(Topic ID: 203700)

deeproot Pinball thread

By pin2d

6 years ago


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Post #111 Firsthand information from the Magic Girl programmer. Posted by applejuice (6 years ago)

Post #3026 RAZA promotional video Posted by PinMonk (4 years ago)

Post #5771 First RAZA gameplay video Posted by ZMeny (4 years ago)

Post #5874 RAZA video with more audible game sounds Posted by zaphX (4 years ago)

Post #5926 First RAZA video with successful ramp completion Posted by zaphX (4 years ago)

Post #5967 Another RAZA gameplay video Posted by flynnibus (4 years ago)

Post #6050 Closeup pictures of key playfield features Posted by Potatoloco (4 years ago)

Post #6133 Video of display animations Posted by LateCenturyMods (4 years ago)

Post #6329 Summary of Robert Mueller's interview Posted by jeffspinballpalace (4 years ago)

Post #6724 RAZA Gameplay video Posted by DS_Nadine (4 years ago)


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#182 6 years ago

Screenshot of deeproot sales pitch...

3291D32D-6504-4F01-AF1F-AD3643E8A4C6-5277-000009AECDA5EFCE (resized).png3291D32D-6504-4F01-AF1F-AD3643E8A4C6-5277-000009AECDA5EFCE (resized).png

The 5 days of deeproot will transform your life! Do not miss this amazing opportunity! Call now to get your tickets... they will be at the Columbus Hilton fri and Saturday. At the Toledo Sheraton next weekend, and the Farmington hills Hyatt the following weekend.

Don't miss out, all attendees will be a free copy of Roberts best selling book on how to flip homes with no money of your own!

10
#215 6 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

Another piece of jargon spewed to seem "advanced".
.

It's scheme'ing all the way

Be over confident...
Throw out buzz terms to make yourself seem associated with known successes...
Create new terms or ideas that make you seem innovative...
Tease with ideas/concepts that are enticing, yet you can't explain or give too much detail about..
Create links and analogies to well know successes
Associate with some past respected celebrity or well known person to give some impression of credibility...

It's the same psychological manipulation that con men have used for centuries.

People should recognize the formula from every 'as seen on TV' telemarketing ad... it's all the same crap aimed at pulling the same strings

1 week later
#425 6 years ago
Quoted from lpeters82:

What happens if someone signs the goodwill terms and they are unhappy with these mystery machines? Say they are like Zizzels or The Pin. Intentional or not, wouldn't they then be S.O.L. Things seem to be vague enough that they could legally be anything. Did I read it correctly that buyers could just take a 50% refund now?

No

You can say 'F this' and take nothing.. but keep your right to sue the guy and company with no assets and enough flip flops now to make it difficult to collect anything
You can sign up for a promise of discounts on deeproot games
... And at the end if you don't like the deeproot games, you can walk away... and depending on your 'tier' will dictate what relief you would have.

It's basically a tease for huge value on vaporware to lock in people waiving any claims against Popadeuce.

If deeproot fails to deliver... you get your money back (but they'll never let this happen)
If you don't like deeproot's games... if you were in for <5k.. you can get 50% of your money back AFTER the 'delivery date'. Those that put more money in the pot... you would be eligible for that money back (again after the delivery date).

The model is setup to encourage new deposits... with a promise of no risk.

But you know nothing about what games they are delivering... they've made zero games yet plan to be delivering 'multiple' games in less than 18months.

You also stand to be in the same situation you were with zidware... money or things owed to you, with potentially no way to collect.

They are selling promises in exchange for you signing away your claims against Popadeuce. The flip side is... 'something' even promises is still better than 'nothing'. But you get to ride the wave for another 12-18months

-1
#442 6 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

Is “delivery date” ever defined? They could just never deliver anything and keep half the money free and clear.

Yes, June 30, 2019 (or sooner)

-1
#443 6 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

This is so unnecessarily complicated.
I realize we're dealing with lawyers and there is no such thing as simple, but this is as simple as I can suggest:
All deeproot has to say is this:
-We're getting into pinball
-We'd like to use jpop and his designs
-We realize there are past customers of his out there that are out money
-We'd like everyone to feel good about what we're doing, so here's what we're offering:
-Please don't sue john.
-When we're done, you get XXX credit on the final pinball.
We're not asking ANYTHING else of you. Just don't sue him, and hope we succeed. If we do, you get something. If we fail, well, john is already a failure.
-You've waited 6 years already. This is basically a bad debt. Let us try and make a go of this and wish us the best. At this point what more is there to lose?
The end.

It's not that far from it... except signing off to not sue John. Which is kind of tablestakes anyway... simply 'asking someone' doesn't really fly in business.

You can get credit towards a product you may or may not want... in exchange for signing off not to persue John/Zidware any further. The rest is fluff.

#445 6 years ago
Quoted from deeproot:

Thank you for your assessment, but you missed most of the points I tried to emphasize in the Webinar. Zidware customers who file a claim and are approved will get advanced access to play all titles *before* they have to commit to anything, or pay in any more money. It is completely no risk.

I didn't miss it - I just didn't give you credit because it's just fluff and I boiled it down to what really mattered.

1 - No one gives a %#$# about your offer to visit the facility as part of the deal. You make it sound like its some super valuable honor. You should be doing this anyway.
2 - The requirement to lock in a NDA for the privilege is more mental gymnastics to make this seem more 'impressive'. No one has any incentive to visit EARLY, it's actually counter productive to visit early vs near when games and the deadlines are. When trying to decide if you want the game, LATER not earlier is better. There is no requirement or incentive for anyone to give you any money sooner than the delivery deadline. So why would anyone want to visit early vs being able to see what the FINAL product is really like? And if at that stage you still really need to be keeping details under wraps... I think you have more to hide than promote.
3 - If it gets to the deadline period and you're ready to ship MULTIPLE games... and you don't *want* people playing the games.. then I would be far more worried about what you are delivering than I'd be worried about the internet knowing.
4 - The '5 days of deeproot' is the biggest fluff this community has ever seen. Even Python couldn't dream up such self-pontificating crap. I can't wait to hear the tales of the revolutionary things you've done that you can't actually share in detail.

Quoted from deeproot:

I would say you did get something right. We are sure that once Zidware Claimants see what they will be getting, most will likely max out the top tier. That benefits them; and admittedly us as well.

Well you are at least consistent with your boasting. But many of us are immune to that kind of fluffing and see your statements for what they are and can ID plenty of holes and outs to make the 'deal of a lifetime' not such a great thing.

I can't wait to see the product you look to put out that you think people are going to rush to give you an extra 10k dollars ahead of time to 'max out' to buy games from a company who hasn't shipped any and won't be vetting the games with anyone but the 'chosen ones' who also bought into the scheme.

Lets list the ways this 'dream offer' comes back to reality
1) Your offers are all off List Price - Street pricing could significantly devalue any perceived value offered here
2) You're offering 'free games' but NO frame of reference for what the resulting game value will be (List, Street, or perceived...)
3) Putting your 'revolutionary' manufacturing model aside... if take your boast of hoping most people max out their benefit.. lets assume that takes 5-10k for most people... and we speculate/guess on how many claiments there could be... 100? Lets stick with a round number.. 100. That means you HOPE to give away 300 machines for maybe 1.5-3500k revenue each. When 300 machines is a sizable run for any title these days. What does that say about your expected cost basis for your machines?
4) "Delivery date" doesn't necessarily mean 'able to take possession'. So who is to say Delivery Date isn't just 'project complete' date and actual production->shipment is still open ended.

So trust me... I didn't get it wrong, I'm just not falling for your big tale

#448 6 years ago
Quoted from lpeters82:

My only fear at this point is that somehow signing this contract could eliminate any legal leverage current customers might have against John / Zidware

That is its entire purpose. That and trying to build a captive audience of buyers for your new product...

Quoted from lpeters82:

Further, I would like to know what happens if deeproot fails, as in, they fail to produce the machines, nor have the capitol to refund deposits. I'm assuming this would make this new contract null and void, but I just don't want to see anyone loose there legal leverage.

Wouldn't be null and void - I'm sure the Settlement Deeproot makes you sign will have plenty of avoidance clauses that are one sided to avoid liability. After all, they are the only ones taking 'risk' so they hold all the cards. You can agree, or stick to what you have right now... which is nothing.

If they flop, you go right back to where you are now... facing legal costs to pursue an entity that owes you something, but probably has nothing to repay you with.

#452 6 years ago
Quoted from brucipher:

If all these other seasoned designers (Nordman, Oursler, etc.) are on board, deeproot must be doing something right to encourage them to sign up.

The promise of a steady healthy check?

These guys need to eat too... and contract game design isn't like hollywood movie star money

#456 6 years ago
Quoted from brucipher:

True, but it appears deeproot has pretty deep pockets to pay all these people, without taking money from the community. That's also a step in the right direction.
I get all the anger, but really, what does anyone have to lose at this point? Why not give deeproot a chance and then get angry if they don't live up to their words. They have promised more than anyone up until this point (outside of Jpoops original promises).

It's easy to spend other people's money...

I don't think anyone is 'angry' at deeproot for trying. What the anti feelings are about is the televangelist, 'as seen on TV' snail oil speak and dismissive nature towards things people know as credible ways to achieve success.

-1
#534 6 years ago
Quoted from gstellenberg:

That said, innovations (and talk) mean nothing without execution and customers

Well that's why he's in law... talk wins

-1
#539 6 years ago

I'm convinced more and more this guy is trying to build a company to be bought... more so than build a lasting pinball company.

3 weeks later
#673 6 years ago
Quoted from brucipher:

Do you think the majority of the people who gave money really felt like they were "gambling"? The community took him on good faith that he would produce pinball machines. We didn't have a whole slew of failed attempts at that time to learn from. It's not like they walked up to a roulette table and placed it on red knowing the risks. If I am not mistaken, the whole idea of crowdfunding was still pretty early on at that time (at least from a mainstream viewpoint).

Being uninformed doesn't absolve the clear and obvious risks people took. If those risks were 'clear and obvious'... then that's on the person for not doing any homework before forking out thousands.

People were over eager and FOMO was in full effect. And JPOP was not sold as 'crowd funding' it was sold as "I'm going to give you this amazing dream... for $16k"

1 month later
-1
#783 5 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

Is pettiness an official claim denial reason?

remember when they said they could/would deny claims based on people tearing them down? well, I think you see them doing that here

-3
#788 5 years ago
Quoted from wcbrandes:

And where did I tear them down flynn?

No idea.. but I imagine it falls under his assertion of "You have made multiple comments on this public platform in violation of the confidential terms of the agreement, mischaracterizing confidential terms of the agreement, and dishonestly misrepresenting performance by the parties."

1 month later
#933 5 years ago
Quoted from toyotaboy:

I think it's too vague to make the assumption that "nearly every component" means they are going to reverse engineer every single mechanism (ball through, pop bumpers, plunger, flipper assemblies, sling assemblies). Perhaps they mean that nearly every "unique component to each table design" is going to be made in-house (laser cutter for plastics, CNC and printer for playfields, etc).

We know some gear in Wales that might be up for sale... from the last guy who thought that was the way to go too...

#947 5 years ago
Quoted from PismoArcade:

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but does anyone else think that Deeproot will sell their new pin at cost to people who got screwed by JPOP?

They have already outlined what they are offering people who put money into jpop.... basically credit towards dp games... depending on how much you were in

#961 5 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

There is a stark difference between him and your run of the mill, egotistical, mid size CEO.

Remember.. this guy isn't just a business owner... he is first a sales man trying to get people to buy into his funds/ideas. He comes from the insurance world.. and manipulating for gain. This isn't "our company is the best!" swagger... this is "you don't want to miss out on this amazing opportunity..." projection.

#963 5 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

I got nothing more to loose... my money was already squandered by Jpop. I've been asked for nothing more.
Please tell me why I shouldn't "root for Deeproot" to succeed? (feel free to use that if you like) (:

For those that are lined up for getting a 'game' from them... sure nothing to lose but more crushed feelings. So sure, you want the best possible outcome.

I'm just putting the bravado in perspective... It's more in character with his skillset... than it is his passion.

Being in sales, you can separate passion for success, from passion for the end-game of the customer. They don't have to be exclusive... but don't confuse one for the other

#970 5 years ago
Quoted from rgb635:

Did I miss the Deeproot sign up or deposit list? I don't see any "crushed feelings" possible if their product is produced and available for purchase at the buyers discretion without deposit.

If you expect a Ferrari and get delivered a yugo.... the fact you got a yugo won’t change your disappointment. Just getting something... can still result in a lot of upset people. They need to get something they think is worth their money... else there will still be bad blood. That’s just reality.

#979 5 years ago
Quoted from Jvspin:

Yes, but what if you expected nothing and someone gave you a Yugo?

Do you really think all the JPOP people are going to be happy regardless of what they get?

Like I said... getting something isn't the same thing as being happy or satisfied. Plenty of people are going to have expectations of X.. and get Y... and be upset. The only way you avoid this is if the deeproot games somehow blow everyone away and is beyond any expectations.

#985 5 years ago
Quoted from rgb635:

or sale, you have the option to buy it or not depending on whatever criteria you feel is acceptable for you.

The conversation was about the JPOP exchange deal... your lost money towards a DR game(s)

1 month later
#1213 5 years ago
Quoted from Richthofen:

Didn’t BBB ruin Gene financially?

He lost money on every game... but that's not what did him in.

#1239 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

You think GotG or BM'66 took a lot of man hours? There's very little original animation or content. Even Maiden, a ton of it seems to be offline renders from the mobile game.

While I’m sure the game gave them plenty of a head start in character design and modeling.... I can’t think of a single scene in the actual pin that is a direct lift from the mobile game.

The big difference people keep missing is the challenge of blending live action content. Animated stuff is easier to layer, chop up, and mix with your cartoon style text, labels, backgrounds, etc. blending the live action stuff without making it feel like a cut screen all the time is wayyyy more work. And why JJP’s efforts have been so impressive on that technical and art level

#1264 5 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

This isn't actually the case, the DMDs were pretty pricey, the LCDs are cheaper.

Now, not really 15 years ago. The crossover was later. Then once those LCD had gotten so cheap, they had already moved to LED panels that had avoided the 'dead tech, so prices go up' that you had on the plasma displays. So they had affordable, with no concern about NLA parts LED panels. Then it becomes not about the cost of the unit - but the cost of the change over itself and total cost to the project. LED 12v displays may not have had a cheaper unit cost than a LCD monitor on its own... but it would have cost a lot more than 'status quo' to go the route colorDMD did.. or change your platform to drive a display natively. And remember... this is all about the time Stern was imploding and going super cheap everywhere. Why on earth would they have invested in all new hardware (and staff) to do exactly what their old hardware already did?

You should know by now... it's not just about COGS, but time and development too.

1 month later
#1496 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

Transparent displays cost the earth and are barely available. Ask again in 10 years.

I guess the slot machine guys are from another planet then?

#1501 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

Anything with something remotely capable costs a ridiculous amount.

Still used by most modern slots.. and in heavy common usage in redemption machines now too. You dismissed as not even of this earth... yet it's common place in the industries where innovation really is happening. Slots and redemptions.

You don't have to have the entire PF glass or the cabinet to make use of these kinds of things. (for instance, look at how the ghost effects were done in GB... localized effects).

#1506 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

Discussion has previously been about replacing or augmenting pf glass with it.
A 1.5" screen operating a 'hologram' isn't innovative or in any way game changing.
It's not really feasible or desirable to do much more than that in pinball.

You are probably arguing with people I have on ignore... and this would be why

Point being.. technology is out there and in common use depending on how people want to use it.

1 week later
14
#1624 5 years ago

How about... you all stop posting movie crap for no reason other than to post?

You all have ruined this thread for the last few days.

17
#1649 5 years ago
Quoted from Frippertron:

This is FUN! It's like the Ted shed pic thread. (What happened to the pics Ted?) Just Pinsiders having a good time, why do people get so mad about "staying on topic". All these posts are just a loose conversation anyway, chill out.

because when I see 30 new posts in a thread about deeproot... I expect to see some news relative to the topic. If you just want a jib-jab 'I'm bored' thread - go start one of those and post till your fingers are numb. And people who want a thread about that.. can do so. Instead, for nearly a week now, every new post on this thread has been BS.

Get off my lawn!

#1658 5 years ago
Quoted from Captain-Flint:

They are trying to guess the 80s movie that deeproot is making. How is that different than the color dmd guess threads?

No they aren't... it's just become a game/meme of throwing out random 'what if' of 80s movies as a game upon itself.... with absolutely nothing tying them to pinball or deeproot.

It's a bad meme that people just won't let go.

#1754 5 years ago
Quoted from knockerlover:

I’m really disappointed in this expo talk.
I have a lot of respect for Steve Bowden, Barry Ousler, and Dennis Nordman. I don’t know the other artists.. So I mean no disrespect to them..
There has been no substance.. Robert is asking questions to the team that’s mostly about their approach to pinball, design etc. JPop rambles on for way too long and says things that directly conflict with how he has executed in the past. I love these designers, but have heard their stories a thousand times at these panels..
This seemed woefully unprepared and last minute. No slides/video or even a static image projected and seemingly loose agenda/message. I would expect with such a powerhouse team and seemingly infinite budget, that at least some slides could be put together. David Thiels presentation that he did himself on Q*Berts audio blew this entire presentation out of the water.
It seems that the company’s plan is to hire big name talent, give them complete freedom, promise everyone the world and hope it all works out. (My opinion). I think this is reflected in the presentation today.
Roberts Main message - We are working hard behind the scenes .. ahead on some things behind on others.. we set a deadline for ourselves, and coming at TPF in March “some amazing things”.
Other main points and “big” promises - Magic girls shipped without the floating ball trick working, it’s never been done and hard to do, but deeproot has solved that problem.
They are going with a one tiered model and one tiered price. Would love to get prices lower than any pinball company has ever been done, with more toys than other games. They will be working on higher end games and will have something for all price ranges.
“Will release more than any manufacturer in history, and more titles that has ever been released in one year”
I don’t want to throw shade on anyone working to expand pinball and bring new technology and games to the market. But my “spidey-sense” is off the charts.. they aren’t taking preorders or money so, no harm in it.. but I can’t put my finger on the gameplan.

Sounds like trump pinball

#1756 5 years ago

People questioning 5 in one year and what that does to sales... remember he may not make 5 of the same type of thing.

He could make a video pin, a home pin, a stern-level pin, etc

1 week later
#1850 5 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

Why and how would they not allow it most already represent all the competitive brands?

