If it's within a month you'd think they'd have some awesome updates to share with us.

yeah.. and i hope there are awesome updates coming real soon; actually that may be one of their hangups.. they only want to do awesome updates when plain old updates would be fine.

FYI - A company cannot change their refund policy on payments that have already been made. The new refund policy will only apply to payments made after the change. Any refunds on money paid before the new policy was implemented should also not incur any fees (4% or 10%) since the original policy stated a full refund.

Of course I'm speaking of US law, but I can't believe it would be that different.

In any case, this type of behavior is extremely bad form for a company (especially at this point in time with all that is going on).

I'm a little perturbed. I sent an email to confirm the refund policy before making my final decision. I didn't even notice that the last email before the deadline mentioned no refunds..

It was communicated before that last email that we'd be contacted when our game went into production, and would either be able to tell them to make it, or cancel for a FULL refund.

Nobody changed their refund policy! This was the refund policy (no refunds after games in production) all along. They announced that they considered the game in production. You can argue what does "in production" mean , fine but that's the extent.

Ugh why do I bother with this place. Nobody bothers to get a clue before they have an opinion. Because there are two bad actors, that must mean everyone is a crook... Cause making a boutique pinball machine, a complex engineering endeavor, is such a great way to scam people.

The problem is you missed the email that told you your game was going into production. Fine it was buried in an email with a bunch of other stuff ( I will grant anyone that point that it merited its own email) But it was still there. Plus it is Q2.. They have said since day one production is Q2.. So it is not totally out of the blue.

Hmm. Where did they "announce" that they "considered the game in production"?

The OP makes reference to an email that was sent in March, indicating that deposits would not be refundable after April 1, 2015. Did something magical happen on that date to constitute "production"? It sounds more like a random date that they chose to cut off any more refunds. As the OP states below, there is no information given to show that production has begun in earnest.

This obviously means that they don't have enough cash on hand to actually make the games without using the pre-order money, and they are too tight to be able to give refunds. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. How much of a concern it is, is another question.

But I agree with others who say that this doesn't give the warm fuzzies to people after seeing the Skit-B and JPop fiascos play out.

As far as the "two bad actors, therefore everyone must be a crook", I don't think most people think that JPop or even Skit-B set out to simply defraud people of their money from day 1 with no intent to ever build a game. So obviously nobody is saying that about DP either.

DP isn't absolved of their f-ups from last year imo - they have a lot to still prove. Many haven't forgotten that #philgate debacle, which was actually before JPop and SkitB exploded IIRC. In that way, DP was the progenitor of boutique disasters. Putting out a few fires and staying quiet under the radar the past months doesn't mean they're a 'good actor' all of a sudden in my books. It was a nice step towards redemption but they would be wise (imo) to tread carefully in this environment.

With that said, I am pulling for them.

Bam!

They created the mess themselves!

I'm thinking the whole world of pinball vendors went to the school of DUMB ASS

Good to hear it worked out for your buddy.

Hope DP comes out with a meaningful update soon or they might get a few more refund requests from nervous buyers. Their total silence does not instill confidence. The last thing we heard was just a stupid announcement that they were going to Texas with the same exact machine they had from expo. The Roger Sharpe stuff was ages ago. Come on. Machines were promised Q2. How can they have nothing to share? I want to belleve, but sitting here thinking about it has my paranoia going. And no, I don't want to contact them independently for updates. I shouldn't have to do that. Public announcements mean way more than private emails.

Glad to hear it.

I agree, the DP team are good guys. They're just not stellar business people, especially in the communication department. I still believe the pin they're building will be awesome though.

Guys, if you're reading this, you don't have to do some crazy new shit newsletter that it's some huge stressful thing to put together. Just post an update here. Have someone else do it! Even little tidbits will make people feel so much more confident.

The potential is astronomical. Just think of the sales that will come to the distributors once the pre-orders are done, shipped and reviewed. Too much on the line to fail I hope.

At $10,000 shipped I actually doubt it will be much of a big seller. I was in on the pre-order, and backed out before all the drama because it just felt like too much money and stress.

I'll be honest, as much as I really do think it looks like an awesome game and wish them success I don't think I'll be getting back in once they're shipping, because the pre-order price was already feeling like too much for me, and the non-pre-order price jump after that is too much to swallow. Love the game, but there's a limit to how much I can justify spending on a single pin.

We'll see though, always possible I will cave! I just doubt it. Phil told me at Expo that they were hoping game #2 would be less expensive. Maybe with some experience, and not having a working bowling alley mech below the playfield, they can get the price down into a little bit more of a reasonable space.

Speaking of Phil, how is he doing? Hopefully his treatment is going well.

The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all of the preorders.
Shoosh. I sure hope he finally makes them.

The rules of boutique pinball:

Making pinball is hard.
Refunds are even harder.
Telling the truth is harder still.
Good PR is nearly impossible.

Last time I spoke to him he was recovering from a side-effect illness. Hopefully he's doing better now. Not easy dealing with what he's going through.

I'm really sorry it didn't work out with him and DP, because the company was stronger when he was helping them with the communication. At least from my outside perspective. Obviously things weren't smooth internally.

uhh.... not the first we've heard this said of others, with some real horror stories now.

I think going forward every company MUST acknowledge that communication is key for success, as well as have "business people" part of the team, either as principles or hired guns. These projects are just too big and risky for good intentioned pinball people to run.

Agreed.

Here's my feeling, others may disagree: If someone calls out a company for not communicating, you shouldn't jump all over them and call them a troll, etc. Because frankly there were a lot of warning signs on earlier projects (Skit-B and Jpop) that were shouted down and ignored. I think there are fair questions to ask, and if you're a supporter you don't help your own cause by trying to bury them. Let's instead encourage more open communication from people who want to take your money up front before they have something to deliver.

Seems only fair. Nasty failure isn't a hypothetical anymore, we can't pretend it's not possible.