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Halloween Jack posted:I responded to David Hill's post, and he and his partner told me who pays on time and who doesn't. Let me know if I killed their careers. It should be clear that some of those projects he's talking about are pay-on-publish, which means that the book hasn't seen the light of day, so most of them aren't acting outside contract. The companies he names are Catalyst Game Labs, Green Ronin, Crafty, and Margaret Weis Productions, but Crafty has apparently contacted them about paying them ahead of publication (above and beyond the actual contract). Margaret Weis Productions is supposedly particularly notorious for missing payment. He notes that Onyx Path has been late but has always paid, and that Wizards of the Coast is pretty reliable. Still not good in the case of the checks they're waiting on, but just clarifying.
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Dec 1, 2013 01:55
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For the record, Arc Dream and Posthuman Studios are great about paying on time.
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Dec 1, 2013 01:59
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It should be clear that some of those projects he's talking about are pay-on-publish, which means that the book hasn't seen the light of day, so most of them aren't acting outside contract. Eh, being inside the letter of the law doesn't make a situation magically not-shifty. Fred Hicks is right, pay-on-publish is a lovely practice that should probably stop, especially given the number of stories in that thread where it turns out "pay-on-publish" actually meant "pay-on-hardcopy-publication" so freelancers' work can get turned into pdfs and sold digitally without owing them a cent in return.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:06
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It will surprise no one to learn GMS is furious about Fred Hicks' latest essay and is ranting about wannabes in the RPG industry, despite missing another Far West delivery date. I've been out of the freelancing game for 10+ years and am only now potentially stepping back in to work with Onyx Path, so I don't have a whole lot to say about who currently pays well and who does not.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:19
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Only GMS could get furious about an article that basically boils down to "if you want to hire someone to work for you, maybe you should pay them."
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Dec 1, 2013 02:27
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Well, he also got mad at Fred Hicks because of Fred's business transparency. I seriously don't know what his problem is apart from the whole "the only valid moral outrage is MY outrage" thing. Are people at least calling GMS on this, or is it the usual crowd of sycophants?
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Dec 1, 2013 03:05
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Kai Tave posted:Eh, being inside the letter of the law doesn't make a situation magically not-shifty. Fred Hicks is right, pay-on-publish is a lovely practice that should probably stop, especially given the number of stories in that thread where it turns out "pay-on-publish" actually meant "pay-on-hardcopy-publication" so freelancers' work can get turned into pdfs and sold digitally without owing them a cent in return. I never said it was awesome. I implied it is not awesome. It is the opposite of awesome, whatever that is.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:06
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Kai Tave posted:Only GMS could get furious about an article that basically boils down to "if you want to hire someone to work for you, maybe you should pay them." All I can say for sure is, as a publisher I try to do right by the people who do stuff for me. That costs more sometimes, but amongst other things I want to be the guy that people want to work with rather than the guy people work for because they don't know better.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:24
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The recent Heroquest kickstarter was closed, and now the company that actually owns the trademark and product gives its point of view.quote:Background concerning suspension of Gamezone’s Kickstarter campaign It's so open and honest that I expect GMS to spew hate about it any minute now. What's this thread's take?
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Dec 1, 2013 06:34
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Rulebook Heavily posted:The recent Heroquest kickstarter was closed, and now the company that actually owns the trademark and product gives its point of view. If this is the gospel truth, then Moon Design was clearly in the wrong: they did not obtain permission to create this product from the holder of the copyright and yet still tried to get funding for it and produce it. The law is the law and, surprisingly, is pretty clear cut in this case. Does anyone know if Moon Design is a new company? I'm only asking because this sounds very amateurist on their part. I mean copyright right and trademark can sometimes be confusing, but this is a very clear violation that they should have been aware of. Also, what is GMS?
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Dec 1, 2013 06:40
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Covok posted:If this is the gospel truth, then Moon Design was clearly in the wrong: they did not obtain permission to create this product from the holder of the copyright and yet still tried to get funding for it and produce it. The law is the law and, surprisingly, is pretty clear cut in this case. No Moon Design owns the Heroquest trademark, the Kickstartering company, GAMEZONE, do not, this is the explanation of how Moon Design contacted the Kickstarter and then pursued suspension. Moon Design are current publishers of Robin Law's RPG Heroquest which is mainly built to support roleplaying in the setting of Glorantha, which Moon Design, kickstarted a complete world book for last year and seem to be doing a great job of. GMS is a guy who kickstarts great sounding stuff but can't deliver. REPEAT: MOON DESIGN AWESOME AND PRO, GAMEZONE AMATEURISH AND NOT AWESOME
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Dec 1, 2013 06:49
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Covok posted:If this is the gospel truth, then Moon Design was clearly in the wrong: they did not obtain permission to create this product from the holder of the copyright and yet still tried to get funding for it and produce it. The law is the law and, surprisingly, is pretty clear cut in this case. GMS is Gareth Michael Skarka, a pretentious windbag and internet tough guy who was a game designer, but doesn't actually publish things anymore.