Happens all the time.... companies give advantages and preference to companies that 'invest' back into the brand, by committing to marketing budgets, committing to volumes, or committing to 'exclusivity', or other avenues...

It's certainly possible... I just don't think the market supports it except for maybe a handful that could do it.

It was a big deal in the earlier days when companies like Bally/etc had much bigger power... now, not so much.

1 month later
#1920 5 years ago
Quoted from stevevt:

I don't feel like this was the very clear meaning behind "Pinball is Easy". Maybe it's just me.

Nah - just the difference between selling ideas and actually delivering product

The guy made his living selling 'potential' and 'futures' -- the idea that execution is a hell of a lot harder than ideas should be of no surprise and why Robert's over the top bravado has ruffled so many feathers.

22
#1924 5 years ago
Quoted from gweempose:

"We are spending over $750k a month now on this project ..."
Yikes!!!

So he's going to have a expense run rate of nearly a million dollars a month. Do the math on what you think his sales projections must be to sustain that kind of expense... then think about the price points he keeps talking about.

Let's assume he plans on a healthy 33% margin. That means he needs over 2.2 million a month in gross revenues just to break even (and this ignores startup costs). If you assume distribution makes at least 10% on sales... and an even 'average' price of 5k USD per unit. That means they need to sell 500 games A MONTH @$4500 to distribution just to break even month to month.

And if they go for some disruptor pricing... the volume numbers just go up of course.

And of course, every month you aren't making those kinds of numbers.. the hole just gets deeper.

This is the kind of stuff that makes people so skeptical of deeproot.

And it's not like pinball is something where you have R&D cycles that ebb and flow in terms of invest... then sell... you're spending that kind of operating expense all the time as you make the next widget in the pipeline.

#1929 5 years ago
Quoted from jwilson:

It's not shocking if it's money laundering. If anything it's low then.

If you are laundrying... you intend to get a percentage of your money THROUGH the system.. not just burn it on employees, taxes, and all other kinds of trackable expenses not going back to your network

#1975 5 years ago
Quoted from Bud:

All this talk about how he can’t sustain, no business plan and chock this up as a loss already might be surprised. What seems like big money to one person could be a drop in the bucket of another. In the end, if he has tons of money (his own, not investors). He might not care if this is turning a profit right away

What your logic misses is... investors will blow big money without sweating it because they believe there is a potential payoff. They take a risk hoping to hit the payoff. But doing so requires having a story about what the payoff is... and is it achievable. If you don't do that, the investors don't buy in.

What we are saying here is... this burn rate is not inline with what is practically known as achievable (or in line with what your total addressable market maybe). Basically it reeks of "not economically feasible"

People lose money on investments.. but they usually don't just burn millions without some diligence.

1 week later
#2105 5 years ago
Quoted from Roostking:

Wrong. A person invests in something to make money. You agreed to purchase a product from a company. What was the rate of return you were expecting on your investment?

Well if you pre-paid for ZW game.. You agreed to purchase a product from a non-existent company... that promised to do it after they got orders to build stuff. You invested in a promise of a future deliverable from a clearly non-existent company with no history. I think that's fair to challenge the claim of 'agreed to purchase a product from a company'. Agreed to purchase something as complex as a pinball machine... from a single mad scientist.

Maybe invested in a dream...

#2108 5 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

No, backup a sentence.
ZIDWARE was the company.

A company by legal definition only. It was JPOP fumbling around in a light industrial space and convincing people to do work for him.

Point was, people were buying because it was JPOP, not because Zidware had some history, credibility, or even a sliver of a credible business plan. Zidware was a brand and structure created to sell JPOP creations. It had no employees, virtually zero assets, no history, no existing portfolio, no existing revenue, and no business plan. And none of that was really any secret, people just ignored it because of FOMO and believing the project would produce these masterpieces.

The very idea that you'd redesign stuff or even run a business selling just a dozen or so examples was the red flag from the start. There simply isn't enough revenue on the table to fund any sort of business operation, let alone R&D, game design, and manufacturing. And exactly why JPOP was able to pay himself some salary, and fail to do much of anything else.

#2114 5 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

The original threads are still here on Pinside. It was a different time then, no one was spotting those red flags then

The info was there, people just didn't want to hear it. FOMO and eagerness to get the next hotness totally overran any scrutiny. The knowledge was there, including all the commentary on JPOP himself and his role in projects -- individuals just didn't want to hear it. People were willing to run over themselves just to chase the carrot on the stick. (much like the Spanish guy developing the CFTBL mod). Once it all came crashing down and people got burned themselves, then people started opening their eyes.

Same thing happening here with deeproot - just there the FOMO effect is basically non existent and people are more cautious after being burnt. I think the same questions are being asked - the difference is how the mob is listening to the discussion.

Quoted from frolic:

But no one also could have predicted that jpop would be paying himself handsomely for years and finishing nothing

I know that's a sore point for people - but honestly it's completely moot. The revenue he took in was never going to be enough to float the business and expecting businesses (not hobbies) to run for years with no salaries is unrealistic and just a emotional outrage. No (or woefully inadequate) revenue = dead companies. It's that simple.

And that's the concern with the kind of numbers being shared around deeproot... the napkin numbers just don't work. So either it's a house of cards -- or he's got a different business plan (and GTM strategy) that hasn't been revealed yet. Yet... he just keeps marketing to the traditional pinball hobbyist audience. So I don't know how much of a disruptor he really is targeting to be...

No pinball company will ever succeed with the business plan of needing to be in the black after ONE product release. Hopefully the general hobbyist buyers will start to scrutinize that about startups. The startup costs and development cycles too long for any single product release to fully fund. Companies either need other revenue streams, huge capitalization to give them runway, or extenuating circumstances of free resources (like Spooky had) to keep the lights on until they can claw their way back out of the startup hole.

#2126 5 years ago
Quoted from Zablon:

I think people are misusing 'investing'. They are crowdfunding. Completely different.

Jpop didn't crowd fund. He presold titles to fund his business. Customers bought into a boutique product model from a guy with zero capacity or business to actual deliver on the sales promises.

I say investing because these people bought with the idea that if they didn't... the product would not be made. It became an urgency to get in... while you could. All while ignoring the lack of ability to do it

#2129 5 years ago
Quoted from applejuice:

All said with the benefit of hindsight

No - John's reputation was known in the WMS circle, and was out in the hobby circles as well because insiders like Python and others painted him as such. (Python TOPCast Interview was in 2007). And Python wasn't the first to trash JPOP, he was just one of the more flamboyant ones about it. JPOP couldn't get hired, or even have his designs bought by Stern.

The only redeeming thing he had going was that Zizzle had been moderately received. Everything else was people buying into the aurora of his past titles at WMS... where every insider tale talked about his games needing to be bailed out, his inability to complete stuff, and his complete reliance on others. Yes, everyone had kind things to say about his vision/eye for things - but they also almost universally stood against crediting John for the games' successes.

All of this was in the open and understood at the time - the faithful just didn't want to hear it. They drooled over the next CV/TOTAN/TOM... and it would be super limited so super valuable???? TAKE MY MONEY!!! That's JPOP in a nutshell.

I do acknowledge tho that the ben heck association probably brought in many to RAZA.. as the combination of new/cool thinking plus JPOP style was an attractive view for people.

Then add in the actual "how will you do this" angle. I get that at the time many people new to the hobby probably had no idea how difficult it is to get a game to production volume at the time. Most hobbyists had not yet seen the struggles DP, HWP, Spooky and others make that more visible.. and educated them on the subject. But that is simply ignorance of the topic, not relying on hindsight. The challenges to face were understood by others... the buyers just dismissed it. Interviews and stories from insiders had told the tales of the struggles. Again, people like Joe Kaminkow in 2007 had told stories about the DE pinball startup. The IPB fiasco was already in the history books.. and people like Kerry Stair told some of the tale. The cautionary tales were out there - even if you weren't someone familiar with product development - people just didn't want to focus on the 'why not', they just wanted to focus on the what can I get.

Even at the time, JPOP did nothing (except create a website and promotional pieces) to convey to anyone his credibility in actually getting a product to market. In fact, in hindsight, you can see how he may have even intentionally shyed away from that topic... with stupid stunt thinking like the ben&Jpop assembling your game crap. It's not hindsight that exposed these concerns -- people just didn't want to hear it.

Quoted from applejuice:

At the time, from being involved and working with john, nobody had a concern that John couldn't do it

What I will say is hindsight.. is the insight into John's ability to maintain that deception through his controlling of information about the project and its contributors. He duped people like you by limiting what you knew and his ploys of using secrecy, limited info releases, and gifts helped keep people from becoming critical of the project.

Quoted from applejuice:

I myself, left my old job and went to work with him based on this information to

And to be blunt, but honest... that was poor research by you. To not vet and investigate the startups viability and funding, their runway, their leadership and their track record. It's one thing to work on a project when you don't put your career/lifestyle on the line to do so - it's a whole different level to commit to where your livelihood depends on it. And as someone who is just an employee, not an equity holder, you better have faith the company has the resources or plan to actually pay you before committing. Andrew Heighway was a predator in this sense as well... leveraging people into spots where they couldn't get off the bus even when they wanted to.

Honestly, that type of vetting is the only element adding any story to the deeproot plan to date IMO.. in that multiple, seasoned people who should know what to be looking for have commited to Deeproot with significant life choices.

#2131 5 years ago
Quoted from Roostking:

How can seemingly educated people not know the difference between investing, crowdfunding, and purchasing lol. www.websters.com

Here's a simple way to look at it...

Which came first - your order, or the actual company and product to fulfill your order?

We're not talking the strict definition - but labeling that captures the reality of the situation. Ordering from JPOP was not the same as ordering from Amazon, or even your local department store promising delivery after payment. "ordering a product" is just people clinging onto a strict definition to distance themselves from the consequences of their choices.

#2133 5 years ago
Quoted from Zablon:

They were pre-purchasing a product that didn't exist, hoping that with enough people doing it, it would be made. That is crowdfunding

...and not what Zidware sold or advertised. JPOP sold the idea of magic girl as a "can't miss exclusive" boutique game limited to 16 examples. Zidware was never pitched as "with enough orders... we can make this happen" - it was pitched as an exclusive offer that people were hyped into FOMO and why they needed to buy before the product even existed. RAZA as well was purely a pre-sales model - not a "gather enough orders to make this a reality" sales pitch. Zidware never pitched uncertainty of the product's availability or their funding to make the project happen.

That's why it's not 'crowdsourcing' and simply pre-sales. I take it further to risky behavior as 'investing' because it was a "company" selling stuff for 5 figure numbers with no credibility and huge promises.

I really don't want to drag more JPOP reliving into this deeproot thread. I just wish people would stop dismissing that all the red flags were there all along - people just wanted to see what they wanted to see from the cards. The pre-order frenzy and "10k by christmas" effect was in full swing.

#2137 5 years ago
Quoted from boo32:

People who get excited about a new pinball machine sure are dumb jerks. People who aren’t excited about having been ripped off are even dumber. Anyone who didn’t know all of the pinball gossip surrounding every designer is an even bigger jerk. What a bunch of dummies. I bet some of those dummies got excited about Deeproot too. What a bunch of idiots!

Know what's worse? If people actually listened to the people who did the work as much as they listen to amateurs doing podcasts acting like they know the work... hundreds of thousands of dollars would have been saved.

#2148 5 years ago
Quoted from toyotaboy:

I love the people in this thread rubbing salt into wounds. In 2011 there was Stern and JJP was JUST announcing their new company and 1st title. You didn't even see early concepts of WOZ until mid 2011. Like Frolic said it was a different landscape. Did many buy in because of FOMO or thinking it would be another BBB? Of course, but honestly the concept wasn't that far fetched.

Yeah, but what you saw Jack do was very different from JPOP. Jack went out and assembled a team of veterans. Jack had a running, successful business that was generating revenue and gave him plenty of initial capital to work with. Jack had the resources to actually build his company and team. And even then, the delays basically sapped everything he had too. Contrast this with JPOP who tried to shoe string a business together and masqueraded as way more than he actually was... and horse traded as much as possible to stretch what little he had.

JJP was an upstart... but to put Zidware even on the same page is an insult to Jack. Zidware was far more like Skit-B or Vonny-D than anyone else. All fluff, no vetted business plan to actually get to at least shipping... let alone success.

The only way you can say Zidware wasn't 'far fetched' is if you only looked at his idea of what a pinball should be - instead of actually looking at Zidware as a company attempting to produce commercially available pinball machines.

Quoted from toyotaboy:

Wrath of olympus got designed for free, but because it didn't get the 100 pinball minimum (I think it got somewhere around 70) it couldn't get manufactured. However, those willing to assemble their own playfields could do so if they bought the parts and 6 did get made (and they work).

Wooly tho is more akin to TBL - just because you have a game you built, and can even reproduce manually, does not really make it production ready. TBL got reworked to make it more viable to be mass produced and sourced for production by ARA. Even TNA had to go through similar work, and Wooly would have had to as well.

But I think Wooly is a red herring here though, as Scott never set out to build the game on his own, or was he attempting to startup a business to do it.
Sure JPOP could have ultimately parallel Wooly's path and built a handful of games - but you'd never be an actual producer of pinballs that way.. just like the build party that built the 6 wooly's doesn't really count as production. Which is also why when DP first boasted about ARA's plan for TBL that included photos of just a small area of 4 workstations it was laughable. But again... people just wanted to see what they wanted... so any progress report was taken like it was the bee's knees. (and notice, once ARA started, they revamped their whole plan and moved the project to bigger spaces).

Quoted from toyotaboy:

If John didn't squander money (IE lease a giant building and buy a bunch of capital equipment and hire 2 artists to work on the same game), but just tinkered with a design like Scott Danesi did and got a WORKING game before taking deposits, it would have had a much different outcome.

No, he still would have flopped hard - because having the game layout and art is only a fraction of the work. And JPOP really had no plan beyond that. You would have ended up with the box of lights like they had for the Houdini, and every other Zidware project... a physical prototype with absolutely no path to actually getting it produced. All the emotional angst about how John spent money on himself really is just emotional outbursts. That's not what sunk zidware - it never had a shot of surviving given the path he took. Which is why I still think JPOP thought he was going to simply produce playfield concepts and someone like Stern would see the potential, swoop in and buy him out and take him in before he ever actually got to the point of having to figure out how to build the games.

Which.. ironically.. is what Deeproot has kind of done now... but they took in an infant, not a ready design(s).

#2157 5 years ago
Quoted from aeneas:

It was indeed pre-sales and nothing else.
For those asking why people wouldn't understand it wasn't crowdfunding or investing - this was back in 2010 or 2011, crowdfunding was non-existant then, kickstarter probably didn't exist ?

No, crowdfunding was a thing - it's just not what Zidware was.

Quoted from aeneas:

The only comparable project was Gene's BBB. Gene basically did the same - presales. He made some flyers, went to a pinball show with a BBB, announced he was going to make it and collected money. Then people didn't hear from him for a long time (except some rumours) and suddenly BBB's got delivered.

Not true.. While it's true Gene did not publize updates, etc.. the struggles were very much discussed in the hobby. The whole BearCave guys fallout... Kerry Stair coming in and rescuing the project, etc. It wasn't an open book, but it was far from a 'years later, games appeared'. It's all out there on RGP. BBB was the zidware of the day and if it weren't for Kerry, it would have failed. There are parallels here... the idea guy probably isn't the one who will be able to get the project over the line - they need the expertise along side them. Gene had money and the inventory.. so he had that huge head start. And even that was not enough to build a pinball machine successfully. Even tho the project got done (thank you Gene) they finished it only at the expense of tons of money lost and lots of people/relationships ruined.

Quoted from aeneas:

John had a much higher price so people assumed John had done his math and was able to produce the game

That's the horrible line of thinking - and gets back to what I've said before... people somehow only focus on this 'per unit profit' mindset which is nothing about how a business needs to fund itself. He could make 10k margin per game, but if he only sells 20 games.. that's still only 200k to run the business with. Knowing a project will take a year or more... then start thinking about all the expenses you incurr, in labor, overhead, tooling, you see how the numbers aren't going to add up. 200k sounds like a ton until you realize that's the only money you have, and it's supposed to last you through startup, design, ramp, production, and till your next game sale. It's not just about margin per game, it's margin AND volume that matter... and why boutiques (that last..) charge so much more per unit.

Quoted from aeneas:

The only real difference between Gene and JPop is that Gene had a game to make. JPop still had to invent everything

No, JPOP INSISTED on inventing everything - even where readily available stuff worked just fine. And he was getting called out on that all along. The stupid leg bolts? The Z everything metal stamping, etc. This is just one of the many reasons that he was never going to make it, and the whole salary thing is just a emotional distraction. He was burning money chasing different projects, without any timetables, designing and prototyping completely unnecessary parts, spending way too much on overhead when he didn't need it yet, and more.

It's not his salary that sank Zidware, it was his management of zidware that did.

Which is why deeproot's disclosure of numbers is of interest. With correct management, you don't spend that kind of money they quoted without a plan for proportionally sized REVENUE. So what is their plan that pulls in that kind of revenue, because it doesn't line up with small pinball volumes.

#2159 5 years ago
Quoted from jlm33:

The initial number of MG (16) was not that different from the number of Wooly pins assembled (6). In both cases this seemed doable with a very limited infrastructure - no factory required, Do it yourself assembly, etc.

But Scott wasn't pretending to run a business - he allowed a select group to buy and build a project. So when everything runs in the red and doesn't matter what it costs.. that's fine. JPOP was promising to do radical things and somehow make a business out of it.

Quoted from jlm33:

But the similarity ends here.

Agreed - It's not so much that assembling a handful of games wasn't doable by JPOP - it's that doing so as a business that isn't a charity, while reinventing everything, doing it premium, and without any paid help wasn't really doable.

Quoted from jlm33:

I am pretty sure people would have lined up to help JPop for free... Hell, he would have probably convinced people to pay for that (Pinball assembly lessons 101)

But that scenario played out too... 1) batshit crazy JPOP secracy 2) failed promises 3) incompetency that ran off those that DID sign on him to help him (just go back and re-read applejuices and zombieyeti tales for start.. let alone the other individuals who tried to get involved)

#2160 5 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

Spooky made all 150 AMH's in a pair of units under 2k Sq ft total. Not all that different than a garage.

But Spooky did how much of it with friends and family labor? (jpop needed all his help)
Spooky floated the slow production with their own money and their existing business (zidware had no other business)
Spooky was doing what.. 2-3 games a week in the original setup right?
Spooky didn't paint themselves any bigger or capable than what they were
Spooky almost immediately outgrew that initial space and space was a limiting factor in their work

We all know people can build a game, or even multiple games in their basements no less. But I don't think that compares to repeating that, reliably, at scale.

