Tag: Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding Fraudsters Update: Indiegogo Sends RCL To Collections


Let’s get one thing straight: The Spectrum Vega Plus does not exist and Retro Computers Ltd. has lied every step of the way. On to the story.

It seems as though the long saga of Retro Computers Ltd. is finally reaching its tired, stretched far too long, conclusion. This month, RCL was given a simple set of instructions by Indiegogo following numerous, increasingly ridiculous excuses for delays and minimal contact with their base of backers: In return for an extension to June 15, Indiegogo wanted contact information for Sky representatives, that RCL needed to refund any backer who asked for a refund, and provide RCL with a review console.

These demands should theoretically be easy, especially the review console since as we all know, RCL allegedly had the whole stock set to ship between March 8 and 12 until the Cobra Commander of retro games, also known as former directors Paul Andrews and Chris Smith, dastardly reached out and encouraged developers to pull licenses over unpaid licensing that RCL claims it totally paid.

Keeping with tradition, Retro Computers Ltd treated deadlines like guidelines and completely ignored them, and now Indiegogo is sending in the A-Team. According to an update sent out to backers just tonight, Indiegogo announced that it is working with a collections agency to recoup funds in an effort to refund backers. They note that the effort will take considerable time, and that the campaign is still open to the Vega+ team should they decide to update us on their big shipment of Vega Plus units that may or may not exist.

All demands by backers to see photographic evidence of the release-version Vega Plus have been ignored by Retro Computers Ltd.

Dear Vega+ Backers,

As you are aware, we recently provided the Vega+ team a provisional extension (June 15th) to fulfill, based on some requirements from us. These included sending us contact information of Sky representatives, and refunding backers immediately upon request, as well as providing Indiegogo with a review console.

Unfortunately, these asks have not been met and we are unable to further provide the Vega+ team an extension. This has been a challenging situation for all involved, and one we thought would be resolved with the backers receiving their game consoles.

This week, we will be working with a collections agency to attempt to recoup funds disbursed, in an effort to be able to refund backers. Please note that, while we are pursuing collections, this process can take considerable time and the Vega+ team still has the opportunity to fulfill on their obligation of shipping the consoles to backers. We refer you to the Vega+ team for any updates on shipping. The campaign is still open to the Vega+ team, and they continue to have the ability to update you all via our platform.

We hope that the Vega+ team follows through on their promise, and that any remedial efforts on our part will be rendered obsolete.

Thank you for your understanding, and patience.

Trust & Safety, Indiegogo

(Source; Indiegogo)

Fraudster Update: Will Adkins and the Open Letter to MMO Bomb


It’s been nearly two weeks since MMO Fallout published our piece regarding the Marvel Heroes Rebirth Indiegogo project, Marvel Heroes and the Diploma Mill of Nostalgia, and the article has garnered quite a bit of controversy by which I mean accusations of plagiarism and a demand that we link to a blog you might formally know as MMO Bomb. Now I’m not here to disparage our fellow denizens on the internet, since that’s the job for our subject of interest, but I’d just like to make a small 100% unrelated anecdote before we begin that when Johns Hopkins university measures the radiation coming off of the sun, they didn’t necessarily bounce their research off of, nor do they need to cite Aunt Sue walking outside and noticing that the sun sure is bright today.

But I’m not a jealous person, and since there is the distinct possibility that an ambitious editor in chief of said website (linked above here and below mine) decided to point out to anyone who covered the story that they broke it first, I have enjoyed the normal increase in traffic that Crowdfunding Fraudsters provides along with the boosted revenue ($0) with the safety of knowing that the inevitable legal complaints will not be coming my way because someone else decided to raise their hand and take the brunt of the attention. The less time I have to spend filing complaints to the State Bar Association in response to frivolous threats, the better.

Now, since our article was published, the Indiegogo campaign has been shut down with a message on the game’s website giving an explicit accusation that “a gaming blog” ignored the facts in order to publish false allegations for the sake of driving traffic and generating revenue, along with a small hint toward potential further action over irreparable damage to Paragon Institute.

“The bankruptcy hearing that would lead to the sale of Gazillion assets has been delayed; this would give us little time to react once the outcome of the hearing is known. Secondly, the landlord that controls the offices for Gazillion is petitioning the court to take possession of all on-site assets per his lease agreements (including the servers containing source code and game assets); it is now possible that the assets will not make it to a court-led sale.

