The CGL situation p3 Options

[knasser]

I'm on it... What an excellent idea, Bobby, thanks!!! (Hey, you guys know that the Tir picture in 6WA is just a horse, right? The artist took out the spiral horn...)

Well normally I'd point out that the cop riding down criminals on a unicorn (probably with cheesy CSI Miami lines like "Do you think he got the point?") was actually my idea. But I think in this case, I'm quite happy for blame credit to go to someone else.


Vaguely serious in response to Cardul's question about it being permissable with a cool reason... Yes, you can have this sort of aberrant behaviour in a setting so long as it is acknowledged that it is aberrant. A writer thinking "magic is part of everyday life, I'll have this cop ride a unicorn" and just sticking it in, terrible. If for some reason a cop had severe mental issues and tried to ride a unicorn, and you got all the para-animal rights activists up in arms and the guy lasted an afternoon before someone shot them both with an AK-98, then it gets more Shadowrun. Though as Cardul points out, Shadowrun officers having sex with the unicorn is more likely. (Presumably the unicorn permits virginal police officers to do this but bucks them off once they are no longer virginal - an ironic twist that makes mounting a unicorn a one-time only chance). We already have a centaur policewoman after all. (Aside - that bit in Running Wild where she has a guy arrested for propositioning her always seemed very unpleasant of her).

K.

[Ol' Scratch]

I don't quite understand why people are having o.O-type issues with a cop on a unicorn. If a dragon can win the presidency and trolls, orks, and elves are found walking down Main Street on a daily basis, is the existence and sensible use of a unicorn really that weird? Their ability to protect against magic via counterspelling and magical guard would be pretty invaluable for a police officer in the Sixth World.

Just sayin'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I bet they'd get a bit more respect if they weren't called unicorns, though. I mean, just change it to "pegasus" and it suddenly becomes a bit cooler for no real reason...

[toturi]

I think I'll be adding a Lone Star CSI officer with cool shades and cheesy one-liners and her unicorn partner. Yeah, the more I think on it, the more attractive it becomes. Thanks guys.

Now, if only I could figure out the names...

[knasser]

Too much to quote

A fascinating post as always. I actually give your facts a lot of credence. Your reasoning makes excellent sense assuming everyone is behaving rationally according to game theory, but I find it slightly doubtful that everyone is this calculating. Some yes, but on the whole I would have thought that there is more community spirit amongst the freelancers. With regard to your theory about Jason and AH being in competition, that could work, but it is dependent on Jason believing that he (and those he brings in) can produce an equivalent product to the one that AH can offer. I don't know the exact circumstances, but if I were in his position I would have to think to myself: "can I bring in people to re-create a product in six weeks that matches the one a primary Shadowrun writer produced in (probably) longer?" The same belief has to be held by the people writing it as presumably they are doing so on the promise of being paid when it is sold, not for money up front. Additionally, it is dependent on other things - the product actually being thought better than Robert Derie's work (and I would think with all his contributions, AH has the head start in being perceived as producing quality work and in reliable fashion), dependent on which freelancer a new company would want to bring into the fold perhaps (again, Robert Derie looks like a good investment given his history) and if all else is equal, Jason's work undercutting AH's in cost. That last one is likely irrelevant as the writing costs for this are hopefully going to be low enough in proportion to hoped-for returns that they'd just choose the favoured product regardless, but who knows. At any rate, the point is that although your explanation makes sense, it is contingent on what would appear to be a lot of optimism on the part of those trying to write a competing product. I don't know the details though, (such as the quantity of work being re-written, etc.) being an outsider, so I'm just raising this as a question of logic.

All your logic depends on the a priori of CGL not retaining the licence, obviously. But I'm inclined to consider this a strong possibility if you're saying it.

As an aside, if for some reason AH's work is not snapped up for $$$ at a future date (and I fervently hope it is), then he being in it for more than the $$$, if he chooses to release it anyway, I'd be more than happy to host it on my Shadowrun site with as much bandwidth as is needed and guaranteeing widespread awareness (I get a lot of hits). It's so grossly unfair on writers that they should end up having to just release their work as fan work (like me) that I'm hesitant to offer. But that does go for anyone that has clawed back work from CGL for non-payments and wants to at least get it attention if not remuneration. Assuming that it's not violating any NDA's, then it's there. Like I say though, this sticks in my mouth and I sincerely hope everyone's work is snapped up by professional publishers (whoever) and gets the pay and polish it deserves.

