Crystal Lake, IL
Quoted from greatwichjohn:Looks like the 2 interested parties did not win anything that I have been talking with.
Then they were not serious, just tire kickers
(Topic ID: 203700)
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Alice in Wonderland
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Quoted from greatwichjohn:Most people know I went broke with my business, going through personal bankruptcy, & living on my meager $23k US pension for my wife & myself.
Of course most people here know! You make a point of posting this exact personal info about every 4 to 6 weeks.
Quoted from catwoman:I got this in the deeproot auction. It would be a lovely addition to a game room (or I think somebody may have mentioned shitter before), but I don’t think I have a proper space in my home. It is very heavy (40 pounds?) and therefore would be expensive to ship, but I figure somebody may be willing. Please PM me if you would be interested in buying it.
It measures 16 inches wide, 9 inches tall, and 2.25 inches deep. It’s actually pretty cool.
[quoted image]
Halifax, NS
Guys the 2 groups went to the pre auction viewing & decided there was nothing of real value. Both groups likely came to their senses of why would you throw more money away. They were serious & had money, but it was a pass! I have heard nothing from the few that bought anything of any true value. I can help out if they want to talk. There are lots of dreamers & believers that think pinball manufacturing is easy. Just look at the long list of failed companies that were in it for decades, & those that only survived limited years. It is hard enough just to do pinball parts manufacturing today.
Anyways people can look for me at the Pintastic Show in June. I will be there at the booth space I paid to promote EZ Pinball. That is where my retirement is taking me to do new builds starting with classic Stern style games. Do not think Mirco goes to this show yet, but it would be funny to be next to him. I had a recent pm from Rick @ PPS about new classic Stern builds. Looks like I will see what is going on, & I already told him its not like a factory planned like Haggis Pinball. Myself being very limited it is builds for a few guys in my area. Also leads into doing fresh new builds on different themes.
Quoted from greatwichjohn:There are lots of dreamers & believers that think pinball manufacturing is easy.
Look for me at the Pintastic Show in June. I will be there at the booth space I paid to promote EZ Pinball.
Am I the only one who sees the irony in these sentences?
Quoted from greatwichjohn:Guys the 2 groups went to the pre auction viewing & decided there was nothing of real value. Both groups likely came to their senses of why would you throw more money away. They were serious & had money, but it was a pass! I have heard nothing from the few that bought anything of any true value. I can help out if they want to talk. There are lots of dreamers & believers that think pinball manufacturing is easy. Just look at the long list of failed companies that were in it for decades, & those that only survived limited years. It is hard enough just to do pinball parts manufacturing today.
Anyways people can look for me at the Pintastic Show in June. I will be there at the booth space I paid to promote EZ Pinball. That is where my retirement is taking me to do new builds starting with classic Stern style games. Do not think Mirco goes to this show yet, but it would be funny to be next to him. I had a recent pm from Rick @ PPS about new classic Stern builds. Looks like I will see what is going on, & I already told him its not like a factory planned like Haggis Pinball. Myself being very limited it is builds for a few guys in my area. Also leads into doing fresh new builds on different themes.
You may want to consider starting another thread to garner interest in your pintastic booth. Not doing yourself many favors constantly repeating in this thread.
Quoted from catwoman:I got this in the deeproot auction. It would be a lovely addition to a game room (or I think somebody may have mentioned shitter before), but I don’t think I have a proper space in my home. It is very heavy (40 pounds?) and therefore would be expensive to ship, but I figure somebody may be willing. Please PM me if you would be interested in buying it.
It measures 16 inches wide, 9 inches tall, and 2.25 inches deep. It’s actually pretty cool.
[quoted image]
It's actually not cool at all. Who would ever want this POS? I suppose the same people who collect Bernie Madoff crap.
Quoted from littlecammi:Am I the only one who sees the irony in these sentences?
Nope, not the only one.
If you really are trying to start a new business, it would probably be good to stop reminding us all how your first business failed and forced you into bankruptcy. It is not the promotion material that you are looking for.
