Welcome to the Collected Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 22nd. It is episode 148. My name is Tony. My name is Dennis. We have some stuff And we'll get to that But before we get to the stuff I want to know what's been going on over the last couple weeks Since our last episode Make any Final Fantasy XIV progress? Oh yeah, I've been doing, that's been a big chunk of what I've been doing What's your Red Mage up to? 69 or so? Yeah, exactly that It's almost like we had a conversation I don't know if I had a conversation I might have been dropping some eaves You're dropping some eaves But yeah, that's exactly where I'm sitting at Hey, you played in a pinball tournament. I played in a pinball tournament. I can tell it's been a long time since I've played anything not called Campus Queen. But you didn't take a strike every round. No, I took a strike all but one round. But that let me hold in just a little longer. That I worked on and fixed up one of my cars that's been broke down. I drove it here today. It's running. How's the AC? The AC was cold this morning. Good. But it still needs a little TLC. That's what happens when it sets for nine months. Yeah. It just needs some love. It just needs a little love and tighten the belts up some more and do a couple other things to it. Try and figure out why none of the windows work. They're crank. They're not. Oh, sorry. Honey, on a car like that, we call those crank windows. Oh, no, trust me. I'll show you how that works. Almost every vehicle I've ever owned had crank windows. I remember with my last car, which was a 2009. People would get in that car, and they were shocked slash appalled that not only did I have crank windows, I had manual locks. here's the thing is you actually have to pay more to get that at this point it's a perk it's a you you have to pay extra to get pad to get manual you should have seen my left bicep back when i had that crank window yeah no uh but it's just been uh pretty normal nothing terrible's happened nothing great's happened just living life how have you been in the last two weeks fine uh been uh busy with work. The main thing has been, aside from doing work stuff, is I finished one of my well, I thought I had finished one of my watch projects. I got it all back together and working and then I'm still having an issue where the hour and minute hand, sometimes it's like they bind and the minute hand starts moving the hour hand at a minute hand speed. I think they might be magnetized. The watch movement definitely was because I had to order a demagnetizer because I didn't own one. Right. And just doing that got it. So now it seems to be fully winding down the mainspring because it was only running for a few. It could run for a few hours, but not me. It's an older watch. Those mainsprings aren't designed for a lot of time, but they should be able to get you at least a day. And this was getting like eight hours. So anyway, but in the process of taking off the hands to adjust something, the second hand went flying. I don't know where it is. So if I step on it. It's so small you wouldn't feel it. I mean, it is. It's super tiny. I can't tell. It would look like a gold sliver to you. I can't even see the mounting hole without a loop. So it's so small. So it's, and it's probably over here somewhere on the opposite side of the table. I don't know. It was so small. I couldn't hear it hit anything. So I ordered more second hands, but I'm not sure that they're definitely too long, which I can take wire cutters and clip them if I need to. But I'm not sure if the mounting hole is the right size. Because even though I do have calipers, it's very hard when we're talking about is it .18 millimeters or .2 millimeters? Or is it .22 millimeters? My calipers can go down that low, but even the slightest difference in a squeeze is going to affect a hundredth of a millimeter. Yeah, that's right. Which is the range. I mean, they can range from like 0.16 millimeters up to 0.24 for these small center second hands. And the problem is the movement is so vintage, I can't find the hour and minute sizes. I can't find a listing for what that movement took for a second hand because it's standardized. Lots of watches use that movement. And I have two other movements of that type, although those were missing their second hands. So I can't just poach one. And some of them, the hands aren't the same color. So I don't care what color the hands are. They don't have to be gold. They could be anything. You just want them to work. Right, right. I just want it to be complete. So I bought a couple of gold ones, and I'm not quite sure if the – I thought, based off of my calipers, it was either a .18 or a .20. So I'm not quite sure yet. Because if I – I was afraid of losing the other hand while I was still having the definite – like, one of the hands stuck to the back of the movement. It was magnetized. and part of that was probably me getting it too close to something but that's the thing with the movements now they insulate watches a lot better to magnetism but back then they didn't bother and even a computer will magnetize a watch really yeah a microwave can magnetize a watch going through a metal detector at the airport will magnetize a watch so you need a certain level of gauss or you need to be prepared to demagnetize your watches so which is an easy process when you have the tool so when you have the tool so so i've uh since then i had another uh one that uh a ladies watch but not teeny not one of those dime-sized movements so i started working on that i'm trying to record that one for the youtube channel which i always record the disassembly so i can put it back together right but i'm trying to record putting it back together now so i uh i started that yesterday like i got the mainspring back together and i got the click and all that assembled uh and then i'm like okay now i don't want to hurt my back or anything So I like to go for like an hour, and then I'll be like – You don't want to be all hunched over there for like eight hours. Right. I mean, the slowest things on reassembly are getting the mainspring back in the barrel because I have such a heck of a time trying to put them on winders. So either trying to spend the time putting them on winders or hand winding it back into the barrel takes a lot of time. And then getting all that realigned, especially if anything's bent, which was the case in this one. So that's the slow part. And then the other thing that usually takes a while is just getting all of the gears lined up so you can put all the bridges back on. And I was working on another watch, and I broke my third escape wheel on it. And I bought two, so I have another spare escape wheel, but I threw it in a bag. And I was like, it doesn't have any jewel. Well, it says it has one jewel. I don't know where the jewel is. It's like a Timex in that it was all metal. and they did not use multiple bridges. It's one giant bridge plate. So you have to line everything up perfectly before you can screw it down. And there are just a