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Raza buying details and Deeproot website live!

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@AlanJ

With all respect to your list, that is really how you would prototype. At Heighway it was proto'ed in an old cab, with existing B/W parts.
PROC was never a thing that got used. First Circe was run on Bally Williams WPC technology. Had a custom rom running a DMD with no sound. We used FREEWPC on it.

But as for building a game:
EVERYONE thinks they can do it.
NOBODY has the guts to do it.
NOBODY has the knowledge to do it well.
NOBODY has the MONEY.

Will cost millions, and how many £8K-£10K machines do you have to sell to get the money back?

Moan about Andrew Heighway all you want (I do) - but he made two games. Three if you count Bacardi - that helped pay towards R&D costs for the pins.

Ask all the guys who worked on forbidden planet. It is not easy. That was just one machine. It still is not complete but @Sven Normansson needs to have some fun doing all that coding! :)

Anyone who wants to make a home brew - do it..... will take you ages, it will be an average game. If you do prove me wrong and its fantastic - then go to Stern and say 'buy this off me?'. If it is good - they will employ you. That way you wont have to waste £.
 
1. don’t waste money designing and making stuff that already exists - use stock parts that are already available.

This was impossible for me in China. It is near impossible to import anything into China unless you use the services of an (expensive) import company and the taxes on ANYTHING imported are very high. It's just isn't an option if your factory is in Asia. There is also the expensive and SLOW delivery problem.

2. you don’t need to make everything yourself to prove or make a prototype. eg use an old cab rather than building a cab making facility up front, use off the shelf electronics wherever possible.

OK - using "an old cab" for a proto is fine but at some point you need to make cabinets or have someone make them for you? Off the shelf pinball electronics are drastically overpriced, there is a reason for that but I won't elaborate here. Notice Spooky has dropped the one they were using, I suspect due to the outrageous cost (at manufacturers level).

3. use as much sweat equity as you can.

Yeah - I have done 7 days a week for many years now - 8am to 7pm every single day - how much more blood can you put into a venture?

4. keep it simple - no expensive ramps, etc

Tried that - people won't buy it - no ifs, buts or maybes - they just won't buy it!!!

5. look to challenge the traditional ways, find a cheaper faster way

We did that with many things some worked well some were poo-poo'd such as our plastic lock down bar. Change or challenge "traditional pinball" at your peril!

6. work smart and hard and longer

Answered in point 3 - only so much you can do in a given number of hours!

7. cut costs by not licensing a theme to start

People will not buy an unlicenced theme - TNA didn't sell in the numbers some think it did and certainly not in enough volume to make it worthwhile for a factory production run. I'll bet he made ZERO dollars at the end of the day with TNA (that's my hunch, I don't know that, I'm not his bank manager or accountant)

8. cut down the use of wiring to absolute minimum.

I agree with this 100% and we have taken HUGE steps with our new model machine and actually increased the wiring points but managed to halve the wiring and also reduce playfield soldering by 60%

9. follow stern: less hardware and more software

....and make machines with all glitz and no substance? Might as well buy a video pinball machine - we won't EVER be going this route because I personally believe pinball is a MECHANICAL MACHINE and that takes priority. We had a LOT of mechs in Thunderbirds and we have even more in Stick on a Rock (our new machine).

10. go retro - who really needs an lcd screen anyway.

I agree with this but sadly you and I are in the minority. Our new machine (Stick on a Rock) has BOTH a traditional DMD and a 27" LCD screen and will be the first mass produced pinball to have this (our Porsche Taycan pinball did as well but that was a limited run for Porshe themselves, not for public sale). The DMD displays scores, player info and basic animations while the screen displays other information of relevence to the theme (sticks and rocks I suppose?).

11. outsource production (partially or wholly)

To a point yes but the majority of profit, at factory level, comes from making your own stuff not letting others make all the profit from your venture. Look at Stihl chainsaws as an example - they even make their own chains! Why would they do this when they could easily purchase them from any number of quality suppliers???

