Yeah, one of those "leakers" is a part owner of IMR...

Frank went into this cock-up with an agenda. No one else had beef like that.

(relevant section bolded for emphasis) So, AH....can we have some links to the good information/rumours not from
IMR/CGL directly, but from our leaks?



I am sure you do, Mr. Hardy. The problem is that the people who are not as ethical as you are not doing their
part and leaking the good news. This is my issue: the Insider Info Leaks from CGL are only leaking the bad
stuff, like Coleman's draws(none of the debts CGL owed him from the start up, how much CGL is supposed to
be paying him for things like the office space, his share of profits, how many of those draws were to pay people
for stuff for CGL, etc). Their leaks are onesided, and painting things in the most damaging light possible, avoiding
anything that could put things into perspective, or in anyway be positive or hopeful.

Honestly, the only good news we have heard is from the statements from CGL. I wish we would hear more
from them.

Well, speaking only for myself I told everybody when I got paid for Vice. That was good news towards Vice going back on the market.

But from a selfish point of view makes my copy much less special


and I need all the special I can get


although seriously it was good to know that things are being paid for

I find the idea that IMR would suppress positive news not very convincing.

They don't suppress them, they only don't publish them. And why should IMR do so? Just to satisfy your curiousity?

Good PR.

Bear in mind, though, that any good lawyer will tell you to keep your mouth shut when you are involved in a lawsuit. Personally I think the whole situation is stupid and was avoidable, however I can't think too badly of Catalyst for laywering up. That's just prudence.

/Paul

As I said, there are things I can't speak of until they're confirmed--it simply would not be wise of me to do so. And there are times when speaking in more details about positive news would actually jeopardize the progress I would like to see happen. For example, if I were to reveal the names of the various industry people that Randall referred to in the letter to the freelancers, I'd be violating both the trust people put in me by letting me know those names and the trust those people put in CGL management by reaching out to them. That, in turn, could help turn a positive relationship into a negative one. Which would make that a stupid move by me.

Hypothetically, the same thing would be the case for negotiations about the renewal of the license. If I had some positive inside information and I let that information leak, Topps might not look too kindly on that sort of thing, and I'd be putting ongoing negotiations in jeopardy due to my lack of professionalism. Those who want CGL to survive, continue publishing material, and pay off existing debt have no desire to leak things that could short-circuit positive developments and keep them from eventually coming to full fruition.

Jason H.

There are lots of reasons to do this. What if some heroic investor is swooping in from the sidelines to pay off any debts and save the company? Even if they were deep into negotiations and everyone was 99.999% sure it would go through, this isn't something they would tell us until it happens - which would be the "suppression of good news." So there very easily could be good news out there that we don't know about.

At the same time, belittling "leakers" for failing to provide ammunition for people with a different agenda doesn't seem particularly logical. It might be frustrating for folks who want a two-sided inside scoop, but why would you expect anything different?

It's not like it really matters if positive news is leaked anyhow. It's all rumor and speculation. The only thing that really matters is what IMR does. Paying their debts and staying in business is more significant than feeding the rumor mill good or bad information.

I think their responses to various rumors have managed to be measured and appropriate. It's better to prove someone wrong with reality than with unverifiable claims.

On the flip side, if they did leak a bunch of 'good' information, it wouldn't matter much if they then closed up.

Enjoy the spectacle, but realize it could be weeks or even months before the situation resolves.

While I'm at it, on a slightly tangential note, has there been any further movement with the bankruptcy filing? Has anyone else signed on, or has IMR responded yet?

As of today, no. Currently PACER says its waiting for IMR/their lawyer to respond, which they have until about next week to do.

Nobody expects them to. However, nobody should claim they are telling the whole story either.

Going in assuming no one is telling the full story is usually a good policy.

Of course.

I fully agree that people should take unsubstantiated information with a grain of salt and assume still that they are never getting the whole truth. However I find it hard to swallow that the parties involved, including those that have stated a bias against IMR, would be withholding positive information. Or could for that matter. It's more logical to me to assume that there just isn't that much to be had. Maybe that's naive, but I think it's more realistic than assuming that IMR is just keeping quiet about the 11th hour investor that they secured. Especially given the accusations and revelations, who would want to see their money disappear into this mess?

