Quoted from jwilson:Yeah, I thought that was Trudeau at first as well, but I don't think he can leave the state right now...
His next court date is Monday, so we'll see!
(Topic ID: 203700)
Linked Games
Alice in Wonderland
Zidware Pinball USA, 2013-
Celts
Haggis, 2021
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Magic Girl
Zidware Pinball USA, 2017
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Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland
Zidware Pinball USA, 2012
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Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland (Arcade Edition)
Deeproot, 2020
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Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland (Xtra Edition)
Deeproot, 2020
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They may end up doing something awesome, but scanning the article reads like they're pretty far up their own butt, and I still don't get how Nordman can be theirs exclusively if he's on Scared Stiff 3 for Stern.
But talk like this explaining their "no assembly line" concept seems especially nonsensical/unrealistic:"Quad Assembly will provide rapid and dynamic on-demand manufacturing abilities that current pinball manufacturers will have a hard time to match. We’ll be able to throttle and provide process fluctuations with flexible distribution. Following this concept allows for cross-functional staffing resulting in higher productivity and decreased manufacturing costs."
Quoted from clempo:Now that I read it again, this sounds like on-demand manual construction in China in small batches with employees trained for many different tasks.
What could possibly go wrong there, eh?
Quoted from alveolus:Then take it up with Jeff Johnson.
ToM has a great layout, buttery-smooth flow, great toys and features, and is gorgeous.
I hope to own one someday, even with subpar software.
It is, however, way too easy to hang around long in a small collection.
Quoted from deeproot:Actually you can thank me for Elvira 3. I’m the one who came up with it back in 2015 and told Dennis and Greg I wanted them to do it. I even reached out and spoke with Cassandra’s agent. I came up with a theme and fleshed it out with Dennis to present Elvira in a more timeless fashion. Dennis and I let things go after working with Charlie didn’t work out. Then at TPF 2017 I sat in the back of the room smiling when Cassandra Greg and Dennis announced that it was going to be made in the breakout session. While I don’t know what the current design or status is, if rumors are true that Stern is going to delay it’s release, I would love to purchase the license from them and finish it right. —Robert
Glad you dropped in. If Dennis is working on Elvira 3 for Stern, how is he exclusive to deeproot? That part was pretty confusing...
Quoted from rubberducks:Not sure ( . )( . ) will go over well with church groups and christian youth organisations who would presumably be the mainstay for your bible title's market.
Dunno, that Jezebel chick is supposed to be pretty hot, and they could go all Passion of the Christ on it and make it more gory than anything on TV. Sex and Violence covered. I think they could get to parity with Elvira 3 for the evangelical transition.
Quoted from greenhornet:Hilton.
to help humor your insatiable appetite to know who people are,
let me help you by eliminating four of the staff members for you.
Who is the one blurred out at the computer in the back?
Quoted from AmericanPinball:American Pinball has recently become aware of statements made by DeeprootTech in an interview. Deeproot's statements misrepresent the situation and in particular the status of any rights of John Popadiuk relative to his work on the first Houdini™ pinball machine concept. In brief, only API has the rights to market or produce a Houdini™ pinball machine.
dun, Dun, DUN...the plot thickens.
1 month later
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:The mind is now open!
Quoted from Cheeks:I knew it was essentially $10K, but didn't remember the exact number. With all the grief I've been through on this ride, I'm not paying a cent more than needed. I'll keep that extra $5 thank you...
But If you pay $5 to get to $5000, it gives you significantly more benefit in the deeproot deal if I remember right. Worth it if you're in this deep already, IMO. $5 is nothing.
Quoted from YeOldPinPlayer:Interesting mention that Barry is working on a farm or produce themed pin- https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/looking-for-a-farm-or-produce-themed-pin
Big Juicy Peaches?
3 months later
Quoted from deeproot:Tis true... At what point should we start panicking?
-- Robert dT
American Pinball did a working game to show from scratch in about 4 months, so you have plenty of time if you have their skills and ambition.
Quoted from bobukcat:The more talented and experienced people they hire the more I keep thinking there must really be something to this guy's "vision" for pinball. JPOP doesn't count because his situation was such that any offer he'd almost HAVE to accept, but all these other guys were not in the same situation, though I guess you could say Nordman fell for Heighways' BS. Time will tell.
But their timing is exquisite. At this pace they should have their first title out about the time the next cyclical crash comes.
9 months later
Quoted from JodyG:I'm guessing screen across the back of the playfield, under the glass.
God, let's hope not. I hate that on CV. Plus, given the basically full-width aspect ratio of the video, it would prevent a ton of stuff on the back of the playfield. No, let's let that CV experiment remain dead.
Quoted from benheck:Come on now.
If TOM or TOTAN had better code they'd be Top 3 pins instead of Top 10 pins.
Well, what are you waiting for? Make it so!
