Correct me if I'm wrong, but both Peter and Jason left quite a while before this current mess, didn't they? I'm not sure it's really fair to consider them core freelancers if they've left well before this, seeing as they would have been replaced already on the products that have come out since that time.

Personal attack is against the ToS

If it's at all indicative of the delays in the project schedule, Corp Guide was originally Synner's book.

That depends on how long the planning period for products is.

Edit: AH was faster and more informative.

Ouch. That's very not good.

No offense is intended to either Jason or Peter, I just have a crappy memory anymore. Thanks for the info though, Ancient.

Well, that certainly is true if you include all of us still owed by FanPro.

Vice and Corporate Guide were indeed my final projects for Catalyst as developer and both were delivered for editing and layout in April 2009, a month after I officially stepped down. They were 2 of 5 projects I left in the final stages of the production pipeline, of which 2 remain to be released.

Though I continue to love and work on stuff in my spare time, I have not actively contributed as a freelancer (at least, for the English line) since leaving Catalyst for both personal and professional reasons. I don't feel comfortable talking about either on this thread.


Having written more than 10000 words for SR4A alone (including a short story), drafted and (re)written entire chapters for every book in the Shadowrun 4 line released to date except the original corebook, and with credits as author, artist, editor, assistant developer, or developer in every Shadowrun release since Dragons of the Sixth World, I would still presume to call myself a "core freelancer".

I very much doubt it.

We (BT freelancers) have largely stayed quiet on this. Call it professionalism, call it misplaced loyalty, call it ambivalence - whatever. And the BT community (official or otherwise) on the whole seems to have taken the same attitude.

One thing I will note is Topps requirement to change the WizKids logo to the Topps logo - seeing as this is can really only be applied to new products (I doubt Matt Heerdt and Ray Arrastia are changing the logo on every PDF in the BattleShop), it's an indication at the very least that Topps is seriously considering the renewal.

Some of those books have taken, or are taking, a long time to come out then. That doesn't look good for other products in the pipeline.

In regards to the BT forums, no, even if you frequent those forums, you're not going to find freelancers talking about what they are owed. The BT freelancers largely seem to have closed ranks (at least publicly) and also anything regarding numbers/figures is typically removed by the mods (either due to no backing proof or inappropriate for public consumption, as I recall). So don't go looking there for any more information on that.

Pretty much the same for Wildfire. The Ctech boards have yet to even comment on the lawsuit existing, and as far as I remember, there's not even a press release regarding the lawsuit. That's probably a wise move in both cases.

If that info is being leaked, that's certainly possible, considering some of the other leaks that existed in this whole situation. But I'm pretty sure that info isn't coming from either of those two forums.

Like I said above, no disrespect was intended. I just honestly couldn't remember when you left. I guess for some reason, I had it stuck in my head that you and Jason left around the same time, which was way early on in the SR4 development. I'm just getting old and forgetful.

I wasn't trying to imply you were never a core freelancer (however that's defined, really it just seems like a weird thing to differentiate to me) or weren't obviously integral. I just don't always remember who did what and when, so I mistakenly assumed that you had left earlier, hence not writing as much for SR4 and subsequently being replaced earlier. My apologies on the mistake, and proving the whole assumption bit true on my end.

Two quick things:



Drafts did in fact leak out. I find it odd to refer to "paranoia" in a situation where leaks are actively happening.



This is incorrect. When I contacted people, the only actions I advised were communication with the fan base about the situation. I have never advocated that management take a specific action against anyone, including the person who told me about the co-mingling.

Jason H.

I'm just going to comment on the few parts that I'm qualified to comment on.



Eight years of writing for the RPG industry has made me less forgiving of it, not more. The bar has gotten higher, so to speak. IMR, as it exists currently, is at best a disorganized mess that can hardly call itself a business. At worst, it is a sham built around filling Loren L. Coleman's pocket. The truth may be somewhere in the middle, but that's still not a company I would want to work for. I like my name to be on things that I'm proud of.