We are aware of the false accusations originating from a gaming blog; we have been in contact with their president in an attempt to resolve this.  They have elected to ignore the full facts and  seem motivated by the goal of driving traffic to their site and generating revenue. These false allegations have caused irreparable damage to Paragon Institute. More details will follow as we are able to share.”

I know they’re not talking about me because MMO Fallout has no revenue to generate, and nobody from Paragon has been in touch. There’s also the little matter that nothing we said was false and, just to throw an example out of the blue, our piece didn’t make any potentially actionable statements like musing on the possibility that Paragon Institute may be looking to continue the diploma mill practices of Chadwick Institute. I’m just throwing statements out there.

But imagine my surprise late afternoon on February 10 when a comment showed up on my piece by none other than Will Adkins himself, or at least a private Disqus account signed up for with none other than a Virtucorp email address (for more information on Virtucorp, see the above link) and a lot of information. The long comment, interestingly enough, was a direct open letter not to myself but to the other author of this fine coverage (again, linked above). I’m willing to take a shot in the dark that this was posted on the wrong website, because it was almost immediately deleted and then re-posted on the actual article that Adkins was responding to. Thankfully the internet never forgets, and I’m sent a copy of all comments posted here by email for record keeping purposes which according to the MMO Fallout legal team gives me permission to re-post for your viewing pleasure.

The good news is, according to this commenter who we’ll refer to as “Will Allegedkins,” in the unlikely event his credentials turn out to be forged, we now have an answer for the connection with Chadwick University, the defunct diploma mill who ceased granting diplomas back around 2007 and not a few years ago as has been reported on other websites. The website for Chadwick University has since come back online since our piece, directly explaining the link between the two organizations:

This site is maintained by Paragon Institute, Inc. (a 501c3 non-profit) to facilitate transcript requests for former Chadwick University students and share site content as it existed in 2007; Paragon Institute has not been involved in the academic operations or conferral of said degrees. Except as otherwise noted, the site reflects policies and standards as implemented during operations.

See, a simple question given a simple answer, Paragon is acting as a custodian to Chadwick’s transcript requests because it may be a thankless job, but someone has to do it. According to the Web Archive, this explanation has been up for at least several years now, the archive doesn’t go further back than 2015, so don’t get the impression that it has suddenly been updated.

But what about Paragon Institute itself, the 501c3 non-profit? We tracked Paragon Institute to Virtucorp, another website that has seemingly risen from the dead since our piece and, as we stated originally, is still filled with Lorem Ipsum gibberish and doesn’t actually include anything about anything.

I did note in the original article that Paragon Institute originally operated as American Southern University and according to its 501c3 filings for the past ten years, did business under several names of which MMO Fallout was unable to procure any evidence of any of these entities doing anything or existing in any substantive way for that matter. I’m not saying they didn’t exist, but if they did they have all been forgotten by the elephantine memory of the internet.

In addition, the ASU filed its form for organizations that claim less than $50 grand annually, which explains the lack of institution-esque work and the fact that we can’t identify anyone associated other than Mr. Adkins. There is zero web presence for any of the names, none of them show up on the official list of accredited institutions, nor do they show up on lists of unaccredited institutions for that matter. We have no information about them, and given that fact I tried to quickly move on from discussing their existence at all.

But Paragon Institute, as I later learned, hasn’t really done anything either. After the Web Archive decided to start working for us again, we went back as far as we could into Paragon’s past, 2014, and found that the institute was still in its re-launching phase even back then. We’re inclined to believe Mr. Adkin’s statement that the institute never issued a single diploma because such a statement would be easily disproved if it were a lie.

“Paragon Institute has been legally empowered since it was formed, as American Southern University in 2008, to award diplomas. However, it has not issued one during that time. The original intent was to create MOOCs and partner with other institutions to award accredited academic credit. As other providers moved into that space, the organization has pursued other initiatives more targeted at niche markets – such as STEM training and the one proposed with the IndieGoGo campaign. JASON – can you provide ANY evidence that Paragon has EVER awarded a diploma, legitimate or otherwise?”

Mr. Allegedkins has a point here, there is no evidence that Paragon Institute has ever awarded a diploma, and by our research there is no living evidence on the internet that it was ever a functioning institute, accredited or otherwise. It’s like the podcast I talked about starting back in 2010, it certainly exists in theory but has never actually gotten around to producing episode one. The statement goes on to say that Chadwick University probably wasn’t a diploma mill, and this is one of the few points I have to disagree with Mr. A-kins on.

