I get paid for my time, but I don't work with criminals like Barry.

If you are so confident that your part in this is kosher, then why not disclose to everyone here what your fee is for these games?

Okay, Ice, you and I go back to our Predator days, so we've been down this road before, but let's say I was approached to buy the 40 EA games, the pitch would be if we give ARA $500K we can get these released, I would say wait you're telling me these games were already bought and paid for by someone else? The answer would come back as yes, I would then say thanks but no thanks.....

Scenario #2, he would approaches me and says I have a way to get the 40 games released and into the hands of 40 of the EAs....but they have to fork over $4k each....I would say ok, let's call the the people on the list and ask who wants in.....

Scenario #3, he approaches me and says I think I have a way to partially refund the 150 EAs, by auctioning off the 40 games and distribute the money amongst the EAs.....

In no scenario Barry should get money again, he's had multiple opportunities to do what's right but he's blown every one of them. After all, it's only a damn toy, is it worth your reputation....or anyone's reputation?

Yes we do go WAY back Kvan. Wild West days

Here’s the thing. Those games were getting sold one way or another to satisfy the debt owed to ARA

That was going to be the case from day one.

Litigation just delayed the process due to very poor decision making by Barry and Jaap. They were going to lose anyhow. Not working a solution long ago was stupid, but hey, it is what it is

Coin taker is trying to get more games made in the future to satisfy EAs

Now don’t tell me it’s not a good thing because I got made WHOLE as a Jpop victim by Deeproot. It might take some time but it could happen

Finally, I take some responsibility for my own poor decisions like on Predator and Jpop.

Sometimes shit just doesn’t work out and you gotta move on

People want to sue Barry? Good luck with that. He has nothing to get

Patience, let’s see how it plays out

These scenarios result in DP not raising enough funds to pay off their debt to ARA and therefore going bankrupt which would kill all hope of EAs getting their games. The first scenario you would reject is the best hope of survival and for the EAs getting what they paid for...

here, I fixed that one line for you: .... "It would also be nice to know when that company first stuck it to the EA's hole."

Interesting news, but 500 machines at 12.5k? Don't see it. 40 machines at 12.5k after 20 were released in the us and a low chance it ever gets made again? Sure.

500? Not a chance. Market doesn't bear it for any other game. Even things like CCC which we know will never happen again or TRON LE which most likely won't happen again don't support that pricing. BBB had less than half that number made and if it had been silly expensive up front it would have never been funded.

If they manage to get this back in production I am betting they run out of buyers. Too much money for not enough game.

Why do people keep saying they have to *sell* 500 machines? Barry mentioned 500 being the number where everyone (including EAs) would have their machine, so that's a little more than 300 games being *sold*.

At $12.5K each, that's still a LOT.

And this is why vendors and companies pick up and walk away from pinside....

What's next seenev - you gonna tell her what she's allowed to make per transaction, and what she needs to make it worthy to take on the risks?

You couldn't pay me enough to put up with this bs. They are doing the best they can, with what they have, where they are at (Teddy Roosevelt paraphrase). Not too many people would step up to the plate, with very little reimbursement, certainly not proportionate to the time they have put in, to try to salvage a difficult situation. They also lost games. This is a long term game for them. I hope it is worth their time, eventually. Melissa is willing to talk to you, give her a call. She is one of the good ones.

Agreed, Cointaker is an asset to this community & Melissa is one of the kindest and most decent people I have met since I got into this hobby.

There is a HUGE difference between bad business and "criminal" and your statement to Cointaker is ridiculous. Barry has not faced criminal charges. This was civil.

If people were thrown in jail for bad business that's all the jails would be full of.

Get a grip!

The sale of the 40 games to new buyers was not "tainted by fraud" or "akin to buying stolen goods." As Iceman and others have pointed out, that's just not the way the law works. You can draw subjective moral judgments about people doing business with DP/ARA under the circumstances if you want to, but that doesn't mean any laws were broken.

But even if you were right on the law, if Cointaker was fraudulently helping DP sell stolen goods, would it really make any difference whether they accepted payment for their services or not? They'd still be helping DP break the law, right? Of course that's not what happened here, and it's not shocking that a distributor is getting paid to distribute (though based on Cointaker's comments, not nearly enough to be worth the hassle).

See my other post about normalizing this kind of behavior.

People can keep repeating stuff.. it doesn't make them any more correct.

Dude these games were awarded by Court to ARA (for the millionth time). At this point they were no longer Barry’s and not stolen goods.

Do you have a court system in your state?!!

The agreement was made outside of court, IIRC.

These would both have been lovely outcomes. But there was no possibility for either of them to happen, because of DP's large debt to ARA. Those 40 machines were sitting in ARA's warehouse and they weren't going to release them without a court order. And if you believe DP, ARA had effectively won the lawsuit and DP was not getting those games back (if you don't believe DP, you'll have to explain to me why the hell they'd pursue this course of behavior, as it doesn't make any sense otherwise). So the options were bankruptcy, or finding a way to settle with ARA. As I understand it , every penny of the sale money went straight from Cointaker to ARA to cover the settlement agreement that was reached, so Barry did not see any of it. You could argue that bankruptcy would have been more transparent, but it certainly wouldn't have guaranteed any recovery by the EAs. There's a chance now, however slim, that more games could be made, and I have to believe that's worth something.

