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Vultures Attack
Ederman
Member Posts: 2
I find it interesting how the vultures attack once they see the sight of blood. As the saying goes - no one reads good news, people want the dirt. The attacks on Gary Whiting. The convulted half truths about managment. It would be humerous if it wasn't a sad fact that some percentage of people may actually believe this stuff. If even a small part of it was true, then the real money would be made in writing a book about it or making it into a movie. Take the Brad Wright comments for example: Brad loves what is going on at Stargate Worlds - he isn't happy about the impact the economy has had on fund raising for CME - but he loves the game and the direction it is taking. So he makes some honest comments to Gateworld and soon everyone thinks the game is going down the drain - clearly not what Brad intended and not the facts. Forums are meant to be facts - there meant to be dialogue and dialogue is the most fun when it is controversial. There has been lots of talk about Gary Whiting and about MMOGULS and ITzYourMall etc. - who cares what Gary does - this is a Stargate Worlds forum - lets stick to Stargate. Gary Whiting controls it all, but he is not building the game - the development team is - the struggle is getting funding to do so - the eonomic situation for funding sucks - so since funding is suffering - Gary is suddenly a crook - we have to take our pain out on someone. Sofa quarterbacks are all too common - everyone focusing on the past and what should have been different. We all need Stargate to focus on the future - build a great game, get the needed funding and move on. There is discussion about the CEO, Tim Jenson - statements about his past - did anyone really read the SEC complaint or the Merisel litigation? Jenson wasn't convicted of anything - his former employer claimed everything and the kitchen sink - but if you read the SEC reports and the company's financial statements - the claims were all bogus - Jenson never did anything wrong - Merisel was just trying to scare him aware from a negotiated severence package. People read a few headlines and jump to conclusions. Anyone can file a lawsuit and once it is filed against a public company CEO - the SEC is going to get involved.
The whole Knowldege Relay dialogue seems laughable. CME should have never bought this company, but since they didn't pay any money for it and ended up with over 51% just for agreeing to raise money for the company - it was a deal that was hard to pass up. All the funding for Knowledge Relay came from new investors who invested directly in Knowledge Relay. No money ever came from CME. It is true that CME provided corporate oversight and spent some finance, HR and legal time working on Knowledge Relay, but these were resources that were hired by CME regardless of whether they bought Knowledge Relay or not and these resources would not have gone away without Knowledge Relay. Knowledge Relay was a deal that cost no money but gave CME 51% of the ownership. It was working well until the economy killed the funding - then Knowledge Relay couldn't raise any money and CME was unwilling to invest its own money in Knowledge Relay so the company got substantially behind on its financial obligations and looked like it would go out of business. Whiting was busy raising funds for CME and with the economic problems he had no interest in Knowledge Relay - (he was never really that interested in it, but when you can get it for free why not take it.) Soon the Knowledge Relay investors started to threaten litigation since Gary Whiting would not allow them to dilute CME's 51% interest in Knowledge Relay and the company was out of funding. To prevent ligitation, Whiting decided to dispose of the company, but no one was interested in buying Knowledge Relay since it was unprofitable and way behind on its bills with an uncertain future. Whiting was looking for more CME stock to sell to keep CME funded, so he asked if he could buy some of Jenson's CME shares in exchange for CME's interest in Knowledge Relay. To keep CME going and prevent litigation, Jenson agreed but turned the managment of Knowledge Relay over to new managers and let them dilute his interests as needed to raise addtional funds. Jenson's interest has been diluted to below 50% and he no longer controls Knowledge Relay. Jenson also told Whiting that he plans on notifying CME shareholders that any of them who wants to exchange their CME stock for Knowledge Relay can do so at the same exchange rate that Jenson did so - an indication that Jenson would like his CME stock back.
Whiting has pissed off lots of people as he has been raising funds for Stargate and CME's other games. Some are pissed off because they want a piece of the action and Gary said no. Others think they can boot Whiting out and somehow they will be in charge. It is just interesting that when funding wasn't a problem, then no one had concerns about Whiting - but when the company became at-risk and funding was scarce - Whiting became public enemy number 1.
