Chronicles of Elyria Backers Are Contacting Washington Attorney General For Potential Action

System

Chronicles of Elyria Backers Are Contacting Washington Attorney General For Potential Action

Backers of the now-defunct Chronicles of Elyria MMORPG have started to contact the Washington State Attorney General's office to file complaints against Soulbound Studios.

Read the full story here

kinido

did no one check the spelling on this article? oof.

slowz2secret

Nice

Slapshot1188

If only attention had been paid over the years...

KnightFalz

Heh, good luck to them with that.

xion12121

If they can legally get the financials and prove fraud. But the problem is that according to kickstarter they show progress (albeit terrible progress that COE released) and stated where the funding went, then they are legally safe. I mean, if they have financials showing that salary went to employees like 100k each year or 200k each year (which I think is overboard) then I don't see how they would be held legally responsible. I hope that the Washington attorney does make a case against them, because I think what the company did is fraud, the problem is that it has to be proven in court which is not going to be easy.

Ridrith

I honestly hope nothing comes of this, not because I want to see Jeromy Walsh get away with anything but because a lot of that responsibility falls on the backers themselves. The fact that they can throw money at a project like this and continue to do it when there's very little progress being made and nobody is asking any questions... It's their own fault. So I don't think litigation should be used in the face of many of these backers having zero personal responsibility.

Gorawyn

We know it wont be easy. However it is important to show people who use crowdfunding to take money from gamers who just want to support the creation of games, that we wont just sit back and let them take advantage of us.

Too many armchair developers come in talking a big talk, showing us their dream game, getting us to back them and then run off with our cash, leaving us with broken dreams of a game never played.

Then developers who actually do have what it takes to make a game can't get help with funding because we all have been burned by assholes like Jeromy Caspian Walsh.

Enough is enough. We are taking his ass to court, one way or another.

Join the discord: https://discord.gg/bMPGvCC

Aeander

Even if this game had fulfilled its ambitions, it would be a terribly boring excuse of a game. We should applaud Soulbound Studios for sparing us that fate.

Erevus

Stupidity overflows this nation. You can see it everywhere, our political leaders, the media etc etc.
It doesn't take much for an average person to scam millions of people if he just set his mind to.

Morality is the factor which seperates the ones who don't want to abuse other ppl and the ones who does......if you don't have it you can be a millionaire by just preaching BS.
So many will follow.

alkarionlog

feh game ended but the chronicles are still going

parpin

when they started their kickstarter they said we want to make a mmo with these features they said their goal is 900k, well non of the smart people asked them how do you possibly can make mmo with 900k?? like that stupid and unrealistic goal should have been the very first sign that tells you something is wrong. watch lazy peon youtube video on it, the whole thing was questionable from the beginning, just think about what they are saying and what is their goal, does it make sense?

Slapshot1188

parpin said:

when they started their kickstarter they said we want to make a mmo with these features they said their goal is 900k, well non of the smart people asked them how do you possibly can make mmo with 900k?? like that stupid and unrealistic goal should have been the very first sign that tells you something is wrong. watch lazy peon youtube video on it, the whole thing was questionable from the beginning, just think about what they are saying and what is their goal, does it make sense?

Welcome to the discussion from 4 years ago.  Plenty of people stated this.  Others mocked them and called them negative trolls.

parpin

xD_Gaming said:

xion12121 said:

If they can legally get the financials and prove fraud. But the problem is that according to kickstarter they show progress (albeit terrible progress that COE released) and stated where the funding went, then they are legally safe. I mean, if they have financials showing that salary went to employees like 100k each year or 200k each year (which I think is overboard) then I don't see how they would be held legally responsible. I hope that the Washington attorney does make a case against them, because I think what the company did is fraud, the problem is that it has to be proven in court which is not going to be easy.

When Soul Bound began running their own finacial events from their website, kickstarter rules and regulations are then void since the initial kickstart goal was reached. .