Quoted from Mr68:Magic Girl from American Pinball. 2017. It functioned, just not very well.
Define "functioned."
Quoted from Jason_Jehosaphat:Please steer me toward the "Raza" video - if, in fact, it's posted anywhere. I've read about it and, naturally, I'm curious to see it. I've searched for it in this thread but can't find it.
Thanks!
It's just a slightly better than flash-looking animation. No pinball, no concept art, nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?amp;v=opAK-32MfJM
Comments are disabled on that video (wonder why??), so don't bother with the link if you're going for the comments 
Quoted from Fulltilt:Sorta' like the one that got many of us into this mess....
Well, to be fair, they clearly spent more money on the 2019 version of essentially the same pitch.
Quoted from DS_Nadine:[quoted image]
That dude sells a ton of hilariously wrong designs:
https://stevenrhodes.threadless.com/designs/
1 month later
Quoted from DS_Nadine:It takes time to learn how to snort cocaine with you poophole.
The professionals have someone to blow it in.
Quoted from TheGunnett:September 2019 - Late August of 2020, seems like a wide window , up to 15 months from today to ship their first pin!
Jersey Jack will have 2 more out in that time. Stern will have 4-6 more out in that time. CGC will probably have one more out in that time. American will have one more out. Spooky might have one more out in that time. That's 8-10 pins right there just waiting for deeproot to do something besides talk.
Quoted from PantherCityPins:Why not just sit back and wait for whatever Deeproot puts out?
Because the CEO can't shut up about what he hasn't done.
Eventually all the talk and hype and putdowns of inferior existing tech and the companies that sell it are just that...talk. He's missed all his own deadlines, so a "quiet mode" is in order until he has something to SHOW.
Quoted from jawjaw:So what if they missed a deadline they imposed on themselves?
Deadlines. S. Plural. They missed more than one. If they can't make them, then shut up about them and just do the work, then tell us all about it when you have a product.
Quoted from wolfemaaan:The truth hurts, Stern is turning out plastic garbage. The Playfields look like kinkos prints and Deadpool looked like Deadpeal from all the orange peel and dimples in the playfield.
To be fair, the Deadpool Premium we have has one of the better playfields in recent Stern history. Fairly mild dimpling. No Batman'66-sized craters.
Quoted from andre060:Asked and answered at the seminar at TPF. They like how the big tall target plays. No one made a big deal of this when it was on guardians and Metallica...
This is the company that said the broken orbit on Game of Thrones on the Prem/LE was "as designed" after "working on a fix" for months and just putting a disable option in the code, walking away from fixing the CLEAR problem that screwed up a major component of Martell mode.
What Stern and their agents SAY in PUBLIC and the (sometimes private) REALITY of the situation are often two very different things.
2 weeks later
Quoted from FlippinJB:I don't know whether to buy a Wonka or wait for deeproot to come out with something.
I'd wait. Wonka was completely underwhelming for me. Felt like Dialed In 2.0 with slot machine visuals. Blah. Callouts were sparse and generally crappy, too. Get something else and enjoy that for a year or so then see what Wonka (or GnR by then!) looks like. Have you played ACNC? I was completely surprised at how much I enjoyed that one when I didn't expect to. Give that a look. Also, Deadpool Premium is firing on all cylinders with the most recent software updates. It's turned into a GREAT game - another possibility.
Quoted from FlippinJB:Yep I'll take that advice, I think. I know it's early code - especially with the rather underwhelming movie clip integration - but I have a DI and I'm not sure Wonka goes far beyond that. Apart from the rotating trapdoor.
OTOH, look at what happened with BM66!
On balance, Vireland, I think I'll wait.
Yeah, but Batman '66 took 2 years to get good, and 18 months to get to just acceptable. So yeah, you can always come back to Wonka in 2 years and see how it's doing, but why suffer through its public beta?
Quoted from wamonkey:see it all makes sense[quoted image]
In Japan this is a real business model. Vending machines and everything.
Quoted from benheck:Piqued your interest #grammerWars
I will ALWAYS correct this one because people love to use it, yet it's almost always spelled wrong. It's shocking how much "professional" text goes out with this spelled wrong.
Just a quick news search brought up these ones and dozens more from recent broadcast blogs/op-ed (no, a [sic] was not used on the op-ed). Pathetic:
https://www.wgnsradio.com/op-ed-democracy-dies-in-the-darkness-by-state-rep-mike-sparks-cms-50466
https://kfgo.com/blogs/out-loud/939/the-reason-the-camera-phone-was-invented-hits-close-to-home/
https://seekingalpha.com/article/3004126-nanotech-entertainment-on-the-verge-of-something-big
2 months later
Quoted from Mr68:Another casualty of Pinside?
[quoted image]
.
https://pinside.com/pinball/community/pinsiders/deeproot/forum
They haven't donated to pinside since 2015, so it's about time. We don't take their brand of punishment for free.
