Well, at least the next company holding the license will know what to expect


Being the suspicious character that I am, I will remain sceptical until I see first results :/

How to see red in 2 seconds flat. This poster registered on the forums only to post 4 times so far, only in the CGL situation threads and each time to come down hard on the freelancers with spurious, inflammatory comments. No information in their profile filled out and no avatar, plainly they want to remain anonymous - normally I would just think troll but considering the seriousness of the situation, my question would be, do the forum mods have a way to compare the registration info and the IPs of this poster to see if any of it matches up with another forum poster's information? Is this the kind of thing I should hit report about? The paranoid in me sees something malicious in these posts and wonders, who would benefit from having the freelancers being called liars and instigators?

That's one side of the story.

There is another side though...there always is.

I quit, after the directors were informed that this request was made, and chose to act in a way that I personally found unethical. I refused to do these, and other, things. I did not, at any time, falsify records, nor did I withhold information, as ordered numerous times by directors of the company. I was, however, told by Randall Bills that if I could not work with Loren, or felt the items I was being asked to do were unethical, that I should leave the company.

Ethics are a tricky matter. My personal ethics were involved. It is not up to anyone, besides myself, to determine what my personal ethics dictate for my own actions. Likewise, I cannot dictate to anyone at Catalyst how their ethics should tell them how to act.

Legal issues are a separate matter, and I will gladly leave the determination of the legal issues in the hands of the appropriate authorities. I fullfilled my civil requirements in those regards.

Most such licensing agreements can not be terminated early without cause. While providing false data is cause, it takes time to prove it, and termination for cause can get you sued (since CGL would claim the termination cost them revenue). Usually, situations like this are handled by not renewing the license.

The side where the German freelancers still spit to the left when anyone mentions working for FanPro or Warner Fuchs again?

LMFAO!!!

No...but thanks for playing.

I was truly surprised when my book showed up, and I have enjoyed it greatly. Thank you for your efforts, I wish you would get paid for such fine work.



I have had, in my career, times when such situations have arrised. Fortunately for me, in most of those situations, there was a higher legal authority I could report the situation to. They mark documents with those funny classification letters that way for a reason.

Good luck to you.

You know...we can make a difference for Ms. Harding. I am willing to donate $5 to Ms. Harding to help offset her current financial woes...we get 500 other people to do the same and we can help one of our own.

Set it up via Paypal, secure, easy and painless.

Anyone else interested in doing more than talking?

That is... disturbing.

On another thread there was a discussion of how long people had been around. I started playing Shadowrun in 1989 when I saw a first edition book in my local game store. I've been using the Internet from the days of it being DARPAnet, when graphics consisted of ASCII characters, and if there was a problem, you had a (small) phone book of all the major sysops. I remember all the old posts and forums, but never could participate given the nature of the work I did and the requirements imposed by my employer. That is part of the reason I am now, finally, posting on Dumpshock, I left my employer and those restrictions. All of the above is to lead to this:

I have the greatest respect for you, and many of the other "old timers" and "original" authors, if you will. I have really enjoyed version 4, and hope that it will continue to grow and move forward. But with such a talent loss, and such a loss of "institutional knowledge" with the drain of freelancers, I fear that the "feel" will become lost. Adam's words regarding Jason Hardy are encouraging, but I am still concerned. The situation regarding the running of CGL leads me to believe that TOPPS will most likely not renew the license (this is pure speculation from my position outside as a simple customer of course).

My hope is that whatever happens, the damage can be repaired, the institutional knowledge and atmosphere retained, and the game I have invested so much time, money and energy in continue to thrive.

Thanks for the reply. While I am not taking sides nor am I or have I been attempting to "wrest control" of the company from other members, I have come to appreciate your straightforward manner and recognize that, like David, you are on the straight and narrow. We all have foibles and character flaws, but like you I draw the line at actually performing unethical and illegal activities.

I'm not saying anyone has, but I am saying it's time for the current management to move on before the damage to their reputations, at least, becomes too severe in this very small industry. There's also the hope that they've learned something, but that may be going too far.

- Ket

We have a single mother of two young children...a fellow Shadowrun fan who could use some assistance. Do NOT tell me that you guys are not willing to give up two days of Starbucks to help one our OWN!

Lets get this ball rolling!

Instead of spitting into the wind...we can actually help somebody.

well, I purchased PDF's of Vice, Seattle 2072 and Midnight off of B-corps. If there was a paypal account set up I'd be more than willing to pay the purchase price again if it was going to the right person.

Now that is what I am talking about! Way to step up!

I sent her a message on here to see if she has a paypal account. I can't imagine that it would be hard to actually set this up.

