Tag: Indiegogo

Indiegogo: Gamers Raise $130,000 For Politics-Free Gaming Website


Are gamers sick of politics in gaming? If you look at the success of a recent Indiegogo campaign, the answer looks like a pretty confident yes. Exclusively Games is an upcoming website that promises to be “[a] place for fans of gaming who are sick of politics forcing [its] way inside. All games, no politics.” The campaign started with the goal of raising $5,000 and if you haven’t seen the photo above, has accrued well over two thousand times that amount.

Started by Youtuber Jeremy Hambly, host of the channel The Quartering, the goal of Exclusively Games will be to offer a website where gamers can talk about games with no political strings attached. Hambly does not plan to run ads on the website and will support Exclusively Games solely through merch, patrons, and fundraising drives.

“My only goal is to create a place for fans of escapism. This website will provide a forum, videos and articles covering topics related to just about everything gaming with just one rule, NO POLITICS! We’ll cover video games, coin-op, retro, card games, tabletop games & everything in between.”

The campaign ends approximately 30 minutes from when this article is published.

Source: Indiegogo

(Disclaimer: I contributed a small amount ($30) to this Indiegogo campaign)

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.

 

 

Vega+ Will Ship Within The Next 8 Weeks, RCL Threatens Critics


Retro Computers Ltd has broken a three month silence to announce that the long-delayed ZX Spectrum Vega Plus, a classic game system, is aiming for launch within the next eight weeks. In an update posted to backers today on Indiegogo, RCL noted that they have secured the rights to “some of the biggest games in the Spectrum scene,” and that following some delays related to technical issues and other factors, the console should be shipping later this year.

We can also confirm we have secured rights to some of the biggest games in the Spectrum scene, and the final games list will exceed all expectations. We aim to begin shipping the Vega+ to backers within the next 8 weeks, and to follow this immediately with our first shipments to retail.

RCL also took the time to call out parties posting abuse and spreading misinformation online, threatening to publicize the names of those involved. It should be noted that RCL has repeatedly referred to outlets like The Register and The BBC as “fake news” and has not posted any evidence to support their claims, in response to negative coverage of the Spectrum Plus and its repeated delays.

In time, we will be able to publicise in detail what is going on, including the names of those making up the above-mentioned group. But right now, on the advice of our lawyers and related authorities, we have to wait until all various investigations and legal actions have been completed.

Will Retro Computers Ltd meet its new shipping date? We’ll have to see.

(Source: Indiegogo)

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.

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)

Indiegogo Fraudsters: Trek Industries Supports Itself


orion

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

Support game developers who support their fans, otherwise why even bother showing up? Orion is the latest and a special episode in our Crowdfunding Fraudster series, covering the game Orion and its developer Trek Industries. Trek Industries is a special case because they have the gall to tell it like it is. In a way, they’re a bit like Donald Trump.

Just because Trek Industries is facing potential litigation from Activision won’t stop them from publicly referring to the company as “ass-wiping turds.”

I can’t believe that there are gamers who are defending the money-abusing,???-wiping turds that is Activision who walks all over gamers with annual $60 releases, season passes, $15 map packs, doesn’t involve or listen to them in any way.

Without retelling the story all over again, Trek Industries’ game Orion was pulled from Steam following a DMCA complaint from Activision that the game steals assets from Call of Duty. You can read our coverage of that here, but no matter your opinion of Activision, it’s quite clear that they have the legal upper hand.

This is normally the part where I’d comment on the description in the Indiegogo campaign, however Trek Industries has conveniently made no mention of their recent troubles. You have to look into the ‘updates’ tab if you want to see the responses copied and pasted from various social media pages. If you look at the Indiegogo page, you’d think that this was just another in-development game seeking funding.

But why does the campaign truly exist? I’ll let Trek Industries explain:

We will be starting a crowdfunding event later today. This is to cover:
1. what we are missing out on the largest event.
2. the damages we’ve taken on from Activision.

As of yesterday, Activision cut out 70% of our profit. My calculations put it at 90% today. What they did is devastating.

