London
It was terrible and jpoop not getting applause was top.
(Topic ID: 203700)
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5 months later
1 month later
Quoted from CrazyLevi:What does that actually accomplish?
Last year at NYCPC, we had a drunk crash our event. It generated 5 pages of discussion here on Pinside. Exactly ZERO of that "buzz" helped us grow the event, grow our team, or sell any more tickets this year. It was worthless.
This year, we had no such "drama." We had exactly ZERO discussion about the event here, as nobody on Pinside gives a shit about that stuff.The event itself was a huge success, with twice as many people (and income I may add) than last year. Pinside buzz or lack thereof it here had nothing to do with it - but the growth came from everywhere but Pinside.
So stow the "he's a marketing genius" angle, it's total bullshit. He's doing himself no favors with this amateur hour act. This is not how pros behave. This is not how the CEO of any respectable company in any industry behaves. It's doing absolutely nothing to instill confidence in his fledgling company, and it's alienating potential customers. If the product they eventually put out matches the laughable quality of everything else they've shown us so far - from the top - their games will be garbage.
Any "buzz" he's winning here is absolutely worthless. Pinside buzz is the cheapest buzz in the world to buy, but also wafts away quickly like a fart in the wind as soon as something else comes along, or people just get tired of it by lunch time. There's literally nothing easier on pinside than generating thread views through outlandish or ridiculous behavior, but in the end it gets you nothing.
He can talk all he wants. The natives are getting restless, and this is starting to look like every other shitshow we've seen in pinball. Promise big, delay big, talk shit...we've seen it all before. Great if you have a podcast. Worthless if you are trying to launch a pinball company.
If you think this is "marketing 101" you went to one shitty business school.
Hell yes Levi - couldn't have said it better myself.
1 month later
1 year later
Quoted from ThisNotes4U:I would post the "hammer Tested" logo but it is TM.[quoted image]
I want to send Mr Franchi's excellent quote in! 
Screenshot 2020-09-05 at 07.59.53 (resized).png
at least if the game is shit you and your buddies can play shmash-the-playfield
Shipping now!
Quoted from Tranquilize:Love the logic: mine has no issues, so all machines have no issues, and the owners know nothing about pinball repair.
All my stern games are issue free also. Had some adjustments to make on IMDN and on NST but they the other than that my games have been rock solid.
If DP really raise the bar on playfield quality that's good news but until they prove themselves they can actually produce a game and produce it in volume I could go get a bit of wood from the hardware store and pummel the fuck out of it and get the same outcome!
Frankly the play field could be made out of freaking cheese, if the ball and flippers part of the gameplay is epic I'll buy it and learn how to repair cheese. deeproot loose if they think the fight is about playfield quality rather than gameplay.
2 weeks later
Quoted from javagrind888:JJ was very dismissive when we met him at TPF and we were just praising our new Pirates. It was pointed out that we were dropped real quick because he ran over to couple wearing thousand dollar outfits. Eric was great to talk to though.
Have met Jack (and Gary) many times and I would not call either of them dismissive at all.
Quoted from thedarkknight77:You know Cary didn’t sugar coat his feedback to Robert! I am sure he played the game and told Robert straight out, “I would never buy this game and not will anyone is know in the pinball community”.
I suspect Colin would have given very useful constructive feedback.
Quoted from iceman44:I promise you I would have. A year ago
Involved in JPop from day one and right in their backyard
They would rather bring in 6 people a year later to embarrass them?
Holy lack of self awareness Batman!
coupled with arrogance - never a good combination.
Trying to be positive. It's so much of a shitshow, at least they didn't try and palm bullshit off on us and carry on selling boxes of turd.
Neil.
innovation has to be within the game... not the cabinet, or the backglass or the buttons that turn off extra balls. And a touch screen in the world of Covid - holy timing disaster batman.
I do like the crate though.
My heart is filled with dread on the goonies though...
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Nice! Everybody should post their unique and innovative deep root concept. Here’s mine. Be gentle I’ve been working on it for only 5 years so still some conceptual details to iron out:
[quoted image]
surely beefroot pinball?
Quoted from BoJo:I heard Deeproot spent a lot of time getting patents for everything they developed so that might not be the case. However I'm sure Stern will do just fine without any of these innovations.
can't find anything in the patent office with deeproot on it. None of what they have done is new really, so I suspect winning a patent case wouldn't be hard with so many prior works.
Quoted from pin2d:[quoted image]
Apparently Lauren, Cary, Colin, Chris, Krystle, and myself suck at shilling since our feedback helped cause delay of the launch for the company we were supposed to be shilling for.
did they have a manufacturing line?
