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deeproot Pinball thread

By pin2d

6 years ago


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357 key posts have been marked in this topic, showing the first 10 items.

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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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#141 6 years ago

The ferrari for kia pricing comment. Do I think pinball could be streamlined (both in development and production) to keep costs down while keeping features up? sure!

Could you design a table virtually, then transfer that over to the real thing (see wrath of olympus)
Could you... spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on robots that pick and place every playfield component and install them to reduce labor cost? absolutely
Could you have every part made in China for 1/3 the price? Sure, but be ready to fly over there and watch them like a hawk

Here's the thing.. Pinball is a VERY small volume product comparable to other industries. Even if you're the king of the industry (Stern) producing about 15,000 machines per year, that's really not a lot of product (especially one that requires game designers/mech engineers/programmers/artists/testers/production fixture engineers to develop two new titles every year). All that development time for 7,500 units. Who would want to do all that up front work and money when they've never designed or built a pinball in their life? The comment "pinball is easy" is very JPOP sounding. Remember early on when he would criticize all the homebrew games (that were finished and had code) about not having the detail to paint their vent grills? Yet his glass had to be custom cut for his custom cabinet, which also barely cleared the shooter rod? June 30th, 2019 can't come soon enough. I don't want to see them fail, but they are going to realize very quickly what they are up against. All I gotta say is they better have someone in charge that pushes for as many off the shelf components as possible.

#144 6 years ago
Quoted from applejuice:

Please see the updated webpage from deeproot Tech. (Scroll to bottom of page). In summary, i would like to share the following statement :
----------------
Jim Askey (aka Applejuice or myPinballs) and deeproot Tech have reached an agreement transferring IP rights in and to Software for Zidware games to deeproot Tech for undisclosed consideration. Mr. Askey agrees to refrain from possessing, or performing any further work on, the Zidware software or related IP and shall promptly remove any online content regarding the same. Neither deeproot Tech nor Mr. Askey will be making any further comments about the agreement or any corresponding particulars.
----------------
Thank you all

right now mr k from NY is going "nooooooo!"

#154 6 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

did that patent end up being granted? anyone have a link?

https://patents.google.com/?inventor=john+popadiuk

display with sensors specifically:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130147111A1/en?inventor=john+popadiuk

US20130147111A1-20130613-D00003 (resized).pngUS20130147111A1-20130613-D00003 (resized).png

1 month later
#280 6 years ago

Germany? Whatarrrrrrruuuuuudoinnnn ere?

#335 6 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

Anybody have the link to JPOP's seminar where he stands in front of a slide projected on wall listing games not made by JPOP? That one was a classic and I could use a good chuckle.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jpop-update-thread%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6mg-raza-and-aiw%E2%80%A6/page/382#post-3308407

#367 6 years ago

I say a david blaine parody pinball #cheezits

11
#383 6 years ago
Quoted from deeproot:

We are proceeding with John's original Houdini design but not the Houdini name
-dP

so ball paths that go to nowhere then?

#397 6 years ago
Quoted from FalconPunch:

A reminder of what JPs Houndi looked like at expo 2016 -
» YouTube video

It's coming back to me.. Left loopback ramp that goes to nowhere, houdini tank that blocked the LCD screen (just like magic girl), and the panhead screws used to fasten down the ramp instead of flatheads (so the ball would bounce). I don't care if it was a rushed prototype, you can buy flathead screws at home depot. Also no spring steel ramp flaps (also easily fabricated if you're even remedially crafty).

HOUDINI_EXPO (resized).jpgHOUDINI_EXPO (resized).jpg

1 week later
#436 6 years ago

all i gotta say is that if John cant build a pinball with a full team (designers, programmers, sound guy, artists, funding) this HAS to be the final final final straw... right?

#517 6 years ago
Quoted from deeproot:

You misunderstood. We will be taking a hammer to every PF.
—dT

beyond that, im assuming youll be setting up a test fixture to life test pinballs striking the playfield in parallel?

#528 6 years ago
Quoted from Dmod:

Sounds like they may use something similar to the pinball hardtop that OutsideEdge introduced at Expo in October.

Agreed. This is basically thin polycarbonate, same stuff used for bullet proof glass (granted it's much thicker). I'm guessing hitting with a hammer will have no effect (cept you can still scratch polycarbonate) so maybe it'll be a hammer with felt (so you get the impact but not the scratch).

Think about how much easier the Stern clearcoat issue would have been if all they had to do is ship a thin overlay to customers (especially overseas), instead of having to ship an empty box, have the customer pull the heavy playfield out, ship that to Stern, the factory does a rebuild with a new playfield (which is a ton of labor pulling off components and putting onto a new playfield), then ship that heavy playfield back to the customer.

Granted even on an overlay you still have to pull everything off the top layer, but it's the bottom layer that's usually the beast.

This 5 days of deeproot is starting to sound like 5 days of revealing innovation.. Sounds like a lot of it could be existing, but no company has really implemented all of this aftermarket stuff from the factory. I just hope the end product is as good as Robert is describing.

#560 6 years ago
Quoted from greenhornet:

cutting holes in the playfield for mechs? no problem.

» YouTube video

to be fair, I don't see video playing on the cutting.. For all we know only the luminescent is working. If that is in fact true, I'd be really curious what a 2 foot x 3 foot sheet of OLED costs. It's one thing to manufacture flexible phone displays, it's another to scale that up for giant TV's (or in this case, multimorphic display without compromising where mechs can get placed or how those mechs are controlled with wires).

1 week later
#602 6 years ago
Quoted from lpeters82:

Maybe it's time for him to find a different profession and work on paying people back himself

I don't know how you pay back a million dollars (and still have some minimal salary to live on) without some high risk high return profession (pinball), or team up with a lawyer who is going to negotiate you out of this mess (Robert), or in this case both. Supposedly John was doing sub-contract work as an independent artist between End of Williams and Zidware (beyond zizzle). As much as these announcements by deeproot sound like a lot of hot air, this is honestly John's best chance of getting out of this giant mess.

#612 6 years ago
Quoted from lpeters82:

but don't announce or reply to anything...total radio silence. When machines are ready, make this huge splash by announcing to all Zidware customers that they can come and pick up their machines

I think that was Robert's original intent, but there are too many pinside slueth's that stumbled on his website.

Quoted from lpeters82:

Is pinball a high return profession?

As a designer, for some. I meant more that the pinballs themselves are low volume, and hence typically high margin. Unlike someone who works at Stern and makes a straight paycheck, it's possible deeproot promised Jpop a percentage of sales.

#637 6 years ago
Quoted from wcbrandes:

They really need to read the contracts that John has.He was to complete and ship 100% working pinball machines in order to transfer the IP I haven,t opened mine however from what i have been reading they are very far from complete?

but they are complete... GARBAGE

zing!

1 week later
#725 6 years ago
Quoted from YeOldPinPlayer:

Interesting mention that Barry is working on a farm or produce themed pin- https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/looking-for-a-farm-or-produce-themed-pin

It almost seems like deeproot is trying to find new untapped markets (IE not barcades). I don't know, would anyone still play pinball at a grocery store (and would they care if it matched the theme?).

1 month later
#799 5 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

I can’t recall JPop ever making a Zidware pitch on Pinside

It was early, even I was barely posting on pinside at that point. He made plenty of pitches on RGP and PROC forums.

#814 5 years ago

sounds like jpop might need a raise. like a $200k raise.

1 month later
#882 5 years ago

would that be called a whiteboardwood?

#921 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

"In fact, we have received or are ordering all machinery needed to create nearly every component of a pinball machine in house."

Seems both improbable & hyperbolic, and likely to cause serious issues. How many startups in any sector choose to manufacture a disparate set of components made from totally different materials, using different machinery and techniques, in a complex assembled product using hundreds if not several thousands of components? The answer is that they don't. Because it's less efficient, more costly, and particularly in a startup scenario likely to lead to serious quality problems.

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).

#958 5 years ago
Quoted from Richthofen:

Remember the “solar roof”? At the announcement, the demo panels weren’t working solar tiles

Do you realize how many demos don't work because of aggressive timelines? You should read up how apple faked their first iphone presentation until the engineers could finish eliminating bugs before they started shipping.
How often does someone start up a brand new car company and last more than a year? Or a rocket company that successfully launches a rocket and sends satellites into space?

The Tesla roadster started shipping in 2008, that's 10 years. In another 3 years it'll surpass Scion, a brand created by Toyota that failed to create a market.

2 weeks later
#1029 5 years ago

How do we even know if JPOP will even survive at deeproot? Robert has already talked about "tough love" conversations.

How many of you "not going to buy from any company associated with that toxic designer" would change their mind if JPOP was no longer with the company?

#1044 5 years ago

How did the tesla thread get criss-crossed into the deeproot thread?

#1089 5 years ago
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

Shamelessly stolen from Linux computer forums of the 90s

and later stolen by fark.com

#1097 5 years ago
Quoted from knobstone:

A brief post and thank you to Robert Mueller of Deeproot for the fantastic interview on the ****** podcast. Very informative on your company and especially acquiring licenses for pinball machines. Looking forward to seeing you and some of your team at the Pinball Expo 2018 in Chicago.

agreed.. great interview, robert comes off less gruff and fluff. Early on he seemed to be in attack mode, and "pinball is easy". He clarifies that his goal is to streamline pinball design and manufacturing. His goal isn't to take Stern down, he just wants to build great pinball in the most cost effective way. While it's true Stern has the most experience, in any business that can sometimes be your downfall because many companies continue to work the same way they always have, whereas a new company building from scratch would have a fresh approach.

#1154 5 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

Copperfield blows compared to Penn and Teller

I've seen Penn & Teller twice. Both times the shows were outstanding, and they always stay after the show in the hallway to sign autographs, take photos, no matter how many people are waiting. What I love about them is that they know magic isn't real, and every show they usually show how one of them is done with clear boxes, and you can choose to see how the meat is made, or close your eyes and keep believing. As far as tricks I don't think you can really top them, they've read every magic book and have seen every kind of magic trick. It's why they have that show BS!, most people can't fool them, but on rare occasion someone does. I've loved those two ever since they first showed up on letterman in 80s, hanging upside down in front of the camera so that objects floated in mid-air. Also it's amazing for any pair of performers to get along for 4 decades without getting in some sort of fight. If someone made a P&T pin I'd be all over it.

#1162 5 years ago
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

Anybody think DR should contract with Ben Heck to work with JPOP to redesign Houdini into Ben Heck's Haeluecenogenic Lab Trips? It would be a hard sell to get Ben onboard given the impossible assignment. But if they worked together and brought back the same art style .... Wowza!

that would be like asking a holocaust survivor if they would like to donate to the hitler foundation

#1176 5 years ago
Quoted from mrgone:

He will continue to recycle the same ramps, magnet set up he has already used on Tom,totan,wcs94, and cv.

Sort of like how 95% of Stern pinball machines have a ramp on each side that returns the ball to the inlanes? Or how steve ritchie admits his lower half is EXACTLY the same on every game he designs? Not that I want to defend JPOP, but he does have some good concepts, he just sucks at implementing them.

1 week later
#1234 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

Only cost that will have appreciably increased for them is doing stuff for the LCD - though in some cases the effort has been so minimal or relied so heavily on video footage, it's probably not increased man hours.

Gomez claims in his interview with Nate that there is a whole art team now dedicated to LCD art just like they've had for doing playfield and cabinet art. I'd have to say that for iron maiden, since the graphics is based from the video game that probably wasn't difficult. But yea, something like deadpool had to be created from scratch.

Honestly I'm totally for this new LCD era, but I don't know that we "need" all this fancy animation. I just wanted LCD because the hardware was cheaper, more reliable, less power, probably easy to source parts in the far future. If deeproot decides to do more simplistic graphics closer to a DMD (but color and better resolution, sort of akin to how MMr is), I'd really be ok with that.

#1245 5 years ago

Zombie Yeti being snarky:

pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png
#1254 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

You want pinball to grow or attract new players? You need stuff happening that looks fun on the LCD.
That was one of the reasons WOZ broke new ground.
Also, some of the people saying less resources should be put into the display and forget and it's too costly nevertheless go bananas for ColorDMD and describe it as the best upgrade ever ... which is it?

we want color small dots.. like ben said double height display (128 x 64).. i dont need HD. neither does redemption games. some do, but the highest profit ones are those that are fun. display should always be secondary on mechanical games.

#1283 5 years ago
Quoted from mcbPalisade:

For that matter why don't new pins have USB chargers? People might play pinball just to charge their phones.

i actually thought about that.. 5v conversion is easy, so is adding a port somewhere. some airports still charge a fee to charge your phone (if u dont have your cord). i think a usb port could actually help. didnt the coinbox podcast guys try that on route?

#1293 5 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

The LCD effect will eventually be part of the glass

A world on the glass

So a few years back I was saying no (they were horribly expensive). I'm seeing some of the smaller displays are getting reasonable (24" for $400):
http://store.apollodisplays.com/store/ProductDetail/KI-37-120_236-Inch-Innolux-V236bj1p03--Pmediaecorhd004b

This is measured diagonally, so actual width is 21" (would be good for filling the back half of a widebody), maybe they sell even smaller ones. I wouldn't want transparent just for scoring. If you're gonna do that then just squeeze a 7" LCD in the apron. However, the transparent means you could potentially bring back Pinball2000 without needing special mirrored glass (which makes the entire playfield dark), the only section that's dark is where the LCD lays on top of.
KI_37_120 (resized).jpgKI_37_120 (resized).jpg

#1304 5 years ago
Quoted from Brijam:

Please tell me you're joking.

he's not. using head tracking means it creates a 3d effect on a flat screen (and 4k HD you wouldn't be able to tell the difference). It would mean zero maintenance, there would be very low cost (think about how cheap big TV's have gotten). I know nothing beats real, but some people really enjoy car simulators because they'll never afford a $300k exotic car.

#1309 5 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

Hah, you thought doing content for a relatively small LCD involved more work, expand that to a playfield sized LCD with full physics engine and stuff.
Good luck generating the content to make that compelling without AAA game studio size staff and talent, even if you leverage unity.

you need to go over to gopinball.com, those first 2 original titles were created by one or two guys, for free. once the engine is made, its not that terrible laying out a design (code is still hard). go look at the stranger things future pinball table, thats definately one guy.

#1358 5 years ago
Quoted from Rondogg:

What I'm saying is that the technology will get so good that the advantages it poses (as outlined earlier) will be adopted and appreciated by a lot of people, and make the proliferation of pinball grow to more than just niche hobby.

This... there are plenty of audiophiles that swear their $10k stereo system with the antique record player is superior to everything out there, or the flip of the coin of song collectors that swear they can tell the difference between a FLAC file and a 320kbps mp3 file... Then there's the 95% rest of the population that's perfectly ok with 128kbps mp3's, or streaming music through the dozens of services. You can make this comparison with nearly anything
Live concert vs watching HD video later on youtube
Driving a bugatti vs playing a simulator on a high end gaming PC with 3 monitors all mounted to a hydraulic chair to give you G's
Actually going to outer space via virgin to feel weightless vs going on a plane that nosedives to feel "weightless" for 45 seconds
Actually skydiving vs going to one of those giant fan skydiving places

Nobody will ever claim digital pinball will replace the real thing, but I bet a big portion of the population might gladly fork over $5k for a REALLY good pinball simulator (not virtuapin, I'm talking 4k HD, head tracking for 3d, coils that fire when you hit the flippers so you feel it, nudging that really bumps the ball realistically) if I only had to pay say $10 per table (like pinball arcade on steroids), especially if you're someone in an apartment in the city and can't spare the space. Or you fear getting into the hobby because you fear it'll break and you don't know how to fix it (and you can't afford to keep paying a tech to fix it, if there's even one nearby). Or you're someone like me that can't afford the latest Stern (and keep them all because of cost and space), but it would be nice to be able to play any of them.