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Dec 1, 2013 06:50
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Covok posted:If this is the gospel truth, then Moon Design was clearly in the wrong: they did not obtain permission to create this product from the holder of the copyright and yet still tried to get funding for it and produce it. The law is the law and, surprisingly, is pretty clear cut in this case. I think you're misreading it; Moon Design is the holder of the copyright, Gamezone is the company that tried to use the name anyway.
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Dec 1, 2013 06:50
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Covok posted:If this is the gospel truth, then Moon Design was clearly in the wrong: they did not obtain permission to create this product from the holder of the copyright and yet still tried to get funding for it and produce it. The law is the law and, surprisingly, is pretty clear cut in this case. Moon Design has the trademark to HeroQuest. They picked it up and published a fantasy RPG with that name in the mid-2000s after Hasbro/GW let it lapse.
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Dec 1, 2013 06:52
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Frankly this seems to be as cut-and-dried a case as you can get...Moon Design made every effort to give Gamezone a chance to provide proof that they had the right to use the Heroquest name on their project and Gamezone brushed them off. It sounds like yet another Kickstarter being run by people who think things like trademark don't apply to them. Can't muster up a ton of sympathy there. GMS is Gareth Michael-Skarka, the bitterest man in gaming who's known for having an ego the size of the moon while being chronically unable to meet deadlines. His wuxia/western mashup RPG Far West was successfully Kickstarted two years ago and has yet to be released despite constant promises that it's coming out "next week."
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Dec 1, 2013 06:53
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Kai Tave posted:GMS is Gareth Michael-Skarka, the bitterest man in gaming who's known for having an ego the size of the moon while being chronically unable to meet deadlines. His wuxia/western mashup RPG Far West was successfully Kickstarted two years ago and has yet to be released despite constant promises that it's coming out "next week." That's probably why GMS is so upset by the whole "pay people when they deliver, not when the product is complete". He never completes anything, so he never has to pay anyone!
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Dec 1, 2013 06:56
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fez_machine posted:No Moon Design owns the Heroquest trademark, the Kickstartering company, GAMEZONE, do not, this is the explanation of how Moon Design contacted the Kickstarter and then pursued suspension. Moon Design are current publishers of Robin Law's RPG Heroquest which is mainly built to support roleplaying in the setting of Glorantha, which Moon Design, kickstarted a complete world book for last year and seem to be doing a great job of. Comrade Gorbash posted:Moon Design is the one who owns the trademark, Gamezone is the company that had the Kickstarter. UrbanLabyrinth posted:I think you're misreading it; Moon Design is the holder of the copyright, Gamezone is the company that tried to use the name anyway. FMguru posted:What? Woops, looks like I got them switched around somehow. I thought Moon Design was the one running the kickstarter and Gamezone was the trademarker holder. Evidently, I misread and it is the opposite of what I thought. So, to clarify, gamezone is clearly in the wrong here as this clear-cut case of trademark violation. To re-ask my prior question properly, is Gamezone a new company? I'm only asking because this is such a clear cut case of trademark violation that I'm surprised they would have gone ahead with such actions.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:06
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Evil Mastermind posted:That's probably why GMS is so upset by the whole "pay people when they deliver, not when the product is complete". He never completes anything, so he never has to pay anyone! I made that joke in grognards.txt like an hour ago; get your own material! Covok posted:I'm only asking because this is such a clear cut case of trademark violation that I'm surprised they would have gone ahead with such actions. Their qualifications appear to be that they really like the HeroQuest boardgame. While I feel the same, I don't agree that this constitutes a business plan.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:07
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Plague of Hats posted:I made that joke in grognards.txt like an hour ago; get your own material! Sorry, I've been on self-imposed exile from grognards.txt for months now. Pretty much for my own good.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:08
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Mikan posted:It will surprise no one to learn GMS is furious about Fred Hicks' latest essay and is ranting about wannabes in the RPG industry, despite missing another Far West delivery date. Out of curiosity, where's he venting his spleen? I don't see anything in his Google+ feed.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:08
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Gamezone owns the trademark (TRADEMARK, people, copyright is not in question here) in Spain. Probably that means they can legally produce a game called Heroquest in Spain. Where they screwed up was thinking they could run a Kickstarter for it, since Kickstarter is in the US. In fact it would appear that not only can't Gamezone kickstart Heroquest, they probably cannot even advertise Heroquest in the US, without running afoul of US trademark law. Granted that if they ran some kind of funding drive outside the US, even if that constituted advertising in the US (because Americans can use the internet), it would likely be difficult for a US court to take any action against a Spanish company. But Kickstarter could get in trouble if they facilitated advertising Gamezone's product in violation of Moon Design's trademark. The really weird part in all this (to me at least) is that Milton Bradley allowed their trademark for Heroquest to lapse, and that Moon Design decided it would be a good mark to use for their own products. I think it's dumb to use an existing game name for your game, because people searching for your game online are going to find that other game. Maybe more than your game. Why wouldn't you want a unique name for your game, so that people will always find your thing when they look for it?