“The main reason cited for being a diploma mill is that Chadwick University granted credit for life experience. Particularly during that time, accreditation was more about protecting faculty and the school rather than students”

Not necessarily true. We know Chadwick University was a fraudulent institute just by looking at its founder, Lloyd Clayton Jr., a quack whose degree in the faux medical practice of Naturopathy has gifted him with expertise in the arts of herbology and massage, whose school was slammed with class action lawsuits, and whose (also unrecognized) accrediting institution was founded by a woman who believed that the “Jews and Catholics” were suppressing evidence of her psychic link to the lost city of Atlantis. You see, there is a purpose on why MMO Fallout went into more detailed coverage of Lloyd Claton Jr and Chadwick University than other outlets did, it paints a clearer picture than simply saying “some people have called them a diploma mill.” Chadwick U was never accredited by anyone who mattered, it was however licensed to operate until Alabama decided to crack down on (you guessed it) diploma mills.

Legally speaking, we are not accusing Chadwick University of committing a crime because operating an unaccredited institution was not illegal at the time that it existed in Alabama. We simply pointed out that it is illegal to use a degree from Chadwick University in several states to obtain a job.

I didn’t spend too much time on this in the original piece as to not get off track, because I’d like to make it perfectly clear that the activities of Lloyd Clayton Jr. and Chadwick University have no bearing on the credibility of the Paragon Institute, and I am emphasizing that out of my own free will, but since we’re on the topic, Clayton’s other college (Clayton College of Natural Health), also defunct, offered courses in topics like aromatherapy, spectro-chrome therapy, therapeutic touch, and imaginal healing. If you’d really like to get off topic, we can start discussing the unlicensed doctors who graduated from Clayton’s schools who are now serving prison sentences for peddling fake cancer cures, duping and in some cases possibly causing the death of their patients via bogus treatments. None of Chadwick University’s actions have any bearing on Paragon Institute, I’d like to remind you.

“As a side note, not being recognized by Texas does not mean that Chadwick wasn’t a good education. I don’t expect most people to know about academic licensure, unless they claim they do and portray it incorrectly. In Texas, you must either be accredited or be based in the state for your degree to be recognized. Period. It’s not based on academic quality in that regard.”

Accreditation is absolutely about quality, in fact it’s literally in the mission statement on the Department of Education‘s website.

“The goal of accreditation is to ensure that institutions of higher education meet acceptable levels of quality.”

You can’t get accredited unless your institute adheres to guidelines on the quality of education, performance of the students, meets certain financial viability requirements, as well as the credentials of the staff. I know this because while in college the institute I was attending was being audited to determine its qualification for continued accreditation (which happens every few years), and I discussed with several professors who were directly associated with keeping the school accredited the qualifications required and the things that they needed to prove.

Now does that mean that every school that isn’t accredited is because it is not of acceptable quality? Of course not, that would be a logical fallacy. The process is, after all, voluntary and not all institutes are willing to go through what is a very difficult and expensive process. It’s like being certified by the Better Business Bureau, except the accreditation institutes have actual authority.

It’s like the difference between a deli being certified kosher and another just claiming to be kosher. They could theoretically both be going through the exact same process, with the latter simply deciding not to pay the required fees to be certified by a third party agency, and the former suppressing evidence of the lost city of Atlantis. Both outcomes may result in food that is equally kosher, but one comes with the approval of a guiding party that can reasonably be assumed is demanding that certain standards be kept, and the other is on the losing end of a barrage of lawsuits and busy dealing with the federal government trying to get them shut down and thrown in prison for fraud, like that Kevin Trudeau guy.

But let’s talk politics, did you know that Will Adkins ran for Congress in 2008?

“The third-party needed to pull in 2% of the vote across the state to remain on the ballot. This paved the way for future campaigns. It was a clean race, ran in only a few months v. a year for other candidates, helped achieve the desired goal, and was run without taking contributions from our citizens. I knew that I wasn’t going for the ‘win’ and could not take funding knowing that.”

For the record, I did do a lot of research on Will Adkins the man, 99% of which I left out minus what is likely his house (and address of Paragon Institute) and the fact that he was planning on running for Congress this year. I left out the part where he ran in 2008 as a libertarian because it’s frankly irrelevant to what he’s doing now, and would probably just come off as petty and disparaging to talk about the results, or I could make a comment about how Adkins’ performance in the second district actually strengthened the Libertarian ticket and may have had a direct hand in increasing turnout for the following two elections, making for the strongest election periods for the Libertarian party in the recent history of the second district of North Carolina, but that probably sounds like off-topic praise coming out of nowhere.