And neither DP or Deeproot are aiming for such low production volume

#2176 5 years ago
Quoted from taylor34:

This is not to rub salt in anyone's wounds, but in the original announcement thread (on rgp), a lot of people didn't think it made financial sense and highly questioned whether it would be produced. It didn't matter, it still sold out immediately.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.pinball/l9ehsfNqKuo

And the most bizarre aspect of all of it was... frank f was the voice of reason! While everyone else was too busy talking about who has money or not. That just goes to show how buzzed people were at the time and detached from reality.

And MrBally at least got one right
“I'll go out on a limb and say that John Pop's and JJP's WoZ will all
get built (not sure about Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine's King Pins
as of late). Gary will be proven wrong, again.”

#2177 5 years ago
Quoted from taylor34:

To be fair on BBB, that never would have been made had people not gone out of their way to save it. I don't think Gene by himself was going to get it done, much in the same way those initial Magic Girls weren't going to be built without American Pinball.
Those naysayers aren't wrong. Without outside assistance, was BBB going to be built? No. Magic girl? No. JJP games after Woz? No. If someone is going to fail and gets 'bailed out', that means the naysayers were right. Just like the banks in 2008, they were going to fail without a bailout. In fact it kind of reaffirms that the naysayers were right about the initial business plan.

Eeeeexactly
36E2102E-656C-4E4F-B107-CD6AE9E8A874.gif36E2102E-656C-4E4F-B107-CD6AE9E8A874.gif

#2179 5 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

Quoted for my amusement.

I guess selective reading is a trait some just don't out grow...

#2201 5 years ago
Quoted from Zablon:

Sorry, I'll let you get back to your echo chamber.

Says the guy praising magic girl... the biggest fail of how to design pins in the modern era.

#2204 5 years ago
Quoted from Zablon:

Followed closely by others being suggested. Not sure I see your point, but not really interested in trying since you didn't try to see mine.

It’s a game lead by the visuals instead of what you actually do in pinball... play the game. It was never flushed out as an actual flipping playfield. It was not designed with any engineering. It was not designed with any form of team work except for JPOP being the common element. It was designed with the policy that contributors didn’t even know who else was working on the project. As such the game is only as good as what jpop could imagine himself... which is why it’s an unplayable hunk of crap with pretty art and an attractive lead character design.

The project is the poster child of virtually everything not to do in a complex project - and the output reflects that.

#2207 5 years ago
Quoted from lpeters82:

My point is, if they are reaching capacity by doing what they like, are they really leaving any money on the table by not doing what's "good for business"?

What does this have to do with the comment? Ben's comment was about the choice in titles and game economics - not about the choice to stay 'right sized' and not grow.

#2210 5 years ago
Quoted from lpeters82:

I'm not sure I'm following. If they choose more popular titles, with no capacity to produce more games, what is the economic benefit?

I think you're missing the comments and pattern . The pokes by Ben have not been about Spooky's limited production capacity and slow growth choice - but over WHAT titles they chose to produce.

He's already said in the past his choice was getting put down because of concerns over license costs and the most recent comment about theme selection -- Spooky picking titles Charlie is interested in, vs different opinions on what the market may want. Spooky has to be very diligent in what titles they chose to produce because they are essentially single tracked right.

The more successful their titles are (even if they didn't change their volume) - the less risk they face, the better chance for later re-runs, the less need to rely on 'limited' as a selling tool, the greater opportunity they have for securing future resources or titles.

2 weeks later
#2232 5 years ago

"deeproot Pinball plans to give away a FREE pinball machine for each designer to some lucky winners!! Designers include Robert Mueller, Dennis Nordman, Jon Norris, Barry Oursler, and John Popadiuk. You get a FREE deeproot machine of your choice by that designer! The designer will also help set up the machine, discuss the design process and the game, and play your game at your place of residence!! You can invite up to four friends. These giveaways will take place after deeproot Pinball officially launches!! (Reasonable restrictions apply. Subject to change.)"

Oh my.. where have we heard this before...

#2249 5 years ago
Quoted from deeproot:

2232 was a post of a repost from TWIP repost from early 2018. And if you win the game and you don’t want us to bring it out for you, I’m sure someone else would love to have it. We are just trying to help Jeff out.
— Robert dT

Regardless of when the idea was introduced, it was advertised in the Jan 10 post from TWIP as 'future giveaway' - so please don't try to flush this away as if someone were copying something old out place.

https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/december-giveaway-winners-january-giveaway-extravaganza-enter-now/

All the same cringe worthy promises in there still have their own stigmas

deep.pngdeep.png

#2250 5 years ago
Quoted from JodyG:

Awesome, my apologies on not picking up this was a repost and most of the conclusions I made

It's not a repost of something out of date.. It's an ad ran in this week's TWIP about a promo DP setup prior.. which apparently they still want to promote.

#2251 5 years ago
Quoted from lancestorm:

It’s a repost dude and now you look silly

No, taking someone's word without doing your own homework is how you look silly

#2253 5 years ago
Quoted from lancestorm:

Disagree. It was stated much earlier in the threads and other avenues. I remember this and so do many other people. Basically RUBBERDUCKS should have sourced it instead of just putting quotes and posting it. Knowing the source is important. But I remember this from long ago. This is NOT new news.

Rubberducks didn't post it.. I did. The source was not material to the discussion about the text and why it wasn't included. The source doesn't change anything about the discussion... the only reason the 'source' is even a subject is because robert tried to bury it as something old.

Newsflash - the offer was still made WELL AFTER jpop made the same claims - which is why the thing has stink associated with it.. not because it was 2018 or 2019.

Regardless, the offer was posted AGAIN just this week by TWIP. So tell me again how knowing that or not changes the discussion?

4 weeks later
#2371 5 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

Correct. You can license a character, but unless you also license the actor's face, it needs to look like someone else. Funny though this doesn't work like that in voiceover acting. You can copy
Someone's voice all day long and you don't owe them a dime. (Which, to be clear, is a good thing)

Usually For parody with limits... but not to simply copy and infer endorsement. In most areas their voice is still covered by right of publicity and copyright.

#2376 5 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

It is exclusively that endorsement may be misconstrued. Voice is not protected by trademark or likeness rights at all. I’ve done tons of soundalike ads and other gigs that bear no risk. Half of voice acting is copying people’s voices in the first place!

Again, these laws can vary by state.

In california for instance, voice IS explicitly named in the right to publicity laws. Specifically:
"(a) Any person who knowingly uses another's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner, on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of, products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person's prior consent, or, in the case of a minor, the prior consent of his parent or legal guardian, shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof."

Generally people tell you to be cautious... as the likeness and risk of confusion leads to risk of liability. https://www.voiceoverxtra.com/article.htm?id=q24we4bv

Just because you've done it and not been challenged doesn't necessarily make it legal. The matter is very much a regional one.

The matter of film characters adds other dimensions as you are typically mimic'ing the character, not a person.. so the likeness is that of the character. The rights the actor has to the character's use and likeness will vary based on their contract... but pretty much since the 80s actors have rights that prevent the studios from requiring them to blanket give away their control.

1 month later
#2478 5 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

These veterans were unemployed till DR came knocking, so as long as they are getting paid why would they jump ship?

In the context of the discussion... 'getting paid' is the exact retort to 'is this a real company?' question. They are still employed, they presumably are still getting paid, so to the question of 'is it a real company' -- that suggests yes.

What the outcome will be... stay tuned

3 weeks later
#2570 4 years ago
Quoted from toyotaboy:

someone posted a link to deeproot's patent for a pinball cabinet on deadflip stream the other night. im for innovation, but im also for JUST MAKING A PINBALL MACHINE.[quoted image]

that thing better have a cabinet made of concrete to keep it planted and stable when you pull a PF out that far out on pivot arm...

#2646 4 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

This is really a hugely important point I think. I have no idea why we've decided swappable playfields are coming, but I definitely don't recommend them for a new manufacturer for the above reason. You get locked into your initial design decisions with no room to update and fix things as problems come to light because everything you do has to be backwards compatible with what you started with.

Yes, but it's a sound design principle you try to maintain regardless. Stern doesn't design a new platform for every game.. they design one and use it for many games. You don't want to re-invent the wheel every game and spend that time and R&D.

You don't have to get it right on the first game, you can always retrofit those first attempts. The problem was heighway had no sales to have resources to take care of those customers in a meaningful way... let alone the capacity to productize such upgrades properly.

Every manufacturer re-uses their core game design.. even if they sell you a new cabinet each time.

The problem is more what was described earlier... saving cabinets doesn't really save costs. It's a model that doesn't really move the price point radically enough to offset the trade-offs.

#2649 4 years ago
Quoted from knockerlover:

In a steve Richie seminar, he talked about how Atari spent too much time trying to reinvent things that didn’t need to be reinvented (flipper mechs, etc.) when they should have been trying to focus on making better games.. (paraphrased). That ultimately led to their demise.
Heighway had some similar patterns, passive switches, interchangeable playfields, etc. and we know what happened there.
It’s a fine line between pushing the line of innovation, and reinventing just for the sake of reinventing. And this patent looks to be a solution without a problem.

People want the big wins before they have revenue... that's a low percentage strategy

#2665 4 years ago
Quoted from tiesmasc:

The idea of a swapable playfield may not be novel and thus not patentable... particularly since it has been implemented before

Patents don't secure an idea - they secure a METHOD.

#2701 4 years ago
Quoted from Richthofen:

That's interesting to me, mostly because the expensive part of pinball machines these days are not the parts, it's the labor. Paying workers by the hour to hand-solder components, manually hammer in t-nuts, and build complicated wiring looms (now with more wire so you can cantilever out the playfield 5 feet!) is the big cost.

No it's not for machines built in a proper factory building at scale. Labor is the part that is most difficult to ramp up initially and is expensive if you are not Sustaining volume. It's the factor you can control and drive down with efficiencies and processes... so that's why it's such a focus. Because unlike a component cost you source, it's something you can actually influence and optimize quite significantly.

Labor is high operating overhead... it's not necessarily high cost per unit.

#2706 4 years ago
Quoted from Richthofen:

Pinball is made by hand mostly in the USA. In the United States, labor is high in price relatively speaking.

There is still plenty of assembly done here. The trick is speed.

Your pf swap example is bad because it's nothing like production. In production you take away all variations and hesitation as much as possible. Take away reaching for other parts... tools... looking up where it goes... or with what hardware etc. That's the entire point of their station based assembly line. Small repeatable steps that are each optimized. Why you use pre staged sub assemblies etc.

Changes to things like lightboards vs individual sockets... IDC connectors, etc these are examples of engineering for efficiency.

It's expensive to people who can't sustain a full time manufacturing plant or afford to engineer and optimize for production. Companies like stern have professionals that do just that...

1 week later
#2766 4 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

Some deeproot news posted here:
https://arcadeheroes.com/2019/04/19/deep-root-pinball-holds-a-panel-at-fanx-salt-lake-comic-convention/
For us in this thread, this seemed to be the biggest chunk of new info:

I'd be curious how "40 animators" compares with the entire compliment at Stern or JJP. Isn't it just Jean-Paul de Win who does ALL the JJP games?
I don't doubt that all the talent at deeproot can produce some very exciting stuff. But I'm a business guy and this still doesn't make sense.

It's been mentioned before that DR bought into or has spun up a software group offsite.. and they were doing the media/interactive stuff. My guess is like most DR activities, it is a layered thing trying to multitask. This group is likely working on other initiatives, as well as pinball. Same way pinball was able to move into a facility intended for other uses too.

So I've read it as... one of DR's 'companies' is a game/media software group.. and they've leveraged that group to work on the DRP software. This in contrast with trying to land some 'big name' pinball software guy like they did with designers.

14
#2830 4 years ago

its as if... you can hear the money jumping out of people's pockets already... FFS

#2859 4 years ago
Quoted from John_I:

The production value is miles ahead of anything JJP or Stern has done

And it’s also nothing like the other teams have set out to do. So I don’t really get all the comparisons.

It’s a quick short... it’s completely incompatible with what is needed in a game in the formats we have now. People don’t want to stop for 5 seconds... let alone to hear some long drawn out monologue.

It’s apples and oranges.

#2906 4 years ago
Quoted from adol75:

You don't need a camera to track a ball on a playfield. Anki Overdrive is an exemple on how recognizing placement of little cars on a track can be achieved. It's a commercial product, decently cheap (150$ for the complete starter set), and is fully performed locally.
Here some details on how they do that, they claim (but no way to verify) that each car check its position 500 times per second.
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/11/anki-drive-reveals-secret-track-technology-guides-ai-controlled-cars/

and completely useless for this kind of application. It is the inverse of what is needed in pinball. In pinball, the moving object is the stupid inert thing... not the smart thing moving over a fixed map.

The ball can't track itself... something has to locate it. IR grids and ultimately cameras are the most popular ways to detect position of a foreign object.

#2950 4 years ago
Quoted from adol75:

The ball is the same as the car, it's the moving object, and it's the one that has the IR camera. The difference on the ball is that it rolls, so it would need either a very reactive gyroscope or an array of IR lights, each on its own frequency most likely

You should re-read yourself afterwards to understand just how ridiculous this is.

Is the ball also going to be transparent? Because it would need to be as it rolls so your cameras will have to see out every possible portion of the ball as the ball surface rolls past. And then we should talk about how you are going to fit all this in that space... and make it reliable as it goes through crazy G forces and impulses.. and must all fit in the size of a pinball.. and play like a pinball.

Oh and it needs to be powered... so we'll need a battery.. and a charging system...

etc etc etc.

DOA dude

#2951 4 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

"Modern" pinball machines are laughably primitive compared to most other things.
If a large tech driven company bothered to do anything in the realm of Pinball they would squash every company like an elephant on an ant.

something about mouse traps comes to mind...

And how many times have people thought they were smarter than the old guys from before... and failed?

-1
#3004 4 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

It's funny to me the number of people who think it's some Herculean engineering task to develop a system that could track the ball on the playfield without mechanical switches
Gerry, you really need to work on getting the P3 to more shows...

except... that wasn't the conversation. It was about doing it DIFFERENTLY than p3 had already done.

#3016 4 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

No. That wasn't mentioned one single time.

So wait.. you proposed a tracking system.. that you even admit is not feasible... to address a problem that you (should) know P3 already addressed, and did so successfully?

So you're back to reinventing the wheel with impractical ideas? You and the cameras in the ball guy should hang out more often.. two peas in a pod.

#3040 4 years ago
Quoted from adol75:

You know (or maybe you don’t) the medical industry use cameras that fit in a pill swallowed by the patient, self guided and self stabilized. It’s the 10th of the size of a pinball.
But anyways, since you didnt read what I’ve posted after, I didn’t say it was realistic or doable, I also did not say it should be done. What I said though is that there was other methods than a camera to track a ball in a closed environment.

They also don't hit them with bats and throw them around at a few m/s or smash them with other steel objects. You're comparing apples and cucumbers.

"There are other methods..." and you illustrate that with examples you acknowledge are not "realistic or doable"

That's the idiocy of this thread over the last two days... supporting points with stuff you know is complete garbage. Knew so much.. you even went back to the well three times to refine it..

#3041 4 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

I'm writing on a phone so I can't type all that again but I allready answered that ~2 pages ago.
Short: You don't track the ball. You just define areas (like switches) where the view (maye an infrared light) gets obstructed by the ball or not.
If you NOW in multiball shoot a slow ball in the left orbit and one in the right, the game will count it as an orbit shot also. The game doesn't track the ball. It assumes you made the shot because these two switches are hit.
Also this "play of thoughts" doesnt assume to get rid of all switches.

Your idea simply evolves to what we already have.. optical switches. When you start addressing all the nooks and crannies you want in a game.. you end up with all these zones that can only be seen from nearby places.. and why bother with an advanced computed image if all you are doing is proximy detection.. so you end up with just what we already have. Optos or induction detection.

When you go to visual and expect a good FOV.. you end up doing what P3 already did.. a big open empty space.

#3052 4 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

It would be way easier if you would just read what has allready been written before trying to proof some conspiracy.
It is an opto, exactly. I said that allready.
But with only one emitter and one recepient, so you don't need to tie lots of cables into a switch matrix and therefore save money.

Ignoring the point why I said it devolves into Optos... you can’t have one spot that can see the entire pf! So instead of one.. you end up with two... three... four... and now your just back to doing what we are doing... proximity. And at that point, your complex method is completely wasted.

People seem to forget... sometimes the reason a method is repeated is not just venues it’s easier to copy.. but because it can be the most effective mix that has been proven.

Innovation that doesn’t improve anything is simply experimentation. You try to avoid making your customers bear that burden.

If the solution doesn’t outperform the original... don’t do it.

(This coming from a guy whose industr has been trying to perfect drawing tracking, fingers, multitouch, etc forever). Digital whiteboards anyone? Yeah it’s the same problem and it’s been worked on for ages. Both optically and with surface designs.

#3061 4 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

It just doesn't seem that technically challenging to install a small number of IR lamps in strategic locations and have an array of sensors positioned to view the majority of the playfield (with a few supplemental mechanical switches as needed). The lamps could flash a grid like pattern and the sensors would repeatedly detect changes. Software would then determine the locations of all the static objects and track the moving ball(s). Sure it wouldn't be perfect, but it could be just as effective as how it's done now.
At that point it's a cost-benefit analysis comparing the new system to the reduction in parts, labor, and assembly time from doing things the traditional way. And there would be new benefits like never having to physically adjust a switch

Go look at a PF and look at where the majority of the switches are. They aren't out in the great wide open.. they are in lanes, behind things, orbits, etc. This solution that keeps getting floated is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.. and isn't extendable to the majority of the real work. P3 used the idea to ADD something... real-time ball tracking to enable new ideas. You all are trying to cost reduce a game by removing components.. and substituting a system that is crippled and doesn't actually address the initial application of how playfields are laid out.

No one is debating the viability of optical tracking. It's been done for ages. Heck, kids toys do it. The point is "does it make sense in pinball and as a cost reduction".

And as for just shooting IR around a playfield... notice many Optos have shields around them? And why long range optos like the Myst opto are not standard setups? Light pollution!

I get the whole 'parts reduction' and 'remove physical contact' ideas that stemmed this idea - it's just a DOA attempt at a solution due to its limitations and ineffectiveness as a replacement technology.

Wiring labor is cheap compared to field support.

