Not trying to be a smart ass in the least but read back over the first 6 CGL Speculation threads. It's there. Very clearly, repeatedly. Up to and including payments to contractors marked as freelance writers on the books and stuff.

Was I there myself? No.

Do I believe the sources cited and able to read the graph where over $500,000 disappeared into this D-bag's pocket in the last year and another $200,000 over the previous 3 or 4? yeah. The fact that the total is about $725,000 and his brand new house was about $650,000, coupled with the other information we have on hand is good enough for me.

Come on now, you're moderating here now.

As I understand it, it is a matter of public record that the house in question was valued recently in the region of 650k$ for purposes of taxation. If recollection serves this figure is 'adjusted' for current market conditions and the true value of the property is likely to be significantly more than this.

As it is now likely that the ToS now prevents anybody confirming such information on DS I think it is a bit unfair for you to challenge the guy like that.

So as a moderator I have forfeited my right to call people on statements that may lack factual basis? I didn't flame him, or warn him. I simply pointed out that if you're going to make strong statements (like Coleman's house is a "bullseye" indicating his guilt) you should probably not base it on internet conjecture. And unless you've seen Catalyst's books and Coleman's finances, then the value of Coleman's house as appraised by the county for tax purposes (which is notably inaccurate as you have pointed out) vs. the alleged amount of money stolen is conjecture.

But I will happily apologize to Pepsi Jedi for any offense he may have taken (but apparently didn't). Sorry Pepsi Jedi.

Certainly not.

However the 'realtor' quip seemed to indicate that you doubted the valuation Pepsi Jedi had placed upon the house.

I'm under the impression that this is a matter of public record and that Pepsi Jedi was right on the money, so to speak.

I rather feel that if this is the case then you as a moderator ought to be aware that it is and not be making apparently partisan criticism you know to be inaccurate.

It is also my opinion that to some extent as a moderator you have to be a bit more impartial than the rest of the inmates are permitted to be. That, however, is merely personal opinion.

But really, in the end, it comes down to poor communication. I find that most people can be understanding and accomodating if they know what is going on. Running late on paymens? Tell them, and tell them why. Educate your freelance talent base on the publishing industry and they will work with you as long as they believe you are being fair with them. They moment they do not, the moment they lose trust, things can spiral out of control very quickly.

Bottom line: communicate.

TomD
[/quote]


Back in the day (1988 to be exact) I phoned up FASA and said I'd like to write for them. They asked if I'd be willing to write a "House" scenario pack opposed to the merc unit scenario packs that had come out so far. I said sure I do one and we decided on House Marik. Thus Rolling Thunder was born. Turned it in and spent the next several months (and maybe longer since that was 22 years ago and my memories are fuzzy), making a ton of phone calls as to when I would get paid. The response was one version of another that "the check was in the mail." I did finally get paid my 800 bucks and did a few more things for FASA before I decided this was not a good career for me. Much later I found out that I was not alone and people like Mike Stackpole were getting stiffed as well. Well guess what I also found out? The reason cash was so tight was it was tied up int the brand new BattleTech center they had opened in Chicago. Now if they had just told me that I would have been cool with it and not been out of pocket for all the long distance calls from Louisiana to Chicago. So yeah I totally agree with Tom's comment about open communication.

On another note it's good to see him on the list. I can recall me and some buddies sitting in the old Milwaukee Mecca floor discussing decking rules changes that were coming in the second edition. Those were good times...

Hiring a small business advisor will get the governance, structure etc stuff down pat pretty quickly, but lots of small businesses don't see the value.

A good accountant can fill the same role much more cheaply provided you actually listen to them and do what they advise.

For example, I accidentally co-mingled funds at my company. (For clarification, I own all the shares at my company, so no one but my family was at risk.) I loaned a lot of personal money to the company to get it started and because I'm a terrible financial manager, in 2008 when I finally paid the money back to me, the company overpaid the original loan amount. What was the net effect? I had to A) pay that money back and B) pay a significantly higher tax rate on that money. (35% corporate tax vs. my personal roughly 15% tax rate.)

Why is this relevant to the current situation? It was a much lower dollar figure than has been alleged for CGL/IMR (under $25k). As my accountant said, it stuck out like a sore thumb. All he had to do was look at the bank statements and compare it to the owner's draw account.