Well, there is a new bit of positive information, posted to the official Shadowrun site and Twitter. All previously frozen Shadowrun books are back on sale.

You ever heared of this strange place called "Wall Street"? For some reason, despite it burning money in truly epic proportions and being a den of crooks and thieves, people continue to throw money at it. Weird, huh. Shouldn't hapen, by your reasoning.


Why? If someone thinks CGL looking like crap to the public would serve their interests, to try and sway Topps away from them or to work out grudges or whatever end, be publishing positive information?

Also, all checks paid out and the books seem to have been released, so ... I guess that counts as good and might have been one of the things Jason Hardy did not want to elaborate on before it's done?

<shrug> If it makes anyone feel any better, I wouldn't take the release of e-novels as a great sign and I sorta personally question Jason's assertion that the other books are unfrozen. I know for a fact that the former is little more than a desperate money-grabbing scheme (albeit a desperate money-grabbing scheme that has been in the works for quite some time, though I think they hoped to get the books actually paper-published when I was on board). As to the latter, I had talked to some people last week that had either difficulties receiving their checks or had refused to cash them (and so still hold the copyright); those conditions might have changed, but otherwise I don't think you'd be seeing Midnight unfrozen.

Of course the Findley books are a money grabbing scheme. It also, however, finally is searchable SR books. I have been waiting for this for some time, and unlike sourcebooks/rules books, it's hard to find that ... elsewhere (and even those usually are scanned images, not searchable, which is the one feature I love about .pdf). I'd hope formore, once I find out if I can use them as I want to.

I'd be surprised if CGL would just release these books if they hadn't clearance from all rights withholders ... might well be utter desperation, but then again, it might not.

Also, in selfish and unrelated news, the Paranormals of North America download is damaged and right now I am sort of pissed.

I got the Paranormal Animals just fine

I got a zipped file, and if I try and unpack it, I get an error message that this file is damaged. Am I doing it wrong somehow?

Maybe the transfer was bad. You can always try downloading it again or even repairing the zip file. It could be something as simple as a corrupted header.

What program are you using? That might be your problem.

My understanding is the books are in .rar format. A freeware program called 7-zip should extract it just fine.

The releases that showed up yesterday surprised me. They came out of left field. Any idea what prompted the releases of these books?

They're dying and desperate for cash? It's a lot easier to publish some e-books that have already been written than any sort of print publication. Hell, I'm not entirely sure how they pay royalties on the novels for those things, if they do.

I believe all novel contracts include a royalty provision. Mine do. It is standard for the novel publishing side of things, the theory being that you get less on the front end and potentially more on the back end. I also received royalties on foreign editions of my novels.

Just an FYI.

Edit: Oh, and small press publishers of pretty much all types are always desperate for cash.

TomD

Yeah, I understand investment bankers are about as popular as CGL right now. Theft is theft though, and I hope all parties see justice served. As to investing still happening? As long as there are people who don't understand the whole story, there will always be someone to bilk for cash. In your example it would be investors that trusted a manager to invest their money wisely and were instead steered into ruin by a system that got gamed by some crooked fuckers. No better way to say it really. Some crooked fuckers who raided our economy.

The IMR situation is different as anyone who is coming in with the assumption that their investment is going to anything other than paying bills and cushioning IMRs fall had better be willing to throw in a lot of cash if they want to see the company righted and their investment returned. The people who have that type of cash, I'm guessing are smart enough to see what's going on and aren't interested in investing as an opportunity. If they do it's a rich uncle situation and the chance of that happening now are... yeah, not really likely at all. But if it's someone who is, say, sinking their life savings or retirement into saving IMR... that's worse because they aren't going to see that money come back. That's a crime more on the level of wall street, just scaled down. That would be a real tragedy and I hope that Cloeman or anyone else involved would have the decency to steer someone clear if they were willing to do that.



My point was more that the information would be made available regardless. If only anti-IMR sources are leaking information, then I'm willing to assume that there is only anti-IMR information to leak. I'm sure pro-IMR sources would leak if they could. Jason is the major mouthpiece for that here, and I'm afraid that hearing that CGL is now able to sell books that they had already sold, then pulled, but failed to pull, now are selling again... Well, I'm glad to hear that the freelancers were paid (at least, I hope they were) but what we're seeing here isn't very hopeful. If this is the positive, pro-IMR info that Jason was alluding to I'm disappointed. It's shocking I know, but IMR really has to step up.

