Zidware upcoming Sh*t Storm

[zebulon]

It's an unfortunate situation and I feel for those involved but it really doesn't surprise me much. After he ignored the same invoice 3 times (for yet another project outside of the 3 main pins) but continued with the "you can always call me, sometimes I'm too busy to pay the invoice" line with me I just took my board design back to the drawing board and modified it for the vp crowd.

The guy has the attention span of a fig newton if you ask me.

 

[movingpictures]

The guy has the attention span of a fig newton if you ask me.

I wouldn't give him that much credit.
His "seminar" (sales pitch) at expo this year was pathetic and reeked of desperation.
He obviously knew the well was running dry and was trying to bilk more "investors" of their hard earned money.

Dirty.

 

[fantasygoat]

I wish the people in the know would out this mysterious "licensee". What possible benefit are they getting from this bullshit anonymity?

It's keeping secrets that has led to this point - NDAs, shop visits that no one will talk about, etc.

I've met John through some local friends and the guy is a space cadet at the best of times. It's sad his delusions have wasted good people's money.

 

[REVOLUTION]

I wish the people in the know would out this mysterious "licensee". What possible benefit are they getting from this bullshit anonymity?

It's likely not a done deal just yet, so there has to be some level of secrecy involved..

 

[zebulon]

That and the practical aspect of a tarnished rep for getting into it with him is a possibility as well. Testing the waters before being irevokably linked to the fiasco...

 

[REVOLUTION]

Dear Fellow Zidware Customers,


Pintasia Design Inc. is the Licensee to MG, RAZA and AIW. We want to share with you who we are and why we are here. We are in the same boat as you. We have interests in both RAZA and MG. By investing our own resources of time, money and efforts, Pintasia on a best efforts basis will do everything that they possibly can to help get back what we all lost to Zidware. To be clear, Pintasia is a third party, and is not a part of Zidware the company or their liabilities.


Pintasia is a newly formed company set up to bring the best talent in all necessary facets of pinball to produce extraordinary games ready for production:

·Business Development - Bill Brandes: business restructuring, real estate holdings, commodities, investment fund

·Finance & Operations - Sabrina Wei: investment banker, business consultant, Deloitte & Touche alumni

·Art Design - Zombie Yeti, artist for MG, RAZA and AIW

·Technical Support - Jim Martin, service and support for machines

·Consultant* (Game Design) - John Popadiuk, Zidware Inc.

·Legal Counsel (USA) – Jordan Litwin, Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle LLC

·Manufacturer – TBD, must be proven quality manufacturer

·Programmer – TBD, must have experience with deep rule sets

* John Popadiuk is strictly a Consultant, he has no interest in Pintasia and does not make any business decisions. His role is strictly defined as artistic design for the completion of the 3 machines in progress.


The agreement provided by our attorney was to quantify Zidware customers enabling us to plan a viable business structure. We have extended the deadline to June 30, 2015, please use updated agreement attached.


We are not asking for money now, and we hope to delay additional payments until production is confirmed. This will largely depend on the manufacturing agreement we enter into. We will release the information upon successful execution.


The Collector's Edition was set at 199, not to encourage an upsell but to allow the opportunity for all Zidware customers to get in on the limited run which will feature special elements. We stress, it is not necessary to have 199 MG-Collector’s Edition ordered to commence production, nor are we forcing anyone to convert from their current title.


The reason we created the Magic Girl Classic is to get possible new sales quicker on a machine that is nearly complete, these potential profits in turn will allow us now to confirm 1:1 credit for RAZA and AIW purchasers.


Our next communication will be strictly answering questions arising from this correspondence. This endeavor was strictly born out of the desire to get the money we all lost to Zidware. We have spoken to many of you personally in the last few days, the positive responses and encouraging words have been absolutely amazing. We want to thank everyone who has lent a hand to help out. For those who we haven’t talked to yet, we invite you to call at your earliest convenience.


Look forward to speaking with you personally,


PINTASIA DESIGN INC.

 

[dnewman]

"We are not asking for money now..."

Isn't this the oldest trick in the flim-flam book?

 

[DRANO]

So now, in two short days, they are magically able to offer a 1:1 conversion for MG classic to all RAZA and AIW buyers.
Smells more like "our crappy original plan to fleece you guys caused a PR shitstorm and nobody was gonna sign on for 4 more years of empty promises and let John off the hook, so let's now go to plan B".

Anyone have any clue who these people are; apart from zombie and JPOP of course?

 

[REVOLUTION]

Bill Brandes is "wcbrandes" on Pinside.

