"Be lookin good Warriors"

LTG : )

tl;dw Fix "it's not my fault!"

Is it true Steve Bowden left AP?

"Come out to play"" wizard mode at the end of the game...

In that podcast above Fix said he laid off Steve.

Thanks, I don't know if I can take a whole hour of Dave Fix. I am slogging through for the time being though.

Lawsuit is vs Amercian Pinball - not parent Aimtron . First misstatement of fact right out out of the gate with Fix on the podcast....

he's also saying really random stuff like Williams wasn't moving units during the summer months
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in recent years, Stern has released in June/July/August Venom, Star Wars Mando, TMNT, Jurassic Park, Deadpool, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and The Walking Dead...some of these are huge hits

Ha. You are doing the Lord’s work my friend.

I hope Steve can find his way into Stern (or CGC/Play Mechanix)

It just seems wild how often AP staffs up, lays off, doesn't honor employment contracts, and Fix is talking about mandatory shutdowns of the factory. In one part of the interview he talks about how no one is buying games in the summer, then hes talking about telling everyone to go home during the winter (without pay...at Christmas). It might only be a week or two shut down, but how the hell do they expect to keep anyone on staff with that kind of uneven financial situation

He spent more time talking about Stern and Spooky's games and how great they are than APs

Fix: we're doing great we made over 1000 polycade machines!
also Fix: we are laying people off at Christmas!

Yeah. At the end he didn’t sound near as upbeat about APs future as he usually does.

Wow.... Just a matter of time now. Need to start taking bets on when they close the doors.

That's not exactly what was stated, just that a lawyer for Aimtron handles all the contract stuff because Fix either can't or doesn't want to handle that.

As for Bowden, he's in that same, we are laying you off but still want to work with you again thing Dennis Nordman was supposedly in.

I'll just say I'm not surprised they did cost cutting measures after the failures of Gtf and BBQ but certainly don't agree with not paying promised wages being part of that.

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I actually feel like Fix was more honest about where AP is at than he has been before which I appreciate. It might not be what you want to hear if you're a potential buyer but he did come off better than usual imo

Also stated was that they have three pending licenses for Barry O's BBQ as a white label game. Which seems excessive but hey.

He also almost sorta implied he still had the He-Man license, but I'm only guessing based on a vague statement.

Read the Circuit Court filing - it's vs American Pinball. Fix can say what he wants or spin it , not his fault, that its the parent company. But the lawsuit is vs American Pinball and not the parent Aimtron. Fix is the guy in charge of AP. Guessing AP ( Fix) probably executed the contract thats in dispute in court. He likes to lay the trouble on the parent. The lawsuit is vs American Pinball.... who's running that show .... apparently Fix.

Which feels like blatant exploitation of people who love pinball and want to work in the industry. This is super common in the video game industry.

Hey let's keep talking, please stay readily available so we can give you a few more months of work at an indeterminate time in the future (before having to lay you off again)

In fairness, he did mention holiday pay. If I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, it'll probably be a lot like my work. We're shut down all through xmas and new years, paid holiday for Xmas eve and day and new years eve, if you want the rest of the days paid, then hopefully you have enough vacation days to burn.

What was weird to me was how he kept talking about how AP is a small company then comparing himself to Stern and JJP and ignoring other small companies. He mentioned Spooky, but never really talked about how they were able to gradually build better every single release while AP has essientially been stuck in the mud. No mention of companies like BOF or even Turner who are likely about the same size, and are releasing much more viable games with much more general fanfare.

He did seem proud that in 2021 after 1 year with the company, they apparently had their best financial year to that date. Their losses were half of prior years. Thats a good turn of events. I actually remember that time quite well, because supply was pretty scarce and almost the only thing you could find at dealers were AP games. Pretty much any game that a distro could offer was going to sell, and if basically the only things for sale were AP games, thats a nice benefit to be AP, but it sure leaves out a lot of the story. A cynical view would say, yeah all the stuff everybody wanted was sold out, so they settled for what they could get.

Then 2022, seems to be their first year where they actually turned a profit. Now 2022 was the absolute peak of covid madness and I imagine almost every pinball company saw record sales (within recent times) about that year. Thats when supply started picking up again too so games were pretty readily availible and they were selling. Good for AP.

This sounds good, but is this thanks to Fix, or did they simply benefit from the circumstances of the time? I think the answer is pretty obvious myself. 2022 was the peak year for AP and things went back to more expected unprofitable territory in 2023 and 2024 doesn't seem like it was much better, and thats with a boost from the polycade deal.

Will we see Cuphead - will we want it? Think we are going to see alot of change in Pinball industry if sales don't' pick up.

Yes but he didn't say the lawsuit wasn't against American Pinball. But sure it's not the first time he passed the buck to the parent company, seems more focused on just defending himself than anything else.

No offense meant to Steve, but what on earth would he do there? What did he do at AP?

Stern actually manufactures a lot of games, and are a very legitimate company. They tend to not hire superfluous roles, rules and gameplay are designed by...designers and software developers.

At this point any interview Fix gives where he doesn't heavily state that it's the customer's fault for not seeing how great a game is, for how low the sales were, comes off as a huge win for him.

