Olathe, KS
Quoted from pin2d:Late 2016 – 2017
deeproot begins reaching out to several pinball designers. After spending significant time weighing pros and cons, deeproot decides that pinball designer John Popadiuk (“JPop”) is the best option available. They decided this knowing there would be backlash from some in the pinball community, and knowing they would need to address John’s past mistakes with Zidware.
I've never understood the calculus that would arrive at this determination, especially after American Pinball attempted to use JPop. If a start-up wanted an established designer (makes sense, the start-up would not have the institutional knowledge to train one internally), there are a number of options devoid of baggage that could either be contracted with (Nordman does this) or hired (Oursler just was, last I heard Jon Norris remains interested in designing).
JPop's advantages I assume would be his stable of well-known/liked machines from the Williams years (though a real coup would have been to go after Brian Eddy or Mark Ritchie, if the "name recognition" angle were the primary motivator) or the desire to take advantage of a stable of existing designs (a time-saver of sorts, though obviously you take on baggage with the Zidware designs). I just couldn't figure how this outweighs the need to address the Zidware situation, the number of collectors who will likely never buy a new JPop design (regardless of the Zidware outcome, given how it was handled for years), and the quantity of design talent (both old guard and fresh blood) presently in the hobby.
But, I'm not an entrepreneur and perhaps I'm overlooking something. Just seems like more trouble for them (or any start-up) than it is worth.