I generally don't like burning bridges and unlike Frank and some others, my agenda isn't to drive IMR into the ground. My agenda, as honestly as I can state it, is for Shadowrun to be in the hands of a publisher who is respectful of its staff and freelance employees and honest with its customers. Could IMR be that publisher? I suppose anything is possible, but right now they would have a long way to go to reach that point. And as I've stated before, I've seen a lot of emergency measures so far, but I can't pin down anything substantial on future changes to IMR. Right now I don't know what the future will bring for Shadowrun, but I'll just wait and see.



True, we left before this mess, though I consider this current mess connected to the problems I dealt with back in 2008. Whether I'm a core freelancer or not depends on your definition of "core", I guess. All I can really say is that I was prolific freelancer and a long-term freelancer, with a lot of word count and book credits with Shadowrun.

Considering I've been talking with the people on the other side of the issue, who don't particularly appreciate the lack of trust shown in them by your actions, I think you're probably not delusional about it but you are paranoid about it.


<shrug> Your word against theirs - and I trust them more.

Well, my last work with Catalyst was August of 2008, when I sent an e-mail to John Dunn, Peter Taylor, David Stansel-Garner, and Randall Bills telling Catalyst to take me off the Manhattan e-book project and not use any of the drafts I'd given them, because three previous e-mails from me asking for my contract hadn't resulted in me actually getting a contract to sign. John was pressuring me to turn in Manhattan e-book drafts because he was apparently being pressured from above, but I wasn't about to turn in material without signing anything, and I told them as much. To be fair to John and Peter, both of them did reply to me and did try to pass my concerns up the chain, where they apparently fell on deaf ears.

But my access to the freelancer forums, and I guess my status as a freelancer with them, was revoked the same day that Peter's time as line developer ended, in April of 2009. I didn't get any warning that they were removing my freelancer forum access and apparently Peter didn't get any warning they were removing it either, from conversations I had with him that very day. I still don't know why exactly I was removed. I guess maybe because I hadn't written anything for them in six months or so, but I had still stayed very involved on the freelancer forums with feedback and draft commenting until I found I could no longer log into them.

Again, like with Synner, my apologies. It's bad phrasing on my part. I wasn't attempting to imply neither of your work was unimportant, simply that I had thought (mistakenly) that the timing was separated by quite a bit. Meaning it seemed like you and Synner were being lumped in as leaving with some of those other recent folks, as part of the most recent issues. That's all I was trying to point. Clearly I did that badly.

Now how far back these issues go, and if they are all more of one big interconnected mess? It certainly begins to look that way, but that's just opinion from these biased eyes.

A few years by most accounts. Back to FanPro's days by some accounts.

You know, I was thinking about this as I was putting laundry in a drier, and I was perhaps a tad too absolute. I did ask for one freelancer to be removed from the forums, as has been discussed often--I consider that an action I took, but given that other people had the passwords necessary to administer to forums, I had to ask other people to do it, so in that sense, I did ask management to take action against someone. Also, a bit after things broke, I recommended that people who were no longer employees be removed from the board for employees, which seemed like common sense to me (and not really "against" them, since the people had resigned).

As far as the person who told me about the co-mingling, though, I stand by my statement. I did not recommend action against that person. Given that this recommendation for action supposedly took place in a conversation between myself and Randall, I'm one of only two people that knows what I said. I even just reviewed chat transcripts to make sure my memory isn't playing tricks on me. It's not.

Jason H.

No offense taken and no need to apologize. We are often lumped in with the freelancers who recently withheld copyright or terminated contracts. I'm not bothered by this, because in my case, I agree with those freelancers' actions. They are responding to the same issues I had with Catalyst in 2008, but in the middle of a much messier and more public situation. If I were in their shoes, I would have done the same thing.

As far as the problems being connected, I have a hard time seeing how they aren't. When I transitioned from FanPro to Catalyst, I was skeptical. I was being burned by FanPro on some payments. Catalyst, though, was full of promises about how things would be different. I was specifically told that a new streamlined system was being implemented to make sure contracts went out on time and were signed and sealed before draft work began. I was also told that since Catalyst had a full-time Operations Manager (David Stansel-Garner), someone would always be on top of the contracts and payments. I was still skeptical, but Catalyst had some great people signing on that I respected (Rob Boyle, Peter Taylor and Adam Jury among them), so I decided to keep going with them. But it didn't take long before the contracts were late and payments were late. And I can't help but think that was connected to IMR's very shoddy business practices and possibly also to cash-flow problems at least partially caused by Loren L. Coleman's frequent withdrawals from the account.

