The Shadowrun Situation

[martian_bob]

I wholeheartedly agree. The moral absolutist you're looking to excoriate is Fuchs, who's happy to demonize anyone who "sticks with" IMR, even if its in their economic best interests to do so. I don't care for RB, but at least what he's doing is rational. JMH's continued faith in management is much more disturbing than part-owners' flailing about to try and right their sinking ship..

I don't know that I buy that last part. I'd like to say for the record that I've met RB, and like him personally. That said, I think that the rational business decision to make would have been to get LLC away from Catalyst ASAP IYKWIM OMGWTFBBQ. Imagine that world - I imagine it as having a lot fewer heated discussions about who's wrong and who's right, and more fans pulling for Catalyst to keep the license.

EDIT - to address the first point, I'm willing to accept the demonizing of people not for sticking with IMR, but for defending them in bad faith, lying about what was done and when, and generally sowing FUD to make the situation appear more confusing than it already is.

It's remotely possible that DSG was a good actor in a bad system, but there's been no indication that he's worthy of praise or trust. As Jay noted, management pointed to him and said "This is the guy who will make sure you get paid and that we won't turn out like FanPro!" Didn't work out so well, did it? There were massive operational problems well before the shit really hit the fan. People were going unpaid long before the massive draws shown on PD's leaked graphs. I don't think DSG is the devil, but he sure as hell isn't the wonderful white knight some are painting him as.

I'd rather see the licenses go to a group that has no connection to IMR or FASA than let the same hamhanded folks have at them again.

I'll buy that - those actions imply that he's a bad manager, and a contributing factor to the problem. To be frank, though, when comparing him to LLC, I'll judge him by his actions at Sandstorm. At least that'll be a valid apples-to-apples comparison.

[violence in the media]

There are really two things under debate at the moment. First, a whole host of charges and accusations that have been piled on top of the co-mingling issue that imply not only malfeasance but perhaps illegal behavior. Second, there is the question of whether CGL/IMR has the capacity and willingness to rectify the situation and get back on its feet.

To be blunt: so fucking what?

The extra charges and accusations will be sorted out and, if they have any merit, will hopefully stick. However, unless they manage to up the moral outrage ante above built-myself-a-mansion-on-ill-gotten-gains, it really doesn't matter how many people come out of the woodwork and claim CGL/IMR owes them $1000 too. If the illegal behavior accusations are true, and he gets convicted, then that's even awesomer. Frankly, I can't conceive of how this could have occured without breaking some jailable laws in the process, but that's just me.

Second, you're taking the possibility of "the capacity and willingness to rectify the situation and get back on its feet" with an assumption that people should let them. Look, if all CGL/IMR needs to fix everything is for people to back off these pesky lawsuits and accusations of wrongdoing, then fuck CGL/IMR. At this point, I think a lot of people are well justified in the idea that, even if some deal with the devil allows CGL/IMR to persist with the license, they they should exercise a good old fashioned financial boycott until the license could pass to someone without the overwhelming taint of buggery and thuggery. If that means Battletech or Shadowrun ultimately dies as a commercial property, that's a risk you take.

Give Frank, K, Koumei, and the Den a few years, they'll get around to putting out a better game for free. (See: Tomes, A World of Darkness, Dungeon Crusade.)

[Taharqa]

The extra charges and accusations will be sorted out and, if they have any merit, will hopefully stick. However, unless they manage to up the moral outrage ante above built-myself-a-mansion-on-ill-gotten-gains, it really doesn't matter how many people come out of the woodwork and claim CGL/IMR owes them $1000 too. If the illegal behavior accusations are true, and he gets convicted, then that's even awesomer. Frankly, I can't conceive of how this could have occured without breaking some jailable laws in the process, but that's just me.

See, you are already going from co-mingling to a host of other accusations. Its my experience that when cock-ups like this happen a lot of shit gets thrown around that in hindsight was wrong. Thus if we take the entire human history of cock-ups as our prior, a certain degree of detachment, humility, and caution is warranted. But, its pretty clear at this point that we come from different schools of thought: I am content to let things sort themselves out while you want to grab the pitchfork, so don't let me stop you.

Second, you're taking the possibility of "the capacity and willingness to rectify the situation and get back on its feet" with an assumption that people should let them. Look, if all CGL/IMR needs to fix everything is for people to back off these pesky lawsuits and accusations of wrongdoing, then fuck CGL/IMR. At this point, I think a lot of people are well justified in the idea that, even if some deal with the devil allows CGL/IMR to persist with the license, they they should exercise a good old fashioned financial boycott until the license could pass to someone without the overwhelming taint of buggery and thuggery. If that means Battletech or Shadowrun ultimately dies as a commercial property, that's a risk you take.

