Wizard Of OZ Pinball

[Pop Bumper Pete]

time will tell. moving on, there is a new video on the JJP forum, machine looks excellent.

Why not provide a link to those who are not privy to the JJP private forum?

If you're interested, here's a bunch of new WOZ-related YouTube videos
to enjoy this weekend!

WOZ Overview & Gameplay @ UK Pinball League (long)

&hd=1

Playing WOZ @ AMOA (long)

&hd=1

Arcade Hunters @ Amusement Expo 2013

WOZ Gameplay @ London Pinball

&hd=1

Standard WOZ Gameplay @ JJP Factory

&hd=1

More WOZ Gameplay @ Unknown

&hd=1

Full JJP Presentation @ TPF 2013 (86 minutes)

[Retropin]

my experience is that they start looking, if paperwork is not 100 percent.

the only other point i will make, is freight forwarders can get the pricing down pat usually within a handful of dollars, if JJP use a good freight forwarder, and I am sure they will, perhaps pricing and the process will become very easy n alot more efficient as they get experience with shipping overseas.

time will tell. moving on, there is a new video on the JJP forum, machine looks excellent.

Think youll find jack has plenty of experience shipping overseas already.. you seem to forget his well established redemption game business that funded the whole pinball project in the first place. Jacks not a new kid on the block.. he has been around for a long time

[Caveoftreasures]

Should make it even easier for them to provide concrete shipping costs when the time comes then. 

[Caveoftreasures]

Forgot to mention,

WOZ Videos - Also, for those that dont know, the JJP WOZ/Hobbitt forum is available for anyone to join, if u have purchased a LE WOZ, or if you are considering buying a STD WOZ or Hobbitt etc. You simply have to send Jen a email at JJP,    jen@jerseyjackpinball.com   and u will recieve the site details.  All the latest videos and information is posted on a regular basis, and u can easily find 99 percent of the videos posted on youtube.

Re shiping costs - for those who have ordered a machine, or for those who are thinking about ordering a machine direct thru JJP, perhaps on Tuesday I could contact a local Brisbane freight forwarder and do something pro-active and get some detailed costs/quotes for anyone thinking about buying a machine direct thru JJP, and have those quotes on file and posted on the forum, so people have a better understanding of what the total shipping costs will be, versus having to wait for the overseas seller to provide them down the track.
  
I could ask for the freight forwarder to give seperate figures for a Brisbane landing, versus a Melbourne landing - Seafreight. I could also ask for a quote to do it via Airfreight. I personally want the figures for a future purchase. I note that Bumper told me apx a year ago, they would charge between $1200 and $1500 to do it all, landed in Melbourne.  I will get some seperate quotes and see if it helps anyone else out ?

[Strangeways]

Jack should be able to provide a shipping cost to your closest airport or shipping port. I'm sure he would strike a deal with shipping companies for TRANSPORT to your country, but after it lands, it is completely up to the buyer to organize. From my experience of importing single machines, shipping prices are given, but not to your door. You need to work out the rest yourself. So there is no way Jack or anyone can accurately quote a shipping price to your door. That is impossible.

Fumigation is a risk with second hand goods. New items in boxes are rarely fumigated unless the boxes themselves are on wood pellets that do not meet AQIS standards. I've had containers with pellets that meet AQIS standards and specified it on the DOP. It went straight through. I don't think a container of NIB would ever be subject to fumigation unless the paperwork was missing. But it would be inspected, not fumigated - unless the inspection found timber, straw or bamboo. Not one of my imports has ever required fumigation. Customs don't randomly pick out containers for fumigation purposes. If the paperwork is not completed, they may let you go - depending on a number of factors. "Country of origin" is another reason that affects fumigation. Asian countries with imports that have furniture made of bamboo will be fumigated regardless of the DOP stating no wood was used for packing. As soon as AQIS find bamboo or straw - you will have the container fumigated.

