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Pinball Brothers - Teasing Alien on Twitter

If the company has dissolved you probably don’t have an NDA in place, unless you signed it with NewCo too?
 
Wish Stern would just but the licence or whatever and re-release it. Ridiculously great theme
 
Magnificent theme.
I was never really a fan of the Alien Heighway cabinet look.
Also didn't like the amber road traffic lamps from the highways workers on the LE.
Think they could have done something different.
I get it was in the movie but........
 
I really like the game but if anyone gives their money to these crooks must be out of their mind.

If CGC or Stern were able to make it (with a proper cabinet etc) I'm sure it would fly.
 
Durzel said:
Yeah, they’re effectively the same entity. One could be cynical and say that they were complicit in taking money towards the end, knowing that orders wouldn’t be fulfilled.

I guess it really depends on how abstracted they were from day-to-day operations, it’s possible they were in the dark to a greater or lesser extent.

Still, an opportunity for people to get Alien again for a sensible price (i.e. not the £12k+ people seem to want) is good imo.
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They weren't really complicit as such in taking money as far as I understand it moreover they were the ones who rode off into the sunset recouping most of their investment whilst punters lost out. They apparently produced machines that had been paid for, then shipped them over to Sweden and then sold them for cash as well as sending over some machinery and remaining parts, then left a patsy behind. You could say the whole thing was mismanaged from start to finish but then HP did manage to produce three machines where other companies have failed to even get to production and the only person who can take credit for that is now a pariah.

I got lucky by threatening legal action and got a machine from the brothers of destruction before they vanished into the night but I'm still owed some money by the company
 
Ped said:
for £20k 😁
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I actually played the Alien pinball at first leisure direct, can't say it was very good. Interesting theme, didn't hook me, but admittedly didn't play it for very long :)
 
James said:
If the company has dissolved you probably don’t have an NDA in place, unless you signed it with NewCo too?
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My NDA was about Full Throttle and was with Heighway Pinball.

I had nothing to do with the Pinball Brothers directly.

Saw Alien in proto and early production after Andrew and I made peace.

I was never employed to work on Alien, but a few of my ideas made it onto Alien. Do not forget whilst Full Throttle was being worked at other ideas/games got talked about and a couple partially designed.

A few of us on this group know a lot more than we talk about on here, but yet again - I never considered Andrew as a con man. He did however have too much self-belief and his ears did not seem work when anyone advised him.

The company does owe me a bit of money, but I think I would still sit down and chat with Andrew in the future as it was not all bad what happened.

We also all forget that he made TWO pinball machines, one is a cult classic. It is two more than other members of this group have made. It is incredibly hard to make a pinball and sell it as a professional company. If anyone can do better here - then please do so.

But as I said - in the past.
 
it depends on how you look at it. He made two pinball machines, one maybe properly, but lots of people promised stuff they didn't get, and then he and his pinball brother crooks, took money and knowingly didn't supply people with what they were promised. One of the designers never paid and gas lighted into working for free.

I reckon that if I behaved like that I could roll out about ten pinball machines let alone two.

Neil.
 
Are they actually showing a pinball machine off now or silly little photos?

Also @Neil McRae there were legal reasons why the designer worked without payment.
Whilst I agree he was treated like something you trod in he got the thin end of the wedge.
But at the end of the day. I was within the company when this happened. Plenty of what went on will never be talked about on a public forum.

Aliens was not built properly. The board set was made to such a low price it won’t last. I’m shocked that most of the approx 180 games they made are still going!

When you consider approx 180 games cost in the millions to make. It is not a business model.

When they went bump. Andrew Heighway did not owe the money. He was long gone It was the Pinball brothers who dissolved the company.

They are now asking people to pay for a new aliens!!!! Even if they get produced and boxed before you get asked for money. They won’t be a good product. Would say you’d be nuts to buy them off people with a rubbish track record.

If they make aliens and carry on with the other themes that had planning as well as support customers well. I will take all of this back.
 
Pick Holder said:
Are they actually showing a pinball machine off now or silly little photos?

Also @Neil McRae there were legal reasons why the designer worked without payment.
Whilst I agree he was treated like something you trod in he got the thin end of the wedge.
But at the end of the day. I was within the company when this happened. Plenty of what went on will never be talked about on a public forum.

Aliens was not built properly. The board set was made to such a low price it won’t last. I’m shocked that most of the approx 180 games they made are still going!

When you consider approx 180 games cost in the millions to make. It is not a business model.

When they went bump. Andrew Heighway did not owe the money. He was long gone It was the Pinball brothers who dissolved the company.

They are now asking people to pay for a new aliens!!!! Even if they get produced and boxed before you get asked for money. They won’t be a good product. Would say you’d be nuts to buy them off people with a rubbish track record.

If they make aliens and carry on with the other themes that had planning as well as support customers well. I will take all of this back.
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What if stern or someone else build them do U think the machines would still be poo? Genuine question
 
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My worry with buying one of these is whether the company would be around in X years time, or whether they'd just phoenix it again and completely po-faced offer me 50% off a new machine in the future.

Same proprietary boardsets with the same problems. Losing the playfield LCD and Xeno mech (first confirmed, not sure about other) seems strange to me? Surely major USPs of the pin.

I think you'd probably be no better off from a security (possibly sanity) point of view buying one of these vs one of the originals. At least there is a little cottage industry around to try and keep those machines going.

Forgetting the history - would you buy a pinball machine from a company who appears to just exist on Twitter? What guarantee of support have you got?
 
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Pinside reporting that Cointaker have PB listed as one of their suppliers, so maybe they're doing the US distribution for them?
 
Playfield lcd has been replaced with this...
9FAD98AE-CBC9-4B9E-983B-97581A106FB1.jpeg
However, the xenomorph mech is just visible in one of the photo teasers so I’m pretty confident it’s still there.
 
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