Once again, someone makes the faulty direct translation from LLC to CGL without regard to the fact that CGL incorporates a lot more people than LLC himself, and in fact some of those people are the ones who by any measure have the most right to accuse LLC of "stealing." Personally, I would rather see restitution so that the freelancers and others who are owed money can get it back. That seems less likely to happen under bankruptcy or a boycott. I am not a big risk-taker in general, but I sure as hell don't take risks that offer very little in the way of potential reward.

Give Frank, K, Koumei, and the Den a few years, they'll get around to putting out a better game for free. (See: Tomes, A World of Darkness, Dungeon Crusade.)

Thanks, but no thanks.

[Kaelik]

See, you are already going from co-mingling to a host of other accusations. Its my experience that when cock-ups like this happen a lot of shit gets thrown around that in hindsight was wrong. Thus if we take the entire human history of cock-ups as our prior, a certain degree of detachment, humility, and caution is warranted. But, its pretty clear at this point that we come from different schools of thought: I am content to let things sort themselves out while you want to grab the pitchfork, so don't let me stop you.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Chamberlain, but it turns out that sometimes if you leave something to be sorted out, it doesn't get sorted the fuck out. You have to go do that.

You got your panties in a bunch that Frank is discouraging buying books, and outing LLC. Guess what, boycotts are fine, and if LLC is never outed, then LLC never gets in fucking trouble for being a fucking thief.

Speaking of which, there you go again pretending that it isn't a goddam fucking fact that LLC stole money. Trying to pretend this is all some big misunderstanding where he accidentally got his bank account numbers confused in his head and thought he was withdrawing a million dollars from his own account.

Either you are the stupidest person alive, or you are lying when you pretend that.

[Asbestos Underwear]

Sometimes even stupid people are right. There's more to stealing than just taking things. You've also got to know it isn't yours. And you've got to intent to keep it.

LLC seems to have stolen the money. But it's possible that he's so profoundly retarded that he thought the money was his to take or intended to return it, in which case he wouldn't be a thief, although he'd probably still be an embezzler.

Can we all just agree that he's a reprehensible asshat and stop splitting hairs over exactly what kind of asshat - criminal, moral, ethical - he is? Because we all agree he's a dick on at least one of those grounds.

[Crissa]

At what point can a manager without access to the purse strings do anything about the company being looted by those with access to the strings?

It would be in the best interest for the company for the money to be replaced, yes, but it wouldn't be in the best interest of the company for this to be known.

I don't get the demonization of DSG. Bills, however, has said he's okay with the looting - which kinda puts him in the 'accessory' seat. DSG isn't there anymore.

All these aspersions of motive are irrelevant. Even if DSG wanted control of the company - that doesn't make him a bad guy, it just makes him someone who wanted to stop the looting. You know, like everyone else reasonably honest.

-Crissa

[Juton]

I may be in the minority, but I think CGL will hang on to both licenses, at least for the next few years (at the very least Battletech). They really should pay their freelancers/partners/distributors, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and boycott them until they do so even though I really enjoy some of their products. Besides this and and related threads is there some running tally of outstanding accounts so that we can keep score at home?

[setmonster]

I may be in the minority, but I think CGL will hang on to both licenses, at least for the next few years (at the very least Battletech). They really should pay their freelancers/partners/distributors, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and boycott them until they do so even though I really enjoy some of their products. Besides this and and related threads is there some running tally of outstanding accounts so that we can keep score at home?

Agreed. I've been following this whole debacle closely over the last few months and quite appalled at how vile an operation CGL is. Nonetheless, like yourself, I see CGL managing to hold on to BT (and it wouldn't surprise me if they wangle Shadowrun, as well).

However, I'll carry on buying my BT stuff. I'm a wretched addict - even if my supplier is a bastard, I'll just keep on buying.

[Blasted]

I may be in the minority, but I think CGL will hang on to both licenses, at least for the next few years (at the very least Battletech). They really should pay their freelancers/partners/distributors

I've been considering the problem of the license extension.
Some possibilities:

• 1. Topps received too many submissions for the license and is taking forever to review them.
  2. Topps are don't want to look stupid in front of shareholders, so are waiting for the audit to complete and will then award licenses to whoever.
  3. Topps are waiting for accounts to close or are holding out for tax reasons and will award the licenses at the start of the new financial year.
  4. Topps are holding the licenses out like a carrot, to get IMR to pay out the outstanding license fees, before awarding the licenses to someone else.

