CGL speculation #4 Options

[Pepsi Jedi]

You really should check the very first post.

Ahh quite right. I only joined at the start of the third thread. Roughly 53 pages back. Reading the first post, (( 4 threads back now)) Does indeed say alot of what i just typed.

[Bull]

Well he's not entirely wrong. I was running around in boots. It was just at boot camp.

So yeah , dinner would have been nice.

Incidentally, I thought about coming up to say 'hey', but leave days were few and precious at the time.

Really, I don't see how the confusion is even possible. I'm much better looking than eido. Just look at his icon! What the hell is that a weird close up of his eye!? Seriously!
Now bring your attention to your left. See those large, majestic ears? Cute little button eyes? Soft , warm coat, and sharp, shiny teeth? Who wouldn't love a smile like that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Freak. Any chance of you making Gen Con this year? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Bull]

Ahh quite right. I only joined at the start of the third thread. Roughly 53 pages back. Reading the first post, (( 4 threads back now)) Does indeed say alot of what i just typed.

Pretty much. Except the letter that was sent out to the freelancers says that he's owned up to his actions (Even if it's prettied up with phrases like "co-mingled"), that the company is working out a deal with him to make reparations, and that steps were taken to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. This also implies there's no lawyers involved, outside of any ones that may be involved to draft up agreements for repayment and the like.

<shrug>

Bull

[fistandantilus4....]

Unlikely. I keep wasting my money on crazy crap like kids and groceries and drek like that. I'm worthless. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Try asking the wife though. She really wants to go.

But let me know if you make it down for ComicCon in July. I'll buy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[fistandantilus4....]

Ahh quite right. I only joined at the start of the third thread. Roughly 53 pages back. Reading the first post, (( 4 threads back now)) Does indeed say alot of what i just typed.

That's why I closed it down and opened a new thread, linking all the others. Trying to make it a little bit easier to reference and find something in this heap.

[MindandPen]

Interestingly enough, you just described my career,except for the out of gov't part; mine has been entirely within the gov't.

We must get together and compare notes some time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Bob Lord of Evil]

Then, had a $650,000 house built.

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.

[MindandPen]

That's why I closed it down and opened a new thread, linking all the others. Trying to make it a little bit easier to reference and find something in this heap.

With all the topics we've had in this thread (not just directly related to the CGL situation), you could have a long index. Just off the top of my head we've covered:

• Roles and Responsibilities of the Game Designer
• Personality quirks of several Dumpshock posters
• Identities of several notables
• How freelancing works
• General corporate governance and structure
• The RPG industry
• Issues behind several people leaving CGL
• Speculation on Shadowrun's future
  
  and my favorites
• Lone Star Cop's mounting Unicorns
• Tiger Eyes and her Magical Belly Button Ring

Plus a whole lot of other stuff. Not bad for a few days work, eh? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

-M&P

[FrankTrollman]

Actually, I don't think anyone from Posthuman has said anything about non-payment of royalties. While there are still some royalty issues that still need to be resolved, our reasons for leaving are primarily based in other factors.

Fair enough, I admit that I could easily be reading too much into the word "similarly". Actually, I want to applaud you on Posthuman's message discipline. In addition to having the absolute best tagline for breaking with the publisher ("just resleeve"), you and Adam have been extremely good about keeping negotiation-related information close to the chest without sounding like you're in severe trouble or that you are deliberately stonewalling fans or feeding them bullshit.

Going back through it, you've actually dropped less public information than WildFire or Catalyst. But since all of it has been conversational in tone and free of "spin" (in that the statements have been crafted to both be literally true and to imply things that are literally true), I expect a fair amount of good will to flow your way at the end of this. When you compare the press releases you've made to the ones coming from Randall it really is night and day. When books got held up because of non-payment to freelancers and withheld copyright, he released a statement that Catalyst had not lost the license with Topps (?). I mean, that statement was true, but getting the story that freelancers had pulled copyright required picking through an internet flame war to find freelancers confirming that fact themselves. On the other hand, your own public statements that you're talking to other publishers and will be able to give release dates after those negotiations are over is simple, to the point, and successfully assuages fear.

Thank you Rob. I sincerely mean that. Yours has been a very good example of how to keep cards to the chest without without actually treating the public, your public, like mushrooms.

-Frank

[fistandantilus4....]

With all the topics we've had in this thread (not just directly related to the CGL situation), you could have a long index. Just off the top of my head we've covered:...