Allegedkins goes on to mention that they had some former Gazillion staff on board, however the perception of the project is too negative at the moment to proceed, ending with a parting shot against the article’s author.

Yes, the IndieGoGo campaign has stalled. Much of the feedback I’ve received attributed it to your article which was a misleading attempt to drive traffic and revenue; this then spread to other sites. We have been in contact with former Gazillion staff members (a limited number albeit) and was looking forward to announcing this soon. Even though they understand the situation, they feel the perception of the endeavor is too negative right now.

Jason, I get that you’re not a real news organization; you are a well-read gaming blog, but your readers still expect integrity just the same. In this case you are attempting to make the news rather than report it. We don’t know if it is malice on your part driving this or an inability to do real investigative reporting. We hope it’s not ill intent.
-Will Adkins

Now that’s rough, but since the campaign has been cancelled and doesn’t look like it will be returning in the near future, I guess that ends this saga of Crowdfunding Fraudsters. Hopefully we all learned something important from this experience.

Tune in this April when we cover the official launch of the ZX Spectrum Vega Plus, and tune in later this year when In Plain English covers the case of Paragon Institute v Defendant.

(Source: My Email)

Crowdfunding Fraudsters: Marvel Heroes and the Diploma Mill of Nostalgia


Fraudster:
2a:  a person who is not what he or she pretends to be :impostor;

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I actually get a lot of criticism when it comes to Crowdfunding Fraudsters for apparently being too lenient on the subjects. I take a lot of time to carefully parse my statements so that we’re not making any assumptions on motivation or things that can’t be proven outright, and quite a few people take that as me trying to play devil’s advocate for what they see as an obviously shady campaign. I understand where they’re coming form, and on behalf of protecting my own legal liabilities, I humbly disagree.

Now this campaign, on the other hand, nobody’s getting sunburn with all of the shadiness present.

I introduce you to the Marvel Heroes Rebirth, an Indiegogo campaign seeking $450,000 on a promise that it can’t keep for the sale of a property that they haven’t secured the rights for. It may look like your run of the mill predatory “jump on the nostalgia” sort of campaign that we’ve seen to revive old games or port them onto new systems either without the intention of or without the attempt to secure the rights from those who hold them, but if you shovel away the first layer we come upon a whole world of oddities. But more on that later.

I’ll start with the opening statement which reads like it was written by a timeshare salesman.

A sinister villain has shut down an iconic game. Fans are outraged. There is no relief in sight. Where is the hero destined to save the day and ease their suffering??? Oh, it’s you! We have an opportunity to save a great game that would otherwise be destined for the great void. There will be challenges and risks, but a great reward for those brave enough to help save the Marvel Heroes game platform. Help us save this game making it something better, stronger and faster than before.

The developer forming up to save Marvel Heroes is called Eldermage Studios, and if you head to their website it looks pretty independent gamey, very much focused around the proposition to rebirth Marvel Heroes anew. Do they have any credentials? No, but they’re hiring or they would be I suppose if the “Join Us” led to a working link. A company like this has to have some sort of founder, big industry guy, some sort of Richard Garriot-type philanthropist who really likes Marvel. I’ll even take a nerd with no programming skills but a lot of love for nostalgia who really liked Everquest back in the day.

Now $450 grand may seem like peanuts compared to the kind of money you would expect to need to license and host Marvel Heroes, and this campaign has heard your concerns and wants you to know that there is nothing to worry about since this pitch will very likely fail miserably.

  • Unless millions are raised to fund this campaign, the odds of this option being successful are very limited.

There’s the insurance statement. But it’s not all gloom and doom because the Copyright Office is reviewing a proposal that may exempt abandoned MMOs from the DMCA protection, which would allow Eldermage to legally operate the game even without Disney’s approval.

  • If Disney is unwilling to partner with us, there still may be another path.  Through March, 2018, the US Copyright Office is reviewing a proposal that would exempt abandoned MMOs from Digital Millennium Copyright Act protection; if exempted this would allow organizations such as ours to continue hosting Marvel Heroes. However, there is the likelihood that the game could not be further developed.   For more info and to provide your feedback on “Proposed Class 8” exemptions, visit the US Copyright Office.