#1367 5 years ago

If you haven't listened already, Dennis Nordman talks about his career plus how things are going well at deeproot. Though it is a paycheck, he seems like a genuine guy (hence why he quit heighway when false promises were made, which he also brings up).
http://www.head2headpinball.com/2018/08/06/episode-55-dennis-nordman-and-the-curse-of-elvira

#1372 5 years ago
Quoted from MarkInc:

Why hasn't anyone come up with a flush mounted LED insert and shallow trenches for the wires for those tough, busy mech areas?

I'm doing a layout that does exactly that.. effectively there is a playfield layer (3/8), and a 1/8" layer that is just LED's and wire traces. Granted I still can't have mechs going through wire traces, but it at least eliminates all those bulky bayonet brackets and makes the bottom very clean. Theoretically it would also eliminate EMF keeping the lighting wiring away from coil lines.

1 month later
#1471 5 years ago

No way deeproot is making virtual pinball. Pinball FX doesn't have any pinball designers working for them and they crank out reasonable original tables. Also most of those older designers can barely work autocad, much less anything 3D. Do you think they are simply drawing up playfield layouts only for some 3d animator to translate it to digital?

#1483 5 years ago
Quoted from Rondogg:

Good read. Very happy to be wrong about it being VR pinball. 80's license they just got better be BTTF.

i hope so too, or as JodyG says goonies.. but what if its big trouble in little china? might be a cheaper license.

#1507 5 years ago
Quoted from adol75:

second hand machines can be bought for close to nothing

Yet we hardly see any of those machines make it over here, and when they do the sellers want $1k and up. But yes you are right, pachinko is still huge in japan, so are claw machines. People sometimes go to these places as almost like a shopping center. Some take advantage:
https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=3SOu_1536002094

#1511 5 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

Oh I toured Stern once. They were still using wires. It was cute

I would imagine wire harnesses are still simpler to design for a game than doing PCB traces (as archaic as it seems to see giant 4'x8' boards with nails in it). But seeing how good even free pcb programs have gotten, I do wonder if it's equal work up front.

benheck have you ever calculated pcb cost (for GI and coils) vs equivalent wiring? Are they comparable without calculating the labor cost savings?

#1591 5 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

Here's pinball money.
[quoted image]

aint nuttin' like dance combat!


(i actually did enjoy those as a teen though)

1 week later
#1766 5 years ago
Quoted from o-din:

That's a pretty tall order considering Gottlieb released 14 titles in 1935 alone.

unfair comparison. that was after the market crash and thise 14 titles would be played on route for pennies (not collected in the home) as an escape from misery.. most of those games were very simple and none of them had electricity yet so it would be easy to push out a bunch of titles quickly.

#1767 5 years ago
Quoted from rubberducks:

Also, can't help thinking that if WMS had released 'just' these 5 titles in '95, they'd have sold a hell of a lot more, saved a lot of money on development, and history might have been a little bit different ...
Theatre of Magic
No Fear: Dangerous Sports
Johnny Mnemonic
Congo
Attack from Mars

i wouldnt include congo. it might be a hot title today, but for many years it was thought of as crappy for its theme.

1 week later
#1844 5 years ago

while manufacturing is its own animal (you really need employees dedicated to it), for all we know they are contracting it out to an outside assembly plant. at my work we buy sub-assemblies all the time because its more cost effective. sometimes we OEM a complete product and slap our label on it. im not saying what Stern does is easy, but new companies setup manufacturing all the time (at much higher volumes than pinball). people need to stop believing Stern has some magical formula. they effectively bought sega, transferred the name, and kept rolling out games the same way (with minor improvements). they are still using the same dimpling machine for playfields, same 4x8 plywood sheets for making wire harnesses. im excited to see a video of deeproot's manufacturing process.

1 week later
#1905 5 years ago
Quoted from fosaisu:

It's funny, you don't really notice how actors' voices age until you see a project like this. Sean Connery did the voice work in the From Russia With Love videogame back in 2005. I was super-psyched about it, but boy did he sound old. Ended up wishing they'd gone with an impersonator instead. I haven't listened to Jane Fonda in a while but I imagine there might be some of the same issue.

3 weeks later
#1946 5 years ago

So I'm guessing that $750k isn't just salaries of designers, rent, parts, etc.. I'm sure a big part of that is building a factory (both physical material and designers to lay things out), so that monthly burn could go down. Who knows what the investors have put in, what Robert is putting in, what Robert's other companies are playing the "cash cow" until this company gets off the ground.

I just don't know why people can't learn from previous endeavors. JPOP didn't succeed because he had almost no business plan. Heighway promised the world and hemorrhaged pre-order money. If every new startup would start out more like spooky, we might actually see more businesses stay in business. Hell, I even had high hopes for Homepin at one point.. Making arcade stuff and pinball parts to keep cashflow going, making all the parts for the first pinball so you could theoretically supply retailers. Then the CEO turned into a PR nightmare, his first pinball sucked, and now he's shuffling pre-order money around to keep the business floating because he can't crank out more than 20 games a month.

#1955 5 years ago
Quoted from Jerryuop:

None of us have given them any money yet, so I don’t understand the people willing them to fail. I hope they are extremely successful and produce a bunch of high quality games. The extra competition will only serve to make all of the companies work harder to earn our money.

I think most of us do (including myself), but when you hear big talk, then delays, and hemorrhaging money you have to wonder how long they can sustain, and even if they do start building product what's the risk involved of not staying in business because they can't sustain cost vs income (so who do you go to when your machine fails, see big lebowski project). Spooky was risky, but I still bought AMH because his business plan made sense (and he's only 3 hours away so I could drive there with my pitchfork), and having someone like Ben around at the time certainly bought some credibility.

#2021 5 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

You'd have to make the inside cabinet very bright to act as a backlight

Pinstadium-like lights

Quoted from benheck:

You'd also have light losses with the pair of polarization filters

I think consumers can accept this, they already accept a darker movie experience when they watch the 3D version. They also accepted pin2k (5,000 units wasn't a failure at the time, nor today. Williams killed off the company because slots were more profitable).

Quoted from benheck:

You'd also have to track or somehow detect the height and position of the player to make sure the FX are drawn in the correct spot for perspective

Correct, at least within reason (accuracy probably only has to be every few inches). This can be done several ways (webcam with good software, multiple lasers that detect distance being blocked)

Quoted from benheck:

visor - nobody is going to wear that. Sorry. It's the secret reason why VR is dead.

I honestly don't know how VR ever exists in a public space. I think it sorta took off in the late 80's because it was so groundbreaking you were willing to put up with sharing a visor, look at blocky graphics, and have a cord yanking on your back. VR at home does make sense sorta, however most of us don't have living rooms with giant open spaces like they show in every ad.. Hence your point on your podcast talking about how flight sim/racing/floating games are perfect for VR because you can experience them sitting in place on your couch.

#2065 5 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

People want big bulky collectibles so their basement looks like a bar to remind them of when they were single. It's the secret (not so secret?) reason Heigheway's modular system would never take off.
Remember this is a hobby where people pay a $17,000 premium for different decals on a wooden box.

while people dream of having that awesome basement or outbuilding with the inside decorated like an old arcade, i'd wager only 5-10% of people in the hobby actually have the space or money to do so. Go look in the "gameroom thread"
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lets-see-pic-of-games-rooms

You see a lot of the "home arcade" people re-posting photos to show updates, but most people are posting photos have 2-10 pinballs in their basement, garage, many unfinished. If it is finished, it looks like a standard basement (standard carpet, standard painted drywall, minimal decorations on the walls). A lot of wives tolerate this hobby and don't want the house modified drastically to serve some nostalgic itch.

I have 3 pins in my living room because i only really have space to fit 7 in the basement because the rest is used for storage. id be happy with some sort of VR or GOOD virtual table, and maybe a handful of real pins. i dont need a 2nd full time job as an arcade operator trying to keep 30+ pinballs running.

1 week later
#2143 5 years ago

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. 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).

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.

1 month later
#2310 5 years ago
Quoted from Fulltilt:

Deeproot? "Their" website is up and running just fine.

deeprootfunds? Yes, just fine.

http://deeprootpinball.com, nope!
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#2322 5 years ago
Quoted from Roostking:

movie office space.

This is me when I agree with someone wanting a hip-hop themed pinball, and then realize everyone else disagrees.

#2333 5 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

He needed a boss back then, so hopefully that helps with the current situation

He has beyond a boss, he has a boss who's dumping a shit ton of his money in this company, and a bunch from investors. I guarantee there are daily morning status update meetings going on over there.

#2361 5 years ago
Quoted from Ericpinballfan:

And Micheal J Fox would still never sign over release of his rights, and Christopher Lloyd has also expressed no interest.

Then how did Zen studios manage to make their own version of it, it surely has both of their likeness. I think it's far easier today to get them to sign off than it was back then. Not like either of them are hot hollywood stars right now. I'm guessing (like others have said) that Robert is saying it's not available for purchase..... because it's already been bought. And I get it, if you have a license you can't talk about it until everything is approved and signed off, and I respect that. But if it IS BTTF, risk of trusting a new company be damned I would be hard pressed not to plop my money down before even playing it if the layout looks good.

Quoted from adol75:

I didn't even know actors owned rights to the characters they play. I wonder if that's why on WOZ, Judy Garland is mentioned separately.

It's true of pretty much anything. Demolition man had it's backglass revised because wesley snipes owned the rights to his likeness, and therefore could reject art. Just look at Heighway Pinball Aliens. There's a reason why Sigourney Weaver's likeness wasn't in it, either it was too expensive, or someone else already had the rights to her.

1 week later
#2406 5 years ago
Quoted from Brijam:

If their burn rate is $9mm per year (as was posted a few months ago) and their net profit is $2,500 per pin, their breakeven is about 10 pins a day every day of the year, or about 14 pins a day running their factory 5 days a week with a two week holiday. I don't know. What kind of volume does Stern do per day? JJP? American? Does anyone know that can say?

Stern: From what both Gary and Jody Dankburg have said, they need to make between 55-60 per day, which is roughly 15k games per year.
JJP: If I had to guess, if they are making at best 2,000 games per year, that's barely 8 games per day
AP: no clue, and I doubt they would want to publically say what they make since they are such a young company.

3 weeks later
#2482 5 years ago
Quoted from brucipher:

If it weren't a real company, you would think a lot of the pinball design veterans working for them would have jumped ship by now.

Nordman left Heighway when they announced at the show they were ready to go into production in what.. a month? when the whitewood was still in design.

Of course there's a difference between promising the world to customers, and working for deeproot who at least admitted early on that they weren't ready to reveal at TPF like they had hoped. Still, pinball manufacturing in general is not very stable and designers can sense when things aren't going well.

1 week later
#2550 4 years ago
Quoted from Bublehead:

Not sure how many of you have ever met Barry Oursler and talked with him at any length, but as a Pinbot owner and fan of Barry's work, I have had the chance to talk at length at several Expos and now at TPF. His statement was made in earnest, and from the twinkle in his eyes (one that I have not seen since Bally Williams closed their pin division) he looked sideways and smiled, but just enough so you could barely tell.

Barry doesn't joke around, he tells it like it is. If he says he's happy and thinks customers will be happy with the product, it probably will be.

1 week later
#2561 4 years ago

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.

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#2578 4 years ago
Quoted from fnosm:

This reminds me an awful lot of Heighway Pinball design.
Look at the backbox and the cartridge for the glass.
I going out on a limb and calling BS that this has anything to do with Deeproot.

it is deeproot, their name is on the patent of the full pdf.

#2668 4 years ago
Quoted from BMore-Pinball:

plenty of patents get filed all time and no products are made.
Car manufacturers constantly file patents and never go through with the features
with that said, putting in my 2 cents - I have no interest in swappable playfields.
The feature made the heighway game cabinets very strange looking and the design really bothered me

so do many companies, but they usually have 20 million plus in sales, not a brand new pinball company trying to get their first machine out so there is some revenue coming in. they are still burning money.

#2705 4 years ago
Quoted from ultimategameroom:

Has deeproot made any mention of showing a finished or proto machine after they announced that there wouldn’t be any at TPF?

From what I hear, it'll be done when it's done. TPF was obviously the best place to show something since it's a short drive. To show games at say MGC or expo would be a heck of a drive (both for the games and the employees). Sure, you can reveal a pinball anytime (just look at Stern releasing black knight 2 days after TPF), but at some point you have to bring games to a show so people can play them, especially if you're a new pinball company earning trust.

#2717 4 years ago
Quoted from Zavadoza:

Here's a couple clues though: JPop's RAZA is first release. Then Barry's game, then Dennis Norman's

JPOP, that explains the delay. I'm assuming deeproot had no choice but to push this through first to satisfy the existing customers. I sure hope they started with a blank sheet of paper, and had Barry and Dennis review his layout on a weekly basis.

1 week later
#2761 4 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine: If I'd have the money I've ordered the new Black Knight at first sight.
I couldn't. - Now that I've waited a couple of days I notice what I may not like (too hard, knight does not shake, repetitive music) so I want to play it first.

i would.. its hard, music is repetitive (hope they fix in code update).. also shield is also falling off already

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#2787 4 years ago
Quoted from billyboy:

Look at the daily "for sales" in the market. It's huge everyday, because people are trying to sell to buy the next new pin

agreed, nothing wrong with finally prying some older titles out of collector's basements. I'm seeing a ton of games go up for sale in the past week, and I think it's due to both black knight and wonka coming out.

Quoted from billyboy:

There will be an eventual semi-freeze in the market on both used and new games. The available space and money will reach a tipping point

Or perhaps the market just shifts. 8 years ago it was mostly high-end collectors had all the modern Williams DMD games, leaving only alphanumeric and early solid state to the bottom end collectors. With more and more HD display games with great animations and sound, it starts to make DMD look slightly dated.

#2848 4 years ago
Quoted from EDMAN:

Just curious...did JPop get any permissions from the Mars Attacks illustrators (original trading cards/movie) in regards to his original artwork for RAZA?
The Alien is uncanny

He did not.. if I'm not mistaken he also had a robbie the robot and a godzilla in his art. That's not to say any of that will be in this version, but yes at the time he had unlicensed art on his prototypes.

#2854 4 years ago
Quoted from kdecgp:

Is a backbox even necessary anymore?

It hasn't been "necessary" since solid state was introduced (atari put scoring in the apron). The backbox serves as an attention grabber on route, same way slots have LCD's on top with flashy graphics. One could argue you could have a home version that eliminates the backbox (only install a backbox for routing), but is that too much of a customization?

Also does that change the shape of a pinball too drastically?
Google Zingy Bingy, you'll see how weird a game without a backbox looks (not going to post here for obvious reasons)

#2880 4 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

The $750k quote was from December. Robert also said it will ramp up as they get to launch.
That's $3,750,000 just counting December to April. Yikes.
I'm sure there's a ton of cool stuff in the halls from all that cash, but no products rolling out the door.
And do all these staff just go home after? They seem like permanent hires, so this cash burn at this intensity will only go up.

and they still havent setup manufacturing. even if you farm that out, no 3rd party is going to build production fixtures for free.

#2895 4 years ago
Quoted from Rondogg:

Not sure why people thought Python was losing his mind...
[quoted image]

dude, i said what i said for a reason. thanks for making this thread nsfw

#2924 4 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

Jeri Ellsworth could make a ball-tracking ASIC in her sleep.

man i would love to see her get back into homebrew. maybe you two can join forces?

#2968 4 years ago
Quoted from lpeters82:

Here is a quick video of John Papadiuk talking about Retro Atomic Zombieland on the Ben Heck Show back in 2011.

lots of people design a pinball for a decade..
yea, they're called jpop
#davidspade #tommyboy

#2989 4 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

His games suck ass.
The best one he ever made he didn't even finish (World Cup Soccer - thanks to whomever at Williams took that project over).
There's never been a single more overrated "classic" pinball designer than Jpop. I do not and never will understand the cult.

i remember playing it new in the arcade, not knowing or caring about the designers back then. didn't even know about TOTAN OR CV until i got in the hobby 8 years ago. i remember having fun playing it at the time, even thought about buying one once. its such a tainted game i dont think i could ever own one. i know that sounds silly, but theres also so many other good titles out there and only so much room in your house.

