The Shadowrun Situation

[Crissa]

But Runner Havens was such a cool title...

-Crissa

[Jay Levine]

It was an open-ended list, with more being added/discussed all the time. Runner Havens was the one that was most pinned down originally, and the rest were fuzzier. Remember when there was "Weird Places" on the list?

"Weird Places" was the possible sixth book I mentioned. There were a couple other possible names for it, but it was going to cover some crazy locations like a space orbital.

I don't see Jong on the list of authors or shout-outs, but I do see references to his Bolivia chapter, which he was never paid forto my knowledge. I'm glad you got paid for your ideas, but not everyone did.

Jong-Won was aware of the use of that material and he didn't have a problem with it, as far as I'm aware (and I speak with him often). Like I said, many of the people involved in Ghost Cartels were also involved in SoLA, and the SoLA writers were keen to get that material used elsewhere.

[Judging__Eagle]

crazy locations like a space orbital.

Funny thing is.... the original material that all of this is based on has a space orbital station as the centrepiece location of the very first modern "cyberpunk" book ever written (Neuromancer, 1981~).

It's taken this long for the derivative material to finally have a cyberpunk setting space station. The circle finally closes.

[Jay Levine]

Shadowrun has had space orbitals for quite awhile now.

[Stahlseele]

And we still need a book titled:
SHADOWRUN: IIN SPAACEE! ò,Ó;,

[Username17]

And we still need a book titled:
SHADOWRUN: IIN SPAACEE! ò,Ó;,

Yes. Yes we do.

"Weird Places" was the possible sixth book I mentioned. There were a couple other possible names for it, but it was going to cover some crazy locations like a space orbital.

I count seven. I'll bold the ones that were actually published.

• Runner Havens
• Corporate Enclaves
• Feral Cities
• Cities of Intrigue (London and Denver, morphed into Spy Games)
• War Zones (morphed into Desert Wars, Dogs of War, and now just War!)
• Awakened Haunts (Metropole and New Orleans, canceled)
• Weird Places (a redux of Target: Wastelands, currently off the schedule)

But in any case, those seven were preliminary. People were seriously considering additional pieces. Doing a Target: Smuggler Havens or a Cyberpirates! in the format was certainly on the table - it just came off the table because the format didn't sell well. If it had done well, we probably would have seen some of the ones that were just floating titles in the suggestion box like Dens of Thieves.

Jong-Won was aware of the use of that material and he didn't have a problem with it, as far as I'm aware (and I speak with him often). Like I said, many of the people involved in Ghost Cartels were also involved in SoLA, and the SoLA writers were keen to get that material used elsewhere.

He gets grumbly about it sometimes. Mostly in reference to the SoLA shakedown itself rather than the Ghost Cartels bit. My point is not that they couldn't or even shouldn't have used his material - but simply that they could and did. Most of the people reading this thread have never seen a contract from IMR, so the subtleties of the fact that IMR doesn't have to pay you for your writing until a specific event occurs may escape them. That the ideas in the work may very well be used for profit even if that event never occurs and payment is never tendered is a pretty weird idea for a lot of people. But nevertheless, it's true. Jong wrote some Bolivia material that was never printed and thus never paid for. And yet, it is referenced in Ghost Cartels, which he also was not paid for.

And I use the Bolivia chapter example not because it's the only example, but simply because Jong put that chapter up for open downloading and anyone can go check.

So when IMR announces a bold new move where they will be selling intellectual property that they are not strictly speaking required to have paid for - color me suspicious. Because doing stuff that borders on using the limits of those contracts to outright steal peoples' writing is nothing new for them.

Shadowrun has had space orbitals for quite awhile now.

Yes and no. Shadowrun has fusion drives, Mars bases, space stations at every Lagrange point (including the ones on the other side of the sun), a straight up pirate space station, and so on. But despite the fact that there is all kinds of cool stuff in space, actually getting there hasn't been well explained. No one has written up the step by steps of you as a corporate espionage specialist would get to Mars or whatever. And so people default to thinking in 2010 terms: which means that you can't go. Someone really needs to write up a description of how easy it is to get from one place to another when you have mass drivers to shoot you into space and fusion jets to maintain 1G acceleration throughout the solar system.