In which case the pledges would be useless as you either wouldn’t be legally allowed to make those alterations into the game code or it would still be illegal for you to profit off of operating Marvel Heroes. Alternately, they might strip out all of the Marvel characters and replace them with public domain heroes which wouldn’t actually be that bad of an idea. Frankly I’d love to see a Diablo-style game using mostly golden-age heroes and it’d be a great way to bring them back to the public eye. You might have something going here.

And Eldermage does explain what the money is going towards:

To achieve our plan, we are currently seeking a minimum of $450k – $900k to acquire the intellectual property, cover due diligence and legal fees, procure necessary third-party support to host the rebranded game, and restore the game to use.  Yes, this is a large expense but much less than the original tens of millions of dollars used to develop and operate the platform.

A smart business decision that worked out great for Gamersfirst with All Points Bulletin, a $100 million engine that was sold for pennies on the dollar when Realtime Worlds went bankrupt and became profitable under the new company.

Now I could talk all day about the empty promises and nostalgia baiting that accompany these campaigns all day, but I wanna know: Who is the face behind Elder Mage? Unfortunately there is no staff page and the Elder Mage domain was registered by a name hiding company in Scottsdale Arizona. Sorry, I guess that’s the end of our trip! All we really have to go on is this bit about a 501c(3) organization called Paragon Institute.

Paragon Institute is a 501(c)(3) educational, non-profit; our goal is to establish ElderMage Studios as a learning lab to partner experienced professionals with aspiring game developers to help them gain the skills and hands-on experience necessary to work in the field. This may include time spent supporting or enhancing existing titles to create entirely new ones. A secondary mission is to preserve games that are no longer supported so that those who have licensed them may continue using them and so others may learn from them.

When you go to Paragon Institute’s website, you get a landing page for Paragon Academy which appears to be ticking down to something in 386 days, it looks like the academy is relaunching or something. What really interested me was that this Institute has a physical location in Cary, North Carolina and frankly physical location is basically like filling your legitimacy pitcher halfway from the get go. So I decided to just give the address a perusal in Google Maps to see the grandeur of this institute.

It’s a cul-de-sac, and I’m 99% certain that Google didn’t mess up the address, and I’m not all that worried about privacy because it is literally on the contact page for the Institute’s website.

So I continued to check out the website to see its legitimacy because if the Institute is indeed hosted out of some dude’s house, then the rolling photos on the website depicting smiling young people in classroom settings are total nonsense. In fact, I’m not in the greatest of moods and there are only three images rotating on the website, so let’s check those out: I did a quick backtracing on the Googles and it looks like this, this, and this, were creatively lifted and slightly modified from here, here, and here.

So maybe I’m being unnecessarily paranoid. Maybe it’s the fact that I can’t find anything, despite being a seasoned master of Google-fu, and this institute looks like a diploma mill. There isn’t enough information, let’s keep searching. There are three links on the “Students, Faculty, and Staff” page. The student/staff portal leads to the Office homepage, the Portal registration leads to an Office account creation page, and the page for former Chadwick students leads to a non-existent website.

And what is Chadwick University? It’s a diploma mill founded by one Lloyd Clayton Jr., whose credentials need no further introduction than his degree in holistic massage (this is a joke, he doesn’t actually claim to have such a degree). Chadwick University was not accredited and is considered an illegal supplier of degrees in the state of Texas (among others), it offered degrees based on “life experience” and basically just shut down in 2007 with Clayton no longer answering the phone. Chadwick U was accredited by the non-recognized World Association of Universities and Colleges, whose founder Maxine Asher genuinely believed to have discovered the lost city of Atlantis thanks in part to her psychic abilities, however her research was allegedly suppressed by the “Jews and Catholics.” Asher ran her own diploma mill fraud racket and sadly passed away in 2016.

But here you have Paragon Institute, a magical academy run from a cul-de-sac somehow linked to a defunct diploma mill accredited by a defunct diploma mill founded by a psychic who discovered Atlantis, and this is the company that wants to revive Marvel Heroes if only the public will give them lots and lots of money.

Buzzfile lists Paragon’s website as virtucorp, a website that no longer exists but through the power of Web Archive appears to have been filled with lorem ipsum gibberish.