This is going to be fun to watch thes epeople be dragged into court.

problem is there are no proper rules and regulation in game industry...things like false advertisement(fall out 76, no man sky, anthem etc) predatory loot boxes and gambling etc.
as for this case the scammer can simply say these people donated the money willingly and they knew this project might fail, which is to some extent true and goes for every kickstarter and early access product, there is no solid contract or any kind of legal obligation, like i said there are no solid rules for it, the scammer can still get away with money specially with good lawyers.

xion12121

parpin said:

xD_Gaming said:

xion12121 said:

If they can legally get the financials and prove fraud. But the problem is that according to kickstarter they show progress (albeit terrible progress that COE released) and stated where the funding went, then they are legally safe. I mean, if they have financials showing that salary went to employees like 100k each year or 200k each year (which I think is overboard) then I don't see how they would be held legally responsible. I hope that the Washington attorney does make a case against them, because I think what the company did is fraud, the problem is that it has to be proven in court which is not going to be easy.

When Soul Bound began running their own finacial events from their website, kickstarter rules and regulations are then void since the initial kickstart goal was reached. .

This is going to be fun to watch thes epeople be dragged into court.

problem is there are no proper rules and regulation in game industry...things like false advertisement(fall out 76, no man sky, anthem etc) predatory loot boxes and gambling etc.

as for this case the scammer can simply say these people donated the money willingly and they knew this project might fail, which is to some extent true and goes for every kickstarter and early access product, there is no solid contract or any kind of legal obligation, like i said there are no solid rules for it, the scammer can still get away with money specially with good lawyers.

I agree though. LIke I said if they have financials just showing employees getting paid 100k to 200k each year etc. , plus rental of office space , expenses then nothing will come of it. Although, IMO I don't think workers should have been making such higher salaries with a starting game. Salaries of 30k to 40k each year would have been more appropriate. The problem is that they could have possibly goofed off in the office and done nothing. You have to be able to prove in court they committed fraud. Without solid financial proof or video of what was done at the office, there is no evidence to prove it. I'm sure they did run a scam IMO, but how to prove it?

Kyleran

xD_Gaming said:

parpin said:

xD_Gaming said:

xion12121 said:

If they can legally get the financials and prove fraud. But the problem is that according to kickstarter they show progress (albeit terrible progress that COE released) and stated where the funding went, then they are legally safe. I mean, if they have financials showing that salary went to employees like 100k each year or 200k each year (which I think is overboard) then I don't see how they would be held legally responsible. I hope that the Washington attorney does make a case against them, because I think what the company did is fraud, the problem is that it has to be proven in court which is not going to be easy.

When Soul Bound began running their own finacial events from their website, kickstarter rules and regulations are then void since the initial kickstart goal was reached. .

This is going to be fun to watch thes epeople be dragged into court.

problem is there are no proper rules and regulation in game industry...things like false advertisement(fall out 76, no man sky, anthem etc) predatory loot boxes and gambling etc.

as for this case the scammer can simply say these people donated the money willingly and they knew this project might fail, which is to some extent true and goes for every kickstarter and early access product, there is no solid contract or any kind of legal obligation, like i said there are no solid rules for it, the scammer can still get away with money specially with good lawyers.

There is no problem there when legal precedence is involved. There's a huge difference of "failing" and actual fraudulent activity.

Fruadulant activity could be many different things like :

Perpetrating a college classroom as there own studio to give the sense they had "paid for a studio".

Running an event a few weeks from closing the study stating " the nearly 8 million dollars was not enough"

Paying themselves over 100k dollars in salary

Buying other oddities with the fundraised money like a house, car or other items not related to the game.

-------------------

Then this could get elevated to the federal level of embezzlement and ect.
They dug their beds, and they will be laying it, legally for years.

If they produce rent receipts, no fraud.

Previously run events in just the past year brought in over  $1.5M, why should they have believed this one would come up short, but when it did, it was game over, no fraud.

$100K plus salaries, could be industry standard, especially in Seattle, again, no fraud. 

Buying expensive cars, direct payments houses etc from company accounts might be fraud, but if the money was paid as part of salaries and bonuses then no fraud.

"Fraud" has a specific and somewhat narrow definition when it come to the law, if SBS was careful they can easily sidestep any legal actions.

"wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain"

If he can show he truly planned and tried to build a game it's not fraud if their plans fell through,  regardless of the incompetence.

Kyleran

Slapshot1188 said:

parpin said:

when they started their kickstarter they said we want to make a mmo with these features they said their goal is 900k, well non of the smart people asked them how do you possibly can make mmo with 900k?? like that stupid and unrealistic goal should have been the very first sign that tells you something is wrong. watch lazy peon youtube video on it, the whole thing was questionable from the beginning, just think about what they are saying and what is their goal, does it make sense?