So since Activision shut down Orion’s Steam store page, and thus their ability to reap in that sweet Steam Summer Sale money, Trek Industries is going to have their own summer sale. With blackjack, and hookers. A successful crowdfunding campaign at that because, if you look at our header image, all $500 has already been recouped, and by one donor even!

Who is this generous fellow?

stay

Oh. In preparation for the future In Plain English column, Trek Industries was kind enough to present us with the documentation that they’ve been contacted by an outside litigation counsel representing Activision. The firm is Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP.

13495368_1173241279374160_5492183344675450036_o

For his part, Tek Industries’ own David James is claiming that Activision has not sent him any details on what they want removed from Orion, making it impossible to know what the DMCA is targeting.

“The problem is that they’ve never stated, both originally and to this moment as I type this, what content offended them. Not a text description, not even an image. This was not only able to take the game down but it sets a precedent that is illegal for DMCA takedown usage.”

Given recent threats by Trek Industries against the press, and numerous attempts to dodge questions regarding weapons, MMO Fallout has opted to not contact Trek Industries regarding this story. MMO Fallout is attempting to contact Activision’s retainer and will update with any further information. We have also contacted Indiegogo in regards to certain aspects of the campaign.

Totalbiscuit covered a previous scandal from Trek Industries, including allegations of impromptu firings, astroturfing, and re-releasing their game under new names to dodge poor reviews.

Crowdfunding Fraudsters: Legend of Zelda On Unreal


fraudster

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

Gather around, students, for it is time for another Crowdfunding Fraudsters courtesy of MMO Fallout and a never ending legion of people whose motivations are, shall we say for the sake of legal liability, questionable? The reason we call this segment Crowdfunding Fraudsters, rather than say ‘Kickstarter Scam Artists,’ and put the definition right at the beginning is to forward the idea that this isn’t a witch hunt. Most of the projects covered under this segment are merely the ill-informed dreams of ignorant fans. They either lack the business knowledge, the legal understanding, or the programming experience to see their projects to completion. In short, they are impersonating someone who can run a competent crowdfunding campaign.

Today’s project is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ported to the Unreal Engine 4 so PC gamers can play it. It sounds like an invitation for a cease & desist from Nintendo, but the campaign has been up and running for a while now so let’s give it the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s find out about the creator.

My name is Joseph I am the current lead developer and coming from Germany / Italy and i think im Well known for the Nintendo character creation in Unreal Engine 4 🙂

As a game developer, being well known as the guy who steals Nintendo assets and ports them to other engines probably isn’t something to be especially proud of, although that resume would have gotten you a job at Silicon Knights years back.

This game will never be allowed to be sold so for the project to ever be completed it must be crowd funded. You are the only ones who can help with the competition I hope to make this a three person team as you can see from the demos we have posted so far this game is coming along, and most of the main maps are complete.

Here’s the thing that people don’t seem to understand about copyright, and I won’t go into the whole idea of profit motive as a concept just yet. It is illegal to just 1:1 recreate a game on a different engine and sell it for money, I think we can all agree on that basic point. With that in mind, creators like Joseph tend to think that if they don’t charge up front for something that they can’t legally sell, but ask for donations or contributions that it’s suddenly alright in the eyes of the law.

Spoiler: It isn’t. It also doesn’t help that the campaign is going to directly sell the game, as it admits right afterward:

IT WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR ALL TO DOWNLOAD AFTER A SMALL CONTRIBUTION $1 MINIMUM

Joseph needs $2,500 to make Legend of Zelda on Unreal Engine 4 a reality, but the goal is flexible because why demand the whole pot when you can hope to lure in some hapless chap for $50? With about 20 hours left to go as of this publishing, not a single person has fallen into this campaign.

The good news is that you can be listed as a producer with nothing more than a mere $15 contribution. For $500, you can be listed as the sole executive producer.

My advice to the creator: You do more benefit to your image and portfolio by creating original works. Nintendo is not well known for its patience when it comes to unlicensed works, and asking for money is just adding gasoline to the inevitable fire.

Indiegogo