I was not affected by any of the pre-order implosions and in all likelihood I still am unlikely to afford a NIB game, so my interest is on the periphery... but good gad zeus is this ever fascinating to watch develop.
From the mysterious unveiling of the Deeproot name to the arrogant followup braggadocio... the messy play to get tied up with ZW fallout and the ongoing claims / promises therein... the seemingly more calculated efforts behind the scenes to follow through... and the wholesale assimilation of some very respected big-time talent from both legacy and up-and-coming pools... it's astounding! The talent pool especially. Some members of the team might have been desperate, sure... but others had a lot more to put on the line.
They can't all be fools (can they?) so we're witnessing the birth of something truly impressive, or a wholesale con like never before been seen in any industry. And given the seemingly impossible "from scratch" timeline, it's almost impossible to predict the outcome: maybe DR will completely succeed and shock, or maybe they will implode on Day 6.
My cynical "adbusters" side says this is the marketing line to keep us all interested until then. Well played.
Of course any "success" might only be technical... maybe the planned revolution will be another Pin2000... again, the risk is such that who can predict for certain? When's the last time pinball took that kind of risk? Since then the changes have all been evolutionary, not revolutionary. (Would any "revolution" be too much to still be "pinball"? Remember, flippers were revolutionary in their day).
I find Mr. Mueller's public posts amusing, as they reflect the sociopathic tendencies of most industrial figureheads. Ford, Edison, Sloan, Musk, et al... even directors like Kubrick and Cameron... were/are brash, arrogant, and seemingly blind to the impossibilities ahead of them while conveniently ignorant of their own stumbles. Elon Musk is probably the nearest and most current analogy: love or hate the guy and his actions, whether Tesla ultimately succeeds or fails, you have to respect what he's managed to accomplished through completely unorthodox behavior and in spite of his own provocative quotes. And by this analogy I'm not granting undue credit, but just pointing out there IS a pattern with visionaries. So with no requirement to pay in from my own end, I cut the guy some slack. He's obviously accountable to other money including his own, and quite a few livelihoods on the line...
Really exciting to watch this play out. Whatever happens, good or bad, should be an interesting touchstone for pinball history.