I want to be a rabid SR fan boy again. But it's going to take more than this. I don't think CGL has what it takes anymore, or they would have already done it.

But you can believe what you want.

Okay, but these books seemed kinda random, and I don't remember seeing any PR about backlist titles coming back. Of course, the author is dead, which makes these releases even more macabre.

The Findley Omnibus has been in the works for some considerable time; and really as far as I know the bulk of the gruntwork with getting the words off the paper and into a text file for editing had been accomplished before I left. Hell, I vaguely recall seeing a cover illustration at one point. So the fact that the Findley books are ready for sale now is not unbelievable or even rushed. The timing of it I surmise has to do with trying to make some short-term cash, otherwise they might have tried to announce them at GenCon or something.

Also, in regards to a comment I made a few posts ago, the person I thought had returned their check ended up cashing it. So, bit of foot-in-mouth there. I'm still not sure about the artists and editors, but I think most of the writers have been paid at this point, for SR at least, for most books. Not sure about Seattle 2072.

I have no idea what prompted the release of these books but it's a good idea to make these available.
The novels and tartet UCAS are those that are important to the history of the setting.
Predator and prey has adventures that are easily ported to SR4 to be used with the, now available, Runing Wild.

I'm happy.

I agree. This was a good choice on CGL's part.

The way I understand it, there is a whole branch of the financial industry dedicated to exactly that kind of investment, on the chance they can turn things around (or burn and loot the companies they were to save if things are too dire).

You're looking at this from too much a normal person perspective. It's impossible to think like financers unless you're high on cocaine.


That's a weird assumption, because business does not work like a Forum discussion or the blogging subculture. Businesses always tend to keep things covered until everything is finalised, unlike the anti-IMR crowd who engage more in a blogger-style rumor mongering. No offense to him personally intended, but see Ancient's being mistaken about someone returning a cheque. Thumbs up for his correcting himself though; I kind of have a hard time imagining Frank doing so - my point being, had Ancient played things like CGL does, he'd not have said anything other than vague 'it might be they'Re paid or it might not, I won't say until I have verified everything' kinds of things instead of ''. Two valid, but fundamentally different ways of dealing with PR.


A Shadowrun fanboy or a CGL fanboy?

Also, you seem to underestimate the time negotiations in business thake. Not saying all is good at all, don't mistakeme, but being all gloom and doom because CGL doesn't blog it's internal procedures and negotiations is a mistake, IMO.

What really would interest me would be which other parties are bidding for the license with Topps, and whether Pegasus is among them (and if they are whether they have any plans to rename themselves to Peryton ).

Me, I'm not a rabid shadowrun fan anymore ever since reading Corp Enclaves and Emergence, but I differ between the intellectual property and it's current publisher. I'm indifferent to IMR, myself.

If in any way, shape or form I gave you the impression that I felt that you had resigned for a silly reason, you have my apology.

I was attempting to demonstrate that it is possible for two people to have a different interpretation on a rule/practice/policy/legislation/etc.. without there necessarily being any illegalities involved, even if personal ethics were involved.

Whole bunch of baseless speculation, cool. I would not presume the motivations and intelligence level of investors in fact I tend to assume in most cases that those who have significant amounts more money then me, at least more disposable money, are smarter then me. It doesn't always hold but it's a good assumption in many cases. Point of fact however making loans to help an otherwise salvageable company repay debts does make a lot of sense financially and can lead to high profits over time as you can essentially set your own terms. Frankly I'm surprised at your level of marketing expertise on the internals of IMR to my knowledge all you've got is access to the same graphs the rest of us have Tiger Eyes excluded of course.


Again your theory flies blatantly in the face of displayed behavior, Frank and AH were the primary mouthpieces for leaked information, both have an avowed agenda that has colored their posting style. Both have corrected themselves when called on certian matters to their credit but I think it's safe to say that there arn't "Pro-IMR" leakers, their a business they put out a press release when they have something solid to report.



What amuses me is you keep making statements like this as if they were a revelation just reached based on data taken this morning and not a position you've held since at least thread 1. Personally I've already filed you in the same camp as Fuchs, AH, and Frank nothing wrong with that perse but you keep pretending like your transitioning from on the fence to a new position.