K.

[Stahlseele]

I don't quite understand why people are having o.O-type issues with a cop on a unicorn. If a dragon can win the presidency and trolls, orks, and elves are found walking down Main Street on a daily basis, is the existence and sensible use of a unicorn really that weird? Their ability to protect against magic via counterspelling and magical guard would be pretty invaluable for a police officer in the Sixth World.

Just sayin'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I bet they'd get a bit more respect if they weren't called unicorns, though. I mean, just change it to "pegasus" and it suddenly becomes a bit cooler for no real reason...

Oh, make no mistake, there ARE Unicorns in Shadowrun.
They are just not the nice Unicorns you think you know.
They are Carnivorous, Hunters. Predators.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Occasionally, you have someone show up who's knowledge is so encyclopedic, you don't have to train them; but as far as I know, AH was the only one.

And even though he wrote the web reference for The Infected, with canon page reference, it didn't stop him from retconning the Krieger Strain, the HMHVV of the poor without medical access (it could be treated within the first month of three), into the 3-month Zombie Apocalypse (because that's what you get for 10 days from touch to ghoul).

[Sengir]

Rule 34? *runs for his life*

Whatever floats your boat...

[Demonseed Elite]

That brings up a good point. Is the whole metaplot documented somewhere? Anyone who has played the game and read any of the novels for any length of time knows that in about 2000 game years it gets real ugly real fast, but how much of that future has been planned and documented?

The whole metaplot isn't documented anywhere that I'm aware of. Bull and Patrick already covered how projecting the future of the metaplot works, but as far as the past, the writers typically rely on a vast knowledge of the setting and lots and lots of research.

[Demonseed Elite]

If there had been a "closed pool policy" for freelancers at FASA, Peter, I never would have gotten the break that I did. Mike Mulvihill was very open to giving new blood a shot. He hired me, after all, and I'd never had a professional credit in my life before I wrote for Shadowrun with FASA.

So let me chime in with a resounding "This is bogus" to the notion of a closed freelancer pool.

I can echo that. My entry into Shadowrun writing was sending Mike Mulvihill a proposal for Brainscan, completely out of the blue. He had no idea who I was before that, and not only did he ask me to start writing, but he added Brainscan to the release schedule.

[ketjak]

You know, Frank - while I have disagreed often with you as a lurker and a participant, your analyses of the situation are interesting. I feel a little weird about agreeing with much of it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

edit: lurked -> lurker

It is now, I suppose, time to make my eighth post on this subject. Now that the other shoe has dropped and Jennifer Harding has come out with the accusation that Loren Coleman and Randall Bills conspired to falsify earnings reports, we can all well imagine the repercussions that will come from Topps and quite possibly the IRS. But let's talk about the here and now. Now, the company has a month and a half to position itself. And more importantly, the people in the company have a month and a half to maximize their own benefit before the license changes.

Six weeks is actually a long time in the age of digital sales, and while no power on Earth can save CGL from the wrath of Topps as regards falsified royalty reports, that doesn't change the fact that when the license ends different choices made now can leave different people with different amounts of money in their pocket. Here's he short version:

Loren Coleman is not going to get the license back. The company will then have a lot of debts, negative money in actual assets, and no intellectual property. The company will cease to exist. Everyone who has not been paid at that point will not get paid. Everything that is sold from now until closing time will put money into Loren's pocket. The only way anyone is getting paid anything is if they exert actual leverage on the company with real extortion in the form of "You cannot sell this product for X dollars until you pay me Y dollars (where Y is less than X)." Anyone who is not holding out on a product whose remaining sales values in the next six weeks are are estimated to be more than their demanded fees will not see a dime.

A new company will happen. And really quite soon. They will want to get the rights to any new books they can. Thus, Jason Hardy's big push to get new books ready for publication when the company can't even pay to sell the books it has already published makes perfect sense - for Jason Hardy. After all, the more books that are "ready" that have his name on it, the better a bargaining position he will have with the next company.