Paragon Inc’s founder and only known employee Willis Adkins is currently running for a Congress seat in North Carolina’s 2nd District. According to its 501c(3) filings, Paragon Institute Inc used to go under the name “American Southern University Inc” and for years did business under names like “SGUS Academy,” “American Institute of Independent Studies,” “ASU Press,” “Miskatonic Institute,” and “American Center for Professional Studies.” MMO Fallout could not procure any web presence, addresses, or information for any of these names. Paragon Institute has filed a 990-N each year, a card for organizations whose claimed gross receipts are less than $50 thousand. As such, we were unable to procure standard public tax records which might include more information about the organization.

But the Marvel Heroes revival has a flexible goal of $450,000 meaning that even if nobody else contributes, they’ll still be able to keep that $305 in dosh that six backers put in.

 

 

Retro Computers LTD Melts Down, Spams its Indiegogo Page


The saga of Retro Computers LTD and the ZX Spectrum Vega Plus continues. If you haven’t read our previous coverage, you can do so here. While RCL has consistently responded to angry backers in an unprofessional manner, mostly by sending out social media admins to agitate the masses, the company finally began responding on Indiegogo today.

To announce that an announcement would be coming.

We will be making an announcement very soon. We are also very sorry that a hardcore group of people who have been refunded Ratcliffe and Co are still posting abusive comments.

Rather than utilize some free time to update backers, RCL then chose to spam its own wall, posting the following message no less than 40 times in the span of an hour or two.

Chatter on side channels suggests that RCL breaking their multi month silence may be due to the impending release of their bank records by shareholder Paul Andrews.

Regardless this appears to be just another case of RCL being tone deaf in their dealing with angry backers. Despite claiming that no refunds are denied, a quick inspection of the Indiegogo Page still shows numerous fresh claims of ignored refund requests.

Fig Claims 4 of Top 10 Crowdfunded Games In 2016


When I say that Fig carries four of the top 10 funded games in 2016, your answer is probably “of course, they curate the list of games they put up.” As someone who previously had doubt about Fig as a crowdfunding platform, I’m happy to see that the service is apparently finding its footing. Boasting a 78% successful funding rate, Fig (whose name is now synonymous with Tim Schafer) has been the stone on which games like Psychonauts 2, Wasteland 3, and Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch have been able to find backers.

Apparently Fig backers are quite satisfied with the service, since more than 3,700 came back to back more games, funding an average of $133.71 per person. For more information, check out the infographic below.

(Source: Fig)

Crowdfunding Fraudsters: Save Asheron’s Call Gofundme


It’s been a while. Crowdfunding Fraudsters is a recurring column here at MMO Fallout where I look at campaigns on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Gofundme that, in my opinion, need a good going over with a fine tooth comb. The use of the term fraudster does not imply malice, but rather the idea that the creator is not who he or she is represented to be, be that a skilled developer or businessperson.

Today’s subject is the Asheron’s Call Resurrection project, a Gofundme with a goal of $2 million looking to purchase/license the Asheron’s Call property off of Warner Bros as Turbine is ending support and the official servers are being shut down in January. As of this publishing, the campaign has managed to pull in $1,500 from 18 people (see above), an average of $83 per person, and several updates on the official Facebook page claim that the group has been in contact with Warner Bros. and that things are looking pretty good.

And here we come to problem number one: The goal of $2 million is a placeholder. I’ve spoken about this on pretty much every CF article attempting to crowdfund purchasing an IP, it is a horrible idea to set a goal without having an idea on how much you’ll be paying or confirmation that the company even has any intention of accepting such a deal. Let’s say for example that, by some grace of god, this group manages to just barely miss the $2 million mark by fifty grand, only for negotiations with Warner Bros. to hit a low end of $4 million and refuse to go lower. Guess who isn’t getting the IP? Guess who isn’t getting their money back? This also assumes that the claims are true that Warner Bros. is even interested in starting negotiations.

As far as the fundraising goes, sure, you can sit on that cash and wait for it to hopefully, one day, maybe perhaps hit the goal, but who is to say that Warner Bros. will be on board by that point? Corporations hate when you waste their time with pointless acquisition deals that go nowhere, especially when you wasted the time and money of their lawyers and officials the first time around. Negotiations like this die at the drop of a hat from very simple missteps, or say publicity that sheds a bad light on your ability to follow through, especially when one side is talking about it as much as this group is. Loose lips sink ships.