#3062 4 years ago
Quoted from adol75:

The FIFA had similar issues when they started the goal line project, the ball was moving and being hit hard and played under hard weather conditions. On top of it it had to be precise by the millimeter and 100% reliable in a billion dollar industry solely based on the ball passing the line or not.
Bottom line of the story is with the right people and the right money the sky is the limit.

Hey, with the right people and the right amount of money we went to the moon right? So I guess any hairbrained pinball idea must work too!! My god, how did I miss that? FIFA's problem and solution has absolutely zero to do with the designs proposed here.

You're simply countering with "hey, OTHER problems have been solved before..." - So what.. that doesn't mean your ideas are viable.

#3075 4 years ago
Quoted from toyotaboy:

Yeaaa, but it's a LOT of wiring. ask anyone in the industry what a pain it is to manufacture, not to mention design a new harness EVERY single time you design a new playfield.
Physical switches are constantly getting mashed needing re-adjustment, and sometimes switches can cause ball hangups. Ever notice how modern cellphones have very few physical switches anymore? That's because touchscreens are more reliable. They also prefer you charge using a wireless pad so you don't wear out the charging port.
When people talk about cameras, we aren't talking about a webcam.. It can be a cellphone camera (which is tiny and cheap and can mount in tight areas on the playfield). If a replacement cellphone camera is $5 retail, it's probably less than a dollar in volumes direct from the manufacturer (and you don't need 13 megapixels to detect an object. Hell you don't even need color). I'm willing to bet if you found the right chinese supplier that was trying to dump 2 year old cellphone cameras you could get them for 50 cents all day long. Tool up a small plastic mounting bracket. $.50 camera + $.25 bracket ($.75) to replace a $2 switch (and cameras can detect multiple areas replacing multiple switches).
I guess the only caveat is how long would the camera stay clean, and how often would you have to clean it?
Could it slide out under the playfield so you don't have to peel away layers of plastic to get at it?

I totally get the idea of removing physical contact as a form of reliability. But again, it's not just a single dimension that matters. Ultimately many things simply boil down to 'keep it simple stupid' as the most consistent way to get something done.

Cameras are limited by FOV... so even if you table that for now.. and assume we're talking about where you can see. (ignoring things like multiple levels, going behind things, around things, lanes, etc)

If we want to use image cameras - now we're talking about object identification and reliability. Oh, and doing that on something moving very fast. And we'll want precision as we want to not just locate the item, but tell its depth in the field as well. Oh, and you're trying to do this in low light... and trying to do this with multiple objects... And now do all this in some cheap compute platform.. that you're using in relatively low volumes... and write all the software for it.

All to remove some switches? That themselves really aren't that big of a deal.

They aren't expensive. They are pretty reliable. Their biggest issue is labor at installation.. which is something you can highly optimize and do yourself. Oh, and the development of it is pretty damn stable.. so you don't have to dedicate huge amounts of resources to keep refreshing as the components you rely on keep changing.. outside of your control.

Cable harness work won't go away.. it would just be simplified. But this is work you do 'once' per project.. so it's not some huge gain the longer you run.

I've worked for over 20 years in the image processing world... the streaming video everyone enjoys today are based on the work of distinguished coworkers of mine. In our products today, we've replaced PTZ cameras with 5k sensors that do all the work digitally... removing fisheye for wide lens... facial recognition... face detection.. object tracking.. intelligent framing... I get and appreciate what the world can offer for us. But I also respect the idea that sometimes things are just poor fits.. or can be done much simpler.

It's like . 'man.. I could take a pi, and write code to do ABC...' - or someone comes along and says with with a few resistors and caps I could do the same thing and it will work for decades without ever needing to touch it.

It's funny you use the example of touchscreens being more reliable... because that's exactly what displaced all the optical sensing in digital whiteboarding. The experience of using a physical board and pen was dumped for basically huge iPads because the technology worked so much better, could multi-purpose so much better, and could deal with multi-touch and the physical environments so much better.

The reliability of switches is not really a huge deal in pins (minus a few corner cases). It's the reliability of the wiring and physical mechs.

The biggest advantage to replacing switches would likely be the removal of the physical space constraints they impose.

Or you could go like HWP tried.. and just try to come up with a better switch.

#3121 4 years ago
Quoted from soren:

Does a pingame without visually identifiable switches feel right?

You don't miss them at all in Alien. The switch with actuator isn't really part of the pinball lore everyone is attached to. Switches have been implemented dozens of different ways in pins... from buttons, to targets, to wires, to spring plates, to invisible beams of light or magnetism.

People want the idea that action = reaction... they don't care how the game 'knows'.

Switches are just a very practical way to solve the location problem on a playfield.

#3122 4 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

One of the reason I mention this is because I sense an evolution of improving attitudes here towards Jpop. It seems to me that more and more people are now speaking up in supporting John. And I get it, as I see reasons to support him and Deeproot too.

I think that is just more and more people around now that aren't as informed about the past. Late comers who haven't listened to the insiders... or who didn't live through zidware... etc.

#3136 4 years ago
Quoted from soren:

You see, I am not so sure. The mechanical verification of a "finish line" is not to be overlooked. I think.

All I can say is... no one cried the loss of pinball purity after Optos became popular in the 90s.. and no one is at any loss when optos are used over blade switches even today. And no one bemoans how alien looks or plays simply based on the lack of under PF wire switches popping through.

1 month later
#3436 4 years ago

Still using the jpop book of how to sucker people... throw in some art teases...

21
#3453 4 years ago

Comical.... still boasting as they wildly miss deadlines.

Know what other companies do when it gets thick? Focus... instead dp boasts about developing “tens” of pins.

Wonder if claimants lose their buyout option if they don’t take it at this deadline?

#3523 4 years ago

I predict the update will give us at least 5 days of deepPoop... so there is that

#3526 4 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

So funny, yet so innovative.
Keep'em coming.

Stop cluttering up the threads with your babble.

#3532 4 years ago

Noise and legit interest are not the same thing

Pinball is small enough if you are making games... you don't really need to rely on drama to bubble your name to the top. A good product will get talked about enough on its own.

#3560 4 years ago
Quoted from deeproot:

Thank you for your assessment, but you missed most of the points I tried to emphasize in the Webinar. Zidware customers who file a claim and are approved will get advanced access to play all titles *before* they have to commit to anything, or pay in any more money. It is completely no risk.
I would say you did get something right. We are sure that once Zidware Claimants see what they will be getting, most will likely max out the top tier. That benefits them; and admittedly us as well. I guess 'Sizzle without the zizzle' was overlooked in my last interview. I thought it was clever at least. Hehe.
--Robert/dT

Hey deeproot - How's the rear view mirror on these claims now? Will zidware customers get that advanced access to play 'all titles' before they have to commit to anything? Because it sure sounds like a decision facing them now. Will they still have the cash out option in the future if they chose to accept your new timetable?

And did your projection of most claimants upgrade to 'max out the top tier'? I've only heard of people opting not to mess with the whole thing in general.. not double down.

#3562 4 years ago

Hrmm... so in December 2018... deeproot boasts they are spending over 750k a month.. with costs to further ramp up. 6+ months later... they miss their major milestone date, and give another 6 month release window... that is 4+ months away.

That's 10-16 months of delay at their 750k++ number. So that's 7-12 MILLION dollars in sunk costs just from this slide. How much are people making per unit again?

#3646 4 years ago
Quoted from pinstyle:

Has any one of you guys ever broken out a calculator and just punched in some rough numbers? Their sales are far in the millions. Its not THAT expensive to buy/lease a building, its not THAT expensive for a few hundred feet of gravity conveyor, cheap assembly labor etc...

At the time Stern was struggling to get games to sell 500-2k units.. they were only making 3ish titles a year.

Revenue is essential... but your 'rough numbers' probably assume a sellout at high numbers. And doesn't account for titles that couldn't sell. Struggling to sell 500 pieces wasn't paying the bills. Games cost huge amounts of time and money to develop.. and if it didn't sell, that was all red. Stern had a model of needing to sell a # of games to make it all work.. and they weren't doing it. It's a huge capital cost to fund the development, then fund the inventory, and then run the manufacturing. It's all predicated on the idea that you are getting cash flow from current sales to fund the next project. And they weren't.

It's why they went crazy reducing the BOM on games. It's why they laid off all their design staff and went BARE BONES. That wasn't the sign of a company just waiting for an investor to 'take them to the next level'. That was the sign of a company facing the crunch of cash flow and expenses.

Gary is an accountant... and that saavy shows in his efforts in the lean years to try to keep things going.

You think it's a simple calculator exercise? Yet we have a whole list of companies that couldn't do it profitably, and another list of companies that couldn't even get it done before running out of money. Your assumptions forget it takes a staff of several disciplines, MANY months to work on game. Then there is prototyping, molds, contractors, etc. That's all cost that needs to be recovered in that margin of the game you hope is going to sell. Because you ordered parts for 200+ games to get things in the timelines and quantity discounts you needed... and now you hope you can sell all 200 or be forced to sit on that inventory. Even if Stern is at 100% gross margin on their distributor sales.. that's still only on the scale of about 2k per unit in today's dollars. In 2008, that was more like 1500. 1500 x 3k units is only 4.5million. That's not a lot to fund dozens of professional staffers... maintain a full factory... pay contract labor... actually run the business, etc.

#3664 4 years ago
Quoted from pinstyle:

And that's only 1250 machines....
What about 5000 machines at an estimated $4000 profit? 20 million..
Even if it cost 4 million to develop a game (which is an insane number), there is still a shit ton of money on the table.

Because no one is selling 5k pinballs... that's the super cherry on top Metallicas and ACDC maybe reaching those levels. Stern hits those kinds of levels after YEARS of sales on a title.

You keep flopping around on what numbers to include... you sometimes count dev, sometimes try to count operations and production.. sometimes with the 'if we were world champion production numbers'.. but never all together

Take a look around at who is in pinball production... its Stern and a bunch of passion project people. Not one big time company involved... why is that if there is so much money to be made like you suggest?

Because all those people know it's a slow, high risk, high cost business without high enough returns.

#3666 4 years ago
Quoted from pinstyle:

Jack just called me collect, he said he is doing just fine.
I wasn’t suggesting 5000 of one title. Stern releases two machines a year typically. It was just a rough number with no real timeline attached to it. I stand by what i said originally. No one is in business to be broke with the intent of dragging their business across finishline. I wont base numbers on Pinside either, there is a whole world out there outside of this place. Pinside doesn’t represent the current state of anything. Its just a place where enthusiasts can gather.

nothing stated here was based on pinside... and Stern releases more than 2 titles a year... nothing you've cited has been remotely correct.

you started off correcting people about Stern in 2008... now you're citing wrong numbers from today... you dance and throw shit out haphazardly to dodge being solid on anything. You're ill informed.

2 weeks later
#3709 4 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

I can understand the hatred from those who JPOP screwed. But what I dont understand is why the "ill will" towards DR?

It’s called a “dick tease”.

2 weeks later
#3945 4 years ago

Hrm... not impressed.

Building whitewoods or one off games is not really a sign of anything.. except access to resources.

Besides rapid prototyping, why are we bothering with inhouse PCB fab, etc? That stuff is commoditized... It reeks of Heighway again where they think they can do it better/cheaper by doing it themselves... (instead of letting 'experts' excel at their trade).

Reducing soldering to speed up assembly? Again, trying to reinvent the wheel here. They keep using 'slow' soldering for a reason.. reliability and costs. Something tells me that being able to produce 'fast enough' probably shouldn't be at the top of the list in challenges to get 'right' for the first effort.

4 more months to show off 'prototypes'? I think the most 'pinball' thing Deeproot has shown so far is... making the same mistakes as other failed pinball companies.

#3986 4 years ago
Quoted from toyotaboy:

It's not always about better/cheaper. Often processes are brought in-house because it's faster, and you have control. You realize how often a vendor can cripple a manufacturing process because "their line went down", or the BOM goes up because they decide to re-negotiate the price? This isn't necessarily a bad move honestly. Remember when Stern fought with churchhill cabinet? They almost brought CNC in-house over it, but in the end they made up (but it could have had serious effect on production).
We have a stratasys 3d printer at work that cost us $120k, and then there's a $15k maintenance fee. Would it be cheaper to just farm it out to local 3d printer services? Of course, but you wait in queue with everyone else. It speeds up development when you can literally throw in a job before you leave, and have parts waiting for you the next morning.

Oh there are reasons to do it... I should have been more clear in my writing... what I meant was more about a company trying to get off the ground. They should be focusing on what their unique assets are and the things that are difficult to source externally. Use the established vendors as aids to avoid having to ramp up many different capacities and skills.

I can agree the idea of speed in development is useful (hence my reference to rapid prototyping)... but there are so many of these out there and it’s something that is easy to “buy your way out of” if it comes down to it. Just seems like another example of boiling the ocean instead of laser focus and execution.

#4030 4 years ago
Quoted from Roostking:

Be honest, how many people knew what FOMO was, until Levi said it. Not me!

It’s been the center of the LE buying frenzy since Metallica...

1 week later
#4094 4 years ago
Quoted from JodyG:

Glad I am not the only one that sees this crap day in and day out on here.

I just used the ignore feature so I don’t have to

1 week later
#4203 4 years ago
Quoted from toyotaboy:

Maybe it's different with pinball because the most expensive part is the playfield. But in the early 80s with the invent of the Jamma connector, video game operators were gutting any cabinet they could find to put in the next pcb to earn again, often re-using the same buttons/joystick. This was especially true in the late 80s when fighting games brought back the interest to arcades and they were coming out so fast with street fighter and mortal kombat. It's why you now see so many retro arcades with the wrong cabinets and control panels

But the operator market was different then. Things moved FAST. Games were swapped out jamma style because you'd replace a non-earning game with a new one that would earn. Operators would have so many pieces, storage/space was an issue and it was cost effective to repurpose cabinets because if a game didn't earn anymore.. it had no resale value.

Pinball isn't like that these days. You don't have carcasses filling your warehouse.. you don't have off route games that have no value. You aren't putting out AFM on ice to put in MB. There is so much greenspace still that you try to put that AFM somewhere else to earn, or sell it.

TL:DR - unlike the 80s.. the 'out of fashion' game isn't dead weight these days.

2 weeks later
#4356 4 years ago
Quoted from fosaisu:

Really? So you’re saying if I license technology from a company that has not honored its debts to other customers, I assume legal liability for those debts?
I interpreted the settlements with Zidware customers as a PR move to cover deeproot hiring JPop and using some of his old designs without immediately alienating 3/4 of the customer base. But I’m not following your legal argument.

He bailed jpop out by making takers agree to absolve jpop and zidware of their claims.

How do you get jpop to work for you and behave how you want? You bail him out. The agreement frees up the zidware assets to be freed up to be used (transfered, etc) without future concerns,

#4363 4 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

And the question certainly remains... “why???”

Robert clearly thinks JPOP is some mastermind that just needs the right environment to produce... so he built that.

#4376 4 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

Everything seems to want to revolve around Jpop.
There are other people on the team, unless I missed the exit announcements.
[quoted image]

The discussion was on 'why bother with the zidware liabilities and jpop'.

All the people deeproot brought in besides jpop... were not tied into the zidware mess... so they aren't really relevant to the discussion.

Robert wanted to extra some value from the zidware/jpop stinkpile... reasons he's sold everyone on 'good will'... which is lawyer speak for 'pre-emptive strike'

-2
#4386 4 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

Last I looked this was a DeepRoot discussion thread. Not a Zidware solvency/resolution thread.

What's your point?

You inserted yourself in a threaded discussion on a matter without respect for the context or the discussion going on.. and now want to play topic police?

Get off your high horse... hate to break it to you, but JPOP is part of the deeproot story.. as is zidware as deeproot are looking to use material that was sourced from zidware. So yes, 'why did deeproot engage zidware customers' is part of the story and its all relevant to a deeproot conversation.

You should do more work before any 'last checks' it seems.

#4387 4 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

Totally agree. But to suggest the other members are irrelevant to the discussion is missing the forest for the trees.

Relevant to deeproot - yes

Relevant to the chain of posts you inserted yourself into ignoring the rest of the posts? No

You can't cherry pick posts in isolation. Well.. you can.. and look stupid.

#4423 4 years ago
Quoted from badbilly27:

Can anyone point me to a form or contact I should reach out to for a refund on my deposit with JPOP for BHZA? I've tried to scan this thread but not doing a good job. Thank you in advance. If easier please PM me.

If you didn’t get in on the goodwill offer long long ago... that opportunity is long gone. The deeproot offer was like 1-2years ago

#4441 4 years ago
Quoted from badbilly27:

I'm not smart enough to troll. A friend texted my cell and told me he read on this thread refunds were offered. He's a moderator and didn't know either.

You are getting half information and getting crossed most likely.

What has happened recently is some zidware customers that had entered into an agreement with Deeproot back when deeproot went public have recently gotten payouts from Deeproot as they opt'd to not wait any longer for the deeproot products they were going to get as part of the arrangement.

Basically deeproot offered zidware customers the opportunity to get credit towards future deeproot games based on the amount they had in with zidware) if they agreed to settle their claims against zidware. Those deeproot games were to be made available to the claimants by a fixed date, or deeproot would offer the claimants a cash settlement if deeproot failed to deliver.

That promised date passed this summer. Deeproot offered people the opportunity to wait longer, or cash out now. Several people have taken the cash out route.. and have gotten their checks.

There are no 'new refunds' going on... this is people exercising their options from the agreement they entered in with deeproot a long ways back.

1 week later
#4519 4 years ago
Quoted from Honch:

I dont know how anybody could maintain confidence in this company.

people gave money to a guy who literally called himself some kid in the basement... so standards are low

#4619 4 years ago
Quoted from wolfemaaan:

Actually you’re wrong, look at their studios page. There main business is not gaming, it’s video &amp; animation. For TV commercials, movies. Gaming is probably next and pinball is a very small portion based on their roster

You are once again late to the party and way I’ll informed. Don’t count sister company,s work as deeproot pinball work and revenues.

10
#4626 4 years ago
Quoted from wolfemaaan:

Once again, you come with not facts nor even to bother looking at their site.

Because we know more than just what goes into big claims on a website? Why don’t you do yourself a favor and go back to the very start... he’ll even just read the news articles if you want the tidy versions, and get educated.

I’m not “coming with facts” all listed out and organized for you because I’m not your freaking hand maid. I don’t have to make a case because This is all research and knowledge accumulated years ago and common knowledge now. But once again, you come strolling in late, and telling everyone they are wrong because you simply don’t have the baseline understanding Of what is going on.

Go start and learn where deeproot’s money, and leadership come from. It’s selling insurance and investment funds. They started businesses under the deeproot name umbrella. These are startup projects (including their animation group) - not established cash generating businesses.