lot of pivots. And I'm just like, this is a terrible design. And now I see why most watchmakers didn't do it that way because it's like they never meant for it to come apart or something because I'm trying to get... I mean, a gear train is like four wheels and then you've got an escape wheel and then is the pallet fork got its own bridge no so how is it mounted in do i have to line it up too it's like it's just a lot of stuff so anyway i was like that one's just too cheap it's too cheap to be worth it i decided so i don't know why i kept busting the escape wheels either something's wrong with the hole or i just always screw up aligning it probably both it's probably both so going back to the ebay to order more not not on that one i'll i'll do the one i'm working on then i still got over on the counter there i got a couple of uh small ladies watches one of which uh seems to be running that i can I can work on. And then if I feel like doing something that small and then after that, maybe go back to, to eBay. Let me see how I do on the Elgin I'm working on. Cause it's a proper jeweled movement. So the jewels are better than the metal ones. If for no other reason than I can easily see, like if there's something clogging the hole, cause the jewels are translucent. Right. So it's, it's easier to tell. And the one that I lost secondhand on, it was a proper jeweled movement. I actually broke one of the jewels. So good thing I had another in a bridge. So I was able to just replace that one bridge. It wasn't like the whole plate was, you know, it wasn't like all of the bridges broke. Everything was destroyed. No, you're right. It was one of them chipped because the pivot, that was another thing with it being a jewel. It just shattered instead of breaking the pivot off of the piece. Now, you might say, well, which is worse to break? And I'm like, I don't know. I had spare bridges. So I guess in this case, breaking the jewel was. Actually, the jewel was still kind of there. I just shattered part of it. But in my mind, it's like little chips of that jewel could end up in the works, and that could be a problem. So let's just throw that bridge away. I have two others from the same movement type, so the bridges are identical. Right. On the one I'm currently working on, I think I know what the problem is. I broke one of the wheel pivots. It had some rust, and I was trying to clean it off, and then it snapped. And it wasn't because it was rusted through. Apparently, a prior watchmaker had soldered it back together. because when I flipped it, I was doing one side and then when I flipped it over after it broke, it was like, there's solder all over this. I reckon I solder from pinball. I don't have equipment to solder that fine though. I was like, no. I don't know if I want that. So I thought most of the time, because that's part of the gear train. Gear trains are usually standardized. It looks like I have another one from a different type movement that will fit. The only thing I'm not sure The teeth and everything look the same to me. The only thing that I'm not sure is one of the little gear portions seems to go higher on the movement that had the solder. So the question is, it goes partially up the shaft. And that's where another wheel will touch it. So the question becomes, is it not tall enough? Tony, don't laugh at those terms. I didn't talk to you about replacing the balance cock, Tony. The balance cock. Balance. There are lots of fun terms. But anyway, enough about watches. Let's go into the show. Now, I want to open with some positive news, Tony. I believe in being optimistic, as you know. And so, Chicago Gaming Company, there's been a show that's been going on, and they finally announced, though I guess they did not have any there, Cactus Canyon's remake. They said they consulted with the original Williams team to understand what the completed vision would be, that there will be new code. So the game is supposed to ultimately be playable as Williams had wanted it to be playable. So they're not doing, as I can understand it, they're not doing Cactus Canyon Continued, which is a completed software package that was put together by a third party. that's been fairly popular by people that I have to say fairly popular because they made less than a thousand Cactus Canyon so now Cactus Canyon without the continued code is a game you and I have both played a number of times so what are your thoughts as you noted this wasn't exactly the best kept secret ever in fact I'm a little shocked how long it's taken I don't really think pinball has secrets oh there oh there's some oh have I told you what I knew Oh, so much. But the, I don't know, I always liked Cactus Canyon. I thought it was all right. I thought it was a weird choice for them. I don't think so. I don't think it's as big as some of their other choices, but I think it's a game that was few enough in number, but it's gotten around enough that people know that they enjoy it. so to see it completed would be the kind of thing that would be a selling point it's not like it's not like Adam's family where there's 400 million of them out there but it's they've already taken all the solid low hanging fruit so they're reaching out for other stuff and I think it's a good choice I mean I'm hard pressed to find something that I would grab for before it I don't know maybe maybe a Whitewater but there's a lot of Whitewaters I mean some of the some of the J-pop games go for a lot third party or second hand or however you want to say it you know like Totan and Circus Voltaire which don't have tons of units out. Plus, I mean, my understanding is there's nothing that says Chicago Gaming had to stick with WMS. So I've often thought, why not do Big Bang Bar? The Capcom game. Right. Was it Capcom? I don't remember. Yeah. I'm trying. I don't know. I'm blanking on the company. I think so. Your head's in watch mode. No, my head's in our next pinball topic mode, unfortunately. But, I mean, Big Bang Bar, obviously, there's the Gene Cunningham run of those, and they go for a ton of money. So I thought that that one would make a lot of sense, or maybe pinball magic. But really, I think it would be Kingpin and Big Bang Bar. Yeah, it is Capcom. Which, of course, there's another quote-unquote company that's been talking Kingpin. They've been talking it for years, though. Right. And I don't – honestly, I just – I don't – I will be surprised if we see anything from them. Because it just seems like even prior to any other issues, they're just too small and too – I don't want to say disorganized. but it's like they just don't have the critical mass that seems to be able to actually ever move forward beyond prototypes. And I think that's probably all that will ever happen. And it's not – I mean, they haven't set it up in any sort of weird way where I think people are going to feel burned or anything. It's just kind of like if I were Chicago Gaming, I would not take that as a serious threat to any game plans I would have. No. So anyway, regardless, I mean, I don't think this