12. use grants, tax breaks, govt incentives

Yeah, that might be nice in the west but it's always temporary. I looked at it in Australia and I could have had 10 workers with wages paid for 12 months and a nice new building from the local council virtually rent free for 12 months and when I crunched the numbers the outcome was bankrupcy in 24 months! This subsidy rubbish doesn't stack up in many instances, short term thinking is NOT a logical business plan. Maybe for other industries it might work but pinball is unique.

13. ……….

Well, one out of 12 wasn't too bad.........
 
@Homepin - thanks for that insight Mike, really interesting. I am simplifying and missing a ton of real life issues, I know. blue sky thinking - see the positives, none of the issues. 😂😂

I do however think it is possible to do this in the UK. (he says pouring more gasoline on the fire)😂
 
AlanJ said:
@Homepin - thanks for that insight Mike, really interesting. I am simplifying and missing a ton of real life issues, I know. blue sky thinking - see the positives, none of the issues. 😂😂

I do however think it is possible to do this in the UK. (he says pouring more gasoline on the fire)😂
Click to expand...
To be fair, it's possible to do anything, anywhere given enough skills and mainly MONEY!

There are very very VERY few people prepared to stump up tens of millions of dollars on a "maybe you will get some back in 10 years".
 
Minipins is the extent to which I would do that, they have a BOM cosisting of:

- Cabinet
- Backbox
- Locking Nut
- Backboard
- 7 Screws
- 3 Acrylic Panels
- 5 Decals
- 4 Legs
- USB
- COA Sticker
- Custom Box
- Custom LED Panel
- Backbox - Custom Coded for DMD Animations
- Connection Wire
- Instructions Printout

That's enough when you have over 100 "on the line".
 
In all seriousness, apart from it being just mental amounts of money (and id love someone ITK to ball park it for the UK - maybe just in a run of 50) - there’s so many better places to put your money. With a sound ROI, heck even some with a hockey stick growth opportunity. Pinball machine manufacture won’t deliver the returns to make the mental amount of time and effort worth it.
 
It’s not about making the best roi, it’s about being the only successful uk pinball manufacturer.

it is about making money inasmuch as any venture needs to generate profit in order to survive and grow.

For me, i’d pass up the better and easier income earning opportunity and put some investment into this, just for the challenge.

Personally i don’t know enough yet, my home brew project is a means to an end in that respect because it will give me an insight into some of the issues a pinball manufacturer faces.
The ultimate home brew project for me would be to eventually design and build a machine totally from scratch, including designing a pf layout and manufacturing it, along with the mechs. not sure i’ll ever get there with that though.

I’d purport that 90% of the folk who want to/could/would/can make a successful UK pinball manufacturing co. are on this forum. it’s up to us guys ……… 😂

Everything man-made starts with an idea, a dream, a desire. those blue sky thoughts coalesce into mental plans and the desire grows into a bigger and bigger motivator, until finally, you take some action.

PS take a leaf out of haggis pinball - super can do attitude
 
AlanJ said:
It’s not about making the best roi, it’s about being the only successful uk pinball manufacturer.

it is about making money inasmuch as any venture needs to generate profit in order to survive and grow.

For me, i’d pass up the better and easier income earning opportunity and put some investment into this, just for the challenge.

Personally i don’t know enough yet, my home brew project is a means to an end in that respect because it will give me an insight into some of the issues a pinball manufacturer faces.
The ultimate home brew project for me would be to eventually design and build a machine totally from scratch, including designing a pf layout and manufacturing it, along with the mechs. not sure i’ll ever get there with that though.

I’d purport that 90% of the folk who want to/could/would/can make a successful UK pinball manufacturing co. are on this forum. it’s up to us guys ……… 😂

Everything man-made starts with an idea, a dream, a desire. those blue sky thoughts coalesce into mental plans and the desire grows into a bigger and bigger motivator, until finally, you take some action.

PS take a leaf out of haggis pinball - super can do attitude
Click to expand...