This is why I am highly suspect of CGL/IMR. The only way that I know of to screw up to the extend that has been alleged and confirmed by a co-owner is to either not have any sort of accountant or business counsel at all or to maliciously lie about it.

If there's some alternative reason that I'm not considering, please let me know.

Someone smarter than me posted to point out the separation of the creative team and the management team. I love what the creative team has done with SR4 & SR4A. (Sure, I'd like to see more metaplot and NAN action, but the rules updates and most of the setting has been phenomenal.) The management team I'd like to see go away. It's been said that that Loren L Coleman is nice and Randall Bills are honorable. I don't care. So far as I can tell their actions have been neither nice nor honorable.

My hope is that the current creative team can stay intact, regain the lost freelancer and employee talent (esp. AH, AJ, TE), and move over to a better managed company. Maybe that's a pipe dream. Maybe a new company would install their own guys and rip shadowrun to shreds. But, as has been pointed out by others, it's already survived FASA, FanPro, WhizKids, CGL. I believe it would survive another IP transfer, and I'm okay with investing in all new edition sourcebooks to support a management team that will in turn support the creative team.

*claps*

Well said, augmentin, well said. I approve of all of that last post, especially the final two paragraphs.

This statement will probably raise more ire than it is meant to. But it certainly seemed to me that Loren was filling "the suit" shoes. That's not meant as a condemnation of the company, just my perspective from the outside. It seemed to me as if the company thought they had one.

I understand the vitriol against Coleman, but what has Randall Bills done exactly? In my experience, Randall has always been flat out working on X different game lines at once - he's more the creative side than the administrative. He's just the public face of CGL in this mess, so he cops the blame I guess.

You are making mighty big assumptions about my opinions on this situation.

It doesn't change the facts (of which we have very few). The estimated value of Coleman's house being roughly equal to the alleged amount of missing money is not proof of anything. Its suspicious, yes, but not a "bulls eye". Which was my point (albeit poorly communicated, I will concede).

Edit: removed some needless snarkyness.

Well
1) This entire thread is speculation. The title.. as the previous 5 before it is CGL Speculation. Getting a bit pointed about speculation in a thread titled speculation is a bit strange

2) Buying a $650,000 house when you've withdrawn $725,000 out of your company's account does make your house a huge bullseye. Even if you use legitimate funds to do so. (( the 'you' being whom ever did it. Not YOU 'Method')) No one's going to belive it, because you're a theif that stole almost a million bucks from your company WHILE getting your $650,000 built. If you're stealing $725,000 from your company and you go and buy a $650,000 house... and suddenly you can't pay your writers. And people go "where's the money" and you go "Not sure. goin' home to my $650,000 house"...... lol I mean come on!

3) We've had evidence from not one but more than one source in these threads. We've got the public statement from the company itself saying these actions were done. We've got graphs put together by another owner of the company showing what was done. The money taken. How fast it was taken and draws of $10,000, $20,000 and $30,000 at a time to the tune of over seven hundred thousand dollars. With over half a million in the last year alone. We've got statements from workers stating they wer ordered to falsify documents and when said no, were told if they didn't feel right, they could quit. (( And yes I concider that forcing them out of the company.)).



I'm all for 'innocent till proven guilty' But if someone's peeing on my leg and tells me it's raining, I don't need it chemically analized to know it's pee. You're kinda acting like people are just makin' up dirt with out the 'proof' but we've not only got proof. We've got alot of proof. Proof we can point at and make our speculation based on.

Have you considered that people don't get to buy a house 10k 20k or 30k at a time or that you cannot enter into a contract to purchase a home until you show them that you have bank approved financing to pay for the house? Did he save up all those draws to buy it?

To be completely honest, I'm sick of defending reason and truth and having people assume I'm defending Loren C. Coleman. So whatever.

Have you considered that withdrawing 500K at once will raise red flags even with the most incompetent management, while a steady "trickle" will be less noticeable (and can be hidden as payments for other stuff more easily)?

Have you considered that you can very well get a loan first, then pay said loan off a little a time? That you might get said loan by referring to your part-ownership of a company with that kind of cash-flow, but not detailing how much of it is actually yours?

