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Quoted from Roostking:
Wrong. A person invests in something to make money. You agreed to purchase a product from a company. What was the rate of return you were expecting on your investment?

Playing a cool Jpop Zombie pinball.
With a glue gun, zombie chicks and some ping pong balls..

Quoted from Fulltilt:
Playing a cool Jpop Zombie pinball.
With a glue gun, zombie chicks and some ping pong balls..

Still, a purchase. Were you promised those things?

Quoted from Roostking:
Still, a purchase. Were you promised those things?

Well hell... you want me to tell you about the go-go girls, robots, rollercoasters, x-ray goggles, flying saucers, 3D glasses and zombie bowling?
Magno-ball lifts, a cat, neonized ramps, my plasma gun, (don't know what the hell 3D parts and a tilt-a-girl is), a swinging target and BEN'S HEAD!

Hell yes I was promised those things.... WTF do you think we are complaining about.
I was promised the moon and I want it!

Ok... I made up the ping pong balls but I felt it an awful lot like Mr Moose playing Captain Kangaroo.

Quoted from benheck:
VR is soooooo 2013. Seriously folks, it's done. Talking about the wonders of it today is like those people who audibly gasp when the 3D kicks in at the movie theater.
Now I'd agree VR is the best way to make a "virtual" pin. You could just have the first foot or so of a pin, grab onto the flippers and rest is simulated. But we don't really want that, do we?
Nope. People want big bulky collectibles so their basement looks like a bar to remind them of when they were single. It's the secret (not so secret?) reason Heigheway's modular system would never take off.
Remember this is a hobby where people pay a $17,000 premium for different decals on a wooden box.

Have to disagree there, VR is here to stay and is only growing. There's more higher quality headsets then ever, prices continue to drop, and the technology is only getting better. The future of mainstream VR will be wireless with headsets such as the Oculus Go and next years Oculus Quest. It's not going away anytime soon.

On the gaming front there's been some excellent recent VR games including Astro Bot, Tetris Effect, and Moss.

Quoted from Roostking:
Wrong. A person invests in something to make money. You agreed to purchase a product from a company. What was the rate of return you were expecting on your investment?

Well if you pre-paid for ZW game.. You agreed to purchase a product from a non-existent company... that promised to do it after they got orders to build stuff. You invested in a promise of a future deliverable from a clearly non-existent company with no history. I think that's fair to challenge the claim of 'agreed to purchase a product from a company'. Agreed to purchase something as complex as a pinball machine... from a single mad scientist.

Maybe invested in a dream...

Quoted from flynnibus:
Well if you pre-paid for ZW game.. You agreed to purchase a product from a non-existent company...

No, backup a sentence.
ZIDWARE was the company.

Quoted from Fulltilt:
ZIDWARE was the company.

Still is a company. A lot of effort has gone into keeping it alive. Zidware still owes me a game.

Quoted from Fulltilt:
No, backup a sentence.
ZIDWARE was the company.

A company by legal definition only. It was JPOP fumbling around in a light industrial space and convincing people to do work for him.

Point was, people were buying because it was JPOP, not because Zidware had some history, credibility, or even a sliver of a credible business plan. Zidware was a brand and structure created to sell JPOP creations. It had no employees, virtually zero assets, no history, no existing portfolio, no existing revenue, and no business plan. And none of that was really any secret, people just ignored it because of FOMO and believing the project would produce these masterpieces.

The very idea that you'd redesign stuff or even run a business selling just a dozen or so examples was the red flag from the start. There simply isn't enough revenue on the table to fund any sort of business operation, let alone R&D, game design, and manufacturing. And exactly why JPOP was able to pay himself some salary, and fail to do much of anything else.

Do we know how many weeks the delay will last?

Weeks...lol it could be years...pinball is hard....

I heard .....two weeks.....

Quoted from flynnibus:
The very idea that you'd redesign stuff or even run a business selling just a dozen or so examples was the red flag from the start. There simply isn't enough revenue on the table to fund any sort of business operation, let alone R&D, game design, and manufacturing. And exactly why JPOP was able to pay himself some salary, and fail to do much of anything else.