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Dec 1, 2013 07:08
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JackMann posted:Out of curiosity, where's he venting his spleen? I don't see anything in his Google+ feed. Cam Banks reshared Hicks' article and GMS came a-shitposting in the comments.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:10
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I don't know that GMS has a habit of bilking freelancers, mainly the person GMS seems to gently caress over more than anyone is himself. Well, that and his Kickstarter backers. Honestly I think he's pissed at Fred Hicks because Fred A). doesn't hold gamers in contempt the way GMS does and B). is actually successful and capable of delivering on a Kickstarter without endless delays and excuses.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:11
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"Heroquest" as a name for Glorantha stuff goes back to well before the Milton-Bradley game, being advertised in the back of the original Runequest as a future supplement in '77-78 or so.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:13
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Kai Tave posted:I don't know that GMS has a habit of bilking freelancers, mainly the person GMS seems to gently caress over more than anyone is himself. Well, that and his Kickstarter backers. I don't know about bilking, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's taken umbrage at this particular article because it's criticizing something he's been serially loving up lately with all his publishing problems. quote:Honestly I think he's pissed at Fred Hicks because Fred A). doesn't hold gamers in contempt the way GMS does and B). is actually successful and capable of delivering on a Kickstarter without endless delays and excuses. When I went searching for the latest shitshow I ran across some G+ back-and-forth from 2011 where Hicks and Skarka were being friendly with each other. It was weird.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:16
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There's also C) Fred Hicks is capable of acting like a professional in public. I have a friend in the industry who says that GMS is a nice guy in person, and that Fred Hicks isn't. That may or may not be true, but we don't interact with these guys in a personal way. I deal with them on a professional level, which is a level that Fred can act appropriately on and GMS can't.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:16
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Leperflesh posted:Gamezone owns the trademark (TRADEMARK, people, copyright is not in question here) in Spain. Probably that means they can legally produce a game called Heroquest in Spain. Where they screwed up was thinking they could run a Kickstarter for it, since Kickstarter is in the US. In fact it would appear that not only can't Gamezone kickstart Heroquest, they probably cannot even advertise Heroquest in the US, without running afoul of US trademark law. I believe it comes down to brand equity: the marketing power a brand name has inherently. While I don't know how much money Gamezone accumulated in their kickstarter before it shut down, by simply using the name Heroquest, some were automatically convinced the product was a quality product despite never seeing or using it prior. The fact it had the same name as a product they used prior and found to be a quality product or heard was a quality product from others influenced their decision and pushed them to donate funds. This is why some people do line extensions: releasing a new product under the same brand name as a previous product. The name alone does most of the advertising for them.
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Dec 1, 2013 07:21
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Evil Mastermind posted:There's also C) Fred Hicks is capable of acting like a professional in public. Well GMS did try to tell us that all that "transparency" and "good customer relations" was just a ploy to get your nerd-dollars  I have a hard time believing GMS is a nice guy in person when he's literally done the internet tough guy "You'd better hope I don't meet you in person" thing to people before. The difference between how someone acts on- and off-line isn't as concrete as its made out to be and someone who acts like a raging rear end in a top hat on the internet probably isn't going to just turn that completely off and be a totally cool dude in person. But it doesn't matter since I'm never going to meet him in person, or most any other game writer really. I have met Keith Baker in person, he's pretty awesome. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Dec 1, 2013 |
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Dec 1, 2013 07:34
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JackMann posted:Out of curiosity, where's he venting his spleen? I don't see anything in his Google+ feed. Twitter was where I saw it, I missed everything on G+.