Welcome to the discussion from 4 years ago.  Plenty of people stated this.  Others mocked them and called them negative trolls.

Exactly.  Many of the backers clamoring for a lawsuit argued with me and many others, refusing to see the forest for the trees. 

Honestly, they pretty much got what they deserved. 

DarkEvilHatred

"Chronicles of Elyria Backers Are Contacting Washington Attorney General For Potential Action"


And they should!

If the money was legitimately spent though, you can't get blood from a turnip...

If the money is not all spent and, let's say, the CEO has the money, then they may be able to get some of it back.

Odds are, everyone that gave any money to this company for this game for any reason is never going to see a penny of it back.

Slapshot1188

Kyleran said:

xD_Gaming said:

parpin said:

xD_Gaming said:

xion12121 said:

If they can legally get the financials and prove fraud. But the problem is that according to kickstarter they show progress (albeit terrible progress that COE released) and stated where the funding went, then they are legally safe. I mean, if they have financials showing that salary went to employees like 100k each year or 200k each year (which I think is overboard) then I don't see how they would be held legally responsible. I hope that the Washington attorney does make a case against them, because I think what the company did is fraud, the problem is that it has to be proven in court which is not going to be easy.

When Soul Bound began running their own finacial events from their website, kickstarter rules and regulations are then void since the initial kickstart goal was reached. .

This is going to be fun to watch thes epeople be dragged into court.

problem is there are no proper rules and regulation in game industry...things like false advertisement(fall out 76, no man sky, anthem etc) predatory loot boxes and gambling etc.

as for this case the scammer can simply say these people donated the money willingly and they knew this project might fail, which is to some extent true and goes for every kickstarter and early access product, there is no solid contract or any kind of legal obligation, like i said there are no solid rules for it, the scammer can still get away with money specially with good lawyers.

There is no problem there when legal precedence is involved. There's a huge difference of "failing" and actual fraudulent activity.

Fruadulant activity could be many different things like :

Perpetrating a college classroom as there own studio to give the sense they had "paid for a studio".

Running an event a few weeks from closing the study stating " the nearly 8 million dollars was not enough"

Paying themselves over 100k dollars in salary

Buying other oddities with the fundraised money like a house, car or other items not related to the game.

-------------------

Then this could get elevated to the federal level of embezzlement and ect.
They dug their beds, and they will be laying it, legally for years.

If they produce rent receipts, no fraud.

Previously run events in just the past year brought in over  $1.5M, why should they have believed this one would come up short, but when it did, it was game over, no fraud.

$100K plus salaries, could be industry standard, especially in Seattle, again, no fraud. 

Buying expensive cars, direct payments houses etc from company accounts might be fraud, but if the money was paid as part of salaries and bonuses then no fraud.

"Fraud" has a specific and somewhat narrow definition when it come to the law, if SBS was careful they can easily sidestep any legal actions.

To play Devil's Advocate:

1. The sale was not over.  As a matter of fact the sale was designed to lower the price every day, so one might suppose that people were incentivized to not buy early and wait until later in the sale.

2. They apparently raised $1.6M in the last 6 months (Per the other "riposte" thread on here.  That is a hell of a lot of money for a small studio.

3. They are rumored (again, unproven) to have hired multiple family members, potentially paying $200k salary to one who was supposed to do Marketing (of which we have seen little to none externally).  Who knows if that is true but part of the lawsuit would involve discovery to reveal such items and then question if this was, in essence, a no-show job. 

4. Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material facts, which nondisclosure makes other statements misleading.

I can think of a number of items/instances where #4 could potentially be applied to the behavior here:

Asking for $900k and not mentioning it was just for a demo on the front page

Claiming there was substantial development from a team of 15(16?) funded for a year prior to Kickstarter. (pay statements for those 15/16 for a year can be produced?)

Later stating that the Kickstarter was just seed money to use the aforementioned demo to attract and investor, and then supposedly turning down offers because they wanted to change monetization.

Showing "demos" such as the Jousting Demo, Silvermine, etc... that were seemingly not reflective of actual gamedev progress but seem to just have been more like stand-alone concept pieces.

Constant statements by the CEO that they were further along than they seem to have been.



It's not for me to decide if those are legal instances of fraud (or if they even occurred) but it will be interesting to see what is discovered down the rabbit hole if someone starts that journey.