The original threads are still here on Pinside. It was a different time then, no one was spotting those red flags then. But no one also could have predicted that jpop would be paying himself handsomely for years and finishing nothing.

Anyhow, this was lesson learned for me. It will save me a lot more than I lost.

I have every sympathy to those who have lost money on failed pinball adventures. I almost pulled the trigger on TBL but the cautionary tale of Zidware, and my hard pass on JPop’s promises held my hand. Pretty much if it sounds too good to be true in pinball, chances are, it is. The FOMO rational has been wired into us without us even knowing it. Currently, CGC is mining that vien of gold with their remakes. We now trip over ourselves to be top on the list for remakes of titles we felt we missed out on from the past. Zidware capitalized on peoples fears that machines like the hits of the 90’s were things of the past, and nobody, not even Stern was ever going to make machines like Bally/WMS did ever again. Now enters our savior, JPop, who harvested every ripe wallet who would buy in to the fantasy that he, and he alone, would save the pinball industry with his new and magical games he was cooking up. What continues to keep us conditioned to accept these fantasies is sometimes, like with DP and Heighway, actual machines get built, they become legends of rarity, and are still not to be missed out on. Some of us fools are easy to part our money from, and I am no exception, I have $1000 NFD down on a $8000 MBrLE, well, because I fear missing out on a sweet remake machine that I actually have played with my own two hands. Now, if we all would wait to give them our money untill we all did the same, actually play the machine before dropping a load on it, then maybe we could all avoid the next Zidware-Jpop/DP-TBL/Heighway-Alien/Deeproot-JPop Redux 2 sequel. Caveat emptor is as old as latin for a reason, but the sting and hurt of being burned in pinball is as old as pinball itself— when you dropped that coin in the slot and got no credit for it.

Quoted from frolic:
The original threads are still here on Pinside. It was a different time then, no one was spotting those red flags then

The info was there, people just didn't want to hear it. FOMO and eagerness to get the next hotness totally overran any scrutiny. The knowledge was there, including all the commentary on JPOP himself and his role in projects -- individuals just didn't want to hear it. People were willing to run over themselves just to chase the carrot on the stick. (much like the Spanish guy developing the CFTBL mod). Once it all came crashing down and people got burned themselves, then people started opening their eyes.

Same thing happening here with deeproot - just there the FOMO effect is basically non existent and people are more cautious after being burnt. I think the same questions are being asked - the difference is how the mob is listening to the discussion.

Quoted from frolic:
But no one also could have predicted that jpop would be paying himself handsomely for years and finishing nothing

I know that's a sore point for people - but honestly it's completely moot. The revenue he took in was never going to be enough to float the business and expecting businesses (not hobbies) to run for years with no salaries is unrealistic and just a emotional outrage. No (or woefully inadequate) revenue = dead companies. It's that simple.

And that's the concern with the kind of numbers being shared around deeproot... the napkin numbers just don't work. So either it's a house of cards -- or he's got a different business plan (and GTM strategy) that hasn't been revealed yet. Yet... he just keeps marketing to the traditional pinball hobbyist audience. So I don't know how much of a disruptor he really is targeting to be...

No pinball company will ever succeed with the business plan of needing to be in the black after ONE product release. Hopefully the general hobbyist buyers will start to scrutinize that about startups. The startup costs and development cycles too long for any single product release to fully fund. Companies either need other revenue streams, huge capitalization to give them runway, or extenuating circumstances of free resources (like Spooky had) to keep the lights on until they can claw their way back out of the startup hole.

Quoted from frolic:
The original threads are still here on Pinside. It was a different time then, no one was spotting those red flags then.

Go back and read my posts in those threads.

It's not that no one was saying those things, it's that no one wanted to hear it.