You seem to be a sucker for big bold claims on a website (Roberts favorite type of customer!). Go try finding the portfolio of clients and past projects of “deeproot studios” instead.

Here... I’ll give you a running start... one piece for you.. https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/deeproot-update-plus-interview-new-hire-new-building-new-creative-studio-new-licenses-and-help-offered-to-those-who-lost-money-on-pre-orders-from-other-companies/

Then go back and start with the reading on deeproot’s history and money.

#4632 4 years ago
Quoted from wolfemaaan:

Oh, I didn’t realize your were the CFO of Deeproot and know where they are getting money from.
So do you really think they have no money? Is that large talented staff hanging around for popcorn?
Pinball isn’t their primary business.

Read what was posted - not make up your own stories. I didn't say 'they have no money' - in fact they had lots of money up front. They setup these pinball and digital creative studios with their investment funds... I'm sure they are trying to shop their digital studio for more work as well, but they aren't an established business able to float this thing.

You are under this misimpression that this is some umbrella of companies that decided to start a pinball side biz. That's incorrect. You have a money man who had a business setup to do investment schemes and had made money in prior ventures... who setup this new scheme with some undisclosed seed money. Outsiders do not know who the investors are.

#4639 4 years ago
Quoted from wolfemaaan:

So are you under the impression Deeproot is a Ponzi Scheme and an illegitimate umbrella of companies? I'm confused on what point you're trying to make here.

I said no such thing and am tired of your repeated failures to comprehend or follow basic information. Deeproot pinball and staydio are startups from investment money - that's what is important.

They shown themselves to be well funded to date.

#4645 4 years ago
Quoted from vicjw66:

This will be Wolfemaaan’s next post.

You said earlier that Deeproot hasn’t made any money and now you’re saying they have? Make up your mind.

Did you miss those key words "investors" and "investment"?

Making money and having money are not interchangeable concepts. I said they were well "funded" which means money they had access to. Nothing in the same discussion about "making money".

"Funded" is money coming from investors - not customers

#4666 4 years ago

Junk ratings are junk ratings no matter what the score is. It’s the root problem with the idea of crowd sourced ratings from the start and why the system will never be worth a shit.

#4675 4 years ago
Quoted from Tranquilize:

That doesn't mean Robin and crew shouldn't do their best to try to help alleviate these issues. For example, averaging models helps to calm the excessive ratings of LE owners. To me, this would be common sense design. I Like it or not, the top 100 is the most popular part of pinside, and I felt that before the model
ranking issue, the list was pretty representative of what I consider to be the great, good, average, not so good and garbage machines. Now it has the disease of every new LE in the top 20...

LEs just exaggerate a simple problem that was always there. Most people can’t be objective about something they are heavily vested in. The more money in... the bigger the problem.

Crowd sourced reviews are always going to be junk. Since the reviews are done by those with energy to do it... instead of true random sampling... you don’t get the averaging out of bad reviewers.

Compound this that many reviewers simply don’t know what they are talking about... you get a “popularity contest”... not actual worthy reviews. That’s why new games always surge to the top group of the ratings.

The solution is either vetted raters- or just change it to a simple scale and allow (or solicit users to pump up participation) to acknowledge what they think of a title. Like/dislike/indifferent and list games by their percentages

And “most popular part of pinsidde”? I can’t think of anyone I know that uses it at all... maybe in page views... but how much of that is search engines, etc.

#4691 4 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

I never posted many reviews, but I had to admit to myself I'm biased towards the machines I own, so I stopped participating. If I can have that clarity for myself, then its true for just about everyone, and I haven't even looked at the charts in years.

Another way to view it is... chicken and the egg. Which came first, the buy, or the feeling of greatness. I think all my games are top titles... but that’s because I sourced the games based on the proven play of the game and what I thought of the game. For nib new release buyers... most will sell the games they ultimately decide they didn’t like... but there is a honeymoon period... and when the distinction isn’t that great... it’s harder to be critical on your own buying decisions. Just human nature...

#4692 4 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

Since Robert has bailed on Pinside, which I believe was a smart move by him, I think it's better served for him to promote Deeproot via a written news release such as this. No judgment on content but I hope to see/hear more of this.

You mean one way promotion where the author controls the message and who is allowed to question or follow up?

It’s why people leave forums and goto twitter or blogs where they can self moderate and control who/if anyone can have an equal platform to respond to their content.

It’s not a good thing - it’s a method to control the message. And Instead of just making a blog post... he sends it to Chris who has a bigger built in audience... and he knows he can swoon Chris into being his amplifier.

It’s manipulation- not progress.

Edit: listening to the clip... probably Chris reached out to him for comment...and Robert just gave his opinion as a hobbyist. Nothing of interest here or even new credible informed opinions

-1
#4696 4 years ago
Quoted from fosaisu:

mr68 didn't call it progress or a good, he said it was a "smart move" for deeproot to stop posting on Pinside. Which it is. There's just nothing to be gained by engaging in back and forth on the forums when you can get your message out just as effectively, under much more controlled conditions, through other venues. Stern and JJP reached the same conclusion, whether it's "good" or not it is a sound business decision.

Engagement is a good thing. - trick is it takes the right kind of people. Completely disengaging is a retreat and just hunkering down. It’s not a good thing for consumers.

#4702 4 years ago
Quoted from fosaisu:

Whether or not it's good for consumers, it's a smart business decision for pinball manufacturers to disengage from forums and stick to controlled media outlets. Doesn't mean you don't monitor the forums and respond to specific complaints offline if necessary. But the imbalance in the risk/reward of actively engaging seems pretty obvious.

Just because these companies suck at it.. doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done. Companies as big as Microsoft and others have ambassadors that get engaged and interact.

Pinside is its own worst enemy at times... encouraging trolling and driving the same crap over and over again instead of actively funneling traffic to the buckets it belongs.

1 week later
12
#4773 4 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

Neither of my Twilight Zones ever had any dimples nor did my Scared Stiff.... but ain't got crap to do with Deeproot.

Sand it with 2000 grit paper and a block... you’ll see it’s probably not as flat as you think... (bring back to gloss with compound then polishes)

Old games seem to dent in big shallow depressions or very shallow spots. The modern games instead seems to make the more visible pits that eventually look like orange peel.

I think the new pfs dent deeper easier... and the high gloss makes it more visible.

Look at these tz photos... see all the black dots and changes in gloss when you zoom in? Those are low points in the sanding...aka divots.
C8C1B64F-EFDD-4B55-8DDF-CA5C224DEC94.jpegC8C1B64F-EFDD-4B55-8DDF-CA5C224DEC94.jpeg9F820A6A-6CD0-48CC-A5CA-36E49C9D4D12.jpeg9F820A6A-6CD0-48CC-A5CA-36E49C9D4D12.jpeg

Now look at it after polished... the surface imperfections are more noticeable as divots in the light reflection then they were when the pf was dull
23C13EEC-30E0-49FF-AE22-ABEE495AAE2A.jpeg23C13EEC-30E0-49FF-AE22-ABEE495AAE2A.jpeg

#4781 4 years ago
Quoted from o-din:

Is that a repro or did you get that from vid's collection? He must have bought all the seconds and rejects back in the day. But hey, if the price is right...

:p

my game from the 90s which I had fully broken down 2 years ago.

#4789 4 years ago
Quoted from vicjw66:

You got one with bad wood. I’ve never seen a TZ look as bad as yours. I did the same thing with mine and buffed it to a fine shine with Novus 2 and 1 and there were no dimples on it at all. Certainly some of those old Bally/Williams playfields had dimpling, but relatively few and the dimpling usually wasn’t too bad.

The point was what people think they see... isn't always what they think it is. The PF didn't look dimpled at all before refinishing the surface. It's only when sanding it were the actual individual ball impressions made visible. The idea of 'the entire PF gets beat down' I don't subscribe to, but sanding shows how the PF is not perfectly flat and you likely have a lot more shallow marks all over.

When you look at the PF before.. it looks dirty and dull, but nothing jumps out as 'DIMPLES!'
IMG_3632.JPGIMG_3632.JPG

But when you get just the right reflections... you an pickout the surface isn't really perfectly flat
IMG_3635.JPGIMG_3635.JPG

And when you compare against more virgin areas.. you can see just how much abuse the topcoat really had taken (look at the mini-flipper area near the orange/yellow lines)
IMG_3637.JPGIMG_3637.JPG

When the PF is glossy and otherwise flat on a new pf... the individual ball marks stick out like a sore thumb.

1 week later
#4889 4 years ago

"We will ship more art in 2019 than any other pinball manufacturer ever!"

1 week later
#4988 4 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

As the cash dumpster fire continues to burn.

but you missed the next business venture... contracting out their expertise

Maybe he promoted JPOP to chief strategist

#4989 4 years ago
Quoted from BMore-Pinball:

..."unprecedented 10 year warranty on PF wear and tear (which includes dimples)..."
Major shots fired. If they can pull this off and sell machines with PF that don't blister, dimple, chip, pool etc..... and the games are fun and built well, there will be a lot of buyers

Why would this be a game changer? Most of these NIB buyers don't even keep their game for half that time.

#4991 4 years ago

oh god... this is setting itself up to be a train wreck.

"You cant do what we've done"... boasting that it would take others multi-x longer to reinvent what they've done.. God-complex again. And already saber rattling over defending their 'innovations'. Patent-Troll powers... activate! This guy hopes to blanket as much ground as possible and extort money from others... resulting in stalling innovation for everyone.

"We have some thoughts about how to get the best of all worlds." --- oh look, another "we will solve world hunger" claim.

Prepare for deeproot to be a DeepPain

4 weeks later
#5104 4 years ago
Quoted from pinballonthemark:

I want Deeproot to succeed and for Popadiuk to redeem himself as one of the most prolific designers in the pinball industry! For those that express disappointment for Popadiuk let’s give him another chance to wow us as kids all over again with his designs and allow Deeproot to make this happen

I was going to respond to your points until I got to this point... you're under the spell. No point.

#5146 4 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

Patent for a canted, extending arm. Pretty sure there might be some prior art on that one

Arm yes... arm in pinball cabinet to improve access to pf? Thats where you get separation.

#5148 4 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

There's absolutely nothing novel about the application.

So show us where it's been done before?

And the patent office disagrees with you.

#5154 4 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

It's a canted extending arm attached to a box at each end. The contents of either box has no bearing on the arm, nor the arm on them. There is absolutely NOTHING novel about it.

Secondly, it hasn't been tested in court. You can get granted a patent for virtually anything in the US if you're prepared to file ... see JPop's list of crap. Doesn't mean you'll be able to defend any of them.

Or you don't understand what the criteria really is...

There is certainly enough there to make it novel... A patent doesn't have to use all new undiscovered tech to be novel.. It can be a new use of existing concepts in new novel applications. You may think using a arm is 'obvious', but have you dug into the actual meat of the patent?

You may think this is 'obvious'... but so would a folding backbox right? Yet Wico was able to patent a folding backbox in 1985... years after Bally and others were already doing a folding backboxes... because their patent was about the hinge design to address what they identify as shortcomings with prior folding backbox designs.

Or how about Stern patenting the idea of using LEDs for GI lighting? Yup... they did that.

The deeproot patent covers lots of concepts such as the rotating PF, how they are doing the backbox folding, the different service positions, the mounting, etc.

And while you may point the finger at the US patent process... note deeproot has filed with WIPO - not just the US.

I have lots of problems with this concept.. and patents in general... but simply pointing at it and saying "its just an arm..." is not one of them.

1 week later
#5286 4 years ago
Quoted from vicjw66:

Well, in Levi’s defense, the guys at Stern are so thinned skinned that if you want them to sponsor your New York pinball tournament, you better damn well slobber all over their sac and proclaim everything they do is perfect.

Or is it ...one of his close friends moves to Chicago to work for stern... and so he gets the real skinny on things directly instead of the made up crap pinside thrives on?

1 week later
-1
#5506 4 years ago
Quoted from nogoodnames222:

Why would any animator (when given the task of animating for this aspect ratio) choose to put tall vertical images, portraits, small background details, etc in?

Because they are trying to covey things to people standing 4-8ft away??

At the end of the day the issue is you have a screen with incredibly limited vertical space... that limits what you can display. The bigger the item is, the smaller it must be on the display to actually fit in the vertical limit.. that will make it harder to see from the target distance.

#5507 4 years ago
Quoted from Darscot:

that just seems like a lot of additional cost for virtually no value.

That was JPOP's vision statement for his design studio...

21
#5517 4 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

Please tell me you're joking. If that is the case and if AIW is a title I want, I will be asking DR if it's possible to have a non cleared pf sent to Kruzman and then back to them.

just read the article dude.. it's all explained in there before you jump off a bridge.

TWIP: You’ve discussed that deeproot playfields would be higher quality and more durable (#hammer) than anything on the market currently. Am I correct in saying that the prototype machines at Houston do not have playfields made by deeproot? Have you built any deeproot playfields yet for testing?

RM: We had contracted with Mirco to supply the playfields for the Houston Expo prior to the quality issues being made public. It made the most sense to just use them for this limited purposes, and keep our playfield protection design a mystery. We have tested many samples.

FFS people... a little learning before we put ourselves out there isn't a bad thing.

#5582 4 years ago
Quoted from Multiballmaniac1:

Deeproot gonna slay the competition I just have a hunch.

giphy (7).gifgiphy (7).gif
22
#5708 4 years ago

Its like people never learn...

They see a prototype and now that company is ready to take over the world.. and hit every promise... and be first to everything...

Its like people forget Dutch had two great looking Finished prototypes as well... how quickly people forget getting to reliable steady level of production is the hard part.

“Octo manufacturing to the rescue!!!!”

#5967 4 years ago

how late is this project that this prototype doesn't have anything but skeleton code running? It doesn't do anything but score and drive the coils. You can get that virtually for free on proc + skeletongame.

I mean.. even suncoast got further than this in a fraction of the time with two guys on a dog... not an entire staff of industry vets plus hiring a bunch of digital artists.

I get not showing your full hand... but they aren't showing anything here except for the art direction and the whitewood for all intents and purposes. Games done by April and shipping in June? and MULTIPLE games?

Either this is the biggest sandbagging of all time.. or all those dates are fantasy. Or at least.. the idea of 'complete' games is..

ETA: Ok, this video shows more..

I still stand by the last statement... even tho there is more there than coils and scores as I saw from earlier videos. Thx DT for chiming in on more detail

-2
#5971 4 years ago
Quoted from zaphX:

Fake news. The game was way more than skeleton game. I guess you missed the mode specific animations, visuals, and smooth transitions.

By the above you mean simply changing the looping video in the main portion of the screen or was there more? Because I didn't see you do anything but flail and not hit anything.

-1
#5972 4 years ago
Quoted from daudioguy:

I don't participate in Pinside much except when I see something completely untrue. For the record: the Houston RAZA code is deep but not wide. By that I mean four modes are completely functional with LEFF, DEFF, audio and rules. The main multiball is complete as well. The end of ball bonus sequence scores and has its AV. Extra Ball is wired in and Deeproot studios created a very funny animation for that. Player select-able Skill-shot and Super Skill-shot is being awarded.....There is more but my point is made.
The remainder of the modes, hurry ups, lane games remain to be done.
There is a lot more to come but RAZA programming is, by far, a lot more than skeleton code.
back to your regular programming
ddt

Great to hear.. anyone have any video of the above? Would love to see something besides the idle animations I've seen to date.

ETA: ok, I see this video actually showing something besides boucing around -

If that's the complete main multiball you mention...

#5975 4 years ago
Quoted from noitbe1:

This thread is depressing. Seems like some know everything guys know with 2 poors minutes in video exactly what was coded in this game and know the skeleton framework. Be my guest who has done skeleton games here? My 2 cents.
The game looks great, looking forward to see more.

The reference to skeletonGame was to reference the amount of progress... not to suggest its based on skeletonGame. For a game that has been in the oven for years... this amount of progress was not encouraging.

#6001 4 years ago
Quoted from zaphX:

I doubt you're going to get much better than over-the-shoulder cellphone footage without a proper streaming rig setup.

Dont need that... but how about an over the shoulder video of someone playing a good game... like i dunno... maybe... a very skilled player familiar with the game... like ... i dunno... the #10th ranked player in the world?

Why so hard deeproot?

#6268 4 years ago
Quoted from TecumsehPlissken:

Yeah I heard they had a bad batch of those recently

If by batch you mean over years... yes. The ones recently weren't bad, they were comically defective.

11
#6339 4 years ago

all of you hoping for dirt cheap games are in for a sad day. The tip off was when 'value' became the talking point of the week... you pump the 'value' point when you want people to forgive the price.

#6373 4 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

If Robert allows small batches of games to be built on demand, that would be an innovation and better than Stern. Stern is so big that their run sizes are bigger and it takes them awhile to switchover between titles. The production schedule is more rigid

No. Stern has switchovers nailed down. The reason they build larger batches is for economies of scale not because they are too rigid. Parts have lead times... they have minimum volumes...they get cheaper as you buy more at the same time... you lose production output as you switchover. Stern is highly optimized in they can cutover and be ramping to full speed with minimal productivity loss because they have their production processes and funnels so well defined. Thats why games have minimum runs... not because of size holding them back.

The “small batch” model doesn’t work because its too inefficient and increases per unit costs. You can make it work... you will just have much higher costs per unit, much higher overhead, much lower throughput, and thus much higher prices.

#6414 4 years ago
Quoted from konjurer:

Small batch DOES work. Actually the "optimal" batch size is the best and that's not a large batch. Large batch is inefficient and costly. Large batch thinking is a hold over from the industrial revolution. Large batch means you carry expensive inventory on your books. It's harder to pivot to a new line when your set up for large batches. From a Lean-agile perspective, do to the smallest, most valuable thing first. Companies that create the infrastructure to execute in this fashion may very well eat their competition before they realize they're getting eaten.

The entire frame of reference for this discussion is PINBALL. So 'large' or 'small' means what it means in PINBALL. "large" means units in the 200-500 range, small means dozens.

People are not carrying large game specific inventory when doing the 'large' batch because the batch is large enough to consume the minimum orders... while the small batch is not. The small batch is the one carrying inventory or suffering ordering in inefficient quantities frequently.

The 'large' size in this discussion is already the 'optimal' size because it's the size that has been proven over time to be the balance between efficiency and float risk.

Keep things in context... we're talking about pinball here.

#6453 4 years ago
Quoted from o-din:

So more than Bally/Williams did in 1995 with 9 different titles? Kinda hard to believe if you ask me.
That's almost 1000 a day boxed up and out the door.