"In the whole round of human affairs little is so fatal to peace as misunderstanding."
--Margaret E. Sangster,
American writer and editor

I am speculating here and its about the topic

I wish the lawyers I know and hangout with were in Washington/Seattle. If one tenth of the business decisions discussed here could be proven, or will occur, the lawyers will make out like madmen.

Frag being a runner chummer, the real money here is in litigation.

BlueMax
/and if there was real money in internet libel suits
// boy howdy, I could see some money there too.

So I just got caught up, something that occured to me while I was fixing breakfast after reading through and get caught up though:

If Frank is right, what's taking so long?

Honestly Frank has stated on multiple occasions that he has contacted Topps and passed on evidence of wrong doing and otherwise made them aware of the situation. If a portion of what Frank asseses is true and valid then it should be a no-brainer for Topps to announce that the license will be renewed and start the process to get a new company involved, which could take perhaps a year of more, which would pretty much suck for all of us who Shadowrun factors largely into our summer con plans. Unless Topps is required by the contract to allow the previous contractor to have first swipe on the license given the magnitude of the transgressions one would think Topps would have already made an announcement and not even allowed IMR to go through the motions of making a bid, that ignores the fact the Topps is going to want their money, plain and simple.


So yea while I don't have much look down into the secret back room deals, nor claim to, I've done contracted work on an individual level, and been a party to it at the corporate level and usually everyone knows well in advance when a contractor has blown their chances of getting renewed, we've seen no signs like that as yet from Topps.

Negotiations between Topps and CGL as well as between Topps and other companies interested in the SR and/ or BT license may well be happening at this time. If there are other companies who like to get one or both licenses.
And Topps is obviously wise enough not to post details of their negotations at a public forum.

How much they care about Frank Trollman and how much value they put in his information is an entirely different question.

To be fair, most large corporations like Topps seem to work at a snail's pace in terms of decision making. At least that's been my experience.

What would Topps gain by announcing that they would not be allowing Catalyst to renew the lease of the license? If the assumption is that the license lease will be renewed, production continues, and sales continue, and Topps keeps accumulating owed royalties. If it announces that Catalyst is a lame duck company, then production grinds to a halt as there's no reason to bother with working on a project that has just been effectively canceled, and even less incentive to pay to print books that can't be sold.

That's also a good point. I'd hazard a guess that the only announcement regarding the license status will either be about CGL renewing or another company taking over. Not so much a "CGL got booted."

The three weeks remaining are not enough for a production cycle on anything that wasn't basically already in the process of being boxed up and shipped. Further despite what some suggest the biggest benefit that Topps get by publicly announcing a changing of the guard is it will serve as notification to others who might not have originally put up a bid against an incumbent that they have a very real chance of picking up the license if their proposal is sound. That would shorten the "gap time" that a new license change-over would cause.

So yea, call me crazy but I'm at the very least presuming that until the balloon goes up IMR has at least an even, if not better then even chance of retaining the license. If not well I've had crow before both literally and figuratively and it'll be ok, someone may want to make sure Frank is checked on incase he suffers an aneurysm or pulmonary problems if things don't go his way, point of fact I just can't get upset enough about this whole deal to think people should die about it.

Just as a matter of interest: does this 90 day dev cicle mean "90 days from the idea to the shipping of the book" or what is covered in that timespan?

I'm not speculating about which way the license goes. I don't know the whole story, so I'm playing the "wait and see" game. Admittedly, my loyalty is to the game, not the people who sell it, so as long as the product quality remains, I don't give a shit who's selling it. Really the only way the situation would really effect me would be a spontaneous death to the Missions events for Gencon, which would mean I'd be fighting with them to get my event registration cash back, and struggling to get into a pile of other stuff since I can't bail on my airfare without paying a change fee that's higher than the cost of my ticket.

