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Greed Monger Cancelled; $100,000+ in Kickstarter Funds Unaccounted For
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In my own mind i can't stop thinking that KICKSTART as a whole should hold at least some responsability.
They should be held accountable also for not having things in place like contracts between the devs if a project gets funded !!
My 2 cents.
Now imagine if Star Citizen suddenly shut it's doors O.O
Confirmation regarding the offer that Gloria Victis made in April 2015 - This was re-tweeted by Gloria Victis twitter https://twitter.com/gloriavictismmo Officially reigniting the 1-month old offer to GM-Backers; Good on GV for swooping in!
Gloria Victis is a low fantasy Medieval MMORPG with an emphasis on realism. What does this mean? Open PvP with territory control, non-target combat, sandbox crafting, player-driven economy and no fireballs. All served up with a deep, mature story.
...and that ladies and gentlegamers is how you create positive news and get recognition.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
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Agreed.
It's very classy and well-timed.
Kudos to Gloria Victis!
This has all been just a big scam by Proctor. Do not let him kid you. Here is how it played out.
Proctor is a fake developer.. basically he buys assets from Unity or other places, and make it seem like he created them. See his big list of ´unfinished´ projects.. most of them are just stuff other people made that he tinkered with.
Jason Appleton is a con man. But he was convinced he could make a MMORPG because of all the cheap stuff available on the asset store. He is not a game developer so is stupid about how difficult MMORPGs are to make.
Proctor convinced Jason that with $100,000, he could build a MMORPG.. Jason believed him. A few months ago, Proctor posted chat logs between the two and it showed that Jason was buying stuff for Proctor right and left and hiring a bunch of morons that Proctor recommended, who later ended up bailing with money without doing anything.
Over the next two years. Appleton began to become aware that Proctor had duped him, and that Proctor was just buying useless stuff with the KS money and that there was no real development being done on the game.
Appleton called Proctor out on this a few months ago, and Proctor quit the project.
But this is the part that gets interesting. After Proctor quit, Appleton actually posted on the forums and said that Proctor needed to return all the software and art assets that were bought with kickstarter money.
Proctor has over $20k worth of kickstarter bought assets.. It was then that this deal came about where Proctor would ´make GM´ in exchange for the software and art assets... This was just a lie. He never had any intention of making GM.. as you can see, as soon as the new company was formed MMOI, the first thing he did was started working on his new zombie game.. there was never any progress on GreedMonger. It was all just a lie to keep those art and software assets.
Appleton is a con artist, but Proctor is the one who scammed Appleton into thinking he could make a MMORPG, and Proctor is the one who benefited from all that software and art assets
It is funny that Proctor keeps saying he will not be using that stuff for his new game.. Here are a couple of quotes from Proctor this week.
This is what Proctor wrote on May 25th
If we do our own MMO then believe me we will go through GM's Source and Assets and reuse whatever we can from it for our own MMO.
This is what Proctor wrote after people called him out for stealing the assets for his new game
Then in the post linked above on May 27th
We did NOT take over GM just for licenses and assets. There will be no Assets from GM used in ANY of our Projects until the time comes that we have the funding to purchase those assets on our own.
I actually used to defend Proctor like many people here, but then I saw the chat logs he posted from the early days of GM. It was clear that Appleton was spending a ton of money on stuff Proctor was asking him to buy, and that Appleton was hiring a bunch of nobodies who were friends with Proctor. It was not uncommon for Proctor to ask Appleton for stuff that costs hundreds of dollars, say it was ´needed and would change everything´ and then 2 days after Appleton bought it, Proctor would say it was worthless and didn´t do what he thought it would do.
Proctor is not a game developer.. look at all the stuff he has worked on.. none of it is even halfway finished. It is all just a collection of other people´s stuff thrown together that is an unplayable mess. Even Greedmonger, the pathetic video that was shown in January and that he played again in the Google Hangout... that is mostly just UMA and Atavism ( two assets from the Unity asset store).
And then there is the whole issue of him being on disability for mental illness, and at the same time telling people for 4 years that he is a lead developer of an MMORPG. Again, he admitted this himself in the chat logs he posted himself.
I think the closest you are going to get is the skype chatlog that Proctor released in an attempt to slam Appleton, but the irony is that it did the opposite ( Proctor is really not a very intelligent guy). in the chat logs, which cover 2 years of GM development from the early days..you see countless conversations of Proctor asking Appleton to buy stuff that later turns out not to work the way Proctor wanted. You see Appleton paying James $4000 and buying him a new computer. You see Appleton hiring people that Proctor recommended, and then weeks later those people disappearing after demanding an upfront bonus.
