Now I was thinking that corporate sabotage, a Johnson skimming on a project, high demand for project turnover, maximizing profits while cutting costs, and data steals seem to be somewhat of a common thing in the SR setting. Now the question that I wonder is do corporations just release inferior products more then once and awhile? Do they have the option of saying that they were sabotaged if they didn't realize their new soda brand causes birth defects in pregnant women? There are shoddy products released all the time in the world today... My RL experience was using a slicer off of the home shopping network, and the man on the TV made cutting carrots on the device look so easy and simple. I wanted to get it thinking maybe it would help my grandmother cut carrots (I was 12)... long story short - it was crap and it sliced my thumb open due to the fact that the cutting device just totally sucked (I wasn't a wimpy kid at that age either.) I did learn my lesson though and never bought anything like that again. >.<

Do corporations still try and sell snake oil for the only reason that sometimes they can get away with it in a setting like this? Are some people brand loyal that even if they know it's bad at least they know that there are probably other products out there that other corps release that suck as well? Are corporations held under the fire when these kind of problems occur? Does the media just cover all this kind of crap up and portray a "everything is fine just go about your daily lives" big brother kind of thing?

If the media doesn't do what it's intended to do, and there is no real way of uncovering all the problems a corp faces, or if every corp is pointing fingers at the other constantly (with the fact that probably every large corp has info on some shady dealings of any other large corp is probably pretty likely) it feels like to me that SR corporations can just get away with selling shoddy or poorly tested products sometimes (or maybe quite often depending on how dark someone's setting is.)

Thoughts?

Yeah, they (the Megas) can pretty much get away with selling sub-par products. If it's actively *dangerous* they'll probably stop selling to anyone who has a voice or about whom people with a voice care, and then set their attack-marketeers to work on a charm offensive. The larger non-sovereign corps can get away with a lot because they're so important to the economies of the places where they operate. The Press coverage will range from smarmily excusing to rabidly accusing, and generally get lost in the mush of information overload.

Runners get involved in some of the coverups and some of the dirt-digging. Excuses of sabotage could be pretty viable, but might be a sign of weakness; "terrorists" probably get blamed when something goes *spectacularly* wrong.

Who do you think owns the media of 2050+? The megacorps maybe...as subsidiaries, through front companies often? Even when a particular corp doesn't have the newsies in their pockets, the corp that does will STILL play the cover up boggie, even for their rivals, because they too have their dirty deeds which might get aired if they don't play the game. Why do you think there has never been any official whistle blowing worth a pile of tiddly winks against Aztechnology? It's just too dangerous.

You don't get to me a mega without having secrets you NEED to have secret forever.

Sooo, in the boardrooms of Company A when they hear about the journalistic expose' that is going to uncover the fact that they sold soft drinks that will cause birth defects 1 per 10,000 among pregnant women...

CEO A: "They're going to show what? Who the hell owns that station? No, forget that, who owns that network presently? Mitsuhama? God da... *raises voice to activate the secretarial link* "Susan, get me Tamatsu Sakura on his private line. Now." *thirty seconds later* "Tamatus san, this is Charlie. There's a big load of hogs wallop that one of the local stations y'all own is about to spill concerning one of the products made by a major subsidiary of ours. Yeah, the Soda thing. Of course it not true. It's no truer than that thing we've got in our files of when your subsidiary was dumping toxic waste into the Snohomish right before all those people died in '38. Yeah, it's hell when the press makes these things up. You'll put someone on it? Thanks Tamatsu san. Hey, by the way, how are Tomiko and the kids doing? Really? That's a shame, but life goes on. You too Tamatsu san." *bellows* "Damn it Susan, you're supposed to remind me of when the major players get divorced."

If the bit gets aired, it never gets any follow up. Or it gets retracted afterwards. Or sometimes just dropped.



Isshia

and the journalist with it

hell, was not the invited person in emergence a journalist for a independent news outlet? one that sadly had as much about aliens landing on the white house lawn as the real stuff?

