I wonder what the actual demand is for this game at that 12.5k. How many could they conceivably sell if there was a warehouse full of built games and at what point would demand dry up? To a lot of people this is a dream theme, but I just wonder how many others would pay that?

Remember, most of the time NSNLs were written by other people with his input. It wouldn't suprise me he wasn't quite on top of those, because most of the time (according to the retellings) the newsletters were dragged out of him as necessary.. instead of him pushing the news out.

I think you hit the nail on the head. This guy is not and will never be a straight shooter. Doesn't inspire any confidence is his ability to be honest or deliver these machines. When a local distributor has one in stock is the moment in which I would seriously considering parting with any money, and I'm a huge TBL fan salivating for one of these.

If they are able to show that there's a good chance that 500 more of these machines will be out in the world, there will be very little demand at $12,500.

But they won't, so it doesn't really matter.

I haven't been in this hobby for that long, but how many machines have ever been released at the 12K+ price point ( including LE's)?

Easy for you to say. You got your game, right?

Very Few- as far as new pins are concerned the list is:

JJP Dialed In LE
JJP POTC LE
JJP Wonka LE
Stern Batman 66 Super LE

Some games have crested that mark that are not new but just rare including but not limited to:

Kingpin
Big Bang Bar
Cactus Canyon
King Kong

I wonder if any of those new machines sold even close to 500, let alone the 500 on top of the two prior TBL shipments.

It’s called (re)building a brand and if you aim for the long run its goes in the top 3 of the smartest investment move you can make.

You forgot to factor in their vacation time.

Did Barry mention anything about the new board design or any game improvements from Chinese version? After all, it was "board failure" that caused one of the delays.

Speaking of China, poor Xytech.
All they are is dust in the wind...

0UMGi8Q.gif

I can't imagine anyone would want to buy a company with very little IP and legal issues. I agree it makes no sense that anyone would offer to buy DP and then make the EAs whole in this way. Also, is the TBL licensing even transferrable? I've been thinking for a long time that DP would be much better off to partner with American or CGC to have them manufacture. To me that's the only thing that makes TBL viable.

After all that's happened with the EAs, I can't imagine there will be many people willing to give DP/Cointaker much of a deposit.

I asked to have my name added to the list. I was told, "Ok you're on the list", but nothing more. I sent a follow up email asking what kind of deposit is required and what number I'm at on the list, and I have yet to hear back. Doesn't bode well in my opinion.

That's kind of perplexing. Several times during the interview, Barry stated he is a serial optimist and always "very positive" and for btter or worse, you can get that sense from listening to him: he seems almost too casually relaxed and unaffected by the whole thing. In that guise, it's no wonder he seems convinced he can build 500 games in a year. Some optimists are ineptly immune to the cynical lessons of reality.

It's why I can almost understand and forgive where he's coming from with the white lie about the defective boards. Optimists say "eh this issue is but a delay, we'll work it out, just need a small smokescreen to stem speculation and panic". That's an entirely relatable scenario; I daresay many folks here have done similar when it comes to keeping family and bosses at bay while you're working on their projects.... HOWEVER, a more properly minded businessperson would have evaluated the risk/reward of the situation and tuned the message (smokescreen) differently. To that end, Barry says he regrets the white lie, as well he should. Tough lesson learned.

So how much of the NSL's were being forced out of Barry? Seems to me, if he was always be trying to "be positive" and tying to get others to remain that way about the scheme, he should have known EXACTLY what was being "tuned", and to what degree. Or was it all just BS on the spot?

Was Jaap the "brains" and Barry the "mouth"? From the ignorance he set forth in that interview it really seems like Barry took over a company despite having no clue what truly went on. I find that incredible when livelihood is on the line (OTOH Barry alluded to being financially secure enough that DP was not his bread and butter so maybe that didn't matter).

Regardless, there's being "positive", and then there's just being "incomprehensibly stupid" unless your "positivity" is a snake smile sales pitch. Incredibly, it seems hard to peg Barry as any of them exclusively.