Quoted from Tranquilize:The original design was much cleaner (better) by logo standards. People on here trashed it so badly that they changed it. Listening to pinside is a sign of weakness. Grow a set, Deeproot!
This. The new logo is too messy for the wide variety of uses it will need and it scales very poorly. Very amateur logo work. I can't believe an agency did it. It looks very DIY.
3 weeks later
Quoted from RonSS:I'm new to this thread. Can someone summarize the last 98 pages for me please?
30 words or less.
Less.
Quoted from Shapeshifter:Why did Deeproot ( Robert ) go inactive a month ago?
I heard he was inspired by Spooky to try and make a pinball machine.
Dunno. That hype about the animation and animation+live action video seems like it's A> overkill for a pinball machine where video isn't the point and B> sounding like they're making the 2019 versions of Sewer Shark, It Came from the Desert, Night Trap and lots of crappy "games" from the beginning of the CD era.
I'd love to be blown away, but right now it looks like he's digging on all fronts to make the biggest hole to get out of ever created for a product launch.
3 weeks later
Quoted from Concretehardt:So nothing out of the Deeproot team at expo?[quoted image]
Your hearing doesn't deceive you.
crickets.gifQuoted from Fulltilt:Because Houston is the promise?
The CURRENT promise. As with all others made before, subject to change...
Quoted from JodyG:I'm thinking the 5 days of Deeproot will wind up being more like the 5 years of Deeproot.
That's a safe statement. Question is, WHICH 5 years, and will they be consecutive?
Quoted from Kiwipinhead:Wonder if DR would cut Denis Nordmans ramps out of 3lvira like Stern did?
Really looking forward to see what he has coming from DR
Stern actually cut quite a bit. The mechanical fate wheel, the whoop-de-do in the left ramp, the inline targets leading to the lock, the stuff behind the flippers...
Quoted from okgrak:The founder raised a ton of money by overselling his operation and business, and philosophizing about the greatness of his plan to an almost fraudulent level. He promised to revolutionize the real estate and office space business only to have it come crashing down as they approached IPO and ran out of cash. During the IPO process, outsiders got a peak behind the curtain and what had smelled like crap was actually well...... crap.
Apparently not all of them hated what they saw. Softbank just threw WeWork a 5 billion dollar lifeline for a massive 80% company stake tonight.
Neumann gets $1.7 billion for his (almost?) con and agrees to step down and give up his voting rights. Not bad.
3 weeks later
Quoted from screaminr:When jjp revealed Potc the hype meter went through the roof , when it finally shipped around a year later all the hype had evaporated . Looks like DR might be making the same mistake .
And that was AFTER JJP had delivered three machines and had developed a good track record. Deeproot has shipped nothing at all.
Quoted from tilted81:First impression is better than expected. Pretty weak on the back glass tho...hope they make an improvement there. look forward to seeing video gameplay.
Backglass AND cabinet art HAS to be a placeholder. Looks super-generic and doesn't match the playfield art.
Quoted from zaphX:On one hand I’m surprised at the haterade in here, but on the other hand that’s expected out of Pinside.
Opinion fully formed after a few photos and some blurrycam videos. Pretty sad.
I had fun playing it. It’s a good game and I’d buy one.
Yes, but you won't buy TWO. Coming from you, that says a lot.
My main complaint from the videos is the playfield needs a lot more accent coloring to offset the greens. WAY TOO MUCH GREEN. And using a neon green pantone color instead of screened green, with less green overall, but a much more intense green might make it pop in a more pleasant way. Right now it's like someone vomited green all over everything.
Quoted from zaphX:Another gameplay video which shows some success on the ramp.
I’d say I make the ramp 40 percent of the time. It’s not frustrating to miss either. Just fun when you do.
Ramp is finally made once at 1:31.
Quoted from razorsedge:Is there maybe a Pinside "Editor" around whom can add all the vids as "Key Posts"? .... starting with the post Zach made #5771 on page 116.
Done.
Quoted from LateCenturyMods:Somewhat color corrected for your enjoyment and obsessive scrutiny. Whoever said it was heavy on the lime was spot on.
Martian princess is a fantasy character. Seems like she's in need of a bit more fantasy.
raza-martian-queen (resized).jpgQuoted from TreyBo69:The biggest thing deeproot screwed up was revealing this prototype the way they did.
Now we have crummy cell phone footage (no offense, thanks for sharing), a lot of people heavily dissecting a prototype, and the first impression for many in the core market has been made and it was underwhelming to say the least. Now it’s endless speculation about the price of a retail product based on an working prototype with poor messaging.
I get they needed feedback and some location testing, but there are better ways to do it.