So let's consider possible actions in this situation:

• Withdraw Copyright/ Maintain Silence Imagine for a moment that you understand the extortion paradigm required to ever get paid for your work at Catalyst. If you want to maximize your personal chances of getting paid, it is in your interest to begin extortion now, and also to minimize the amount other people know about the situation. After all, if two people are extorting on the same project, that increases the "Y" money, but it does not increase the "X" money. That increases the chances that Loren Coleman will simply write the project off and then no one gets paid. So people who personally withdraw copyright and then publicly tell people to "wait and see" and get angry when people release details of the situation can be seen as attempting to maximize their own position. Encouraging silence, confusion, or delays in the general population decreases the number of other freelancers who will go for the extortion option, which reduces their chances of getting paid, but increases the chances of the person advocating silence and personally withdrawing contract. Essentially, they are trying to take money out of the pockets of other freelancers and put it into their own.
  
• Support the Company There are a number of people under the mistaken understanding that it s somehow "professional" to sit around and wait, and even keep working while a company refuses to pay you your wages. Some of these people even think this will ingratiate them with the new company. This strikes me as naive. The first thing you do when you take over as a new regime is to purge the loyalists of the old regime. Anyone who stood by the old guard while they were stealing from the company is going to be a potential quisling. I understand the thought process - it's just wrong. Those people will not be paid for their old contracts and the new company will get them off the roster as fast as possible.
  
• Withdraw Copyright/ Go Public Extorting the company is the only way a person is going to get paid. Going public with this fact causes other freelancers to go for the extortion option. This effectively increases the "Y" money while not only leaving the "X" money the same, but also leaving the amount of money actually promised to the person making this decision the same as well. The extra money, if it is paid out at all, merely goes to other writers who are now on the extortion train. However, it's more dangerous even than that, because it also makes the people cutting checks (or not) angry, because it increases the amount of extortion levied against them. This increases the likelihood that the head of the company will simply swallow the loss of X and not pay the writers a dime. Spite is a powerful motivation, and if X and Y are similar, it can easily break a tie. As such, some freelancers may wish to "go public" by releasing information to an uncompromising ideologue like Frank Trollman, who will maintain source confidentiality in the face of torture and will absolutely go public with the information for them. It's the same moral position of trying to maximize the number of people who get paid, but somewhat reduces the chances of personal reprisals against the freelancer.
  
• Start Working Right Now Not as crazy as it might seem. Remember that books are normally stuck in development hell for a couple months anyway. So while Loren Coleman will never pay a dime for any work being written right now, he's also not going to be in charge of making that decision when the work is actually completed. That choice will be made by the next company coming in, and they are of course going to want to slap down production costs for books that are already ready to print and ship if they possibly can. Of course, you'll be working with scabs who don't know Shadowrun and can't tell on reading whether Shadows of Asia is set before or after Corporate Enclaves - so it's entirely possible that this gamble will fail and the new company will not want these "finished" submissions. It's essentially akin to actually writing a completed draft and using that for your proposal to a publishing company you know nothing about. But as gambles go, it's not as crazy as going to work for an average company on the verge of dissolution. The product being made is a licensed product, and the license will be taken over by a new company, who may want to buy it for the original "contracted" price or some lesser negotiated value.

But it's important to keep things in mind. Every single dollar that freelancers don't extort out of the company by holding up future sales until demands are met is going to be locked into Loren's homestead where it will be inaccessible to bankruptcy recovery. Every single dollar that is demanded in total extortion on a project reduces the cost/benefit equation on that project, and increases the likelihood that paying the extortion on that product will not pay itself off in the remaining time. Every project that is canceled outright, reduces the cash flow for this period and reduces the company's ability to pay even those extortions that they want to.

So let's consider something like Sixth World Almanac. If Robert Derie had not pulled his contract, the book would go to print in a couple of weeks. At that point, the small initial print run would get sold and the company would have 30 days to pay Robert Derie before he could withdraw copyright for failure to pay. The company at that point would lose the license and walk away - leaving Robert Derie with nothing and Loren Coleman with some number of thousands of dollars depending upon the initial print run. If he pulls his contract, that doesn't happen, and he can try to make a new contract with the new company in June. But wait! Jason Hardy is the developer. If he can get new writers to rewrite Mr. Derie's pieces, then he can sell the completed work to the new company in June. So you can see how both of them are acting in rational, professional self interest - and also why they are extremely angry at each other, because they are now in direct competition.