#3002 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...

they have, its called optos (williams), proximity (heighway), touchscreen surface (multimorphic). heck i know kugler used a cheap webcam to detect dice dots on his homebrew casino pinball. also if musk can make a self driving car using nothing but cheap cameras (no lidar) i wouldnt think tracking ball position would be terribly hard

#3054 4 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

I think that is really dismissive of some of the very smart engineers that work at Stern for example.
Anything is solvable with money and man power, especially at the level pinball is at. A more accurate reason in my opinion is there is no business case or return on some of these ideas.
When JJP bailed on the pirates mech, that was an engineering failure due to lack of experience/smarts. They said so.
When Stern isn't putting video camera ball tracking in games, that's business smarts.

so much this.. where i work i can have the greatest new design in the industry (and have cost savings), but of the ROI isnt less than 3 years it gets shot down immediately. if the camera replacing switches idea had merit, any manufacturer would jump at it. think about the cost of all those switches, and the wiring going to them, and the connectors.

ben once had a wacky idea of somehow replacing all the insert lamps with pulsed lasers and mirrors. totally feasible, but a lot of work to proove it out.

#3056 4 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

Of course it is. I've seen this argument before and it's always stupid and offensive.
There are PLENTY of people who work at Stern because they WANT to. They'd rather work in the pinball business than somewhere else. Many people have turned down higher-paying jobs to work in the pinball industry.
Most pinball companies aren't just hiring people who are otherwise unemployable off the street. They are hiring talented people who want to work on pinball machines.

and so much this. i interviewed at JJP and jack did offer me a job, but i turned it down based on pay and benefits. ask kugler about how he took a pay cut to work for AP. most new designers are taking those jobs out of passion.

#3066 4 years ago
Quoted from flynnibus:

Wiring labor is cheap compared to field support.

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?

12
#3137 4 years ago
Quoted from hank527:

Sorry he burnt his bridges and I despise him and will never like him. His overall attitude is poison and that's contagious in an organjzation. The sooner the cancer is caught, the better. Jpoop is cancer in this industry.

I think people forget all the things he did.. he'd make statements like "check your ego at the door", yet he would comment on homebrew games not having painted vent grills even though his shooter rod didn't line up with the ball (or have a groove).

"Starting a pinball is easy, but finishing it is hard" - Yes you've proven that point.

He'd ask for volunteer help, and then either ignore that help or cop an attitude.

It wasn't that he failed to build a complete working pinball, he failed at three (yet took money on all three even though he knew he could never deliver the 1st without someone bailing him out), and it still didn't function because of failed mechs and failure to pay the programmer working on his game.

He never apologized to the buyers, instead he sued them.

I have no doubts John has some imagination, but I fail to see anyone supporting him unless they don't know his history.

1 week later
#3245 4 years ago

i wish deeproot luck. i hope they deliver a more packed playfield than what stern does currently for $5k

#3345 4 years ago
Quoted from deeproot:

Lastly, I agree with Kaneda that it is not fair that people are holding money back from making other purchases (pinball or otherwise) expecting us to imminently launch.

I would hope nobody is actually doing this. Even if you announced a month from now that you have a fully working whitewood, I'm assuming there's still a lot to do (play testing, coding, animation, sound, artwork, tweaks, building up a production assembly area, ordering parts / tooling). Everyone should be buying whatever pinball looks interesting to them right now. You should never be waiting for the next thing, because there will ALWAYS be the next thing.

#3366 4 years ago
Quoted from jellikit:

6. Star Wars topper receives final approval and begins delivery.

holy crap! that thing isn't released yet either??

2 weeks later
#3437 4 years ago

It's retro alright.. remember 7 years ago when JPOP started working on his 2nd game and didn't finish it? good times

#3625 4 years ago
Quoted from adol75:

Stern has been keeping the industry alive for the last 20 years and managed to stay afloat while every other competitor sunk. They deserve to be praised for that and for still being the only ones able to deliver 3 new games a year.
JJP took it a step further by going back to the cost no object design that rules the industry during the golden age, with a far superior build quality, deeper integration, and toys, toys and more toys.
So seeing someone bragging and spitting on them, who came out of nowhere, with no track record in the industry, who is late of every single promise he made, and entered the business by saying "pinball is easy", is quite irritating to say the least, and clearly not brash but plain stupid.

This /\

Gary Stern: played with parts in the service cage as a kid, became a salesman for Stern Electronics in the early 80s. He knows a little bit about pinball and what sells.

Jack: Routed pins in the 70s, knows what does good on route, what parts fail (LTG also does their service, who also has a long experience of coin-op)

Robert: Pinball is fun, I'm going to buy a dozen. 6 months later, I have money and a media company, I'm going to start a pinball company and hire whatever designers are left.

No offense Robert, I really hope you figure all this out, but even if you're 6 months away from showing RAZA I just hope you realize the uphill challenges you have ahead of you. You should have swallowed your pride and stopped bragging well over a year ago.

2 weeks later
#3808 4 years ago
Quoted from yaksplat:

Going global on a first release could be a logistics nightmare if they're new to it. Better to have the machine all set up for 120v and nail down domestic before going overseas. They only have one chance at a first machine launch.
I'm sure other countries will come with time.

this.. spooky refused to sell amh outside of america because of issues with voltage and safety. they were too young to take on everything.

#3814 4 years ago
Quoted from yaksplat:

Just thinking about UL, CE, CSA, EMC, FCC and everything else makes me cringe. I've dealt with all of that before and it's a process that takes time to not only get through, but also to generate an internal process for submission and tracking.

CE is a cake walk compared to UL because CE means self certified. If it's UL rated that means someone has taken the time to make sure proper materials are used, that things "fail safe" if they do fail. Often that comes at a price of not only better materials / components, but it's not cheap to have UL certify your product (several thousand just to have a meeting, then testing, then documenting), plus you have to pay a maintenance fee for UL to come audit your production line to make sure you're still making the product the same way and not changing parts without their knowledge.

FCC is a nightmare too. Even if all your components are FCC certified, you have to have each board certified as an assembly, then if you have multiple boards all those boards have to run and make sure there isn't interference between them, and they don't cause interference with any devices you might be carrying within an acceptable limit.

1 week later
#3926 4 years ago
Quoted from Aurich:

a rolling stone gathers no moss

How about people that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

#3951 4 years ago
Quoted from flynnibus:

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).

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.

2 weeks later
#4195 4 years ago
Quoted from Brijam:

Speaking broadly about interchangable playfields, as an operator, I don't want to store playfields that sit around and don't earn, no matter how easy they are to swap, and I don't want to pay a premium for the extra hardware/engineering required to have swap-out capability that I will never use. When it comes time to sell a machine, with a swap-out system I can only sell to those with the proprietary swap system, vastly reducing the available market.

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. I don't know the history of Stern / JJP / American Pinball is, but it would sure be nice if the harness connectors were standardized to be the same (like a JAMMA). Don't use all the pins? fine, don't use them. I mean how much more could it really cost to have longer connectors/headers? Not necessarily to say swap playfields, but maybe troubleshoot boards. Game having boot issues, swap the playfield into another cabinet. Not saying play it (though if it were the same board set I suppose you could swap out the code). Just saying it could help figure out if it's the board or something on the playfield. I don't know how many times I've lucked out I had a similiar system Williams game and I could simply pull a cpu, driver board, or power supply from another game to see which board is having the issue.

Wasn't it Heighway that not only had swappable playfields, but the flipper mechs could be pulled off in a matter of a minute because there were flipper holes in the playfield so you didn't have to loosen the bat screw? Guess it depends on the operator, some don't mind working on games right there but in a crowded dark bar I would imagine that could be frustrating, and simply swapping in a new mech would be easier (and you could rebuild it later in a well lit workshop).

#4200 4 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

the Star Wars release did so horribly and was their demise so in essence RFM release couldnt save them

Neither title did "bad", they just didn't do "enough" for WMS to justify keeping the pinball division open because slots were more profitable. Just look at the end of williams:

4,414 - 3-97 NBA fastbreak
4,016 - 6-97 Medieval madness
2,704 - 10-97 Cirqus voltaire
2,711 - 12-97 no good gofers
1,369 - 04-98 - champion pub
3,361 - 07-98 monster bash
903 - 10-98 cactus canyon (don't know if this counts, they cut this off the line early to make production space for Pin2k)
3,525 - 06-99 star wars episode 1
6,878 - 01-99 Revenge from mars

RFM sold more units than the original attack from mars. It sold more than any WPC-95 game. I think think there were 2 things holding back Pinball2000:
1. The monitors made them heavy as hell
2. The dark glass needed to make the holograms show up made everything on the playfield dark.. it was also special glass that had to be ordered.

A modern modular hologram pinball today would probably do pretty good.

1 week later
#4229 4 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

don't be ridiculous. We need more art drips, followed by some cryptic videos, followed by a "this is a game changer" pod cast, followed by a prototype showing up at a show, followed by "shipping in 2 weeks" for another year.

JPOP was hired in september 2017, and there was talk of this company even before then. It's been approximately 694 days (2.6 years) now since this company started.
https://www.tickcounter.com/countup/122329/my-count-up

#4257 4 years ago
Quoted from Richthofen:

So if you’re a collector, for a P3 game to make sense, you have to have a reasonable % of the other collectors to also have a P3 so you can sell/trade the game kits. Otherwise if you want a new game that isn’t a P3 you’d have to sell your entire collection of P3 kits and the P3 cab/root system, since the market of people who can buy just your kit is way limited

this is not a bad point.. its going to take a big player like stern or JJP to make this a viable option. JAMMA became a standard in 1985 because most arcade games were being designed in japan and they forced the standard. im not saying we need to standardize cabinets, but perhaps the connectors to hook up playfields should be so there is at least that option to do so.

#4327 4 years ago
Quoted from Brijam:

I seriously doubt there is much money to be made in digital pinball. There never has been, not sure why there would be all of a sudden

I think there was a virtual pinball company that was trying to be coin-op with existing titles, I never heard anything more about them.

Then there was another company that was trying to turn digital pinball into a gambling device in vegas, I don't think anything went beyond a few test units in Ny, NY

#4334 4 years ago
Quoted from Brijam:

I only watched part of the video but I didn't quite understand how they turned digital pinball into a gambling device, it seemed very confusing. Their pacman rip-off was funny though.

Part of it was skill to earn money, I think part of it was gambling on whether you were going to make a shot? (IE put a set amount into a pot that says I'm going to make it). I agree its too confusing even to a pinball player. i cant imagine what the average person thought of it.

#4370 4 years ago

JPOP works okay at best with a team and management, but perhaps the pressure to fulfill his deal with Robert will set him straight knowing if he screws up this time, there's no more bailouts.

3 weeks later
#4700 4 years ago
Quoted from Shapeshifter:

I am guessing Deeproot playfields are some kind of composite material.
So, they can't have all these clear issues.

its also possible its still wood but they have a better process. spooky figured out a better way to clear. my guess is there are better water based clearcoats that bite, or perhaps its 2 different clears. one to bite into the wood, and one that adheres to that first clear better (and hardens faster) so you dont have posts smooshing the soft top layer. its not like car manufacturers are clearing the body and waiting a week for it to dry before they finish assembling all the exterior pieces.

#4710 4 years ago

just don't put on 35 coats of clear

1 week later
#4812 4 years ago

i keep seeing adds for a "ceramic coating" they apply to cars. i dont know what tge chemistry it is, but it is a real thing that prevents stone damage to the front of your car. surely the coatings exist, its all about what you want to spend. spooky claims they had to spend more to get the better coating. also interesting that "special when lit" podcast played an old topcast episode where pat lawlor was pushing for diamond plated playfields, while python anghelo said management was against it because it made the playfield last forever and then they wouldnt buy a new pinball.

1 month later
#5155 4 years ago

I think patenting anything in pinball is not spending your money wisely. The market is what, 30k pinballs a year at best? Even if you're stern that supposedly has 85% of the market, how much money do you think Stern really has to take a copyright infringement to court? I've worked at many companies and it can easily cost $20-$50k per court case to defend a patent (and often you don't recoup that money, especially if the company they are fighting decides to file bankruptcy). If anything, patents are there so they have a leg to stand on when the cease and desist letters go out.

2 weeks later
#5350 4 years ago
Quoted from frankmac:

Is 750K a month a real number?

Sounds way out of line.

https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/deeproot-pinball-launch-postponed

"TWIP: Is there any concern at deeproot that the launch may never happen?
RM: Zero concern. We are spending over $750k a month now on this project, and that will increase through launch. That is unsustainable without a launch in the short term."

And that was 11 months ago.

#5707 4 years ago

so heres my take after ingesting this for a bit..

no pinball game could ever live up to the hype that robert projected. as mentioned, there are a LOT of features taken from existing games (cyclone ferris wheel totan, star wars toy on a spring) but at least john admits he tries to borrow old ideas. i highly doubt there is going to be some even more packed version of this game. with that said, clearly jpop can eek out a game if enough pushing, team support helping, and tons of funding are behind him.

layout looks fun, art is great (really digging the bright green over dark blue and black. reminds me more of big bang bar)

would i buy one if the price is right? probably not right away. john is very tainted, and this is a brand new company. id want to see how game 2 goes. but im happy for deeproot as a company trying to push the envelope. stern (minus keith) has been playing it very safe for a long time.

#6040 4 years ago
Quoted from Jarson:

Also, the flippers rubbers were old and dull.

how does this happen? You're a PINBALL COMPANY. Even if it was play tested like crap before it got shipped and you forgot to swap them out, you are at a PINBALL SHOW. someone go buy a dozen set of rubbers from a vendor there.

#6194 4 years ago
Quoted from thedarkknight77:

Not saying build a Stern at all, not even close, but I am saying if you choose to bad mouth Stern, you better deliver one hell of a game and this game does not deliver enough to warrant Roberts attitude. Three of the latest Stern games all destroy this game, i.e. Deadpool, Jurassic Park, Iron Maiden.

Not a huge fan of deadpool, but it really is amazing what Keith was able to build with the same budget as other games from Stern. A good game doesn't mean throwing a bunch of mechs / toys (especially regurgitating old ones). The game has to flow nicely, and the designer has to be smart about adding features. That helicopter blade on the return ramp of JP probably cost less than a dollar between the screw and plastic, but it's sorta satisfying. Also that spinning truck newton ball is pretty innovative.

#6227 4 years ago
Quoted from PinMonk:

My point was the amount of effort to cast those with a cheap resin printer in MUCH higher resolution is not a whole lot more than what they expended to make them look crappy with a filament printer. Given both paths and the importance of the prototype reveal, why not put your best foot forward for very little money and not much more effort?

I sorta thought the same thing, but I also thought about the fact that resin printers "can" take much longer to print (not ideal during crunch time), plus resin printers are nasty to deal with compared to FDM. Of course that's not to say someone couldn't email the file to an outside printing service. Hell there's a ton of companies that will not only print it, but sand it and paint it and make it look like a production part (I've done it for work).

#6305 4 years ago
Quoted from kvan99:

I’ve never believed that 750k a month number, think about it an average professional employee makes about 5k to 6k a month in Texas add benefits and real estate r

The early photo DR posted of the design team showed about 20 people. salary is probably 4k a month average but factor in vacation/holiday/401k/health insurance it's probably 6k
6k x 20 designers = $120k
Factor in some of the team from the other division to work on art/code (assume a team of 6), add another $36k
Assume Robert's facility is 41k sq feet:
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/12621-Silicon-Dr-San-Antonio-TX/6336044/

I don't know what commercial real estate is, but if you assume it's close to renting any property it should be about $1/sq foot
My electric/gas bill for my 1400 sq foot house is about $150 month, so multiply by 30x: $4500
salaries: $156k
rental: $44k
heat/power: $4500

Still haven't factored in various things to run a business like capital equipment (computers, software, network equipment, office furniture), production area (air lines, benches, power drivers, conveyors, parts bins, forklifts), any other equipment they decided to buy or lease (CNC, pcb pick and place machines, presses, injection molding, machine shop for fabrication, vacuum former, direct printing machine)

Maybe $750k/month is a bit of a stretch, but it's probably not that far off during the early phase (and I'm also guessing at numbers, they could be much higher)

#6315 4 years ago
Quoted from thedarkknight77:

For those of you who think Stern is not making money hand over fist on pros, you are crazy!