X-Ray of a container is random. Inspection of a container is also random. My Freight forwarder is brilliant as they have an AQIS Bay in their yard. The container is taken directly off the ship and transported to my Freight Forwarder. I have 10 days to collate all the paperwork. If a container is left in port, then the chances of AQIS sniffing around your import increases.

Although no import costs are the same, dodgy freight forwarders will add all sorts of costs. If the Freight Forwarder is more of a commercial importer, then they will rip a private import at commercial costs. As soon as I found a good Freight Forwarder, my landing and processing costs almost halved. There are also Tariffs which reduce the duty, or remove it completely.

There are a lot of tricks to the game of importing, but from my experience, there is no way anyone can accurately predict the transport costs to your door. Different countries have different rules, standards and costings. It is not up to the manufacturer to predict the costs for each country.

Having said that, I would be sure that Stern distributors look at the maximum price of landing the machine per unit and charge that to the customer regardless of the actual costs. This would be common practice in any industry. That would be based on feedback from distributors after the games have landed over time. They work out the maximum costs to import, and pass it on to the consumer. If the cost is less, then the distributor would keep the difference.

[Caveoftreasures]

I agree with 99.99 percent of what u have said. The only small exception, is that a good freight forwarder shld be able to get very specific costs to have the item shipped door to door. The vast majority of people dont have the ability to lift n transport heavy items, thus requiring the item to be dropped off at a work or private address. Most people who try to do self import, will ofcourse do the pick up n heavy lifting themselves, but most people who use a freight forwarder, will require door to door.

To give u an example, say a female customer buys a WOZ machine, she wouldnt want or have the ability to move a 150 kg widebody pinny, she would want it delivered, or even a older person, say someone 65 who has a bad back, they are all going to be door to door, with the help of a good freight forwarder and customs/clearance agent etc. These quotes are easily done, if the seller wants to spend the time with a good freight forwarder/customs agent getting detailed quotes.

I am betting, the vast majority of Aussie WOZ owners are going to ask for a tailgate lifter/truck to have their machine delivered, and they are going to want it all organised before the machine leaves the factory.

In any event, this will all work itself out soon enough. Bumper shld take care of most of Melbourne, but its the other states so far where the big question marks are. 

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Fumigation is a risk with second hand goods. New items in boxes are rarely fumigated unless the boxes themselves are on wood pellets that do not meet AQIS standards. I've had containers with pellets that meet AQIS standards and specified it on the DOP. It went straight through. I don't think a container of NIB would ever be subject to fumigation unless the paperwork was missing. But it would be inspected, not fumigated - unless the inspection found timber, straw or bamboo. Not one of my imports has ever required fumigation. Customs don't randomly pick out containers for fumigation purposes. If the paperwork is not completed, they may let you go - depending on a number of factors. "Country of origin" is another reason that affects fumigation.

After everything that has happened so far, I am not expecting the paperwork to be  in order

[Strangeways]

I agree with 99.99 percent of what u have said. The only small exception, is that a good freight forwarder shld be able to get very specific costs to have the item shipped door to door. The vast majority of people dont have the ability to lift n transport heavy items, thus requiring the item to be dropped off at a work or private address. Most people who try to do self import, will ofcourse do the pick up n heavy lifting themselves, but most people who use a freight forwarder, will require door to door.

To give u an example, say a female customer buys a WOZ machine, she wouldnt want or have the ability to move a 150 kg widebody pinny, she would want it delivered, or even a older person, say someone 65 who has a bad back, they are all going to be door to door, with the help of a good freight forwarder and customs/clearance agent etc. These quotes are easily done, if the seller wants to spend the time with a good freight forwarder/customs agent getting detailed quotes.

I am betting, the vast majority of Aussie WOZ owners are going to ask for a tailgate lifter/truck to have their machine delivered, and they are going to want it all organised before the machine leaves the factory.

In any event, this will all work itself out soon enough. Bumper shld take care of most of Melbourne, but its the other states so far where the big question marks are. 