You seem like a nice enough guy, but you are destroying your credibility which in turn will make any new business venture challenging.
Quoted from ForceFlow:Did you happen to catch what 174 went for? It doesn't look like anyone posted the hammer price during the auction.
I didn't and that was one i was interested in seeing what happened. Some decent artwork items in there as well. I wonder if anyone else could chime in?
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:Two new substantive SEC filings related to discovery and scheduling. I'm still mostly out of pocket and posting here without commentary so others can get going on pulling out the significant bits.
[quoted image][quoted image]
Skimming it, this is probably not going to trial till after July 2023
Quoted from TreyBo69:Skimming it, this is probably not going to trial till after July 2023
I had this thought over the weekend-- What the hell is Bobby doing between now and prison? Surely he will need an actual job sometime soon, right? Is he even allowed to practice law atm?
Did he find a carwash to work at?
Always here to help people out with my knowledge & failures. Some of us poor bastards learn from our mistakes, & move ahead. My retirement & not driving has allowed me to enjoy drinking more beer. On a good note I did not take a job with Deeproot! Also I do not have imaginary friends or bullshit about stuff. I still have my driving license, never got a DUI, & never been to the police drunk tank. Had a failed pinball business that hurt me financially & years of my spare time spent doing stuff needed for this hobby. Took care of my customers & contractors.
Quoted from TreyBo69:Skimming it, this is probably not going to trial till after July 2023
I wish pinside had a way to thumbs down the content of this post rather than the post itself.
Melbourne
Quoted from greatwichjohn:Guys the 2 groups went to the pre auction viewing & decided there was nothing of real value. Both groups likely came to their senses of why would you throw more money away.
No kidding, half the people in this thread have been telling you this constantly.
Quoted from greatwichjohn:Always here to help people out with my knowledge & failures. Some of us poor bastards learn from our mistakes, & move ahead. My retirement & not driving has allowed me to enjoy drinking more beer. On a good note I did not take a job with Deeproot! Also I do not have imaginary friends or bullshit about stuff. I still have my driving license, never got a DUI, & never been to the police drunk tank. Had a failed pinball business that hurt me financially & years of my spare time spent doing stuff needed for this hobby. Took care of my customers & contractors.
Henry Ford was a three time loser.
If you are not losing, odds are you are not trying.
Thanks for trying John.
Quoted from Gorgonzola:No kidding, half the people in this thread have been telling you this constantly.
I really wish RAZA would be thrown into the fires of Mount Doom already. It was a shit theme when it was BHZA and it's an even more confusing shit theme with all the stuff he added after I went to help Charlie instead. Again BHZA was John's idea, not mine.
This game was borne of a has-been hack trying to trick someone (me) into performing a bunch of free labor, hoping my ego would take the bait. My ego doesn't work that way, I want to have creative control, not see my face on a backglass. Hence I helped Charlie.
Jpooper then starts slandering me, even though I'm helping Spooky become a real company while John was finding his next scam victim. Really grinds my gears, I helped created millions in wealth and many jobs, John only destroys wealth.
That's why this game pisses me off. It's an affront to me as a person and I'm embarrassed my name was ever attached to it. It's a monument to greed and sloth, to creative bankruptcy and deception. Let people cobble together a few more at home then LET IT DIE. It doesn't deserve to live.
Just got back and finished unloading most things (still some left).
Whoever thought those backboxes were a good design is a moron. They are freaking HEAVY.
For those asking I got lot 174. There was a lot of good artwork.. and a bunch of other "stuff". I got some sort of playfield print/clear tester that rotates a piece of playfield with a ball on it to test wear... looks like someone put a decent bit of work into it as it has a display on it.. i assume to maybe count rotations or something.
Quoted from pinball_ric:playfield print/clear tester that rotates a piece of playfield with a ball on it to test wear
If it rotates 8 times and only 8 times then you sir have the Octo Tester (aka the spin pod)
Quoted from benheck:I really wish RAZA would be thrown into the fires of Mount Doom already. It was a shit theme when it was BHZA and it's an even more confusing shit theme with all the stuff he added after I went to help Charlie instead. Again BHZA was John's idea, not mine.