Have you considered that it's very, very unlikely for anyone to "accidentally" withdraw 500K in a year, 10 to 30K a time?

Have you considered that by always trying to get people to assume whatever is best for Coleman you appear to be defending him?

Have you considered that "While it looks really bad, there is still the (add a qualifier) possibility that it was like this (insert other explanation)" would make you sound more impartial?

My God you're right! Its almost like the situation is more complex than it appears!!

Thanks!

More complex? No. The situation appears like a textbook case of someone using company money for his own private devices, and exploiting poor accounting structures in said company to hide it.

With a lot of mental gymnastics you can try to make it appear more complex though - which is what a lawyer would likely do. Especially if he was defending or representing Coleman.

I find it ironic that any attempt I make to argue for objectivity (you know, like having all the facts before passing judgement) will only be misconstrued as bias because it doesn't fit your narrative. Its clear that you gentlemen have already passed judgement on Coleman (and anyone who appears to be defending him) so I don't see much point in continuing this discussion.

But for the record, I happen to think that he stole a fuck ton of money and should probably go to jail. The difference between us apparently is that I'm willing to acknowledge that my conclusions are based on conjecture, and to admit that I could very well be wrong. I also realize that loudly voicing my opinion doesn't change either of those conditions, or ultimately the outcome of this whole clown show. So I keep my personal opinions to myself.

So now that you know I agree with you, does that make me objective? Am I more fit to moderate? Nope. Turns out I'm still just human.

I would not say he stole the money. We do not know that. So, no, you do not agree with me.

What we know is that he co-mingled funds and withdrew over 700K from a company account. I don't know which, if any, crime that action would be judged as. That's a legal question, and I do not know if he comitted a crime. Hence I don't call him a thief, or the action theft.

But there is and remains the fact that he co-mingled funds, bought an expensive house and withdrew about 500K in one year while freelancers and other firms went unpaid. And that alone is, in my opinion, grounds enough to condemn his actions morally and ethically. The most logical conclusion is that he either knowingly withdrew more money than he had a right to - a lot more. A less logical conclusion is that really, he was so inept and incompetent that he managed to accidentally withdraw 500K in a year without realizing he had no right to it. Either way, keeping him in on the workforce is reckless, to say the least, and not a responsible business decision.

What he did was not right. What CGL did was not right. And CGL has to do a lot more than what they currently seem to be doing to make it right again.

The tone and content, at first blush, appeared to be partisan and to challenge the estimate of the buildings value.

If this was not your intent I apologize. Seriously, sorry. It was not my intent to be snarky or have a go at a mod.

I would prefer to stay on the fence in all this as it is forcing people to choose 'sides' and be mean to each other.




Another factual correction, sorry.

It is my understanding that the house in question is a self-build that has been constructed over the period of the dubious 'draws.'

In that circumstance, the pattern of draws is exactly what you would expect to see as individual contractors were paid for the work they were doing on the house as the construction gradually proceeded.

I might even go so far as to infer (or should I say deduce, not sure, I'll ask the wife later) from the evidence that Loren started building this house and at some stage a major piece of financing fell through and he was using the funds as a kind of 'bridging loan' until he could replace it and never could. He gradually dug himself deeper and deeper into a hole that he could never get out of.

That however is pure speculation on my part. Rings nicely true though.

How much of that 700K, though, was money that was either from his share of the profits of the company, his salary
for whatever it was he does in "strategic planning" and repayments of the loans that likely came out of his pocket to fund the company originally? How much money did Loren L Coleman DEPOSIT over those years into the company account. You will note that the anonymous informant does not put THAT information out. Why? Why are they not giving information that would tell us exactly how much of that money was actually not supposed to be Loren L. Coleman's?

