CGL speculation #4 Options

[OneTrikPony]

NerdHot;
Isn't that like HeroinChic with more sweat and fewer std's?

This is not off topic because the Naked Dumpshock Calendar and Shadowrun Porn could generate enough funds to buy the IP rights several times over and pay any outstanding debts to freelancers, (except that most of the freelancers would have to be in the calendar (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) so it would really be more like bootstraping things back into buiseness) ! Bootstraps! Picture this; Full page glossy layouts of all the oldbies around here posing all sexy in their tightiewities and Cowboy boots...and then somebody has a bottle of oil... and there's a kiddie pool...

I'm tellin ya, this is a genious idea! It's almost as good as the idea I had about charging a nickle for every view of the CGL situation threads. That one came a little late.

[LurkerOutThere]

Despite the fact that someone implied that *I* was trying on lingerie, I actually missed this. I'm not certain if I should be glad or disappointed, knowing what the majority of the Dumpshockers at GC look like.
Bull

While i can't speak for the rest of our handsome and beautiful shadowrun crew, I rock a corset.


The emergency third eye bleach station is over there.

[FrankTrollman]

Technology is one of the areas that the government has not stuck their fingers in so deeply and it really shows. It has been said that if the free market was allowed to operate freely in the car industry as per the computer industry we would have cars that go 1000 miles on a thimbul of gas and would cost less $6K, I almost consider that to be a fact!

I think we need image hosting abilities, just so we can put up LOL WUT pears, ORLY birds, and other image macros for statements like this. The government fingers in technology go all the way to the bottom. We aren't just talking about the space program, or the internet that we are talking on right now, which were of course government funded projects. Government funding of medical research is 36% of the total. That's not "the government has extensive regulations" (although they do that too), it's "the government is bank rolling more than one out of 3 dollars that goes into developing this technology."

And while I am, of course, more familiar with medical research (because I do some of it), the fact is that the government funds the development of all kinds of other technologies as well. Your claims, Bob, are really obviously nonsense. We can just count the billions of dollars in research funding and see how completely that fails to describe a "hands off" or "laissez faire" approach. To find countries that don't have heavy investment in the field of technology, you have to go outside the OECD and away from the 2nd world as well. Seriously, countries that actually don't have any government fingers in technology are places like Somalia - and the only thing they ever invent are IEDs and pirate motherships.

-Frank

[Patrick Goodman]

The emergency third eye bleach station is over there.

Thanks; I needed that....

[fistandantilus4....]

On top of veering wildly off course, OneTrikPony has to be stopped. I mean now. Ow.

[Shrike30]

A house, which =rumor= has it is not finished in a housing market that has seen a dramatic downturn. If you are hinting that it has untapped reserves to be drawn upon.

Snohomish County Planning and Development Services list the Residential Permit as having had its final inspection about a year ago. No arguement that the local market's taken a big hit.

[OneTrikPony]

On top of veering wildly off course, OneTrikPony has to be stopped. I mean now. Ow.

Fine then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

I'm just trying to have some positive input.
But, I guess if you're not willing to wear cowboy boots to save shadowrun...

[tweak]

Y'know what's work? Spin.

Y'know what I'd rather do than spin something? Other work. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Some crappy stuff happened, so we'll do what we can do to fix it and continue Eclipse Phase with as little interruption as possible. The important thing isn't what lousy things happened (and at this point, who knows if anyone's "scorecard" is accurate...) but that Eclipse Phase will have a bright future.

And now, to repost something from the BattleTech boards, to demonstrate in part why I feel the future is so bright:

One of the things that Posthuman Studios is going to do is be very upfront about sales figures, expenses, etc. So I'll start with this: we wanted Catalyst to sell EP at $10-15 for the PDF. They argued against it, and basically said "You'll need to sell twice as many copies in order to make the same amount of money." We said "Okay. If we don't sell twice as many copies of the PDF as (CatalystCoreBook) did in PDF in 18 months, you can take the difference in dollars out of our royalties."

Less than six weeks after the PDF was available (and this was after we seeded the PDF to bittorrent ourselves -- anyone could have it for free, legally), we broke that mark. This meant that we had made the same amount of money, *and* we had the PDF in the hands of at least twice as many people!