This game was borne of a has-been hack trying to trick someone (me) into performing a bunch of free labor, hoping my ego would take the bait. My ego doesn't work that way, I want to have creative control, not see my face on a backglass. Hence I helped Charlie.
Jpooper then starts slandering me, even though I'm helping Spooky become a real company while John was finding his next scam victim. Really grinds my gears, I helped created millions in wealth and many jobs, John only destroys wealth.
That's why this game pisses me off. It's an affront to me as a person and I'm embarrassed my name was ever attached to it. It's a monument to greed and sloth, to creative bankruptcy and deception. Let people cobble together a few more at home then LET IT DIE. It doesn't deserve to live.
Not sure how many years ago it was and I don’t really care anymore but the only reason any of us signed up for Magic Girl, RAZA or Alice in Wonderland was….
1). Limited. Like AMH at 150. MG started out at 13. Raza was 99 plus 25 Cointaker editions. AIW? Who knows.
2). At the time, Jpop’s reputation for creativity and past games he generated for Bally. That’s why people invested $$$ in him. We never understood who Ben Heck was or why he was on the freaking game. Plenty of the same people on here. In hindsight, now we know.
3). Stern wasn’t crushing it like they are now, since the TWD. Spooky was just starting out.
I agree that the bastardization of Raza, Mueller style, was awful after seeing it close up. Nobody cares what happens hereafter. GAME OVER
And the fact that you helped create “millions of wealth and jobs” is a good thing I guess for Charlie and crew. Hope you got a royalty and got paid too
Now it’s time to LET IT GO. Nobody gives a F about Jpop.
Bobby? Should be going to jail. In today’s justice system? Who TF knows.
If people had paid any attention at all to the info that was out there, they'd know that JPop's "reputation for creativity" was far eclipsed by his reputation for being difficult to work with, creating flawed playfields, and producing games that didn't do very for operators or the companies that built and sold the games.
I think everybody has pretty much figured out what the Jpop experience is at this point.
Until the next time...
Quoted from pinball_ric:Just got back and finished unloading most things (still some left).
Whoever thought those backboxes were a good design is a moron. They are freaking HEAVY.
For those asking I got lot 174. There was a lot of good artwork.. and a bunch of other "stuff". I got some sort of playfield print/clear tester that rotates a piece of playfield with a ball on it to test wear... looks like someone put a decent bit of work into it as it has a display on it.. i assume to maybe count rotations or something.
I'll take a backbox artwork and playfield artwork if you have an wanna sell. PMed you. thanks
Quoted from CrazyLevi:If people had paid any attention at all to the info that was out there, they'd know that JPop's "reputation for creativity" was far eclipsed by his reputation for being difficult to work with, creating flawed playfields, and producing games that didn't do very for operators or the companies that built and sold the games.
I think everybody has pretty much figured out what the Jpop experience is at this point.
Until the next time...
In hindsight, we now know how hard it is to actually produce pinball games. But don't tell that to Gene Cunningham and the 180 Big Bang Bar's he delivered while launching himself into bankruptcy. Maybe people were paying attention to Gene? Or Cointaker years later.
At the time, the "Jpop experience" was one that plenty of people hopped onto, including many in this thread. We wanted a TOTAN, CV or TOM in limited quantities. He sold his past and it worked.
There were literally ZERO naysayers at the time. NONE, including Ben Heck. That took awhile to develop and it came from people like myself, Frolic, Bill Brandes and plenty of others, after the jig was finally up later. It's all in the old RAZA thread, the good, bad and the ugly. 
The Jpop experience now? That's pretty clear Captain Obvious.
Quoted from iceman44:There were literally ZERO naysayers at the time. NONE,
Nonsense. As soon as he made his statement about only making his what.. 16?.. games people knew it made no sense as a business and challenged it. The over the too nda nonsense? Also challenged.