I think pros do ok, I would assume about $1k over BOM cost. Premiums have a much higher profit margin. I swear Gary once said that the LE's effectively pay for all the R&D for each new title, so all the lower tiers are strictly sale price minus parts/labor/overhead.

10
#6354 4 years ago

well after that summary cant wait to hear it from Robert himself. i also predict deeproot is going to turn into another homepin. few people are going to want to buy a pinball from such a negative company.

1 week later
#6802 4 years ago
Quoted from screaminr:

Robert clearly said the Flipper power wasn't turn down . Having an opinion is one thing but stating that opinion as FACT is another

Even if it wasn't purposely turned down, typically at shows the AC power is weaker because there are SO many machines plugged into a hotel that isn't prepared for it.. so if the AC is low, the DC that gets inverted is also low.

1 week later
#6888 4 years ago
Quoted from 6S3NC3:

The only good memory of the trip was meeting up with Gweempose.

brian is a kind dude

#6914 4 years ago
Quoted from pinballinreno:

The magic is missing

It's called low risk design, and save as much money as you can. About the only exception as of late is Keith Elwin's games.
Pretty much every Stern is an Italian bottom, very few have a 3rd or 4th flipper.
Pretty much every Stern (maybe all of them) from the last 8 years all have a ramp on each side that returns to the inlane.

Franchi told a story about the making of munsters. Borg had a mech he really wanted in the game, Gary told him to take it out. He started ripping everything out of the prototype and chucked the matchbox car across the room out of frustration.

1 month later
#7247 4 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

Williams was giving away “free” toppers in 1986.
Is this really the “value bar” now?

sometimes they would, and often it would be a single piece of plastic and an off the shelf beacon light. other times it would be a really creative piece of foil that would look like water falling that apparently cant be reproduced in 2020.

2 months later
#8076 3 years ago

I would be really worried if I were Robert right now. Not just because of delays, but this Covid isn't going away soon. The government just extended social distancing until end of April, and I'm guessing each state will follow suit (and it may go longer). There's over 3 million unemployed (highest ever), the stock market is barely hanging on. If I had to guess, established companies like CGC, Stern, American Pinball, JJP are all going to take a hit with fewer orders (if any). I see stuff I want on markets, and I'm like "I'd love that, but I'm not leaving the house.. especially to go to some stranger's house I don't know". Maybe you trust a distributor to pickup a new game, but what if you need to sell a game to make room / make money, but your game isn't selling because people aren't buying?

It could be dark days for 6-12 months, and I'm not sure they have that kind of time. You could argue they are primarily an investment company, and maybe they got out before the crash and know when to re-invest at the bottom and they'll be just fine.. but maybe not.

#8116 3 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

You guys can believe whatever you want, doom and gloom, blah blah blah, but the economy is coming back much faster than you naysayers and experts think.

It took almost a year for the economy to recover when the SARS virus hit, and this seems way worse. I don't ever remember a virus being so bad it required people to stay home to prevent the spread. Define "much faster"

#8125 3 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

This is all setting up for an early May "back to work" mantra because the government did such a fantastic job of keeping the death count so far below 100k, the curve flattens and decreases and its simply time to go back.

Are you crazy or being sarcastic? The government did a TERRIBLE job. We saw how the virus spread across europe for months, and they played it off like this was no big deal, it's just the flu, no way that's going to affect us or come over here (yet they didn't shut down international travel until it was too late). Currently we are at more than twice the cases of china, more deaths already than China (with 1/4 the population). Hell, I bet new york state alone surpasses the number of cases of China by tomorrow:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

#8128 3 years ago
Quoted from Joe_Blasi:

China is under reporting.

You could say the same for us.

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#8273 3 years ago

Listened to k-show. Summary:

* Covid shutdown china supply chain, had to re-shop for parts domestically for higher cost
* Boards for 15 games JUST came in from local supplier
* Were going to see multiple versions of RAZA
* They were going to have a physical version of 3d space cadet, but had to retheme because nobody from EA games and microsoft wanted to deal with the license. It's going to have hollywood CGI graphics, and the plan is to release that in 2021
* First RAZA's would have been delivered early April
* RAZA was never meant to be launch title. They don't want to clog production, want to move onto the next game. Robert will be upset if he has to make more than 500 of them.
* Sales Chain - direct sales is cheaper (domestically). International - distribution partners
* How much has changed on RAZA since houston show? Ramp has been adjusted (not as steep). Code had to be adjusted because of it. Playfield and cabinet art changed. There will be 4 art packages (2 space themed, two nuclear green).
* 6-8 modes programmed
* Robert sometimes loses passion working on multi-industry for 2.5 years now. Gets re-invigorated everytime he plays RAZA because he's proud of what they were able to create from scratch.
* Respects Gerry from multimorphic for pushing the envelope
* JPOP has other games he's working on besides alice in wonderland and magic girl that are less complex that will likely come out first
* Dennis Nordman left in December. He had several titles he was working on. Robert won't talk about the departure.
* Robert said before covid-19 he would have been able to put out 9 titles a year. Thinks all manufacturers are going to be pulling back on sales
* Team ready to turn on production at a moments notice.
* The person that posted about deeproot on here has been dealt with legally (hence the retraction)
* Streaming not a good way to reveal games. Needs to be hands on
* JPOP is good at conceptualizing a concept and prototype a layout without spending a lot of money
* Barry is a workforce, could make a table every week if he wanted to.
* Dennis Nordman worked remotely in Chicago and only came down on occasion.. he develops a general layout and let's others fill in the blanks
* Robert originally had the hot wheels license, Jon Norris had an amazing layout for this theme. Robert is working on a license that's hotter and harder to get than harry potter that this layout is going to be used for
* There's 5 different areas with coding (narrative scripts), translated by steve bowden, then goes to allison and matt that scripts the code, then the code goes through an engine, then the unity frontend GUI is done by a separate studio.
* RAZA never leaves the 2 office locations, not even for Bowden.

deeproot image (resized).pngdeeproot image (resized).png
#8298 3 years ago
Quoted from RCA1:

At what pace?
Didn't he also say they just received 15 board sets? That does not sound production ready.

I think he meant when things resume (IE stay at home order is over, china has shipped large quantity of production boards at a reasonable cost), the production area is ready to build product because the game is complete. They obviously couldn't start production tomorrow. It also sounds like his goal is to make RAZA buyers whole and isn't focused on building many games beyond that (unless there is a large demand).

2 weeks later
10
#8423 3 years ago
Quoted from Ericpinballfan:

Location play, taking a serious hit. Quarter drop for location will take a bit, possibly 2 years to come back to normal. Those quarters buy new pins.

It'll be at least a year before there's a hope for a vaccine, and at least 2 years for a cure (according to bill gates who is in touch with the worldwide health organization). Even IF people were willing to wear masks, you're still touching a public item that others have touched (and probably not washed their hands), not to mention drinking and pinball go together (can't drink with a mask). Since routed games make up for roughly half of sales, that's a BIG hit. Ask any operator, none of them are buying games (and the ones they have on pre-order are getting resold).

#8454 3 years ago
Quoted from wrb1977:

Unless the financial backing for both JJP and AP decide to absorb the hit...they will both go under this year. As far as deeproot goes, they will either continue to show they can operate in the red longer or they too may call it quits and never even launch. Stern has a ton of overhead which could be problematic as well. Spooky should be good at least thru the production of R&M...and then? Unfortunately, I do think there will be a thinning of the herd when it comes to manufacturers. Interesting times ahead for sure...I wish all in the business of pinball the best of luck...I’m pulling for you!

well said

Stern will probably be ok, but they have a perfect excuse to scale back (though you can't shrink a 120k square foot building so that overhead is fixed).

Based on history (capcom, data east, SEGA): JJP, DR, and american pinball's future all depend on what the investors want to do.

Spooky will be just fine. They have the least amount of overhead, they have nearly everything in-house now, the only supply chain issue they "might" have are boards (china). They are building rick and morty's for at least another year, and by then the pandemic will likely be very tame.

3 weeks later
#8502 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

RM did say that they want to use that hunger for new stuff when the Covid ban lifts, so... better do it quickly.

yea, especially since Stern production has ramped back up. They don't put out a game out now, everyone is going to hungrily go buy a TMNT. Without pinball shows to play at, a lot of people are going to be dying to play a new game.

1 month later
#8699 3 years ago

Barry has COVID

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3 weeks later
#8806 3 years ago
Quoted from Tranquilize:

I still have hope. They were just about to launch and the worst pandemic in over 100 years happened. Strange you guys can't give them any sort of understanding, even when the world shuts down.

I'm a product designer, and you better bet management doesn't care there's a panademic right now. If you use the covid excuse in a meeting for not keeping your projects on time, you'll get all the stories about layoffs and paycuts at other companies, and you should thank your lucky stars our company is doing well. I work 4 days a week from home and one in the office, but if I need to get sh*t done, you better believe they expect me to go into the office with mask on and get it done.

#8812 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

The difference is your argument refers to continuing with business as usual.
It‘s a different thing when you‘re just about to get things in place, build a line and hire people and this thing hits.
They can‘t return to normal when there never was a ‚normal‘.

According to the updates, they had a factory in place and were ready to start manufacturing pinball back in late February (ready to show at TPF at the end of March). Yes, they haven't actually fired up production (maybe a small pilot run to vet out the manufacturing setup), but it sounded pretty normal to me. I can't think of a single reason they wouldn't start making machines if it's truly ready. If they think they need to show it at a pinball show, they are wrong. Rick and Morty has NEVER been at a show and it sold out in 4 hours (and there are still people wanting one). TMNT has never been at a pinball show, and lots of people are buying them.

#8823 3 years ago
Quoted from Yelobird:

A start up with possibly proprietary boards, mechs, etc I personally would like to See or play their offering before jumping in blind

True.. but it DID show up to one show so the public did get to play it. Not like they couldn't show us what's under the hood on streaming video. I realize it's tough to sell games when you're a new company, but every company has to start somewhere (even spooky started with essentially nothing but a podcast and ben heck as competency). Look at how many people bit to buy a zidware game or Skit-b without seeing it (or a business plan). Granted that was a different era (most have wised up), but I would think the better thing to do is move along business as usual (build a small stock of games), announce they are for sale then plan production runs accordingly to sales. Sure beats burning money. I guarantee there won't be a public pinball show until at least next year, and even then the attendance is likely to be lower. Just look how empty Disney is right now:

2 weeks later
#8877 3 years ago

I assume even if robert has funding he'd be a fool not to take that money since it sounds like those loans are forgiven so long as you are a legit business with employees.

#8947 3 years ago

another snippet of art, wow. I mean, I suppose all those artists he has working for him should be doing something.

#8964 3 years ago

I'm slightly excited not because I necessarily want to play one, but because something is actually happening. It'll be interesting to see how everything is executed, especially manufacturing (and whatever secret sauce that's under the hood).

#8971 3 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

Assuming RAZA and MG are the primary focus, nobody is seeing workers at the factory yet .... looks like AIW is at LEAST a year out from being officially announced and then potentially another year before they ship it. Just wanted to say damnit. Just so much damnit.
I'm seriously perplexed as to why they would choose to release two original titles based off of "nothing" instead of a proven time worn "and more relatable" title like AIW? Is this a JPOP vision they're chasing money be damned or?
How many Disney based cartoon pins have we seen? Man, it just looks like they're betting on the wrong pony here.

they committed to fullfilling promises to execute goodwill in order to hire JPOP. also would you really want the first title out of the gate to be a disney license? almost feels like the original titles are practice while the company gets its bearings. same reason you never buy the first production car off the assembly line, they are still working the bugs out.

#9014 3 years ago
Quoted from ThisNotes4U:

Maybe they have been F***ng with us and have thousands of ultra modern pins ready to go. Three or four titles let's say. Go DEEPROOT!!!!

that's not usually how manufacturing goes, especially in the amusement industry. Stern builds about 60 pinballs a day, and at the end of each day those go on a truck to somewhere. Storing thousands of pinballs in a warehouse is a waste of money. The only companies that warehouse product are ones who sell seasonal product, so they spread manufacturing throughout the year.

1 week later
11
#9121 3 years ago

"More delays than any pinball manufacturer in history!"

#9152 3 years ago
Quoted from mbeardsley:

Sure, but they didn't start out with comments like "Stern sucks" and "Pinball is easy", and ridiculous brags about shipping "dozens of titles" with Ferrari quality and Kia prices. JJP and CGC have spent far more time and effort building their games and far less time bragging about it.
Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary results. I think everyone (probably even Robert now) realizes that pinball is not easy.
My point was that even if deeproot manages to ship a game soon (and I hope that they do), they don't have much justification to be telling people to "suck it".

jack never said pinball was easy, but he was pretty vocal about stern cutting costs.. then he realized how expensive pinball really is to make and his "fully loaded game that didnt cut corners" woz quickly went from a $6k to $7500 game by the time it hit production. only the early pre-order buyers got that low pricing.

#9246 3 years ago

I'd also like to point out it's been 62 days since TMNT was released. 2 months and they release a completely new game.
How is deeproot ever going to release more titles than any other manufacturer?

1 week later
#9522 3 years ago
Quoted from DaveH:

Unfortunately my expectation is so low that I assume 9.21.20 will be the date they will start teasing the next set of teasers leading towards the date of the teasers after that, followed by an unfortunate email stating that they are reorganizing to change their structure for the teasers that will follow that right around the corner.

#9577 3 years ago
Quoted from ThisNotes4U:

Imagine the the largest ever reveal, out of nowhere. 3,800 **** units packaged for shipment. Four days later: Over 2 thousand licensed games have been assembeled for months, available by Xmas. Re-tooling was completed on line three AUG 3rd and these playfield will be are next be thing. FEB

Yes, deeproot is just sitting on 15+ million dollars worth of pinballs just waiting in a giant warehouse for that reveal date.

#9762 3 years ago
Quoted from Wildbill327:

[quoted image][quoted image]

so long as it has this clip in it

#9921 3 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

My memory fails me but there is/was a foreign pinball manufacturer that made components of the playfield modular. I really think that was such a brilliant idea specifically for the OPs. No more wasting time on site trying to troubleshoot or repair. Remove a couple nuts and disconnect a plug and boom the whole assembly comes out. Aesthetically it's less pleasing but none the less I think it's brilliant. I hope DR has kept the OP's first and foremost in their design.

You're probably thinking of Heighway. Not only were entire playfields swappable in under a minute, you could pull the flipper mechs out quickly since there were cutouts of the flippers (no more removing flipper bats). Their idea was that instead of replacing coil sleeves, coil stops, or springs on location, you would simply take out an entire assembly and work on whatever you needed to on a bench.
https://www.pinballnews.com/news/heighwayoursler.html

#10311 3 years ago

omg take my money now.. clearly this is a well run company (you guys had a countdown for weeks to make sure everything was setup)

#10798 3 years ago

Pinball is hard.. so is this lockdown bar. Don't hit it too hard or you'll cut your hand.

28
#10816 3 years ago

the more I look at the backbox, it reminds me of a TV entertainment stand.. and now I can't unsee it

deep_center (resized).pngdeep_center (resized).png
#10937 3 years ago
Quoted from dung:

Love all the down votes on my multimorphic posts. There is no hype. There are no massively long speculation threads. Even the 2020 multimorphic announcement thread has a whopping 80 posts. There isn't interest. You have a handful of fan boys just like you do with every other manufacturer, and the majority voted with their wallets.
Its not because I am old, I am 33 atm. I am a software engineer by trade and my house is filled with all sorts of tech projects. Heist doesn't interest me, I have played lexy. Had the chance to get lexy really cheap second hand with a few other playfields and passed. It was a dud.This coming from someone who has a penchant for collecting duds due to them being different/rare/obscure/weird.
Downvote away, but again sales numbers are everything. In the case of low production value is everything. p3 doesn't have either. No amount of argument is going to change it. If they come up with a winning design pinside will show interest and until then it isn't but a lot of hot air on the part of the fan boys.