Ok, the 2nd scenario could be modified so they'd pay whatever the cost per game would comes to, I'm sure it's less than 12,500...then the possibility of the rightful owners getting their games would not be so slim.

As far transparency, how much of the original money is left in DP's account...anyone know? Is the $1.2 mill paid by those EAs all spent?

They were never DPs to start with.. nor were they ever anyone's but ARA's... They were goods built and assembled by ARA to be sold to DP... who never got them because they didn't pay their bills. Unless it was DP who bought the inventory to fuel the line.. it would have been sourced by ARA under contract to do so.

The fact DP had customer orders for games does not make those customers 'own' anything. The entire 'stolen goods' rant is purely an emotional flailing. Fueled by the emotion from people upset that someone got something they felt they were owed.

The idea an game number is assigned to you does not mean ownership of abstract inventory. It is still unfinished goods.

DP's explanation was that the court was about to award legal control of the games to ARA, and DP and ARA then reached a settlement agreement under which the games would be sold through CoinTaker, ARA would get the proceeds, DP would take the remaining parts, and all legal claims would be dropped. So you are correct that ARA never got a final court order awarding them legal control over the games. But it's not like DP could have just walked into ARA's warehouse, picked up the games, and sent them to the next 40 EAs or resold them and spread the proceeds among all of the EAs. ARA was never going to release those games to DP without a court order, and there's no reason to think DP had any more hope of winning such an order from the court. So DP needed ARA's agreement to do anything with the games.

At the same time you make sound like those games being released and sold to different people is a resolution, or a positve outcome. No, not if Barry got something out of this. I don't buy the bit that there are 40 more pinballs in the world as an argument.

More like... the court agreeing that DP owed ARA the monies demanded... and the settlement was effectively a 3 way trade as a means to allow ARA to collect.

ARA agreed to releasing all the prior work and materials for a lump sum cash amount. That payment was funded (in large part) by sales of the games to be released as part of the settlement. They paid ARA, they released the materials... and DP/CT shipped those games to the people who paid them money up front for the games.

The irony was.. it was yet another big pre-sale CT collected the money, they paid ARA, and ARA released the materials.

So if DP ended up losing the lawsuit fully, could not make an agreement with ARA, and ARA just tossed the games into the trash you'd be happy? DP would be dead, and TBL would never get made again.

DP didn't own these games, ARA did. CT brokered the sale of them because ARA isn't in the pinball business, and CT is a good choice seeing as they seemed to have a list already. These games were built with one intention, but since they weren't actually properly paid for by DP that whole plan went out the window.

Maybe. The way DP described it, it wasn't going to be just a cash judgment, but also give ARA the right to continue to control the machines. If the court was going to issue a cash judgment against DP, but also order ARA to turn the games and parts over to DP before payment was made, it would be a somewhat different story.

Just one quick note - this isn’t accurate. I ordered the game and paid my first deposit in December 2013, and the first prototypes weren’t revealed until September 2014.

In fact, it sounds like they only started constructing the first prototype in March 2014 - that’s when I received an email stating:

‘You want a playfield?

I can get you a playfield. We are very happy to report that we've begun prototyping. The laser cutter has begun work on the tentative playfield design today, and we thought it would be a good time to share it.

The 3D printers are also busy producing the prototypes for the toys, the entry to the elevated playfield is being formed, and very soon, the guys will be putting it all together.’

The email included the below pic. Crazy this was so long ago.

C03387C7-5AE2-4853-8F6A-7331DE066FEC (resized).jpeg

Of course... why would the courts tell ARA to give DP something DP haven't paid for?

The court case was ARA going after DP for monies owed... DP was the defendant. DP weren't going to get anything out of the case except for a ruling either supporting their POV of the agreement and terms, or ARA's. The court was supporting ARA's interpretation. Based on what we know.. even if DP 'won' the suit, they still hadn't paid ARA what ARA was owed.. so a win would have maybe reset the amount owed to a new number... but they still had an unpaid bill.

The suit wasn't about the ownership of the games... those were just token assets in the chip pile.

I would not have sent DP 12 grand without a middle man handling the transaction. I doubt 40 people would in any reasonable timeframe either. There was a post recently about how it took someone months to receive $200 worth of plastics from DP. Nonsense.

Legal situation notwithstanding, I finally had a chance to play this game last night, and it's honestly very fun. As a fan of the movie, the callouts and video/theme integration are done perfectly, the modes are fun, and the bowling alley is really unique. Other than the EAs getting their games, the happy ending to this story is if lots of people get to play the game.