My biggest question is why are they using badly printed filament 3D printed parts on their show machines? Sure, rapid prototype them in-house on filament printers, but use nicer, higher-res resin printers for the parts you're bringing to the show. None of the parts are that large, most of them could have been done on a $400 or less resin printer. Buy 5 or 6 of them for $2-3 grand and print a machine's worth of high-res 3D parts that look nice in half a day, then use the other half of the day to print backup parts in case some break. One day, 6 better printers, much better reveal first impression contribution would be made. Why didn't they do this?
Quoted from Roostking:I heard the game was a "prototype"?
Of course. I don't expect 3D printed parts in the final machine, either. But they could easily have made much better-looking printed parts for their prototype that would have made a much better initial impression.
Quoted from Manic:Out of all the other issues I doubt if the 3D printer quality was even on most player's radars.
To zoom in on them like we see in the close-up pics you'd literally have to press your face against the glass.
I think your boob "complaint" (or observation) was more on target
Why can't we have both?
My point was the amount of effort to cast those with a cheap resin printer in MUCH higher resolution is not a whole lot more than what they expended to make them look crappy with a filament printer. Given both paths and the importance of the prototype reveal, why not put your best foot forward for very little money and not much more effort?
That said, I like many of the whimsical touches shown, and look forward to being able to play it to form an opinion about it in person.
Quoted from toyotaboy:I sorta thought the same thing, but I also thought about the fact that resin printers "can" take much longer to print (not ideal during crunch time)
But unlike FDM, you can gang resin prints on the same plate as long as they fit on the plate and it doesn't double the time like it would with an FDM since it it layer at once instead of having to draw each layer. Resin is more of a hassle to deal with, but in a facility the size they have, there's plenty of room and plenty of ventilation to have a dedicated print room if they wanted.
But these are all logical solutions after the fact that would have resulted in much better impressions for little or no change in cost. They didn't do that, so who can know what's in their head?
Quoted from SkillShot:YouTube does 4K, but not in Safari. Try Chrome.
Or don't. Chrome and Chromium-based browsers (pretty much everything except Firefox now) are a privacy disaster.
1 month later
Quoted from razorsedge:So if DR want to represent the "best value" in pinball, the standard for value has just been raised by Spooky. Interactive animated RGB controlled topper INcluded for 7k!
If they can't do the same, or a better level of product, for the same or lower price... what hope have DR got if they can't provide better overall value than a small, low volume, boutique pinball manufacturer?
Value isn't just price, in pinball it's fun for the money, which is also closely related to resale value. Spooky is getting there, but they're just now (IMO) on the cusp of getting a handle on engineering and funfactor which feed stable resale values. If DR falls between Spooky and Stern, they'll be fine. I seriously doubt they're shooting for the gap between Stern and JJP.
Quoted from razorsedge:That forms part of my point. Since Spooky revealed RM the bar for overall Value has been rising, the goalposts have moved a little.
I realise volume restrictions soften the impact it could have on larger manufacturers, but Spooky is in cometition for Pinball Money just like all the others. They did gather their full quota in a matter of hours, just recently.
Spooky needs to crystallize their engineering before they'll be a threat to anyone in the value/resale category. There's still too many weird shots, misplaced switches, and ball traps to be a serious contender. ACNC is MUCH better than what came before, but still has key problems in common with AMH and RZ. I think they're getting there and will eventually arrive, but not sure if that's on R*M (seems too soon) or some future pin, although R*M could be their Harley Davidson pin (that fans buy over and over regardless of whether it's actually a good/fun pin just because of the license/rabid fans).
If Deeproot lands between Stern and Spooky with reasonable engineering and fairly complete code at launch, they'll be fine.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Williams was giving away “free” toppers in 1986.
Is this really the “value bar” now?
They also released them around the time of the game, not 2 years later. So yeah, things are worse now.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:We are jumping to conclusions here.
Maybe deep root will include 2 free toppers on every game!
Or maybe a topper and a bottom...er? Undercab lighting or a projector to put animated graphics on the floor in front of the pin.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Yeah when is someone gonna do that? Kind of surprised it hasn’t happened.
Check out the sweet projection on the mustang I rented last weekend[quoted image]
I messed around with the car door ones on a jjPotC, but the resolution was pretty crap due to the very small size of the slide and limited projection power so the image projected on the floor in front of the machine was what I would call unacceptable. HOWEVER a decent pico projector could put up very cool and inviting animated video on the floor in front of the machine. Would be very awesome if done right (aka, not Stern).
Quoted from DS_Nadine:I actually bought a pair of these (with a different pic) for ~3$ from Ali Express.
But the quality for anything beyond simple vector images is poor.
3 weeks later
Quoted from Yelobird:So your saying..
I think
I think
I suspect
I expect
So basically you have no idea correct? lol While not the best laid out marketing plan from what we Know, we will all find out in March. lol
Or TTSE NI, for short.