..Plus a whole lot of other stuff. Not bad for a few days work, eh? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

-M&P

I'd considered hunting through the various sections and throwing up links, but to be honest, I simply didn't have the constitution (and you know, a life to live). Thanks for the recap. It looks so nice and neat when you put it like that. Nothing like the 50 pages of madness it appears to be at first glance. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Derek]

We must get together and compare notes some time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Find a SCIF somewhere, and I will meet you there....

[SecGuard]

With all the topics we've had in this thread (not just directly related to the CGL situation), you could have a long index. Just off the top of my head we've covered:

• Roles and Responsibilities of the Game Designer
• Personality quirks of several Dumpshock posters
• Identities of several notables
• How freelancing works
• General corporate governance and structure
• The RPG industry
• Issues behind several people leaving CGL
• Speculation on Shadowrun's future
  
  and my favorites
• Lone Star Cop's mounting Unicorns
• Tiger Eyes and her Magical Belly Button Ring

Plus a whole lot of other stuff. Not bad for a few days work, eh? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

-M&P

The last one has been by far the most interesting.

[X-Kalibur]

I believe they mentioned underwear shopping as well at one point.

[hermit]

The GenCon meet&greet at Victoria's Secret, if i am not mistaken?

[Adam]

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!

[X-Kalibur]

I would like to add, the layout is great in EP... sadly I find core books much harder to fully appreciate in PDF form.

Love my physical copy though, and I feel it was more than worth it to spend the money on the combo pack to support you guys.

And Hermit, yeah, that's what it was. My mind goes blank from time to time.

[SecGuard]

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!

Nice one, congrats on the sales Adam.

Just noticed from a battlecorps thread that the battletech IWM mini's have disapeared from the online cat. I've no idea if this is due too a glitch or, and given what has been said on here, probably more likely a lack of payment to IWM from CGL.

[OneTrikPony]

This is the best thing I've heard in the last 4 threads on the CGL subject.

Thanks, Adam.

I wish post human wold buy SR. Obviously, PostHuman is pretty damn good at managing game production. (and I really wish you could still do the layout on the books. Guess that's just a personal thing on my part.)

[Bull]

The GenCon meet&greet at Victoria's Secret, if i am not mistaken?

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.

Now, if Adam were trying it on... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bull

[OneTrikPony]

Bull You're a damned Tease!
After you flat turn down being miss January in Naked Dumpshock calendar you go and pull something like this...
you're breakin my heart man.

[Demonseed Elite]

The Posthuman crew is top-notch. I have nothing but respect for them, both for how they've acted during this whole mess and also because they just put out a damn good product. And Adam's post just took that respect up a peg. Because, really, all I ever expected out of Catalyst were good books and a good working relationship. I think the former happened. The latter, not so much. And to echo ketjak's post, I absolutely do not blame the developers for that. The developers I worked with all did their jobs well and were great to work with. I never got to work with Jason, but seriously, he's gone above and beyond his duty as a line developer the past few weeks on this forum and others. CGL's management should take some notes. Try talking to your freelancers some time. And maybe talking to your customers. Both freelancers and customers appreciate that. And they appreciate honesty too.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

Y'know what's work? Spin.

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.

Spin, you are absolutely right! (I know, having me agree with you gives a warm fuzzy that lasts all about...wait where did it go?) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I think that you are really onto something with your PDF approach. Not just the price point but you have done some very cool things with layers in PDFs. Market resistance to PDFs is melting more and more, accelerated by the closing of so many game stores across the US. You have a game store that is open 24/7 you can take a look at a brief sample of the product, no print costs, no warehousing fees, no inventory to carry on your books for tax season. Combine that with a handful of companies that are making remarkable progress with carbon nanotubes for screens and we might actually end up with a PDF reader that is the actual size (8 1/2" by 11") of a book that has long battery life, supports full color, and is under $100!

When I first started working in gaming it cost $300 to make a color plate the last I heard that price had dropped to around $6 and POD was followed by people. 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!

[hermit]

And don't forget the iPad.

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!

The same free market that brought us the SUV? We could have had such cars, only the free market saw fit to shelve them. There are more forces that work against ideal market liberalism than the state. Cartels and oligopolies, for instance. The Computer industry is what it is because ...

Well, wait. If cars were like computers ... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Adam]

Now, if Adam were trying it on... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It's true, I -- and Eclipse Phase -- make for pretty pretty princesses.

[JM Hardy]

I was going to post something along the lines of "Why do so many conversations come around to how pretty Adam is," but then I realized, how could they not?

Jason H.