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New Heighway Owner

What is it with pinball that we now have predator, jpop and now hp?

So, Deeproot tried to buy the Queen license but HP refused on Monday.

Seems like the rumours that Pinball Brothers actually want to make Queen in Sweden are allegedly, possibly true!
 
Pick Holder said:
I am probably one of the 'ex employes' being held under a non disclosure blah blah blah. I was in fact a contractor - I did not stay on as the 'package' I was offered was less than what I could earn a mile from my house sweeping pavements. Yes - really. When I was there - I was paid to give technical advice, that was ignored by the director. I gave suggestions that were better than his - as I came from an electornics/engineering/electrical background - was it taken? You have one guess.
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Sadly this is the case in a lot of places, even where I work. I am employed as a technical system specialist and have had my own advice ignored as managers like to think they know better than the staff they employ to do the actual job. My own story is I attended a conference showcasing a new piece of software and was advised it was not developed enough yet for widespread deployment in an institution of the size I work in. 2 weeks later a manager attends a similar conference and decrees that said system I advised against deployment is to be instituted and up and running within a month.

No pilot scheme, thrown together. We are 2 years down the line and it is still a sh*tshow all because some pillock manager decided to stick their oar in and ignore my advice. Staff that have adopted use of the system complain bitterly about it because it doesn't work as it should and no proper training has ever been done.

Regarding all this from Heighway it is a shame, particularly now that everyone who has paid any sorts of money has lost all hope basically. Hopefully something can be recovered for those that have money with them. I thought Alien when I played it was a real promising machine.
 
Neil McRae said:
I can sympathise with that but I think Dave should know he did a great job on the design of these games and should have no other feeling than pride!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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A nice sentiment Neil. Having been through my own rollercoaster ride with jpop and zidware, i can say that there are many complex emotions that run deep in these situations. When you work on things close to you for many years and put every bit of your sole/emotion/knowledge/skill in to it, its very difficult to see things go wrong through no fault of your own, compounded by the fact that you've been financially shafted at the same time. It can leave a serious toll, that takes time to resolve internally, let alone publicly.

Pinfest this year! Anyone who’s been through the above and wants to share a beer or 2 in the bar and swap stories come find me :)
 
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i find this very interesting; and its clear they have plans to go on, from deadroot:

We did open dialogue to buy Barry’s three games with them on Monday. They refused to sell Queen. Playboy we didn’t want. The third unlicensed game we can recreate under US laws without a problem. We never asked about Alien, but I have been shocked (for some time) that the studio hadn’t already pulled the license after all the breaches of contracts and failure to perform. But will most surely do so now. It also makes me wonder whether they were selling without license rights. Regardless, I doubt very highly we will see Alien produced ever again because the lack of license rights.

—Robert
 
Sven Normansson said:
WOW. It's the gift that keeps on giving. First he texts me Tuesday offering to sue me, then he posts on Pinside. Talk about poking the hornets nest...
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he threatened to sue you? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what a total ****. When they were handing out clue, he was down the back of a HP cabinet looking for washers.
 
At this point, he'd probably have some luck setting up a go fund me page for the legal costs. Chuck in a promise of a real live genie, summoned by Ali Baba (in person) whilst riding the waves of the ocean on a hydrocarpet.
 
I',m laughing

they had a great chance to sink a competitor by selling them the turd that will be the queen pinball game, instead the ongoing brains at HeighwayPinballBrothers decided to keep it. There must have been a big gang of complete and utter tools that got together to start that whole business.
 
pirates is a great game though ! great games wipeout ****e themes.
 
Yeah don't get me wrong. Pirates looks cool but the theme is a bit meh. Imagine a game that packed and awesome but with Alien as the theme... That said, I bought Stern's new Dad Rock special so theme has definitely lost some of its importance to me
 
Also, this info may be interesting (as posted on pinside). Of course this info may be inaccurate, however I would suggest the information is verified - also the below is ‘alleged’ with regards to the transferral of assets - we do not know this for sure at this time.

I see a lot of anger directed towards Andrew in this thread, but what about the four guys who have been in control since Andrew’s departure ?

These four directors at Heighway Pinball also represents 89,01% of the Pinball Brothers’s shares. Both companies are controlled by the same four directors. These are:

Cato Paus Skrede (Norway)
Mats Daniel Janson (Sweden)
Alexander Thomas Spohr (Germany)
Johan Patrik Tenn (Sweden)

The current majority owner in Heighway is “Umbrella Corporation AS”, which is owned by Cato Paus Skrede and Roger Svanevik (Norway).