Jpoop just bought a lot of loyalty in his circle by sending them tidbits people believed were unique or valuable. He kept buying people off with small peeks behind the curtain… just enough tease to keep the belief of magic alive.
It just took many years to get out from under his spell…
And remember this is after people like python outted his incompetence
Quoted from flynnibus:Nonsense. As soon as he made his statement about only making his what.. 16?.. games people knew it made no sense as a business and challenged it. The over the too nda nonsense? Also challenged.
Jpoop just bought a lot of loyalty in his circle by sending them tidbits people believed were unique or valuable. He kept buying people off with small peeks behind the curtain… just enough tease to keep the belief of magic alive.
It just took many years to get out from under his spell…
It was 13 at first, then 16, then 19, then 25 and finally more than 50 around expo time. He knew he was in trouble on MG numbers then.
Shortly thereafter, he sold 99 RAZA games, PLUS 25 special Cointaker editions. And sold many AIW during that same time frame. MG buyers like Mitchell bought a RAZA too. As it turns out after the fact, what was he really doing? Collecting $$$ to keep doodling around on game ideas without a clue as to how he was going to get those games made.
Pre Expo, Bill Brandes, myself and others were talking to him about the realization of needing to expand MG to 50 plus games. Even that was a fantasy land idea after the fact.
Expo, the beginning of the end for Jpop. Dutch pinball showed up, JJP F ed up with the Hobbit issues (many got refunds including myself), and the bloom was off the rose, Jpop exposed out from underneath the NDA's.
The one naysayer was an operations guy that Jpop hired briefly in Jan/Feb post expo. Jpop knew he had to do something. I talked to him about the issues with Jpop then after being fired. He wasn't a fan.
The fact that Bobby resurrected RAZA and Jpop and stupidly offered the "Goodwill Agreement" was crazy, even AFTER AP pinball helped Jpop finish off MG.
Quoted from iceman44:It was 13 at first, then 16, then 19, then 25 and finally more than 50 around expo time. He knew he was in trouble on MG numbers then.
Shortly thereafter, he sold 99 RAZA games, PLUS 25 special Cointaker editions. And sold many AIW during that same time frame. MG buyers like Mitchell bought a RAZA too. As it turns out after the fact, what was he really doing? Collecting $$$ to keep doodling around on game ideas without a clue as to how he was going to get those games made.
Pre Expo, Bill Brandes, myself and others were talking to him about the realization of needing to expand MG to 50 plus games. Even that was a fantasy land idea after the fact.
Expo, the beginning of the end for Jpop. Dutch pinball showed up, JJP F ed up with the Hobbit issues (many got refunds including myself), and the bloom was off the rose, Jpop exposed out from underneath the NDA's.
The fact that Bobby resurrected RAZA and Jpop and stupidly offered the "Goodwill Agreement" was crazy, even AFTER AP pinball helped Jpop finish off MG.
To me, and many others I believe, the minute JPOP was hired, then immediately let go by American once they found out the scammer he was, only to get picked up immediately, was just mind blowing.
Quoted from Roostking:To me, and many others I believe, the minute JPOP was hired, then immediately let go by American once they found out the scammer he was, only to get picked up immediately, was just mind blowing.
Not that mind-blowing to me.
2015: Robert has a hard-on to hire Jpooper to create deeproot pinball. "He's a rock star man, I can SELL HIM!" - implies back then Bloberta was planning to actually tell investors where the money was going. (Jplop's the "rock star" but Spooky will be tasked with fixing his fake games) Robert does his initial investment offering, makes ZERO $ (probably because he was asking for investment in pinball) Sorry Johnny boy!
2016: Jpopped Pimple cons AP into fulfilling his Magic Hurl liabilities in exchange for his fake game diorama Hoodwinki. AP hires Joe Balcer who tells them "this game is a fake POS" and Johnny AppleStoreSeed gets his ass fired. (AP/Joe redesign the game in like 3 months, shows it at TPF 2017)
2017: Robert, flush with cash by LYING to investors, finally gets to hire his Boy Wonder and start Deeproot Pinball.
