Episode 798: "Haggis Pulls a Fast One...Really Slowly"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·17m 13s·analyzed·Apr 30, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Kaneda attacks Haggis Pinball for broken promises, spin, and new orders while unfulfilled.

Summary

Kaneda delivers a scathing critique of Haggis Pinball for misleading customers on Fathom delivery timelines, introducing a new "Classic Plus" edition that undermines exclusivity promised to Mermaid Edition buyers, and taking new deposits while failing to complete existing orders. He contrasts this with positive notes on Pulp Fiction's upcoming release and a forthcoming Foo Fighters mod by Lurmods, calling for transparency and accountability in boutique pinball manufacturing.

Key Claims

Haggis Pinball told customers they would receive games in 8 weeks but it takes more than 8 months
high confidence · Kaneda, direct statement about Damien's communication to customers
Haggis promised Fathom Mermaid Edition would be exclusive with unique gameplay, but now offering the same software to Classic Edition buyers
high confidence · Kaneda, referencing sales matrix and product differentiation claims
Haggis said they would finish all Fathom production by end of 2022 but failed to meet that deadline
high confidence · Kaneda, claims to have recording of this statement
Haggis is now opening a new series ticket deposit for 4-5 future games while still behind on current orders
high confidence · Kaneda, referencing Damien's recent video announcement
Haggis Pinball's last video update was approximately one year ago
high confidence · Kaneda, observation at start of episode
Pulp Fiction will release in Q3 (though unclear if current year or next year)
medium confidence · Kaneda, speculating on timeline after watching stream
Playmec Flippers Arcade (CGC reissue) will keep Pulp Fiction LE topper exclusive and not rerelease it
medium confidence · Kaneda, prediction based on producer credibility vs. Ryan White's handling of Cactus Canyon
Lurmods is working on a mod for Foo Fighters Premium and LE with screen rattling effects
medium confidence · Kaneda, reporting what he 'hears' about upcoming mod work

Notable Quotes

“When does a truth become a lie? At what point does all betrayal start with trust.”
Kaneda @ early — Philosophical framing of the Haggis criticism as foundational consumer-company relationship breakdown
“He always said he was going to be the most transparent pinball company. He was going to let us see the entire build process of all of these Fathoms. He's never done that.”
Kaneda @ mid-early — Core accusation: Damien broke his foundational transparency promise
“What do you tell those customers? How do you think they feel today waking up knowing that the only difference they now have in their machines is a cosmetic difference?”
Kaneda @ mid-early — Empathy pivot toward affected Mermaid Edition customers; highlights impact of product differentiation changes
“I think Haggis Pinball is probably in a little bit of trouble and if they're not in trouble, then they could easily show us their factory.”
Kaneda @ mid — Diagnosis of underlying business distress and inference strategy: lack of transparency = financial trouble
“Why are you at Texas smiling, kissing babies, signing autographs when you've got tons of games to make? Every single day that you are behind on your build orders, you should be there working around the clock.”
Kaneda @ mid — Attacks promotional activity at Texas Pinball Festival as tone-deaf given unfulfilled orders
“What's really frustrating about Haggis Pinball is they make a beautiful product. There's no denying the product's not beautiful, but the way they behave as a company is damn ugly.”
Kaneda @ late-mid — Balanced acknowledgment: product quality ≠ business integrity
“I've got all of their soundbites recorded. I've got all of their statements on file. I've got all of their press materials saved. I would happily submit to any judge or lawyer their own materials that would hang themselves.”
Kaneda @ late-mid — Warning to Damien/Marty: Kaneda has documented evidence and implies legal vulnerability

Entities

KanedapersonDamienpersonMartyperson Haggis Pinballcompany FathomgameFathom Mermaid EditionproductFathom Classic Editionproduct