I just want this game to get funded, get build and get launched. More focus by everyone to work together and less finger pointing - less distractions. A few months ago, people were applauding what a great development team, Jenson had put together - now Jenson is characterized as a crook with Whiting - what a fickle crowd. Angry ex-employees, angry investors, angry past due vendors all what to blame their problems on CME and its management - clearly there are lots of people hurting given the affects the economy has had on everyone and on CME - but let's get past the blame game and move on. Let use the forums to talk about the game - not about political crap.
Comments
ack...white wall of text!
(enter key would be helpful in reading this)
double post
Hmm well most including myself on SGW forums do believe SGW will come out. But we dont agree what Gary Whiting is doing he doing with mmoguls which he has used to steal money from which could in turn mean less money going to CME. He also forced a lot of Devs out of CME by making them join his company mmoguls. Now hopefully Gary will get done for pocketing money and we can forget about him and deal with what matters seeing SGW get done which chould be as late as 2010 as they appear to be atleast 3 months behind sceduel. With phase 1 of beta being late by 2 months and I say phase 2 is late by a month atleast also from what I hear just over 50% of the game is complete. I still have hope that SGW will come out though
Yes even us fans are appoled by what GW is doing.
I think at this point, 2010 is the earliest the game could possibly hit shelves (if it survives).
"1st stage beta" was really and internal alpha. The word beta was used as a red herring to give the idea that they were farther along in development. The alpha didn't go well.
1st 1/4 2009 is gone, there is no closed beta running. No plan for a stress test. Assuming there will be an open beta that takes time. There is no finished game, there isn't even an unfinished game to start fixing beta issues on, no contracts with server farms, no distribution/publishing contracts, no disk pressing contracts and no money.
If everything started to magicly go right starting today, there is still no possible way it could be on shelves in 2009.
If after beta testing it,you still want it released ???? If your answer is yes, then you havent beta tested it.
If you can get a sample of this game thru beta testing, i dont think you would care whether or not it ever gets released.
TO OP ----- FYI---- VULTURES DONT ATTACK THEY SCAVENGE THINGS THAT ARE ALL READY DEAD---THE VULTURES KNOW ITS DEAD NOW THEY JUST PICK APART THE CORPSE OF A CRAPTASTIC GAME
Thanks Ederman for providing further supporting evidence to much of what has been said on these forums. Your post is HUGE but I do want to touch on a few things:
“who cares what Gary does - this is a Stargate Worlds forum” We care! Gary & Crew had enough funds to finish Stargate. They made some bad investments with the original investor money and those mistakes continued or compound to where we are today.
“Jenson never did anything wrong” Okay, like the SEC loves to ruin people’s careers and keep them from running public companies just because their former employer didn’t want to pay severance? I’ll take what you’re smoking, along with the cool aid you’re drinking!
“Whiting has pissed off lots of people” Thanks for re-confirming that! Bet I see him flying back to Utah with body guards next time.
“It is just interesting that when funding wasn't a problem, then no one had concerns about Whiting” Oh yes they did! Many questioned all those bad investments made by Whiting & Crew. Seriously, does a software company need to invest in another Mexican restaurant in the Phoenix area? What about those Spanish movie kiosks? Not enough space to list them all.
“A few months ago, people were applauding what a great development team, Jenson had put together” Really? Who has been blowing smoke up your ass? I guess the proof will be in the putting when SGW comes out. We'll see how great they all are.
“More focus by everyone to work together and less finger pointing - less distractions” Not sure you can boss people around on these forums. They are not moderated like SGW. I suppose if CME just paid their employees, vendors and gave investors a good feeling about the game coming out, there would be no distractions.
Before I even entertain the idea of any sort of debate and/or support of the "talking points" of the OP's spam-rant, I have a question that I would like answered:
Ederman, are you an actual troll, or just an unfortunate-looking person who happens to live under a bridge?
So are you saying we should stop holding the Chairman and his top executive responsible for this train wreck and convert to become FanOri and start making positive comments all the time related to how orgasmic SGW will be when it releases? Are you an executive working at AIG or Royal Bank of Scotland?
You seem to believe that the people running a company who make the big decisions and where the buck stops shouldn't take any responsibility for what happens to those companys when things go bad. What about all those employees that didn't recieve a paycheck at Christmass? It wasn't Whiting's fault? So whose fault was it? He had over $40 mil to play with and is now flat broke, because he spent it unwisely not because the tooth fairy came and took it in the night!
