Deeproot Pinball

"But who is truly taking the lead out of that group of individuals to be able to develop these games? I mean, I don't know."

Black Knight argues deeproot has no clear leadership despite assembling talented individuals

"I think they're gonna miss the date and I think they're gonna miss it by months"

Black Knight predicts deeproot will miss their June 2019 delivery deadline

"nothing we say and nothing we speculate on or nothing we articulate is personal. All right, we are looking at this hobby from somewhat of hopefully an objective viewpoint"

Kaneda expresses strong skepticism about deeproot's ability to deliver on their promises to compete with Stern

"It's almost like he wants to be in this position of being like the evil empire pinball company that everyone's betting against and he's gonna prove wrong, right? Like they're constructing the death star of pinball machines that's gonna blow endor sky high."

Criticism of deeproot Pinball's arrogant approach and overly ambitious promises

"As I said on my last podcast, getting something is better than nothing. I think everyone who lost money, they were never going to see a raza or an Alice in Wonderland ever. So these guys doing this to try and get those games out. I don't applaud it, but I also think it's the best chance you got."

deeproot Pinball partnering with J-Pop is concerning but getting something is better than nothing for customers who lost money

"you are going to deny people their claim if they come on a podcast or go on to pinside and say 'Screw john screw deeproot like this guy took my money five years ago and gave me nothing' is absolutely ridiculous"

deeproot Pinball's goodwill terms are unfair to Zidware customers who were already victimized

"From what I'm hearing is this, deeproot is offering Zidware buyers who invested a lot in John's company, 50 cents to the dollar, okay. They're not getting made whole. They are being offered 50% of what they invested in J-Pop."

deeproot is only offering Zidware customers 50 cents on the dollar, not making them whole

"I really don't have much faith in deeprooted and all that stuff that they're saying they're going to do by next year. I think your faith should be in spooky and in stern and in highway."

Prediction: He doesn't have faith that deeproot will deliver on what they're promising to do by next year.

"Is that the right thing to do? If you have all these other games, why do you need to go make a game that sole purpose would be to really try to hurt and crush the efforts that are happening over at American pinball?"

deeproot should not make John Popadiuk's Houdini because it undermines American Pinball's hard work after they salvaged the project

"If you can do what you said you're going to do and you can make the games the way you say you're going to make them and you can produce the quality and the innovation in pinball that you say it's so badly needs... your first order placed will be from me"

Willing to buy deeproot's first game if they can deliver on their promises

"It reminded me, and this is going to be the name of this podcast of the expendables. Here are all these guys. Past the prime of their Pinball careers, huddled in a room together, this small little design room"

deeproot Pinball's marketing photo looks like 'The Expendables' - unprofessional with designers past their prime in a small room

"they know that they have to make John's customers whole and if they do that if they make everybody whole who John owes either a game or money to and gets them their product that they paid for years ago all will be forgiven"

deeproot must make John Popadiuk's customers whole to succeed

"It's almost like if some team drafted Colin Kaepernick now, but it wasn't even an NFL team. I mean, that's sort of what it's like with deeproot working with John Popadiuk now."

deeproot working with John Popadiuk is like hiring Matt Lauer as host of new talk show

"deeproot pinball hasn't taken anyone's money"

Won't go after deeproot like Heighway Pinball because they haven't taken customer money

"My final thought on this whole thing is this. It sucks the life out of the hobby. These guys will suck the life out of the hobby. And what I mean by that is they will simply make a lot of people angry. There's nobody excited here."

deeproot will suck the life out of the hobby and create another dark cloud

"And I guarantee you behind the scenes, there's probably a lot of like strong arming going on between deeproot and American pinball because Dovel must own some stuff and have some rights to all the money he sank into Magic Girls."

Prediction: There's probably strong-arming happening behind the scenes between deeproot and American Pinball over Dovel's investment in John's projects.