Or you can pull an Aztechnology, it gets dumped to after the Dog Food bit, and four or five new products comes on, reminding people to BUY BUY BUY!!!

All available at Stuffer Shack!

A lack of government or legal regulation isn't going to absolve even the most evil of megacorporations of corporate responsibility. I'm sure morally questionable actions (ie: murdering competitors, kidnapping test subjects, etc) and potentially lethal shortcuts are swept under the rug but if corps produce a product that harms or kills large swaths of the population... that's bad business.

first you sell the illness, then you sell the treatment (and keep the cure eternally suppressed)...

Again, hell yes. You gotta get the stuff off the street right smartly once you're found out, but the damage control still MUST get handled this way for any mega to stay a mega for very long.


Isshia

But you don't make the illness terminal.

Marketing is a two step process: 1) Convince your target audience that they are unhappy. 2) Tell the target audience that they will be happy with your product. The average Westerner is bombarded by 3000 advertisements every day. Imagine that cranked up to "11" and you've got Shadowrun.

Yes, it's bad business, but Oh look, the goodyear blimp! They have many ways of deflecting attention and *appearing* to do something about it. Entire slums can be cleared and provided with sanitation and clinics and schools and roads for the price of an advertising campaign...

"Best thing to happen to our neighbourhood, that toxic spill. Sure the kids may grow up with no arms and no legs, but at least they get to grow up and get an education. "

Anybody here ever read "The Merchant's War" by Frederick Pohl?

Mokie Okie Okie Coke!

I actually have something almost that bad set up in the Bangkok "Corporate Plex" zone. There it might be more like x40.


Isshia

but the more it appears to be, the better...

Agreed. Especially if you're balding or can't get an erection. I'd rather be dead!

NERPS! It's good for what ails ya!

may cause your skin to go purple with green spots...

The real crap is sold through subsidiaries, so it can be denied when discovered. "We at Ares are horrified at the actions of the Kwick Kover Korporation and promise a full inquiry into all the facts. The responsible people will be brought to justice."

While in the back rooms. "How could you be so dumb as to get caught?"

More likely runners will be hired to dig up dirt on different divisions within the same corp "I know Robins is selling sub standard material but I need proof to bring before the board. and with him out of the way, my career moves ahead."

Exactly!

Or, "If it exists or not, we'll find the evidence, sir."

Runners are sent in to provide the sub-standard materials.

plausible deniability is a nice thing, no?

"Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."
- Ambrose Bierce

You would also get Corps with grudges, or competition, against one another to undermine their position. I could just see one corp running a story through a subsidy about not buying the competitors soda because of the 'harmful effects.' Hiring shadowrunners to either find the proof or plant it.

Well, there's that infamous line in Fight Club about Corporations and how they handle recalls...

And of course that makes them the perfect size and mental conditioning for extensive cyborg implantation later in life.

You know, if they so "choose" too.

I'd imagine that the lesser corporations that aren't benefiting from extra-territoriality are subject to many of the same laws they are now, with all the same capacity to throw money at problems until they go away. However, the corporations that are their own separate nations are in their own tub of beans. Being a separate nation isn't a "get out of laws free" card, while it does free you from many of the minor problems of having to answer to someone else's rules in regards to what you do with your own stuff, it also means that if your exports represent a significant risk to their users and you ship them to other countries willingly that you're a foreign power interfering with another nation. Now, my Shadowrun lore is somewhat limited, but I don't think I'm entirely unjustified in saying that most major non corporate world powers are very likely to outclass the megacorporations in funds and political pulling power. Now, I do understand that they have a mutually beneficial relationship (mega corporations and the nations that buy their junk), but if one partner (the corporation in this case with their willingness to damage the voters) proves to be hazardous to the other, I don't think it's just going to simmer and sit idle. So, I'm quite willing to bet the corporations are pretty careful about the quality of their product, not to say mistakes don't happen, just to say that they aren't likely to take the risk of shipping faulty product if it can be helped.