On the other hand, I'll definitely agree that three weeks isn't enough to get anything out the door. How does Topps benefit by having Catalyst learn that they can no longer make money by putting Shadowrun material out before it happens? The people who might put in a bid for the license are well aware of the current situation, and have probably already started talking to Topps.

One of the few things I'm really curious about is what happens to all the material currently in production if the license is transferred? Does the unpaid for material revert to the authors? Does the paid for material revert to Topps? Does Catalyst own the material with the contingency that the only person they can sell it to is the new licensee? Since everyone who knows the answer to this has nothing to gain by disclosing it, and Catalyst has only released information in attempt to cast a positive light on someone else airing their dirty laundry, I don't expect an answer, nor do I think that I deserve one.

How long does the license last before they have to renew again? Is it possible that Topps will allow Catalyst to retain the license to see if they can right their ship rather than put the license back up for sale?

Considering that they probably have lots of legal bills to pay because of the situation with Upper Deck and MLB, not to mention the down economy, it might make sense for them to delay any transfer of the Shadowrun/Battletech license until things look brighter economically.

And if they can dig deep into Catalyst's books and make them pay what they owe as well as the monies to renew the license, it might offset some of their losses this quarter.

Perhaps the writers for a given line are unknowingly taking on the attributes of the main characters of said line...

Mechwarriors tend to be all about honor, the fight, the glory, doing as they are told, etc etc.

Shadowrunners are all about sticking it to the man, ignoring the rules, getting the job and paydata taken care of, applying street level justice, etc etc.

Presumably it will last as long as Topps is willing to let it last.

Conceivably they could give Catalyst a short 3 month licence to get it's shit together and pay Topps what they are owed and then re-assess the situation.

What I understand is this...

Unpaid material reverts to the writer.

Contracted material would transfer to the new company but copyright is still retained by the writer until payment is received.

Paid material is owned by Topps.

Freelancers, Adam, Synner et al, please correct the above if I'm wrong.

So it has to do with the contract that they draw, and not some industry standard, interesting.

They can, for example, come up with a number that Catalyst owes for past royalties, extend their license with terms that they must pay back that money by that time.

Is this a possibility?

@Darthmord

I think you have the gist of it.

@The Monk

I think so. Anything could happen.

Speaking purely out of speculation and with no inside knowledge of how the Topps Shadowrun/BT license works, they can pretty much draw up whatever they want. They own the intellectual property and they license it to another company. They can set whatever conditions they want on the license as long as someone agrees to sign it.

Doc--I'm honestly not sure where Frank came up with that number. There are number of steps and processes that go into a book from Idea to Store-shelf. Depending on the project, that could be a multi-year process or shortened down. In my experience, the shortest book I've ever seen was about 9 months from when the developer said "send in proposals" to the book arriving in stores.

There are also a slew of production changes that can affect the time to market for a project - is it color or BW, printed domestically or foreign, what art assets need to be modified, did the proof sample look okay or were changes made...

My Real Job is in Project Management, so I could keep going on the hundreds of little steps that all go into the process, but I think you can understand the general flow.

Yeah, I do, thanks for the insight I was kind of wondering why those cycles where that short according to Frank ;D

On the matter of the computer with the customer order data that left with Troy, Jaid wrote:
To this, I would like to offer up this single datapoint: I pre-ordered SR4A LE as soon as it was available, but at the end of April 2009 I had a need to change the shipping address on my order. Fired off a quick email to Troy, and he annotated a note with the new address into the comments section of the order. Fast forward to the end of this last February, and when I see the announcement that the books are finally on the way. I touch base with Troy to double check that the new address is still listed, and he gets back to me with an email showing that the correct address is still in the order comments.