Quoted from Fulltilt:
Well hell... you want me to tell you about the go-go girls, robots, rollercoasters, x-ray goggles, flying saucers, 3D glasses and zombie bowling?
Magno-ball lifts, a cat, neonized ramps, my plasma gun, (don't know what the hell 3D parts and a tilt-a-girl is), a swinging target and BEN'S HEAD!
Hell yes I was promised those things.... WTF do you think we are complaining about.
I was promised the moon and I want it!
Ok... I made up the ping pong balls but I felt it an awful lot like Mr Moose playing Captain Kangaroo.

Yes, you were promised a product, that you used money to purchase. You got ripped off. With an investment, there are no promises.

Quoted from frolic:
Still is a company. A lot of effort has gone into keeping it alive. Zidware still owes me a game.

Do you consider this a purchase, or an investment?

Quoted from Roostking:
Do you consider this a purchase, or an investment?

I paid for a pinball. I was not given anything in return. It was a purchase, crowd-funded style.

The company can fail (it hasn't), and this would be over. But it still lives, so I'm still owed.

Aurich bragging about being able to recognize a pinball fraud?

Quoted from boo32:
Aurich bragging about being able to recognize a pinball fraud?

Remember, Heighway had already produced one pinball machine before Alien. There is a difference.

Quoted from flynnibus:
Well if you pre-paid for ZW game.. You agreed to purchase a product from a non-existent company... that promised to do it after they got orders to build stuff. You invested in a promise of a future deliverable from a clearly non-existent company with no history. I think that's fair to challenge the claim of 'agreed to purchase a product from a company'. Agreed to purchase something as complex as a pinball machine... from a single mad scientist.
Maybe invested in a dream...

I think people are misusing 'investing'. They are crowdfunding. Completely different.

Quoted from Zablon:
I think people are misusing 'investing'. They are crowdfunding. Completely different.

Put on that Jiffy pop!

Quoted from Zablon:
I think people are misusing 'investing'. They are crowdfunding. Completely different.

Jpop didn't crowd fund. He presold titles to fund his business. Customers bought into a boutique product model from a guy with zero capacity or business to actual deliver on the sales promises.

I say investing because these people bought with the idea that if they didn't... the product would not be made. It became an urgency to get in... while you could. All while ignoring the lack of ability to do it

Quoted from flynnibus:
Customers bought into a boutique product model from a guy with zero capacity or business to actual deliver on the sales promises.

All said with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, from being involved and working with john, nobody had a concern that John couldn't do it, as none of the information now available was known about in public. All people who backed the projects did so based on Johns games made during the 90s at williams. Most of which are high rated games. I myself, left my old job and went to work with him based on this information to. To be fair to John, he did create some nice original games, but with only a few employees working at zidware and us all forced to work in silos the projects ran off course and 1 person couldn't hold it all together.

Quoted from SadSack:
You forgot this one.

I didn’t include that one because by the time that thread existed (2014, years after the other threads (2012)) the emperor had no clothes and there was a lot of concern, including from myself. The threads I posted showed how different it was originally.

Here's your link with my posts highlighted. It’s worth comparing the big thread with those older threads I posted because the mood had changed.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jpop-update-thread%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6mg-raza-and-aiw%e2%80%a6?tu=frolic

Quoted from applejuice:
All said with the benefit of hindsight

No - John's reputation was known in the WMS circle, and was out in the hobby circles as well because insiders like Python and others painted him as such. (Python TOPCast Interview was in 2007). And Python wasn't the first to trash JPOP, he was just one of the more flamboyant ones about it. JPOP couldn't get hired, or even have his designs bought by Stern.

The only redeeming thing he had going was that Zizzle had been moderately received. Everything else was people buying into the aurora of his past titles at WMS... where every insider tale talked about his games needing to be bailed out, his inability to complete stuff, and his complete reliance on others. Yes, everyone had kind things to say about his vision/eye for things - but they also almost universally stood against crediting John for the games' successes.

All of this was in the open and understood at the time - the faithful just didn't want to hear it. They drooled over the next CV/TOTAN/TOM... and it would be super limited so super valuable???? TAKE MY MONEY!!! That's JPOP in a nutshell.

I do acknowledge tho that the ben heck association probably brought in many to RAZA.. as the combination of new/cool thinking plus JPOP style was an attractive view for people.