I could be wrong (I often am) but I’m not so positive there is a market for 500 games at $12.5k or that they could roll them off the assembly line at that price on a long term basis. Maybe if they announced that is ALL that is being made they could get that price... but if manufacturing was ongoing (assuming the license could go past Dec 2020) I think the market calms down and sales would really slow at that price.

Remember people are often quick to sign up for things and even to put deposits down on games only to cancel later. How many people here were deep on lists waiting for NIB games and got moved to the top of the list when others dropped out?

I wonder if partnering with Stern/CGC/someone else to manufacturer gets the quality and speed of production up to maximize the license time and consumer confidence... ??? My guess (pure guess) is that the capital needed to get those guys going is too high for DP right now.

No great choices to move forward but I give Barry credit for trying and I hope everyone who paid gets a game someday.

The only reason people are willing to fork out $12.5K is because they know they can play it for a while and then sell this game for a profit....if this game was readily available it would sell for $8K max....

I see it differently... he may be an 'optimist' but even more so he is a story weaver and liar; completely devoid of transparency. He has repeatedly, directly, and to the point of fraudulently, omitted details in his telling of events. He doesn't just focus on the good stuff, he flat out hides or avoids the existence of things that would be a detriment to the story he's trying to project and get people to buy into. He won't even acknowledge they are even part of the discussion. That's not optimism... that's deception. And that's where he loses credibility.

That's why DP would go dark for such long periods... they didn't have anything they could spin into 'good' and would only acknowledge 'bad' when they were drawn out, or could try to say 'this is bad, but look at all this good coming!'.

The people that have helped them along (and there are plenty) have consistently said they've have to encourage and convince them to publicly acknowledge things.. and often drafted the NSNLs outright.

If DP is really able to build more machines, a decent move would be to ask the EA's if they wanna shove in another 3 - 4.5k $ to make the 12.5k whole and get their machines first, or just wait till the end of line and get them for the original and already paid price.

Sure, DP would make less money upfront, but also need to build and sell much fewer machines to regular customers, in order to be able to afford all the EA pins in the end.

I would be in for a NIB at $10k to $12.5k with a 10-15% non-refundable deposit and a sub 1 year delivery time, in case anyone in this thread is doing actual market research.

Just make sure your deposit is held by Cointaker or another reputable distributor, to be forwarded to DP only open shipment of your game. Otherwise, I wouldn't hold out much hope for your $1500 deposit. Or the Credence.

I don't know what to say about this.

If DP were an American company, the EA's (largest group of creditors) would have filed suit and forced them into bankruptcy. As a result they may have gotten 20 cents on the dollar. Instead they do nothing and DP is still in business, so they will get nothing! DP has gotten a free pass from EA's for far too long.

Barry says repeatedly that EA's are important, yet he always puts them at the end of the line to receive a game. Always. Build games for others and then EA games will be built. That is BS. If they are important, start delivering them games right away. Build three game, sell two and send remaining to first EA on the list. Has Barry personally reached out to any EA to apologize for pissing away their money? Surely he has he reached out to every single one, right? No he hasn't, and I am left wondering if he thinks that they are morons and that they can be pushed around and abused at will. Does Barry have a complete list of who his EA's are? Maybe or maybe not.

Consequently, anytime Barry says EA's are important to DP, substitute with the phrase - I will build and sell as many new TBL's as I can before I am shut down for illegally selling merchandise twice and for never fulfilling early orders. With as many issues as reported from the first batch of 20 games shipped to CT, and after hearing DP's responses and lack of information shared, I no longer want a TBL and am dropping out of the market. Good luck to those actively engaged with this game.

Unless DP do survive and they get a game that is... which is 5x better than 20cents on the dollar... no?

Sadly that's the only way to do it at the moment due to cash flow problems...

Apart from the first 55... they were at the front of the line, no?