If I were CGL, I'd be doing two things:
1. Making hay while the sun shines and putting out as many PDFs as possible.
2. Paying Topps as much as possible in order to keep them on side.

1. is easy and already happening. 2. is difficult. They really need to deal with this chapter 7 and if they paid off those debtors, it would go away. (This has the problem that other debtors will see this and may choose to go the same route. Also, if it puts them under 12 debtors, AFAIK then they can be put into chapter 7 but a single debtor.) It also means burning through their remaining capital which would have otherwise been used for printing and paying the next round of suckers freelancers.
If I were in CGL's place I'd probably go with option 2, because losing the license is a 'game over' situation. I'd also have sweetened the license terms as a 'sorry for the inconvenience.' However. If Topps is going with option 4 above, they're screwed and the better course of action would be to do a Coleman take the money and run. By that I mean pay off preferred debts, especially if they're debts that CGL owes to me personally and then attempt to close the company, avoiding chapter 7.

I wonder if the pdfs will give them the cash flow to pay off Topps before the audit completes.

[Ganbare Gincun]

However, I'll carry on buying my BT stuff. I'm a wretched addict - even if my supplier is a bastard, I'll just keep on buying.

Maybe it's time to check into rehab?

[TheFlatline]

Either you are the stupidest person alive, or you are lying when you pretend that.

I'm going to quote Ron White here on this one:

... But let me tell you something, folks: You can't fix stupid. There's not a pill you can take; there's not a class you can go to. Stupid is forever.

[RobBoyle]

Dave wasn't living in a vacuum. He had access to the books and the chequebook.

This is false. Dave never had access to the checkbook -- we actually argued for him to have an operational budget as the operations manager, but Loren refused. Dave also only had access to some invoices, not the full books.

There were massive operational problems well before the shit really hit the fan. People were going unpaid long before the massive draws shown on PD's leaked graphs.

AFAIK, this is also false. I can't speak to IMR's books before Catalyst was formed, but the graphs show that Loren started making big draws right after Catalyst was formed. So Catalyst started off with simultaneous missing money and unpaid invoices.

For the record, I am no apologist for Dave. I'll be blunt and say that Dave and I had very serious differences during our time together at Catalyst. I am just correcting the facts here.

[Asbestos Underwear]

There were massive operational problems well before the shit really hit the fan. People were going unpaid long before the massive draws shown on PD's leaked graphs.

AFAIK, this is also false. I can't speak to IMR's books before Catalyst was formed, but the graphs show that Loren started making big draws right after Catalyst was formed. So Catalyst started off with simultaneous missing money and unpaid invoices.

For the record, I am no apologist for Dave. I'll be blunt and say that Dave and I had very serious differences during our time together at Catalyst. I am just correcting the facts here.

I can't agree with this analysis, given the leaked graphs. Per the charts, about $50k was drawn out by the start of 2006. The amounts quickly escalated: $100k aggregate in 2007, $200k aggregate in 2008, finally skyrocketing to $600k as 2009 rolls round. Total by the time the graphs were made was about $725k. $50k and $100k are substantial sums, no doubt. But they couldn't have been the bulk of the cash flow or it simply wouldn't have been possible for the later draws to be so massive.

To me, that's a sign that IMR had problems aside from LLC's perfidy. The business end of the operation must have been a complete cockup from day one, and DSG was an integral part of the "non-creative" aspects of IMR.

To be clear, I'm not making a moral equivalence play here. DSG != LLC. There could be any number of reasons for IMR's dysfunction; he may well be blameless. I have no idea. But given IMR's problems and his role with the company, he's not got my implicit trust. Sandstorm would have to show that it's really different from IMR before I'd buy product - solid releases, people getting paid.

[Kaelik]

To me, that's a sign that IMR had problems aside from LLC's perfidy. The business end of the operation must have been a complete cockup from day one, and DSG was an integral part of the "non-creative" aspects of IMR.

To be clear, I'm not making a moral equivalence play here. DSG != LLC. There could be any number of reasons for IMR's dysfunction; he may well be blameless. I have no idea. But given IMR's problems and his role with the company, he's not got my implicit trust. Sandstorm would have to show that it's really different from IMR before I'd buy product - solid releases, people getting paid.

Alternatively, it could be the fact that DSG had no way of paying anyone money except by asking Loren Coleman, and so... Oh yeah. I guess it's still Loren Coleman's fault they weren't paid and not DSG's.

[Username17]

Dave wasn't living in a vacuum. He had access to the books and the chequebook.