Tweak: Prior to this mess and some of the shakeups both in personnel and business offices (which makes sense if Coleman is being isolated from the day to day and more oversight is being given) older books and fiction reprints were either in the process of getting released on a semi regular basis or were a rumor, it is possible even entirely understandable that the company is working to generate revenue, however I wouldn't characterize this as a spur deicision.

Definitely true. I think it's 18 novels released to date on Battlecorps. (All on the Battletech side, up until the Findley releases). However, these are the first released in epub/azw format, rather than the EARC the rest were released in.

Not sure if this is coming from my post, but that was purely hypothetical. I'm not trying to start a rumor that there is an 11th hour investor. I'm just a freelancer - they don't tell me that stuff. I was simply pointing out that, as an example of secret good news, negotiations with a potential investor would be kept quiet until they were finalized. This is standard business practice. IF something LIKE this were happening, no matter how desperately CGL might want to talk about something like this, they couldn't - not without destroying the negotiations. Jason posted just as I was writing and his post nails it - read that one. The thing is, the leakers have the luxury of a) not caring if what they leak hurts the business and b) no obligation to keep anything secret. CGL, however, DOES care if what they announce hurts them and DO have legal obligations to keep certain things secret. Long story short, it isn't at all unreasonable to suggest that there might be good news you're not hearing.

Remember when people were asking for good news from Jason and someone else said it would get twisted anyhow? So here comes some good news (book releases) and...wait for it...it's a money making scheme!

Getting back into the fiction game is something CGL has been talking about for a long time now - this isn't a surprise, a last minute effort, or a scheme of any kind - unless you call a long term business plan designed to turn a profit a "scheme." Furthermore, these books (Findley and PDFs alike) aren't a sudden development - these are some of those "good things" which, for business reasons, no one can tell you about until they go live.

I realize that the past events have everyone feeling suspicious, and I understand that there is plenty that was done wrong, but automatically assuming the worst - even of good news - with absolutely zero background information doesn't help anything. There is enough real trouble here without people manufacturing additional problems.

Saying it's an arm is pushing it, the tools were there and someone exploited them. It's more gaming the system and less a system within the system built with the intent of exploitation. Of course it's hard to tell the difference once the trail is blazed.



I would contend that IMR has not worked very much like a business. To be in a situation where your personal information has become so public requires some serious missteps in addition to the out right theft. People in this thread have talked about the unprofessional way that IMR has approached NDAs and contracts up to this point. While I expect that a clamp down will get some of that behind them I'm not sure things are totally air tight yet. That leaves open the ability for information to leak.

And I don't know if you know anything about plumbing or information management during a crisis, but the parallels in the term leak are very appropriate.



Shadowrun fan. I have been for years and I was very happy with SR4 up to this point. I saw it as a real Renaissance for the setting, and now I've watched the last architects of that shift leave.

I'm interested in people angling for the license too. Go back and few pages and check out my post about Topps and possible bidders bidders.

The independently wealthy people I know tend to be very book smart. That is to say that they know a lot of things, but not always how all those things work together. They tend to understand how the things they know about money and business work, and they use that to run businesses and make money. I wouldn't really call them any more or less intelligent than the people I know who are on welfare. There are just some different things that those people understand and they live their lives in a different way. There are benefits to both being rich and being poor, even if our society tends to favor one over the other. I am not myself rich, but I am happy; and I'm not really worried about being intelligent.

You're example about investing does hinge on the assumption that IMR is salvageable. While with enough money any company can be considered salvageable to some degree, I was pointing out that I did not believe the smaller investor would ever see a return if they were to invest in IMR now. You are correct that I do not have direct access to current financial data, but this is a speculation thread. To that end though, my guess is an educated one considering the data that was recently leaked and IMRs inability to meet a robust publishing schedule over the last few years.

It makes sense that if they could have published their more recent books in a timely manner they would have. Leaving a book in dev hell for years is a waste of money, yet Corp Guide isn't published. I have yet to see real action from IMR toward a resolution to the problems that I have identified, recent rumors excluded.