Hypothetical Situation(I have no actual numbers to back this up, and am just offering a hypothetical here):What if, of that 700K, Coleman was entitled to, oh, lets just say a decent salary, 120K(40K per year), CGL owed him 200K for loans to the company when it was starting off and during the second year, and his share of the company profits was
100K, and, over the course of the year he took out 500K, he had deposited 150K. If one were to take these hypothetical numbers away from the 700K, we get:approximately 130K. Still a large chunk of change, sure.
But the side of the story that is given by our informant does not tell us how much IMR/CGL owed Coleman, or
how much he deposited for the company that year. It only shows his withdrawals. It only shows a third of the story.
Why? What is our informant trying to hide? What is he/she afraid of if he/she were to reveal everything he/she knows?
Being identified by people at CGL? Come on, they know who has access to that info, and likely already know who
the leak is. Being hunted down by Dumpshockers? Come on. DS might be a bunch of jerks at times, but DS is NOT
4CHAN. Losing their ability to manipulate and hurt CGL to try and leverage the license for themselves?CGL likely
already knows who they are, and so has likely passed that info onto TOPPS...In TOPPS shoes, I know I would not be inclined to give this person a license, as they obviously cannot be trusted.

You are aware that our "informant" is actually a co-owner of IMR, Ketjak

As far as we know he is Phil DeLuca - IMR LLC co-owner

Not really "anonymous" at all.

Ok, here goes my take.

I recently got a notice that the district I live in had assessed my house value at more than I had originally paid for it. So I hired not one but two different appraisers to see if my house had magically gone against local housing market trends. Imagine my surprise when both appraisers submitted to me that my house had LOST 27% of the value that I had paid for it four years ago.

That means, that the 30% I put down on the house has been reduced to a mere 3%. Fortunately, I knew the housing market was a bubble and bought a house far below what we could have afforded. Combined with a 15 year mortgage and low fixed interest rate, I will soldier on and wait for the market to come back.

So, the assessors valuation doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I might suggest that an interested person do a real estate search for houses that are for sale around Loren's and see just how many are for sale in that gated community.

I agree with Method. I haven't seen the books. I am not privy to where the money went. I don't know who did what. Some people have asserted that his wife participated, I don't know that. Others have asserted that Randall tried to cover it up. Again, we do not know that.

While this thread is for speculation, isn't there a small measure of responsibility to refrain from defamation of specific individuals?

Honestly, I have no idea. And I mean that in a very general sense. I have no idea what Randall Bills does. From what I've heard, he's much more active on the Battletech side of things, but in all my time writing for Shadowrun, I never even once had a conversation with the guy. If he's involved in the creative side of Shadowrun, it's at some high level of abstraction that the freelancers don't have much contact with.

Now, I'll admit that maybe the developers had a lot of creative contact with him. I don't know. But when I think of the "creative team" that I worked with on Shadowrun, Randall Bills was not part of it.

Well, Randall send me my checks.

As for freelancer payment in General: If RPG publishers would pay their authors/artists a "fair" amount of money (in comparison with, say, schoolbook authors/illustrators) YOU wouldn't be able to afford buying any SR books. Trust me. The amount of work/time that goes into any SR book is HUGE, even more than you may already think. In contrast, the number of copies is rather slim, so you can't spread the initial costs of writing/designing any book over 100,000 copies (unlike the next "combing you hair for dummies" book which may have 1/100 the amount of work put into it, but sells 200x as many copies).

Sure: authors and artists working in the RPG "industry" should earn more money. But: they never will. Because if they did, there would be no RPG industry.

As things are structured now, Randall is my boss. Both the Shadowrun and Battletech line developers report to him. Freelancers naturally would not have a lot of contact with him, as that would be unnecessarily messy. It's best for freelancers to have one point of contact.

As my immediate boss, Randall hears about the progress on projects and is the first one to see new project specs. That's where a lot of his input comes in, on the shape and nature of upcoming projects. I also have weekly production meetings with him and other staff to report on the progress of ongoing projects.

Randall is also a good man in a very, very difficult position. I've known him for a long time, and I have never known him to be anything less than honorable. I realize that other people believe differently, and that my opinion will likely carry little weight with them. But I hope they have people in their lives that they know well and have great respect for, and that they know those people well enough to keep that respect even when rumors and hearsay start to cast them in a bad light. If they do, they might understand my position better.

Jason H.

Phil has admitted he made the graphs but has denied sending them to anyone but the ownership and a couple of employees. IIRC, it was someone with the screen name DroogyDroog that posted them elsewhere.

He did confirm them on these very forums though, and added some more information that does not portray the other owners and especially coleman in a very favorable light, to say the least.