By canon, the ten megas account for roughly half the worlds GDP. So no, nations do not outclass megas. Some AAs and A corps, maybe, but not triples.

I seem to recall Imperial Japan having significant power over the Japanacorps and UCAS might also deal with Megas as an equal or close to it.

some higher ups maybe. but what about when your some department head that looks at the production costs skyrocketing and the earning dropping like a rock? "we are using the best quality parts, sir"...

In Shadowrun I always thought that if corps could get away with "it" then there is nothing stopping them from doing it. Was the HMVV virus created by a crop medaling in awakened viruses? Does AZT create some really big no no's that would probably have the corporate court order an omega code? Do all the triple A's do things like this? I just think that the biggest problem is that the public is probably tired of corporations pointing fingers at one another to the point where it is probably even hard to distinguish what is real and what is false. After a while they will probably just stick with one product and use it even if the competitor says that it could cause kidney failure (because the product the competitor is using has been pointed out that it can cause blindness in 5% of the people who use it.) Also do corporations that people work for forbid people from using certain products released by the competition (that is if they want to keep their jobs?) Like Ares saying "You will buy our comlink or you will no longer have a future here," kind of thing.

most likely, if you work for the corp you live on corp land, inside a corp controlled walled garden.

basically the shops carry only corp products and your payed in corp "money".

only the real big ones go outside...

No they definedly do not, most goverments still exist only so that megas don't have to bother with ruling the countries and taking care of all the people.

"We don't want to have to take out the trash."

Now, I apologize if I'm being ignorant, but that doesn't make a lick of sense. The U.C.A.S. (as a readily available example) is going to have a great deal more people living within in it's borders than even the largest megacorporations. now assuming even half these people have a SIN, that means half the much larger population is paying taxes exclusively to this government. Megacorporations while they do gain large amounts of revenue from their corporate ventures have to compete with other mega corporations for their dollar and are only going to get very small portions of populations paying to them. Now, megacorporations have the advantage in that they can work internationally, but no matter where they operate, they're still going to be competing with other megas for their revenue, as well as innumerable other smaller, local corporations that are paying taxes to the local government. There's also the fact that the mega corporations would likely have to pay significant taxes to the governments of the nations they operating in, so even as separate nations, they still have to answer to the people in charge of the land they're making money off of. Now, I'm not saying that you're wrong on your knowledge of Shadowrun canon, I just think if that's the canon, it doesn't make sense.

Well, the main problem is that, while the UCAS itself may have more money via tax revenue than Renraku or Novatech, the government officials (and lower-tier social servants) don't get paid in proportion to how much money "the government" rakes in. So they're highly susceptible to large, discrete credit infusions from the corporate entities who'd just as soon see their problems go away than deal with the courts when something goes awry. Plus, a government is more in the business of redistributing wealth, rather than making and holding onto it. While corporations keep a lot of their revenue (or spread it around within the corp) and spend the rest of it to amass even more wealth. And then there's the matter that, as you pointed out, the corps pay a token tax amount (large corporations today pay very little taxes, proportionally, SR corps probably end up making the government owe them) and (more importantly) provide the jobs that the government's citizens use to pay their own taxes. As a consequence, the government is very hesitant to interfere too much, lest the corporations just pack up and go somewhere that they can operate with less interference. And an unemployed citizenry calls for government money, but doesn't contribute much in return.

Don't most megacorp wage slaves pay taxes to the megacorporation being that they're separate national entities?

Taxes, compared to corporate revenue, amount to squat. Compare what it takes to run a government, how MOST major world governments operate at from a large to an UNBELIEVABLY MASSIVE deficit after their basic services are taken care of and you begin to see the problem.

Every Mega is operating at a huge to UNBELIEVABLY MASSIVE profit after their basic goods and services are taken care of...and they often have larger bottom lines than the nations, with EACH the big ten having larger bottom lines than ANY one nation.