Whiting has also set up a pyramid scheme based on SGW now, what should I say about that? Oh I see according to you I should ignore it and focus on the good positive things about SGW instead of slagging off the managment, for things they've actually done by the way! Well here's news there is nothing positive about this game, there's been no news since "beta" ended last year so what is there to talk about concerning SGW that wasn't last year? Nothing, and why is this? Because they have only 4-5 real developers left now, and why is that? Because team Whiting couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, that's why!
If you want to read some nice sanatized comments on SGW there's the official site. A lovely little bed and breakfast, just turn right at the second junction on Delusion highway. Then the third left onto Denial road and you'll see it on the right between D&L motel and Wish spa and lounge opposite the turn off to Stockholm Syndrome lane. We can all go there and meet Tom Cruise who'll initiate us into the FanOri cult, then we sit around for ages eating crumpets and drinking tea. All the time pretending the place isn't falling down around our ears talking to eachother about how wonderfull the place will be when it's finished and shooing away the people trying to save us from outside by screaming infantile abuse at them.
About Brad Wright, I've never seen him make one public statement that he's happy with the state of the game nor the management. But hold on if Brad Wright knows nothing about SGW like they say on the FanOri site how can he of played it and be a big fan anticipating its release? Doesn't make sense does it? All he's said is that CME don't have what it takes to release a finished product, thay've spent their cash and we've all been wasting our time including him and MGM. He said it in his own words, CME confirmed it by saying without new investment they can't release SGW. Nothing cryptic there is there?
Finally I'd like to know how long you've been working for Whiting, or atleast being paid by one of his cronies?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Gary?........is that you, Gary?
The top execs should definitely be held accountible for what they do and the outcomes of their actions.
Whiting, Jenson and the whole management team should be held accountable and so should the development teams. Where did the $40 million go? The dev teams for the different studios spent it - so where is the product.
Look around - CME isn't the only company having problems - maybe the sad state of our economy has had a bit of an impact. Let fire managment everywhere they all screwed up.
From reading previous posts - it appears things were all positive until mid 2008 - the stream of negativity does seem to coincide with the downslide in the economy.
Erdman has to be an insider of a former inside - he seem to know to much.
It is clear that Whiting never knew anything about interactive entertainment from the start - but why did he hire Jenson if he is such a crook?
The Merisel and SEC things are bogus - at least Erdman had that right - Jenson's track record at Merisel was excellent - he took the stock price up 600% while CEO.
How can you say they are bogus - the SEC doesn't waste time on false accusations.
Do the research - the SEC claim was taken from Merisel - Jenson settled it to avoid protracted litigation and a huge cost - the SEC reports from Merisel show it was totally bogus.
Even if Jenson was clean - why hire a guy to only work a couple days a week - what a waste!
CME has a lot of crap on it, don't get me wrong - but the claim that Jenson only works a couple days a week is ludicrous. I have talked with employees - the guy is a workaholic and works 6 days a week (he doesn't work on Sunday if possible since he believes that is the Lord's day). He is always working and any time day or night he will respond to a phone call or email within the hour.
Then were did the rumor come from that he is only in the office 2 days a week.
Who knows - where do all rumors come from. I do know that on average CEO's are at their headquarters less than 50% of the time. They are traveling to remote offices, to visit clients, customers, trade shows, etc. I CEO that is always in the office is not doing his job.
If these people aren't to blame for this "fiasco" , who is? I have been semi-following this game for a while now. I just loved SG-1, until the Ori. I actually own all seasons on DVD. So, I was very interested in playing this game. But....after reading a lot of negative press surrounding this game and the company, I decided to STOP following this game. If the game ends up releasing and the reviews seem good, I might then try it. As it stands now, it may not release, and if it does, it won't be the game I imagined it would be. Only time will tell.
Also I know that CME has vendors across the country and it had offices in Boston and Los Angeles. MGM is in Los Angeles, it has an engine provider in Australia - I think someone picked up on Jenson only being in Arizona two-three days each week and went wild with it.
To the OP, you want people to read your post, use paragraphs, they do have a function!
"Enter" is your friend!