You're right, I don't think there are enough people left at IMR to leak pro-IMR information. But like I mentioned above, a leak is the type of thing that tends to get everywhere, hence the analogy to plumbing. IMR has had some pretty bad plumbing up until recently, in this case the level of professionalism they took with internal documents and bookkeeping, and I hope they have figured out how to fix that because it's necessary and should have been done long ago. It's what a business has to do to continue being a business. I'm simply stating that I don't believe that Frank and AH call each other up and talk about the information that they aren't going to leak. Sitting back and assuming that there must be pro-IMR news in equal or greater measure to the leaks is foolish. IF there was there would be no reason to hide it. Why let your good name became so damaged if you could explain away the accusations? More likely there isn't a silver bullet and IMR really is in freefall.

There are a lot of parties that are biased one way or the other in regards to IMR keeping the license. But where as the anti-IMR side can point to delays and spreadsheets, the pro-IMR side seems to think that it helps to pick at the details or that there is some weight to saying "Wait and see".



I'm glad I amuse you, I'm having my say here; the same as you. And yes, I would call that excellent company.

If it makes you feel any better I've filed you away as well. You have a horse in this race, and I'm sure you'd like to get a paycheck eventually. So I can understand your optimism, even if I question your logic and motivation.

As to my style of posting, maybe that's my optimism showing. I come back here each day hoping to see some new info and I like to think that I'm open to any new information. That's because I love this game and it's setting as much as I hope you do. For the sake of people like you, and Jason and everyone still on the books at IMR, I hope that things get resolved soon. Either IMR starts making money or they throw in the towel. I don't really expect to see anything yet, as I've stated, but I hope. My perfect outcome is no doubt very different than yours, but I don't wish you or anyone at IMR ill will. Just that justice is served and the line continues with care and quality for another 20 years.

I feel like this thread is a horse that has been beaten to death and then bound into a tortured existence as a cyberzombie horse so that it can be beaten for eternity.

I'm just waiting to hear what happens with the license, myself.

Of curse it is. That's what business is all about? Besides, it's a scheme I appreciate, as I have wanted that stuff as a file for a long time, so I don't really see the problem in saying so. CGL is doing what it ought to do, and I am doing what a consumer ought to.


Gaming the system is what white collar crime is all about? Though with banking, the line where law ends and crime beigins has blurred far too much. That line needs a thorough redrawing and a few example punishments to rein the entire industry in. However, nothing that went down at CGL is anywhere near as bad as what many banks consider business as usual.


1) What theft? It has been said time and again the withdrawals are RAW withdrawals and respond to ANY movement on his own account Loren L.Coleman made. There was neglect, possible tax evasion and it is an exemplary case in how NOT to run an LLC, making literally any mistake that web site above warns about, but there never was outright theft.
2) Treating freelancers like crap is an industry standard, apparently, only most freelancers shut up about it. It's surely a bad practice, but then again, abuse of employees is hardly unheared of in the past as well as the present (hello, Golden Arches).
3) CGL hasn't acted like an ideally managed, perfect business, true, but which corporation does? In light of Wall Street (again), I wonder where you get your ideas what constitutes something being run 'like a proper business' from. They left out bribing, for all we know, but I'm not gonna hold that against CGL.


You mean you stuff it, shut it up, and replace the leaking part?

The electric horse: it gets beaten so we don't have to!
Let it show you an eternal trail of sunsets. Let the horse save you.

I think we agree about how bad the banking system is.

1) If you have an agreement to pay a certain amount of money and you fail to do that, it's a breach of contract. If you can't pay the money because someone has taken it out of the company, I would call that theft.

2) Please don't apologize for IMRs bad behavior. There is no excuse for it and if a freelancer is willing to cut their employer some slack because they love what they do, there should not be someone explaining why the company is within it's rights to abuse them. A company should always be making an effort to be a better company and that means standing by their employees, because what is a company if not their employees? Yes, there are no perfect companies, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

3) Maybe I'm bias because the company I work has standards. Paperwork is done and managed. It can be referenced and parties can be held liable. We pay to have a company audit us every year to make sure that we are doing what we say we do. That type of thing is baseline when you're a business. It's the support structure that allows you to do the work that makes the money. You can get by without it if you're small, but if you want to grow you have to build the framework.
That said I am awful at building that frame work and much more prefer working within it. It does get in the way sometimes, but the test of a good organization is making sure you don't weaken your framework while you grow, as well as managing and recovering from breaks.