This is false. Dave never had access to the checkbook -- we actually argued for him to have an operational budget as the operations manager, but Loren refused. Dave also only had access to some invoices, not the full books.

According to Jennifer Harding's timeline, she and Dave got access to the banking records some time in early 2010. They then put together a plan to get Loren to pay the money back, and in March of 2010 Loren told them to take their plan and stick it up their ass. They then both quit within a couple of days, and both of them were out of the company by March 16th.

So Laughingman is straight wrong when he says that David had access to the checkbook. His claim that David had access to "the books" is fuzzier. David eventually got access to the banking records, but only this year, after $760,000 had already been withdrawn. And since Loren had been keeping a fair amount of the business "cash only" and not reporting invoices or incomes, even those books are woefully incomplete.

Remember, Loren has only been reporting about $2000 in convention income a year for the last three years. That's tens of thousands of dollars of real company income that never got to the bank account in the first place. The $760k of money that got to the bank account and then got withdrawn for Heather Coleman to use as spending money is only part of it. There is also unreported incomes and unreported free product. Neither of those sources of embezzlement even show up on the banking record.

Asking around, it appears that David's bid to buy the company was in January of 2010. Which is also "early 2010" - but I think we're talking earlier than the point at which he got access to the bank records. Or at the very least, well before the banking records had been sifted through.

-Username17

[martian_bob]

In light of current evidence, I'm going to retract my earlier statements about DSG - if he wasn't in charge of the checks, he couldn't have contributed to the problem.

[BeeRockxs]

Appearantly, at least 4 printing companies are willing to work with CGL:

"Busy printer day. Approved a dummy for one printer, proofs coming in from another one, and mailing out samples to two other printers. rnb"

[Username17]

Appearantly, at least 4 printing companies are willing to work with CGL:

"Busy printer day. Approved a dummy for one printer, proofs coming in from another one, and mailing out samples to two other printers. rnb"

Oh definitely. The February print orders were one reprint of Runner's Companion and 3 different Battletech books (no, I don't recall which of those were first printings and which were second printings). All 4 of those went to different printers.

It appears to be financial shenanigans somehow, but I don't know how it works or why they do that. But remember that this is the company that for a while was having Loren Coleman write checks in front of the art director, then not mail them, and watch the fun as he art director got pissed off at the artists for "lying" for saying that they hadn't been paid.

Oh, and I've since been told that Loren Coleman reported convention incomes as zero to the IRS, claiming that they made a net loss on the things. Which is fascinating, but sales tax applies even if corporate tax doesn't. That one is a bitch, so if the hearing next week doesn't move that bankruptcy forward, ultimately the IRS will probably get the last laugh (although of course: that could take years).

-Username17

[Asbestos Underwear]

@Frank: Sales tax is collected at the state and local level. IRS has nothing to do with it.

[Username17]

@Frank: Sales tax is collected at the state and local level. IRS has nothing to do with it.

Ultimately, it will be the IRS who audits the company and thus discovers the non-payment. So while the money isn't owed to the IRS, the IRS will be the one actually standing there when it is time to collect the golden fiddle.

-Username17

[adamjury]

Oh definitely. The February print orders were one reprint of Runner's Companion and 3 different Battletech books (no, I don't recall which of those were first printings and which were second printings). All 4 of those went to different printers.

Nope, not true.

[Crissa]

Nope, not true.

So is the 'rnb' quote not true?

-Crissa

[adamjury]

Nope, not true.

So is the 'rnb' quote not true?

About him getting printer proofs today? No idea. But I was still with the company in February, and that flurry of products all went to the same printer, and proofs were dealt with when I was still there.

Proofs take roughly anywhere from a day to a couple weeks to arrive, depending on the complexity of the project, if they're soft or hard proofs, and how & where they're delivered from.

[martian_bob]

Nope, not true.

So is the 'rnb' quote not true?

About him getting printer proofs today? No idea. But I was still with the company in February, and that flurry of products all went to the same printer, and proofs were dealt with when I was still there.

Proofs take roughly anywhere from a day to a couple weeks to arrive, depending on the complexity of the project, if they're soft or hard proofs, and how & where they're delivered from.

I'm a little confused. RNB's tweet certainly implies four printers, but you're saying only one printer was involved in February. Is it perhaps the case that the printer in February didn't end up printing (or shipping, or is holding, etc.) the books, and there are now four new printers involved? Or is RNB concocting a bogus story about 4 new printers? The latter seems the least likely.

[adamjury]

He's (that is, RNB) talking about entirely different projects.