I don't think Phil was the original leak that Frank is protecting, as I recall he was quite annoyed that management had wrongly suspected that he was which is what resulted in him confirming some of what Frank had said.

As it was Phil and Frank's history that got Frank banned it doesn't strike me as likely that Phil was Frank's original source.

[/opinion]

I also do not think CGL is the victim of any conspiracy. If it is a victim at all it's of negligent managment, possibly nepotism.

Rumors and hearsay is one thing, yes. I don't believe that's what we're dealing with here anymore. By his own admission, Randall knows the true extant of Loren's activities and supports him anyway; I cannot stand such a position or respect the person that holds it. Maybe it's just that I never cared for Randall in our few, brief communications, but the man is a tool.

The latter part, that Randall supports keeping Loren in CGL is true, and his reasons for that are in the letter he sent out to freelancers. I would like to point out one thing that has not been mentioned about that letter--at one point Randall refers to the fact that he sees signs of repentance in Loren. One of those signs would necessarily be restitution. The nature of the restitution has not been made public (and I don't know it either), but I just wanted to point out that Randall believes it is happening, which is a factor in his staying on. Others may not believe it is happening, and I'm likely not going to change that belief, which is one reason I regularly suggest focusing on CGL's actions going forward. Lately, those actions have included significant payments to freelancers, and soon it will include books being unfrozen.

Jason H.

I'm not going to pretend I can change your mind on the subject either, but I'm also not going to let you piss on people and tell them it's raining.

Catalyst's "actions going forward" are the result of a long series of failing to do right thing. I'm not going to sit here and pretend everything is okay because IMR is finally fulfilling some of its obligations. 'Repentance' might be good enough for Randall, but that still doesn't explain why anyone at Catalyst would continue to trust Loren in any position in the company. As far as 'restitution' goes, even a conservative estimate of the amount of missing money is more than Loren can be reasonably expected to pay off or pay back in the short term.

I mean, let's look at what really brought us to the point that Catalyst finally started cutting checks: an admittance of "co-mingling of funds," a long-standing history of not paying freelancers, the fact that books had to be frozen in the first place because freelancers had not been paid, the loss of several key employees, two profitable properties (Eclipse Phase and CthulhuTech) splitting off, the leak of internal documents, and now a bankruptcy filing by some of the other creditors. All of which can be more or less directly considered the result of Loren's actions and Randall's acceptance. As strange and hectic as payments in the gaming industry are, this is literally what it took to get CGL to start doing what they should have been doing all along. That's not right.

If your friend is a drunk and he hurts you, then tells you he's sorry, you're allowed to forgive him. But see that he gets help, don't cry about it then drop him off at a bar. If he wants to make good on his mistakes, helping him do that is the honorable thing.

If Mr. Bills wants to be an honorable man, he needs to help Loren Coleman do the honorable thing and separate him from the company. That might be inconvenient for CGL, but I suspect it would go much further toward ensuring that there is something functional left of CGL come June. Either way it will be the right thing for Coleman, who needs help.

I don't believe I've ever said that what happened to get us to this point was right. I'm not happy that we're behind in our payments to freelancers. I'm not happy that we've lost WildFire and Posthuman. Serious mistakes were made, and no one is claiming otherwise. Again, Randall's letter explained a lot about why Loren remains with CGL--his industry knowledge and ability is considerable. Loren's problems came in on the money side, and so procedures on how money is accessed and accounted for have been changed.

The question, though, is what happens going forward. I can't change the past. Given that we are where we are, what needs to happen next? From my perspective, we need to pay freelancers, get published product moving, and get new product out. If I want freelancers to be paid, and if I want Shadowrun to be strong, those are the things that have to happen. That's what I am working on, and that's why I suggested the benchmarks that I did, so that people have concrete ways to see if CGL is doing what it takes to improve the situation. Is everything all better now? No, of course not--it takes time to repair the mistakes that were made. Steps in the right direction have been made, though, and I am working to help make sure more steps like that are taken.

Jason H.

See, I've got an inkling of the products in the work, and the people you have working on them, and the hack rush jobs being put out. At this point, I think the best thing for Shadowrun is to get it out of Catalyst - and your - hands.