None of the multimorphic tables have impressed me, I REALLY don't like that the center is a big screen and limits the design to just the sides and back. Though I will say Heist looks interesting. Also one thing that Gerry has that no pinball company has is a steady business of selling boards to both homebrew and small startups like spooky or American Pinball (mostly because Josh Kugler is used to programming on PROC). So what if his pinball business is slow, he always has that cash cow filling his pockets.

10
#10957 3 years ago

Pinbar is interesting.. I don't know that we need a touchscreen to go through menus. Also completely crippling a game because a touchscreen goes bad (or the calibration goes off) is certainly a concern. A switch might be "archaic", but it can be easily and cheaply replaced for about $3.

The pneumatic lifters seem overkill. I don't understand what's wrong with sliding a piece of glass. Also anyone that's ever driven a hatchback knows that those start losing their power after about 6-8 years.
IMG_4294-1 (resized).jpgIMG_4294-1 (resized).jpg
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#11224 3 years ago

After seeing the video of Steve Bowden clicking through, the pinbar is growing on me. I still worry about reliability.

#11277 3 years ago
Quoted from JodyG:

They seemed to completely hide manufacturing capability from the announcement, which leaves me with the impression they have zero at this time. If that is the case, I'd be shocked if games were available to ship before Q3 or Q4 2021.

The fact that Robert talks about octo manufacturing, and now we see the bottom side of the playfield printed like a schematic (every single component and wire labeled IN COLOR) which adds cost, I'm guessing manufacturing is going to be contracted out. The playfield in a sense becomes a giant drawing to follow along. I know gottlieb used to print on the underside, but gottlieb also built over-engineered tanks (and were the first company to go out of business in the 90s).

playfield schematic (resized).pngplayfield schematic (resized).png
#11332 3 years ago
Quoted from okgrak:

Does that size display exist? There is no way deeproot is doing this in enough volume to have custom sized panels created just for them.

They probably aren't. You would be amazed on how many weird sized displays you can find on aliexpress fairly cheaply because some other company has invested money into creating it on their needs. The slot machine industry has a lot of goofy display sizes. However, most of those displays aren't touchscreen so they may have had to tool up a custom touchscreen pad overlay.

#11376 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

I mean, I think Rampage would make a great pin. Just whack the ball around and buildings fall over. You don't need to explain anything.

Besides it being easy to understand, it would be fun as hell too. There's a reason why we like "bash toys". Knocking a ball into something and watch it break is very basic but it works. Probably the reason why Medieval Madness got to be so expensive. Lower bridge, hit castle, castle shakes and breaks apart.. rinse repeat.

#11608 3 years ago
Quoted from ronaldvg:

Ok can anyone please explain me why ALL the so called experts, legends, pinball veterans, pinball wizards that work all day every day at Deeproot could not figure out that they had to delay the launch because the machine was just not good and that a few invited people, mostly press and hobby, do in a matter of hours ?
That says something about all those industry guru's to me. Also the fact that all those years of experience do not lead a good result, even after all this tiome they have got extra with all the delays. Something is very off there at DR.
I have heared literally no one talk about how the game plays. Only stuff about extra's that we are actually not waiting for like a crate that is an option none the less with your purchase. Sorry but this whole thing just makes me LOL.
Anybody remember that no one liked Dialed In because it was about a phone ? Now the phone is right in front of you. If I want to play an arcade game, I will start my arcade machine. They promised mechs that would do unimaginable stuff. RM talked about dozens of new toys that would interact with the ball and now they show this with a non working machine? Just wow.

Because Robert has a big ego and those experts probably did warn him, but he said "No, I want a pinbar, this thing needs to be revolutionary!".

Go look up apple's history with Steve Jobs. There's a story about where the engineers worked many long hours to build the first ipod prototype (which was revolutionary). He grabbed it, took a look at it, dumped it in a fish tank nearby, and said "See those air bubbles? That means there's still space inside, make it smaller"

https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-threw-ipod-prototype-into-an-aquarium-to-prove-a-point-2014-11

#11694 3 years ago

Since I made a steve jobs comparison (and someone else posted the perfect clip from the movie), the more I think about it nearly every company starts small (which doesn't seem to be the path of deeproot).

Steve jobs didn't go "Hey I'm going to change computers and jump right to a macintosh!". Nope, him and wozniak built homebrew computers, then made the apple I, then got funding to build production apple II's.

Elon musk didn't come out of the gate "I'm going to build a giant car factory and make my own chassis and my own batteries". Nope, he borrowed the chassis and body from a lotus, bought off the shelf batteries, and made a small run of expensive $100k electric roadsters (which all sold).

Even Gary Stern did not go full blown 100k sq foot factory and start making pinballs out of the gate. Between Stern electronics and Data east pinball, he started a company called Pinstar, made conversion playfield kits for Bally Pinballs.

Not saying it can't be done.. I mean JJP managed to survive (but they almost didn't and had to get bailed out).

#11707 3 years ago
Quoted from flynnibus:

Jobs didn't have the macintosh on the mind when they started apple. The apple I was to 'change computers' and did... on the back of woz. At virtually every step of the way Jobs reached bigger than they actually were or could be. It was one of his ways of pushing people to perform.

I was making the comparison that deeproot is trying to be macintosh out of the gate instead of an apple like most pinball startups. Just build a good product without re-inventing the wheel

Quoted from flynnibus:

Tesla raised nearly $100 million in their first 5 years to fund the company. That's not starting small

100 million sounds like a lot, but for a car company it's not. Hell I'm guessing JUST the tooling for all the components of an automobile (even an electric one that has WAY less parts) would probably eat up half of that. From the videos I've seen of even the early factory, most of the parts are made in-house (which means it's more than just tooling, it's investment capital in giant presses to form metal body panels).

Deeproot's funding isn't clear, but it sounded like they had like 30 million (which is a lot for a pinball company), and at the end of the day the investors want to profit off their investment. While Robert might want to break the mold and change the landscape, we are also talking about an industry that is mayyybe 150 million in net sales across all companies. I think he has visions of increasing that number by cost reducing pinball so it's obtainable by more people hence making it a bigger industry, but I don't know how you do that by incorporating touch screens.

#11715 3 years ago
Quoted from CLEllison:

I have no dog in this fight but at this point can one "truly" "solely" blame JPOP for this launch failure? There's more than one designer at DR is there not? The old saying, "We win as a team and lose as a team" I believe holds true to this day.

Really depends on how the team is managed. I've worked at a company where each designer is solely responsible for their piece of the project, and if your piece fails you take all the responsibility (which is a huge burden). Where I currently work, our entire team reviews each other's work and we all take the blame if something goes wrong. It might take more of our time, but in the end you have way less mistakes and a much better design. If I had to guess being a startup, a lot of that structure may not be worked out yet.

#11778 3 years ago
Quoted from clempo:

Can someone with manufacturing background estimate how long it can take to procure pinbars with rounded corners in sufficient quantities?

You would have to form that entire face with a punch tool. A tool like that can take anywhere from 8-12 weeks. I know from experience, my work is tooling up punch tooling to form some steel tubing. If the sides need to form an enclosed box, the vendor better allow for springback so the final shape is correct. Standard lockdown bars aren't as critical since there is a gap on the sides that don't have to mate with any other parts other than the cabinet itself.

#11790 3 years ago
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:

Another major problem with designing every part custom is repairs down the line.
With these weird setups you are locked into their specific part. Need a replacement lock down bar? Better hope deeproot is selling them and for a reasonable price.

maybe thats their plan.. like gilette razors. sell them a pinball dirt cheap, make up the money on service parts!

#11797 3 years ago
Quoted from phil-lee:

I would expect this to morph into a vacuum formed plastic.

This isn't a good solution, this is a compromise. Remember when Homepin went to a plastic lockdown bar because his supplier couldn't form metal ones because their press didn't have enough tonnage? Pretty sure most people hated that because it felt cheap and weak. Also not sure how well thermoformed plastic would hold up to banging. I worked on a project at work about 2 years ago, we started with thermoforming because that's what the existing one was (and we were trying to minimize tooling cost because it was such a large housing). Not only was the design compromised because of the limitations of geometry, but we were severely limited on material choice because in this application it needed the highest UL flameproof rating possible (which also made the raw material very expensive). Also it did not fair well with impact testing. Not to say that's the case in this part, but there are things to consider. We ended up scraping that tool and building an injection mold in Taiwan and had the mold shipped here.

#11906 3 years ago

So here's a question.. I think they claimed (is it 2 years now) that they obtained an "80's license", which we all know as goonies now. I know sometimes Stern will buy up licensees sometimes just to block other companies, but what does that cost? Holding onto a "potential license" for 3 years before a game is even done (if they even release that title in 2021), and then needing an actual license during the manufacturing of that game.

13
#11935 3 years ago
Quoted from PoMC:

I’m reading an article about Tesla’s battery day and this quote from Elon Musk stood out:
Musk then went on a rant about how people don’t appreciate manufacturing enough:
This is something that the average person has no idea about whatsoever. Smart people on Wall Street generally have not the faintest clue about manufacturing and how difficult it is. They think that once you have come up with a prototype, that’s the hard part and everything else is trivial copying after that. It’s not. It’s perhaps 1% of the problem. Large-scale manufacturing, especially of a new technology, it’s something between 1,000 and 10,000% harder than the prototype.

What most people don't get about manufacturing.. you not only have to make it fairly simple to assemble (so each worker can do a few simple tasks) you have to optimize that build time. Even unskilled labor isn't cheap, and pinball has a LOT of parts to assemble. And you don't make it simple because workers are dumb, it's because when ANYONE does the same task over and over, it's very easy for your brain to naturally conserve energy and start to run on routine, which can drift. I myself have experienced this building the product I helped design. You think "oh this is easy, I can't possibly screw it up", and then you go to recheck your pilot units and realize you put this part on backwards, or forgot to install this part completely. You have to build fixtures so things are easier to assemble, and you have to make surfaces such that you don't scratch up the parts as you assemble, and if parts are heavy you have to assume your workers aren't going to want to lift it. And that's just the building portion. Then you have to do audits and do quality checks to double check other's work.

Until deeproot shows us how they plan to build these, I really don't see the point of showing even a sample game. If their intention is to contract out manufacturing, get ready to pay a hefty price (and wait a lot for your game because you have to get in line). The reason why most companies buy their own 3d printers instead of farming it out is because they don't want to wait in line. They know if they have to make a last minute change to a design, they can throw it a job and have parts the next morning.

#11955 3 years ago
Quoted from Fytr:

It's because there's a dead hooker in the bottom of the cabinet. A *dead hooker*!
Given the circumstances, I think Cary did a pretty good job of mostly ignoring the fact that there was a dead hooker in the cabinet, and just focused on the stuff he *could* talk about.

#12244 3 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

Also the Ford Taurus pretty much set design trends in the auto industry for the next 10 years. We had the mercury version and it was even more badass. The front had this giant light bar it was sick.

This dude has a fun channel. he does a lot of tv/movie cars. He had an interesting point (I was only like 12 when robocop came out) that when people saw that movie, the ford taurus was still a prototype and when it hit the showroom, everyone was like "oh man, that's the future cop car. I want one!". Also interesting that because they were using prototypes in the movie, in one scene you can see that they used a version with early headlights that still had regular round lamps behind them.

#12304 3 years ago
Quoted from rai:

This car was dope.
[quoted image]
And
[quoted image]

Friend had an mr2, that thing was like a go-cart (but a little cramped for me who's 6'4"). Still sorta want a mazda miata. Even though it's not the fastest car, it drives like it's on rails

#12325 3 years ago
Quoted from JohnnyPinball007:

I skipped a few pages and now I am confused.
Is Deep Root in the car business now?

More thread hijacking than any pinball manufacturer in history!

#12339 3 years ago
Quoted from BazilBLast:

One 80s American car I would want .
[quoted image]

I too wanted one of these as a kid.. then I watched doug, yeaa

19
#12465 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

Maybe after deeproot Jpop can go work at a food truck.

NOooooo!

"Hey John, I've been waiting for my sandwich for 20 minutes now!"
"I haven't started making ANY sandwich yet. First I have to design the cardboard container to hold the sandwich, then I have to do develop the artwork for the box"
"So how much longer?"
"Probably like 3-4 months at least"

#12620 3 years ago
Quoted from Andy_B:

I would imagine its likely to be in the millions.

tens of those

#12649 3 years ago
Quoted from Bublehead:

Right now I am reminded of some good advise my Dad gave me... "Don't ever buy the first model year, buy the third model year..."

The third model year has got all the bugs worked out of all the "fixes" they found out about in the first model year and tried to re-engineer for their second model year's attempt. He said, "if they havent got it right by the third time, they aint ever getting it right."

In the automotive world that's probably true only because there are SO many parts. I work in manufacturing and the products I work on typically we have prototyped it to work out all the bugs so the first run is fine. At one company you REALLY wanted the first batch because after product gets released, they start cost reducing it and you end up with an inferior product to the earlier stuff.

#12743 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

That's hella weak for 2 years of a 750k monthly burn.
My guess is John-Robert formed an impenetrable feedback loop of crazy and nobody else was allowed to criticize "the Rembrandt of Pinball"
Thus we get an emperor who doesn't realize he's naked until an outside party (the city/journalists) tell him so.

I'm guessing your game has been done for about year now, it just hasn't released because you're not in queue yet at CGC? Yet one more example that making one pinball is easy. Manufacturing many is HARD.

#12747 3 years ago
Quoted from Richthofen:

Ben Heck’s game, AMH, was out for a limited run and did get built. All the shots were makeable and for first commercial game it was pretty good. Between AMH and the Bill Paxton pinball, Ben Heck has produced more complete commercial pinball machines than JPOP since the year 2000.

No.. his next game

#12816 3 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

So far, that never happens. Company goes tits up and it’s over.
There’s really no incentive for a an actual pinball company like Stern or JJP to finish some half ass fantasy designs produced within a fake pinball company. You just don’t get much - if any - benefit from it. May as well finish your OWN games that you have in the pipeline rather than crowbar Food Truck into the production pipeline.

I've heard stories of mold companies that go out of business, and rather than try to sell them as the molds they are (which work perfectly fine), they have an agreement with the customers they don't want those designs to get molded by some other company, so they literally take a hammer and dent the steel then sell the metal for scrap.

#12881 3 years ago

See how awesome that Pinbar is. simple menus, interactivity, *cough* charge you money for features *cough*
Oh wait, I just remembered something. DLC is a moot point if you never ship a game.

1 week later
#12979 3 years ago

cyberpunk 2077 just pushed their release date back another month and are now getting death threats on twitter (and their employees are working 100 hour work weeks)
http://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/10/28/21538525/cyberpunk-2077-cd-projekt-red-death-threats-game-delay

3d games are also hard.

#13007 3 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

I got bored with the radio silence so I did a little checking. I thought they were operating with $32.2 million but it would seem that Deeproot has raised $44.9 million in two offerings. All of it back in 2015. First round was the $32.2 million in September 2015 that has been commonly discussed here. Then in December of 2015, a second round raised an additional $12.7 million.
$44.9 million, here's the link where I got that info: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deeproot-tech/company_financials
Its been five years with no apparent income. I'm just hoping there is enough gas in the tank for the Goodwill people to get their games.

Well I mean, no income from pinball anyway. Supposedly the studios work on other digital projects but who knows what the income (if any) is. But again, every business model is based on ROI. It's fuzzy what deeproot has actually spent developing the "pinball division", but best guess over the past 3-4 years is likely well over 20 million at this point. Even if you make $2k profit on every game, you have to sell 10k machines just to make up for all the investment. Those are Stern numbers (for a company focused on mostly unlicensed titles for the first few runs).