You can also understand the anger and vitriol from some of the freelancers at the people who are publicizing this stuff. Especially the ones who understand enough about the situation to be withholding copyright themselves on one or more projects to try to get paid. Attempting to get other people to also stand up for themselves and withhold copyright has a very real chance of making the gambits of the people already withholding copyright fail. It's the only way the people who haven't stood up yet are ever going to see a dime, but it has a chance of zeroing out the demands of the people who already stood up.

Selfishness brings out the ugly in people.

-Frank

This post has been edited by ketjak: Apr 4 2010, 11:47 AM

[GreyBrother]

They are Carnivorous, Hunters. Predators.

Wat?

[JM Hardy]

There are a few things that need to be cleared up here. First, I saw a couple times the claim that the Shadowrun freelancer pool was down to three people. I'm not sure where that number came from. Maybe it was because Peter said something about having six core people, then people subtracted Adam, Jennifer, and Bobby, and got three. But regardless of how that number came to be, it's wrong. There were more than three freelancers in the SR pool after Adam, Jennifer, and Bobby left. Given that freelancers have been targeted by those wishing to discourage them from working with Catalyst, I hope people understand that I won't be offering any more information about who those freelancers are at the moment, though they are always free to speak for themselves.

Second, the amazing thing about Frank's latest post is the underlying assumptions there. Everything is written from the point of view that Catalyst will lose the Shadowrun license. Has Frank overheard conversations between Catalyst management and Topps representatives? Does he know how they went? No. But he makes his assumptions anyway.

Then he continues on making assumptions, many of them based on people sharing his view of the situation. He assumes that I must be doing what I am doing because I am in essence auditioning for whoever the new license holder will be. I wish he would stop trying to suss out my thought process--I have never spoken to him, I don't believe he knows me well if at all, and every time he makes an assumption about what I know and how I'm thinking he's off.

He assumes that no changes have yet been implemented in Catalyst's financial processes; he says things like "Everything that is sold from now until closing time will put money into Loren's pocket", but that is untrue. As Randall's letter mentioned, a document outlining new processes had been sent to owners, and at least some of those processes have now been implemented. Money will go where it is supposed to go.

Frank assumes management wants to keep freelancers quiet so the managers can pocket money. That doesn't explain why part of management spent 12 hours on Friday getting checks ready for freelancers, both those who have been vocal and those who have not. He made his assumption without knowing that fact. This also harms his point that "Extorting the company is the only way a person is going to get paid," since as I said, both freelancers who spoke out and those who did not are going to receive some payment.

He assumes he knows the minds of the "new company" well enough that they will look down upon people who did not act out against Catalyst. How does he know the minds of the people running this company? Will they really ignore a quality freelancer just because that freelancer was discreet?

And there's a common slant to all of his assumptions, namely, that Catalyst will close, a new company will go away, and the freelancers who spoke out will be rewarded. That is the underlying bias in everything Frank presents. I'm not commenting on that bias one way or another except to say that if you're reading Frank's posts, please be aware of that bias. And the fact that he has that bias, plus uses unconfirmed (and/or distorted) information from anonymous sources while claiming to have journalistic integrity makes my degree in journalism shudder. Frank has a good mind and makes interesting points, but they are slanted. What he is doing is many things, but not journalism.

Jason H.

[Stahlseele]

Wat?

Wut? O.o

[fistandantilus4....]

Oh, make no mistake, there ARE Unicorns in Shadowrun.
They are just not the nice Unicorns you think you know.
They are Carnivorous, Hunters. Predators.

Err... no, sorry, you're thinking of Earthdawn, when the unicorns got all kinds of cracked.

Habits: Unicorns are diurnal herbivores.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Everything is written from the point of view that Catalyst will lose the Shadowrun license. Has Frank overheard conversations between Catalyst management and Topps representatives? Does he know how they went? No. But he makes his assumptions anyway.