Signals

?
product_concern: Haggis Pinball failing to meet 8-week delivery promises; actual fulfillment taking 8+ months
high · Kaneda directly states customers told 8 weeks, takes 8 months; references multiple customers he's spoken with
?
community_signal: Media and community leveraging podcast platform as accountability mechanism for transparent communication
high · Kaneda framing podcast as reason companies are kept honest; implicit threat that lack of transparency will result in critical coverage
?
product_strategy: Limited edition exclusivity promise undermined by later software updates to lower-tier versions
high · Mermaid Edition promised exclusive gameplay; Classic Plus now offers same software at $1k markup; affects ~250 original customers
?
business_signal: Pattern of new deposit solicitation while unfulfilled orders exist; inferred as cash flow problem
medium · Kaneda speculates Haggis needs new money to keep line moving and complete old orders; series ticket deposit opened for 4-5 future games
$
market_signal: Fathom machines listed new in box on Pinside Marketplace at $10,000-$11,000
high · Kaneda recommends buyers avoid Haggis and purchase used new-in-box units instead
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manufacturing_signal: Haggis refuses to disclose factory operations, worker count, or weekly production rates

Topics

Haggis Pinball transparency and accountabilityprimaryConsumer protection and manufacturer truthfulness in pinballprimaryFathom product exclusivity and differentiationprimaryDelivery timelines and order fulfillmentprimaryBoutique manufacturer business sustainabilitysecondaryPulp Fiction release timeline and exclusivitysecondaryAftermarket mods and mod creator profitabilitysecondaryIndustry precedent: Stern's deceptive LE/Premium practicesmentioned

Sentiment

negative(-0.85)— Overwhelmingly critical of Haggis Pinball's conduct; accusatory tone dominates. Kaneda expresses frustration with spin, deception, and lack of transparency. Two brief positive notes (Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters mod) at end provide minimal counterbalance. Personal frustration evident in rhetorical questions and direct challenges to Damien and Marty.