I have no idea if the people assigned know anything about shadowrun and will be able to do the setting justice. But many of the battletech books are flat out freakin awesome. Top notch writing, design, production values, everything is great. For example Masters and Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers is one of the best put together supplements I have ever seen.

Still if you don't care about the setting and don't try to learn it, your stuff probably wont be up to snuff.

Don't get me wrong, I am not doubting their writing abilities or their seriousness. But as you pointed out sourself, SR is a rather peculiar universe and writers unfamiliar with it might have trouble to do it justice. I am just afraid the quality of SR publications will go down when authors become involved that know nothing or very little about the SR universe.

That last sentence is exactly right. For the record, the writers pitching in are people who have previously written for Shadowrun and enjoy the setting--they reached out to me, often because Shadowrun's just plain fun to write for. I could list their resumes, but no one will be buying upcoming books for their resumes--they'll be buying them for the content. My job is to make sure good content is there, so I'll be working with the writers to make sure that's what you get.

Jason H.

Bob, you understand, of course, that the money paid for these goes straight to IMR/Catalyst since she's not earning royalties on her work, right? Her work was (or was not) paid out, and that's it - all other monies go to the company.

So buying these goods only serves to create more potential violations of copyright, they do not help the author.

- Ket

I've heard rumors of authors who can write for three different universes.

The legends even speak of the "Short One" who will fulfill destiny and write for Shadowrun, BattleTech, Star Wars AND Star Trek.

He means setting up an independent Pay pal account so the cash can go straight to the young lady, INSTEAD OF the company.

A sort of..gratuity for a job well done. vs direct pay for merchandise sort of transaction.

No...it does not.

I am talking about passing the hat around (virtually) sending her $5 per person (or more if you are comfortable with that) just because she is a single mother of two children that is in financial straights. The people sending her money get NOTHING but that warm fuzzy for helping out a fellow human being.

NO goods are received by the people DONATING money!!!

You see a person that needs some help...you hand them some cash and move on. THAT is what I am talking about. 500 people at $5 per person, that would help her (and her kids) out...a lot.

What you are describing is charity. That's not how I see it. My logic is that I am paying for a product that she produced (in part) and has not received payment for, I hope to help rectify that by paying for it twice if necessary and ensuring that the second time around my money goes to the person who earned it.

The intent is good and helpful either way.

Jason, are you able to shed any additional light on this? It seems interesting that if Catalyst is picking and choosing which projects to live up to their own contracts on, they'd choose to ignore ones which are being held up from sale. I can think of only two reasons why Catalyst would make this decision and neither one of them are very good.

There's not information I can release publicly at the moment. There are (at least) two sides to every story, which means I'm getting different information from different sources. As the weekend kicks in, there's likely to be not a lot more I can say until Monday, but I anticipate having more information then.

Jason H.

That is good to hear. From the things I have picked up, read, checked out a friends copy etc the batteletech writing is top notch overall. Getting a few of them who happen to be shadowrun fans working on shadowrun will be a benefit to shadowrun overall I think.

What I am describing is doing the right thing. If some people want to dress up as Batman and then log onto Paypal makes no difference to me. How much a person sends...be it the cover price of a PDF...or the cost of a cup of Starbucks java I won't fling monkey poo as long as they expect nothing but the warm fuzzy of doing the right thing.

You know for 29 pages there has been all of this acrimony in this thread...now...we have the opportunity to do something other than whine. I would be stunned if we could NOT get 500 people to step up and help out a fellow SR fan and her two children.

Provided she accepts. The respect I have for her and her work makes me think I'd much rather buy what she created than just send money, and for some reason I think she'd prefer it that way (although if I'm wrong, she can correct me).
Anyway, this is a really sad story, and I'm a lot less optimistic about the outcome of this story.

Given that it's Friday night (actually, early Saturday morning where I am) there will not be a whole lot of official news for the next two days. I know that various things are in the works, and I hope to be able to give more details on what's going on on Monday. Until then, I'd like to ask people to be restrained about any speculation they may wish to engage in.

Jason H.

Well, it's not like there's been three 30 pages of idle speculation to date or anything.

*marks in appointment book* "Push Sky is Falling meeting back to Monday...check."



Edit: More importantly, you mean there's actually people who work schedules that don't require working through the weekend? I'm jealous.

Oh, I'm for that - sorry I misunderstood. I'm coincidentally going to be in Seattle in May so perhaps I can buy the lady and some other friends dinner! Does that count?

- Ket

I'm up for that. If she agrees, I'd gladly chip in.

I'll also offer to take her and her kids to dinner the next time I'm in Seattle. I'll bring my daughter, and we can introduce the next generation of Shadowrun players.