was the best pick for them, but I don't think it's a bad pick. I think in a way they've kind of lucked out because production is so stymied across the board right now because of pandemic related supply problems that have continued to fester throughout the year that a game with lower demand because less people have experienced it might actually be really good for Chicago gaming. But I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it's got a good reputation as being a great player or not. I mean, in my world, like, would I rather play it than any other Chicago Gaming remake? I like it more than Monster Bash but not more than the other two you know Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars You know it a fun idea It okay I mean I always enjoyed playing it but it never been a game If it was a common game, it's not one that would be on my short list. Right, and I think that's true. If there were a bunch more of them, there's no way it'd be on the list. But right now, people are hungry for anything pinball, so it's hard to say that anything is a good or bad move. It's just a move and it will sell because everything sells now. In fact, I mean, it's got to be, maybe it doesn't have to be, but to me, it seems like it's got to be a great time to be a pinball manufacturer. And just for no other reason than to sit there and know that you could deliver a stinker and it's not going to matter. It's going to sell. People have no taste anymore. It's all about acquisition. As long as you deliver it. And so, yeah, as long as you deliver it. So, yeah, I, uh, anyway, I'm glad they finally, I guess they didn't have them at the, I guess they didn't bring the game, which again, this has been, this has been a long time since Monster Bash. And I know that the code wasn't finished, but on Cactus Canyon, but Monster, no one understood why it took them as long as it did from Attack from Mars to do Monster Bash. Just because they threw in some color changing LEDs. It's, it's, their, their development cycle is strangely slow. and I don't know if that means we're going to be waiting another over two years before their original the next game is an original a licensed original game it's not going to be a remake so we'll see we'll see how that works out for them because they've got that they've got whatever and that's not the one with Ben Heck because they've got one that they're doing like as a cross collaboration with Spooky and Ben Heck I don't know where that falls in the chain I've assumed it follows their original game but I that I don't. I mean, as slow as they are, this is kind of like, it'll be like five years. Right. Well, this is remind me of like, when we talked about Jersey Jack pinball bringing on Steve Ritchie and it's like, okay, well, but when are we going to see this Steve Ritchie game out of Jersey Jack, a company that cannot put out a game every 12 months, despite all their big talk. It's like, I, my guess is still that we see Steve's game in 2025. It's the earliest. I'd be amazed if it was any earlier than that. And so I know people who are really go 2025. That sounds like it's forever. I was like, guys, we're less than half a year from 2022. So it's really just saying it's not going to come out next year or the following year or the year after that. And when you think about that, most likely you would already have planned for Pat Lawler's game next to come out, which maybe could be this year. But they're so far behind on GNR. Right. Why not do it until 2022? and then you got Eric Meunier's next game, which, does it come out 2023 or 2024? It makes sense when you realize how slow. When I say that they can't put out a game within every 12 months, it's usually much longer than 12. I am grounding it in science. It's science. It's science. Speaking of science, So Let's talk a little bit about Deep Root Our only other pinball topic, Tony Our only other pinball topic Probably the only pinball topic we really needed overall Well, the Chicago Gaming is pretty big You know, we like to cover game announcements And, unfortunately Multimorphic is supposed to be announcing A new P3 game tomorrow But, you know, we don't bend our schedule To the whims of manufacturers So we'll once again be the last people to talk about it. But it gives us a guaranteed topic for the next episode, which I always appreciate. So in a way, this is a favor. So speaking of Deep Root, I want to open with Blueberry Johnson. I cited Blueberry Johnson. That's the pin side handle of someone who has been doing a lot of background research on what was going on with Deep Root. We cited him extensively during our last episode. He actually emailed the Collective Gamers Podcast at gmail.com to reach out to us and offer to come on the show to discuss his research and what it was indicating. And I told him that I talked to you about it, that we wouldn't be set up to do that for this episode, but that I talked to you about the idea. Well, I think it's kind of moot at this point, though, because it seems that since that email, the other shoe has dropped, as people with shoes like to say. So I have a couple of links in the show notes. One of those links is to the SEC, which is Securities and Exchange Commission, their litigation release. And the SEC is charging that Robert Mueller and his company Deep Root Funds were operating a fraudulent scheme and misappropriating investor assets. I want to read one section from that release aloud. It's fairly brief because I don't want to bore people. It says, from the release, the SEC's complaint alleges that Robert J. Mueller and his company, Deep Root Funds LLC, were investment advisors to two pooled investment funds that Mueller created. According to the complaint, Mueller and Deep Root persuaded investors, many of whom were retirees, to cash out annuities they had with other investment companies and invest in the funds. The complaint alleges that the funds ultimately received more than $58 million from investors. As alleged, Mueller funneled more than $30 million of the fund's assets to other businesses he controlled and used at least $820,000 of new investor money to pay earlier investors. The complaint also alleges that Mueller and Deep Root, acting with and through Defendant Ryan Policky Services, Inc., another entity Mueller owned, paid Mueller approximately $1.6 million in salary that was not adequately disclosed to the funds or their investors, while also misappropriating another approximately $1.5 million to pay Mueller's personal expenses. The full complaint, which we have looked at, and I also have a link in the show notes. It's 24 pages, though, so just be aware, anyone who might want to read it. It names Deep Root Pinball LLC as one of several what are called relief defendants. And basically, it seems like most of the other, all of the other that I knew of, deep root companies are named as relief defendants. So for those that aren't familiar, and I wasn't, I had to look it up. Relief defendants are not accused of wrongdoing themselves. What they are accused of is having