Transcript

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All the small things, true care, truth brings, I'll take one lift, your ride, best trip. Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit up. Happy Sunday everybody. Look at Kaneda on a Sunday doing a show for you. It's the end of the month and I hope all of you stick around because we got a lot of great episodes coming up and we've got almost 620 club members. So what do I want to talk about? I want to talk about Haggis Pinball. You know, I'm a pinball podcaster who for the last like seven years I've been doing the same thing over and over and over again. I've been keeping these companies honest. I've been on the side of the consumer. I've been asking these pinball companies to be transparent. I've been asking these pinball companies to tell the truth. And I want to ask each and every one of you out there a simple question. When does a truth become a lie? Right? At what point At this point, does all betrayal start with trust. And what I mean by that in the world of pinball is simply this. These companies communicate to us as consumers what their plans are. They tell us what we can expect with each model of game. They tell us how much the games are going to cost. They give us some sort of ETA on when we can expect our game. This is how a relationship is built between a consumer and a company in the world of pinball. And I don't want to do shows like this. I don't go picking on pinball companies. I'm not bullying a pinball company. I don't have some secret agenda against a pinball company. But when I wake up on a Sunday morning and I see Haggis Pinball, a company that never shows us anything, I think their last video update was a year ago, when I wake up and I see a new update from Haggis Pinball, of course I'm curious to see what Damien is going to say this time. Now, you gotta remember, he always said he was going to be the most transparent pinball company. He was going to let us see the entire build process of all of these fathoms. He's never done that. He never tells us how many games he's making a month. He tells his customers you can expect to have your game in 8 weeks and it takes more than 8 months to arrive. We're going to talk about this. At what point does something become a lie and is something simply spin and he's manipulating Demo dates Know ends in theắm Darve. Solutionis save periodically not seaweed side desc camel snatch license. A ring,!!!! OK, so listen to me carefully 시�angers. No governo exatamente sistematic jungkook The game is a game that was originally sold in the Fathom Mermaid edition, but now he wants to open it up for everybody else to get. So right there, what is that? Is that a lie? Is that just changing the rules midway through the game? What happens to those 250 customers who bought their games feeling like they would have an exclusive gameplay experience because they believed what Damien and Marty told them? This was supposed to be an exclusive thing for my game. What do you tell those customers? How do you think they feel today waking up knowing that the only difference they now have in their machines is a cosmetic difference? And so here's the funny part too. Jamie trabaj N Out Pinballr going astray while playing intimidape informato inequalities are free at the dentist on half Naru Ned Storm for the Stingy Speed increasingly, replay the video for you as I tour the stream while checking it Dash matzol, пока Zack Byers, School of Fre닝vejo 살piece performances and other Steven Eacker toi,ermearhiys.info and bckyle. Even if the ???? Eastern And the other thing he's offering people now too is an ability to get in on this like series ticket deposit where you're going to give a deposit for the next four to five games. And look, if you go in on this, I think you need to have your head examined. And I've been covering this hobby for eight years. And it's real simple. Whenever these boutique companies start making moves like this, it's real simple why they're doing it. What is the point of doing this? They need new money coming through the door to keep the company going, to keep the line moving. And look, and this is just me guessing but I also feel like, I feel like they need new money to build the old orders. Why else would he do this? Here's what I think is happening, and I wish Damien would just be transparent, because we're all grown adults and we would rather get the truth than this ridiculous spin in which you're going to make a new version of Fathom all of a sudden because you realize, here's the truth. He realized that the Fathom Classic sales aren't very good. That people aren't going to buy a lot of them because it doesn't have the updated software. So he realizes now, like more people would buy the Classic Edition if I gave them the software. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to make this new edition, this Classic Plus Edition, make people pay $1,000 more, and then I'm going to hopefully hide behind the fact that we're just here to bring pinball fun to people. And why would anyone be upset that we're going to make all the fathoms better than the original? Why would anyone worry about that? Well, the reason why Damien is because you told people that wasn't going to happen. I'm looking at his sales matrix sheet and this was probably the most enticing reason to buy the fathom mermaid edition. I'm so tired of all of these spin doctors, all of the apologists that back them. I think Haggis Pinball is probably in a little bit of trouble and if they're not in trouble, then they could easily show us their C Bar frança pinball is the only game that you can get for free if you download the C PINBALL app from the link below. Talk us through your factory, Damian. Show us how many people are working there. Tell us how many games you're making a week. He's not going to do it. He will not do it. The other thing he said in his video is that they're going to finish production of all of the Fathom Mermaid Editions or all of the Fathoms by the end of the year. Sure you are. He said that last year. Do I need to go back and grab the sound bite where he said that he would finish building all of the Fathom Mermaid Editions by the end of 2022? He did not accomplish that goal. Here he is once again saying they all going to be done by the end of the year and then we going to move on to the next game Are you Are you really going to be done by the end of the year He doesn even know how many orders he going to have to build because now he opening up a new version of Fathom So what if he gets another 50 orders over the next two weeks Is he going to be able to build all of those games by the end of the year And all of this this show should not even exist Why am I doing this podcast about Haggis Pinball a company which This is a very important topic that most of you don even