Then add in the actual "how will you do this" angle. I get that at the time many people new to the hobby probably had no idea how difficult it is to get a game to production volume at the time. Most hobbyists had not yet seen the struggles DP, HWP, Spooky and others make that more visible.. and educated them on the subject. But that is simply ignorance of the topic, not relying on hindsight. The challenges to face were understood by others... the buyers just dismissed it. Interviews and stories from insiders had told the tales of the struggles. Again, people like Joe Kaminkow in 2007 had told stories about the DE pinball startup. The IPB fiasco was already in the history books.. and people like Kerry Stair told some of the tale. The cautionary tales were out there - even if you weren't someone familiar with product development - people just didn't want to focus on the 'why not', they just wanted to focus on the what can I get.

Even at the time, JPOP did nothing (except create a website and promotional pieces) to convey to anyone his credibility in actually getting a product to market. In fact, in hindsight, you can see how he may have even intentionally shyed away from that topic... with stupid stunt thinking like the ben&Jpop assembling your game crap. It's not hindsight that exposed these concerns -- people just didn't want to hear it.

Quoted from applejuice:
At the time, from being involved and working with john, nobody had a concern that John couldn't do it

What I will say is hindsight.. is the insight into John's ability to maintain that deception through his controlling of information about the project and its contributors. He duped people like you by limiting what you knew and his ploys of using secrecy, limited info releases, and gifts helped keep people from becoming critical of the project.

Quoted from applejuice:
I myself, left my old job and went to work with him based on this information to

And to be blunt, but honest... that was poor research by you. To not vet and investigate the startups viability and funding, their runway, their leadership and their track record. It's one thing to work on a project when you don't put your career/lifestyle on the line to do so - it's a whole different level to commit to where your livelihood depends on it. And as someone who is just an employee, not an equity holder, you better have faith the company has the resources or plan to actually pay you before committing. Andrew Heighway was a predator in this sense as well... leveraging people into spots where they couldn't get off the bus even when they wanted to.

Honestly, that type of vetting is the only element adding any story to the deeproot plan to date IMO.. in that multiple, seasoned people who should know what to be looking for have commited to Deeproot with significant life choices.

Quoted from flynnibus:
Jpop didn't crowd fund. He presold titles to fund his business. Customers bought into a boutique product model from a guy with zero capacity or business to actual deliver on the sales promises.
I say investing because these people bought with the idea that if they didn't... the product would not be made. It became an urgency to get in... while you could. All while ignoring the lack of ability to do it

How can seemingly educated people not know the difference between investing, crowdfunding, and purchasing lol. www.websters.com

Quoted from Roostking:
How can seemingly educated people not know the difference between investing, crowdfunding, and purchasing lol. www.websters.com

Here's a simple way to look at it...

Which came first - your order, or the actual company and product to fulfill your order?

We're not talking the strict definition - but labeling that captures the reality of the situation. Ordering from JPOP was not the same as ordering from Amazon, or even your local department store promising delivery after payment. "ordering a product" is just people clinging onto a strict definition to distance themselves from the consequences of their choices.

Quoted from flynnibus:
Here's a simple way to look at it...
Which came first - your order, or the actual company and product to fulfill your order?
We're not talking the strict definition - but labeling that captures the reality of the situation. Ordering from JPOP was not the same as ordering from Amazon, or even your local department store promising delivery after payment. "ordering a product" is just people clinging onto a strict definition to distance themselves from the consequences of their choices.

They were pre-purchasing a product that didn't exist, hoping that with enough people doing it, it would be made. That is crowdfunding. Investing is completely different in that it doesn't stop at 'getting a product' (which actually is not the goal or promised to begin with).

Quoted from Zablon:
They were pre-purchasing a product that didn't exist, hoping that with enough people doing it, it would be made. That is crowdfunding

...and not what Zidware sold or advertised. JPOP sold the idea of magic girl as a "can't miss exclusive" boutique game limited to 16 examples. Zidware was never pitched as "with enough orders... we can make this happen" - it was pitched as an exclusive offer that people were hyped into FOMO and why they needed to buy before the product even existed. RAZA as well was purely a pre-sales model - not a "gather enough orders to make this a reality" sales pitch. Zidware never pitched uncertainty of the product's availability or their funding to make the project happen.