10 months later
Quoted from woodworker:The Deep Root team as of November 30th 2018:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181130144022/http://deeproottech.com:80/
By January 2019 the team had been reduced to this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190101001724/http://deeproottech.com:80/
And Dennis Nordman is still listed on the site, even though he left...
https://deeproottech.com/
Where'd everybody go?
Wow, that's some stark comparison from Nov 2018 to Aug 2020 when you see it laid out like that (I took Dennis Nordman out because he's gone, even though they list him):
--------------------------
Nov 2018
--------------------------
MANAGEMENT TEAM
--------------------------
ROBERT MUELLER - PRINCIPAL
CRAIG RUSHFORTH - VP/LEAD ENGINEER
EXCLUSIVE GAME AND AUDIO DESIGN TEAM
--------------------------
JOHN POPADIUK - EXCLUSIVE GAME DESIGNER
DENNIS NORDMAN - EXCLUSIVE GAME DESIGNER
JON NORRIS - EXCLUSIVE GAME DESIGNER
BARRY OURSLER - EXCLUSIVE GAME DESIGNER
DAVID THIEL - PINBALL AUDIO ARTIST
ELECTRICAL TEAM
--------------------------
MATTHEW BRADSHAW - ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
JOSUE CRUZ-LAMBERT - ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
JACOB RODRIGUEZ - ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
FLOR CASTRO - ELECTRICAL TECH
MECHANICAL TEAM
--------------------------
SEAN GIBSON - SENIOR MECHANICAL ENGINEER
PATRICK FINUCANE - MECHANICAL PROJECT LEAD
JEREMY SANCHEZ - MECHANICAL ENGINEER
DANIEL VELA - MECHANICAL ENGINEER
JUAN SOTELO - MECHANICAL TECH
MANUEL LEAL - MECHANICAL TECH
STEPHEN NEGRETE - MECHANICAL TECH
CHRISTOPHER CABRERA - MECHANICAL TECH
CHARLES NEGRETE - MECHANICAL TECH
IN-HOUSE ART AND STORYBOARDING TEAM
--------------------------
BLAKE ADRIAN - VISUALIZATION ARTIST
ADAM REHMANN - CONCEPT ARTIST
QUINN JOHNSON - SCENARIST, STORYBOARDING, WRITER
STEVEN BOWDEN - RULESET DESIGNER / DEEPROOT AMBASSADOR
UTAH CREATIVE STUDIO
--------------------------
MATTHEW ARMSTRONG - ART DIRECTOR
LANCE MONTGOMERY - PINBALL AUDIO ARTIST
NATE ALLISON - TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
ALLEN STEVENSON - ANIMATOR
RYAN BIRD - ANIMATOR
DILLON THOMPSON - CHARACTER MODELLING & ANIMATION
SOFTWARE TEAM
--------------------------
TURNER LOGIC - SOFTWARE
--------------------------
Aug 2020
--------------------------
MANAGEMENT TEAM
--------------------------
ROBERT MUELLER - PRINCIPAL
CRAIG RUSHFORTH - VP/LEAD ENGINEER
EXCLUSIVE GAME AND AUDIO DESIGN TEAM
--------------------------
JOHN POPADIUK - EXCLUSIVE GAME DESIGNER
JON NORRIS - EXCLUSIVE GAME DESIGNER
BARRY OURSLER - EXCLUSIVE GAME DESIGNER
DAVID THIEL - PINBALL AUDIO ARTIST
Quoted from cpr9999:Checking LinkedIn- some of those people are listed as being at DR still. But very few!!
For example - SEAN GIBSON is now VP of Operations.
Yeah, I didn't take the time to check every single one with linked in, but there are an enormous amount of staff gone. 31 staff down to 6 is pretty dire. Even if it was 12 left, double what they show, that's still dire. So yeah, Direroot.
Starting to feel like...
iraqi-ali (resized).jpgQuoted from BC_Gambit:Your opinion is wrong
And yes, I am just being argumentative... I will say I think the odds of a RAZA selling at above the preorder price (one year after release say) is larger than somehow LZ selling at more than retail. So RAZA wins being a better speculative investment. Yay.
Cosmic Carnival and Thunderbirds would like a word with you. Rarity does not automatically equal value/desirability.
Quoted from BC_Gambit:Given people now seem to be asking near MM money for some of the older JPOP games his games have their fans. If somehow RAZA is limited to 100 to 200 units, it can play like crap and have terminal hardware issues and still have collectors fighting over owning it for bragging rights.
Jpop's B/W/M games are often attractive (Star Wars Ep 1 and WCS'94 excepted), and I've had them all, but I don't really want any of them again. They're more like interactive art and way too shallow. I Joined the Cirqus the first day I had Cirqus Voltaire. That sucked.