But Connor, you say, why would they be so unaccommodating on an IP that they probably have no intent on using? Why would it be so pricey? Well, the thing about companies is that they don’t operate on the same level of thinking as you or I, their unused properties aren’t treated like that couch taking up room in the garage that’s starting to smell, to be left in the street corner with a “free” sign and hope that somebody takes it. Unless the company is in dire need of money, they don’t look at their property on the grounds of “better something than nothing.” They also look at potential buyers and size them up based on their perceived competency and generally won’t just license/sell away properties to a ragtag, loosely connected group of developers, even if the money is good.

Barring the question of funding, I can’t imagine that Warner Bros. will want to do business once they see the level of stark immaturity on display from these groups. I’ve spoken before about how these resurrection projects tend to be led by individuals with massive and fragile egos, explaining why Crowdfunding Fraudsters has already racked up a couple of baseless lawsuit threats, and already the “save Asheron’s Call” community has split in half with both sides having Facebook tantrums and block wars. The focal point of the argument is, naturally, that the crowdfunding effort is incompetent at best, maybe a little shady, and possibly just an attempt to piggyback off of nostalgia to grind some cash out of desperate fans.

But don’t just take my word for it, take a look at these gems out of the horse’s mouth itself.

Dustin removed my post and posting ability on the Resurrection page within minutes. If you want your money wasted, make sure to donate to the unofficial Gofundme with no official resources, backers or direction. AKA, get your money stolen. (Source)

Our communications with Dustin and Justin were met with a lot of double talk and misleading information. Additionally, I felt that the GoFundMe efforts are extremely premature, and there is no solid evidence that what is being said, and the amount needed is accurately portrayed. (Source)

So here you have a nobody asking for $2 million in the hopes that he might actually divert what may or may not be sufficient funding for an acquisition that the property owner hasn’t given any real indication of being willing to sell. $2 million that, barring a philanthropic millionaire, will never be raised because Asheron’s Call doesn’t have anywhere near the following required to support random money being thrown at a person to pitch a buyout. The Gofundme has been up for 8 days and brought in 18 pledges. If you were waiting for an Earth-shattering kaboom, it would have happened by now.

Put it this way: The City of Heroes spiritual sequel by Missing Worlds Media raked in $678,000 and that community was massive compared to what remains of the Asheron’s Call base. Whatever hope the game has of surviving at this point, barring the sudden entrance of a wealthy backer, lies in community-run private servers, not throwing money to two crews of pedantic, arguing children who couldn’t get past phase one without immediately falling apart and being reduced to complaining on Facebook about who was deleting whose posts. If you want somewhere safer to put your money, I hear Digital Homicide is still floating around on the net.

Hero’s Song Is Back, Launches Indiegogo Campaign


asvtvywbxwncfls1pg9s

After taking some time out of the spotlight, John Smedley’s latest title Hero’s Song is back in the public’s eye and ready for another round of crowdfunding. For those who just recently joined us, Hero’s Song is an ARPG with friendly fire, permanent death, and player-run servers. You can join worlds created by other players or create one of your own, where your choice of gods and their influence is supposed to shape the way the world develops.

It’s a very interesting concept, assuming that the theoretical instances can be put to practical effect. In one world, as the campaign describes, Dwarves are wiped out by generations of a war whose bloodshed gives rise to the art of necromancy. So far 10 classes and 10 gods have been revealed, with more than 20 classes revealed as well.

We will offer two versions of Hero’s Song. The regular version will be $19.99 and the Deluxe Edition version will be $49.99. The Deluxe Edition includes the soundtrack by Inon Zur, the digital strategy guide and a wallpaper pack. Aside from that there are no differences.

Early adopters can grab the standard edition for $15 through the Indiegogo campaign.

(Source: Indiegogo)

Crowdfunding Fraudsters: 8-Bit MMO


2d68e6af78207375155690aa23d85223_original

Fraudster:
2a:  a person who is not what he or she pretends to be :impostor;

Good day everyone! I’m going to keep this short and sweet, since this is an obvious one. Today’s project of note is for an 8-bit MMO by Pixels of the Night. Is Pixels of the Night the name of the company or the name of the game? I can’t say for sure.

So what information can Pixels of the Night give us about their game?

This project has been in works for two years now. With help from my college teacher to really put the code behind the game in place. What this money will do is help with the cost of servers, and hire another programmer to help with the many errors that may arise when dealing with building an MMO.

Cool, understandable. It makes sense that you’d need money to run the servers, hire more programmers, and dealing with technical issues. Since the game has been in the works for two years, what other information can you give? Screenshots? Game mechanics? Anything? Bueller?