That's right. So after the transport price, there is a local delivery price that manufacturer's cannot possibly quote accurately. The local Freight Forwarder can organize, depending on your needs. You can also pick up yourself as LCL in your own truck / ute / etc.

What distributors do is to find the highest quote for local transport (after the container has been transported to port), but use the cheapest possible local transport and pocket the difference. The local distributor CAN provide the door to door price by combining the manufacturer's transport, the clearance fees at the Port, and the local Transport. That's how it works. The manufacturer does not know the landing / clearance fees, nor does the manufacturer know the local transport to your door.

So what I'm saying is that JJP or Stern cannot give you a "door to door" price WITHOUT finding out the landing / clearance costs AND the local transport. Ask either of them and you will get an estimate based on past imports, and they will undoubtedly send you to the local distributor for an accurate quote.

An example is the Fathom I bought from Germany as a single import. If cost me AUS$595 airfreight to my terminal in Tullamarine. But that was not to my door. I had to pay clearance / landing / admin costs - wait a couple of days then I picked it up in my Wagon. There is no way the German Supplier was going to give me a door to door quote as the landing fees are unknown and the local transport is unknown.

[swinks]

here is a leter from Jack that a pinsider posted today, which yes I have copied it and posted here but fitting to being posted here and Jack is definitely trying


"For all of us and for me most of all - it has been a crazy two years.
I know that is true of all of you as well. Many of you have suffered
in a way defending me or JJP to the people who said we would never
even build a game. They were wrong, you were right, Thank You! I think
this little post is more for me today than you but it's posted here
anyway.

There are all kinds of people and many on forums have to express their
anger or negativity. Some of the same people see me in person at shows
and gush for a picture with me or my autograph. People….It's probably
true on the stamp collecting Group too as people are people. Still, we
are focused on the positive as you cannot create and grow from a
negative. More dreams have been killed by doubt than by actual failure
and the game is reality, failure was never an option.

I've lived this every day a billion times over and I have not
regretted it yet. I guess having games now, that stage is passed. I'm
the most critical customer of JJP and the one with the least patience
as I've done it the longest. As we move into this delivery stage of
games there is a lot of satisfaction in what we have done so far. I'm
very proud of our Team and their Passion and dedication.

At the show in Italy a couple of weeks ago a customer who ordered
ECLEWOZ and saw it for the first time remarked that he was amazed,
something we love to hear. He went on to say that it would probably
be the worst game that JJP ever makes. That's to say we will get
better as we go along in the coming days, weeks, months and years. I
took his comment the right way, he gets it.

We had to set deadlines so that there were targets for those vendors
and for our people as well. I guess the game could have been designed
forever and never completed but it is designed and completed, except
for the ongoing software development which is going well and that will
be seen to completion and to our satisfaction of what we know the game
will be.

Deadlines we missed or moved, or got moved for us or in spite of us,
I'm truly sorry. I take responsibility for that. I know it caused some
issues for certain people but in some cases, I had to have trust.
Sometimes, not that much was in my direct control. Welcome to
manufacturing in the USA, 101.

We had no clue what we were going to design. It is way more than any
of us thought it would be. We have learned a lot. Maybe I have finally
learned not to believe every vendor's promise or to pass them along so
quickly as Gospel, sorry again.

The most important thing is the honesty and transparent nature of what
we have tried to do. To include all of you in the many details, ideas,
trials, ups and downs as we went along. It's been painful sometimes
but you all deserve to know what I know and I've answered your calls
and e mails- always. It is the making of the sausage and thanks for
the many calls and e mails and texts of support too numerous to count!

Much of what we did would up on the desks or in-boxes of our now many
competitors' moments after being written here and it still does. Some
spoken words wind up twisted or out of context. It gets posted on
other forums to be ruminated about and stomped on no matter what we
do. That's part of what any forum brings, good and bad. We get e mails
forwarded to us about what our competitors are doing too, about their
new secret "cool" designs, licenses they sign, Mustangs or not or in-
progress artwork or playfield lighting or their price increases or
whatever distractions right from their own vendors or employees so it
works both ways. I really could care less what any of them do, good
luck, live and let live. I only care about what we are doing.