Quoted from iceman44:That's not in the allowed "talking points" Neil. Not a peep.
We are back into total fantasy land here again. Look at this, look at that, now how do they actually get made, in any volume.
I'm sure Bob has threatened these guys if they go outside the NDA. Well, we know that he has.
The NDA is as worthless as the paper it's written on. While i would try and comply out of courtesy, the DAMAGES as a result of any violation would be ZERO. Any damages are SELF INFLICTED.
and thus unfortunately those present end up being part of a shill process. They may not have chosen to do that but that's sadly the end result. Seen it done many times.
Quoted from Mr68:The word Shill implies something sinister and I find that wholly unfair to Cary Hardy and Jeff at TWIP. I've been following them both for a long time and that is not my sense at all.
to be clear I don't see them as sinister at all. I have huge respect for Jeff - I'm not a fan of Cary's youtube but I respect that others do. They've been played.
1 month later
I erased all the history in my mind and because I love Steve and wanted this to be a great game.
but sadly but from a ball and flippers this was a complete fail from my point of view.
Code/rules - none
Shots - bricky with a floaty rattly return. very little "kinetic satisfaction" there was no shot that made me think, mmm tasty,
Light show, sorry but after the recent shows on GNR, AIQ, Turtles this was very lacking in my view and the pinstadium did nothing but highlight how poor those plastic Ramps look, imagine them as rails...
couldn't really gauge the quality of the sound but some of the music felt too repetitive.
pinbar, felt like a big distraction and alot of it seemed the same as on the DMD - still looks like torture for your hands.
cabinet, looks nice but thats not what sells game.
Won't buy this until I've played it but I'd say deeproot have built a game for the 90's when the rest of the world has moved on using top players to design games and having a multi-dimensional rule set and real satisfaction on shots.
Neil.
honestly a chimpanzee and two trainees will be able to hack the DLC - like the massive use of upgraded stern code with audio and video assets.
but honestly you bozos saying pinheads will pay anything - its just nonsense.
its like saying petrolheads will buy anything - so if only Bugatti sold their car for 4500 those bastards!
beatles sales were poor.
topper sales would be factored into the overall plan for JP2, Elvira etc.
2 months later
4 weeks later
3 weeks later
Quoted from benheck:To be fair, worldwide supply chains are F**KED up at the moment. Major integrated circuit shortages, car plants are shut down waiting for chips to stick in.
It's probably worse for DR as they are new and thus not a priority for vendors scrambling to help long time customers.
It's obvious COVID was much worse in China than their evil government let on, and now we are seeing the reality echoed in production.
chips aren't made in China though, their silicon technology is years behind. TMSC in Taiwan (not strictly China) is suffering from changing of demand cars->computers/tablets/webcams->cars and then Huawei bought up a huge amount of supply for their needs and then a shortage of water which is required in the process. Underinvestment outside of Asia means there is few places to have chips fabricated other than Asia. Intel today announced plans for a new fab in the US and Europe which is great news.
1 week later
it just shows a lack of experience. pinball has so many skill requirements and dependencies what this has show is how poor Robert is. sure you can blame JPop but Jpop is Jpop.
Next stage of learning for deeproot is actual scale manufacturing which given the lack of photos feels like its starting at zero... this shitshow has got many chapters still to be written.
At least on the certification if they stick with the same cabinet/power/cpu design they won't need to do that bit again. This is why Stern are able to roll games out in record time.
Quoted from pookycade:But does it ? Behind every failure is some degree of failure to execute. Oftentimes it doesn’t matter how much money one is has. In fact more money often leads one to be even more sloppy and do a worse job not better because there is seemingly no financial pressure to complete each step in a timely and competent manner
I think King Fail #1 Andrew Heighway tells us otherwise. He had no money but what he did have he spent it stupidly buying machines to make their own hex posts and crap like that. Then tried to exit and blame it on other people (who were as equally to blame for the fail as he was but are about to rip off a new generation of stupid people). I fully expect the same thing with Robert.
1 month later
1 week later
Dear RAZA Customer:
First, I want to wish the amazing Mr. Bowden a very happy birthday. I'm honored he has decided to spend the occasion at work writing up more cool tips for his FunwithBonus.com website. It was nice to catch up with him this morning about RAZA.
While it has been six weeks since our last update, we wish there was more to update on. We are dealing with the same issues most other small and large businesses are. That is, still struggling with some vendors over supply chain and deliveries, unable to hire staff because of labor shortages, and dealing with inflationary increases in parts since we have not been able to execute quick enough. We come in every day and are chipping away at the diminishing obstacles to shipping our first RAZAs.