Honestly, given verified financial mismanagement and alleged cover-ups, ruling that assumption out entirely is beyound reasonable doubt.

Does that mean it has to happen like he predicts? Absolutely not – SCO is still around, after all.

[nemafow]

Keeping up to date with this whole thing is taking alot out of my personal life.
I really did care at the start, but I'm starting to not.. As its turning into a day job.
I DO hope the books keep coming, but I care more that the freelancers get paid the money thats due.. And by the sounds of it, the $$$ that is owed to the freelancers isn't that large in comparison to everything, merely pocket change...

[Synner]

Approximately 45 seconds.

On a slightly more serious note, last time I looked at any metaplot threads, I think we might have spoken of a few things as far out as 2074. In general, though, not too much of it has really been planned out, certainly not nearly as much as some people out there seem to think.

Actually, the core metaplots of the past twenty years and many of the minor ones were in the process of being documented when I stepped down. Unfortunately the project never got prioritized the way it deserved because there was no assistant developer for most of my run as lead developer and I had too much on my hands as it was.

One of my long-term side-projects, to ease newcomers into freelancing, was a comprehensive Shadowrun Primer, or "setting bible", describing not only the fundamentals of the setting as of SR4A, but also presenting sumarily key metaplots of the past, present and future (as SOP I mapped out metaplots over 3-4 years with a view of integrating books/products as closely as possible with the developing storyline hence Ghost Cartels playing off Runner Havens and Corp Enclaves and then Vice following on the heels of the GC shakeup and the now-unlikely campaign following up on Primeira Vaga and the Dream Seed).

I did a similar 30-page brief to convey for new Shadowrun artists just before SR4A. The SR Primer still isn't complete but it's close to 100 pages long and I do intend to wrap it up. Who knows when it might come in useful.

And, of course, Jason is correct about the size of the freelancer pool. From what I've gathered it hasn't been this big in years. There's more new blood than ever. That's not the problem.

As I see it the fundamental issue that the line, and Jason as lead developer, faces is that Shadowrun lives off the depth and continuity of its setting and there has never, until recently, been a "generation gap" in the regular turnover of freelancers and developers. There has always been an "older" generation that by virtue of their experience is intimately familiar with what has been going on in the setting and where things stand, someone besides the developer (who has his hands full) with a solid grasp of the bigger larger picture and it's myriad pieces. These veterans, all with a dozen books to their name, have been there to hold hands, critique, advise, peer-review, mouth-off, and fill in knowledge gaps. That's what I encountered when I joined the ranks of freelancers, and that's how I left things when I stepped down. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons - most of which, I hasten to add, predate Jason coming aboard - that is no longer the case. Those 5-6 people that represented the previous of freelancers (the ones I mentioned previously) simply aren't there (some like Jennifer and Bobby for obvious reasons, others because they left Catalyst, and others yet because they are disenchanted with the direction things are going and feel unacknowledged). Yes, people like Bull, whose contributions date all the way back to the FASA years, are still involved, others like Stephen McQuillan, Mark Edwards, and the Missions authors that "graduated" during the past couple of years have gathered considerable experience in a very short time. That's the way it should be. Unfortunately, IMHO and only IMHO, it doesn't quite balance out the fact that the people who wrote all those books that I mentioned, that could hand over the torch, and ease the learning curve for newbloods, just aren't there to do it any more.

Understandably, this won't be much of an issue to some of you. But as a long time fan and an insider I do view it with some serious concern and reservations.

[JM Hardy]

Honestly, given verified financial mismanagement and alleged cover-ups, ruling that assumption out entirely is beyound reasonable doubt.

Does that mean it has to happen like he predicts? Absolutely not – SCO is still around, after all.

There is a difference between "not ruling that assumption out entirely" and "acting as if that assumption is the only possible truth."

Jason H.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Indeed – which, on the other hand, doesn't invalidate his point that people involve plan (or should plan, at the very least) for both possibilities.