I'll never look back at this game and say it was crap. It is our best
effort to date and we will learn from it, we will support it and we
will improve upon it with our next game.

We are not perfect, nobody is. This is a mechanical device and my
saying for many years is "if it's not broken, it's not pinball".....
What I did say and do say is we will support whatever we built and we
will strive to satisfy our customers and reward our players, always.

If we missed some shows, if I could not get there or we could not get
games there, I'm sorry too. We will make it up as we move forward,
it's hard to do it all sometimes.

I have been pleased that the games on location have been working well
and have been making money. Most weeks they have been going up every
week and they have been attracting new players which is something we
all hoped for. Those with them on location know this to be true. I
have not spoken to Zach since he received his WOZ about a week ago and
he posted this on our group the other day:

----
Zach T View profile
More options Mar 29, 12:01 pm

So, the WOZ at Nickel City San Diego is just killing it. I have never
seen a new pin earn this much, this fast. In the first 10 hours at
Nickel City WOZ out earned what Tron, Simpsons, South Park, and LW3
made combined last week!

Currently WOZ is making more than any video game on the floor,
including the drivers. There are a lot of redemption games that
aren't earning this well. We're going to have to collect WOZ twice
this week because the coin bucket isn't big enough for us to go a
full week between collections!

The game is a huge hit with all of my casual players. Usually, when
someone walks up to play pinball who has never played it before they
play one ball and walk away. I have yet to see that with WOZ. The
big LCD display is definitely helping new players understand the game
better.

More options Mar 29, 9:06 pm
Yes, the kids just love it. I'm seeing entire families playing WOZ
together. I've never seen a reaction like this for a pinball machine
before. It's fantastic. The pinball crowd has definitely been
playing it a lot, but I would never make this kind of money off of
just the pinball crowd.

Zach
Palomar Amusements
----

In recent days since AMOA, several operators and distributors have
called or e mailed to order WOZ. Many have asked for ECLEWOZ as well
as they want the latest and greatest for their location......We are
sold out with a growing waiting list. Word is getting out in the
industry side of things and that's good. They are OK to wait as we
have lots of people before them to deliver games to, a good problem
for us to have. Drew came back from AMOA with orders for over 150
games with many new distributor requests. One keeps calling daily
looking to pickup games in the next week or two, he just woke up to
what we have been doing for two years.

Keith sent a code update last night that in size is three times as
large a file as what is currently in the latest games out now! I
cannot wait to download it later and play the game today.

These games we built here this week, maybe ten of them, it is not like
taking a loaf of bread out of the oven and handing it to you. They
need to be burned in and tested and we need to make sure they are
right before you get them. That's what you deserve. I came to some
reality decisions late yesterday and in spite of me missing another
self imposed deadline I decided that the good of the product was more
important than the calendar.

So we all decided yesterday as we left that the games in the building
need to burn in for a few days. Plus the code, well, while tested, WE
did not test it. Keith always sends us older code than where he is in
his game so it's been tested.....but giving real customer #1 a game
and on and on.....we want to make sure games are right.

Real pickup customer #1 was fine with getting his game a few days
later. He is going away on vacation next week anyway. I talked to a
few others and they all say the same. They want their games but they
want them to be right or as right as we humans here can make them.
It's pinball. We don't want to be Boeing - making airplanes that
people fly on that matters in life and death situations - this is a
pinball machine for goodness sakes. And no, I did not call everyone
yet.

If you want a game that is not built with passion, detail, care and
respect for the people who are waiting for them, then there are other
options available but not from us. We have a winner here. It's almost,
almost done at the one yard line. I need to remember what Bryan Kelly
told me and don't screw it up now after all this time......another
few days - even a week or two - if that makes the difference, that's
what I need to do.