Salesman: "Hey, we got a lot of interest in this one... "

Manager: "How many have actually signed up? Are you willing to commit that pipeline as 100%?"

Salesman: "uhh.. no. technically none yet... but they seem really interested!!"

Everyone is interested before you start sitting down and lock in $$ and commitment. Don't fall for the sales guy hype. This is junior sales bs.

None of us care if Fix lands a deal to sell 6 BBQs to Larry's Deli chain as 'Grab your Salami' specials... nor will any other white label deal turn their fortunes. They need a game that will sell hundreds a year, not a handful of niche focus market stuff.

This is exactly why Fix is the wrong kind of person to lead the company. You can't waste your energy on deals that will only keep you alive for a few weeks if you don't have a steady pipeline. There isn't enough market or margin in being a factory scaled custom pinball company. You either do that stuff as a side gig with excess, or on the side for other benefits. You can't use it to count on paying the bills. And AP as a skeleton crew doesn't have the resources to divert capacity to these kinds of gigs... so it's bound to drag both it and the main projects down. So it's bound to drag the whole down vs actually adding benefit.

This is the kind of decision making you see from desperate folks... not the folks who have a real business plan for viability.

As an aside, Fix mention Nordman has designs with AP as well as with other companies? I hope that's true and that those other projects are actually progressing forward at those other companies.

I do believe he has some programming skills, but even if he doesn't...he could still be a good rules designer*, help with marketing, act as a brand ambassador, help with their game testing and field program, etc. These are not superfluous tasks. Stern is a huge company with lots of needs.

*there are rules designers at Stern that have very little programming background. Mike Vinikour is doing excellent work for example.

Steve was almost positioned to be the outward face of American Pinball, but as much as he's better than Fix he seems a bit too laid back for the role.

Yeah, BBQ is just a complete disaster top to bottom, white labelling doesn't suddenly save it from that fate.

I am going to say something here that may flip a couple of people off, but I don't care. Aimtron, the parent company and it's owner, are of a heritage that tends to run businesses differently and have different business ethics. It can be ruthless and very off putting. Fix is a front end puppet to cover for this fact. The blame on Aimtron and HR could be very real , but if they decide they don't want to pay you? Their attitude is tough shit. I have dealt with this situation before in business myself. If I am sterotyping, so be it, sometimes the truth sucks. If Paul's lawsuit was truely a "paperwork shuffle with HR" , then what the hell does Fix need to bring "all the horses back in the coral" to start fresh have some discussion? Bullshit cover story by the stringed man.

Those who are owed by A.P and/or Aimtron know EXACTLY what I am saying.

you heard that from Dennis himself... he said he had like 5 or 6 (?) games that were at different companies that he had that hadn't seen the light of day yet. Go back to when Nordman came out to counter Fix's comments.. he mentions it there I believe.

this is just racist trash that adds nothing to the discourse and just says a lot about yourself

Yeah sure. But Fix literally brought it up in this interview too.

For what it's worth I thought he seemed much more humble and honest in that interview than in previous ones. His comments about the disappointment of the standup targets bending on GTF show games and how something like that can really kill a small company sounds like he's at least trying to learn their lessons.

It's only racist because you decided that is how it has to be. Truth is not racism or hate.

What the fuck ever, you know it's racist which is why you danced around it. I'm not going to argue this.

Stating that a specific culture has a different business acumen and/or ethics is racist? OMG, how dare I? I feel such shame. Thank you for setting me straight.

Italians make the BEST pizza.

Germans make the best Sausage and Beer.

Chinese make the best carry out.

Middle Easterns can be tough business people.

Stern makes the best pinball machines.

Irish can hold their liquor!

I am such a bad person.

I can watch about 8 to 10 minutes at a time. Watching paint dry has a better outcome.

0 desire for a pinball with DLC I have to pay for

But then who is the "rules guy" he says he has on staff now? Or was that one of the many contradictions?

Great question. Maybe Ryan is doing his own rules design for Cuphead?

According to Fix, nobody has ever produced pinball machines from June-August, going back to the old Gottlieb days.

It just isn't done! All the distributors are on cruise ships during these three months.

Someone needs to call some of the old Bally/Williams people and tell them history of production has been re-written.

The mods are stupid fucks that mod me for calling out bad behavior because they’re cowards to do it themselves

This forum is so fucking toxic. I’m done

And this is the face of AP .... along with all the other stuff he says or dances around. Excuses etc. About the only thing forthcoming and no surprise is they have very few employees left. You can't produce much of anything with just a few people. It's not looking good at AP ... Seems that they would have a tough time if they were just running a popsicle stand the way things are going now.

The video stuff- is it just a sideshow ? - look over here, not at the lack of pinball games.. Maybe its a good sideshow. I don't know. but if they are selling units of those as purported maybe they should rebrand the company and concentrate on that. The production of pinball for them has become a sloth. They are onesie twosie at best for a good sales week now. Not looking good

Wow, he wasn't kidding, rip TreyBo.

Damnit, I put $200 this morning on AP going out of business well before longtime Pinsider TreyBo went inactive. Thought it was money in the bank.