[urgru]

A number of Frank's assumptions about what can/will happen to money in the event of bankruptcy are unfounded. It's possible that the Catalyst owners will be able to bury some funds in their homes, but state homestead exemptions vary greatly and it's just as likely that they'll be clawed back (esp. if the owners don't declare bankruptcy themselves). Some states allow clawback for a long time after a transaction is consummated (e.g fraudulent conveyances up to 6 years old can be unwound in New York, which caused much angst and frustration to Madoff investors when a bankruptcy trustee tried to take their homes and their kid's college funds).

Moreover, freelancers who are "extorting" Catalyst (Frank's word of choice, not mine!) to get paid now are probably operating outside the normal course of business for the industry and w/r to their own past practices with Catalyst. "Preferential" payments made out to them now may also be subject to clawback. I don't think that's particularly likely given the amounts involved, but it IS possible that the "extortionists" will see their payments clawed back, their priority decreased, and end up with LESS money than they would otherwise have recovered in a bankruptcy.

At the end of the day, people who want to see Catalyst's freelancers get paid should really be rooting for Catalyst. What happens in the event that the company goes belly up will be a crapshoot. We're not in a position to accurately predict what will happen without access to contracts, residency information for everyone involved, and a convenient window into the mindset of the bankruptcy trustee or insurer who may end up litigating many of these things. Legal speculation should really stop (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Warlordtheft]

You know what, as my last post on this topic. The general public (aka the fanz) will know how this all shakes down in about 6 months. Within that 6 months, my best guess is that JM hardings scenario will play out. Until then, we as the general public can only speculate (I include Frank trollman in that general public).

[Nath]

In the past, the people who have come on were partnered with experienced Shadowrun writers before they could submit their own stuff-- that's taken from the old FASA requirements, which Jay Levine can attest to. Occasionally, you have someone show up who's knowledge is so encyclopedic, you don't have to train them; but as far as I know, AH was the only one.

Oh, pardon me. There is one other who might have come in with that level of knowledge, and that is Adam Jury. Adam has been influencing Shadowrun since the dawn of the internet. First as a columnist in the Shadowrun Archive, then as the editor of the Shadowrun Supplemental, then as a paid writer or contributor since about 1998, IIRC. You can't replace that depth of experience.

Well, people from the EuroSB team who continued freelancing after avoided such training, but you could consider the several years-long EuroSB project was a self-handled training program on its own. To me, Shadows of Europe greatest achievement was to dig up elements that even the regular freelancers had forgotten.

[Cardul]

At the end of the day, people who want to see Catalyst's freelancers get paid should really be rooting for Catalyst.

QFT.

I want to see CGL survive, recover, and prosper. Admittedly, this is now as much to make the people like Frank who
are dancing around gleefully at this mess have to live with the knowledge their smear campaign failed as it is because
CGL *HAS* done a good job with SR4 and Battletech. Frank and his "friends" remind me of nothing so much as the people
who, when passing a massive car wreck, are all gleeful, and are looking to see if they can see the bodies.

[Demonseed Elite]

I would generally agree that the best way for the current freelancers to get paid is for Catalyst to get its act together. But I'll admit that I'm not enthusiastic about Catalyst getting its act together. Perhaps I'm jaded by past experience, but I see a company struggling to finally act on outstanding debts because they absolutely have to, not out of any desire to treat its own employees justly. After all, Catalyst hasn't had its act together for years, why did they just start to address the problem now? Would they even be cutting checks if it weren't for the revelation of the situation on this forum and others and the freelancers drawing a line in the sand?

Even assuming they right the ship, even assuming the settle the existing freelancer debts, I can't in good conscience write for them again unless I see substantial, long-term change.

[Patrick Goodman]

In the past, the people who have come on were partnered with experienced Shadowrun writers before they could submit their own stuff-- that's taken from the old FASA requirements, which Jay Levine can attest to. Occasionally, you have someone show up who's knowledge is so encyclopedic, you don't have to train them; but as far as I know, AH was the only one.

Maybe Jay was partnered with someone else during his writing, but there wasn't a FASA requirement that it be so. I was not partnered with anyone when I began playtesting and writing for FASA, and by this statement there should have been. And my knowledge, while extensive (at the time; I've fallen away a great deal since then), was nowhere near Bobby's or Adam's.

So, from my perspective and for my money, at least, this is a falsehood. An unintentional one, to be sure, but a falsehood.