I know Bloberta (prison name) is our new whipping boy but let's not forget JPOP was the "progenitor muse" at the heart of Deeproot. A company which ended up being "Zitware on Steroids" - tons of money, fake facades to inspire CONfidence, utter failure.
Copenhagen
It is actually incredible how quietly American Pinball closed the curtain on the Magic Girl thingy. Put a nice ribbon on it and delivered the games they'd promised. For the return of a pinball design that appeared to be not much more than a pitch and a napkin, they must have had a hefty investment for that. Yet they just backed out afterwards letting John and Magic girl go with any fuzz. Apparently, and if I remember matters correctly.
Quoted from iceman44:There were literally ZERO naysayers at the time. NONE,
Icey old mate! There were plenty of them back then.
I can’t find the original thread (I think it got deleted after you started the second big one?) but there were plenty of posts from folks who knew the work involved in developing a game from scratch … and selling only 13 of them made no financial sense.
Building a whitewood and doing the art is the easy part (I just made a flipping game, with art, from nothing, everything hand made from scratch, in only 2 months). Doing all the software and video assets and sound assets and rules is the real work. Work that was done by the other 20 people who worked at the Williams design department.
Hey - if you remember back then, 99% of the posters thought that JPOP did all the artwork for his pins himself!
Even you doubted it at the time … 
(found in another 10 year old thread)
B1BB123B-D1FE-454B-A7DD-4F2E4F9A2373 (resized).jpeg
rd
Quoted from benheck:Not that mind-blowing to me.
2015: Robert has a hard-on to hire Jpooper to create deeproot pinball. "He's a rock star man, I can SELL HIM!" - implies back then Bloberta was planning to actually tell investors where the money was going. (Jplop's the "rock star" but Spooky will be tasked with fixing his fake games) Robert does his initial investment offering, makes ZERO $ (probably because he was asking for investment in pinball) Sorry Johnny boy!
2016: Jpopped Pimple cons AP into fulfilling his Magic Hurl liabilities in exchange for his fake game diorama Hoodwinki. AP hires Joe Balcer who tells them "this game is a fake POS" and Johnny AppleStoreSeed gets his ass fired. (AP/Joe redesign the game in like 3 months, shows it at TPF 2017)
2017: Robert, flush with cash by LYING to investors, finally gets to hire his Boy Wonder and start Deeproot Pinball.
I know Bloberta (prison name) is our new whipping boy but let's not forget JPOP was the "progenitor muse" at the heart of Deeproot. A company which ended up being "Zitware on Steroids" - tons of money, fake facades to inspire CONfidence, utter failure.
Thing is most of us didn't know that stuff about Spooky and that interaction so our first what the fuck would be the hiring firing and then rehiring of j-pop within like 3 days.
Quoted from yaksplat:Can we get this guy to do a Deeproot recap? 7 years and 598 pages in 10 minutes?[quoted image]
No.
Quoted from rotordave:Building a whitewood and doing the art is the easy part (I just made a flipping game, with art, from nothing, everything hand made from scratch, in only 2 months). Doing all the software and video assets and sound assets and rules is the real work.
That’s what I also think/thought but then I don’t really know how to build a pinball machine.
Over on the next AP machine thread, I was saying that a wide Houdini would be awesome because it would fix the narrow ramp, tight shots problems (I played it at TPF and found the ramp shot impossible then watching gameplay videos on YT, where very skilled players were also struggling making that shot maybe once every 45 minutes).
The argument on the AP thread was that 99% of new pinball machine development work was the playfield layout and widening something like Houdini would be as much work as developing a game from scratch. As if art, rules, animations and code were a few days affair.
Quoted from yaksplat:Can we get this guy to do a Deeproot recap? 7 years and 598 pages in 10 minutes?[quoted image]
They key posts are a good place to start.