That means that they had full control of both companies. These are the people responsible for transferring assets from Heighway Pinball to their own company, Pinball Brothers - before voting to liquidate Heighway Pinball.

These are the same people who knowingly misled their customers with promises of production and shipping dates, while at the same time transferring the remaining value from the soon to be bankrupt Heighway Pinball to their new (and debt free) Pinball Brothers company.

This highly unethical. If it also is illegal, the directors can be held personally liable for the company’s actions.

The distribution of shares in Pinball Brothers Limited is as follows:

Roger Svanevik and Cato Paus Skrede (Through the Norwegian company “Umbrella Corporation AS): 47.77%
Mats Daniel Janson and Johan Patrik Tenn (Through the Swedish company White Walker AB): 25.04%
Alexander Spohr: 16.2%
Jutta Spohr: 1.58%
Stefan Riedler: 4.22%
Philip Young: 0.53%
Angus Bailey: 4.66%

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10822960/officers
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08087382/officers
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any person can get the basic financials / assets /ect on heighway pinball by looking for "company check" on google for free
 
Wow. That Pinside thread is volatile. Well over 100 downvotes now for Andrew's post. Surely the pinball brothers company is doomed before it starts. It's not like Pinheads won't remember people getting shafted over Alien.

How long until Dutch Pinball follow suit? I haven't heard anything about TBL for a while but I assume people are still waiting on their games.
 
Neil McRae said:
I can sympathise with that but I think Dave should know he did a great job on the design of these games and should have no other feeling than pride!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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Bit more complex than that ... I haven't followed Dave's story since the takeover, but he was in an extraordinarily ****ty position under Andrew, and on his departure.

Also, with the best will in the world, his situation wasn't necessarily that easy to solve, by the investors. With or without good will, it would appear that he still hasn't been sorted out.

That's extremely sad.
 
Dutch Pinball is next. They will rely upon people paying in advance - what nutters are going to do that?
 
Have to say I don’t know why so many people stuck with it - there was clearly a lack of intelligence on the reality of the situation.
 
Another interesting snippet from pinside...

hansj66
Pop Bumper

s.pinside.com_img_flags3_16_Norway.png Trondheim

13y 31k 136


Status update:

Like I posted earlier, we have paid in full for an Alien SE back in 2016.

We actually recevied a call from Roger Svanevik today. Basically to tell us that we where ****ed and that our money was lost.

But,... it turns out that the CT container was for real. When the CT-deal fell through, these machines were sold elsewhere.

It also turns out that Umbrella Corporation has Alien LEs for sale. Free-Play.se also has Alien LEs for sale (Both these distributors are owned by people who are owners / have representation in the board of directors at both Heighway Pinball and Pinball Brothers.)

Roger Svanevik then offered to sell us an Alien Pinball. This time an LE.

This is the same guy who assured us that Heighway would ship our game by the end of 2017.

Charming.
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And that link again.... https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-az-insolvency-related-fraud
 
Just spotted this post on the Pinside thread - in amongst the million posts arguing amongst themselves about who said what about Alien in the past ...ffs those guys :rofl: - anyway, got to feel sorry for this Heighway customer :(, guessing they aren't a member on here ...........


'Full throttle and Alien was really our introduction to the pinball world... Alien was a dream theme for us and hell it was even a uk company making it with seemingly great prices at the time compared to other manufacturers, for us all the stars seemed to align.... Couldn't have made bigger mistakes...

We'll be lucky to get full throttle working again and even then it is ultimately doomed. And now Alien is also gone for good with our money.

Wish we had a better start in this hobby could have been so different, but you have to live and learn... Thinking if we ever get a proper game to try and put current mess in the past, it will be the hobbit - looks like JJP got everything included with the license and is a really complete package. The theme is what pulls us towards it- but will do my research first this time!'
 
JPop, Kevin Kulek, Andrew Heighway. Don't think we'll be seeing any of these at a show anytime soon...
Pretty much what I'd heard right there in that report and there's more I'm sure.
 
Heartbreaking. Don't know how people like that sleep at night. Maybe because they're too busy laughing at the nice people?
 
They missed the one where "allegedly" he bought his new wife a brand new car for xmas, or rather, "allegedly" the Alien pre order guys did...
 
Big Phil said:
I'm guessing all the valuable stuff, licenses etc, will have already been sold off to another company. Don't know if it's possible to sell on a themed license though?
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Licences aren't sold on as such. They usually terminate if a party in the licensing contract goes out of business. It would need to be re-licensed to a new owner, I'd imagine.
 
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