That's why it's not 'crowdsourcing' and simply pre-sales. I take it further to risky behavior as 'investing' because it was a "company" selling stuff for 5 figure numbers with no credibility and huge promises.

I really don't want to drag more JPOP reliving into this deeproot thread. I just wish people would stop dismissing that all the red flags were there all along - people just wanted to see what they wanted to see from the cards. The pre-order frenzy and "10k by christmas" effect was in full swing.

This all reminds me of what mamma used to say...
Mamma always told me pinball was like a box of... <BLAM> <BLAM> <BLAM>

Mamma was a fool, Forrest, and “Jen-nae” should have told you to duck...

But Cap’n Dan... why?

Because you stupid fools would not just STFU about JPop and DR and ripoffs, and scams and Zidware and RAZA and on and on...

And you wouldn’t just STFU about shutting up either Cap’n Dan... I think you shot me in the buttocks.

Quoted from flynnibus:
I really don't want to drag more JPOP reliving into this deeproot thread.

It's the jpop stink that follows him around everywhere, and into the deeproot thread.

People who get excited about a new pinball machine sure are dumb jerks. People who aren’t excited about having been ripped off are even dumber. Anyone who didn’t know all of the pinball gossip surrounding every designer is an even bigger jerk. What a bunch of dummies. I bet some of those dummies got excited about Deeproot too. What a bunch of idiots!

Quoted from boo32:
People who get excited about a new pinball machine sure are dumb jerks. People who aren’t excited about having been ripped off are even dumber. Anyone who didn’t know all of the pinball gossip surrounding every designer is an even bigger jerk. What a bunch of dummies. I bet some of those dummies got excited about Deeproot too. What a bunch of idiots!

Know what's worse? If people actually listened to the people who did the work as much as they listen to amateurs doing podcasts acting like they know the work... hundreds of thousands of dollars would have been saved.

Some people didn't believe there could be a flipper either but look what happened...

Quoted from Zablon:
They were pre-purchasing a product that didn't exist, hoping that with enough people doing it, it would be made. That is crowdfunding. Investing is completely different in that it doesn't stop at 'getting a product' (which actually is not the goal or promised to begin with).

And you are wrong as well. This was never advertised as a crowdfunding deal, or an investment. It was advertised as"You send us money, we send you a game when it's produced."
That, my friend, is a purchase.

At least only investors at the moment are waiting for something from deeproot.

Quoted from Roostking:
And you are wrong as well. This was never advertised as a crowdfunding deal, or an oinvestment. It was advertised as"You send us money, we send you a game when it's produced."
That, my friend, is a purchase.

Apparently you've never been part of a no show crowdfunding deal. Same thing. The pitch is only until the funding is over. You only 'aren't purchasing' if the actual funding fails. If it succeeds, you purchased, and then you 'hope' you get your item. It is exactly this. It is just wordplay and it doesn't matter how it was pitched. Money exchanged, and then it's a waiting game of if you get your item or not. Regardless what you want to call it, the primary point is, this was not at all investing. Either way, it sucks balls and people who do it should be ordered to maid service to everyone they screw for a year each.

Quoted from Zablon:
Apparently you've never been part of a failed crowdfunding deal. Same thing. You only 'aren't purchasing' if the actual funding fails. If it succeeds, you purchased, and then you 'hope' you get your item. It is exactly this. Either way, it sucks balls and people who do it should be ordered to maid service to everyone they screw for a year each.

Point me I the direction of any screenshot, post, text, email etc etc where Zidware proclaimed this was a crowdfunding effort and might not happen?

Hint, it doesn't exist and to this day, he will probably tell you that it could "still" happen.

One thing you do have right, I have never crowdfunded. I would never send a penny to someone who hopes to make said product. That's just goofy lol.