I know you think that. You're entitled to your opinion. My benchmarks are for CGL working with Shadowrun, which is my perspective. If others would like to propose visible benchmarks for alternative plans for Shadowrun, they certainly may do so. As far as quality of the products go, I assume people would make decisions on that matter based on the products when they come out, which I believe is the most fair thing to do.

Jason H.

Wow this thread is starting to feel like I'm in the room while my parents fight. (People I respect with a difference of opinions, I'm in no way advocating a fist fight involving a trailer, a wife beater shirt and a case of cheap beer though.)

I was just wondering whats the status on the release of frozen products (Which I think at this point is what the fans want to know more then who did what to who and who's winning the pissing contest.) DotA2 in particular?

If, in your analogy, alcohol is company funds, we already know that policy has been put in place to limit his access to the hard stuff.

Some brass tacks questions for you, Jason.

- Is Catalyst Game Labs, based on the changes to their bookkeeping and financial processes going forward, prepared to promise that freelancers will be paid on time in the future? And by "on time" I mean in accordance with contracts issued in the future, which may have changed from past contract language based on this financial review. If not, is it because this process is still being reviewed?

- What is Catalyst's plan for replacing Adam Jury's layout work? I think fans and freelancers alike will generally agree that Adam moved the layout of Shadowrun books forward a great deal and I know I'm curious what CGL's plans are for handling book layout in the future.

I understand that you may not be able to address either of these questions but I figure it can't hurt to ask.

1) The intention is to pay freelancers on time. The future is variable enough that I can't guarantee that no issues will ever arise that will delay freelancer payments by some period of time. What I can say is this--with its history of delays, Catalyst has burned through a significant amount of trust with freelancers. Falling back into those patterns would use up any remaining trust and thus be a serious problem for the company. That can't happen if Catalyst wants to remain viable and continue producing work.

2) Adam was indeed instrumental in making current SR books look as wonderful as they do, so I'm hesitant to talk about "replacing" Adam, since that is so hard to do. What I can talk a little about is how layout will work going forward. Some of the books, including Corp Guide, the Dawn of the Artifacts series, and portions of the Sixth World Almanac, had already been assigned to freelance layout people before Adam left; these freelancers are continuing to work on those books, using the guidance Adam provided them. The lead layout person I will be using for SR work for the time being is Matt Heerdt, who has done a lot of BT layout and some SR work as well. On my shelf I've got a copy of Tactical Operations--Matt did some nice work on the fiction parts of that book. He also designed the Dawn of the Artifacts covers.

And to address Prime Mover's question: As far as I understand, we are waiting for all checks to clear before books are unfrozen. But they should be on the move shortly, and I'll be sure to make an announcement when that happens.

You know, putting a smiley at the end of that doesn't change the fact that was a pretty nasty thing to say.



Really? Then as one of those "people" I stand suitably insulted by your assertions.
For the record, the material that I was assigned had a very reasonable deadline.

Try not to take that statement personally. AH likes to play to the stereotype of the cranky old game designer. Compliments typically fall into the realm of "It's not how I'd do it but..."

How reasonable?
Weren't some of those books sceduled for kinda soon?

Yeah, except his most recent posts had nothing to do with his cranky old game designer persona (which still doesn't excuse poor behavior, or the passes that certain folks on this forum seem to get regarding behavior), and everything to do with his personal issues with Jason.

I'm glad to see DE, Ancient, and all the rest post. Unfortunately, I'm not so happy to see Ancient continuing the feud that has little to do with the current situation, doesn't bring anything but more acrimony (not at CGL, but to the forum, and its members, as a whole), and seemed to have finally petered off in the last thread. Apparently somebody thought the fire was running low on fuel.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I stepped forward once again (as I had previously worked on SR) for two reasons.

Produce product that can be sold so CGL can salvage the situation and pay what is owed.

A profound and enduring passion for Shadowrun. I only work on product lines that I love, there is simply not enough worthwhile creativity in me to work on something that doesn't consume me.

So there it is...my agenda, as it is.

As for Ancient History, he is entitled to think and say what he will. I can respond or opt not to as the mood strikes me.

Stahlseele...well I am not working on ALL of the books, only a small bit of one for right now. When I get that done if he has any more work for me and feels I have something to contribute I would be more than glad to do more.