100, not 1000.. but still totally bunkus.

12
#6514 4 years ago

Sounds like Robert is used to being the one that holds the microphone and hence the only one that can be heard.. and can't cope with the environment where others have just as equal voice as he does.

You can easily just ignore the dead-horse beaters and trolls.. and still function fine here. The problem becomes is when the company/individual can't accept they can't shutdown or out-shout the dissenting opinion going against their narrative.

Why would you go on a podcast if you decry the online community? Because it's a broadcast platform - not open turf. Same reason outcasts flock to youtube/podcasting.. they alone control the conversation in their content.

#6545 4 years ago
Quoted from razorsedge:

No, just pinside "expert opinion" ... speculation taken as facts.... again.

Don't fall for the word smithing... 'his money' probably means 'his company's money'... and go and find out where his companies make money from and where he came from. Psst.. none of it is selling hard goods.

#6547 4 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

Pretty fascinating breakdown teach.
So you teach this stuff in school? This is how you do it, by the textbook? Allow me to play the crusty old do-nothing economics professor to your revolutionary, real world genius Rodney Dangerfield.
Looking to make some money? Enter a crowded, low-margin, niche marketplace where failure is the norm and startup costs are high that you really don't know anything about and try to make a go of it!
Staffing? Hire a bunch of old people off the street who have been out of the industry for years, and make sure the staff is massive. Pay them for years without earning any income.
Launching your first product? Do a half ass prototype reveal at a trade show that is guaranteed to underwhelm!
Promotion? Get online and talk shit about your competition, make promises you continually fail to live up to over 2 years, alienate and insult your intended market, and then hop on to a podcast to talk more shit about the competition!
This is business 101? Where do you teach, may I ask? You know, in case anybody I know is looking for a business school.

Octomanufacturing is the special sauce you haven't accounted for Levi... it's gonna smoke everyone!

It will magically expand the market to absorb a dozen new product releases... it will create product on-demand with no learning curve or forecasts... It will deliver product innovations beyond what any industry experts have been able to flush out in their 50+ years of experience.

It's just so god damn powerful its majesty couldn't be contained with a simple podcast. The 5 days of deeproot will unleash Octomanufacturing on the world and it will never be the same again.

#6596 4 years ago
Quoted from BC_Gambit:

You don't know any of the back story .... and you don't know why people are a bit prickly about this issue.
I wonder if those two things are connected?

logical.giflogical.gif

#6623 4 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

Ok so completely different entity.

or maybe not so different... Just different legal entities... not necessary independent or disassociated entities.

And that's the crux of the matter.. from the outside we will never really know 100% how the operation is funded. We can however use facts and common sense to rule out some things, and theorize others that are likely or not.

One thing is for sure.. just having different legal entities doesn't mean much.. especially when they are part of the same umbrella and ownership. The man has made a career of insurance and securities... it is not far fetched to believe those same skill sets and know-how are going to be leveraged when creating an entity from nothing and spending millions of dollars to do so.

It also fits the scheme of why RM would be so boisterous and acting like prophet. You don't create FOMO by telling everyone 'we will start small and someday hope to be relevant...'

ETA: the only reason we even discuss this topic is because the guy makes claims that defy common understandings and practicalities. When the claims can't possibly make sense numerically.. that reflects on the claims and how people should receive them.

But I guess some people just think getting a game is all this is about...

#6625 4 years ago
Quoted from Fytr:

due to his tendency toward blathering on about basically nothing, groundless conjecture positioned as fact, and horrible mean-spirited personal attacks

That's probably the most succinct description I've heard of his problems yet. Kudos. Add in contradictory and Dunning-Kruger and it should be a pinned FAQ

Quoted from Fytr:

A lot of their innovation is obviously in the design and manufacturing area, which I'm really into so will be interested to see what they've come up with.

"Octo Manufacturing" -- I still put this whole category in "SOME ME THE MONEY". His boisterous claims mean nothing. Maybe "innovation" means being bold enough to do things the other companies won't. Often.. that's for a reason.

Stern is no saint nor perfect company... but what they are is an evolution of decades of experience and knowledge. You don't jump into an industry like this stone cold and claim superiority before you've even taken your first step... because you don't even know what you don't know. Even if you are Elon Musk with almost unlimited money and resources... you can see what it means to try to 'start fresh'. Look at all the learning and evolutions they had to go through to get things we take just take for granted from experienced manufacturers. And even now.. they launch a vehicle that won't even meet basic requirements and safety standards to be sold.

DP needs a lot more than words in this category to earn credibility. They've already shown the common mistakes of most upstarts... so I don't give them any free credits at this point towards them reinventing the process

#6632 4 years ago
Quoted from Fytr:

Well sometimes it takes a fresh upstart not burdened by knowing what doesn't work / is impossible to disrupt the status quo. I'm not giving DR any credit yet, other than it seems like they are genuinely concerned with finding better ways to build better quality games, and than can only be a good thing.

Yeah, but like all good things.. it must be in moderation. I mean, by their own account, look at what it's gotten them so far? 2 years behind schedule? These guys aren't working for free...

And do you want to be the guinea pig paying for the unknown performance of those new ideas? People love risk takers... as long as their own personal risk is low

There is always change and improvement in your products... they aren't (should not be) holding themselves to a single platform they have to future proof forever.. so you gotta stop at some point and say "that is it" and commit to changing "the next one" if its prudent.

At this kind of pace so far... they better be delivering 'earth shattering' things in their games.. not just new hinges, etc. As much as people hated the pegs on Stern Pros... they didn't stop you from buying a game you really wanted.. nor did they make you buy a game when Stern swapped them out. Those kinds of things can only move the needle so far.. they still pale in comparison to the main reason people buy a game.

#6750 4 years ago
Quoted from cjchand:

I spent alot of time playing RAZA and I can tell you that the ramp absolutely was intended to dump out in the middle of the playfield if you didn't make it up to the end of the ramp. It was cut out there specifically to let that happen, ala TOTAN. There's even a set of standups that increase your multiplier right under that area which you can nudge the ball into.

difference is the ramp like totan (and others before it) is done that way to prevent stuck balls. It's a necessary evil when you have ball paths like that. It's not really about 'shooting for the valley'.. it's an expected outcome, but not a 'targeted outcome'.. aka the player isn't TRYING to do that.

I fully support the idea that a shot (can or should) be difficult. But there is a difference between a 'difficult shot that players fail to make' and a 'flawed shot that fails/rejects unexpectedly'.

If the player does everything right and as expected... yet the shot still fails way more than expected.. it should be questioned. Is the shot intended to be 'random' or is it intended to be a makable shot? If it's supposed to be skill and its outcome is dominated not by skill.. then its broke.

The octoberfest beer barrel shot comes to mind. It's just a bad design.

If the ramp is a skill based shot and can't make it consistently when they've done everything right.. it's a bad design. Normally we'd talk about location conditions too.. but not so much anymore.

Requiring shots be made on the fly, etc is fine. But this one just looks like the 'window' where everything must be just right is just too small.

#6751 4 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

The end of that article NAILED it. "DR doesn't owe anyone anything so we'll have to wait and see what happens."

They owe people games that they promised for their JPOP settlements.

-2
#6784 4 years ago
Quoted from pinlink:

THE FLIPPER POWER WAS TURNED DOWN. Not sure how many times it needs to be repeated.

Yeah, but physics wasn't... the inherent problems here don't go away with excuses.

1 week later
#6876 4 years ago
Quoted from vicjw66:

If I was starting a pinball company, my first move would be to do everything I could to hire George Gomez to run it. Then Lyman Sheats as lead coder. As far as designing games fast, that really isn’t the bottleneck. I don’t need a fast designer, I need an innovative designer.

so as the gravestones of so many dead pinball companies reads... "if I just made a better game, everything else would have been just fine..."

If you want to succeed, you should make sure you actually have product to sell.. not just a dream factory.

1 week later
#6926 4 years ago
Quoted from ralphcousman:

I doubt that haunted house party had a license for rick and morty at the start of development

Scott has confirmed that he knew it was going to be R&M when he started the design.

Pins were designed the way you described in the past... and some old school guys still do it that way.. but theme is such a big part of the game now it's normally part of the early concept.

1 week later
#6960 4 years ago
Quoted from hank527:

Yes, from my understanding the creditors of Zidware own it. Maybe Cointaker has the largest share. I do not know. Though I do not think Deeproot owns the IP. I do not see how they can own it.

They have the rights to use it based on the deal zidware made with deeproot ages ago.

Zidware only just recently filed for chapter 7 (nov 21)... it would be a tall order for them to go all the way back to the deeproot deal and unravel it.

Cointaker is not the largest debior according to the chapter7 filing... it's American Pinball. Their filing lists IP assets, but the first and only secured debtor is... wait for it... Deeproot.

Zidware will liquidate... and deeproot will collect their IP pieces while everyone else fights for the scraps left as they sell off JPOP's garage contents.

Look at the filing and see who is paying for Zidware's chapter 7... wait for it... it's deeproot (paying the attorney).

Full chapter 7 filing
zidware chp7.pdfzidware chp7.pdf

Added over 4 years ago:

Eta: accidentally swapped debtor and creditor in this post.

The list of creditors is sobering.

And interesting that the effort to save magic girl (i guess) with will brandes is listed as “unknown” amount

#6978 4 years ago
Quoted from hank527:

I do not think it sums up correctly. Deeproot was late to the game. Other creditors were owed money way before Deeproot. I really di not believe Deeproot owns the rights to those games. We all have agreements signed by Jpoop before deeproot came into being.

Being first has nothing to do with it. Do some reading on secured vs non-secured. Not everyone is equal in claims against a company. You are passing judgment without even understanding anything about the subject.... just trying to rule with a customer's view

#6981 4 years ago
Quoted from Concretehardt:

As are you, there is more to this story that will eventually come out and that is all I can say at this time.

There is a difference between not having all the info... and just flat out wrong.

I guess you are referring to the parties and lawsuits against zidware and those people or those owed challenging the statements of assets and liabilities? Either way... it doesnt work by simply “who was in line first” as was claimed by the other poster. Deeproot setup their licensing arrangement knowing they were working with what would be a dead company so its pretty lopsided. I would assume the challenges would be that the company was already insolvent and work to unwind the deal... or that it was some fraudulent transfer.

If people want to fight it... i’ll be happy to follow along and hopefully derail this whole jpop redemption mission by deeproot.

I guess the people who didnt take deeproot’s settlement are still hungry...

17
#6994 4 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

One has to wonder. Doesn't seem like they could turn a profit for many years the way they are running now.

Octo-accounting will save it

1 week later
#7036 4 years ago
Quoted from JodyG:

Also of note, the last interview K had with Robert from Deeproot (Episode 420) was deleted some time ago. Wonder why?

Add it to the list... that would be a fun website.. all the episodes he's deleted and tries to bury.

#7081 4 years ago
Quoted from Capn12:

I’ll never understand Pinside’s fascination/obsession with other people’s money.
Who cares where DR is funded from? Unless you’re a direct investor, it doesn’t matter.

Because when someone comes rollin in promising to turn water into wine... and give everyone a free golden goose.. you start asking questions about how all that is supposed to work.

Unless you just want to be the type of consumer that like to make big purchases on just blind faith...

15
#7108 4 years ago
Quoted from razorsedge:

Is anyone paying deposits? ... no? .... well if they were then maybe where the money is coming from would be somehow relevant to be raising every 5 minutes in this pinside topic. Give the investment speculation rubbish a rest how about...

If you don't understand a business' function, motivation, or constraints... you are bound to be surprised by their actions.

Pinside loves to act like total whores that don't care about anything as long as they get their toy/mod/whatever... and ironically go ape when things go off the rails and not how they think it should have been. What an interesting reality some people chose to live in...

#7141 4 years ago
Quoted from o-din:

Sure, the address matches the address on their website for their other funds. And the article from biz journal in 2016 on the last page I quoted stated they were out of San Antonio and so far had not attracted any investors for their pinball funds or any others except a new insurance based fund.
Click on contact and there is no mention of Utah.
https://www.deeprootfunds.com

Utah is where the digital art group is. You'll probably have to dig through another half dozen corporate entities if you want to find their setup

#7217 4 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

No "real info", just some very good will. I don't see a "no share" statement so this is the offer.
---------------------
Hi!
We are sending this message to you as a Zidware Claimant who chose to extend his/her Goodwill Terms agreement to June 2020. In gratitude, we would like to offer you to be our guest (including flights, accommodations, and deeproot VIP room access) at the Texas Pinball Festival in Frisco Texas from March 27-29.
---------------------

Watch that no one tries to steal a kidney...

1 week later
#7346 4 years ago
Quoted from fumbleflippers:

As far as huge promises/trash talking the competition, Robert isn't alone. Jersey Jack and the Dutch Pinball guys both did it as well. They also later ate crow just the same.

Jack hasn't trashed others... (that I can remember). Jack instead likes to elevate his stuff above others. He likes to say they did it better... right or wrong. It's different than simply calling others trash.

The Dutch Pinball example was just one guy whose's attempt at bolstering went way overboard and pretty much fell flat. It wasn't representative of the way Dutch operated as a whole.

1 week later
#7353 4 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

Stern releases as many titles as are needed to keep their factory humming. If their release schedule has increased that tells us each title is selling less.

Yes and no... because of lead times you pretty much commit to things and either you keep piling stuff up (sitting on inventory) or you use it. They have to forecast their production schedule well ahead of their actual sales performance. For instance Stranger Things selling now in January... the parts funnel to feed the factory for Jan and Feb was put in motion months ago. You can change course, but you'd still have those parts for the stuff you didn't build. So you can only change so much or so frequently before your pile of 'prior plan' parts becomes overwhelming.

The bigger indicator is re-runs. They can hedge their bets and make initial runs smaller... and then turn to re-runs to fill demand if it's there.. instead of going risky with bigger initial runs and hoping it sells.

Stern can manage soft sales by managing/planning the production schedule with titles that are easier to pull forward in the schedule.

Stern has optimized their factory for pivoting between titles... but the supply chain and ramp up for production is still there. That means stockpiling inventory and managing the lead times.

If Stern had a steady stable of 'hit games' they could produce, you could say "well stop/slow development of new titles not yet in production... aim for 3 releases instead of 4...". But that kind of decision is more a long range outlook change.. not something you can do on a quarterly basis. And at least in recent times, Stern seems content to push the size of their catalog to grow the addressable market.

2 weeks later
-1
#7448 4 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

Heighway sadly was just a poorly run company. As for P3 thats a complete left field Almost pinball concept to most. More like a 1/4 pinball game which makes no sense to me. In a different time with todays PC tech I think a Pinball2000 concept would actually do well if properly implemented with Several easy to swap game titles. This hobby for many boils down to real-estate and cost to refresh your collection. A happy medium option could actually work these days.

It doesnt work financially...it’s already been spelled out numerous times.

How much cheaper can you really sell the kit... when the kit really represents 99% of the development and 75% of the costs? Why would customers want to buy a kit for say.. 15% less than a full game? You just can’t get the price low enough to make it attractive verse all the tradeoffs you have.

P3 tries to address this by making the kit “smaller” in that its just the upper portion and software... trying to drive their bom per unit down. But it exaggerated the tradeoff... in that games are even more similar.. etc.

#7453 4 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

While I understand your points I don't fully agree on your math? A simple populated playfield would be no where Near half or less the cost of a complete game. Boards, computers, audio systems, packaging, cabinets, factory assets, the list goes on. Agree it would have to be done right but I for one would love to see this attempted correctly. Similar to the 1k Pin2000 playfields even if they were 2500 it would beat the current escalation of 10k new games for me. Would be fun to see. Playfield, translite, and USB stick UPS I'm in.

Everyone has moved to modular boards. Boards are on the PF now... only the CPU is separate.
Really all you are re-using is the cabinet, metal work, LCD, speakers, CPU... and the cabinet is the most expensive piece out of all of that. Even if I left out coindoor, buttons, etc.. you're still in the far far minority of the cost of a game's run. The point isn't what the physical BOM of the PF is alone - but all the money needed to develop the game as well. They can't half that part of their costs simply because they are not shipping physical cabinets, etc. So the net remains the same... reduced costs, but not so much that you can afford to sell games at prices that make the 'cartridge' model work.

#7459 4 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

With that said, with the Home user taking a majority roll in these sales (way more than the past for sure) what they Want (a big line of expensive games) and what they can have/afford may influence the need to revisit this concept in my opinion

Which means you're looking at this purely as a 'way to reduce prices'.. and what it doesn't do is really reduce what it takes to develop a game... only influences the material BOM. That's why it's not going to the move the needle enough to reach that utopia you want.

Customers are going to see '1/3rd the game' and hence want to pay '1/3rd the price' - and you'll never get there.

#7511 4 years ago
Quoted from wrb1977:

Agreed. What they are doing makes perfect sense and is not uncommon with new businesses

Except missing from your analysis was the whole concept of time... and what that means to a company that isn’t actually generating any revenue.

Lets not forget it will have been 2.5 years to get their first product revealed... all while supporting a staff larger than most other upstarts...

How many games have spooky launched in that time?
How about American pinball?

I love how people call missing your own deadlines by nearly 50% “making perfect sense”...

11
#7519 4 years ago
Quoted from wrb1977:

You have a very good point regarding time, but in this particular case time is not as big of a factor as is with a typical startup. What’s so exciting is I believe they are building everything from the ground up and have the time and financial resources to do it “right” and really change the industry in a positive way

Man... you drank the koolaid, bought the T-Shirt AND mug...

The only factor in your point above is having a bigger reserve tank before you run empty. Simply put.. more runway. That doesn't negate that the money is spent. And unlike other industries... there is no Golden Parachute buyout at the end. Deeproot pinball isn't going to get bought up by a bigger fish. So all monies spent need to be recovered from one place... sales. Sure you can have a sugar daddy giving you free money... but the ROI has to come from sales. So the longer you are burning money.. it simply makes the hole deeper.

Quoted from wrb1977:

Deeproot pinball is only one future source of revenue for the deeproot family of companies. This group currently consists of four separate companies: deeproot Studios, deeproot Tech, deeproot Capital, and deeproot Funds. Notice the last two. I do not have any first hand information about these companies but am speculating that they are more than profitable enough to support the pinball division for whatever time is needed until they become a profitable entity within the deeproot family.

Again... where do you recover the money spent? The point isn't if someone can afford to keep throwing money away.. the point is it's all a business. They are expecting to make money. The longer you run in the red.. the harder and harder that becomes.