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Dec 1, 2013 08:24
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I think it comes down to the fact that people in gaming like and respect Fred Hicks, and praise his decisions. GMS wants that praise and respect. He dreamed of being the next Gygax, the next Steve Jackson. He's got his own company, he's making his own games (in theory), and this is the point where he probably expected to start getting treated as one of those gods on the hill, the way it seemed like the big names in Gaming were treated back in the day. But people are expecting him to actually deliver on promises, to do things worthy of respect. So he gets upset when he sees Hicks say something and get taken seriously in a way that Skarka just isn't (and won't, unless he starts acting more professionally, delivering on his products, and rebuilding his rep). On the note of the Heroquest name, that's pretty much exactly why we have trademark. It's not intended to protect companies, but consumers. If you get Dungeons and Dragons, you should know that it's Wizards of the Coast making it. If you get GURPS, you should know that you're buying from Steve Jackson Games. Just as you should know if you buy a Sony VCR, you're dealing with Sony. That way, companies can build (and lose) reputations and customers can buy based on that. Some schmuck shouldn't be able to come out with his own game called Savage Worlds. Not to protect Pinnacle, but to protect the guy who thought he was getting something from Pinnacle, and ended up a FATAL clone.
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Dec 1, 2013 08:51
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JackMann posted:I think it comes down to the fact that people in gaming like and respect Fred Hicks, and praise his decisions. GMS wants that praise and respect. He dreamed of being the next Gygax, Well he's got one thing down pat: a batshit insane publishing schedule. Let's never forget that the three books required to run AD&D 1e (Monster Manual, Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide) came out over the course of three years. This industry was never founded on solid principles.
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Dec 1, 2013 08:57
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This whole thing put me in mind of tipping culture and Europeans. It made me wonder if there's a similar difference in how contracts are handled and what kind of contracts are standard in European RPG circles. Does anyone know if European RPG industry culture is better at this, or the same, or somehow even more hobbyist seat-of-the-pants?
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Dec 1, 2013 10:06
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Well he's got one thing down pat: a batshit insane publishing schedule. Let's never forget that the three books required to run AD&D 1e (Monster Manual, Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide) came out over the course of three years. This industry was never founded on solid principles.
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Dec 1, 2013 15:22
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clockworkjoe posted:For the record, Arc Dream and Posthuman Studios are great about paying on time. Arc Dream jerked me around for 6 months a few years back, eventually responding to my emails and telling me they chose a different artist. Of course at the time they had OK'd multiple revisions of a cover, but I guess that doesn't count.
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Dec 1, 2013 18:03
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Evil Mastermind posted:There's also C) Fred Hicks is capable of acting like a professional in public. I've met both of them and had the completely opposite experience.
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Dec 1, 2013 19:19
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I've met both of them and had the completely opposite experience. Well, again, it's a second-hand comment. I met Fred briefly at PAX East last year, and he was nice to me. Fred told me "Oh, I remember you from...the internet" and I was so fanboy'd from meeting him it didn't hit me that it was probably just him being polite.
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Dec 1, 2013 19:33
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Rulebook Heavily posted:The recent Heroquest kickstarter was closed, and now the company that actually owns the trademark and product gives its point of view. Mikan posted:Twitter was where I saw it, I missed everything on G+.
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Dec 1, 2013 21:40
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MadScientistWorking posted:The only thing I don't get is why would they need to contact Hasbro. The only IP issues I'm aware of is the trademark name. Otherwise everything else is pretty straightforward. Gamezone tried to raise a half-million dollars to re-print a game they didn't have the rights to and release it under a name that someone else had the trademark to. Some things in IP law are tricky, murky, or stupidly unjust; this is none of those things.
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Dec 1, 2013 21:52
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FMguru posted:The game (the rules, the characters, the maps, the art, etc.) is still owned by Hasbro/GW. It looks like Gamezone doesn't have those rights, either. MD asked them for proof that they had the right to make a 25th Anniversary HQ Reprint and Gamezone didn't reply.
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Dec 2, 2013 04:10
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I haven't played MB's Heroquest since I was a kid. Even if somebody published a Labyrinth Lord style clone of it, isn't there some Warhammer setting stuff they'd have to excise? Not-really-related question: in the last chat thread I asked for some suggestions for sci-fi games with fun (but not   ) tactical combat, I got some good recommendations but a couple were boxed sets. Is making the game half a board game the future for those who want RPGs to be a profit-making venture?
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Dec 2, 2013 05:31
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