resolution. I believe someone is waiting on a bowling mech, while another is awaiting a replacement game due to shipping damage.

Lighten up, Francis.
I was politely referring to someone else's post entirely.
The one whose quote was quoted, who suggested that they might as well take a salary if they were going to be taxed anyway.

I disagreed.

Nothing to do with your sabbatical post. Calm down.

When I initially contacted DP to acquire a BOP 2.0 in 2015 I was super excited to get in on this game. Through Basic word of mouth I was more than willing to put down 2500. Fortunately for me when I contacte DP I found the Lack of professionalism and acountability in 2015 telling. My experience working in start up consumer electric engineering firms set off many red flags. Its extremely difficult to produce consumer grade electronics overseas for US market to begin with. So my logic overode my faith in pinball and avoided DP.

When I actually saw DP in person at Chicago Pinball expo and got to play TBL and Bride 2.0 in person. I actually felt horrible For not standing tall with DP. So I tried to buy a Prototype but was unsuccessful in that endevor. As a huge fan of TBL and impressed with what I saw at Expo I decided I wanted in on the action. A few thoughts kept pinging thru my head remember your friends horrible Magic Girl experience, the horrible customer service from DP and I just got the feeling that DP should of been producing something more substantial than this prototype. But the love of the game kept pulling me in. Fortunately I delayed a little to long in calling Cointaker to make it happeN.

So DP has a few problems to overcome. In EU money to bailout companies like DP can be had, but why not for DP? Seems to me there may be other issues DP isnt being up front about. We know there are a few issues with Gameplay and engineering. Probably some licensing issues, export cost and lack of skilled workers. Factors that make it tough to convince government lenders to give DP a shot. Seems like DP should have some other options available to them. Hopefully they will take a deal, learn a lesson and come back like a Phoenix. These guys were successful to a point, made a few mistakes and with a little faith could make it happen in a big way. The games they wanted to build were amazing.

Respectfully, I still do not think this applies to DP!
The above can *only* be true if the company is turning a profit. DP can not have been turning a profit large enough to allow for those salaries yearly for a few years. They have sold and delivered a few games (10-40?), but the rest of the money they may have access to is liabilities until they deliver.

But for the sake of the argument, let's say they did turn a slight profit and the above tax rules apply. They then had a choice: leave the money in the company and have corporate tax deducted from the 40k, or withdraw the money as salary to avoid corporate tax.

From an owner's private perspective, the latter makes more sense since it transfers the money to his/hers private account for personal taxation after which it is now personal money. But from the corporation's point of view, it is preferable to leave the money in the company where it is still an asset after corporate taxation.

So, no matter how you look at it, for DP's owners/managers to be taking salaries when they are burning money anyway and have too little of it to fulfil obligations is simply wrong. I would even question whether it is legal (depending on what contracts there are with customers and how dutch law regulates obligations towards customers).

Well, I look at it in another way. They have the right to take the money as long as they deliver the product. Only problem here is when will they deliver. Anything you pre-order, the money can be used to pay for anything, including salary. If that is furniture or travel or a car, it doesn't matter. Same applies for Kickstarters, Corporate investments, etc. Companies like Spotify, Uber etc have never made any money but have sky high salaries for CxO's. As long as investors and people trust the company, anything goes. Sometimes this creates a 'bubble'. Now with most products you will only loose limited money and no one will really have a problem with it.
On the refund part, that will be different. But I can understand that same as a bank, you can not give all people their money back at the same time. So also there will be some regulation. Problem is still that DP stated you will get the game you payed for and somewhere there is still the cash to do this. Only question is when will they deliver?

Sorry dude but who gives a flying fart whether they took a salary or are still taking salaries. They were then and are still entitled to one now as long as they are working to get TBL's built. And last I checked they are. Of course the pre-order money is for salaries, as well as, a laundry list of other things like White Russians and the penthouse at Expo. R&D and Advertising.
It's all part of the Build. Don't like it now but you Loved it back then.
Just deliver! That's the truth. and if they had kept production Rollin' to the EA's then we'd have the biggest success story in the history of pinball on our fingertips. Well, they fell short (for now) Attack! Attack!
Oh and Just stop it with the automatic 40k Dutch salaries and corporate tax speculations These guys are trying and trying and trying to make this damn machine. The timeline sucks Yeah. but let them keep trying and quit talking salary pay. If YOU were trying to do this YOU would have given up a long time ago. That's the damn truth and it applies to me as well. Keep your day job I suppose and make an amazing pin on the side. Best of luck!

Can you detail the things they are doing to get these built? Seems like you might have some inside information.

It boggles my mind that there are so many posters in this thread with (seemingly) large pin machine collections that fail to grasp basic business concepts or economics. Did you all inherit money? Or do you live in a large shack with nothing but pinball machines?

You *should* be caring about where the money went and why, especially since there appears to be too little left to build the machines you already paid for. The balance sheet is earlier in the thread, and you can order the rest of the financial info.

I have nothing riding on the DP outcome, so for all practical matters it doesn't matter if DP goes under or not. The only reason *I* post is that I find the story fascinating and hope that people (both in the business of buying and producing machines) learn a thing or two.

But from what I see here, it is more than likely that this ends in tears, and that people still haven't understood how dangerous the preorder/kickstarter business model can be for customers.

But don't worry. This is my last post here as whatever little advice I hoped I could contribute is not making any difference whatsoever. But good luck to each and every one of you. I mean it.

played TBL at Sunshine last night for the first time since Expo and its such a shame that this mess exists as the game is really good.

This is 100% correct. While I don't disagree that people who are working hard deserve to be paid, there is also a threshold where DP may know they lack the funds to build all the remaining games. Once that threshold is realized they need to either consider other viable funding sources (if any) or fold the tent and refund what they can in some fair manner rather than keep paying themselves till the money runs out ala JPop.

Customers are entirely right to question how much money is left and what the monthly cash burn for DP may be...both are reasonable questions in a crowd funded situation like this.

When you own your own company, you generally get paid last and many times not at all. At least until the company is on firm financial footing.

Except with boutique pinball COmpaNies....

I see what you did there!

Oh do I know the truth behind that, I live it!

I firmly believe many people here are trust fund babies. How could multiple people have so much extra cash that they lose on 2 or 3 of these risky ventures?

Not inherited but earned and the pins are on location for the world to enjoy, at the place that I started 21 years ago. But that's just me.
No inside info Roostking I just live my life different then most.

Lot of rug pissers in here.

At least one of the rugs belongs to me. I am pretty sure DP pissed on it.

What location? I'd love to find some pins to play around B'more.

I think they shat on mine.

Yeah, I know that wasn't in the movie.