You kind of have it backwards a bit.. Deeproot pinball is a child of the parent legal entities.. they existed prior. And deeproot studios is just a fancy way of trying to market the team he pulled together for other projects. Unless they are making sales... it really doesn't matter in this conversation if it's 1 company, or 6. They are digging a huge hole that eventually needs to be filled back in with margin from sales.

No 'perfect sense' strategy tries to put the company so far in the hole to start. And no, having a sugar daddy asset fund to feed you operating dollars isn't really 'strategy' either. It's simply having a parachute to bail out the capital needs. It's a safety net, not a strategy.

#7524 4 years ago
Quoted from wrb1977:

All very valid points...I appreciate your view and your response. No offense taken on your opening comment as I actually did find it funny...I haven’t drank any koolaid (hope to have a t-shirt someday ), but I do have kind of a “blind faith” when it comes to deeproot, maybe it’s just wishful thinking? I’ve had a good “gut feeling” about them from the very beginning.

I just look at it from the math point and what their leadership tells us. And i’m not going to fawn over made up terms to make it sound like they’ve created a better mousetrap. If deeproot truly acts as a disruptor and makes it work - fan-fucking-tastic. But I’m a “convince me...” type... and literally nothing the man has said has made me more confident then I was before he opened his mouth. That’s why I feel the way I do about their future. I hope they do come up with some great stuff... I just don’t don’t see how they make it work.

Or maybe he does have some new wild market he plans to attack... with lots of volume and new buyers. But frankly the closer we get to his reveal... the more he goes “traditional market”... not the bold future he promised.

Those that boast about themselves rub me horribly wrong, and that’s all RM would do while pushing impossible statements. Not even bold pushes... just complete horseshit that stunk the moment it left his lips.

I just want to see games worth taking note of next month. Lets see what they put on the floor.

#7525 4 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

So far as I have seen, no one has had to buy anything yet. Not from this side of the fence anyway.
So what do you have to lose? DR is taking the risk.

Because they inserted themselves into this market — they are part of it. From messing with the talent pool, to trying to be a player in the IP pool, to playing with hobbyists and their past deals with JPOP. They are an entity in the mix.

The whole “they haven’t taken anyone’s money” line is just a tired attempt to quash any critical thought about a company. Right or wrong... they’ve made waves in the pool.

#7533 4 years ago
Quoted from razorsedge:

looks like either people with a history of being fu@#€d by preorder companies (which has nothing to do with DR, in fact they helped, so why hate?)

Because if you think that - you're either naive, or obtuse.

Why is deeproot paying for the lawyers for zidware's bankruptcy? Who do you think is trying to benefit from zidware's bankruptcy?

Quoted from razorsedge:

Just a bunch of the same regulars, grinding their axes and pitchforks. Grumpy people bitching about their random, barely relevant, stuff in the new pinball threads. Pinside... meh.

tenor (5).giftenor (5).gif

#7535 4 years ago
Quoted from razorsedge:

Is there a pineapple stuck up your bum or something? Lol
Cheer up mate!

I can only assume this is how you go through life...
tenor (6).giftenor (6).gif

Instead of addressing the concern, you just ignore it and deflect. No wonder you see no problem anywhere...

#7537 4 years ago
Quoted from razorsedge:

Is it in there spikey end first?
Take two asprin and a laxitive maybe, might feel better in the morning ?

You got this...

keep-calm-cause-my-world-is-full-of-rainbows-unicorns-and-glitter (resized).pngkeep-calm-cause-my-world-is-full-of-rainbows-unicorns-and-glitter (resized).png
#7540 4 years ago

Haggis Playfields are unproven... yet you've already put them on a pedestal. No wonder it's all rainbows for you..

Haggis is basically taking the hardtop route.. and hasn't excercised any of the realities of the game's real world practicalities.. and they aren't coming from a position of experience either. Let the chaos of the real world (and an actual completed product) vet something before you declare it a winner.

#7553 4 years ago
Quoted from razorsedge:

What is there to be cautious about right now? ... have you been asked to pay for something??
Lol
Stuck in pre-paid model land I guess.

It's pretty sad you put money exchanging hands as more significant than Your credibility or your support.

#7581 4 years ago
Quoted from vdojaq:

It appears you would be critical of a company that claims they could build a better taco.

Only if they came to my door... promised the taco is better because of their new octo-flour recipes... that they will redefine the taco shelf in my supermarket.. and then all my neighbors keep talking about this new Taco being the king when no such taco has even hit the shelf yet.

1 week later
#7659 4 years ago
Quoted from mbeardsley:

Actually, it wouldn't make much sense for Deeproot to reveal "a bunch of playable games", even if they could.
Suppose, as RM has stated, they were to reveal like 4 good complete titles with interesting layouts and innovative features.
How many of us are willing/ready to buy 4 new machines at once (or even 2)? Not many I would bet.
This means we might buy whichever of those titles personally appeals to us the most...likely passing on the other 3. Deeproot really will not have increased sales much, as their own titles will just cannibalize the sales of each other.
There is a reason Stern reveals/releases only one title at a time...and it's not because they couldn't do multiples.

Except if you listen to RM... that's exactly what he told us he would do. Remember, he was preaching that he would address more than just the traditional pinball market.

This is just one of many boisterous claims from deeproot that probably won't come to pass..

#7661 4 years ago
Quoted from mbeardsley:

Yes, that was my point. He said he was going to do this...but even if it were possible (which I doubt), it doesn't make sense to do it.
Unless, of course, he has some magical way of increasing the overall pinball market (like by producing a quality machine that can be sold at a mass-market price at Walmart and Best Buy).

You are still thinking 'single track'

You're thinking 'How do I sell 4 pinball games... to a limited market at the same time'

Instead think
'How do I sell surfboards to market 1'
'How do I sell cheaper surfboards to market 2'
'How do I sell a digital surfing experience to market 3'
'How do I sell t-shirts with my surfing brand to market 4'

That was more in the line of thinking of the 'bold' thinking being pushed before. It wasn't about 'how to sell 4 stern pro games'.. It was expanding the total addressable market by coming up with different FORMS of the product.

Imagine RAZA is a full premium pinball...
and then maybe there is a RAZA 'zizzle' level game for intro markets...
and then maybe there is a RAZA digital game for PCs and mobile...

In this case you aren't cannibalizing yourself.

The assumption has been when RM boasted about having so many games available at launch that 'games' was intentionally vague. People here all assume 'game' means a full fledged stern pro/premium game. Maybe 'game' isn't.. maybe 'game' is more 'product'... and the multiple PRODUCTS he was intending were over a range of offers.

They still want a diverse lineup tho... same reason Stern wants distributors carrying inventory. If it's March 3, 2020... and a customer wants to buy a pinball game, they want to give them a set of choices they can buy from.. not just a single offer. It's not good for retail to say "we are only making Stranger Things right now... if you don't like that game, sorry, come back in 6 months'

It's all water under the bridge right now... unless he delivers the bombshell of the industry... we're gonna see a traditional pinball company.

#7663 4 years ago
Quoted from mbeardsley:

I don't think that's what people were envisioning though when he said he was going to revolutionize the pinball industry.

Well that's why he was intentionally vague... to keep the speculation and interest going.

-2
#7725 4 years ago
Quoted from Mercifull:

"built and textured for deeproot studios" by digital artist Jeremy Wood. Every theme park needs a soda machine of course... but why such high detail for this relatively banal object? Hmmmm
[quoted image]

Probably just some exercise. But did you just find that posted randomly? It's really distorted... the base doesn't match the perspective of the fountain... the dispenser tabs are out of perspective..

17
#7824 4 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

I appreciate Robert's more humble tone. When I have shared my doubts, it was because what he was saying or doing made no sense. Seems like the rubber has met the road and we can at least see the payoff now and hopefully with less hubris.

Meh... he's getting to the point where he can't just keep saying it, he has to prove it. And he's softening up because the deadline calls him to the mat.

But you can tell the core traits are still there.

Don't fret about the Launch... this is just the start! This is only a taste of what we are doing, there is plenty more to come (again.. more promises instead of more deliverables)

"We will be excited to show a portion of what we’ve been working on, on launch day"

"So even though we are only showing a portion..."

He's just trying to set the table so he can keep promising MORE futures and try to steer the conversation away from what was expected now.

And then what is all the garbage about 'pinball for the next century'?

This is a company that is years late, clearly is struggling with knowing what to do vs not do... and we get fed lines like "We never wanted to redefine pinball itself. Just redefine the expectations from pinball for the next century"

I mean... we're talking about an industry that is not even a century old itself (I'm not talking pre-war pin bagetelle stuff... EM and onward) and a company that can't get its first product out the door is talking about redefining the game for the next CENTURY.

That's the kind of engrained bullshit pumping spiel that has defined RM in this hobby to date.. and clearly hasn't learned his lesson or finished his humble pie.

1 week later
#8020 4 years ago
Quoted from wesman:

What a bummer to wake up to...
I kind of wonder why they just wouldn't push forward with a video push event. It would still garber massive attention, especially with all conventions and announcements shut down.

Their problem seems to be less about having an audience and more about having something to ship (or buyers..)

1 week later
#8037 3 years ago

First 4 day gap in how long in this thread?

Do they release any bits this week, what do you think?

#8046 3 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

This is a tough dealing of the cards.
A year ago a decision was made for an additional year of cash burn, but I doubt there's room for another year.

Well... on the bright side... if they were actually DONE... you could say it would be easy to go into a reduced cost model... get rid of everyone... save money.. and then try to reemerge when the time is right and spin back up. They don't have to be burning all this money when nothing is happening and waiting out a good sales time.

But if they aren't really done... and still need 6months of work to get to selling in volume.. Maybe you see a sell-off.

#8072 3 years ago
Quoted from transprtr4u:

Deeproot like all other companies are/will be laying off people... trying times
No skin in this game still didn't see this company ask for one penny upfront from the public .
If they produce games I would love to see what comes out of their doors?

Well... since deeproot wasnt selling anything... and already had plans to keep people working... the shutdown doesnt hurt them nearly as bad as companies expecting to live off actual sales every month

#8083 3 years ago
Quoted from BMore-Pinball:

Or it hurts them more as they have no positive cash reserves from sales
at some point you have to sell stuff to stay in business, otherwise you are just running a charity for your employees

giphy (13).gifgiphy (13).gif

What you describe is exactly what he's been running... no sales revenue

#8084 3 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

I think deeproot would be excellently suited for and may even up to the challenge of building ventilators.

Because of octo-manufacturing?
or their non-existent manufacturing history?

I'm wondering why you think they are any better suited than a guy with a paper, pencil, and an empty building.

#8086 3 years ago
Quoted from Tranquilize:

But why is the assumption that it's the opposite any better? How do you know they can't manufacture anything? Does anyone have concrete evidence as to where they are at financially and with manufacturing?

Uhh...it's on the person suggesting they are 'excellently suited' (that's the claim) to do it to support that claim... not for me to disprove something that doesn't yet exist.

I can't show how nothing is less suited to do something than nothing...

#8090 3 years ago
Quoted from Richthofen:

Coronavirus unfortunately is the perfect cover for a borderline fraudulent business like Roberts. At least now when all those retiree investors get told their money is gone he can say “who could have known a pandemic was gonna happen” despite even with no pandemic they were lighting money on fire

wait wait... let me beat the crowd in replying to you...

"since noone here invested any money in them, it‘s none of our business"

lol...

#8157 3 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

I’m confused by what your claiming? It was an April 1 prank not DR.

they tried to bury the heighway tipsters too...

#8166 3 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

I don't know if that was a joke or not, if you follow their employees on linked in you can see several points in time where more than 1 person indicated their job ended.

The truth is out there....

#8178 3 years ago
Quoted from pinlink:

Why are we deleting what could be very useful information for potential customers and those that are already invested in DR? Because it could have been an April fools joke?

People sending Cease and Desist notices has that kind of impact...

#8184 3 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

Even if true, I highly doubt Any cease and Desist notice could stop someone from saying they lost their job.

The poster wasn't talking about losing their job (they said they quit) - they were talking about the activities at deeproot studios and their actions involving layoffs after they left.

I can imagine a NDA being part of a separation agreement... especially if there is any severance involved. But this sounds like multiple people inbetween.

I'm not the one claiming the right to make someone C&D.. so no idea what their basis is

#8186 3 years ago
Quoted from LTG:

And we don't know everything. Consolidating their operations into one state isn't unheard of in any industry. Especially if they are ramping up for production.
Time will tell.
LTG : )

Well I have a few issues with that...

1) Just look at their boast on linkedin from middle of the year - talking about expanding and room for 150 ppl
Screen Shot 2020-04-02 at 4.28.11 PM.pngScreen Shot 2020-04-02 at 4.28.11 PM.png
2) When you're a very hands-on, collaborative type of work... that relies almost exclusively on your talent.. relocating 1,200 miles away isn't just a 'consolidation'. You'd expect to lose most of your talent unless you pay to relocate them.
3) Everyone (minus 1) on linkedin who associates themselves with deeproot studios still lists their location at UT... So if there was a relocation... it's not likely yet

In the animation field it is far more common to have remote clusters of workers... because they tend to host where the talent or economic conditions support it. Lots of small groups contributing together on a central project.. rather than one big consolidated group.

#8191 3 years ago
Quoted from DakotaMike:

Even if the poster was under an NDA, that wouldn't apply to Pinside. So hopefully the post wasn't deleted by a moderator. Because Pinside is in no way obligated to abide by an NDA that they're not a party to. That would be a crazy overreach.

You've not been here long enough to know Pinside will cater to Manufacturer's requests around non-public material...

So if deeproot were to reach out to pinside and say "hey, that information is leaked, not public, whatever..." don't count out them removing it.

#8192 3 years ago
Quoted from Brijam:

It’s really hard to operate an agency (what I gather the Utah location primarily was) and simultaneously develop in-house IP (pinball and video games). I know, I have done it.

Just look at who works there and decide what you think the location was for.

Remember, deeproot studios isn't supposed to be just about the pinball games... they were trying to double-dip and make a digital media team that would sell and contract themselves for all kinds of projects. It was meant to be yet another leg in the deeproot portfolio of businesses...

1 week later
15
#8281 3 years ago

"RAZA was never meant to be launch title" -- Then why did they make it first? His bailout of JPOP customers wasn't a promise to deliver RAZA... they simply promised 'deeproot' titles.

From his original FAQ - "The Goodwill Terms refer to Claimant's choice of a deeproot Tech machine generically. deeproot Tech plans to have multiple machines available for selection by the Delivery Date"

Upset if he has to make a lot of them? Why would the business guru make a title he never plans on make enough on to make good money on it? This sure sounds like rewriting history to me. "Oh RAZA isn't going to sell well? Thats fine.. I never wanted it to sell alot of them anyways..." OHHKAYY.. *rolleyes*

Doesn't want to 'clog production' with RAZA... yet in the same hour says he could make 9 titles a year... but doesn't have any other titles ready to go either. So what's it competing with?

Supply chain issues with China doesn't explain why the game isn't done - Didn't he chastise others in the past for shipping incomplete games?

A theme even bigger than Harry Potter... Yes, we have the best themes... the best! Everyone knows it... we have bigly themes...

'the person that posted here..' - I guess it wasn't an april fools joke huh? Funny how he needs lawyers involved instead of just saying "not true.." - why is it so complex to address?

"* Team ready to turn on production at a moments notice." -- lol... like we've never heard that before. It's not STARTING that is hard... it's doing it well. Everyone remember when Heighway 'started' production?

Look, not being able to ship games right now due to china... I get. But not having your game done? There is no one to blame but themselves. Just remember... he entered contracts to have MULTIPLE games *DONE* and ready to ship no later than June 2019.

#8311 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

The original plan for march was different (launching with multiple titles), but since noone knows how the market will behave after Corona, Deeproot will only launch with an intentional small (limited?) run of RAZA, wich will come in 2 flavors with 2 art packages each.

#8368 3 years ago

Corona virus still does not explain why the first game they reveal and finish... is not the game they wanted to be launch title.

How does that happen?

#8370 3 years ago
Quoted from noitbe1:

Maybe they don’t think it will sell that well. The lack of license, the risk... I think if the game is well done, there is no reason to sell only 500 of these.

That doesn't answer the question... if you have all those uncertainties, why make it your launch title? Heck, if they feel what you say, why make it at all?

Remember.. Deeproot was NOT obligated to make RAZA - THEY CHOSE TO. And apparently is the game they chose to invest in so that it's the farthest along (at least as we know..)

So now, why after 3 years do you say 'well it wasn't meant to be the launch title...' and downplay it sales? This has nothing to do with Cornoa... this has to do with what they've been doing and their business strategy for the years leading up to this.

#8381 3 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

I think the first question is: why hire Jpop in the first place? He's a polarizing individual in the community. That's pretty well known - and he already screwed over *another* company before DR. So unless DR has their head in the sand, there's a main reason to hire him: he's a well known designer, has hits from 25 years ago - and is controversial. So if you subscribe to the "Controversy Creates Cash" mindset... he's a perfect fit. Now, you hire JPop so you get the marketing blitz and the community is talking about your company left and right ("there is no such thing as bad publicity").
Ok, JPOP is on board. Now how do you calm some of the teeth gnashing and the risk of litigation (a la Predator). Weigh out whether building 500 RAZA is less expensive than a long, drawn out lawsuit (even if it's ultimately thrown out, its a lot of money and time to waste on something that's not making games). So in this case - maybe that's it. Making 500 games that "don't clog the pipeline" and getting it over with.
OR. The launch game isn't ready, and they rushed these out like MG.

Not sure why all the open ended questions...

RM for some reason thinks JPOP is a gem.. he just needs the right environment to succeed. You might even say he's enamored with him as much as he's fluffed JPOP over the years. He didn't NEED JPOP - he brought JPOP in knowing all the baggage he had. They knew all the problems, knew there was other talent on the street, but still opt'd to bring JPOP on... knowing he has a ton of real hard dollar baggage tied to him. RM thought JPOP was a key asset.

To the point they created a settlement offer for zidware customers (including cash layout offers) to get people to 1) drop any lawsuits against zidware (and thus clean up the air around DR's absorption of the assets) and 2) become the first faithful cheering DR on. Maybe some of this was supposed to make DR look like a White Knight in the hobby and thus garner positive customer sentiment... but I think it was 95% about getting the stink off JPOP so DR could move forward with JPOP and Zidware assets 'free and clear'.

Problem was... not everyone took the offer. The anchors on Zidware still exist to this day... now DR has to goto phase 2 still under contention, and fund Zidware's bankruptcy, and probably some of their ongoing defense of Zidware too. The opportunity to just wipe out zidware and absorb any usable stuff w/o contention is gone.. its no longer just an internal paperswap with some court filings no one would care about...