I'd like to ask people to please consider their tone when talking about the freelancers working right now. In addition to the recent comments here, I've also seen the current freelancers called "monkeys" and other nastiness. This is not only rude (considering that in most cases you don't even know these people or their credentials), but it's also no way to motivate the writers who hold the future of Shadowrun in their hands.

EDIT: BlueMax made a good point - the GMs and players ARE the heart of the game, but there is no getting around the fact that the next books that come out will probably be the one's today's freelancers are working on. Like it or not, what the game is a year from now will be impacted by these people - better to encourage them than rip on them.

And please consider this. Whether you agree with their decision to continue working with CGL or not, there is only one reason these folks are writing - they love Shadowrun and they want to see great Shadowrun products get published. With all the trouble and CGL's past record (which I acknowledge they are working to fix - thanks, Jason!), the freelancers aren't doing this for the money. They're just trying to get good products out and hope that it ALSO turns into a pay check.

So while I know lots of people are stressed about this (I've played SR since '89 - I LOVE it - I'm worried too) please don't take it out on these folks. Not only are they doing this primarily because they love the game, but they're doing it for you and they're doing it under some tough time constraints.

Plus, as was pointed out elsewhere, someone who is new today might be the Mel Odom/Nigel Findley of tomorrow - judge Jason, the writers, and the editors on the final product and please show these people a bit of respect.

PS: I've got stuff in the CGL pipe, but I am not actively working on anything for CGL so I'm not saying this for my sake.

Wow. I've been able to read most of theses posts without an emotional reaction but it finally hit me.

The future of Shadowrun is in the hands of the GMs who run, or don't run , the game and the players who may or may not want to play it.
The future of the source material may be in the hands of the current freelancers and line developers.

Getting these confused is a disease which cripples the health of the Shadowrun community.

I think JM Hardy gets this and works hard to prevent the disease.

BlueMax

It has everything to do with the situation because what we care about, aside from hoping everyone that deserves to get paid, does so, is what happens to the Shadowrun game. Given AH's history and former position, it's impossible to not take his opinion seriously. And if he says he's worried about quality of upcoming products dropping, then we have an interest in that opinion. It speaks directly to exactly what we care about. And isn't it a valid concern? Several of the main creative people have vanished from the team and we know that the company is in financial trouble and thus presumably under fierce pressure to get product out of the door, asap. We know that goodly chunks of the work are having to be re-written because copyright has been withdrawn due to non-payment. That's plenty of reason for a intelligent person to be concerned. AH's comments have everything to do with the current situation. Ultimately, because he's talking about the quality of the product, they have a lot more to do with what we care about than other things in this thread.

K.

AH, I think you're letting your personal issues with Jason interfere with your logic. Few, if any, of those things can be pinned on Randall Bills' continued association with Loren L. Coleman. They're the direct result of a lack of funds, of which there's no [public] evidence that co-owners were aware before the recent audit. That's terrible business management, but it all took place before any "acceptance."

This has been hashed out several times already. Whether you agree or disagree with Randall Bills' motives, there's not a lot of choice in the matter. Loren L. Coleman is a major stakeholder in InMediaRes. He can't be easily dismissed or displaced. Any attempt to forcibly oust him or cut off his contact with day to day business operations would almost certainly have crippled the company, prevented timely repayment, and effectively destroyed any possibility of freelancer repayment. Randall, unlike Tiger Eyes or Adam, has to play the hand he's been dealt.

Do you seriously believe that Wildfire would have said "Sure, we know you're way behind on payments, but since you decided to have a massive internal ownership struggle that will probably destroy the company, we'll let you keep the license and wait awhile to see how things shake out ..." simply because the owners had moved to force Coleman out? That doesn't pass the sniff test.

@edit: Bill's -> Bills'. Doh.

Sorry. I have to agree with Dread Moores here. While I respect AH for his loyalty and dedication to SR and its community, his posts recently have seem to me to be more aggressive towards Jason and his capabilities as the SR Line Developer than the whole LLC/CGL situation. Bob Lord of Evil and any other SR freelancers on here currently working with Catalyst have every right to be insulted. While I am not a freelancer, I am a writer; and if anyone called my work "hack jobs", I would be seriously pissed off.