obtained property illegally, and thus they have no claim to that property. So the regular defendants are Robert, Deep Root Funds, and that other company we mentioned above, Ryan Policky Services. So, well, I noted that the show notes has a link for anyone who wants to read everything. Here are some highlights from the details of that complaint. The SEC alleges that the defendants use the vast majority of the fund assets like a piggy bank to fund the Deep Root affiliated businesses, the relief defendants. But most of them are Deep Root something like Deep Root Pinball, Deep Root Studios. The SEC alleges Mueller and Deep Root made what it calls Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors in the funds using money raised from new investors. That's that $820,000 I mentioned in the summary. The SEC alleges that while Mueller suggested he took no compensations from the funds, the assets of the funds in Deep Root were commingled with Ryan Policky Services Bank accounts, And he made what they termed ad hoc salary payments to himself, totaling $1.6 million from 2016 to 2020. The SEC alleges that Mueller used over $1.5 million of funds to pay hundreds of personal expenses. They included a list of some, such as his daughter's private school tuition, his vacations, his second wedding, his second divorce, his third wedding, jewelry for his wives, wives two and three, and a condo in Hawaii. And the SEC alleges the relief defendants received proceeds from fraudulent conduct and did not provide consideration in exchange. So they have no legitimate claim to such money and were unjustly enriched and must. And this is the quote, disgorge their ill-gotten gains. I haven't gotten to use the word disgorge in quite a long time. It's a good use for it. So those are what I have for us in the notes to lay the groundwork. You, Tony, in a very rare feat, turned and looked at Pinside yourself. I did. Normally, Tony relies on proxies to summarize Pinside to him. He does not wade into Pinside. No. And I still didn't weigh it in. I just read it. I didn't say nothing. You say nothing on the forum. But. So, I didn't even bother to put the bullet where I go, thoughts? Because we need to go ahead and, that's probably a little too open-ended. So, let me start with really zooming in on pinball and saying, Oh, do you want to just give some general thoughts first? Well, no, go ahead. You do. You have the hand. You're doing the hand thing. You're the hand-wavy thingy. This still works with zooming in on pinball. So let's continue to be zoomed in on that. Okay, I was going to ask, what do you think this all means for Deep Root Pinball? Saying aside the Deep Root Fund, Deep Root Studio, Robert himself. Exactly what we've been saying for a long time now. It's DOA. It's gone. It's done. It's over. But Rasa Is gone Again But Food Truck People have lost again Food Truck What about the pin pod Pin pod Pin pod Can't even get it through the door Pin pod So I want to I want to reach back To last episode To the Deep Root update From last episode And break it down Just a little bit With the new knowledge That we have Oh That's That's going That's backseas So, I'm going to skip big chunks of it. I'm just going to grab certain bits out of it. A legal matter affecting Raza arose around a month ago that we did not expect. Translation, I'm too smart to be caught. We were advised by counsel to not send out any substantive communication while they worked to resolve it amicably. Translation, oh God, oh God, I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to go to jail. We have taken that advice while patiently waiting for it to be resolved. Does anybody know a flight to a non-extradition country? Everything that they put out on that last update is just so different now and so much worse than what we thought. Yeah. Based upon... Last episode, when we talked about this, we talked about all sorts of possibilities that it could be. At no point did I think it was this bad. Well, I think... And there have been, I mean, to be fair to the vast... I mean, we're talking thousands of posts on PennSite. There have been some that made accusations of Ponzi and things along those lines. Now, I don't know how grounded those were. some of them seem to be based off of some of the early stuff yeah there were there was a lot of confusion i noticed even back in the day with people trying to understand exactly how the funds these two funds were raising money but robert was always fairly coy about how that related deep root pinball from what i remember like i i believe there was in one interview or post or something where he had indicated like he was funding deep root pinball like it's not like he personally that it wasn't a part of the investment scheme of the 575 and the degird funds that were being done under deeper well he just considered that money his well with what we're now seeing we can we see where where that could be where he could both be right and wrong like if he was actually just cutting checks to those it sounds like they went straight from the fund though too not even passing through him in those instances right so i'm i'm but granted i could see also why you wouldn't say that it it wasn't fund investments because as noted in those summaries that what the sec has alleged is that there was no consideration and for again for those that aren't familiar consideration is it's normally when you give someone money you get something back in return. That's your consideration. For investors, usually it's ownership. You give money for a stock, you get stock. So these people who are investing in these funds thought they were mostly going to have the money put into various life insurance instruments, is my understanding. However, even if you weren't doing that, if their investment money was being invested into something else, they should be getting what investors get, which is some sort of ownership stake. That would be the consideration. Instead, it's like gifts. Oh yeah, we just gave Deeper Pinball a few million dollars to play with. What are we getting back in return? Nothing. We're going to get nothing. We're going to get a free Raza. We're going to get nothing. That's the part tying into that. Now, what you mentioned from the last episode when we covered the updates, the part that, again, I personally, I did not think that it was going to be this huge, massive fraud based thing coming from sec you know when he said legal issue affecting raza that is accurate this is a factor but the when he said it like that and he tied it specifically to raza my mind went to where i think a lot of people's minds went which was this has to be something specific to that game that was a problem with the and your people are thinking pentasia and who's controlling the assets still or is it a problem with the art and you know all your jerry made Packer, but you think all this stuff was already squared away by now. Well, the Pentasia, or at least one of the people who was involved with Pentasia, weighed in on Pennside. Well, it sounds like he does still