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Horizons: Tulga Games To Buy Game
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Artifact Entertainment has just announced that they will be selling all of their assets to to newcomer Tulga Games, LLC, pending approval by the courts. Here is the official press release:
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TULGA GAMES LLC REACHES AN AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE THE ASSETS OF ARTIFACT ENTERTAINMENT September 24, 2004 MESA, Ariz. - Artifact Entertainment, developers of the award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game "Horizons", announced today that it has reached an agreement, subject to court approval, with Tulga Games, LLC., in which Tulga Games has agreed to purchase the assets of Artifact Entertainment. |
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
Comments
All you need to do is go to IGN's Horizons forum and read what people are saying. Apparently a former employee of AE (Chris Tulumello) is the manager for Tulga Games. This company was created days after AE files Chapter 11. The website shows nothing but advertisements links. Doesn't show any gaming products produced by Tulga Games. The company seems like a fraud and is just a way to try to get investors interested in footing the huge bill that AE has to pay. We'll see what happens, but I have a bad feeling the nightmare is just beginning. Check out Horizons forum with this link and see for yourself.
http://vnboards.ign.com/Horizons_General_Board/b5252/76031157/?22
Xander
Xander
Its not at all unusual for companies to do this.
When a company declares chapter 11 they ruin any chance of credit or funding so it becomes necessary to "create" another company with wich to reaquire their assets without reaquiring their debts. This will give Horizons a clean slate and a chance to aquire more funding to invest into the game.
This isnt anything to be overly concerned about its really just business as usual.
ROLEPLAYERS UNITE!!!!!
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
Xander
Xander
In My opinion what Horizons has is tons of potential. It has realized very little of it thus far but if it had the right people and enough money to see it through it could actually do well.
ROLEPLAYERS UNITE!!!!!
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
I played this game in beta several months and made the mistake of buying it.. Horizons started as a great idea many years ago and slowly changed into a basic MMORPG that you could be a dragon in minus all the PVP they promised and many other things
For me on 4 mbit cable. and basically one of very few playing, the game was still so laggy it is not very fun. Horizon's needs to go back to beta or maybe even the drawing board...
ACCCKK!!! not me HONEST
and all they had to do was add a good pvp system and the game would still be alive
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
Personally, I don't think that even God could save this poor excuse of a game...I tried it (and I really, really wanted to like it,) but could find NO reason for its existance...it performed SO graphically miserably on my system (P4 3.06, Radeon 9800 Pro, 2Gb PC3200, etc, etc) and it shouldn't have. Blame poor coding or whatever you want to, but between this issue and their ability to keep more than 10 ppl. on one server at any given time, this company deserves to die..that's the truth, plain and simple
Bye bye Horizon ! Now please die in silence
--
Best to Worst list of MMOs :
Bought : AO, EVE, PS, Lineage II, Lineage, Neocron, StarPeace, Horizons, DAOC
Tried : WoW, Guild Wars, Ryzom, SWG, AC2, E&B, EQ2, RO, The Sims Online, EQ, Shadowbane
--
Best to Worst list of MMOs :
Bought : AO, EVE, PS, Lineage II, Lineage, Neocron, StarPeace, Horizons, DAOC
Tried : WoW, Guild Wars, EQ2, Ryzom, CoH, SWG, AC2, E&B, RO, The Sims Online, EQ, Shadowbane
You think Tulga games will try to bring back old Horizons?
What's the over/under odds on Horizons and The Sims Online for the next game to fall?
Well this is interesting.
Courtesy of a whois with networksolutions/verisign.
Tulga Games
17715 North 68th Drive
Glendale, Arizona 85308
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: TULGAGAMES.COM
Created on: 20-Jul-04
Expires on: 20-Jul-05
Last Updated on: 15-Sep-04
Administrative Contact:
Tulumello, Chris chris.tulumello@cox.net
Tulga Games
17715 North 68th Drive
Glendale, Arizona 85308
United States
6237768599 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Tulumello, Chris chris.tulumello@cox.net
Tulga Games
17715 North 68th Drive
Glendale, Arizona 85308
United States
Now is it just me, or isn't it a bit odd that the technical and administrative contacts for a company big enough to buy and run an MMORPG are listing their contact email addresses as cox.net addresses rather than even having the minimal resources and expertise to have their own mail server? (Cox is the main cable company here in Phoenix in case you didn't know.)
Also the address listed looks pretty damn residential in nature if you plug it into mapquest.
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&countryid=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=address&searchtype=address&address=17715+N+68th+drive&city=Glendale&state=az&zipcode=&search=++Search++
It's actually pretty close to my work so I'm tempted to swing by and verify that in person. The layout of the streets and my limited knowledge of that area make me pretty sure it's a residential area. Don't get me wrong, I'm most certainly not stalking the guy, I didn't play Horizons aside from the 7 day trial and wasn't impressed, but this whole deal is shady enough that it is somewhat entertaining to watch what happens.
The whole thing sounds like a scam to me.