In the Shadowrun World, more than in our own, money is power. It isn't a difficult thing for the majors to all but outright OWN the national governments. The Senators and Congress critters and on down to the local Aldermen TODAY are massively influenced by corporate desires. That is simple pork barrel politics 101. In the Shadowrun World magnify that by a factor of fifty. Occasionally you'll get a Senator in office that got there without major corporate backing, but he/she is surrounded by 95+ (99+ in Shadowrun) others who ARE there because of corporate backing and therein lies the rub. You do NOT take a dump on the people who put you in office and retain said office more than a single term.

Hey, today in most major industrialized nations there is already an immense amount of corporate influence with the major nations being the bigger players. When THEY (the major nations) get reduced to second stringers, as they are in Shadowrun, how much REAL influence do you think they can manage to wield?



Isshia

How bad off is the Mega-Powerful USA after the MegaCorps occured?

Bad enough off that it combined with Canada, and gave it top billing in the name! That alone says loads.

megacorps, and loosing half its landmass...

To a bunch of Magical First Nations People (Amer-Indians), and a bunch of angry Frenchmen.

not directly. but your payed in corp "money" and shop in corp stores. its not without reason its called wageslave...

take this concept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

and strip away the part about a limited timeframe...

What are you talking about?

It's a limited timeframe.

Only your whole life.

Born in a Corporate Hospital, sing the Corporate Loyalty Song every morning, Corporate Meals, Corporate Dress, Corporate Prayer at your Funeral...

the funny thing is that said corps sounds very communist in their internal workings

True, except that anyone is free to purchase stock in the company and have a free vote in how their Company is run!

They aren't at all Communist... just communal. The words sound similar but the differences are vast.


Isshia

And if you think your vote counts there a fiftieth as much as it counts in a "democracy" then I have this wonderful Bridge in Arizona for sale that you'd just love.


Isshia

Unless you are a shareholder in the Pueblo Corporate Council.

Alright, thanks for the primer on megacorps, I only came into shadowrun with 4th edition and have limited experience with the fluff, so I have only my own logic to operate on for the most part. I gotta say: megacorporations really suck.

for anyone other then the big guys on top

In more ways than one...

And the kicker is, the rules they play by make Shadowrunning part of the system!

Less "Communist", more "Stalinist"... and with absolutely no concern for their wageslaves beyond that (or the appearance of that) which benefits the bottom line.

Yeah. You may not even *have* a vote. Most issued stock is non-voting. Some issued stock doesn't pay a dividend, even; it exists only to be traded.

The fact some shadowruns involve exposing corporate wrongdoing to the public means corporations, even megacorps, at at some minimal level sensitive to public opinion if only because it can negatively impact outside sales. That is for example why Renraku took such a beating from the Arcology incident. Aside from the material losses, it sent the company's local reputation down the tubes. Granted, the sensitivity of the corps to this probably extends only so far as to attempt cover up or damage control, which may mean some minor politically face saving gestures or sacrificing of scapegoats.


In the old Corporate Shadowfiles it suggested the reason the corporations have not become the governments is because they don't want to deal with providing some of the non-profitable basic services of a government. The remnants of national identity in the Shadowrun 6th world era also mean the corporations probably still do pay some small amount of tax to national governments, more for symbolic purposes than anything else in order to show John Doe citizen on the street that the corporations are nice and law abiding entities.

Corporate Shadowfiles also examined some of the finer points of the extraterritoriality clause including how it extended in a cone of air above a facility and also a cone of ground underneath. This actually limits the corporations right to pollute and make a mess in some sense as if such material drifts out of "their" airspace or ground space, the government (presumably backed up by other corps) would have the right to come down on them for fouling up other people's property.

I see all the corporations and national governments existing in a balance of power. While each individual extraterritorial corp might have absolute power within its own territory, they do business on the outside as well. Too many unsavory dealings or scandals or overt interference in the government would lead the other major players to oppose and aid any victim if only to prevent the first corp from gaining excessive dominance.