Cirqus Voltaire
Star Wars Ep 1
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Theatre of Magic
World Cup Soccer
I dunno. Maaaaaybe collectors would want a broken game just to say they had it, but the bloom was off having a blinky mostly non-functional Magic Girl pretty fast.
For direroot, I was much more interested in what Dennis Nordman and Barry Oursler were doing, so I hope for the sake of their pins that RAZA does well enough to get Dennis' and Barry's made, too.
Quoted from flynnibus:Know who knows? The manufacturing pros they had in house. Both CCC and AP had manufacturing as the core of their business. AP went out and hired pinball manufacturing veterans (not just designers!) like Jim Thornton. That's how they did it.
And AP still had ridiculous build issues out of the gate. Subway fell off our Houdini because they were using power tools without limiters and basically grinding the wood to dust when they put the screws in with too much power. A few plays and "THUNK" - lift the playfield and the whole metal mini-subway section is laying in the cabinet with no way to re-attach it without repairing the craters where the screws went. Also had a coil wrapper burn on location from a software bug that locked the coil on. Fortunately the owner shut the machine off when smoke started pouring out before the thing caused a fire.
A LOT can go wrong with a startup machine, and trying to do the manufacture without experienced managers that have done it a lot is a mistake.
Quoted from benheck:It's called "Octo Manufacturing" because they'd sell exactly 8 Food Truck games.
I thought it was because it dooms the parties to welfare, like Octomom...
3 months later
Quoted from benheck:But yes, we will sell them to anybody who wants it. Except Homepin of course!
Thats-Racist.gif
Quoted from benheck:Gerry, we can probably agree on one thing at least - deeproot needs to DIE!
They're already dead. They just don't know it yet.
Quoted from JodyG:Look at the huge "PINBAR" billboard they are putting on the side of the pinball hall of fame!
[quoted image]
Room for one more letter. What do they finish it with? If they're going for a temportary Deeproot art installation, maybe an F?
Quoted from TreyBo69:Enough room for the TM symbol
Haha. You're right. Like a glove!
pinbar (resized).jpgQuoted from happyclan:Buy the place next door and call it "DLC"
The Harley Davidson dealership is across the street, so that's kind of covered.
Quoted from fastpinball:I appreciate the attention to detail in moving the street address.
Thanks.
Aaron
FAST Pinball
Heh. I had to stop myself from OCD-ing out and perspective correcting the R better and the address, too so they looked like they were actually on the building better. I started to, then had to talk myself down, reminding myself this was a throwaway gag.
That deeproot letter really took the wind out of this thread's sails. People still in for a pin are depressed and everyone else is like, "nah, too pathetic, it's all been said" to keep the thread lively.
Quoted from benheck:John gave AP his Houdini design in exchange for them building 25 Magic Girls. AP hires Joe Balcer who tells them [Houdini] is a fake diorama of a game and will need major reworking. Joe fires John and they redo Houdini from scratch in like 4 months in time for TPF 2017.
That's the known facts, beyond that I think John was very much involved with causing AP to happen in the first place (look at the name and logo) because yet again he'd found a starry eyed guy with a rich uncle.
It was all for the best. JPop's art for the original Houdini backglass looked like he'd made the prequel to Genesis.
Quoted from Roostking:5 days of lawsuits!
He could only wish we was so lucky to have Simpsons parody him like they did to Morrissey for suing everyone for saying things that were true.
Quoted from TreyBo69:Animal House would be a great pin. I can see the match screen now. Belushi downing whiskey, smashing a bottle, revealing a match number
[quoted image]
Or the "I'm a zit, get it?" bit and the mayo splooges onto the screen and drips into the match numbers.
Tilt could be "zero. point. zero." GPA scene.
zero.point.zero.gifQuoted from Mr68:I asked my girlfriend is she wanted to play Pearl Harbor in bed. She didn't understand so I told her to dive down and blow the hell out of me.
Reminds me of the Bin Laden song from PopStar.
2 weeks later
Quoted from benheck:Sorry that's part of the history I won't post online until this company is gone.
Plot twist.
Quoted from Jjsmooth:Dodge Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds were considered sales failures at the time, and sat on dealer lots.
But they are very appreciated today.
I'll hang onto my CV.[quoted image]
The fact that they cut Medieval Madness production short to make Cirqus Voltaire because they thought it was the next big thing always chapped my hide. Were they blind?
3 weeks later
Quoted from benheck:Google Chrome must be spying really well these days, this came up in my YouTube Recommend:
Chrome is basically a virus at this point. God help the company if it's on even one pc connected to a company network with open shares. It will scrape them all.
Quoted from benheck:Still! If Deeproot is offering free shipping as "interest" that's a good deal! At current rates it would take 75 years for 8k to earn $300.... And now I'm depressed.
Given the deeproot risk level, staking 8k in crypto coins for a year would net you 15% (or slightly higher or lower depending on which coins). I'd take the $1200 staking over $300 from deeproot and the crypto staking is probably less risky.