A few months after that, Catalyst lowered their prices on all core books, and announced that Leviathans would be Creative Commons-licensed as well. And the first print run of Eclipse Phase sold out, also.

So, there will be a quick resleeve, and on with the future!

This is because you get it. You understand how this weird Internet thingy works. Doing your own thing away from the naysayers is gonna bring so many wonderful things your way. Keep it up!

[Kid Chameleon]

@Jason: So it would seem. I'm shocked that an LLC member would comment publicly on this sort of thing given the likelihood of litigation down the road, but people do crazy things sometimes.

I don't feel that the ownership side of things needs to be discussed here at all. Other than speculating if I can yell at Jason to yell at me.

But as a freelancer, I'm happy to share some of what I know and some of my experiences. I'm Ken' Horner, long time player, first time SR writer, with a half decade or so of BT professional writing behind me, with a bunch more years of writing as a fan behind that. I'm a single father of a six year old elk hound, I've got a few degrees, work with a bunch of dangerous stuff and hope to bring science and fun to Shadowrun.

[Kid Chameleon]

Paparazzi is owned by Posthuman Studios, and Catalyst never finalized a contract with them -- me -- for the game.

You just had to play the telephoto lens, didn't you? I stand corrected.

[HappyDaze]

Just for clarification, when the license comes up for renewal, is it a closed deal, or can other companies make 'bids' for SR and/or BT to Topps against Catalyst?

[Method]

hope to bring science and fun to Shadowrun.

I am curious to see how that pans out.

[FrankTrollman]

Y'know what's work? Spin.

Y'know what I'd rather do than spin something? Other work.

Well put.

And truly, I do thank you for being straight talking through the worst of this. Honesty isn't always the most popular policy, but it is the best policy, and you deserve a round of thanks as well.

You'll note, and I think everyone should note, that your simple and accurate replies have mostly kept the rumor mongers away from doomsaying about you - and that has got to be good for your piece of mind. Still, there is something I want to apologize to you about.

I characterized Posthuman Studios as breaking off with Catalyst because of Royalty non-payment. I made this leap because WildFire confirmed that they were leaving because of royalty non-payment, there was royalty non-payment to Posthuman Studios, and you had confirmed that you were leaving Catalyst as well. However, as Rob Boyle quite simply and eloquently pointed out, there are in fact other reasons to leave Catalyst, and I had not established the Royalty nonpayment as the causative issue.

As XKCD so eloquently pointed out: correlation does not imply causation. Even if it does wiggle its eyebrows suggestively sometimes. So again, I apologize for ascribing motives to you when I lacked sufficient information to do so.

-Frank

[Muspellsheimr]

As XKCD so eloquently pointed out: correlation does not imply causation. Even if it does wiggle its eyebrows suggestively sometimes.

and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

Snohomish County Planning and Development Services list the Residential Permit as having had its final inspection about a year ago. No arguement that the local market's taken a big hit.

I don't know what those requirements are, in some places the job doesn't have to be done 100%. Most cities do require final electrical, fire code, plumbing and gas, and department of health???. Like I said, it was a rumor so I could be wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Edit: I believe Seattle overall has seen an 34.3% drop??? We bought our house a year before the market burst and I new it was going to pop so we bought way under what we could have afforded. And since then I have had the distinct pleasure of remodeling the house from hell. But losing 20% on 100K vs. 300K doesn't sting nearly as much. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Wesley Street]

One of the things that Posthuman Studios is going to do is be very upfront about sales figures, expenses, etc.

My employer engages in the same practice. Not only does this increase morale amongst the employees as they know the bosses aren't swirling snifters of brandy and sitting on big bags of money that rightfully should be in workers' pockets, the practice puts our customer base at ease as well... because they know what's going on. Being unnecessarily cryptic or holding the books to your chest only breeds suspicion, frustration and rumor mongering. Which then results in the slippery slope of spin.

Treating a game company like an actual and honest business. What a novel approach! Well done, Adam.

So I'll start with this: we wanted Catalyst to sell EP at $10-15 for the PDF. They argued against it, and basically said "You'll need to sell twice as many copies in order to make the same amount of money." We said "Okay. If we don't sell twice as many copies of the PDF as (CatalystCoreBook) did in PDF in 18 months, you can take the difference in dollars out of our royalties."