Quoted from Roostking:
Point me I the direction of any screenshot, post, text, email etc etc where Zidware proclaimed this was a crowdfunding effort and might not happen?
Hint, it doesn't exist and to this day, he will probably tell you that it could "still" happen.
One thing you do have right, I have never crowdfunded. I would never send a penny to someone who hopes to make said product. That's just goofy lol.

I think you were typing when I was editing, but I addressed this, and smart man(?) I made the mistake one time...never again.

I love the people in this thread rubbing salt into wounds. In 2011 there was Stern and JJP was JUST announcing their new company and 1st title. You didn't even see early concepts of WOZ until mid 2011. Like Frolic said it was a different landscape. Did many buy in because of FOMO or thinking it would be another BBB? Of course, but honestly the concept wasn't that far fetched. Wrath of olympus got designed for free, but because it didn't get the 100 pinball minimum (I think it got somewhere around 70) it couldn't get manufactured. However, those willing to assemble their own playfields could do so if they bought the parts and 6 did get made (and they work).

If John didn't squander money (IE lease a giant building and buy a bunch of capital equipment and hire 2 artists to work on the same game), but just tinkered with a design like Scott Danesi did and got a WORKING game before taking deposits, it would have had a much different outcome.

I am still upset that I was ever even involved though would like to point out I was paid zero dollars and there was no contract for use of my likeness. So I was taken for a pointless ride like everyone else.

Can't wait to see what machines J-Pop will create next with Deeproot, he has created the best Pins ever made and after I saw the unfinished Magic Girl, still looks like he's got the magic. 2019 will be the year of the Pinball Return!

Quoted from benheck:
I am still upset that I was ever even involved though would like to point out I was paid zero dollars and there was no contract for use of my likeness.

And it was a very good likeness Ben. Did you get to keep the glue gun?

Quoted from wolfemaaan:
Can't wait to see what machines J-Pop will create next with Deeproot, he has created the best Pins ever made and after I saw the unfinished Magic Girl, still looks like he's got the magic. 2019 will be the year of the Pinball Return!

Troll post lol. Nothing to see here!

Quoted from toyotaboy:
I love the people in this thread rubbing salt into wounds. In 2011 there was Stern and JJP was JUST announcing their new company and 1st title. You didn't even see early concepts of WOZ until mid 2011. Like Frolic said it was a different landscape. Did many buy in because of FOMO or thinking it would be another BBB? Of course, but honestly the concept wasn't that far fetched.

Yeah, but what you saw Jack do was very different from JPOP. Jack went out and assembled a team of veterans. Jack had a running, successful business that was generating revenue and gave him plenty of initial capital to work with. Jack had the resources to actually build his company and team. And even then, the delays basically sapped everything he had too. Contrast this with JPOP who tried to shoe string a business together and masqueraded as way more than he actually was... and horse traded as much as possible to stretch what little he had.

JJP was an upstart... but to put Zidware even on the same page is an insult to Jack. Zidware was far more like Skit-B or Vonny-D than anyone else. All fluff, no vetted business plan to actually get to at least shipping... let alone success.

The only way you can say Zidware wasn't 'far fetched' is if you only looked at his idea of what a pinball should be - instead of actually looking at Zidware as a company attempting to produce commercially available pinball machines.

Quoted from toyotaboy:
Wrath of olympus got designed for free, but because it didn't get the 100 pinball minimum (I think it got somewhere around 70) it couldn't get manufactured. However, those willing to assemble their own playfields could do so if they bought the parts and 6 did get made (and they work).

Wooly tho is more akin to TBL - just because you have a game you built, and can even reproduce manually, does not really make it production ready. TBL got reworked to make it more viable to be mass produced and sourced for production by ARA. Even TNA had to go through similar work, and Wooly would have had to as well.