#13022 3 years ago
Quoted from pinlink:

That's just not true though. The world of venture backed businesses seems to go clear over a lot of people's heads here.
The goal for any VC backed startup is NOT profit!! In fact if you were profitable, your investors would be pissed. That means you are not growing fast enough.
The goal for VC backed startups is growth, and to dominate a category (like pinball). Look at Uber, Amazon or thousands of others as an example. Uber is still not profitable and they are a publically traded company. But guess what!?? All of the early investors and employees made a shit load of money. That's the game. Robert pitched this business model the same way that a technology startup would have.
I am not saying that I think deeproot is on the right track ( I believe that they will fail), I just get tired of seeing people talk about how they are not making a profit as if that was their current goal, or their investor's goal. IT'S NOT! The goal is growth (and yes, deeproot is failing at this with not delivering a single game). If this goes over your head, do some research into how VC backed startups operate. I'll say it again, profit is not a goal at this stage!! Growth first. Profit comes later.

I also get that new businesses are in the red in the beginning. But startups usually startup faster than 3 years though. If you were an investor and didn't see a single product go out during that time, when would your patience run out?

#13058 3 years ago

as ben can attest, AMH suffered a bit from dialogue that was too long in parts where you would have a lot of overlap because of how fast pinball can move along. the only way to prevent this is forcing the player to stop and focus on the menu choices which i think most players dont want. they wanna flip pinball, not play an RPG.

2 weeks later
#13164 3 years ago

speaking of JPOP, didn't Robert say that John flies in every other week or something? I was under the impression he didn't move down there. If that's the case, how's that working with the pandemic? Illinois has been a hotzone this past week spiking at 15,000 cases just the other day. Pretty sure anyone traveling out of state has to quarantine for 2 weeks.

#13176 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

Remember for me it's personal. John said I was "making a mistake" by helping Spooky instead of him.
Whoops!

People that say that, usually do because they know it's the opposite but they are trying to keep you around. I've experienced that a few times.

#13197 3 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

jesus, they're down to a blank page now?
This is literally "the lights have been turned off".
Not how you build momentum for a product.[quoted image]

maybe next week they'll show the brick wall falling apart again.

#13269 3 years ago
Quoted from PinballManiac40:

I don't see how it is any more dangerous going to a restaurant, going to work or school, going to the grocery store or home improvement store, or even to get gas for your vehicle. Everywhere you go, you will be touching something that someone else has. Anyhow, there is a Covid thread for this already to make your thoughts known.

I don't go "into" restaurants, haven't since the pandemic started. At work I have to wear a mask at all times I'm not sitting in my cubical (and our office hasn't had a single case). Home improvement stores are pretty spread out, it's not hard to keep a 6 foot distance (and again I wear a mask at all times). Every stop I make, even if it's for gas, I immediately grab hand sanitizer out of my door and clean my hands.

I know that might sound like extreme, but I REALLY don't want to get covid. Even if you survive, having a tube shoved down my throat for a week connected to a ventilator doesn't sound like fun. And if I get it, my wife gets it, which means then I have to figure out who to take care of our dogs while we're both in the hospital. And then there's the after effects of covid, everything from lung damage to brain damage. Then we both have to tell our jobs "Welp, looks like we both have to take 2 weeks off while we self isolate, guess someone else has to pickup the slack for us".

I mean I suppose I could be diligent about either not touching my face while I'm playing pinball on location, or cleaning my hands after every ball.. but I know how complacent I can get while playing (especially when you have games at home and don't think twice about playing them normally as if there isn't a pandemic because only you play them).

#13335 3 years ago

So my thoughts

1. SOoooo I guess this is what John's vision has been trying to output for the past 7 years? The theme still feels so scatter brain. Aliens come to an abandoned theme park to do what exactly? Are you fighting them to leave the planet?
2. The animations are decent, but there's so few of them. I realize software is easy to update as you go, but I would have expected more seeing how he has (or had) a team of animators. It feels like placeholders a homebrew project would stick in until they figure out where they want to storyline to go
3. The layout is definitely JPOP. Swoopy ramps, and re-use all those old EM mechs instead of inventing something new.
4. That display in the backbox just kills me, even more so seeing it on a typical multi-window stream. I can't stand redundancy for no reason whatsoever in design. If anything it should be the complete opposite, each feature should have multiple functions.
5. This is still going to be a hard sell. I realize this wasn't meant to be a high seller (more so to satisfy zidware customers and test out their manufacturing / design), but that playfield feels cluttered.. like playing a data east batman.

#13395 3 years ago

I'll add one more comment about redundancy. There's clearly a "PLAY" button on the pinbar to shoot the ball (because there's an auto-launcher), yet there's a shooter rod (which is typically kept for skill shots) but there doesn't seem to BE a skillshot. The ball loops over and dumps right into the playfield, so what's the point of having a shooter rod? They were so adamant about removing the start button, why not keep it clean and also not have a shooter rod.

#13433 3 years ago
Quoted from NevadaNutJob:

The lightning art that was previously more of a white stripe or something on the corner of the wrap around backbox makes no sense . I kills the whole point and turns the wrap around into separate side art even if it’s a continuation of the image . Makes no sense . Other than that the game physically looks great . Looking forward to playing it !

Ben brought this up on a podcast (most likely k-man), that the art is likely printed on a thin polycarbonate sheet then it's heat formed to create the bend (which causes a white line that kills the art), so by adding a lightning bolt it hides that flaw.

#13451 3 years ago
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:

"The paramount reason I came onboard deeproot Pinball was to help build a world-class game company, pushing the envelope in styling, game art and design, while innovating the underlying technology that makes play fun for everyone.
- John Popadiuk

.... And because of the legal shelter to dodge the lawsuits from customers who didn't get their games

#13510 3 years ago
Quoted from NevadaNutJob:

There’s a price disparity now but ;
1) it’s not a one time $50 fee it’s $50 a month with a one year minimum.
There are no guarantees that the game is complete within a year .
2) the document said the xe or extra will be 9500 - also without complete code that you must pay to obtain .
3) don’t think for a minute their business model is to remain the cheapest guy on the block while they’re telling us they believe their product is the Ferrari of the industry .
It’s just a business model I can’t support . To each his own

nickel (resized).jpgnickel (resized).jpg
dime (resized).jpgdime (resized).jpg

#13559 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

The thing I maybe like most on this lit up side panel

Yes, because so many of us see the sides of a game. Whether it's an arcade or home, I rarely see the sides of games (myself or friends). People that buy butter cabinets from spooky are typically people with way too much money, or someone in a new york apartment with only room for one game.

Quoted from benheck:

Shh! You're not supposed to notice that. Look how awesome the cabinet and backglass look!
Here's hoping future DR games made by real designers can wow us in the with this sweet cabinet AND good gameplay which is all that matters in pinball.

I would love to see another Barry Oursler game. He hasn't had one of his designs reach production since 1996 Junkyard.

#13584 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

As someone who has been using Adobe for 24 years I can attest to the shift. Used to be you'd buy the package once, then upgrade every 3-4 years for $600. Now you pay $600 every year. And the software changes a lot less than your average video game DLC.
I think DLC could work as I've said many times before. Add the 3rd movie to Star Trek, add more seasons to GOT, R&m, TWD. Licensing that extra content certainly isn't free but if there was financial incentive the pin companies might do it.
Maybe the DR plan covers all games you own. If that means DLC support for say 3 titles then it becomes a better deal. But does the content relock if you cancel? That's what Xbox Game Pass does.
Another question is does the content become BS filler? This is what happens to every "live service" video game that isn't popular. A hit like COD Warzone keeps getting new stuff but a flop like BFV gets dumb challenges like "try and get 10 headshots between now and Friday"

It is unfortunate. I bought my last copy of photoshop (CS5) and I refuse to upgrade. I know it's 10 years old but it still does the job. I also have office 2010 and no matter how many times the red banner comes up "we can no longer offer patches" I have no reason to update to a modern version of office.

#13676 3 years ago
Quoted from jellikit:

But just think at all the new updates and content they could get for a licensed them like Goonies! While it may have been released in 1985, if there was ever a sequel they would be ready to capitalize on it.

I also imagine this.. You get your goonies pinball. With your purchase price, you get licensed art on the playfield, you get "the world" of the goonies (sort of like how Stern Jurassic park is the world with the music, Ned.. but no clips, no ford explorer)... no actual goonies call outs or video clips. You figure "well this is all good", then deeproot's next update comes and it includes a bunch of licensed stuff. You try to stick to your guns, I'm not paying $500 to get licensed content, this should have come with the game. Then you start seeing pinball streams, you get jealous, and you cave. DR realize now that they have a revenue stream, they dig deeper. The next licensed game is even more stripped down, and they get 2 years of DLC out of their customer base.

#13751 3 years ago
Quoted from Kkoss24:

I mean there’s 4 designers working there wouldn’t you think they’re all working on something right now ?

three
https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/deeproot-pinball-new-home-new-hires-5-days-deeproot-exclusive-follow-interview/

JPOP (barely a designer)
Barry Oursler
Jon Norris

Nordman left almost a year ago, not sure how far he got on his 2 playfield designs (or any mechs he might have designed)

1 week later
#13859 3 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

Could you elaborate please or provide some links. Thanks

k-man supposedly interviewed gary stern, but his soundcloud page went dark again. I download podcasts every morning so it must have gotten shutdown between yesterday morning and today.

If I had to guess, Robert probably threatened him for leaking shit (yet again). I'm sure it was something like "You know I'm a fucking lawyer right?! Shut this shit down now before I slap a lawsuit that'll make your head spin"

That guy NEVER learns

#13937 3 years ago

Cabinet looks neat.. still think that pinbar is going to get in the way of short players seeing the flippers

#14001 3 years ago

how can the website still be down 90 minutes later? they are missing out on several orders.. i mean at least 3 right?

#14124 3 years ago

so what happens if deeproot doesnt get the minimum orders they were hoping for? do they just never invest in manufacturing because the ROI isnt there? do they move onto the next title? do they close shop?

#14210 3 years ago
Quoted from halflip87:

We’re actually seeing more from deeproot now than we have in the last few years which, any way you slice it, is a good thing.
-Doug

Because his investors want to see product go out the door so they can get out of the red

#14351 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

Here's what I believe to be the deal with manufacturing:
In the interview, if you listen between the lines, they know RAZA is a dog. All they talk about is the system around it, what the next games are, and mostly the PinBar. Mentions how much work it was to get RAZA going (because John sold them a light diorama) and as for how many they will sell? 100? Maybe 200? Robert says. He doesn't know (who does?) but knows it won't be a lot. (This is the same guy who back in early 2015, without playing it, thought Magic Girl could sell 2800 units on looks alone. Note how often he says "beauty" in these videos)
Look, I'm sure RAZA is shootable. But it's pretty weak considering NINE YEARS of dev and the money deepRoot spent and their level of their ambition.
The 3 week sales window is so they know how much they have to hire up/ramp up for manufacturing starting in January.
Then the question becomes how close is their next game? A line is a beast that must be fed, so are they going to scale out the hiring to keep making RAZA until Food Truck is ready? When that bombs how close is Goonies to being ready?

So let's say they get 200 pre-orders for RAZA (which is likely the maximum if they only sold 25 games in 2 days).. let's assume they have some sort of assembly line, whatever that is. This is their first rodeo. Even if they hired an experienced production engineer, I'm assuming that person hasn't built out an assembly line for pinball machines (which sorry, are niche). Even if they somehow manage to build 20 games/week, that's 10 weeks. Is the next game going to be ready in that short time? Not just a complete layout game tested, but artwork, code, ALL parts ready to go? From my experience, lead-time on parts can be anywhere from a month to 4 months.

#14369 3 years ago
Quoted from Tranquilize:

Food truck will be fine if it shoots well. Everyone loves at least of few of the old system 11 games. Remember that Funhouse was unlicensed. No one is bitching about Heist. Why? It shoots well and has great ideas behind it.
The issue with RAZA (as Ben has pointed out repeatedly) is gameplay. It has almost exclusively recycled ideas and just doesn't seem to shoot that well for a modern game. I like the Dizzy Doozy though. It's better than JJP's effort at a spinner wheel.
If food truck shoots well, has good theme integration with some humour, I'd likely buy one. The Bowden gameplay vid makes the pinbar looks pretty damn cool. Spending money in the shop doesn't seem to be the annoying stop-and-go like I thought it would be. Plus with foodtruck, you don't have to take the manufacturing risk. The suckers who bought Raza already did that for you.

really depends on what direction they take it.

If it's like every cooking game like "cooking mama" where you're stressed out getting orders out on time (and correctly), then no thanks. That's not fun, that's work.

If they make it simplistic where shots equals progress in the storyline (sort of like the way stern did deadpool), then it could be fun. Maybe besides just the cooking part, there could be a competition where all the trucks are racing down the streets to a sporting event and the first one gets the closer parking spot (3x point scoring).

#14424 3 years ago
Quoted from Mr68:

I get that you're trying to be creative here but please, oh my god, no. As a player, the last thing I want from my machine is advertising. I hate it even at home with my Spooky games when I see an advertisement for Pinball Life. Maybe it's just me but it feels like more internet, business, invasion and manipulation.
I wanna play pinball and escape the real world.
And couldn't I just order a beer using my smartphone without being prompted by a scrolling marquee?
Now the one fantastic use I could see about the Pinbar would be the ability for the customer to immediately notify the operator that the machine is broken. Stuck ball? Boom, right to his cell phone and he'd probably be sitting at the bar.

Yes, or more operators could leave their number on the instruction card to call or text them... or if they don't want people to know their phone number, setup a free twitter account so people can DM them.

Also I once owned a lethal weapon and it had the audacity to advertise the next game (tales from the crypt). I also had system 11 games that told me to say no to drugs.

#14587 3 years ago
Quoted from Mercifull:

And by printing the part numbers and placements underneath the play field then staff can be hired fairly easily without an absolute ton of training in order to memorise mech and switch placement. This could be part of their trade “secret”... maybe they have come up with a novel way of actually putting together these machines.

You have never worked in manufacturing. It's very easy to mess things up, even if you're really smart. Assembly is dull work and it's easy for your mind to wander as a result. If they don't have someone from deeproot overseeing assembly, things are going to get messed up, especially electrical things. If things aren't hooked up right, it's a very timely (and costly) process of figuring out what's wrong... In some cases you could destroy parts (IE put 48v coil power through a lamp).

I would agree with you if deeproot chose node boards, and the assemblers are literally screwing a pcb in position, and plugging in a connector that can't go in wrong, but from what I'm seeing under the playfield it is a mass amount of faston connectors. I really hope at the very least they chose different sized connectors between voltages.

#14596 3 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

Straighten them out Toyota! Guarantee you they are doing the "different sized connectors between voltages". Come on man!

Oh nothing surprises me. The first pinbar had razor sharp edges because apparently nobody there (even bowden an experienced pinball player) thought there would be an issue with that. But of course if you asked them they'll just cover it by saying "oh that isn't the final production version".

#14707 3 years ago
Quoted from kermit24:

What about the smartphone app? It says it allows you to administer the machine. I bet it can connect directly to the machine over WiFi.

So now we're on the 3rd screen to get feedback from the machine? Maybe the coil could fire in pulses that emit morse code, and we can get an app to decode it.
click click.. click click click.... click.... click click click
C
click... click click click click.... click click
O
click click... click click click click... click... click click
I
click.. click... click.. click click
L
click click click click.. click... click click
1

#14829 3 years ago

yea no way they build even 150 games in a lab environment. I've done pilot builds of product at a quantity of 50 between 4 engineers, and it was a fairly simple product and even then it was easily a solid week sitting on a temporary 4 bench production line. A pinball machine with that many parts to assemble between 4 engineers I'm guessing would go REALLY slow and would be a waste of resource. Really hope Robert turns this first build into an all hands on deck situation where every employee helps out otherwise your games are going to take FOREVER to build.