1 month later
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Who are you berating exactly?
All pinball machines are LCD now.
Homepin says "Hold my Beer."
1 month later
Quoted from Scandell:Haha exactly. I think it was “If you tell people about me not paying you money I owe you and furloughing you…it hurts YOU more than it hurts me”
Haha, I have a funny story about that kind of person that people from American Idol would know. The Constantine dude from American idol that finished like 5th or 6th his season was doing a play on (or just off, I don't remember, wasn't a fan) Broadway and wanted his website done or updated to promote his career. I knew the guy doing it and Constantine kept putting in demands, but never paying for the work. When finally confronted strongly after ignoring gentle reminders to pay, he was surprised he was being "hounded" about "the money thing."
Um, yeah. That's THE thing when you contract people to do work for you.
1 week later
Quoted from hank527:I hope those are reading this post.
Hire Joe Balcer and start your own company. Build small runs and find great suppliers. Build a brand with talented people. If you have more money hire Barry O as your second designer. A small team of talented individuals will crush egomaniacs.
Just read anything on teams and building a culture.
Balcer's at Homepin now. Thunderbirds needed a sequel. The new goal is "playable."
Quoted from Bublehead:You see? Half the shit in here has a ring of truth yet is always somehow accompanied by a stench of either an attempt at humor or sarcasm, and it really makes it hard to laugh at due to the possibility that it actually might be true. So what's the sequel ? Stingray?
Haha. It was absolutely truth then sarcasm. Balcer IS really at Homepin. Thunderbirds is not (to my knowledge) getting a sequel. Homepin only made a literal one-off Gweilo pin and some custom porsche pin for their trade shows after Thunderbirds. Balcer is supposedly designing their WoZ touchstone company-launching pin, but they'll get Poker Run if they're not careful.
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:I believe word is that balcer is in fact already no longer at Homepin
Haha! That was fast. Ouch. Poker Run averted. Again.
Quoted from Rarehero:It would have sold more themed as Insane Clown Posse: Dark Carnival! Music theme & horror/comedy/theme park all in one!
“Magnets: How The F Do They Work” mode…game designs itself!
ICP? Miracles Parody Pin, FTW.
2 weeks later
Quoted from benheck:I used to watch Jim Sterling all the time but he's become very one note. He's also one of those "game journalists" who can't do math and think they should stay $60 forever.
Basically the term "game journalist" is an oxymoron. Almost all (all?) of them fail the actual journalist code of ethics. I have personal experience with many of their transgressions over the years, even the ones publicly crusading for "ethics" in game journalism. It's a very dirty, corrupt job.
Quoted from pinlink:That article is behind a paywall, boo
Firefox.
Turn off javascript.
Load URL.
Enjoy.
Works for most of the begging screens on news sites (including the one you tried to access).
Quoted from flynnibus:And then the internet happened...
Revenue turned to clicks and trying to be shared... and everyone is nameless articles online while individuals try to build a 'brand' and online personalities rather than a reputation for strong journalism.
It's dead jim...
Gaming "journalism" was dead before the internet blew up in the 2000s. It had been corrupt since the 1980s.
Quoted from Rarehero:You're telling me that Sushi X and Nick Rox weren't actual journalists!??!?!
OMG, the stories I could tell.
But Diehard were never passing themselves off as journalists anyway. They were always enthusiasts, and often very entertaining. EGM especially was trying to wear the game journalism badge while allowing journalism corruption all the time, sometimes blatantly.
Quoted from Rarehero:Whatever happened to all those people? There's such a vibrant retro gaming scene...I imagine they'd be part of it in some way.
This is more "over a beer" in person conversation since lots of it is catty and insider-y and not public. I will say I think Dave H is still in Westlake Village, last I heard. I haven't talked to him in probably 10 years.
EDIT: I really am surprised a TV movie wasn't made about the whole Diehard Gamefan experience. It was CRAZY and should never have worked even for as long as it did. I still have the racist review issue (actual "review" they published by mistake below). I was on vacation in Hawaii, heard it was being pulled and found a store with the only three copies on Kauai and bought them.
Gamefanblunder.jpgQuoted from cpr9999:All SMT equipment used in making printed circuit boards.
Looks like a start to setting up a circuit board line.
There's reinventing the wheel and then there's REINVENTING THE WHEEL. Sheer idiocy.
Quoted from ZNET:Equally, it's impossible to scroll through a single Pinside page without encountering maddening grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. Typos and stream of consciousness posts are certainly understandable.
However, the most common unforgivable errors seem to be:
1) using "could of" and "would of" which are both nonsensical. The correct phrase is, of course, could HAVE and would HAVE;
I think your #1 is related to the plague of phrases done wrong. I think it's because "could've" SOUNDS like "could of" so they write it how it sounds.