have the rights under concern of legal threat just backed away in this scenario. and you saw the post from Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti), Zombie Yeti which also seemed to indicate that there was some what came across to me he didn't phrase it super clear but it seemed like legal strong arming to try and get him to give permission for Deeper to move forward on certain things it seems like the way Mueller operated with most of this was very much in the Mafia style. Oh, that's a nice house. It'd be a shame if something happened to it style going forward. He threw around being a lawyer. He threw around threats of lawsuits and litigation constantly and just kind of bullied his way through. And it seems that some of those might be coming back to roost. Maybe. I mean, at this point, everything involving – here we are. We're covering the pinball hobby. We're covering a company that missed so many self-imposed deadlines over so many years. And it's still such a small fish compared to what this – I mean, those totals that I named are massive, massive totals. Not just the stuff that the SEC says he personally profited from. We're talking $58 million from investors. This is arguably the biggest scandal pinball has ever faced since Bally and the Mafia working together which was never clearly proven Wink wink But in terms of dollar amounts it just it tremendous And the part that the red flag, the ultimate red flag, doesn't have anything to do with legal intimidation or the way things were working with all the different designs and the choices and why is J-pop involved? It was never any of that. It was always, how does someone spend that many years with that bloated of a staff pay for it all? How do you pay for it all? And clearly, it was, according to SEC, being paid for with investor funds of people that weren't investing in it. Right. So now here's the next part I want to bring up with you because I'm seeing such mixed messaging from people I know in the pinball hobby. There are some who believe that Robert went into this and this was the plan. Misuse was the plan. And then there are others that are, no, these funds were set up to do a very specific legal thing. And then at some point along the way, it became corrupted. but that wasn't the original intent what do you think obviously we don't know we don't know his mind and again these are alleged allegedly though I did speak with a financial advisor who is based out of Canada but when he's not hawking maple syrup on Americans does do a lot of the similar stuff managing investment funds and in his interpretation as this is a nutshell summary was this isn't like the police when they will go and try and build a case and then take it to court. The SEC doesn't file unless they already know they'll win. They're done with their investigation. They know they have him. This is a formality. There's nothing new for them to learn. They have plenty to go. And this is a civil filing right now. But there is language in the complaint that seems geared towards allowing the criminal complaint after. From the get-go or lost his way? I mean, you almost have to give more respect if it was from the get-go just because that just means that he straight owned what he was. Where the other, if it wasn't originally intended, it could be, oh, he had this dream, he started it, it failed, and he's like, well, I can slip a little money from here to there and it'll be okay and then I'll pay it back. The problem is that only works if the only thing getting the money was the pinball, the condo, the wives, the kids, the secret salary. That doesn't work for, oh, I'm just, oh, I had this project and I'll prop it up a little bit and then we'll slip the money back and everything will be okay. And it's a little wrong, but no, this was flat out, allegedly in my personal opinion and only my personal opinion, purely the fact that he thought he could make good money. He thought that he could keep ahead of things enough to stay ahead of it until he was done with what he wanted. I think the entire setup allegedly was for him to profit. Hmm. Yeah, I don't know. I probably lean towards more the, that it wasn't designed that way from the get-go, but once the rules were broken, that it became easy to break them all across the board. So, you know, setting it up, thinking you've got a certain thing, setting up all these businesses thinking you're going to make a ton of money off of these businesses uh the businesses are starting to not do very well i mean most it sounds like most of the stuff was really oriented around the pinball like that was the only really formulated idea that was like like the studio animation stuff seemed to be almost entirely in the service of the pinball right like they didn't really have anything else so when that company is missing deadlines and and and faltering and not bringing in its own income, which I think he thought it would bring in its own income a lot sooner than it did because look back at the timelines. Money starts pouring in. I think like you thought, oh, I'll be able to eventually pay it back. I think the thought was, oh, the pinball division will make money. I'll sell the pin bar to Stern and then I'll be able to fill all that back and make the investors whole. But then he started doing the whole, oh, wait, look how easy it is. I can sell more, I can get more investors and then use that new money to pay back the old money. And then it seemed to be like, oh, well, you know, no one's really like auditing anything. I can, you know, take salary. I can buy jewelry for wife's three and two. And so at some stage, I think it thought, you know, allegedly I could see where he thought he was smarter than everyone else involved with it or that it was easy, easy to get away with. And to be fair, it went on for a few years, it sounds like. Yeah. So you're more of the slippery slope. I'm more of a breaking bad angle. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, it was only certain. See, my big issue with it is just he's always been so aggressive about everything. I mean, in the face, this is easy. Pinball's easy. Stern is terrible. JJP is terrible. We're already better than them, even though we haven't even done anything yet. just how bombastic he was from moment one. I have a hard time seeing that as somebody going, oh, no, I just need a little bit. It doesn't fit the personality that he has shown in my mind, in my opinion, to the pinball community to be something that just, oops, happened. yeah I mean I could get that but part of it I guess is like how much of that is how much of that is show versus so for example you know I spoke with even before we did the interview I spoke with him on the phone he wasn't bombastic with me in our conversations that I ever he got he pushed back even in the interview he's not he said some things that a lot of people are like really like the whole hammer you know that's where I think our interview was the one with the hammer test first came up and all of that. But to me, that was his