1 week later
#14970 3 years ago
Quoted from Robotoes:

Are you talking about their phased timeline? Which shows no solid, real dates, but instead speaks in terms of weeks from a start of...when?
It also specifically states that the first three phases will happen once UL certification happens. Anyone check on UL certifications for Deeproot? Or was that just me?

NADA:
https://productiq.ulprospector.com/en/search

doesn't mean they aren't in process. UL typically doesn't post documentation until at least a month after the testing is done.

#15126 3 years ago
Quoted from hank527:

I have to love the blind faith people have. Heighway had manufacturing and failed. Deeproot doesn’t have a line to run machines or they would show it. Stern has production engineers and who does Deeproot have on that list to make a production line run?
This does not end well.

Heighway never had real manufacturing, they had maybe a 50% start on a manufacturing. Seriously, go back and watch the video:

They acquired a few pieces of used capital equipment, a few conveyors, a temporary tent for printing artwork, parts bins sitting on a temporary cart (not overhead shelving), and assemblers using hand screwdrivers (real manufacturers use pnematic drivers with torque settings, or at the very least some DC electric drivers with torque settings).
heighway_pinball_manufacturing (resized).pngheighway_pinball_manufacturing (resized).png

#15202 3 years ago
Quoted from wesman:

So after Spooky made 2 fairly...literal bootique games, Domino's and Jetsons were created, why exactly? I'd assume cashflow, rather than inspiration.

Dominos I believe was created by a chain owner who was passionate about making a game for corporate

Jetsons was created by "the Pinball Company" who in my opinion have big egos similar to deeproot that thought they could sell 300 stripped games at $7k each and ended up selling less than a hundred (I saw games on ebay for $4500 from the owners). They also thought they could just open a pinball store in woodfield mall in Schaumburg (one of the most expensive malls in america) back in 2018 and I still haven't heard anything about that.

Both were essentially filler games, something Deeproot needs to think about if they don't want to bleed money again after RAZA is done being manufactured.

#15363 3 years ago
Quoted from cpr9999:

More Ocktoberfest’s made then AMH.
Neither big runners but have their following.
Give me 1 more unique game like Oktoberfest or Food Truck .... than the 100th music pinball. Only 4 of those music pins in the top 40 pinball rankings.

AMH was built by probably like 3-4 people (like most of Charlie's family and maybe one outside person hired) in a room about the size of most people's basements (I picked mine up in person so I know how small it was). Octoberfest should have had more built than AMH being their 2nd game and a helluva lot more money and people behind it.

I like music pins, but it certainly feels like manufacturers are going to the well too many times. Look what happened to Midway, they just kept releasing new fighting games until people got bored with the theme.

1 week later
#15509 3 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

So did they already sign licensing deals? Are those not ticking clocks that have to be finished and built within a particular time frame? (Or they have to re-up, thus throwing away money needlessly)

I'm no expert, but I believe there are two levels of licenses

Stage 1 - A cheaper "hold license" where you basically block anyone else from making that themed product for the next year. I think Stern starts with this while the table is being developed and they negotiate approval on artwork and what not

Stage 2 - Actual license - Everything is approved and the clock starts ticking, production begins. If it takes you longer than a year to build your orders, you have to renew the license. Typically the license price goes up because the licensor knows you've invested time and money into your product.

With that said, if you don't move over to stage 2 quickly enough and another company comes along promising a quicker launch date, the licensor may switch contracts... especially if 2nd company is more established.

1 week later
#15575 3 years ago

So let's say they build 500, and let's assume they average a profit $2k each (I doubt it's that high by the time you pay labor but let's be nice). So that's a million dollars.

"Good news investors, I got 1/30th of your investment back after 4 years (because pinball is easy).. I swear the next pinball is gonna make up for the other 29 million.. except I'm gonna need like another 2 million to develop the next title."

15
#15588 3 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

Just adding this in from the pre-order club thread.
===============================
Dear RAZA Customer:
First, thank you for your business and decision to buy in to an amazing machine we spent years designing to bring out the best of Popadiuk’s original theme and layout. As I am writing this email, I am aware of the weight of accountability in fulfilling orders of quality machines as soon as possible. I am providing the below update as a matter of goodwill and transparency, knowing that it will be unfortunately posted online or misreported by podcasts (plural), twisted in ways where truth, civility, and rationality go to die.
ORDERS
We received orders (paid or goodwill) for ~70 Arcade Editions of RAZA, and ~60 Xtra Editions of RAZA. We will round up to 160 total RAZA Games with most of the remaining games available for sale at $8,000USD starting price for the Arcade Edition, and $13,000USD flat fee for the Xtra Edition. More details on timing of that later. After all RAZA games have sold we will publish (for historical purposes - IPDB), the exact game counts.
UL/CE
We were not able to get our machines scheduled into the labs for UL testing or International/CE testing until two weeks ago. So far I understand that most tests have been passed. I understand it can take up to 5 weeks to complete testing and receiving reports and certification. We will not be able to release/ship any games until those are complete.
PARTS
With most vendors going dark for the last two weeks of December and first week of January, we have orders in for about 70% of the BOM. There are three main hiccups:
• Long lead times in general and vendors promising one thing before they get their money, than quickly changing their tune after getting their money is the most prevalent reason for the delayed orders and parts. There have been some great vendors who are exceeding expectations; and we sincerely appreciate their efforts.
• The lockbar we designed as more ergonomically usable is complex with two stamps and several welded reinforcements. The complexity of the design has caused a large number of vendors to pass on it with the cost and time frame we needed it. We finally have two vendors that are willing to do small runs. The problem is getting them into their already full production schedule to arrive asap.
• The lighted side panel prototypes we had for our 2 Xtra editions had some wear/tear and technical issues with frayed wires and sizing. It has taken the last 60+ days working with several vendors to redesign them to be more durable and allow spacing for leg protectors or cup holders, etc.
PRODUCTION
We have the first lines ready to go and will proceed in prepping what we can while waiting on parts and certification. Since there are tiered production stations the ones that can produce deliverables will start in the next few weeks. I made the decision not to show production lines or illusory and deceptive pictures of parts or lines or cabinets for many obvious reasons. The only thing that matters is you getting your brand new RAZA on your doorstep in working condition as soon as possible. That is a picture that will actually mean something. We fully look forward to seeing your delivery pics and unboxing videos posted or tagged to one or more of our social media pages.
ADDITIONAL STREAMS
We have received lots of requests for additional video coverage or streaming. We finally got all the cameras for our internal rig. But (and being completely honest) I have requested that they be delayed for now. Our creative team is working hard on other projects and deadlines. I feel that since orders are over, adding additional content in the short term is moot.
EXPECTATIONS
Disappointing news may still have a bright side. We expect to receive parts through the first week of March at this point with the first RAZAs leaving mid-March. The certifications for UL/CE should also be done around the time. While that may sound disappointing to wait another couple of weeks for games, there is a bright side. Since the run of RAZA machines is limited, we should be done much quicker than our anticipated and originally announced time of 3.5-4 months.
We have had some of you contact us about jumping the line. It doesn’t make any sense at this point. You and other customers will be playing RAZA sooner than you think.
NEXT COMMUNICATION
I plan to update customers again by the end of February. Thank you again for your trust and business. Thank you for your patience. We look forward to exceeding expectations and we are grateful for you allowing us a chance to do so. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] or by visiting the website. Best! -Robert J. Mueller

Well I mean.. at least he's transparent.

UL: "most tests" doesn't count, it's all or nothing to pass. Let's hope he means all tests aren't completely done yet (not this didn't pass, we are fixing it and re-submitting) because if it's the latter you are waiting in line again for UL to schedule a new testing date (which could literally be months, especially with covid backing everything up right now).

Orders in for 70% BOM is not a good sign, that's a huge deficit. Even if orders were in today for 100% of the BOM you'd still probably have a 1-2 month lead-time for parts from vendors (longer if it's coming from china unless you plan to pay for air freight). I don't see how they think machines are going to start shipping Mid-March. Not like parts come in and you start building. ALL new parts need to go through a QC inspection of a sampling of at least 10 parts to see if on average parts come within the tolerances you speced out (especially with a new vendor that you don't have any feedback from yet). If they are deciding to skip this step, either they get REALLY lucky, or expect parts to be hand fitted.

#15602 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

130 pcs. is actually quite a low number, didn‘t expect that.

Which is 30 less than AMH, which I'm guessing had a budget 1/100th of deeproot and sold 30 more..

I guarantee Robert isn't building 160 just in case 30 stragglers come by who are willing to pay $2k higher than initally offering, he doesn't want to be outdone by AMH. Only way he could have been more obvious is if he said he was building 151.

#15671 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

I bet it's summer before anything trickles out the door.

agreed.. In Mid to late March you'll hear more excuses and things not going as well as planned GUARANTEED (and as I have stated earlier some of those issues). When our company lays out a schedule, we not only include the initial tooling time we include time to make adjustments to the tool (plus testing time). I hope everyone who pre-ordered is VERY patient.

Quoted from benheck:

I can see why most vendors would run away from the PinBar. It's stamped metal but then you have a window in it which has to line up to a fixed size LCD. So what do you do? Mill out the window after you stamp it? Sounds like a huge pain in the butt to only make (hahaha haha) 160 units.

Milling is probably what they'll end up doing (at least for this build because of low volume), but since it's for a screen with sharp corners they have to decide how small they want to go on the radius. Go too small, it'll take forever to mill that out. Go too big, and you'll lose screen real estate. If this was a high volume product, you could do a progressive die, but that's some serious money (and you better be right on the position, or have plenty of clearance around the display in case it's not exactly where you expect it).

#15679 3 years ago
Quoted from Robotoes:

my guess is late February. CNY starts next Friday and lasts through about 20 Feb, and as of this week downstream supplier order windows were dwindling.

We have parts about to ship next week before the 8th for a project.. Every supplier in China basically says if you haven't ALREADY made arrangements weeks ago, you can forget about even getting in queue to ship parts until the 20th... That's how busy the shipment centers are right now.

#15771 3 years ago
Quoted from pudealee:

I had a former boss that did that incessantly. I asked a psychologist friend about that and the response was pretty telling. If you just google "saying right at the end of a sentence" you get the following explanation:
"When they say 'right,' they are implying to the listener that what they are saying is not only obviously correct, but that the listener already understands and is already in agreement with them."

It's a sales tactic

#15779 3 years ago
Quoted from Roostking:

RM should honestly pull the plug on this whole debacle, pay off the good wills and hope this all goes away. JPOP wont allow it though.

He tried, it didn't go well

#15818 3 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

A few more job postings as of late
https://www.indeed.com/q-Deeproot-jobs.html
Whatever they're doing, they're staffing up in a few areas.

Well at least we know they're using solidworks
https://www.indeed.com/rc/clk?jk=e5af6d36804cfcc9&fccid=1b88f48f39e800e6&vjs=3

#15865 3 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

Bottom line that you guys are missing
The investors don’t give a flying F about pinball per se
Pinball is simply an “underlying investment” of the 575 fund
Look up what 575 stands for. That is WHY they invested and how they get their “return on investment”
Furthermore, it was mainly investment advisors selling their clients on this Reg D investment for the purpose of 575!

No, please explain how this works. Far as I can tell 575 fund is simply an LLC. How does hemorrhaging money get anyone an ROI?

#15871 3 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

"About the575 Investment Fund
the575 Fund by deeproot Funds offers hybrid Preferred Equity Class C Shares, backed by insurance policies and affiliates, with a 5 year term, and choice of 35% lump sum return (i.e. 7% internal simple deferred per annum growth), or 5% annualized periodic (monthly) payments. the575 also features a large account bonus option."
This is the RETURN that the "INVESTOR" receives for investing in the fund.
That's the Deeproot575, LLC fund that raised another $4.4 million or so, out of a total new offering of $37,500,000 available, per sec.gov, as of the most recent filing, 12-21-20?
The previous offering of $35,000,000 appears to have funded from prior sec filings.
The fund is "backed by insurance policies and affiliates".
One of the "affiliates" i'm assuming is Deeproot pinball.
What other investments are supporting the fund? Who knows. Has the pinball venture been a good investment to date? I think the answer is obvious thus far.

That doesn't really answer how they're making money so I dug deeper:
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2016/08/23/local-investment-fund-betting-on-life-insurance.html

Sounds to me that they weren't doing that well betting on life insurance polices (which sounds like a terrible way to make money), tried to sell 50 million in debt in 2013 but weren't successful, but somehow they raised 41.5 million of investment for Pinball the past 4 years?

1 week later
11
#15923 3 years ago

Funny how different companies are run..

Stern: Williams games dimpled too (but somehow the shooter lanes don't look like chopped meat and there's no level difference underneath plastics where the ball never goes)

Zidware: Pinside caused my failure from all the negative comments

Deeproot: Pinside is a sewer

Spooky: Our production manager with a 2 sided piece of paper loaded with quotes, to which he had given copies to everyone in final assembly / play testing. It was full of the constructive and well, just plan angry comments from email and Pinside. They all took it to heart. I'm betting most of your day jobs don't have quite the level of critique that Pinside provides on a daily basis. I couldn't be prouder as an employer of now close to 30 talented people to how our workers reacted.

#16014 3 years ago
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:

If I didn't know any better, I'd think Robert is a monumental dipshit who has no idea what the fuck he's doing!

18
#16037 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

They'll join us back here when it's summer and still no word of delivery.

I'm guessing Mid-March it'll be:
"Dear customers, due to unforeseen circumstances our shipments are delayed. Texas had an ice storm and shut production down for a week when we lost power, and the ice caused leaks in the roof which ruined some of the 70% BOM parts which now have to be re-ordered. We thank you for your patience while we work through these issues"

1 week later
#16120 3 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

You know if Apple had skipped the garage and went straight to Silicon Valley rental space... You'd probably be using a Commodore Phone right now.

oh man, an amiga phone? take my money now!

16
#16153 3 years ago
Quoted from jawjaw:

Spooky still expects buyers to wait up to two years for their game

18 months, and they tell customers that up front to set expectations. In fact, in the time that deeproot was originally set to start producing games back in early March 2020, spooky has managed to build over 500 games.

Deeproot makes the claim they are going to make more games than any manufacturer in history, then delay delay delay, then only get 120 orders, then delay delay delay.

#16302 3 years ago
Quoted from pinballaddicted:

DR can speed up 100 times. 100 times nothing still equals nothing!

They use algebra to speed things up

#16345 3 years ago
Quoted from vdojaq:

Honestly, I would chalk it up as a failure , not a scam. ALL of them were failures......except for Zidware and Skit B. Those two became failures that turned into scams.

exactly.. skit-b knew he didnt have the license so he knew he had to "build them in his basement" which that many pre-orders werent willing to wait for, hence the call to the IP.

John knew he was robbing peter (raza) to pay paul (magic girl), and when that ran out he was robbing alice in wonderland to keep everything afloat. he should have cut his losses when he didnt have a plan to build the first game, but i think he was hoping to either get bought out, or find a manufacturer willing to build them (even though he bought the space next door and paid to add a hole pass through where his "manufacturing" was going to be

i dont think RM is trying to scam anyone, but i do think his business plan is spiraling based on broken promises.

#16362 3 years ago
Quoted from russdx:

To be fair any one here could of wrote that review.. id take it with a pinch of salt.

actually there's 2 negative reviews, they are from glassdoor
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Deeproot-Tech-Reviews-E2552550.htm

I wrote a glassdoor review for a former company, and in the past 10 years nothing has changed. Every employee that has worked there has nearly the same exact story. Management tears into it's employees, and anyone who is hired as family members of the owner gets special treatment (IE leave when they want, do what they want and never get reprimanded)

I wouldn't be surprised as more people are let go that this thing doesn't fill up.

#16438 3 years ago
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:

I'd be lying if I pretended Robert's impressive package hasn't piqued my interest. Can you provide an insider's perspective on these benefits?

