Philadelphia, PA
Quoted from aeneas:Anyway thinking about their business model and trying to make sense of it, I'll write here my thoughts and wonder which scenario will happen
The scenario that will happen imo is that games will get made, it will only take a lot longer than most think and will not be an easy path.
It's possible John pulls out a rabbit out of his magic hat and producing the games is outsourced to AP. AP has the line and experience, and had stated in the past they could do contract work ? They've worked together with John in the past, so they know each other.
That would explain why DR doesn't talk about their production line. And if everything is already planned, you could produce games fast and deliver in a few months. That's what Pinball Bros are planning now. That is feasible.
CGC is another option, but I doubt they are involved.. They're busy with their own line of games, Bens game, I doubt they would want to get involved.
However I doubt this path of outsourcing will happen - then we would have heard about the AP contracting already. DR only gives the idea they will produce everything themselves. The relation between AP and John didn't end well, I don't think they want to get involved anymore.
Getting involved for the money is one thing, but DR/JPop don't create many goodwill and more burn bridges. If you get involved with them and something goes wrong (as a subcontractor) it'll be a messy legal end (similar to what happened with DP and Ara), and most people want to avoid this if they can.
Except if DR has some patents that CGC or AP want to use and they'll have no choice but to work together (I believe Gene C did something like this to get his playfields produced ?).
Johns history shows he's also not interested in the producing part. He's a designer. I doubt he's interested in spending hours to rework every part, optimise it for production and talking in detail to a contractor telling how it is best done - like DP has done.
As far as we know, DR didn't have anyone that fits this profile (AP hired someone experienced for this to create Houdini).
Thinking about the DR business model, it doesn't make sense. Because it's not setup or ran as a real manufacturing business.
Stern has a large production line. Their margin is probably low (maybe $1000 on a pro machine) but they make this up in their huge volume.
Spooky started manufacturing small, increased and grew small, but seems to know very well what their costs/profits are and can survive.
JJP started with investments, set up a huge line, and it seems they didn't know well in advance their real production / overhead cost and had to increase prices to stay in business.
Dutch now probably has a very high margin and are laughing each time a game leaves the factory - ok they maybe don't make much profit but the margin must be huge at the price they are selling because they can afford to make extra EA games now. I don't know for what price they expected to launch their next title, I hope it's less because Pinball Bros now shows contact games can be done much cheaper.
Pinball Bros probably also has a good idea what a pinball machine costs if you subcontract it and still want to make a profit.
Making games for $5000 and continue doing this ? If you're not Stern it looks impossible. There was the Nemo machine but that was a very small hobby project and the guy probably did it for the love and didn't pay for all the hours he put in. There was Gene, but he had parts, help, it was a long time ago (prices increased now) and it was a long project.
Hiring people, a huge factory, .. ? The numbers don't make sense.
It wouldn't surprise me that Robert at the moment has no idea what all his costs are to produce it (maybe raw material cost, but not total overhead costs included). And now that +200 games need to be produced, it's not something they can do like the Nemo guy. This is a much bigger scale.
The cost of setting up a large production line to make them all will become higher than they thought.
They are in JJP / Spooky size now.
And if they don't optimize every part of their game to save costs, they can produce them but it will cost them much more than was necessary.
It wouldn't surprise me if in a few months they'll conclude they produce RAZA for a loss. And then what ? Will they do so, will they try every legal trick they know to turn it around in a profit ?
Talking about Gene - this is who John and Robert remind me of.
It's also posted here he sometimes he didn't want to sell parts and seemed to want to brag he had something that no one else had.
John and Robert are also big egos who want to show who they are.
They are not into the business to produce games and make a profit, it's just a hobby project to stroke their ego.
That's why I think (just like with Gene), RAZA will be produced.
After all they've said and done, they cannot afford to bail out now.
It may take years, it may cost them much more than they thought, the games may have problems (which maybe won't be taken care of correctly), .. but I'm pretty sure that games get produced this time.
If they will exist for many more years and be able to produce 10 other titles ? I doubt this very much, overhead costs and investments need to be repayed someday by making a profit..
Are there Cliff notes for this?
don't wake the naysayers
