1) You need a real good lawyer and an angle AND someone to listen.
2) What is a complaint with the governor of Washington going to do exactly? So one person who typically reads the letters..IF they read them,will put this into a priority pile,likely the low priority pile.
3) Even if the complaints got passed up the line to an important person,an investigation would have to be launched,money and time with nothing in it for the government.
4) When you see offices like for example the FTC laying out fines ,THAT is the true reason they acted ,they saw $$$$ for their coffers so they went after the culprits.I found it funny when i was just reading over their site and seeing them still bragging about the Warner Bros fines,that was at least a year ago,this is how LAZY government offices are,they only move when they see BIG $$$.
5) I do feel for all the people who have been very frustrated over the years but take this as a lesson learned,you become wiser with age.
1. I think no one other than an attorney can tell these guys what their options are. Which is why I wonder why people bother giving legal advice when they most experience they've ever had with the law was speaking to their parole officer.
2. Who knows, may not do anything, may do something.
3. In today's world, I can see how a failed MMO may not be their priority.
4. Which is why I don't understand why people are so partisan or political when year after year both parties force feed Americans their own shit for brownie points while they sip champagne and watch people yell at each other 24/7 365 days. Even worse is when the force fed sheep fight for one group over another after getting neutered financially through taxes.
5. I feel bad in a sense for the non-echo chamber white knights that lost their money. People invested money for a real chance at a vision that Caspian said was secured through funding, and they shouldn't be dealt this kind of hand. But surely the "kings" and "royalty" which are better described as court jesters and donkeys should get some of the blame for perpetuating SBS and leads thousands of other members to spend their hard earned cash after they knew the entire project was a sham roughly a year ago.
If considering the entire project as a whole, you would be hard-pressed to convince a normal person that this in no way could be fraud, and that this entire failure could be chalked up as incompetence alone.
What could a legal justice system do? A lot, in fact they already do something very similar against general dentists (one example of many) who preform oral surgery that they are ill-prepared (incompetent) to do. Or incompetent parents who leave their children in cars that end up baking their kids. In a way, the later example suits CoE very well, CoE (fraud/parent) leaves the community (idiots/child) in a car to bake.
Legal system can act against incompetent dentists and parents who leave children in a car because there's a rule they have broken. For example: -Don't sell medical operations without qualification -Don't leave children or pets in a car
For CoE it's harder to act because there isn't and there can't be a rule against making bad estimations. Punishments are only given to those who break rules, not to those who are merely idiots.
Yes, I said legal system do act against those two scenarios but you're not getting my point. The point I'm making is that legal systems (and I'm speaking particularly about western legal systems) fail when the matter at hand warrants further inquiring based on shady practices that are recognized as unfair by the average person through common sense only to be dismissed since the action in question does not break a "law" even though it is morally wrong. This serves as a paradox for the idea of "laws" to being moral and ethical in the first place.
I'm going to gloss over the medical operations/dentist stuff because it's a bit more convoluted regarding what surgeries general dentists should and should not do when a patient requires oral surgery that would be better suited to a maxillo-facial specialist/periodontist/oral surgeon...
Instead, I'll focus on the parent leaving their kid in a car scenario.
Legal systems are extremely fallible on their own because where one legal system in America/Europe may say that it's wrong to leave your child in a car, another system somewhere else (different state, province, or even city) may say it's entirely fine as long as you leave the windows down and/or if the child is of a certain age among other circumstances.
In this case, where one system deems leaving the child in a car to possibly roast to death or get kidnapped to be entirely okay another one would put you behind bars for incompetence with the possibility of taking your child away. This sense of a "legal system" without common sense or a consistent doctrine blurs the ideas of incompetence and what is ethically right.
So in summary, no, legal systems (again, western legal systems in general) have a tendency to fail because of it's own vagueness and it's steadfast idea of remaining true to the law even if it means letting people get away with incompetence and fraud.
Legal system is supposed to fail in a situation without a rule. It's a fail-safe used in free countries so that you can't be jailed because someone thinks your opinion, sexual orientation, or front lawn is unethical.
In free countries you get a set of rules, and as long as you don't break them you're safe from the legal system. It isn't supposed bring ideal ethics to the society. It's supposed to bring security while being predictable and still leaving you a lot of freedom to make your own choices within the rules.
Unless you want to make it a criminal offense to underestimate the resources necessary to make a game, it's hard to see what the legal system could do about this. If he took money that was donated for game development and just kept it himself, then yeah, you'd have a good complaint. But if he spent the money on developing the game and simply ran out, that may be incompetence, but it's not fraud.
Consider the questionable circumstances around this project, and you tell me why a professional in the industry could not see this coming. I agree that one of the alternatives to fraud could be incompetence (CoE's community saw a lot of it in missed dead-line and barely working events/forums) but looking at the whole picture, it seems more aligned with fraud.
Again, you could ask what makes me sure about this being fraud, and I would say I can ascribe fraud as much as incompetence, if not more so, to this entire circus.
Consider the AG reports, the numerous requests to Paypal, Xsolla, Credit-card companies, etc and the discrepancy about what was originally promised to the backers about raising funds to complete the MMO.
Consider the leaks on discord and the entire community pulling contradictory information from private and public talks with Casp.
Consider the numerous youtube videos made about this shady MMO and the materials presented by these big youtubers against CoE.
If considering the entire project as a whole, you would be hard-pressed to convince a normal person that this in no way could be fraud, and that this entire failure could be chalked up as incompetence alone.
What could a legal justice system do? A lot, in fact they already do something very similar against general dentists (one example of many) who preform oral surgery that they are ill-prepared (incompetent) to do. Or incompetent parents who leave their children in cars that end up baking their kids. In a way, the later example suits CoE very well, CoE (fraud/parent) leaves the community (idiots/child) in a car to bake.