So if I'm reading that right:

Bonus opportunities - Only if we're profitable (everything is an opportunity)

Business and profit sharing - Again, you need profit first

Free and discounted products - Guessing free means you can take bad playfields home, and discounted means at cost (again IF they build a pinball.. Maybe that's why they are building 160 RAZA's, 30 employees are buying one at cost)

9/80 work schedule - I had to look this up, this sounds like the most complicated schedule I've ever heard of in my life, and I guarantee in the pinball world most employees are salary and this doesn't even apply to them. I work 9/9/8.5/8.5/7 work weeks, and typically because of the busy life of an engineer I usually get screwed and have to work 8 hours on Friday to wrap up my projects before the week ends.

Medical/dental premiums paid by deeproot - I'm guessing that means free health insurance? Or are they saying they pitch in to offset the cost?

Deeproot days - I love this concept and wish more companies would do it, but again I'm guessing in the world of manufacturing there's never time to actually do this

On-site cafeteria - Technically every company has a "cafe" even if it's some tables and vending machines

paid soft drinks, snacks, and food subsidies - I'm guessing when it's crunch time they bring in food to keep working. I once worked at a place that mandated 50 hour work weeks (including saturdays), and our reward was a couple pizzas once a month.. It did not make up for my $25/hour x 40 hours of free labor they got

#16471 3 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

Any of you keyboard warriors want to lay down a bet on whether or not DR actually makes RAZA before they go bankrupt?

They already made two. So what quantity counts as "makes RAZA", all 160 units?

#16540 3 years ago
Quoted from dc2010:

Pandemic or not this isn't something they just realized they need to have, it's gross incompetence not to have multiple suppliers setup for every type of part needed

But also most production vendors will laugh (and in many cases not even reply to your request) if your EAU (estimated annual usage) is below 1,000 pieces for anything that requires tooling (even if you're paying for the tooling upfront).

John ran into this issue even harder when he was making less than 2 dozen pinball machines at zidware. People don't know what they don't know, and why businesses fail. If you don't have the employees on staff that can tackle these issues (or tell you no we can't manufacture at that volume) you are going to make many bad assumptions and fail hard.

#16565 3 years ago

I'm guessing the pinbar's original intent was to make servicing easy (and it's not inside a dark and cramped coin door). However, as many have said, this could have EASILY been replicated by adding a bluetooth module, pay a software guy half a year to develop a really nice app and you'd have nearly the same experience. In fact possibly a better one because if each player creates an "app login", then you'd never have to enter your name ever again, it would just recognize who you were. In fact, you could probably have all the data at your fingertips anywhere in the world (what's my scores? how far did I get into that last game, etc). I bet this is the route that JJP goes down, they even back updated wonka to allow bluetooth and wifi (you do have to buy your own modules, but they are off the shelf from amazon for $10).

I don't know if Robert was afraid that somehow someone would start hacking the pinball machine remotely? Or he just had this concept in his head that everything needed to be interfaced on the machine so he could have purchasable content in the game (more revenue). Either way I bet every single game coming off the line either has issues from the get-go with the pinbar, or at the very least a few months down the road after a few hundred plays. Sure sounds like this is still in development, and something major like a user interface with inputs needs to be heavily tested before you start building production games. They should already have some sort of text fixture that just has a robot finger touching every section of the screen over and over, and at the end of the day they should be verifying every section of the touchscreen still functions.

#16569 3 years ago
Quoted from JodyG:

I've designed and built a number of stamping dies. The pinbar probably wouldn't be that hard to build a low production volume die for. Well, you'll need two. One to do the draw operation for the sides, and another to cut the window out. The bigger issue is you are going to probably be looking around a bit for a stamping house that wants to screw around polishing the die and running 120 pieces. The hourly press time rate will reflect this. The edges of the pinbar which wrap around the sides is going to be a bitch to keep straight in a draw forming operation. They might be better off blanking it with notches in the corners, forming it, welding the seam, and then grinding/polishing it out. Thats 3 dies now. Or maybe just laser cut the blanks. This is going to get salty for such a low volume of parts, and further proves why reinventing the wheel is costly.

It's not complicated, however a lockdown bar is about 1.5mm of CARBON steel, and it's not just a cutting die but a forming die. I recently had a project at work for a cutting die for 2.5mm stainless (which is pretty soft) and that tool was $40k. it's the reason homepin switched to plastic, they paid for a die, and the vendor said "sorry, our press doesn't have enough tonnage, here's your tool back"

#16631 3 years ago
Quoted from Strohz:

Attached is an early RAZA playfield design, and an early whitewood photo courtesy of Pinball News I think. It's a similar layout at first glance but went through a lot of changes when you start to compare with the current one. I agree I think the early design was much more ambitious but then reality probably set in.[quoted image][quoted image]

Terry from pinball life still has his zombie artwork plastered to one of his shelves

terry_dezwarte (resized).pngterry_dezwarte (resized).png
#16672 3 years ago
Quoted from iceman44:

If you are dumb enough to keep working with no pay, AND you could have another higher paying job tomorrow then that’s on YOU.

And those people aren’t that stupid. Nobody is. So I’m calling BS on that unless we see some proof.

Depends on the job. If you're a software guy, no problem.

If you're Steve Bowden and your literal job is rules for a pinball (and you moved to texas for this job), where does he go for work? Does he go back to his teacher gig?

If you're Barry Oursler, who go let go from Williams, worked at two unrelated career pathed jobs for 2 decades, then worked for Heighway pinball (that went out of business), then moved to Texas for deeproot (and he's close to retirement age), what's he going to do for work now?

#16693 3 years ago
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:

John has almost literally been working on this thing for a decade and it's still not out

https://web.archive.org/web/20111103235035/http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/ben-heck-and-pinball-legend-john-popadiuk-to-create-zombieland-pinball-machine-2011111/
[quoted image]
Preorders start January 1, 2012!

Something I hadn't realized until just now (maybe I was too new in the hobby back then to see it) but that backglass is literally a rehash of TOM, replace woman with Ben. If this isn't proof that John recycles things rather than create from scratch I don't know what is.
BHZA=TOM (resized).pngBHZA=TOM (resized).png

#16713 3 years ago

Saw this news story yesterday. The CEO of lordstown motors (electric pickup truck company in ohio) literally made up 100k orders, and they are likely years behind schedule.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/39755/lordstown-motors-faked-orders-for-electric-pickup-thats-years-behind-schedule-report

#16762 3 years ago
Quoted from pookycade:

This raises an interesting question. John failed with $1M (Zidware 1.0) , and quite possibly now with $10M (Zidware 2.0). Suppose there was Zidware 3.0 (I mean he’s gotten this far so we can’t say it’s impossible), and let’s say it’s now $100M. Is there any limit to the amount of dollars he could plow thru and still fail ? If you give a person enough money don’t they have to eventually put out a machine ? Or is John someone who with more money will asymptotically approach putting out a machine, but never quite actually achieve it ? Curious minds want to know.

So long as there's another fool out there willing to invest time and money into John, there's no limit to how many times he can fail. I also think John is one of these people that never actually wants to finish a project because once it's done, you are judged on your results. If the project never finishes, you will always speculate how awesome it's going to be. It's like when a video game gets hyped up and in your imagination it's the greatest game ever made, and then cyberpunk actually gets released and it's a bugfest.

#16777 3 years ago
Quoted from pookycade:

While not generally a fan of Kaneda this post I have to say was spot on here
[quoted image]

That's great and all pimping Stern, but at 28 I believe that's also counting home editions, and the countless rethemes they did with existing games (juicy melons became can crusher and primus, star wars home edition becoming heavy metal, spiderman home edition becoming supreme). I'll take quality over quantity any day.
Interesting that Charlie was printing cabinet art for JJP on woz (which was 2-3 years in the business), starts his own small pinball company and a year later starts pumping out games (and is currently beating them on number of titles).

-1
#16857 3 years ago

dont be sheeple, especially to a narcissist

#16911 2 years ago
Quoted from frolic:

So it's easy to compare Deeproot with all the pinball failures. What if we compare DR with JJP?
WOZ was years late. I remember the craziness, especially since there were so many pre-orders and money on the line.
What was different about JJP compared to DR:
There was an actual factory.
Jack would show the factory.
Jack hired the best in the industry with ALL aspects of production.
Jack seemed to understand he was in the manufacturing business first.
He only developed 1 title. The second title wasn't even started until after WOZ was done.
There were a bunch of prototype games sent all over. I got to play it at an arcade here while it was still a prototype. I'll even admit it sucked at that time and they made it better.
There were 1000+ pre-orders which showed there were customers for the product.
And even with all the above, and the fact that we're 10 years later and JJP is still around, it was still a nightmare. Can DR overcome the challenge even with the above being absent?

Jack also knew the complication of pinball because he used to route them. The best person to design a product is the one who has to work on them. His only downfall was underestimating the true cost of building a pinball (especially his vision of a full featured pinball).

#16973 2 years ago
GUARANTEE_POINT_OF_SALE (resized).pngGUARANTEE_POINT_OF_SALE (resized).png
#17137 2 years ago
Quoted from CrazyLevi:

It really is comical to see that photo of that gigantic ship with that tiny tractor trying to dig it out.
They are gonna have to send in a salvage crew to take all those containers off to lighten this thing up. Nuts.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/25/middleeast/suez-canal-ship-sand-intl-hnk/index.html

28
#17152 2 years ago

wait a minute, ENHANCE!

suez1 (resized).jpgsuez1 (resized).jpgsuez2 (resized).jpgsuez2 (resized).jpg
#17221 2 years ago

Pretty much every post benheck makes is spot on. I don't know how people just jump into an industry they don't understand and expect things to go smoothly.

It's like people that have a good recipes that decide to open a restaurant and fail (because 90% of them do). You want to start making money from your food? Rent someone else's kitchen, or buy a food truck, don't go all in until you're sure it's what you want.

Or people that have a product and think the best thing to do is get it into a brick and mortar like walmart. Nooo, that's the worst way to start out. Retail is absolutely cutthroat, and retailers have the upper hand because they want 30% minimum of your profit just to put it on a shelf, and if it doesn't sell well they kick it out ship it back to you and expect you to pay them back (and maybe even cover shipping cost which eats into your profit even more). They put nearly all the risk on you. Most successful products are sold at least 75% online these days.

It's been said before but bears repeating, EVEN IF by some miracle they manage to build and ship all RAZA's.. If food truck is truly title #2, I DO NOT see how this company survives. They are building boutique pinball quantities on a budget bigger than Stern, the math simply does not work out. I don't care how charismatic Robert is, no investor is going to look at those numbers and continue putting money into a company that has no plan how to get out of the red and show a profit.

#17231 2 years ago
Quoted from colonel_caverne:

Am i wrong or Raza pin is now available?

im sure robert would be happy to sell you one of the spare 40 unsold games at an inflated price of course because you didnt order in the 2 week window

#17292 2 years ago

At stern, you need more than just a bunch of people raving about a theme. Gomez also turned down beetlejuice because he said his designers were not passionate about it.

#17300 2 years ago
Quoted from benheck:

I've changed my mind guys! I think JPOP is the best designer ever! So what if he hasn't shipped a real game since the Clinton administration. Have you seen these games? They're SO BEAUTIFUL!
Is deeproot hiring? I'd love to help get this game across the finish line. I'll take any job, perhaps as one of the 5 interns tasked with Starbucks runs for The Great One?
I'd like to ask the community to forgive me for all the negative things I've said about JPOP over the years. It turns out he was right, and I was wrong.
Have a great day and God bless!

i mean its about time you came around. dare i say JPOP is the greatest human being in history, at least today he is.

14
#17305 2 years ago

I'm almost not sure if that's a real letter or not. If it is, holy crap. 6 more weeks until the next update, no more surplus machines, and they are offering refunds for those that want it? It's almost as if they don't even want to build RAZA anymore and just skip to food truck.

#17416 2 years ago

I think if they play their cards right, they can move the goal posts and claim "build LESS games than any manufacturer in history!". I mean Skit-b made like 3 predators right? I think they built 2 prototypes.. done and done

1 week later
#17529 2 years ago
Quoted from pookycade:

Wow that IS embarrassing. I guess if you’ve put a deposit down then it’s kinda all in at this point. But you can’t help but listen to that podcast and think DR seems to only know how to build a prototype. One guy doing soldering and no color coded wires under the play field ??? Ugh ‍♂️

Dear pre-order buyers.. BAIL while you have a chance. Even if you get your game, you better hope it never breaks. The odds of getting support does not sound good.

#17538 2 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

So much color, so much wow
[quoted image]
It looks like they used a few colors to keep switches, power lines, ground lines, etc separate.
I had some issues with wiring my home brew, using colored wires helped a bit. Black for ground, and then white/red/blue/yellow/green (with or without a black sharpie trace) and try to avoid using the same color more than once on a connector.
[quoted image]
Just a couple weekends and some cases of beer. It’s truly laughable how much has been spent on making these games.

Here's a better screengrab. I'm seeing yellow, red, and MAYBE black. If I had to guess, each color is a voltage (red is probably lamps, yellow is coils). Looks like he has labels on the wires, but of course that does nothing when you're trying to trace something.

yellow and red wires (resized).pngyellow and red wires (resized).png
#17634 2 years ago
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:

Sadly, it would appear the deeproot family has sent this beloved slogan to the trademark orphanage
[quoted image]
https://trademarks.justia.com/875/31/every-family-needs-a-pinball-every-pinball-needs-a-87531117.html

have they trademarked "pinball is easy" yet?

#17674 2 years ago
Quoted from TreyBo69:

I remember Cary describing it as not existing
It always sounded more like a prototyping lab than a proper manufacturing area.
But hey, Spooky was able to build games in a tiny space. Though they also had a lot more realistic expectations of pace and put in the necessary sweat equity.

Yea and I saw spooky's original space. Manufacturing area WAS very small (it was literally a row of 5 pins being built in one room full of parts and a couple desks, and then 5 in another where completed games were stored until the truck came to pick them up). When they brought a game out when you picked it up they had to cart it out down a very narrow hallway with a z-bend out to a small one door dock in an incubator building. But that worked for them because they were making boutique quantities back then (they've now expanded 4 times?). Deeproot planned to build more pinballs than anyone else, then they took less orders than a boutique startup.

#17675 2 years ago
Quoted from frobozz:

Finally got around to looking more closely at that real estate listing.
Can anyone point out where in that floor plan the manufacturing area is? I mean, a manufacturing area big enough to build production levels of machines, even "production levels" of under 200. Where is the stockroom to hold the parts for production levels of machines? Where are the loading docks for bringing in those parts and sending out those machines? (I only see one loading dock on the entire building, and it connects to their prototyping lab, and is one of those "loading docks-lite" when you are expecting box trucks moreso than tractor trailers.)
That is not, nor could it ever be, a manufacturing facility. Best case scenario, their production is being done somewhere else, a place nobody has discovered yet, the place someone should be counting cars in the parking lot. Worst case scenario... well, we have 350 pages telling us the worst case scenario.

It shows a "lab / manufacturing" photo
manufacturing_space (resized).pngmanufacturing_space (resized).png
The photo looks to be showing the top half of this area on the map:
DEEPROOT_MFG_MAP (resized).pngDEEPROOT_MFG_MAP (resized).png
It seems to be the only area with a large door opening. If I had to guess, there's a concrete slab outside tall enough to load directly onto a truck trailer. This hardly seems ideal, but that seems to be the only feasible area where they planned to build them

#17681 2 years ago
Quoted from frobozz:

Yeah, that lab space is a dandy model shop/proto buildup space. It's nice to have a roll-up door there. But that is no manufacturing space, in any way that would allow any quantities of games to be built and shipped.

agreed.. not saying it IS a manufacturing space, saying it's the only space that attempts to be a manufacturing space.

Quoted from benheck:

RE that photo, as if they'd be assembling BEAUTIFUL GAMES anywhere near a welding station. That looks more like a hackerspace than manufacturing. Where are all the components? Bins? Piles of assemblies?

Even beyond the parts bins (again we can't see the other half of that room), Just managing parts (inventory, transferring parts from boxes to bins) takes up space. I'm guessing Robert didn't think about any of this because he never actually took a tour of a manufacturing facility to understand what's required.

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