No, despite being in development for two years, PotN doesn’t deem it necessary to give us even the most minimal of details on their game. No screenshots, no concept art, no details on game mechanics, no nothing. Evidently the creator should have had their college teacher help with the Kickstarter campaign as well.

Unsurprisingly, people aren’t too enthused about funding this campaign, and it has yet break $0 in funding with 11 days to go. The creator is hoping to raise two grand. So since I have absolutely no idea what this game is about, the next logical question is: How much can I donate and what do I get for it?

People who donate 100 dollars will receive a limited addition of the game, featuring 1k gold, and a exclusive armor set keeping you ahead of the game.

Any lingering doubt that the creator doesn’t know what he’s doing should vanish when you note that the only reward tier is for $20, but the detail of the reward is only for donations of at least $100.

Not Massive: Cliff Bleszinski Joins Fig


medium

Cliff Bleszinski, developer known for Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, is the latest big name to join crowdfunding platform Fig. Bleszinski joins Tim Schafer and Brian Fargo in heading up the platform that hopes to differentiate itself from the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo by offering backers the chance to actually invest in projects and receive money back if the game proves to be a success.

Despite its small library, Fig has seen the successful funding of numerous titles including Schafer’s own Psychonauts 2, Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob game, and Outer Wild. The platform was also host to the well-publicized failure of Rock Band to secure a PC port, pulling in just $792 thousand out of the $1.5 million it had asked for.

Fig hopes that its hands-on curation will create an environment that is welcoming to backers around the $20 mark who simply want a fun game all the way up to four-figure investors who want to see a return on their money. Fig’s current focus is on Consortium: The Tower, currently exceeding its funding goal.

(Source: Forbes)

Crowdfunding Fraudsters: League of Legends MMO


670de8ff4ec53dd692d0c4ce9c175c84_original

Fraudster:
2a:  a person who is not what he or she pretends to be :impostor;

Dear potential content creators: Stop using unlicensed content as the basis of your projects. It is not only misleading from a consumer standpoint, it is illegal and will result in your campaign being shut down faster than you can say “cease and desist.”

Today’s crowdfunding frauster article is for the League of Legends MMO, a game not developed by Riot Games and not approved for development by Riot Games. It is, instead, in the works by the decidedly not-Riot Games studio…Kamron Nelson, a self-professed “lore enthusiast” from Salt Lake City. Nelson wants to raise $5 million to pitch a League of Legends MMO to Riot.

This project’s goal is to get Riot Games to work on this project with us, not to steal or infringe anything whatsoever. We love Riot and the game they’ve created; we just want an MMORPG based on the League engine that will allow us to explore the vast amounts of Lore we’ve been missing.

I assume that Nelson is using the term “us” in the royal sense, in the same vein that I use to reference to other, nonexistent staff here at MMO Fallout, because the Kickstarter page doesn’t indicate any real development team other than Nelson himself and a couple of Deviant Art users. If there is an actual studio that will work on the game, it has gone unnamed.

Like most pieces featured on Crowdfunding Kickstarters, the League of Legends MMO appears to be the creation of an “ideas guy,” someone with no apparent development background who decides he can create a game because he played a lot of them. Such mentality leads to financial disasters like Greed Monger, wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars in time and resources, and contributes to the already tainted reputation of crowdfunding.

So how does Kamron plan on investing the five million?

The money from this Kickstarter will go directly to Riot as an upfront ‘let’s make this game’ offer. If the project does not get fully funded, which is likely, no one is charged anything. It is RISK FREE unless fully funded.

Here’s the problem: Raising money to develop a game with rights that you haven’t secured and making promises that you can’t keep. It assumes that people are willing to fork over $5 million as a deposit in the hopes that waving said money under Riot’s nose will make them willing to work with an unknown entity to create a game with their own engine and characters.

By comparison, let’s look at other big crowdfunding efforts. Psychonauts 2 brought in $3.3 million as an established franchise with a big name attached (Tim Schafer). Shenmue 3 brought in over $6 million as an established franchise with big names attached and major corporate backing.

So the League of Legends MMO is funding hopes and dreams with the hope that everyone will get their money back should the campaign succeed but Riot says no anyway, handing their money to a guy that no one has ever heard of. Luckily the $5 million goal means that this project will fail long before Riot’s lawyers feel the need to get involved.