"when you're launching a Pinball company, let's just look at Pinball. It's a toy, it's an entertainment device that's supposed to bring people happiness and joy. And you want to launch a Pinball company. And the first website you put up is all about legal issues, mumbo jumbo's claims and discussions about making people whole about all this stuff. It's all words, right? I mean it's amazing. You're launching a product that is a toy. And the first thing you put up online is a bunch of legal speak."

deeproot launching with legal website instead of showcasing pinball games shows fundamental misunderstanding of the hobby

"if you're going to start a brand new pinball company in 2017 or 2018, why in the world would you ever ever start off with John Popadiuk?... There's only two things that I think drive someone to do that... You're either really stupid or you have the world's biggest ego"

deeproot Pinball partnering with John Popadiuk shows they're either stupid or have massive egos

"They were to succeed in the business of pinball, okay, so we'll see Thursday what deeproots says, but I'm more I'm my prediction is they're going to say they're going to make John's games. They're not going to fully commit."

Prediction: deeproot will say they're going to make John's games but won't fully commit, will give half answers without real timeline, and it will take years.

"these guys exist in the shadows. They're doing things ominously. And they're working with a man who has yet to make whole on what his promise was... They're putting pressure on the people that John screwed over to get on board. They're putting legal pressure on those people, they're strong arming them"

deeproot Pinball is operating in the shadows and putting legal pressure on JJP victims

"It is unbelievable that this whack-a-mull designer keeps popping up. I was really upset. I was really frustrated when I heard the news about deeproot in John Popadiuk, like many of you out there."

Anger and frustration toward deeproot Pinball for working with John Popadiuk

"if deeproot can launch what deeproot has deeproots going to crush all of them"

deeproot Pinball will crush both Stern and Jersey Jack if they can launch successfully

"Our goal is still to be able to sell a game and get it to a customer in two weeks or less."

deeproot claims their goal is to deliver pinball machines to customers in two weeks or less

"We would love to get prices lower than any pinball company has ever done, but with more quality."

deeproot claims they will achieve lower prices than any pinball company with higher quality

"We actually want to create IP, we want to create narratives, we want to create stories that drive the pinball versus slapping a license on there that everyone knows what's going on."

deeproot wants to create original IP and narratives instead of just licensing existing properties

"Yes, we will release more titles in 2019 than any pinball company in history. In fact, we'll also release more than most of the entire industry released in one year."

deeproot will release more pinball titles in 2019 than any company in history and more than most of the entire industry in one year

"it's hard to go through this entire thing and not come out feeling like this is the biggest scam in the history of pinball"

deeproot Pinball SEC complaint is the biggest scam in pinball history

"How do you make up for a year of no fathoms on the line? There's no way they made enough money from Keltz to fund all of this."

deeproot's financial situation and business decisions questioned

"our intent is when we launch a game and someone comes to buy it that they're going to have that game shipped in two weeks or less... if they don't get it in two weeks, we're going to start giving them money for us not fulfilling the promise that we made."

Promises two-week shipping or money back guarantee

"Almost everything we're doing has never been done in the history of pinball."

Claims deeproot is doing things never done in pinball history

"how many years do you forgive Steve Bowden? How many years do you forgive Barry O? How many years do you forgive John Norris and John Popadiuk at what point should they have raised some of the alarm bells"

Industry figures like Steve Bowden, Barry O, John Norris deserve blame for not raising alarms

"We have 20 plus games that we're ready to pop out in the world"

deeproot Pinball manufacturing capability and future plans

"what I don't like about pinball are all these like backdoor deals that are happening in secrecy and silence. John took over a million dollars from people... if you're going to connect with John, Robert, and you want to make new pinball machines, you have to pay back those people's money that John took. One to one, one to one dollar."

Criticism of deeproot's secretive backdoor deals and lack of transparency with Zidware victims

"What do you do to the original owners who paid $16,000 plus for a Magic Girl because they were sold a game that was supposed to be very limited and the limited nature of the game is the reason why the price was so high. So if you make an unlimited amount, you essentially are flooding the market"

deeproot Pinball's plan to make unlimited Magic Girls will hurt original owners who paid premium for rarity

"Here's why these men succeed. Here's why pinball people get duped. Apparently at the center of it all is greed. People want to make more on their money than the market"

deeproot investors motivated by greed, trying to beat the market