That's bad for your health. Just carefully apply the "sockpuppet" or "meatpuppet" stamp to such posters.

If CGL is reduced to sending fake figures to Topps, then the problem is not that they tried to send fake figures to Topps (that's just stupidity), the problem is that they need to. It doesn't bode well. Of course they could just be greedy and be trying to get more money out than they ought, but the lack of payment of freelancers suggests necessity.



Okay, I'd like to ask who you are. This was your fourth post on DS, you appear to have registered under this account purely to have a go at these people (people who we on DS have long benefited from their contributions, btw). You accuse people of trying to sink CGL when firstly CGL could make the whole situation go away by paying the modest amounts that it owes these people and secondly, these people have for a long time shown strong professionalism by avoiding spilling the beans on what's been going on. Your posts don't contain anything substantive, just ad hominems and snide suggestions. So in order to lend them any weight, who are you and what's your involvement in this?



This is weird. Aside from the concern about your work being re-written by less experienced writers (in Shadowrun, I mean), it just doesn't make a lot of sense from a business point of view. You'd written the work and it was ready to go. I don't know if layout was done or not (if so, then the situation is even worse). In any case, CGL would rather pay others and pay for the whole editing and proofing cycle to be repeated (which is going to be a pain for something as number-crunchy as PACKs sounds). And additionally there's the uncertainty of delivery times which is always a pain for a business too. Additionally they've drafted in writers from BattleTech (though JM says they've written for SR before, so I'm really curious to know what their writing credits are). So anyway, they'd rather all this than pay you your money. How does this make sense?

You terminated your contracts, so if they want to press ahead with this they have to either approach you with a cheque in hand and ask you nicely to re-sign. If they're bitter about you leaving, then perhaps they don't want to do this and that is the reason, but it's poor business sense and spite is a bad master. Besides which, they knew you were threatening to leave over the money they owed, so really this decision was theirs to make before you left. If they could pay you, then why would they let your completed work go so that they could spend more money on a copy product from less experienced (in Shadowrun) writers. So this one doesn't really make much sense.

It could make financial sense if the replacement writers were going to cost a lot less than you were owed, but this seems unlikely. As stated in the prior hypothesis, repeating proofing and editing has costs which means the margin of savings has to be even greater and there is the delay this adds to release. Also, you weren't paid a great deal in the first place (not saying it's irrelevant to you, but it's not high as hourly wages go) so if there can't really be much room to pay them less. What would that be? 2cents per word? And finally, the amounts that you get paid are small proportions of the money these products should reap. If you have a product that would make you $60,000 proft, you're unlikely to say "I'm going to try and jeopardise quality and release dates by saving $800". So this one doesn't make much sense to me.

Third explanation is that this is just such small potatoes to them that they don't really care. ("Oh, yeah, um, just stick one of the BT writers on it, it doesn't matter"). I hope that's not the case but given what we've learned about CGL's circumstances it doesn't seem like they can regard anything as small potatoes right now.

So I really only see a few options that explain this. One is that this is genuinely just spiteful behaviour from the people at CGL despite the harm it does them. Two, they're planning to do to the new writer (and perhaps any proofers / editors) what they've done to many others which is string him along until they've got the work on the promise of payments "soon". Three, they didn't have the money to pay you then, but now either do have the money or expect to have the money and so are re-starting with this money. In the case of three, it would still make more sense to make amends with you, but depending on how you left that might not be an option. However, the amounts are pretty small compared to what we can estimate their sales figures must actually be like so if they were struggling to raise a few thousand over a long period of time, it doesn't fill one with hope. So really, thinking they can get away with non-payment or tardy payment with the new person seems one of the few explanations that stands up. Although there is a fourth, and it goes like this:

If CGL were trying to deceive Topps about something, then it was presumably to do with how much profit they made out of the line or their ability to make a viable business out of the line. Assuming that it were the latter, then CGL would be under pressure, especially with the upcoming licence renewal, to demonstrate that they still had products being produced and ready to go out of the door. If Topps is suspicious by this point (fools if they're not), then the simplest thing to do is to throw a few authors at a product and say: "look - we're making this, it'll be ready by X and make Y". In this scenario, none of the problems that exist with the approach CGL has taken to re-writing products matters, because the aim is simply to show that they're producing product, regardless of what's going on under the hood. Sort of like when you haven't done your homework but you say "look, I'm doing it now!"

Anyway, just some reasoning. I'm interested in other hypotheses.