Your "20 cents on the dollar" bankruptcy analysis implies that DP still had substantial assets. Do you know enough about what ARA's claims were worth, and what rights it had to the completed games and parts, to make any assessment of that at all? I sure don't, and I doubt you or anyone else posting here does either. It's true that the only way to find out would have been to take DP into bankruptcy, but there's a very real chance that, after the lawyers were paid and any secured debt was dealt with, the EAs would have received zero cents on the dollar. Doesn't mean it's not worth paying to file a claim and find out. But the gonzo legal advice offered up in this thread can be a bit much, even by Pinside standards.

I wish that this whole thing would get solved and the game would go into full production by an American company with a proven track record of delivering games.

Having said that I guarantee that will NEVER happen as Barry will never admit he’s just not capable of making all this happen.

In the end Dutch Pinball “crossed the line and should mark it zero” as in after the release of these last ARA games ZERO more will be built and shipped.

No way Barry is assembling games himself. I also doubt he’s got enough friends who want to work for free to clean up his mess. 400-500 hundred games he plans to build by the end of 2020!? No way that’s going to happen.

Folks it’s just time to realize that this thing is dead as long as Barry has any involvement with it.

I know the downvotes are coming but this is just reality. He couldn’t get it figured out when they were flush with cash and I can’t imagine he will be any better in the financial state he finds himself in today.

I would be interested in buying the pin...when I can play and see it at a distributors showroom. It would also be nice to know that the company has made the EA’s whole first.

Actions speak louder than words! Con-men just talk.

What I would like to see is DP obtain the investment required to make the EA’s whole and then produce enough pins so everyone can enjoy owning one. If you can’t run a company, than find someone who can or partner with a company that can help you realize your dream. But stop trying to string people along and taking their money with unfulfilled promises.

I’m not an EA but your statement is not entirely fair or accurate.

First we don’t know about DPs creditors or its assets. Second - in US law they would be unsecured creditors which is important to understand. I don’t practice law in the Netherlands but if it matches the US the unsecured creditors are at the bottom and in every liquidation scenario I have seen they get nothing by the time all is said and done. In BK you can be almost certain ARA (a supplier) would have been paid ahead of unsecured creditors and EAs wouldn’t have gotten anything.

I just don’t think it is fair to imply people missed an opportunity that you don’t know existed and based on my experience in US law I would be willing to bet never existed. Could a few have made noise and gotten their money out before it was too late? Probably. I believe some did in fact. Could all of them? No... forcing the company to bankruptcy would have almost certainly eliminated any chance they have (however large or small that chance is) at getting anything.

Being an unsecured creditor is a tough lesson for many. Gift cards, deposits, etc are all unsecured. People often don’t learn how limited that makes their recourse until it is too late.

Man...listening to this interview while working. Barry just comes off as someone who is the eternal optimist. To the point of being delusional. I think he truly believes he's going to make 500 TBLs, but I'm feeling less and less like it will ever happen. I really wish this weren't the case, as I've been holding out hope for this pin for a long time. But it just seems less and less likely imo.

16 weeks left this year plus 52 next year before license expires = 68 weeks.

68 weeks X 5 work days a week = 340 days to finish.

500/340 = two people must build 1.47 games per day!

It's just impossible, unless he's allocated some of the new money to extend the license past 2020.

Even then, they only sold a couple hundred in the first place. Is the market even there for 500 more especially consider the cost has gone up 50%?

My understanding from CT is that they have rights to build 500 total through the end of 2020. So, subtracting out the 90 made, that would be 1.2 games a day, 6 games a week. Ben, how many people would be needed on a line to do that volume?

Spooky has ~14 employees and makes 10/12/14 games a week, right? At least in that ballpark. Granted not all of those employees are on the line. It's still pretty close. I'd guess 6-7 employees to make 6 games a week.

I found time to listen to the whole two hour podcast (which was evidently recorded several weeks ago, as DP was still in the process of picking up the parts). If you’re interested in hearing Barry present the plan going forward, jump to 1:29.