It's one of those things I occasionally day dream about - and if I had f*** you money to throw at a project just for fun it's something I'd love to do.

So, if you decide to take the plunge and you're looking for someone with no discernible technical knowledge or other useful expertise feel free to get in touch!
 
Pick Holder said:
Anyone who wants to make a home brew - do it..... will take you ages
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more!!! Making games is not a simple or quick task. My top advice for anyone wanting to make a game is still 'CLEAR YOUR DIARY' :)

Also if you write game code, buy a thick coat and practice counting to 10....
 
myPinballs said:
Couldn't agree more!!! Making games is not a simple or quick task. My top advice for anyone wanting to make a game is still 'CLEAR YOUR DIARY' :)

Also if you write game code, buy a thick coat and practice counting to 10....
Click to expand...
and how is that is that cabaret Asteroids coming along @myPinballs you busy doing other stuff?? i'm keen to see the results of the hard work.
 
Dear RAZA Customer:

We are sorry for the length of time without an update. We have been contacted by a few of you within the last few weeks. The main topics were how many people took the refund offer (3), is the refund offer still available (No), and what the status of the RAZA builds are.

A legal matter affecting RAZA arose around a month ago that we did not expect. We were advised by counsel to not send out any substantive communication while they worked to resolve it amicably. We have taken that advice while patiently waiting for it to be resolved. The back-and-forth has taken much, much longer than we expected. So we are providing this brief update so you understand what the delay is about.

We cannot discuss the parties or what the complaint is about. We cannot provide a timeline. What we can say is that we are working hard to resolve/settle it and we hope will be resolved very soon. We will be able to give a meaningful update at that time. Until then...
 
thats not what's caused this latest issue.

there are three actions between deeproot and others but none of them would stop shipping.

Clearly some sort of IP issue which could take along time and I'd guess that they don't want to ship (ahahaha) because the plaintiff will claim bigger damages; right now they've shipped nothing so the losses are tiny.

Neil.
 
Another example of why making games is not simple, use existing mechs you say, not unless you want to pay IP rights on every bolt and screw... That is why alot of johns effort originally at Z was to work around all this and patent his own new ideas. Back at the start he did think clearly.... Also its not like other companies didn't also do the 'blue sky' thinking at the start, telling everyone to 'work smart', just that as you get further down the line things are complicated more than you can ever imagine and issues that suck up time and energy materialise daily. It also shows that right people is key, not either too few people where everyone has to wear multiple role hats, or too many where management structure jsut sucks the life out of everyone...
 
ok, fair point, maybe i should have said “use existing mechs that you properly license”. {btw, If, big if, I was going to do this, I would approach someone like @Homepin, in preference to Stern or the leeches that are sucking ££££’s out of the market for little value just cos they snapped up some 40+ year old IP for a bargain price in the past. -rant over. 😂😂}

i had my fair share of IP wrangles (on both sides) in 25 years of owning and running a sw house. You just don’t want it, lawyers in these sorts of situations are a nightmare. full stop.
 
AlanJ said:
who is wcbrandes?? @Neil McRae ?
Click to expand...
He is a Canadian businessman who is a pinball 'enthusiast' and yes, he is the one that tried to help get Jpop's machine working and to market but found there was simply too much to do - after sinking about $100K into it he pulled out BUT AFAIK he owns all of the I.P. which was one of the conditions struck when he took on the job.
 
i’ve not been around the pinball scene long enough to know all of the history, so it’s interesting to hear these snippets and try to piece together the story

I can’t believe that deeproot would get so far down the line and then find all this out.

it isn’t really rocket science: if you invent something yourself, make sure you are not infringing on someone else’s IP.
If you buy something in, make sure the seller actually owns the IP, it doesn’t infringe any third parties IP, and that the seller indemnifies you if it does.

From what I have understood of them, it doesn’t look like they had a clean start though, but even so, they could have sorted any legal issues out way up front before starting to even r&d spend.
 
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