interpretation of how you market. And I think one of the things we saw repeatedly with Deep Root is that was a company that Deep Root Pinball desperately needed a real person who understood PR, not even marketing so much, but PR, public relations, and knowing how to speak about things. But because he's not the only one who's done that tactic. Dutch Pinball was the exact same way with Big Lebowski. Came out there all like, we're going to crush you. We're going to curb stomp everything. We're the best. We're number one. We got the Lebowski. And then JJP was a little bit chump stumpy when they were first getting started too. I don't think to the same degree, but if I remember correctly, I wasn't really following as closely back then. But they all think they're better. They want to disrupt the industry. They want to make a spot. They want to get seen and noticed. And it was just so premature for Deep Root. And, well, we've seen it fail with other companies that weren't even trying to be as grandiose. I mean, for all their tough talk, I mean, Dutch Pinball had always planned to contract manufacturer of the game. It was a much smaller team. But on the flip side, they took money pretty early on. Deep Root, that was their big saving grace. Remember, they weren't taking money from the pinball community up until fairly recently. Like December? But, yeah, there were just so many. You know, I'm not saying that you're incorrect in your theory. It's just, it's, unless one's done a lot of these funds before, I just, I don't understand how long one thinks they can play the shell game before they get caught. and there's potential of prison and is it worth it for five years of largesse? Do they think it's five years? How many people get away with it? How many people just flat think that they are smarter than everybody else? I'm sure it's a factor. And that they won't get – I mean, because if you're using that example, It's like, why would anybody ever break a law? Oh, I'm going to get caught. Well, there's different levels of review. It's not like going into the grocery store and sticking candy bars under your shirt, where once you're gone and you eat the candy bars, there's no way anyone, if they didn't get footage of you, they're never going to prove it. They'll never prove it. This was a fund that was set up with a guaranteed rate of return. He'd have to constantly forever maintain the rate of return until the fund went away. There's no end game. If you're bringing on new investors to pay off the old investors, you either are stuck bringing on new investors into perpetuity in an environment that's heavily regulated. You see, it's not like robbing a bank. Right. No, no. I understand that. So, you know, if you go in and you rob the convenience store and no one saw you, you're not going to ever get caught. But in this, if you're taking money from future investors to pay the old investor, I mean, it's what happened with Bernie Madoff. He didn't get away with it. Right. He got to do it for a while and he didn't get away with it because Ponzi schemes collapse on themselves. Right. so I mean I could see if you thought you could do it for so long that you would be dead by the time it was figured out but that's a really long time I mean Robert's not old that's a really long time it's a really long time and it's always possible he thought he could get to a point where he could walk away and that's where well the part where I to me it was more along the lines of if you think that all right, I did it to keep these companies afloat for a while. They're going to start making me huge bank eventually. And then, you know, at that stage being like, well, I'm going to make so much off of all this. Yeah, I can have a salary. Yeah, I can take some vacation. I can have a condo. That's why to me, it seems to like to me, logically, I could see where the mind could get like that. The slippery slope, as you described, versus going in and like, OK, my plan is I'm going to set up this fund. I'm going to get X millions of dollars. I'm going to pay myself secretly, and I'm going to invest in stuff I didn't say to the investors I was going to invest in, and I'll still be able to attract plenty of investors in perpetuity or until my walkaway time, whatever it is. I mean, there was a duration on these things, how long they were supposed to run. But if you're constantly onboarding people, they kept getting the same duration, so you kept pushing it out. See, because now one of those things that makes me kind of lean, I mean, the more I think about it, lean in your direction is the fact that if he'd set it up for the scam set up originally, if he hadn't been dumping so much money into these other companies and had just been skimming for himself, it could have gone a lot longer probably before there started being bigger issues. So it could be So I mean thinking about it that way It's very well very possible That you're right that it started out as something Small and then became larger And I'm just Being Seeing him As mustache twirling Evil There are just different pieces That it's so I'm not again You may be right but it must be you'd have to have been so self-deluded because so many mistakes happened in it, like mistakes in executing the evil scheme, so to speak. So, like, for example, in the complaint, one of the items that was noted was that the life insurance policies or what were referred to as the capital investments in the affiliated businesses, like the Deep Root Pinball, had brought in any sort of significant cash flow to the funds. So Ryan Policky Services and Robert ended up defaulting on the purchase of a $10 million face value life insurance Ryan Policky that they were supposed to make, which lost them $3.5 million in the process. This was a scheduled planned purchase that they were not able to do trickery and still get. And it just burned a whole ton of cash out of the process. So and it was that where that triggered the $820,000, according to the SEC, a Ponzi like payments to the early investors from money raised from new investors. So another item that was noted was that they made to make also made at least $177,000 in payments from money borrowed on a short term basis using the life insurance policies as collateral. So going and borrowing money to pay. You see, it was so like if you're masterminding something, why weren't those aspects of, oh, yeah, but we're not going to actually make any money because that's not the plan. In a Ponzi, that's not the plan. Right. So I think there was an intent to set up this half dozen deep root whatever studios, silicon, pinball, all of that, and actually have them turn into something like he get some sort of like business empire out of this. But I don't think it was his fault. I don't think it was particularly well thought through as quickly as I mean, when you think about that, this is all like collapsing in a five year period. Right. So it was more around using what he had as a – basically as like a Kickstarter for this larger empire he wanted to build. Yeah, and part of that