Less than six weeks after the PDF was available (and this was after we seeded the PDF to bittorrent ourselves -- anyone could have it for free, legally), we broke that mark. This meant that we had made the same amount of money, *and* we had the PDF in the hands of at least twice as many people!

A few months after that, Catalyst lowered their prices on all core books, and announced that Leviathans would be Creative Commons-licensed as well. And the first print run of Eclipse Phase sold out, also.

I'm not even remotely shocked that this worked as well as it did. It's a lot easier to sell 1000 units for 5 bucks than 5 units for 1000 bucks. I tell my customers in the non-profit realm to go after a lot of small, reoccurring constituents and hook them in. Those handful with a lot of money to burn may end up burning you in the end when you become too dependent on such a small pool of donors. There are plenty of statistics from the Association of Fundraising Professionals to prove this is a successful method. Again, well done.

Amid all of the depression-inducing accusations that spring up like clockwork it's heartening to know someone in this teeny-tiny industry has real vision.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

the bosses aren't swirling snifters of brandy and sitting on big bags of money that rightfully should be in workers' pockets

My first pass at a response was unduly snarky. The second...a little better. Hopefully this will be the one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I disagree that an employee rightfully deserves more than the agreed upon salary, benefits, a safe and friendly work environment. However, the employer is not entitled to expect/demand more than the agreed upon job requirements and hours stipulated. If one or the other (even both) exceed those expectations then that is a good thing and I commend them for their extra effort.

I know that it is very vogue to think unkindly of business owners at this point in time.
But if every business closed up shop tomorrow where would all the employees work?
Where would the government get taxes from?

Historically when a segement of the population is demonized is has led to bad things. It doesn't have to be a group based on race/religion, the French Revolution is an excellent example of class warfare. I am not so certain that the 16,000 to 40,000 people executed were deserving of such an end.

I hope that my post was suitably rational.

[FrankTrollman]

I disagree that an employee rightfully deserves more than the agreed upon salary, benefits, a safe and friendly work environment.

That is what they are legally entitled to. Whether they deserve more or less depends on what the agreed upon salary actually is and how productive that employee has been. If someone has been a very good employee and upon an annual review they get a raise because of it, are you seriously telling me that they did not deserve that raise until the agreement was actually finalized?

What a contract production worker deserves is some fair fraction of the value of the thing they produce. Be it a sat link or a game book. And if you hide the numbers on what the final products are actually worth, yeah it creates resentments that don't need to be there. I think Shadowrun products could use a higher wage and a more disciplined schedule for the writing staff. But if management is making sane choices that are for the good of the company, there is no reason to hide them from the people who work there.

The creative writers know that they don't have the time to hawk books to distributors. So they don't even really mind making less than the top brass. But one of the big draws of writing is bragging rights. So telling people how many copies of a book actually sold is a form of work compensation. It just doesn't make any sense to keep those cards hidden unless you're trying to defraud investors.

-Frank

[Kid Chameleon]

I am curious to see how that pans out.

That was kind of redundant, wasn't it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif)

[LurkerOutThere]

My employer engages in the same practice. Not only does this increase morale amongst the employees as they know the bosses aren't swirling snifters of brandy and sitting on big bags of money that rightfully should be in workers' pockets, the practice puts our customer base at ease as well... because they know what's going on. Being unnecessarily cryptic or holding the books to your chest only breeds suspicion, frustration and rumor mongering. Which then results in the slippery slope of spin.

Treating a game company like an actual and honest business. What a novel approach! Well done, Adam.

So care to name this wildly successful and wonderfully developed business that your so proud of? If you can't even be transparent about your organizations fragging name you really have no place criticizing others business practices based on their transparency.

By the way I'm Galen W. I am a code monkey and console monkey for a large teleservices business. I have no experience in the gaming industry. I do have a moderate amount of small business experience as I used to keep the books for a fairly successful one. In my free time I write and am an evangelist in my local community for Shadowrun and Shadowrun Missions and am starting to write for the latter. I will always stand and deliver for reason over insanity and bullshit and think that judged on nothing but the quality of their products I will continue to consume products from CGL in the future so long as they continue to provide quality products. I understand that others whose relationship is more complex (read:are owed money) do not feel the same way, but all the rest baffles me.

In short compared to some of these luminaries around here, i'm spobody necial.