I stand corrected, I got in as an EA in 2014 (pre Phil-gate) and the prototypes existed at that point.

dup

Sorry to hear that, hope you get your $20 Back. Keep us informed please

Poor form Dude! Not cool to quote a post and modify it to make it look like I said something that I didn’t say.

Coin Taker is a good distributor. They are reputable and have integrity. I understand the conflict that some of the EA’s have but how does that translate into being angry at distributors. Melissa has been excellent to work with. Shouldn’t Dutch be the one you are angry with. Makes no sense distributors are just conducting business. Cointaker has proven time and time again their integrity. They stand by their customers.

Poor form is putting it nicely. Sleazy is better.

People need to relax

Coin taker has spent a shit load of time and $$ on the original TBL fiasco along with getting their ass kicked by the Jpop thing

The last folks that deserve criticism is Cointaker

Come on. That’s a bunch of BS

If you like pinball all they do is help promote it

As for TBL, let it go FFS.

What happens will happen

Melissa CoinTaker is one of the most professional honest and hard working people in the amusement industry. Melissa has been in the industry helping people for many years. She has had to deal with so much pain and anguish trying to bring the community games they truly want. I think she is an amazing distributor and I'm proud to call her a good personal friend.

Jonathan Demare
Amusement Services of America

F#ckin eh! You go girl and tell em like it is. Don't let the ignorant discourage ya!!!!!

QSS

In my past dealings with Cointaker and Melissa I have always been impressed with their/her integrity and willingness to do whatever it takes to make me happy. I’m glad that she has stepped up to make sure that these pins get into the hands of loyal pinheads like us instead of having them rot in a warehouse or get destroyed.
Whether or not Barry can do what he claims that he wants to do remains to be seen. It will be great if he can make the 500 pins and make the EAs whole. It’s obvious that his optimism is a bit unrealistic, but who knows? JJP found a benefactor who has helped them to become a builder of some of the best pins available today in my opinion. At least Barry’s not trying to disappear or trying to bilk others out of their monies by starting a hovercraft company . . .Still - I’m not sending Barry any of my money.
Kudos to Melissa and Cointaker. I’d happily put a deposit on a theoretical future TBL with them. I know that they will always honor their word and do whatever it takes to make me happy.

seenev....PLEASE don't call Melissa and embarrass yourself and us....

How many complete game's worth of parts does Barry have? 25 or so?

That's all the more new TBL's that will ever be built.

I’ve always had great/honest transactions w Cointaker. What’s up with all the hate in this thread?

It's misguided aggression that will not stand! To me, those attacking CT about TBL are the ones losing credibility.

On the podcast Barry said they have nearly full parts for 25-50 games. I’d think the biggest hurdle would be actually building and selling those first 50 games, not sourcing parts for more games after that.

I saw a bunch of DP shipping boxes, your good on boxes for now.

My prediction. Less than 12 games out before the license expires.
And that's if he starts really soon.

I'm sure Barry appreciates your confirmation that he's good for boxes

I have never had anything but positive interactions with Melissa @cointaker. Stop the hate- it's misdirected at one of the best companies in our hobby!

I thought someone once said that "making pinball is hard"? I've always considered this every time the next great boutique company announces their plans. Someone is going to make Predator in his basement, send money. I'll pass. JPOP is making games, send money. I'll pass. Alien pinball is being made, send money. I'll pass. This brings us to Mr. Lebowski and guess what? I passed. I haven't lost one preorder dollar because I work hard for my money and I'm not going to lose it to vaporware by financing someone with no experience manufacturing who wants to make a pinball machine. With the various issues that the established manufacturers experience, why would you send money to anyone who doesn't have the experience? You know what someone else once said? "A fool and his money are soon parted."

That being said, some of you tools bring CoinTaker into this? CoinTaker has been nothing short of a stellar vendor/distributor who continues to innovate and provide reliably to this community year after year. Melissa and Chris have always had their clients' backs and were smart enough to hold the customers monies in escrow until their customers' games were ready. Yeah, let's pile on one of the most respected vendors/distributors in the hobby because some people sent Dutch Pinball their money directly (wow, this complicates matters...sending money internationally and then attempting to sue a foreign entity, doesn't it?) and Dutch Pinball didn't deliver. I guess that's Coin Taker's fault, too? If someone had to have the latest, greatest boutique game and didn't think through where they were sending thousands of dollars, that's NOT CoinTaker's fault. It sucks people didn't get their games but they also were extremely careless with their money because they were blinded by their obsession with this hobby. They need to look in the mirror and the rest of you SJWs need to stop pointing the finger at CoinTaker.

These games were going to be sold regardless to satisfy DP's debt with ARA and guess what? Pinball collectors were going to buy them and some would get flipped for a profit. That's the way the world works. It's not ARA or CoinTaker's responsibility to make EAs whole. It's also not the responsibility of those collectors who ultimately took delivery of these games. That responsibility solely lies on DP. That's where the finger needs to be pointed not at the distributor who delivered games for their customers.