DarkEvilHatred

Ridrith said:

I honestly hope nothing comes of this, not because I want to see Jeromy Walsh get away with anything but because a lot of that responsibility falls on the backers themselves. The fact that they can throw money at a project like this and continue to do it when there's very little progress being made and nobody is asking any questions... It's their own fault. So I don't think litigation should be used in the face of many of these backers having zero personal responsibility.

BUT when the company outright lied to their backers about so many things, they should be held accountable, meaning people who lied do jail time since no one will ever see any money back.

If it's not all gone, I'm sure Jeremy did a good job of moving what's left around and hiding it in a good friend or family member's hands.

DarkEvilHatred

xD_Gaming said:

parpin said:

xD_Gaming said:

xion12121 said:

If they can legally get the financials and prove fraud. But the problem is that according to kickstarter they show progress (albeit terrible progress that COE released) and stated where the funding went, then they are legally safe. I mean, if they have financials showing that salary went to employees like 100k each year or 200k each year (which I think is overboard) then I don't see how they would be held legally responsible. I hope that the Washington attorney does make a case against them, because I think what the company did is fraud, the problem is that it has to be proven in court which is not going to be easy.

When Soul Bound began running their own finacial events from their website, kickstarter rules and regulations are then void since the initial kickstart goal was reached. .

This is going to be fun to watch thes epeople be dragged into court.

problem is there are no proper rules and regulation in game industry...things like false advertisement(fall out 76, no man sky, anthem etc) predatory loot boxes and gambling etc.


as for this case the scammer can simply say these people donated the money willingly and they knew this project might fail, which is to some extent true and goes for every kickstarter and early access product, there is no solid contract or any kind of legal obligation, like i said there are no solid rules for it, the scammer can still get away with money specially with good lawyers.

There is no problem there when legal precedence is involved. There's a huge difference of "failing" and actual fraudulent activity.



Fruadulant activity could be many different things like :



Perpetrating a college classroom as there own studio to give the sense they had "paid for a studio".



Running an event a few weeks from closing the study stating " the nearly 8 million dollars was not enough"



Paying themselves over 100k dollars in salary



Buying other oddities with the fundraised money like a house, car or other items not related to the game.



-------------------



Then this could get elevated to the federal level of embezzlement and ect.

They dug their beds, and they will be laying it, legally for years.


Why such a tight shot of the "studio"  ? 

If selling more virtual items just weeks before knowing they are about to go under and not letting their backers know up front that they will be shutting down if they don't raise enough money isn't fraud, what is?!

It was obviously another last minute cash grab and they damn well knew these people were never going to get their in-game goods and that they were going to be stealing everyone's money who bought something from them.

They knew the end was just around the corner and they still went through with the scam!

DarkEvilHatred

xD_Gaming said:

"Fraud is defined as the wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. ... Waste is defined as the thoughtless or careless expenditure, mismanagement, or abuse of resources to the detriment (or potential detriment) of the U.S. government.Apr 16, 2018


Guess the IRS will need to check in on it now .  

I'm not a lawyer but I think the company did a lot of both fraud and waste.

Guilty on both charges!

ChildoftheShadows

Good and I hope they press on. This isn’t a run off the mill Kickstarter gone bad, this is complete and total fraud. They never produced anything, the “alpha” was a complete sham, a last ditch effort to “show work”, and regardless of how much the tough guys here want to blame the people who fell for it, it’s still illegal. It’s still a crime. Soulbound still committed fraud. 

Amathe

It is going to be hard to show that this was actionable fraud, as opposed to just being a really shitty game maker. 

Slapshot1188

ChildoftheShadows said:

Good and I hope they press on. This isn’t a run off the mill Kickstarter gone bad, this is complete and total fraud. They never produced anything, the “alpha” was a complete sham, a last ditch effort to “show work”, and regardless of how much the tough guys here want to blame the people who fell for it, it’s still illegal. It’s still a crime. Soulbound still committed fraud. 

"Tough guys" actually believe you can hold Walsh accountable for anything he did and STILL assign a portion of blame to people who willfully ignored warning signs, tried to discredit those providing this information AND tried to get other people to put their money in.  I know, a radical concept that you can do both.  As to whether Walsh committed fraud, we will see what the AG says.  I believe there is a case but that is why we have a legal system.

Slapshot1188

Amathe said:

It is going to be hard to show that this was actionable fraud, as opposed to just being a really shitty game maker. 

See my earlier post in this thread where I list a few instances that I believe COULD be examples.