[DireRadiant]

So care to name this wildly successful and wonderfully developed business that your so proud of? If you can't even be transparent about your organizations fragging name you really have no place criticizing others business practices based on their performance.

It is entirely possible for thoughts, ideas, concepts, and expressions to be entirely worthy and reasonable completely independent of the origin.

I do not need to know who anyone is to evaluate an argument or statement.

It is not a requirement for people to reveal who and what they do in order to express themselves in this forum.

In fact the effort to force people to reveal themselves in order to speak up is one of the classic tools of oppression.

[D2F]

It is entirely possible for thoughts, ideas, concepts, and expressions to be entirely worthy and reasonable completely independent of the origin.

I do not need to know who anyone is to evaluate an argument or statement.

It is not a requirement for people to reveal who and what they do in order to express themselves in this forum.

In fact the effort to force people to reveal themselves in order to speak up is one of the classic tools of oppression.

While that is entirely correct you need to keep in mind that really few people are actually knowledgeable about how to analyze arguments. Most people go by reputation rather than content. Why else do you think Fox "News" is so successful?

In Lurker's defense, though, you didn't exactly provide an argument either. You provided a personal testimony, without any evidence to support it. Personal testimony alone isn't a viable argument. Lack of sources or evidence to support it makes it even less appealing.

[Delarn]

NerdHot;
Isn't that like HeroinChic with more sweat and fewer std's?

This is not off topic because the Naked Dumpshock Calendar and Shadowrun Porn could generate enough funds to buy the IP rights several times over and pay any outstanding debts to freelancers, (except that most of the freelancers would have to be in the calendar (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) so it would really be more like bootstraping things back into buiseness) ! Bootstraps! Picture this; Full page glossy layouts of all the oldbies around here posing all sexy in their tightiewities and Cowboy boots...and then somebody has a bottle of oil... and there's a kiddie pool...

I'm tellin ya, this is a genious idea! It's almost as good as the idea I had about charging a nickle for every view of the CGL situation threads. That one came a little late.

I second ! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Sexy runners drawings and their player in the same pose in the same cloathing ... Ok no travesty shots please (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Bob Lord of Evil]

That is what they are legally entitled to. Whether they deserve more or less depends on what the agreed upon salary actually is and how productive that employee has been. If someone has been a very good employee and upon an annual review they get a raise because of it, are you seriously telling me that they did not deserve that raise until the agreement was actually finalized?

What agreement are we talking about?
If an employee gets a raise then whom am I to say that they did not deserve it? I do not believe I stipulated that in my previous post.

What a contract production worker deserves is some fair fraction of the value of the thing they produce. Be it a sat link or a game book. And if you hide the numbers on what the final products are actually worth, yeah it creates resentments that don't need to be there. I think Shadowrun products could use a higher wage and a more disciplined schedule for the writing staff. But if management is making sane choices that are for the good of the company, there is no reason to hide them from the people who work there.

One would assume (and yes I know how that word breaks down) that the worker in question was offered a job, given a wage that they were willing to work for and have a safe and friendly work environment. Other than that no a worker doesn't need to know how much a companies profit margin is, how many widgits were sold, etc., etc..

The creative writers know that they don't have the time to hawk books to distributors. So they don't even really mind making less than the top brass. But one of the big draws of writing is bragging rights. So telling people how many copies of a book actually sold is a form of work compensation. It just doesn't make any sense to keep those cards hidden unless you're trying to defraud investors.

-Frank

The investors have every right to know what the numbers are...because...(wait for it)...they invested in the company. Hence why corporations release quarterly reports. Anything more than that is up to the company to release or not and there are certainly good reasons not to in terms of competitors and idle gossip. There was only one company that I worked for under a royalty contract that would send a report as to the number of books that were sold.

If you want to negotiate that information prior to signing a contract you are certainly welcome to try. Just because company X gives you an offer doesn't mean that you are unable to make a counter offer.

Feel free to keep chasing me around the forums...I can see that you and I are going to be the best of friends. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Demonseed Elite]

Are we really trying to argue here on Dumpshock that Posthuman being up-front about sales, expenses, etc. is a bad thing? I know Dumpshockers like to debate...but really?

And no one is saying that Posthuman needs to do that. They don't. But it is seriously cool that they are.