We want to keep communication open. However, it seems sometimes that these periodic updates don't convey the progress that is happening, nor does it solve the real goal of delivering games. At this point we do not expect to send another mass update about RAZA until after the July 4th weekend.
In the mean time, if some RAZA customers wish to rescind their contracts and request their payments back, we will offer those on a first-come, first serve basis starting June 1, 2021. You can reply to this email or use our online contact form on our website. Please include your name, order number, and a request to rescind the RAZA Purchase Contract. Once accepted, your request is irrevocable.
For those waiting on the wait list, please again do not contact us to check on if you have a machine or not. We will do our best to fill as many requests as we can from the rescinded machines, in order on the wait list, at the end of the RAZA run. Since the list has grown from the last mass email, we cannot guarantee to be able to accommodate everyone.
Best!
-Robert J. Mueller, Principal
deeproot Pinball
1 week later
1 month later
3 weeks later
Quoted from flynnibus:Didn't people hear all this the first time around?
I'm still amazed people find this eyeopening... it's literally a 'greatest hits' compilation of the content we all have had for years.
yeah but its all in the timing! with a little bit of remastering! like all good bands!
What a total shitshow for the poor suckers^wpinheads who have put money down on this. Basically a FU and we will tell you when the FU no longer applies.
The three cases listed about don't look like they would be the reason not to ship, so it must be all letters before action type shit.
lets hope he can "out legal" better than he can "out business" and "out manufacture".
just thinking about this.
The only action that this can be is related to IP.
Right now DR haven't shipped anything so the impact to any IP ownership is pretty much zero.
However if someone has IP that RAZA impacts then by shipping it could create a damages situation.
Wildly speculating but based on the most legally active pinball IP owner - I wonder if this might be related to WMS IP ? Is RAZA on some bit of paper that the WMS IP holder has? Its the sort of JPOP bullshit that wouldn't surprise anyone.
Neil.
Quoted from flynnibus:"manufacturing is underrated, and design is overrated"
Listen to Elon Musk talk about how much effort the put into production/manufacturing vs coming up with the thing in the first place
Not anything new - take a look at how BMW or any of the top car makers or largest manufacturers have built their design shops now, designers and production assembly designers in the same team in the same room. I studied how BMW’s design house “Projeckt Haus” was built and every job (not person) has a specific seat. The approach saved them as an independent cat manufacturer reduced recalls by more than 35% and enabled them in ten years triple the number of car models they can produce.
I can think of two optimisations in design to manufacturing 1: playfields and digital printing (and what a fail that has been) 2: Stern’s move to Spike 2 architecture which initially had some quality issues but I personally think has been a huge success for them. Beyond that - very little.
Regards,
Neil
1 week later
This first time ever Mueller kept his mouth shut:
9. Mueller also used more than $1.5 million of the Funds’ assets to pay hundreds of personal expenses, including his daughter’s private school tuition, vacations with his family, his second wedding, his second divorce, his third wedding, jewelry for both his second and third wives (including engagement rings and wedding bands for both wives), other lifestyle spending for and by his family, and to buy a condominium in Kauai, Hawaii. When asked by SEC counsel during investigative testimony about his use of the Funds’ assets to pay for these personal and family expenses, Mueller asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
1 week later
1 month later
It just goes to show how we need to change the world so that a total psychopath like Mueller can’t take advantage of some really good people - I imagine some folks felt trapped in the circus not wanting to take the risk of his bullying if they left or they felt they couldn’t leave for fear of the told you so’s. He is exactly the same as Heighway - I hope to god the community has finally learned.
Neil.
2 months later
Quoted from TreyBo69:Also home addresses to a lot of recognizable people. Maybe some things should be redacted from public court filings
Agreed.
Quoted from Inside:So there's a full list (70 pages) of creditors. JPOP is in there!
The grift continues
removed
I would like to ask the poster or one of the moderators to remove this link please. Whilst it doesn't make the document go away the posting of this (whilst clearly well intended) is causing many of our friends (And others who didn't sign up for this either) in the community serious cause for concern and anxiety and I implore, in fact I beg, that it be removed from pinside and I ask kindly that the community considers the security and well being of all of our family in this community.
In 2016 I was not in a great place and I stumbled into this community and many people, including many on that list, where truly welcoming and friendly and maybe even saved me from myself. I ask with respect to our community that we walk in the shoes of those who have already been negatively impacted by the deeproot farce to do them one more service and not make a terrible situation any worse by making personal and private details public.
Many thanks,
Neil.
1 week later
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