Quoted from ForceFlow:They key posts are a good place to start.
unfortunately this saga starts well before this thread... the zidware mess really spans about 3-4 threads. It's kinda funky when we look back and this thread really only covers when DR went public with trying to buyout zidware customers. The first 2+ years are sprinkled elsewhere.
Very early on I put in a deposit for a Magic Girl of $7500
I quickly realized It was just too much for me, and asked for a refund the next day.
I received that refund almost immediately from Zidware/JP
I consider myself lucky for getting out when I did.
I am also surprised I got refunded without any problem. I guess that was before the desperation set in for JP.
I did not have a clue that it was all going to be a big scam, just got out cause It was an impulse buy to get in for me and realized it was just a bad idea.
Still I could have been hooked into all of it if I didn't bail early. Thank god I did.
Not one of the I told you so crowd, just glad I made the decision to get out right away from a deal I could not really afford.
Such a big mess for sure!
Did anyone else jump in then decided to get out early enough for a refund during the zidware time?
Quoted from iceman44:In hindsight, we now know how hard it is to actually produce pinball games. But don't tell that to Gene Cunningham and the 180 Big Bang Bar's he delivered while launching himself into bankruptcy.
The whole BBB thing is one of the main reasons pinball startup companies can still get away with a lot of the things they still pull to this day, and why people continue to subject themselves to possible failure. Everyone is thirsty to have the next BBB, especially when MG was announced. Its not like BBB was a walk in the park either, there was mobs with pitchforks for a long time but eventually Gene was able to deliver.
Quoted from flynnibus:unfortunately this saga starts well before this thread... the zidware mess really spans about 3-4 threads. It's kinda funky when we look back and this thread really only covers when DR went public with trying to buyout zidware customers. The first 2+ years are sprinkled elsewhere.
(Up-voted) - And some of the facts are subjected to revisionist history it would seem.
Quoted from yaksplat:Can we get this guy to do a Deeproot recap? 7 years and 598 pages in 10 minutes?[quoted image]
Recap up till right before all the hearings...
From a different thread on deeproot job openings... if only o-din could know how right he was.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Recap up till right before all the hearings...
https://worstofallpossibleworlds.podbean.com/e/emergency-pod-deeproot-pinball-ponzi-feat-levi-nayman/
Tune in at exactly the 30 minute mark to hear CrazyLevi talk about how, "the bubble in pinball pricing is not going to burst".
Perfectly on message.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:If people had paid any attention at all to the info that was out there, they'd know that JPop's "reputation for creativity" was far eclipsed by his reputation for being difficult to work with, creating flawed playfields, and producing games that didn't do very for operators or the companies that built and sold the games.
I think everybody has pretty much figured out what the Jpop experience is at this point.
Until the next time...
...but.. but.. there was 'ZERO naysayers at the time. NONE' remember? *roll eyes*
Just like the last time, the cheerleaders are working as hard as they can to bury the bodies, shoo people away from scene, and try to rewrite the history.
And the merry go round goes round and round... round and round...
Quoted from Haymaker:The whole BBB thing is one of the main reasons pinball startup companies can still get away with a lot of the things they still pull to this day, and why people continue to subject themselves to possible failure. Everyone is thirsty to have the next BBB, especially when MG was announced. Its not like BBB was a walk in the park either, there was mobs with pitchforks for a long time but eventually Gene was able to deliver.
Yep. We discuss that on the podcast.
BBB made everybody think this shit was easy. Even *I* harbored some consideration of plunking down my $12k or whatever for Magic Girl so I could get rich off it. Then I reminded myself it was a terrible idea.
BBB was a once-in-lifetime confluence of hard work, passion, lost money, and incredible good luck. I doubt we'll ever see anything quite like that again. And don't forget timing...if BBB had happened just a couple years later, when the recession hit and Gene went bankrupt, that project probably would have met the same ignoble fate as all these other disasters.
Anybody doing loadout today, I had to leave some things, a rotisserie (outside, lower level), the desk setup, some scrap metal from pallet racks, and some storage racks. Check my lot listings posted in this thread and you'll know which ones. Yours if you want them!
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