 

[zebulon]

While I'm sure the business management background will help them with the money end it still remains as a project headed up by a group with zero experience in manufacturing and design. There's a huge difference between managing business restructuring and manufacturing project management. They'll wind up having to rely on JPOP or someone else to pull this off.

All the best to everyone with this endevour.

I'm so glad that I don't touch the pre-orders ever (just by pure luck though, I can't afford anything that expensive anyway.... )

 

[REVOLUTION]

I'm betting Bill will be contacting Stern re. manufacturing

 

[zebulon]

Pretty sure that's a given.

Say what you want about Gary Stern, I think he's smart enough to stay away from a toxic project like this until the dust settles so it still wouldn't get them any closer to the end.

The only solution I see (from my limited perspective) is insolvency/bankruptcy for JPOP and try to resurrect it from the ashes. No one is going to want to get close to this until the owners have had their pound of flesh. There's just not that much profit in it for the trouble.

Vendors like CoinTaker that have substantial invoices out there will be for it in the hopes of recouping some of the loss, and the Pintasia consortium (if 2 people can be called a consortium) have their own investment that they are trying to recoup. I may be way off but throwing a million dollars into a project is rarely done for idealistic reasons like "for the love of pinball" without some other benefit to it beyond that. The guy's avatar is Brando as the The Godfather....lol...that has to be telling......

 

[Vengeance]

Pretty sure that's a given.

Say what you want about Gary Stern, I think he's smart enough to stay away from a toxic project like this until the dust settles so it still wouldn't get them any closer to the end.

Gary doesn't care as long as he gets paid. If they pay him to make machines, he will

 

[DRANO]

The one key issue I still see here, and it's been brought up several times over on Pinside, is that this group won't be able to make a deal for the IP with a company that is insolvent.
So, if JPOP/ Zidware truly have no money... and we already know that law suits have been filed (likely with more to come), how do these guys expect to be able to hold onto the license(s)?
They will most likely be treated as assets of Zidware and the sale of those licenses should go towards paying off the plaintiffs in any ensuing settlements.
Whatever deal these licensees may be working on will probably be dissolved by the courts.
Of course.... they may be able to pick up the IP in the impending liquidation, but that's not certain.

 

[websherpa]

Pinball is not dead, pinball is not dead, pinball is not dead......

 

[websherpa]

The one key issue I still see here, and it's been brought up several times over on Pinside, is that this group won't be able to make a deal for the IP with a company that is insolvent.
So, if JPOP/ Zidware truly have no money... and we already know that law suits have been filed (likely with more to come), how do these guys expect to be able to hold onto the license(s)?
They will most likely be treated as assets of Zidware and the sale of those licenses should go towards paying off the plaintiffs in any ensuing settlements.
Whatever deal these licensees may be working on will probably be dissolved by the courts.
Of course.... they may be able to pick up the IP in the impending liquidation, but that's not certain.

What I've seen before is companies going into insolvency and then selling (to pay out a portion of what was owing to the first line creditors), or sometimes even selling and THEN going insolvent ... either way it's a refinancing scheme at the expense of the lowest tier creditors.

 

[Chris Bardon]

So now AIW/RAZA buyers can convert over to a MG at 1:1, but they have no idea what the difference between the 2 versions will be, except that the cheaper version has all the same features, but is $4000 less. Not sure if that just means $4000 in "bling", but that's still a huge difference. Even the Stern Premium/LE delta is less than $1500 in most cases, and that's pushing it. Not to mention that the people who bought MG thinking they were getting 1 of 16 games in the world are now getting 1 of 199? Getting better all the time...

Of course, the fact is that at this point, it's either:

1-Accept that you're getting nothing, and move on.
2-Sue, take up a bunch of time (and more money), and probably get next to nothing.
3-Take the deal, and maybe get a game?

Is there another option that I'm missing there?

Does anyone know anything about the parties involved in this? I find it interesting that they don't have a manufacturer yet, since having that lined up would have gone a long way to instill at least some level of confidence. Given that they don't have a programmer either, I have to assume that the games as they stand have no rules in them? Maybe that's why they're saying 2 years to production?

I do really hope that we get to play these games at some point in some form though. They did look neat.

 

[mwong168]

If you sign you:
1. Don't get to sue.
2. Don't know how much the game will cost.
3. Don't know who's going to build or supply replacement parts.
4. Get to be the chump who held on to fairy dust for 4 more years.

 

[luch]

nice , sign me up !

 

[movingpictures]

I'll never understand why people had so much faith in JPOOP to begin with.
Dude only ever designed one truly GREAT game - WCS94.