You are basically assuming Caspian did this out of incompetence, does this mean his incompetence equals zero responsibility if it indeed was idiocy and incompetence?
Don't think legal system are the be-all end-all, we see way too many examples of dog-shit rulings and laws that are morally bankrupt. Of course laws have their place, but they shouldn't overrule common sense to maintain an image.
Since when did you need to be a professional in the industry to see this coming? I didn't expect this to end well, and I've barely followed CoE, let alone played it.
If you want to make a criminal case, then you have to prove fraud beyond a reasonable doubt. Something that seems like it might be fraudulent isn't good enough.
If you want to make it a civil case, then if the money is gone, it's gone. You can't recover resources from someone who doesn't have money.
Unless you want to make it a criminal offense to underestimate the resources necessary to make a game, it's hard to see what the legal system could do about this. If he took money that was donated for game development and just kept it himself, then yeah, you'd have a good complaint. But if he spent the money on developing the game and simply ran out, that may be incompetence, but it's not fraud.
Consider the questionable circumstances around this project, and you tell me why a professional in the industry could not see this coming. I agree that one of the alternatives to fraud could be incompetence (CoE's community saw a lot of it in missed dead-line and barely working events/forums) but looking at the whole picture, it seems more aligned with fraud.
Again, you could ask what makes me sure about this being fraud, and I would say I can ascribe fraud as much as incompetence, if not more so, to this entire circus.
Consider the AG reports, the numerous requests to Paypal, Xsolla, Credit-card companies, etc and the discrepancy about what was originally promised to the backers about raising funds to complete the MMO.
Consider the leaks on discord and the entire community pulling contradictory information from private and public talks with Casp.
Consider the numerous youtube videos made about this shady MMO and the materials presented by these big youtubers against CoE.
If considering the entire project as a whole, you would be hard-pressed to convince a normal person that this in no way could be fraud, and that this entire failure could be chalked up as incompetence alone.
What could a legal justice system do? A lot, in fact they already do something very similar against general dentists (one example of many) who preform oral surgery that they are ill-prepared (incompetent) to do. Or incompetent parents who leave their children in cars that end up baking their kids. In a way, the later example suits CoE very well, CoE (fraud/parent) leaves the community (idiots/child) in a car to bake.
You are basically assuming Caspian did this out of incompetence, does this mean his incompetence equals zero responsibility if it indeed was idiocy and incompetence?
Don't think legal system are the be-all end-all, we see way too many examples of dog-shit rulings and laws that are morally bankrupt. Of course laws have their place, but they shouldn't overrule common sense to maintain an image.
Since when did you need to be a professional in the industry to see this coming? I didn't expect this to end well, and I've barely followed CoE, let alone played it.
If you want to make a criminal case, then you have to prove fraud beyond a reasonable doubt. Something that seems like it might be fraudulent isn't good enough.
If you want to make it a civil case, then if the money is gone, it's gone. You can't recover resources from someone who doesn't have money.
This is true. And whilst Jeromy acted with complete ineptitude (well apart from when it came to overhyping his product) he didn't actually commit fraud. To say this is fraud you need to prove he didn't try to make a game. He did try, he was just living in the clouds, as was all the backers.
The blame here comes from. 1) Kickstarter for not confirming his project page was showing genuine progress. 2) Us the users for not checking he wasn't a con artist (easy to fall for the honey pot when you really want something) 3) Jeromy for his ineptitude in running a company.
Best you can hope for is that your credit card covers you. If you paid through the bank for something over the internet and didn't get the same protections as credit cards offer shame on you.
I'm not expecting my money back (I am trying through my credit card) but then I only spent what I could afford to lose. I definately didn't spend thousands.
Comments
2. Who knows, may not do anything, may do something.
3. In today's world, I can see how a failed MMO may not be their priority.
4. Which is why I don't understand why people are so partisan or political when year after year both parties force feed Americans their own shit for brownie points while they sip champagne and watch people yell at each other 24/7 365 days. Even worse is when the force fed sheep fight for one group over another after getting neutered financially through taxes.
5. I feel bad in a sense for the non-echo chamber white knights that lost their money. People invested money for a real chance at a vision that Caspian said was secured through funding, and they shouldn't be dealt this kind of hand. But surely the "kings" and "royalty" which are better described as court jesters and donkeys should get some of the blame for perpetuating SBS and leads thousands of other members to spend their hard earned cash after they knew the entire project was a sham roughly a year ago.
In free countries you get a set of rules, and as long as you don't break them you're safe from the legal system. It isn't supposed bring ideal ethics to the society. It's supposed to bring security while being predictable and still leaving you a lot of freedom to make your own choices within the rules.
If you want to make a criminal case, then you have to prove fraud beyond a reasonable doubt. Something that seems like it might be fraudulent isn't good enough.
If you want to make it a civil case, then if the money is gone, it's gone. You can't recover resources from someone who doesn't have money.
And whilst Jeromy acted with complete ineptitude (well apart from when it came to overhyping his product) he didn't actually commit fraud.
To say this is fraud you need to prove he didn't try to make a game.
He did try, he was just living in the clouds, as was all the backers.
The blame here comes from.
1) Kickstarter for not confirming his project page was showing genuine progress.
2) Us the users for not checking he wasn't a con artist (easy to fall for the honey pot when you really want something)
3) Jeromy for his ineptitude in running a company.
Best you can hope for is that your credit card covers you.
If you paid through the bank for something over the internet and didn't get the same protections as credit cards offer shame on you.
I'm not expecting my money back (I am trying through my credit card) but then I only spent what I could afford to lose.
I definately didn't spend thousands.