Same thing with people saying something is "mute" when they meant "moot" because they didn't understand the word.
Or saying something "jives" instead of "jibes" - again because the word/phrase is misunderstood.
Jives/jibes is so common they're actually twisting dictionaries to add jives as a passable alternative.
Crazy.
Quoted from DanQverymuch:And by the way, it's "assholes WHO feel the need" -- assholes are people too!
[quoted image]
Ohhh, you hit one there. I constantly find myself making the that/who error. I've been trying to break myself of it for YEARS, but "that" is the default position in my brain.
Quoted from DakotaMike:Well, eventually grammar rules cede to common-usage. Common-usage never cedes to grammar rules. So someday you will probably end up being correct in using "that".
By then we'll have St. God's hospital and the Monday Night Rehabilitation.
Quoted from Rarehero:What do you make of people adding letters to words? Ever heard people say “eltse” instead of else? Or “exspecially” instead of especially? The LoserKid podcast guys do this…it’s soooo weird!
Yeah, that's down to regional dialects spelled out, I think. My wife's from the Midwest, and she has a lot of those kinds of idiosyncrasies. But NOT exspecially. Thank god. That one drives me nuts, too. Irrevalent/irrelevant is one her mom does that makes no sense but you know what she means.
Quoted from toyotaboy:If Robert took all 58 million and bought bitcoin in October 2017 at a value of 5k each (approximately when he started deeproot because that's when JPOP was hired), he would have 580 million dollars today. He could have repaid all his investors back their money plus the 7% (4 million) and still have 518 million dollars to play with.
Investing it all in bitcoin would have been reckless. Even HALF would have netted him hundreds of millions. Enough to pay all the investors and maybe even enough to make (and SHIP!) his 100 RAZA games.
Quoted from ForceFlow:It's clear that this was never going to happen no matter how much money went into it. This wasn't a case of a failure of resources (even though those resources were misappropriated).
This is a case of sarcasm not being funny if you have to explain it, so I won't. I'll just try to do it better next time.
Quoted from Roostking:I bet SK doesn't reach stupid shit, like the US does. They are about teaching, not indoctrination.
Don't be too sure. These are drawings SK children made about Japan (taken at a school display). Plenty of indoctrination happening here.
There's some funny stuff in there (Japan as an island of poo, Japan flag TP on fire) but mostly it's just sad.
Quoted from Tranquilize:You do know about the occupation, right? The details?
Of course. That started OVER 100 YEARS ago. It ENDED like 80 years ago. Time to move on. Prompting small children to make stuff like that 80 years later is sad. Have trade disputes, teach the history, leave that VERY OLD stuff in the past.
Quoted from benheck:Bought a pack of microwave pork rinds for $1.50!
[quoted image]
We had a takeout place that made fresh pork rinds daily. It was fantastic. They had to close due to repeated vandalism/break-ins (they were not in a great part of town). Total bummer.
Quoted from NoQuarters:What I don't understand is how fast some say they got money back from their credit cards. Some were saying that about 10 days after the SEC filing. How do you have a credit card dispute get solved that fast ? I would think the credit card has to give notice and wait for a response for some period of time to the party that the dispute is filed against. Could be wrong, but it is surprising the speed at which charge backs were completed.
In my experience (not with derproot, just in general) the CC companies do a chargeback right away, and then do their investigation. If it goes your way, it stays. If it doesn't they reverse it and it comes back out of your account.
Quoted from Jvspin:If wishes were fishes, beggars would eat.
(or something like that)
If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas.
Quoted from snakesnsparklers:I thought the saying was: "if onlys and buts were candies and nuts, then everyday would be Erntedankfest."
Is that like Festivus?
Quoted from chuckwurt:Looks like Merriam gave in:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/could-couldnt-care-less
No surprise.
We're getting to Idiocracy WAY ahead of schedule. But, on the bright side, at least a lot of people are still going to be living really kickass lives.
Quoted from benheck:Man. Deeproot thread has gotten this boring huh?
You have the power to throw caution to the wind and get this party started again by stringing together some juicy words ping-ponging around your synapses.
1 month later
Quoted from ForceFlow:I was hearing swear words pretty regularly in school (in the suburbs) as early as 2nd grade.
Forget school. XBOX live is a cesspool of swearing and racism by what sounds like 7 year-olds.
1 month later
Quoted from benheck:Don't forget.... ROAD RASH!!!!!
Road Rash became really impressive once I learned that the whole thing ran on an interrupt hook.
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:Blueberry Inc might be the next company Robert bankrupts with all these pacer charges I'm incurring!
Congress just created a bill that will make PACER free for users that generate less than $25k in document fees per quarter (basically law firms and professional high-volume users would still be charged, but everyone else, free). I'm down with that.
System and interface gets a big overhaul, too, which it really needs.
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