Then, I get my order update from Tara's comcast email account this last weekend, and the order comments section is blank. I've sent emails straight to Tara's comcast account and to the quatermaster@catalystgamelabs.com email regarding the change of shipping address, and have yet to receive a reply. While the information on the computer is key, -in my case at least, the information they're working with doesn't match what Troy was working with a month ago.-
[edit]After Tara replied to me on Tuesday, I figured out that their automated update emails just list Order Comments added for that particular update, and my change of address info is still in their system.[/edit]

I too, doubt that this is due to any malice on Troy's part, but the circumstances under which he left didn't particularly allow for a smooth transition to a replacement. The cause could be as simple as pulling up the wrong report from the order database, which could have just as easily happened if the hardware had been company owned and never left. Or perhaps they're working from a backup copy, and their archival procedure is less than iron-clad.

Paul: Go to your Account Information, and click View on your order. See if your address was updated in the Order History box. I had to have my shipping information changed last July when I moved down to Dayton, and it shows the change of address for me.



And as a note though, I still haven't gotten an email about it. <shrug>

Bull

I'm not expecting to see anything from Topps about CGL for a few simple reasons:

1. The license was for a set period of time. If either party ended it early there will be lawyering and that costs money and time. This close to the cut off you might as well see it through. If Topps goes after CGL, it will do so after the license is up so the issue isn't confused with a breach of contract as well.

2. Leaving CGL in the public eye as a candidate for the license means that Topps has leverage against anyone who wants to make an offer. Anyone floating one would have to beat CGL (or what they assume CGL will offer) and that's a lot higher than making an offer on a derelict IP.

3. Topps wants to make money off this deal. If there are no other options they will attempt to work with CGL to make money off of the IPs. I'm sure they will also demand certain standards be met internally and more than likely require that CGL not only pay for those standards to be met, but then pay for the audit that preceded them and that they pay Topps anything still owed.

What do you think? Am I missing something, off base?

There are, as I understand it, other ways for the contract to end - such as IMR becoming insolvent. If Topps is doing an audit as Frank says, it would be looking at that.

I can think of a big reason.

If even 1/10th of what we've heard is true, then Coleman is a blatant thief that has stolen over $700,000. If they announce early, then someone already proven to be a huge thief and Dbag,will have that time in which to steal everything else that's not bolted down and bring in some wrenches and screwdrivers and stuff for that which is.

The guy can't be trusted and is clearly a thief, that's pretty much universally accepted no matter which side of this you're coming down on. To announce early would just prompt him to take everything he can before he looses it.

I know.. a bit of a negative view.. but a guy that builds a mansion in a gated community with company funds while checks to writers bounce.. will steal company property and 'misplace it' for gain later.

Edit:

That same person that sees nothing wrong with stealing 100sof 1000s of dollars is also not above taking/destroying/corrupting data and stuff to prevent others from benefiting. Torpeedoing the stuff in progress or taking and shredding (deleting) it all out of spite if he can't profit over it.

SPECULATION. Sure. Totally 100%.. but if you see nothing wrong with stealing hundreds of thousands of bucks. You're a schmuck that I wouldn't trust on ANYTHING with the business.

The updated address does show on the Battleshop website, which makes it even stranger that the same order comment was not in my email from Tara. My main concern is that if the new address doesn't show for her when she's emailing me a status update, it won't show for her when she's mailing me the book itself. I have a forwarding order with the Post Office, but that's only good untill the end of May, which is cutting it close.

Jason has PM'ed me about this, but ultimately, he's not the one handling the shipping.

OK, sounds like your information was entered differently then mine then, or something. Having not gotten an email, I have no idea what is and isn't in the "order comments". If the correct address is in the Battleshop computer though, I would assume that the shipment will go to the correct address? Or did the email you got have your old address on it still?

Bull

Personal attacks are against the Terms of Service. So are inflammatory and baiting remarks.

Standards of proof vary.

Yes, there is an account.

If Frank is right, Topps would be foolish to announce they had deselected any vendor. The more vendors bidding, the more competitive the bids. Plus all the other reasons above.

Question purely for curiosity's sake: Did you encourage the freelancers to post defending CGL/IMR? If so, are they posting on behalf of CGL? It really doesn't matter either way, I'm just fascinated by the PR angle in this story.

#$%* double post.

It's easier and simpler for someone to simply decline to renew a contract than to take any active moves. If the license ends without Topps doing something they can simply not do anything and their problem goes away. Then they can work on leasing or selling the license.