So why keep doing this? Does RM want to save JPOP THAT BAD? My guess... it's a blend of both. Trying to save JPOP -and- DR has already hitched their horse to the Zidware asset train and doesn't want to let it go (another... point of conflict with their current statements about RAZA and the launch title..)

So we know DR has done many backflips to try to free up Zidware and JPOP... all while they didn't need to... but it all seems to be part of a larger plan.

So now they say 'oh well RAZA really wasn't meant to be the launch title...' -- Then why is it the game furthest along (that we know of) and why did you even make it in the first place when by your own statements you have people that can crank out designs in weeks, and you expect to have 9 titles a year ready.

To downplay RAZA now doesn't make sense with all the investment DR has done to have it (along with the other Zidware stuff) and all their actions to date to bring it along. They could have left Zidware as a carcass and just hired JPOP as an individual. But they saw things in Zidware that at least RM wanted... and bet on that horse.

#8384 3 years ago
Quoted from Concretehardt:

Very good post! The only thing I would add is that I was never offered a settlement (free game) from Deeproot to drop out of the lawsuit, from what I saw only those not in the lawsuit were offered a free game.

My understanding is he tried a settlement with the group prior to the "goodwill" settlement that was offered to the other zidware buyers

#8389 3 years ago
Quoted from aeneas:

Don't you think it's the opposite ? JPop brought RM.
People here always talk as if RM wanted to start a pinball company, went looking around for designers and thought John would be the best designer to start with and then look for other ex-wms folks.
I believe what happened is the other way around. John went looking (again) for investors. He started selling dreams, and got RM involved.

Well, neither side has laid out precisely how it happened.. but based on the tellings RM has shared so far, I still think it was RM initiated. He's talked at length about his admiration of his work, and talking about JPOP deserving another chance in the 'right environment'.

Quoted from aeneas:

So John went looking for investors.
First with wcbrandes, trying to get MG released.

I don't think that was a sell... I think that was a buy... bill trying to swoop in and make it happen.

Quoted from aeneas:

Then he found the family that started American Pinball. Convinced them to go into pinball, that his Houdini design was amazing, ready and playable, ..
The public release wasn't well received, the playfield had issues. AP management suddenly realised what toxic history John brought, something they probably weren't completely aware off, and they quickly got rid of him - paying the price of assembling magic girl machines.

While I believe JPOP got AP into the idea in his seeking partners... I think it's clear AP went beyond the JPOP abort on their own accord. With the Houdini playfield reveal flop - they could have just stopped right there and backed out. Instead, they went out and got Balcer in secret and tried to do it 'right'. I'd wager they felt duped by JPOP, and I bet you could credit him for planting the seed with the family, but they quickly moved past him and pressed forward.

Quoted from aeneas:

Then John just did the same again - looking for investors with a lot of money to sell his dreams.
He found RM. A pinball enthousiast with access to investment money.
John stroke his ego, probably sold him the dream of owning a pinball company even bigger than Stern.
Remember John now was not only the great designer of games that RM knew from WMS but John had also become the designer of MG that sold for 25.000.
I don't think RM initally had the dream of being CEO of a pinball company, certainly not when RM got into the pinball hobby.
He got that idea / dream from John.

And what is any of this retelling based on?

RM isn't stupid enough to be a JPOP puppet. Certainly not after how public all the zidware trainwrecks were up to that point. RM is smart enough to have done his research in all those things, and grill JPOP for the truths behind them.

Right from the start RM acknowledged that JPOP was damaged goods and would just be an 'asset' and not really a leader. That's not how you paint someone who is swooning you or sold you on stuff.

I think RM saw JPOP as having some magic that he could twist into demand for his goods. He was carrying what looked like a pre-baked sales backlog, and was a 'theme' upon himself. His style would sell games.

I don't buy for one second that JPOP swooned RM into starting a pinball company. That gives too much credit to JPOP.. and not enough to RM.

1 week later
#8438 3 years ago
Quoted from Tranquilize:

You have no idea what they were going to reveal, and the problem with the reveal was 100% the virus.

Sure... if you just roll to the new goal line and ignore their previous goals

#8474 3 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

Yeah, I've been following that also snice Frax pointed it out on April 26th. Good job, Frax frax
Also down is Deeproot Tech
https://deeproottech.com/
Deeproot Funds
https://deeprootfunds.com/
And Deeproot Pinball
https://deeprootpinball.com/
The only one still up and running is Deeproot Studios but I don't see much there.
https://deeprootstudios.com/

All of these deeproot websites were/are impacted by their DNS server being offline

deeprootfunds.com
policy-services.net
sweepacct.com
thequeue.com
the575.com
deeproottech.com
deeprootadvisory.com
nationalwealthsolutions.com
deeprootpinball.com
deeprootcapital.com
sensibleestate.com
deeprootadvisors.com
keynotelife.com

But they did have some of their stuff (like deeprootstudios) hosted elsewhere...

3 weeks later
#8513 3 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

The JPOP debt was settled. (community wise) DR announced they'd take responsibility for that debacle and allowed people to get money back or when the time came to get two machines instead. The debt now belongs to DR not JPOP

nope... DR tried to buy off a bunch of zidware's customers to free up the liabilities against zidware, but that didn't mean DR aquired zidware at the time, nor did they settle all of zidware's liabilities. Which is why zidware is still trying to file bankruptcy...

#8519 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

He did for the people that accepted.
He did not for the people who still want to pursue in court.

kinda...

He offered people a deal if they signed up to an agreement to not sue zidware or John (and drop any ongoing litigation). Of course some people have gotten compensation out of that DR offer.. some are still waiting for their DR compensation.

But for the context of the conversation it's important to understand that deal was made "independent" of zidware so it speak.. it was a 3rd party offering a deal if you agreed to walk away from zidware's liabilities. Complicating the issue is of course John himself was not totally independent of DR.

Alas that deal was for game buyers... and didn't represent the many other kinds of bad debts zidware had outstanding too.

As pointed out in the bankruptcy paperwork.. we can see the list of people zidware still owed money to was.. long and distinguished.

It's a crazy saga that still has no end in sight.. but I do wonder if DR's taste for it has waned... or if John got RM on the hook to see it till the end. That would be a fun coup by John.

1 month later
20
#8752 3 years ago

So it's been over three and half years...

Even Gene Cunningham managed to build a pinball machine in less amount of time...

#8768 3 years ago
Quoted from pinball_keefer:

To be fair, Gene didn't develop or engineer anything. No concepts, ideas, programming, art, playfield layout, geometry, drawing detailings...

to which we can counter any number of promises from years ago from DP about how far along they were...

The joke was at least the worst business man in pinball got the job done... what about the most boisterous person in pinball?

1 week later
#8787 3 years ago
Quoted from pinballj:

I really hope they pull through, but if they don't, I hope that David Thiel gets back on a new game in the near future from some other company!

maybe paperflock will do a book on all the great ideas and games that Deeproot was gonna make...

3 weeks later
#8884 3 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

No it isn't - most of those loans were "forgivable" if the company is under major strain. There aren't even requirements to prove you still have employees or that all the money was paid to employee compensation

?

Forgiveness is based on using the loan for the approved expenses. The largest portion being the payroll expenses.. and employee counts and retention are part of the calculations. It's largely self-reporting... but "willing to commit fraud" is not the same thing as "there aren't requirements to prove..." that you are claiming legal exceptions.

#8895 3 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

self-reporting. By definition you do not need proof

No thats not what self reporting means

A lot of the companies we work with have had to lay people off and they were still able to get their loan forgiven, even though the employees no longer work there. When they initially submitted, they had employees. 8 weeks later or whatever.. no longer the case.

Sure - there are reasons its allowed - still doesn’t mean what you said in last post. For instance businesses are not punished if employees refused to return. There is a lot that goes into the determination and calculations. Certainly NOT “There aren't even requirements to prove you still have employees or that all the money was paid to employee compensation” as you stated.

#8912 3 years ago
Quoted from Makakka:

So far the only major trust blow was no reveal in March 19.

tenor (7).giftenor (7).gif

As proven by the 'modified' agreements... the payouts they had to make...

Heck, How many hands does it take to count the number of versions of '5 days of deeproot'?

#9020 3 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

Isn't that the gamble virtually EVERY product manufactured faces in business?? Haven't seen Apple release 5 phone units to market to see what we think? lol Sometimes you win, sometimes not but its the gamble of business.

No... you build to a forecast. Apple builds so many up front because they know they need that many for their distribution channels and forecasted sales.

Anyone pushing a forecast that Deeproot is going to sell 'thousands' of games at launch and needs to prime the channel with that many pre-built pieces is high on something.

#9036 3 years ago
Quoted from Tranquilize:

They had a reveal planned with airline tickets, location bookings etc, but a worldwide pandemic hit. It was so bad that the entire world (excluding your neighborhood?) shut down. Corpses were stored in meat trucks, things were so bad. But the most shocking thing about this worldwide pandemic was that Deeproot had the audacity to use the event to stall their reveal. What jerks!

You really think they were ready for the tpf date with everything they had promised?

And every other deadline before that?

#9047 3 years ago
Quoted from ralphcousman:

Its 2020, pandemic or not snappin a few photos, having a facebook page updated or a website is second nature. Virtual reveals have been happening all pandemic. Events have gone online. So whats the hold up of “leaking” some details???? It seems odd.

Because they probably had to actually setup their manufacturing and get it primed during this disrupted period... because it wasn't ready (even tho they would have lead you to believe otherwise).

I think it's obvious they weren't ready to ship games on demand at TPF 2020... just reveal. And still needing to do everything beyond a reveal... during a pandemic... and strained supply chains.. I'm sure has been crippling.

But if they would have been ready BEFORE the pandemic like they were leading people to believe... that wouldn't have been an issue.

So it's either
1) They were ready to go and just turned everything off.. and have been sitting idle..
2) They were still setting up and had to stop... which means there was still lots of work to do.. which has been hard and slow during this period
3) They had everything running and just stopped. So restarting now would just be about picking up where you left off.

Place your bets... I still say it was #2 - They had sample game builds... but still no games going in boxes.

#9078 3 years ago
Quoted from KerryImming:

Given the amount of money Zidware collected I don't think anyone would have predicted the catastrophic fail that occurred. Delays yes, but complete failure?

The guy promised an impossible objective from the start... many people did predict it was a non-starter. The faithful just didn't want to face it. The idea of building just 16 games from the start was raised. And even as it continued to unravel people didn't want to hear it... even trying to run off associates telling their stories of being burned by JPOP. The desire to want success was so strong it blinded so many from their own regular judgement.

Which sounds so familiar here...

#9146 3 years ago
Quoted from Waxx:

I hope you are just as hard on JJP and CGC. JJP started in 2011 and they had a very rough first 6 years. MMR was announced in 2013 but it has been a slow drip from them and the machines are already fully designed.
JJP) 5 games in 9 years
CGC) 3 in 7 years

Seriously? This kind of deflection "oh don't look at what I did, look at what others did?". Fking lame... neither CGC nor JJP boasted the kinds of crazy stuff deeproot did.. and continued to miss.

#9149 3 years ago

*vulgar content removed by moderator*

#9151 3 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

People who don't really like pinball dove into pinball and desperately want a lifeline. All you gotta do is promise to completely change pinball into something these people will actually like and you become a cult figure.

It's like they all need a Jim Jones in their pinball life... as if there isn't 70+ years of pinballs they could entertain themselves with..

I think you could pull it off Levi... you got the mic skills... reinvent the next Pinball Messiah

#9156 3 years ago
Quoted from pinballwil:

Jack was pissed-off Stern was taken out a lot of stuff for the same price.
He would do it better so he starts his own company.
Now he puts every thing back in again and now you pay almost the double as the (bare) Stern pro.
So tell me what did JJP beter than Stern.
So lets see if deeproot can build a decent (pro) game for a "Kia" price.

Jack was telling Stern to make more feature rich games... that the market was there for the high end games, not more and more stripped out games as Stern was doing as they raced to the bottom. Jack was not harping on the price point - he was harping on the product.

What did JJP do better than Stern? Recognize the market.

#9244 3 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

Complicated mechs aren’t making a come back with even more home collectors who can’t figure out something like replacing a drop target.

Guess this post didn't age well...

Less than an hour later... Stern Drops Avengers II...

#9447 3 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

If I had a podcast would you take my opinions more seriously? That's really all it seems to take around here. If only I could figure out how to hook this tape recorder to the internet.

LOL.. so true... the never beef podcast is calling you...

#9550 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

The Smacktalk killed Wrestling.

??

The successful characters and stories was all that differentiates wwf from the traveling wrestling shows that play to school gyms

#9789 3 years ago

jesus how many times you all have to repeat the same 'game theme speculation' tangent? Does anyone even read this stuff?

#9816 3 years ago
Quoted from razorsedge:

At least "probably" is not "definitely"
Only to snatch a significant corner of the market... starting off by selling games at a loss, is the subtext. It is a strategy that has been proven to work in markets. Sell at a significant loss to establish, then make good profit once established. Just saying, it can potentially fit and make sence from what I see.
Well worth taking the priciple into consideration, a reasonable long term strategy. The follow through is extremely important, though.
Stranger things have happened!

People sell at a loss to make money elsewhere. (Ink for printers... services.... foothold in distribution.... intro product verse main product...)

Not much of any of that applies to hobbyist playing pinball. Only the idea of seeding demo units to get the brand awareness and access to product. Not selling to the consumer at a loss.

New companies know they will be in the red because of startup and ramp up costs. Game companies know they need reuse of their designs to reduce dev costs. New manufacturers don’t pray for the first title to be the worlds best... they know it will take a few iterations to get nice and healthy

#9819 3 years ago
Quoted from Thunderbird:

Win over a customer base at low price point, was exactly what JJP did, when they sold WOZ at $6.5k.

No it is not. The woz price point was anything but a low price point. It was a super premium price at the time.., justified by the promise of a cadallic game to justify it.

The price went up not because of some intro offer deal.... but because jack’s finger in the wind price estimate was incredibly off base. He set a price before he even had a design... and they opted to chase the game target rather than respect his early estimate.

You are rewriting history to try to support your beliefs

#9915 3 years ago

if there is no video of 'octo manufacturing' tomorrow I'm calling it a bust

-1
#9980 3 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

I mean no disrespect to you (or anyone for that matter) but why would anyone trust Kaneda? In my personal opinion that guys opinion has been on the opposite end of the spectrum of mine more often than not. And I highly doubt DR would want any info leaking out and if he's doing it that's not the way to earn friends. If I remember correctly long ago wasn't it said DR would release one model and offer everyone a complete machine and best experience etc etc etc?

Mainly because he has been robert’s lap dog and his goto avenue to promote deeproot.

17
#10390 3 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

Come on Pinside. Cary Hardy, TWIP and others flew to Texas for the reveal. Its already happened, reports are being put together as we speak and will come soon.
Did you already forget seeing this picture? Seriously, relax people.[quoted image]

Hindsight... but man... A STABLE full of industry vets... given an extra 7 months.. on top of the extra years... is shown the light and put in place by a group of social media no-ones?

How can anyone take these clowns seriously? You goto the last minute of the eleventh hour, and this 'feedback' is enough to stop EVERYTHING? Hell, they didn't even cancel on time.

How do you invest years and hundreds of thousands of dollars... to be enlightened by a handful of podcasters who haven't even been around the block?

I don't even know how anyone can show their face again in the light of this kind of colossal f up. The dirt needs to come out.

#10428 3 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

man people just don't want to give up on this

"new pinball speculation" - it is the planetary core that feeds the pinside planet.

16
#10439 3 years ago
deeproot.jpgdeeproot.jpg
#10449 3 years ago
Quoted from LargemouthAss:

How do you go from having a playable game 9 months ago in Houston.... to this?

How do you plan your company launch... get an extra 7 months... wait till the night before and then bail at the 11th hour?

It means your story is @$%# and even your hand picked friends couldn't buy into it.

#10769 3 years ago

CrazyLevi - did someone use a lockdown bar to beat you as a child? You've got it on for this

#10959 3 years ago

"The PinbarTM now allows more intuitive interaction to display and diagnose issues, as well as remote management and video chats"

Lol... make a game before you worry about enabling futures you'll never get to.. sheez

The reason this stuff doesn't exist out there today is the same reason Stern still uses it's stupid dots portal menus... investing in software development!

#10971 3 years ago

"The Tour Group observed the demonstrations with the 16 oz hammer test and the huge 750 gram pinball drop, and those (along with the regular pinball) definitely left “dents” or craters on the “normal” clear coat and did not leave dents or craters on the PinArmor. However, the VIP group had concerns regarding the quality and look of the PinArmor coating as it is currently not smooth but more like an orange peel. Robert mentioned that this was an early version of the PinArmor."

Classic retort... 'oh well it's not really the final stuff'

Can you imagine what March was supposed to be??

16
#10973 3 years ago

pinpod? seriously??

I guess someone forgot the reason people buy pinball machines.... the game! All this other stuff is nice, but failing to actually ship product to buy because of focusing on too many different, non-essential things is a classic leadership failure.

#10984 3 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

Eh. There's probably good money in selling overpriced crates as an accessory. It's hard to say this was a distraction with their overall issues. I mean, it's just a wood crate with some metal brackets...

Did it come out of the womb on its own? If not, that's energy and focus not on the objective. In a startup and in a crunch you focus on the goal - not drift around with frivolous side things that WON'T DRIVE THE BUSINESS.

Know why there isn't a big market for pinball crates today?

1) People don't use forklifts at home or generally not even in their businesses -- shippers do
2) Shipping a crate purchase is expensive
3) Crates that don't fit through household doors are just more PITA
4) Crates that don't fit in your normal buyer's vehicles don't do those people any good
5) The majority of new residential buyers in the hobby don't move their basement queens around! They move them when they buy and sell them.

There is a need for 'aids for moving pinball machines' -- But crates that don't work for home buyers is tone deaf to where the meat of their market will be.

You don't make money selling a re-usable tool to a finite portion of your market.

#11149 3 years ago
Quoted from tilted81:

Why’s everybody hating on food truck? Same thing as Diner.

Take note... the diner pin wasn’t released in the 50s... it was a retro concept in 1990.

No one is retro feeling food trucks.

2 - this isnt the era of location only pinball anymore. Titles need to sell to home buyers

#11226 3 years ago
Quoted from tamoore:

But.....
I have a Diner in my house.
Right now.... Today.
I bought it on purpose.
Keep that in mind....

Read line #1 again

#11303 3 years ago
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.

Would you prefer the word “promoters”?

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