I mean that intentions factor in very little. If it gets anywhere, it gets everywhere.

Based on what your desired outcome of the company folding?

I'm not going to touch the eudcated word but frankly I think you very much overstate the quality of your advice or assumption.


I forget which publisher do you work for? What unique insider insights do you have? Yes I'd like to see Corp Guide and 6WA published as much as anyone but acting like your opinion has been changed because the company you have professed wanting to see go down hasn't held themselves accountable to you published a book they've not released a street date for is hardly grounds for alarm.




Let me be absolutely wonderfully perfectly offensively clear on this point which is my personal opinion shaped by life experiences etc. Leaking confidential documents which you have no right to do so into the public domain on a forum is not an ethical or morally defensible, regardless of the status of NDA's or the supposed justification of the parties involved those who have chosen to leak those documents, In this case with the exception of an owner choosing to do so (not proven but possible) it comes down to an individual lack of credibility and ethics. Now it is possible even probable that some felt they had no other recourse, but that's not actually functionally true. It might be excusable if a minimum necessary pass around was done to make a good faiith effort to right a wrong or if the wrongs committed were so great. For me at least that standard tends to start at murder, for others it's different.

So in short, just because there are those in IMR/CGL who believe in keeping confidential information they are entrusted with *gasp* confidential does not mean positive things are not happening. Further to suspect those who who have already shown questionable moral judgment might be selectively filtering information or that their sources might have been closed off as the company responds to the level of leaks is not all that far fetched.



Well details are important and addressing factional inaccuracies is what you tend to do in an argument if you don't feel comfortable dressing up whole fabrication or blind speculation as events that are occurring. I will also at this point address that the only new information over the past two or three weeks and what 5 or 6 threads has been essentially, whole bunch of bad news drops, announcements that steps are being taken, announcements of legal filing and then response to same and then things getting back to normal but those steps being attacked as "schemes" or whatever. THe "anti" camp is quickly running out of lines, wait and see isn't perfect but it's functionally accurate as we all await the deadline.





I'm going to address this bit just so all facts are straight and all cards are on the table, wearing biases on our sleeves as AH likes to say. Maybe this will help you understand my motivation and logic better. Before I could get theoretically paid I'll need to finish and submit my work, but even when I do that the amount I'm been quoted (as a missions freelancer) is of such a small amount to approach irrelevancy in comparison to my day job especially considering the time I'm putting in to the project. But then again I'm not writing books only splats for other folks to use and enjoy, and to be quite frank, it's work I've done for free on other game lines that I've frankly liked less then shadowrun. And it's similar work to what Knasser has done that i've benefited from. So yes in a sense this is a unique opportunity I'm jumping at with gusto to write even tangentially for SR, it's a pretty cool thing to happen to a fanboy. But that does not have much to do with my feelings for CGL or my bafflement over the vitriol of the opposition. Honestly my main concern in the near term for this whole mess is how it will affect my con plans in the short term and how it will affect SRM in the mid to long term, the more pressing over that is the questionable status a regime change will put the SR line into. In closing a paycheck doesn't even come into the calculations.


I can get behind this sentiment entirely and most of the rest of the paragraph as well. I just think we have a different sense of justice and ends justify the means.

I look at the sky and call it fluorescent green. Does it change color and staert to glow?

Sorry, what you say is a lot of things, but certainly not theft. Theft would be if CGL picked a freelancer's pockets and took their cheques.


I don't. Singling them out for a general practice in the business isn't very fair either - it's bad practice, but it isn't a bad practice CGL is the only guilty party of, and that makes any calls for boycott bigoted at best, unless you boycott the entire gaming industry. It gets even stranger when comparing them to the good old days of FASA (who did that too) and FanPro (who died, leaving a load of bills never, ever to be paid). If CGL goes down now, btw, the debtors get jack shit. If for nothing else, you should hope for their sake that CGL stays in business for a while longer; those who'd rather see them die yesterday obviously do not have owed money on their mind, but something else (either because they have written off their money or because they could care less).


May I ask where you're from and what - roughly - the size of your company is?

It's not in the least a standard in business according to my experiences. I knbow a couple companies that have done far worse things than CGL, where I can actuially see a good part of the issues cvoming from neglect, a lack of proper separation of company and private funds, and a lack of control over and self-control exercised by Loren L.Coleman.