I would donate and be happy to do so. I get a lot of use out of my Shadowrun books and I'd like to see reward go to the right people for that. But you should PM Jennifer Harding and ask her what she feels about this. Also, I don't know what response you'd get for this - not because people don't care, but because people often aren't very proactive and because DS is only a part of the general Shadowrun player base. If you did this, it would need to be done properly, with a sticky thread, a simple statement that you're asking people to click a link and give $5." Also, it should be locked as there are some ill people around here who are just looking for threads in which to have a go at people. It would also need to be left up there for a while because people often take a long time to do even what they intend to do. But as I say, you should contact the lady herself.

K.

The thread over on the CBT regarding the CGL issues has been closed a few days ago.

Just closed, not deleted entirely – like the ones before?

So are we getting overspill? People coming here to discuss it instead? Fair enough.

K.

I agree. Reading the post of TigerEyes really got me mad at CGL for the first time in this situation. Not paying freelancers is one thing - and it's bad - but not paying a freelancer who is really in need of the money for her livelyhood ist just low beyond words, especially if, as I read it, the management went through all the due payments and decided which of them to pay and which not.
Since I profited from the very good $/€-exchange rates when I bought Midnight and Vice I'd be more than willing to donate the difference I saved on the purchase, to Jennifer.

Nah, they only close threads they don't think are needed anymore.
The deleting is just for stuff that they don't want to see there anymore.
Like, for example, if i had copied the statement about being asked to lie and falsify numbers, that would have been deleted.

When they closed it they did say that they would open a new one when they had anything new too report, looking at what Jason H said above it might be they have another official re-lease on Monday.

i'm contemplating stepping on some toes and just opening my own new thread . . nah, my postings have been deleted more than once in this over there allready . .

So let me get this straight -
Rather than PAY the writers what they are owed, JM Hardy is apparently getting whole slabs of text re-written to avoid paying the writers what they are owed? In the interim, Midnight has shipped and with it, text that is contractually prohibited from seeing the light of day is now out in consumerland and they stand to profit from this?

Wow ok. Tiger Eyes, I hope you contact a lawyer to discuss your options. I'm pretty sure some lawyer out there would take this on pro-bono and hit CGL and file for punitive damages, hardship, interest, etc. I also hope the other writers jump in and maybe a class action suit comes together. It doesn't sound undeserved at this juncture.

- J.

Basically.
In the appropriate thead(which got both Bull and Frank banned) on rpg.net there were some really good points raised too.
Or was that in here? Or on one of the 2 German Shadowrun Boards i visit? I get confused with several angles on the same discussion @.@

Right now the only rewrites that have been mentioned are for things that aren't published, and therefore people aren't owed for. In fact the only rewrites that have been mentioned are for stuff where the freelancer terminated their contract, thus effectively retracting their work from use by CGL.

As far as I understand, there are different things going on :
- Ancient History ended his contract, preventing Catalyst from publishing Sixth World Almanac, Corporate Guide and Runner's Toolkit. He chose not to be paid for those, and Catalyst has contracted other people to write replacements.
- Other authors who worked on Running Wild, Seattle 2072, Dawn of the Artifacts: Dusk, Vice have been withholding copyrights until paid, preventing Catalyst form selling those any further. Catalyst must pay them.
- Jennifer Harding withheld copyright on Dawn of the Artifacts: Midnight before its actual release. Catalyst had no right at all to publish it. Catalyst must also pay her, but it seems that book is not in the top priority for release, and thus payment (implying Catalyst is not able to pay for all the books).
- Upcoming books : no real info. I'd guess outside of AH particular case, Catalyst won't get people rewriting stuff that is already written (also, maybe Jennifer Harding had started writing Dawn 3, and that work will be lost as well). But I could be wrong. Catalyst can dump material, not pay its authors and find cheaper, more patient and less troublesome people to restart from scratch ongoing projects.

It's looking pretty dim for the other books AFAIK, too:

Awakend Haunts, the city type book about, well, awakened cities, is pretty much dead.
Cities of Intrigue, the city type book about Denver and other political hotspots has been reduced to City of Intrigue – a Denver book with spy gear. (Yes, that type of gear that Arsenal told us wouldn't make sense to provide extensive listing)
War!, the new Fields of Fire type / Merc book featuring Bogota and MilGear was stripped of it's Fields of Fire type / Merc part.

And given that the main layouter jumped ship, it's most likely not looking good for the Anniversery Core Rule Books, either.

That's why you don't feed Forumus Trollus Stupidus. Besides potentially negative effects on your blood pressure, they are also quick to lose their natural shyness and become a persistent pest.


Edit @Rotbart: You'd think they have enough material about intrigue and war recently...

Recently? Just to get a perspective for the whole mess, just look at the date:

Fair point, my personal legend (Nigel D. Findley) among them. Yet, I remain sceptical until I see the fruits of their labor. I will give them a fair chance, though.