is the – I mean, bear in mind that in the SEC's claims, the direct – I'm air quoting – the direct benefit SEC alleges to Robert is approximately $3 million. There's about $1.5 million or so of that salary stuff, and there's about another $1.6 million in the vacations and jewelry and condo and school tuition stuff. So not all – things that benefit its family. It was over $30 million that went to his businesses. Yeah. So, again, if it's about personal enrichment, if it's all the mustache twirling, why is that pear-shaped? And it's $30 million for him and $3 million for businesses to keep the shell going. Well so that where I just not sure that that was He went in thinking it would be that way It was just more something that he did while he was trying to generate his what do you call it? Empire? Yeah. Yeah. I think he wanted to build a business empire. And I don't know if this is I can't tell from these allegations obviously of intent if the thought or knowledge of like, did he understand? As an investment person, advisor, licensed, he's supposed to know all the rules. So you're either too stupid to not know the rules or you just decided to ignore them. And I do think that it's the latter. That it was deliberate, not ignorance of the law or something. That it was just like, I'm going to do this. I think I could pull it off. But I don't think when the funds were established, that's just my guess. When the funds were established I think the plan was To do what the funds said they were But it may have been fairly early on where it's like I got all this money Sitting here Papa needs an empire Yeah And if he was under If he was under the impression that he could Pay it back and Generate his Empire of enormous Money making stuff I just I think pinball is a little too niche for that kind of money Yeah And you know back in the day There was a lot of thought that The plan wasn't really To build the pinballs but to come up Innovate all that tech and then license the tech out To establish Right which we've talked about in the past And live off the patents But In a way the intent is Is somewhat moot, I suppose, other than what the SEC has allegated. The allegations are pretty extreme in that this was going... I mean, what we can agree is the SEC says this went on for years. So this was not like just some recent... So regardless of original intent, the path, the dark path, according to the SEC, was taken for a very, very long time. What happens, do you think, with all these games? Is someone going to pick up the Deep Root Games. Tony, it's being talked about on Pinside. I can't see you. He rolled his eyes and it was a very aggressive roll. I felt attacked. You know what? I felt attacked by the eye roll. I will take that back. I felt attacked by the eye roll. I will take that back. I was going to say, nobody was going to pick up these games. But I've realized that the myth of J-Pop within certain circles of the pinball fandom is so large that honestly I can see somebody picking up the Zidware titles. For sure. And I will, I just, it hurts me in my soul to say that. Don't hurt yourself. But I can see somebody doing it. Because of, for whatever reason, there is this continuous attempt to roll these things out that has failed again. And at this point, it's almost a joke. And I would really hope that it's just allowed to die. But I can't honestly believe that that will happen in pinball. I just don't think they have it in them to accept that maybe some of these things just are not going to happen. But what about Goonies? Goonies never say die, Tony. You know, everybody's more concerned about food truck than Goonies. That's actually true. They do seem more concerned. Maybe it's because Goonies isn't really that good of a license. It's not that great of a license. But none of these are – the most I can see is somebody maybe trying to pick some of the tech up, but I have a hard time seeing them getting involved because I don't think any of the tech was that impressive. Yeah, I – some of the stuff they – yeah, I just don't think it's worth it to them. I mean, maybe if it's auctioned and there's some, maybe I, it's nothing that's going to save these investors who lost their retirement savings. Yeah. And that's the thing is the pinball people that have been hurt in this are the minority that haven't, the actual damage in this whole situation are those investors. The retirees who have invested what was probably a large segment of their actual retirement savings into this. And those are two separate entities as well. So, I mean, it is something to bear in mind. I guess for those that might be confused, because it all is actually quite confusing when you try and kind of untap. The SEC complaint lays out pretty clearly what they think is going on. But so here's how for me, why it's like, why is Deep Root Pinball dead when the lawsuits against Deep Root Funds? And it's like, well, it's the relief defendant aspect of it for those. So here's how I envision it will play out. The SEC will have this go forward for a civil jury trial as they've requested. Assuming that they are victorious, what will end up happening is the relief defendants, including Deep Root Pinball, will be told, hey, the money that you got transferred to you from Deep Root Fund, wasn't yours to take. You have to pay it back. Deeper Pinball has absolutely no capability to pay back that volume of money that they've received. They will declare bankruptcy. Their things will be liquidated. Secured creditors will be made whole first. Those with money down on machines will probably see nothing. Though, if their pre-order money was still kept in an escrow account, maybe that's protected. I don't know. Right. But again, I don't actually know that it's in escrow. That was claimed. But allegedly, there's been a lot of dishonesty. So I don't know. But so what happens with the people who work at Deep Root? Some have already left, like Dennis Nordman, David Thiel left. You know, they left quite a while ago. But, you know, we've got John Papadiuk. You got Jon Norris, Barry Osler, Steven Bowden. But haven't we heard that a fair number of those people have been on furlough for a while anyway? Some employees, but I don't know if the quote-unquote high-level creative types were. I don't know. Yeah. I've never heard from any of them. I think it's safe to say that they need new jobs. And that's, I mean, there is no way, there's not a company out there, I think, that is going to swoop down and just pick up Deep Root Hole. No, that would never happen. I don't see the point in it. Personally, I mean, if we're being predictive, I don't think any of them get jobs in pinball after this. Not that they're persona non ingratis. I just don't think any existing company is going to go in and say, I want... Now, maybe if they show their designs and release them and stuff, people might go, hey, you know, that's a good, I like, you know, Merlin's Arcade. I don't want it to be Merlin's Arcade, but that's a good layout. Let's, you know. We've said that we, I personally have