And I assume CGL, being a business that grew out of a hobby group, never started out with a good company structure and never has had any coherent growth strategy. Bad, bad, horrible management, but the current making Coleman some sort of new Madoff gives the man's planning capabilities way too much credit, IMO. And as you said correctly, setting such a framework up is a lot more work than working with it. What if nobody at IMR is any different from you? Of course, I may well be wrong and cutting the man too much slack.


Only transporting what the pipe is fed, though, which is my point. I am not saying Frank or AH would hold positive stuff back (I've seen this with Ancient, and have read Frank did that too, though that surprises me a bit, to be honest). I'm more thinking of their sources. Who's to tell their motives and whether they'd like to see positive stuff leaked?

In Soviet Russia, electric horse makes origami of you!

So you're saying that it should take years for IMR to publish a book? That you expect that to be sustainable going forward? Or are you attacking what I said because you disagree with me? I don't recall claiming industry knowledge, but I see you did below; so you must be right. Me, I'm just here to speculate.

You missed the point again. Going back, my original issue was with the idea that only anti-IMR information would leak through anti-IMR sources, that there could be the necessary amount of organization on the part of those parties, and that by extension there must be a reservoir of pro-IMR info we aren't privy too so everyone should just assume that IMR will be publishing Shadowrun in perpetuity.
I disagree with you about leaking info, though. And not just because I found it interesting. When I first heard about it, some very talented people still worked for IMR and I was afraid the company would loose the license. Things have changed and I now find myself on the side of the people who made the game what it is rather than those that still hold the license. If a company is unwilling to take the steps to make sure that what they want to keep under wraps is under wraps, they have only themselves to blame though. It might be unprofessional to maliciously leak documents that you are aware were not intended to be public, but I wouldn't bring morals into it. You might be unhappy with how things went, but I'd hope if you knew of a potential crime being committed you would speak up. I really don't think the people who have been paid would have if this hadn't become the issue that it has. That's speculation, but again, this is a speculation thread. Take it or leave it; but please be civil.

I was with you up until the normal part; and sure, life surprises me everyday. Check out the credits in your Shadowrun books and tell me if you can call the current operations at IMR normal. You might call things stable, but normal is yet to be established. We still need to see what kind of books the new IMR is going to put out, if they continue to hold the license.

I thank you for laying out your position, but you dodged the question a bit. You didn't mention why you were so positive about IMR. Like I mentioned, I can point to the leaks to explain why I'm so vitriolically bitter. But why are you so caustically upbeat? You assuming they are completely baseless, right? What have you seen in IMR that makes you think they have the right vision and direction for Shadowrun?

Welcome to Dumpshock. Here's your pre-beaten Cyberzombie Horse, and a wooden Frat Paddle to beat it with whenever you get bored.



So, ummm... Hey, I got my LE in today! So that's something...

Bull

I just hold that no one gets a pass for bad behavior. If you screw up, fine; own up and make good. If that's not how the industry works, the industry needs to change. I might be too idealistic to make it in publishing though, so it's a good thing I'm not in publishing.

Without going into particulars, I work for a church based 501c3 non profit. Our organization has over 150 employees and I am part of the admin department which is about a 10th of that. Last look we were worth several million dollars. It is our mission to be proper stewards of the reasources given to us, and see that it is cared for and grows while going to help those that are less fortunate than us. Sounds like PR, but I'm one of those people who really believes in what we do. As a charity, less than 11 cents on the dollar of every donation goes to run the company, the rest goes directly into programs that impact people. That's pretty good I'm told.
We have accountants and managers just like every other company. Sometimes we meet our expectations, sometimes we don't. But our leadership makes sure to learn from our mistakes and improve, and our board holds them to it. We've been around for over 100 years now, so we must be doing something right.
I'm in IT, but the on site helpdesk side more than the server hermit side. I get to see the sausage being made at admin and the people coming in out of the cold for a meal. It's been a very rewarding experience and has shown me the value of good business framework. I'm told we're sort of forward in that department compared with some other organizations in our space. I know I've helped a few work out IT issues because the better they help others, the more people get helped at all.

It's true, if the pipe ain't leaking there won't be any water on the floor. Like you said, I think it speaks more to the situation at IMR than the people reporting the leaks.