Key points on Barry's plan to get TBL back into production:

• The parts are now in a storage facility
• DP is in the process of leasing a new production facility
• Have nearly full parts for 25-50 games, lots of partial parts beyond that
• Not concerned about sourcing parts for future games (including potentially from ARA, which did the sheet metal parts)
• Early production will most/all be sold to new buyers to generate funds, then DP will start interspersing production of games for EAs alongside production for new sales
• DP will need to make 400-500 games total in order to get games to all EAs (meaning sale of 265-365 games to new buyers funds production of 135 games for EAs)
• Barry is confident there’s a market for 500 more TBLs at $12.5k
• No statement on when production will start, Barry hopes "very soon"
• Initially, game will be built by Barry, Gus (sp?), and a few volunteers
• Production will slowly ramp up, DP will then hire people
• Barry says DP has funding in place to see project through, is “sure they can pull it off”
• Target is to have all EAs receive games by end of 2020 (requiring avg 8 games/week)
• Will sell exclusively through Cointaker in US, through DP in Europe and rest of world
• DP is considering adding a cheaper “Pro” model at some point, no decision made
• “No preorders this time”

Other items of interest:

• Barry's apology and commitment to get the EAs their games is at 1:57
• Per Barry, 55 games were initially shipped to EAs, 135 EAs are still owed games
• Barry couldn’t bring himself to admit that it was a lie to say ARA wasn’t shipping games due to board problems (he repeatedly called it an “excuse”)
• Barry does not get into the details of why DP lost the court case, or what specifically the ruling was going to be (understandable, settlements often limit the parties from talking about the case)
• In general, Barry did not have a tremendous amount to say about DP's past history, mainly agreeing or disagreeing with the interviewers statements of fact. He did seem to want to say something about the soundtrack issues (all but forgotten given subsequent events, but an early point where DP seemed to be misleading its customers while leaning on Roger Sharpe's image), but subject was dropped. Barry seemed more animated about the path forward, which I suppose is a good thing.

Research and development, paying staff, parts. That's not a lot of money when it comes to developing and building a pinball machine. Jersey Jack has said that it cost several million to develop WOZ.

He does explain that, the judge sided with ARA because ARA was owed money. The dispute between DP and ARA about ARA's adjustment of the price to build games was deemed to be mostly irrelevant.

But TBL was already developed, DP had 2 working prototypes before they ever took a dime of EA money.

Barry also believed there was a market for pimped our BoP 2.0 remakes at that price too.

That one was a headscratcher.

I'm not endorsing Barry's sales projections, BTW (or anything else I summarized from the podcast). Stern's consistently able to sell 500-600 LEs at ~$9k, so I think $10k for 500 more TBLs seems feasible -- it's a fun game with a killer theme, after all. But the instant sellout at $12.5k was based in good part on the expectation that there'd be no more games made, so I wouldn't bank on that price working for a larger run.

Of course none of that matters anyway until they get production up and running, which based on past performance I will believe when I see. That said, it sounds like Barry wants to make DP work and satisfy his debts to the EAs, so I will hope for the best.

I paid $12,500 to CT guessing I would never have a chance to buy one. With the game readily available at $12,500 I would think twice . The LE remakes at $4000 less ? It doesn’t add up with toppers etc

I do hope the EA guys get games but they should sell more games and lower the price

uhh, this next quote disputes that:

How many of those were sold at $8500? And that's still only a combined 190 sold. To say the market would buy 500 more at the $12.5 number is a reach.

You know what sucks about this whole thing? We have normalized this, this f*ed up behaviour......I remember when this whole thing blew up, it was over ARA wanting almost a thousand bucks more per game....now all of a sudden it's $4000, and now the guy who ripped off the community is once again benefitting. I also want to ask Cointaker why are they enriching this guy, is Cointaker benefiting financially from this also? Why wasn't there a resolution agreement regarding the pre order folks before the deal was struck? How can as a community let other people's game get flipped for profit? This should not be normalized.