Here's the company info from the Arizona Corporation Commision's website:
File Number: L-1143087-2
Corp. Name: TULGA GAMES, LLC
Domestic Address 17715 N 68TH DR
GLENDALE, AZ 85308
Statutory Agent Information Agent Name: CHRIS TULUMELLO
Agent Mailing/Physical Address:
17715 N 68TH DR
GLENDALE, AZ 85308
Agent Status: APPOINTED 07/16/2004
Agent Last Updated: 09/09/2004
Officer and Director Information Name: CHRIS TULUMELLO
Title: MANAGER
Address: 17715 N 68TH DR
GLENDALE, AZ 85308
Date Assigned: 07/16/2004 Last Updated: 07/30/2004
Name: CHRIS TULUMELLO
Title: MEMBER
Address: 17715 N 68TH DR
GLENDALE, AZ 85308
Date Assigned: 07/16/2004 Last Updated: 07/30/2004
Additional Corporate Information Corporation Type: DOMESTIC L.L.C.
Incorporation Date: 07/16/2004 Corporate Life Period: PERPETUAL
Domicile: ARIZONA County: MARICOPA
Approval Date: 07/16/2004 Original Publish Date: 09/01/2004
Boy if one guy can run the whole show I'm betting he's gonna be a busy SOB even given the small amount of Horizons players that there are.
As it was pointed out early in the thread, this looks like nothing more than a convenient way to dodge debt accrued by Artifact that they can't or would rather not pay off.
From the Tulgagames.com website: Tulga Games LLC is a privately held game publisher headquartered in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. Tulga Games LLC has a mission of providing individuals and families with quality digital entertainment experiences.
Yeah I'd say they're headquartered in a suburb all right, right in Chris Tulumello's house.
Seriously though, what kind of bozo registers a business that's bound to have some pissed off fans/customers to their home address? That's just stupid if you ask me.
Anyway like I said, could be interesting to see how this all works out.
Xander
Xander
Xander
Xander
This is what happens when you push an unfinished product onto market. Unless the big boys start realizing that ppl dont want to pay to test the game it will happen again, period. I was in the last 2 months of beta and we were covering the beta forums with posts for them to porspond the game's release till it's rdy to actually play but you know the rest.
There is an art of which every man should be a master the art of reflection. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?
William Hart Coleridge
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
What the HECK are you smoking man???
By trade, I'm a researcher, so I did a little digging. It's a shame about what happened to the original Horizons concept and how the original creator got right royally shafted (http://www.gamemethod.com/archive/394.php), but the story gets even fishier...
The new Tulga Games site was only registered at the end of July 2004. It's signed off by Chris Tulumello, Managing Member, cst@tulgagames.com (same guy referred to in press releases).
It seems Chris Tulumello, a former employee of Artifact set up Tulga Games in July, all the data here:
(http://starpas.cc.state.az.us/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/WService=wsbroker1/
names-detail.p?name-id=L11430872&type=L.L.C.)
He's registered as LLC Manager of the company (dated 07/16/2004)
at his former company address:
17715 N 68TH DR
GLENDALE, AZ 85308
where he was operating as:
Philanthropy Consultants, Inc.
17715 North 68th Drive
Glendale, Arizona 85308
Toll Free Voice: 888 283-6054
Email: info@pro-fundraising.com
Contact: Chris Tulumello
Philanthropy Consultants, Inc., assists non-profit organizationssuch as Montessori schools, with their financial development and fundraising needs: capital campaigns, development audits, board development, strategic planning, etc.
strange to relate he hasn't renewed his registration for pro-fundraising.net
according to a thread on Blues News,
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=51692
Also interesting to note that Mr Tulumello was an employee of Artifact until two months or so ago and that he's also recently filed new corporations with the state of Arizona along with David Bowman and another guy that's Technical Director at Artifact all within a few days of each other.
The only thing it appears they're trying to do is avoid paying some of their debts as part of their bankruptcy.
Knowing that Tugla games appears to just be Chris Tulumello's fake storefront and he's the only person listed with the company with the AZ corporation comission, it makes the public release statement pretty amusing to read.
Like I said... it does smell a wee bit fishy....
~Erith~
Hey that was me that posted that on BluesNews Erith.
I rounded that up from reading a thread on the VN boards where someone else had looked it up more thoroughly than I had and just abridged it and drew my own conclusions. The only reason I started looking at the AZ Corporation Comission's website was because when I did the whois that looked like a residential address rather than a business address and I got more curious about what seems to be a company that's a complete and utter fabrication.
As I said on Blues, I would be more than a little surprised if any actual money changes hands should this deal be approved by the judge. It seems like the whole transaction is just funny money/on paper.
**Disclaimer just in case Tulga/Artifact want to be the litigation happy sort of people**
In the unlikely event that someone from Tulga or Artifact reads my messages, I would just like to put up a disclaimer that my statements are my opinions and any facts posted are directly from network solutions whois results or filings with the AZ corporation comission. If there's any factual error with those, take it up with them. Any other statements are speculation/opinion on my part based on my analysis of what I've seen from publicly available information. If you don't want to have people speculating as such then I'd suggest covering your tracks a bit better or better still consider more ethical business dealings in the first place.