There is no way to add it all up and get to $100k, but the thing that I saw as I read those chat logs is that Appleton did put a good effort into funding the game. He did not have the technical knowledge, so when Proctor said ´buy this, it will fix everything´.. Appleton usually bought it for him.. right up until the very end with the Voxel system which was bought this year.
"Thank you for posting! Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting."
Cute, they are filtering the content posted in their own forums, that sure inspires a lot of trust, also... quite unfair, considering the fact that they went around multiple forums defending and promoting their “game”, yet they won’t even approve my feedback, it leaves me completely heartbroken, oh well, if you guys don’t mind I guess I’ll be posting it here instead!
"FML. Time to say goodbye to $300. I feel bad for the people who got suckered into getting castles. Good one kickstarter you got me again."
By Havoc @ ;http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/showthread.php?2078-Shutting-down-Greed-Monger
You (and the people who share that same opinion) are misdirecting the blame mate. It’s not Kickstarters fault, it’s yours and only yours.
The Kickstarter is just a tool to aid “small” projects who lack on other ways to get funding, like anything else out there, there will always people who will misuse it for their own personal gain, some of them being pretty successful with it as you could see here, even so, these people didn’t force you to throw your money at them, you choose do to that yourself and all it took was a bunch of promises made by a couple of random internet people…
Next time, if there is one, consider yourself doing a little research about whatever you are throwing your money at, get to know who is running the show, what kind of experience they have, what have they accomplished so far, how much have they to show us, is it worth any money, what can you do if shit goes wrong….. because seriously, anyone with access to Youtube could figure out this wasn’t going anywhere, do yourself a quick search for “1 man made MMOs Unity”, see for yourself what a single person can do, most of them without any funding at all and compare it to what GM has shown you so far in all these years.
Seriously hope that those 300$ were at least enough to buy yourself a good lesson so that there is no other “again” the next time “kickstarter” tries to scam you.
" I've learned a number of things about working in the Game Development Industry that I wouldn't have learned else where."
By James Proctor @ http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/showthread.php?2078-Shutting-down-Greed-Monger
Obviously you didn't learn enough, considering that you are throwing promises again that you most likely won’t be able to keep. I just hope that one day that “indie video game developers” as they call themselves stop opening forums, building hype and asking for donations even before downloading Unity, it’s just pathetic.
"We will release this game no matter what. Whether it's taking a while because we're financing it ourselves, or with help from publishers or investors. This project will NOT get shelved. It WILL be released to our best efforts."
@ http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1536961-Trials-of-Ascension-Shady-Practices-and-the-Big-Crowdfunding-Debate/page288?p=33135592#post33135592
"You're gonna feel silly when RoH isn't announced in 3 months. You're gonna also feel silly when all of your predictions are found to be false."
@ http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1536961-Trials-of-Ascension-Shady-Practices-and-the-Big-Crowdfunding-Debate/page295?p=33182157#post33182157
Hey, Mr. Lumpypants, are YOU feeling silly now?
This story is over, done with, time to bury it and move on to bigger and better things while this goes on the ash heap.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Good to get your side of things Jason.......
Hahah.. not at all. I said Jason Appleton is a con artist also. Up until 4 months ago, I was like everyone else and thought Appleton was this horrible liar who stole the money, and Proctor was this hardworking guy who was doing his best to pull things together. That is an easy thing to believe.
But then I read the skype chat logs that Proctor released. Proctor released them trying to make Appleton look bad.. but in my opinion, they made Appleton look a little better, and Proctor look like a lying idiot. Remember, these were private chats that Proctor released, but in them, you saw for 2 years how Appleton was buying all kinda stuff that Proctor recommended. You saw that Appleton really did want to make the game and was doing everything he could to get it done.
You gotta read the skype chats (the Proctor released himself).. then you will see how much of a liar and how incompetent Proctor really is. If you have any type of game developing skills, you can see that all Proctor was doing was buying a bunch of crap and trying to throw it together to look like a MMORPG... which is why the video he released was so terrible. it was just Frankenstein... he had not actually created anything.. just bought random stuff.
They aren't two years of logs. It's only two months. It runs from 12/12 to 1/13.
"And then there is the whole issue of him being on disability for mental illness, and at the same time telling people for 4 years that he is a lead developer of an MMORPG. Again, he admitted this himself in the chat logs he posted himself."
he has no insight at all into how unacceptable this is, whatever his level of disability its clear that he is capable of working full time and he should have been pursuing employment in whatever capacity he could.
so not only did he participate in taking the money of the GM investors and squandering it, but every month we all pay his bills for him while chases whatever pipe dream he is onto this week.
this will get removed or the thread will now be closed because we are talking about this issue again which is a shame because he needs to hear this, it could be a life changing realization for him.