Your point is on target and I didn’t mean to imply an opportunity was missed. Nobody could have timed such a move and I recognize DP was operating under a cloak half truths and good intentions. By the time people demanded refunds and later their games, it was too late. Nobody was getting their money back from DP.

There are some disturbing things to consider in this timeline but the first outward sign things weren’t right was following the shipment of 55 games. Eventually whispers developed that DP had not paid ARA for the games shipped. The only conclusion I can draw from this strange set of events is that DP did not have enough money to pay for them. They had taken money for 185 games and by the time the first 55 games were built, the money was gone Lebowski, and DP couldn’t pay even costs for them. I’m sure they had money, but not enough to pay for the games. If they had enough money and didn’t pay ... they were incompetent. But then we learned ARA offered a funding deal requiring 51%. Gee why did they do that? Because DP asked for funding options since they could not pay for the shipped games using imaginary money and pixie dust. They gave little thought to their one lifeline for delivering games to all EA’s.

As to why ARA proceeded to build the next 40? They probably listened to Barry and Japp’s bs and promises and kept working in good faith, while DP got the funding together for those first 55 games. It would only be a few weeks., right Barry? Eventually ARA had enough and they stopped the line. The point of drugging this up again is that DP’s game was over then and that was four years ago. That was so long ago that it was before DP found Xytek in China to build 2 prototype games.

So for the past four years, DP has been deceiving everybody by not confessing the money was spent. Gone like dust in the wind. Every communication made by DP was with the full knowledge their company was insolvent. They were upside down and subsequently spun a lot of webs to keep it covered up as the bank balance drained. How did ARA lose the $2M? I’d really like to know.

thx for the summary - I doubt I could have stomached to wade through the full thing

Having a prototype does not mean the game is done and ready. That's why it took them so long with ARA to get from the party to shipping games. They had to redesign the game to make it producible.. instead of just a prototype. Ask Scott what he had to do to take TNA from his game to being built by Spooky.

As soon as the ARA halt was exposed... everyone knew the money situation. The only people 'deceived' was anyone with their head in the sand. DP simply refused to acknowledge it.... same way they've virtually refused to acknowledge ANY finances topics from day one. Only limited topics about expenses, and salaries have been discussed afterwards when DP had to acknowledge the length of time and the complete failure of the ARA situation.

You paint this picture of deception... even through the xytek days. That's revisionist. Everyone knew the preorder money was gone. The Xytek deal was questioned from day one because everyone knew the ARA liability wasn't going away and that DP couldn't just walk away like they tried. And guess what... once DP/Xytek showed signs of moving towards selling stuff... ARA stepped up and stood on their tail.

No one in their right mind thought DP was anything but underwater... it's just been a waiting game to see what DP pulls next, or if the runway would finally runout.

$12.5k plus import fees!

List is long - call now to get on it.

New ones will be announced in 4-6 weeks!

8K max.. it’s more loaded than a Stern LE..
Color screen(was before stern)
Lower Bowling Ally playfield
Bash Car toy
Upper playfield
rug bash toy to reveal hole.
3 flippers
White Russian toy
Artwork is gorgeous
Little touches like pop bumper caps, bowling ball return machine,
Colour changing LEDs
Killer theme.
Good code

I would buy this over a JP LE

Did Melissa say what the import fee costs were? I was under the impression there was no duty on importing pinball machines from Europe.

You have to consider these are machines that are not made in the States so I would imagine the import fee applies. The vast majority of pins are made in the USA so when you ship a machine back into the States the fee does not apply.

My understanding is that the profit from the sales of the initial games made will be used to build games that will be given to EAs... there will therefore be no profit until EAs are paid off... at which point the game will have probably saturated the market at the price they'll be asking... so how is Barry benefiting here? You mean by giving himself peace of mind that all the EAs are paid off? I hope he gets that benefit!

I would buy TBL over a JJP CE (same money)