But I think Wooly is a red herring here though, as Scott never set out to build the game on his own, or was he attempting to startup a business to do it.
Sure JPOP could have ultimately parallel Wooly's path and built a handful of games - but you'd never be an actual producer of pinballs that way.. just like the build party that built the 6 wooly's doesn't really count as production. Which is also why when DP first boasted about ARA's plan for TBL that included photos of just a small area of 4 workstations it was laughable. But again... people just wanted to see what they wanted... so any progress report was taken like it was the bee's knees. (and notice, once ARA started, they revamped their whole plan and moved the project to bigger spaces).

Quoted from toyotaboy:
If John didn't squander money (IE lease a giant building and buy a bunch of capital equipment and hire 2 artists to work on the same game), but just tinkered with a design like Scott Danesi did and got a WORKING game before taking deposits, it would have had a much different outcome.

No, he still would have flopped hard - because having the game layout and art is only a fraction of the work. And JPOP really had no plan beyond that. You would have ended up with the box of lights like they had for the Houdini, and every other Zidware project... a physical prototype with absolutely no path to actually getting it produced. All the emotional angst about how John spent money on himself really is just emotional outbursts. That's not what sunk zidware - it never had a shot of surviving given the path he took. Which is why I still think JPOP thought he was going to simply produce playfield concepts and someone like Stern would see the potential, swoop in and buy him out and take him in before he ever actually got to the point of having to figure out how to build the games.

Which.. ironically.. is what Deeproot has kind of done now... but they took in an infant, not a ready design(s).

Quoted from Roostking:
Troll post lol. Nothing to see here!

Nothing to see right now, but when J-Pop turns out another master in 2019, Ill be picking one of those puppies up

Haters gonna hate

Quoted from flynnibus:
...and not what Zidware sold or advertised. JPOP sold the idea of magic girl as a "can't miss exclusive" boutique game limited to 16 examples. Zidware was never pitched as "with enough orders... we can make this happen" - it was pitched as an exclusive offer that people were hyped into FOMO and why they needed to buy before the product even existed. RAZA as well was purely a pre-sales model - not a "gather enough orders to make this a reality" sales pitch. Zidware never pitched uncertainty of the product's availability or their funding to make the project happen.
That's why it's not 'crowdsourcing' and simply pre-sales. I take it further to risky behavior as 'investing' because it was a "company" selling stuff for 5 figure numbers with no credibility and huge promises.
I really don't want to drag more JPOP reliving into this deeproot thread. I just wish people would stop dismissing that all the red flags were there all along - people just wanted to see what they wanted to see from the cards. The pre-order frenzy and "10k by christmas" effect was in full swing.

It was indeed pre-sales and nothing else.
For those asking why people wouldn't understand it wasn't crowdfunding or investing - this was back in 2010 or 2011, crowdfunding was non-existant then, kickstarter probably didn't exist ?

The only comparable project was Gene's BBB. Gene basically did the same - presales. He made some flyers, went to a pinball show with a BBB, announced he was going to make it and collected money. Then people didn't hear from him for a long time (except some rumours) and suddenly BBB's got delivered.
There were no failed DIY pinball projects at that time.

It was known that Gene had problems and underestimated costs, but not all details were public. John had a much higher price so people assumed John had done his math and was able to produce the game. And for those thinking his number was too low, don't compare to pinball prices now. Stern games sold for about $4000 (or less). I don't remember what price John asked but it was a multiple of Sterns price (3x more ?).. so it all didn't sound too unrealistic.

The only real difference between Gene and JPop is that Gene had a game to make. JPop still had to invent everything. Had he been tinkering in his own free time and made up something (instead of paying himself for doing it) he might indeed have pulled it off.

Btw if I remember correct when John announced it (it was on my facebook too but I don't find the post anymore) he was only going to make 6 magic girl machines. He sold out in a day and then increased the number.

The first time I thought it was weird was in 2012 (did found that post on my flippers.be facebook page) when I got a zidware tshirt from him and he gave tshirts to everyone asking for them on my facebook page. My first thought was it was generous from him but I found it weird - after all JPop was a one man business, his games were already pre-sold, and as he was sending tshirts he would be paying that out of his own profits ? (this was all pre raza / ben heck / ..)

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deeproot Pinball thread

By pin2d

6 years ago

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