I'd really like to keep personal information and attacks out of this thread. It's one thing to criticize a person's actions, work, and professionalism; however, attacking a person's personal information and state isn't fair or warranted.
The ones from Codex? What I read was much longer than that. Two years was an estimate, but it was way longer than 2 months and included the time before the kickstarter ended until a long time after Proctor was the only developer. The main developers all quit about a week after the KS, and then there was a second batch of guys that Jason hired, and then there was a long time where Proctor was bringing in people to do various tasks.
I will have to check what is available now. When they were first released, I read the entire thing in a few days, it was a monster.
Did you read all the stuff about Proctor´s mother´s paypal account and Proctor not even having his own back account or ID?
To be honest, when I was reading it I thought Jason had spoofed Codex and released the chatlogs while appearing to be Proctor. They made Proctor look like such an idiot that it didn´t seem reasonable to me that he would release them himself... including releasing his mother´s paypal email account and stuff like that.
Nope. It's two months. Look again.
Starts 12/5/2012 and ends on 1/12/2013.
It is a long chat long, but it's not two years worth of logs.
I disagree. It completely leads to his credibility issue. You cannot tell someone that you are incapable of working so need assistance, and then at the same time convince other people that you are capable of being lead developer of a MMORPG. For years, this guy was posting on forums saying he could complete GM while having a cash-shop open for people to buy virtual land.. and at the same time filing paperwork every month to collect disability because he couldn´t work.
I don´t want to ge the thread locked, so this is the last I will speak of this issue, but I do think it is important to keep in mind when you want to know if he is honest or not.
Also, there is still no word of the t-shirts... curious.. Joel Tubby went from being a rich businessman who could self-fund GreedMonger to a kid on a couch who can´t afford to buy plastic bags.
All of that silly talk they did about ´doing right by the backers of GM´ and ´making things right´. Let´s check where we are.
Proctor has abandoned the game, still has the assets and software and is currently prototyping his 14th game ( other projects still prototypes also). This one is going to be a zombie survival game... which is exactly what the backers of Greedmonger were expecting.
Joel Tubby on the other hand has disappeared.. and despite having the t-shirts for a month and promising to send them out ´next week´ about 3 weeks ago... still has not done so. But don´t worry Mr. Businessman.. we all believe you... just gotta wait for your mom to give you an allowance so you can buy plastic bags.
The members here on MMORPG.com have pressed Jason and James extremely hard on the issue of those T-shirts. There were so many delays and twists in the story that many, including myself, thought that those T-shirts didn't exist. Until Mr. Lumpyman showed a white T-shirt with a print that looked like it had to do with Greed Monger in a youtube video. The story was he would be starting to send them out in batches. Until the final twist came along that he was waiting for plastic bags.
We know how important physical rewards are in the Kickstarter process. T-shirts are the only tangible evidence that anything, anything was done at all in the whole development process of Greed Monger.
I posted this before, but... If you are an original backer of the Greed Monger project, and American, and thinking about filing a lawsuit against Appleton. Then I'd like to help fund you legal costs for a value of $250 through paypal, in exchange for a copy of the court papers. Regardless outcome of the case. Send me a private message if interested.
I disagree, the story is over when people don't care about it anymore not when you proclaim it to be over. You know that very well but here you are posting without thinking first.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
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The physical rewards are the only thing that Kickstarter can press charges. They have to be fulfilled with highest priority before money can be spent on anything else.
Since that is not the case with GM a simple email to Kickstarter from the backers should suffice to prompt legal action.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
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I am going to be disappointed when it does taper off.. This is near Derek Smart level of entertainment.
what are you talking about?
If it is still fun to talk about it, it is far from over. See how many posts are below yours.
While I'm sure it's the conclusion to this particular story, I'm sure it's not the last we will see from kickstarter stories or James Proctor.
To update the story, James Proctor was recently questioned as to why he was banned from Atavism early on, and he had this to say:
Yes as a matter of fact I was (banned) because I dared to speak out against the way they were advertising their framework. They were saying it already had features that were yet to be implemented. I suggested to them that they might want to be up front with potential customers and instead of saying it already had those features say they they were planned features.
The comical irony in his words are nothing short of pure poetry. This is surely the best example of the pot calling the kettle black. While I'm sure this isn't the last we will see of James Proctor, at least he has way of creating an interesting story!
what are you talking about?
If it is still fun to talk about it, it is far from over. See how many posts are below yours.
Over?Over?
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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