We want real production boards in the real production games that
customers get. Building games to completion has been difficult without
our production board sets which are obviously on their own timeline
despite what I was told about mid to late March, it's now the week of
4/8. I ordered them on January 11th.....frustrates me but better right
than wrong but it is coming at least down to days now not weeks or
months. The board house in Pennsylvania has been setting up and
running various boards. It's a daily string of questions about various
parts, orientation of connectors, etc. so they make ten of each board
and we get them and approve them and they make them….all takes time.
Needs to be done right the first time, it's a $1,560,000 order so I
don't need mistakes.

Can't rush greatness, or our board house at this point…..so if I
shipped a couple or even five or six games today which I could if I
really wanted to and then there was a week or so lull, maybe worse
than waiting a week or two and having twenty or more tested, better
coded and completely working games. In hindsight I should have said
what Eugene Jarvis told me to say - it is done when it's done or
something similar but we are almost there.

I went to E3 and Seattle in June with a box of lights that Keith had
to start with a keyboard. I went to PPE with the flipper strength not
set right, I went to Expo with incomplete code and IAAPA with a better
version of incomplete code and we won a Brass Ring Award. We have
games on location kicking ass and the game is not done, just imagine
what happens in the next few days and weeks, holy cow, it's gonna' be
nuts!

I'm going to get criticized no matter what I do. I can take it, I have
a pretty thick skin. Just dont slander or libel me or my company or my
people or family. I've done it for 37 years with God's Blessing as
long as I'm able to do it, maybe another 37 years but it is getting
easier, not harder.

Creating this Group was also a great thing, like creating the game.
Just like an extended family.....Not perfect but pretty good I must
agree. You all have the patience of Saints and as these games start to
ship the level of "crazy" will go up. I know the conversation will
shift to different subjects, my un-boxing party is when, Is Jack
coming, my this is that is that or my wife and kids won't let me get
near the game to play it, etc, etc...all good

We are Pinball People and I'm proud to call you our customers,
supporters, believers, investors and most importantly, friends and we
look forward to meeting more of you and getting your games to you.

I'm thankful to my wife and family and to my Faith and sincerely to
all of you. Please know this, we are and will continue to do our best.
Our Passion is Pinball and we have been Blessed to create this game
for you!

Happy Passover/ Happy Easter/ Happy Weekend.

Much more to come."

[Pop Bumper Pete]

But the game has been on this "on yard line " now for months
Redesigning boards at the last minute is failure to plan

[swinks]

Redesigning boards at the last minute is failure to plan

or could it be unexpected problems that he wants to sort out properly, imagine sending the games out and then all sorts of problems around the world with failures and freight of boards - that would be a nightmare and a big cross against JJP

but that said totally understand your frustration of delay after delay

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Redesigning boards at the last minute is failure to plan

or could it be unexpected problems that he wants to sort out properly, imagine sending the games out and then all sorts of problems around the world with failures and freight of boards - that would be a nightmare and a big cross against JJP

but that said totally understand your frustration of delay after delay

Don't drink the kool-aid!

[Pop Bumper Pete]

it is not the delays, it is the annoucement at the last minute of the delay

last week, Jack was saying thet the first games were shipping by the end of the month (March)
mid week it was down to calling the first customers
then it was calling several customers
then it was calling 12 people, who all wanted to remain anonymous
then today no games were shipping until april 8

A smarter man would say that he was hoping to ship games
his problem is he likes to carve a date in stone, then wonders why people hold him to that date

[Caveoftreasures]

What I should have asked is Mike(Homepin) how many boards should be able to get made on a daily basis if you had put in a 1.6 million dollar order as Jack said, given the board making place had several staff.

Is this a slow process because of labour, or a slow process in not having enough machines to make the boards ?

How many could a chineese firm make a day I wonder ?? .........singles arriving daily seems very small numbers to me ? 

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Brett, with everything, you get what you are willing to pay for

It takes me 90 minutes to make 15 dozen pies
4'n'20 make 100000 per hour