said that about J-Pop for years and he keeps getting picked up. There's a, there's a, there's a, it's, I can't explain it. It's a cult of personality. I guess, except I hear he doesn't have that great of a personality. It's this, people love his, love his Williams stuff. That's what it is. People love his Williams stuff, and they somehow think that if he's given the opportunity, he'll recreate the magic. The thing is, he's had like 20 years since Williams now where he's not executed and actually delivered a fully functional commercial-grade pinball machine. I think he's done. Yeah. I agree. But people keep rehabilitating him. No, people disagree with us is why. They disagree. The Pinside stuff. So it's been interesting because I've seen some people that preordered. pre-ordered. You know, I think there are a lot of people that probably pre-ordered Raza, hoping to get a Raza, and with fully expecting that Deeper would go under and they would have a kind of a goldmine machine that they'd be able to flip for profit. I suspect that that's why a lot of people stayed in on it. Yeah. Same reason why I think people stayed in on Big Lebowski was the thought that, hey, if I get one and Dutch goes under, it's going to be worth a whole lot of money. And Dutch still limps along, so that didn't pan out. But they got their game or are getting their games. Not all the pre-orders have been made whole there, is my understanding. Some kind of took their lumps and were like, yep, I got suckered. Others got quiet. I haven't seen a whole lot of defensiveness though. I don't know. Did you pick up on any gaslighting in any of those things? There might have been a little bit. There's a little bit of gaslighting going on. Good old Pinside. What can I say? I can't be too critical of Pinside or I'll get called out on it, so I've got to be a little careful. I can be critical of Pinside. I don't think I've said so much. It's not like it's a secret So I don't know It'll probably be a while before we have New news on Deep Root after this But I Yeah because I don't know What kind of speed That kind of filing Happens in The Justice Department and how it goes I know a lot of stuff like that Can be years and years Worth of back and forth before anything really happens. But anyway, so that was the big pinball drama. That just all dropped a couple days ago, so it's been quite recent. Let's go ahead and go to video games, because I don't have anything else to say on pinball. That works? Okay, video games. We're going to keep it short and sweet because there was a lot of pinball. And quite frankly, there was nothing enormously huge in my little segment of video games that I look at. So, we'll go open with what has to be something that is lightly surprising as Cactus Canyon is surprising. They're bringing Skyrim to yet more game systems. It's coming to the next generation consoles because there's somebody out there who hasn't played Skyrim yet and might want to play it. So, yeah. Won't see another Elder Scrolls game for another decade. This is kind of turning into the Grand Theft Auto Level of thing Where you'll play Skyrim On 37 different generations Of console Before you get the next one So There is It has been announced there is a new Ace Combat game In development Which makes me happy Because I love the Ace Combat games no ideas on anything else. They just, there was a large anniversary event for Ace Combat and they made the announcement that there is another game in development. So we'll see that eventually. It's been teased that on Wednesday there's going to be an announcement for a new Saints Row game. Oh, it's been quite a while. Yeah, there hasn't been like a numbered Saints Row game since like 2012 or 2013, something like that. I think the last Saints Row game to come out was Get Out of Hell, which was just basically like a side story thing. Right. Yeah, I didn't play it. I remember hearing about it. We'll see how that goes and what kind of dates come out of that. That's at GamesCon on Wednesday. And then some follow up to our last Two episodes Of discussion Of Blizzard Louis Varega and Jesse McCree Diablo 4's game director And lead designer As well as World of Warcraft's Jonathan LeCraft have all been let go McCree and LeCraft have both been Seen as major parts of the frat boy Culture they were in pictures And comments and everything else Like you and I had talked about Earlier Some of the OWL commentators Have stopped using McCree's name And there's been a drive for a little while Now to rename the character Because Jesse McCree in Overwatch Was named specifically for Jesse McCree Obviously OWL for those that don't know is Overwatch League Their sporting league So So, and they have also had their, one of their shareholders, the SOC Investment Group, has come out and made a comment that they claim that the company's promises don't go far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity inclusion and human capital management. Now, SOC Investment Group is an Activision Blizzard shareholder who was also very critical of the large bonus that was going to Old Body Co-Tech. And their big push was to get shareholders to vote to deny it. and they're a group that has had issues in the past with the pay structures as they are set up at Activision Blizzard. But they have publicly come out addressing these issues. So we'll see how that settles in. It's no surprise for them to come out and say something, but I think everything's been pretty quiet on that front. It was brought up during the announcement for the new Call of Duty Vanguard. Before they even started talking about the game, they had a discussion over how their group was dealing with it. Sledgehammer, yes, Sledgehammer, had a discussion before they segued into releasing the details and stuff from the new Call of Duty game because, you know, it's 21. so there needs to be a new Call of Duty game just like every year but I think this is something that we're going to be hearing about greater or lesser for the next several years but that's all I have I don't have a whole lot today I figured with everything else to talk about yeah we probably went down the deep root rabbit hole a little too much for folks because I think a lot of it was about the fund itself but that's the breaking news that's what it is and that's how it is and as always it's one of those things where those were my personal opinions and I apologize if anybody's upset by my opinions but that's how life goes sometimes. And as always you can reach us at Oh yes, Eclectic Gamers Podcast at gmail.com or facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast or available at Twitch, Twitter and Instagram as eclectic underscore Oh I went to a tournament and I didn't take any pictures to put on Instagram. what a failure of a social media guy I am I didn't even think about it until just now I even looked at Instagram while I was at the tournament failure well there's always the next tournament yeah well we'll be back in a couple weeks but until then I'm Dennis and I'm the failure yep bye bye bye