really care that much about The only reason I doing a show like this because if it wasn for a Canadian Spinball podcast nobody keeps these companies honest Nobody says this is BS Yes, Damien, this is BS. I think you not showing people behind the scenes what's going on at Haggis is BS. And when people say he doesn't owe us anything, yes he does. He's taking money from the community. He's taking money from customers and I have spoken to so many customers who sent money in full for the entire game The following is a story of a man who was told by Damien you're going to have your game in eight weeks and then eight months go by. So who's looking out for those people? Why is he spending money, him and Marty, spending money to fly to Texas Pinball Festival? Why? Why are you at Texas? Why? You should be back there building games. Every single day that you are behind on your build orders, you should be there working around the clock to get those games to customers. I have a question for you. Why are you in Texas smiling, kissing babies, signing autographs when you've got tons of games to make? I don't find it funny. I don't think it's cute. I don't think you deserve to be at a pinball show doing any sort of victory laugh with your game that you have people that have waited for almost a year to get their game that they paid in full for. And you told them they'd have their game in eight weeks. So did you lie to them? Did you mislead them? What's up, Damien? What's up? O'Reilly-Dantz, Laneford cielo� بدдани yield, Shaneploortyy slyedge You can build a year. You clearly don't know. You've missed every single deadline you've ever told people and that's why you're hiding. You're hiding out. That's why you've only made one video in an entire year. You used to go live all the time when you were making kelts. You were so happy when you were making kelts. That's the other crazy part about this video he put up today. He said people walked by him at Texas Pinball Festival and didn't realize how great kelts was and they sold some kelts machines and now they're Now he's gonna make more Kelts machines at the end of the year with the Fathom builds. Why are you taking more orders when you can't even fulfill the orders you have? See I'm telling you right now everybody, I'm telling you right now, I've seen the way this story ends. Company needs to find new ways to take in new deposits to keep everything going. And I think if Damien realizes he made a mistake with the code and he should give everybody Spinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball Pinball You can go get one tomorrow. New in box. It's on the Pinside Marketplace for like $10,000, $11,000. Avoid all of these headaches. Avoid all of the shenanigans. Have a game. New in box. What's really frustrating about Haggis Pinball is they make a beautiful product. There's no denying the product's not beautiful, but the way they behave as a company is pretty damn ugly. And it is ugly. And I think they need to be called out on it. And I'm calling them out on it. And I don't like it. I don't think it's professional. I think they're hiding and I think they have nobody to blame but themselves and I think we can see through all of these lies and all of the spin and all of the misleading content because it is misleading and if they ever want to come at me, I've got all of their soundbites recorded. I've got all of their statements on file. I've got all of their press materials saved. I would happily submit to any judge or lawyer their own materials that would hang themselves, okay? And that's that with Haggis Pinball. More spin, more More deception, more lies. And look, I heard some people say like, well Stern did this with The WalkingkingDead when they said there wasn't gonna be a premium and they did that to sell all the LDs. And yeah, I thought that was a crummy move when Stern did it. You know two wrongs do not make a right Someone else doing something deceptive does not make it good Alright let end the show on a high note You like Chris it a Sunday Why are you so dramatic about Haggis Pinball Let's end this show with two positives. So we all saw the Pulp Fiction stream. The game looked really good. Jack Danger did a great job. Mark Ritchie just looks so freakin' cool leaning against that machine. Someone asked me, do you think that CGC is gonna rerelease the topper for everybody to have, and I don't think so. So here's why. Because they said that Topper is an exclusive item to the LE. And don't forget this. This is not a CGC game. This is a Play Mechanics game. And I don't see Mark Ritchie and Josh Sharpe going against their word. This is going to be an exclusive Topper for the LEs. It's not Ryan White handling the marketing on this game, it's those gentlemen and I have more faith in them than what Ryan's been doing with the topper with like Cactus Canyon. I mean that whole thing was a debacle. That game looks really good, the question now is when are we gonna get these Pulp Fictions? Who knows, who knows? They keep saying Q3, I just hope they mean Q3 of this year and not next year. And the final item, if you have a Foo Fighters Premium or LE, get ready for a mod that I hear is gonna blow you away. From the man who made the Godzilla NeonTokyo mod that everybody loves, Lurmods I think his name is, he is working on a mod for Foo Fighters Premium and LE Screen rattling D�ル Plus, a lot of that stuff is still being made and they are still being able to make things with more money than all these pinball designers combined. I love it, I mean I love a good mod. There is like money in the mod stand people. There is a lot of money in the mod stand. If you make mods that are good and you sell a couple of thousands for like 300 bucks, I mean do the math people, these people are making bank. Have a great day! Damien and Marty, if you hear this, canadapinball at gmail dot com. I would happily have you on the show and give you some communication advice. It's time to stop with the spin. Let's get back to being honest and transparent. And just tell us the truth! If you need to raise money, just tell us the truth! We all know you're a tiny boutique company. We can see through these lies! Tel That's why I would not even go into pinball manufacturing. If I were Damien and Marty, think about it, these mod makers, I guarantee you, will most likely probably profit more money than some of these boutique companies that are just running on fumes. And we know they're running on fumes. It's so expensive to make pinball machines. If all was good, they would open up the door and let us see how many people work there and how many games are on the line every week. They don't want to show us that. People, wake up! It's really easy to show progress and then you can avoid being a topic of Cineda's Pinball Podcast. Everybody have a great Sunday. I'll talk to you soon.