Until someone does that, the space material will always be inaccessible to player characters. At which point it may as well not exist.

Edit: So yes, they did contact me about the audit. I gave them my contact information. No reason not to at this point. They have to respond to the Bankruptcy Proceedings summons on Tuesday, and the Audit won't be done by then no matter what I do - I won't be obstructing proceedings at all. Truth is important to me, and I will be as truthful as I can.

-Username17

[Wesley Street]

But despite the fact that there is all kinds of cool stuff in space, actually getting there hasn't been well explained. No one has written up the step by steps of you as a corporate espionage specialist would get to Mars or whatever. And so people default to thinking in 2010 terms: which means that you can't go.

Sort of. Target: Wastelands gives a brief description of how non-spacers can get into LEO: bribe your way onto a shuttle or get a corp to foot the bill. But I agree that any write up on a location a PC can't even get to is a waste of paper.

The big problem I see with a Runners in Space book is that, unless every outpost is an Eden Station set-up, it eliminates the magic angle. Or nearly does so by uber-punishing a mage with something between -7 and -12 in dice pool penalties.

[Jay Levine]

I count seven. I'll bold the ones that were actually published.

• Runner Havens
• Corporate Enclaves
• Feral Cities
• Cities of Intrigue (London and Denver, morphed into Spy Games)
• War Zones (morphed into Desert Wars, Dogs of War, and now just War!)
• Awakened Haunts (Metropole and New Orleans, canceled)
• Weird Places (a redux of Target: Wastelands, currently off the schedule)

War Zones is not in the original list I have. At one time early in the discussions, a war zone setting was a possible part of the concept for Feral Cities (after all, most war torn cities are feral cities).

And like I said, the idea mutated over time, but originally when we talked about it, it was a finite list. Because we didn't want to over-saturate the signature sprawls. We wanted a finite number of signature sprawls to act as anchor points for our plot lines, because we weren't satisfied with the way SR3 plot lines were going to places GMs and players knew very little about.

I even personally argued against the idea of the four small sprawl entries at the end of these books, because I thought it spread things out too much. I preferred two or three signature sprawls per book with a considerable word count (45,000 or more words) and then a section fleshing out the key concepts a GM would need to focus on to take a city of their choosing and make it into a "runner haven", "corporate enclave", etc. I was overruled there, though.

He gets grumbly about it sometimes. Mostly in reference to the SoLA shakedown itself rather than the Ghost Cartels bit. My point is not that they couldn't or even shouldn't have used his material - but simply that they could and did. Most of the people reading this thread have never seen a contract from IMR, so the subtleties of the fact that IMR doesn't have to pay you for your writing until a specific event occurs may escape them. That the ideas in the work may very well be used for profit even if that event never occurs and payment is never tendered is a pretty weird idea for a lot of people. But nevertheless, it's true. Jong wrote some Bolivia material that was never printed and thus never paid for. And yet, it is referenced in Ghost Cartels, which he also was not paid for.

And I use the Bolivia chapter example not because it's the only example, but simply because Jong put that chapter up for open downloading and anyone can go check.

I understand the point you're going for, but JWK's material for SoLA being used in Ghost Cartels is a bad example. IMR's potential for taking advantage of freelancers aside, Peter Taylor and Rob Boyle did the development for Ghost Cartels and they also did the development for SoLA (Peter especially was deeply involved in both books). The SoLA material used for Ghost Cartels was done with the original authors' permission. An author can agree to donate material if they want to.

I donated a lot of material to Ghost Cartels also. I was originally supposed to write the Final Cut chapter, but Jennifer took it over when I was having my troubles with Catalyst. I handed my notes over to her with no expectation that I'd be paid for them, and that's okay. I did so voluntarily. I remember even explicitly telling Catalyst not to worry about paying me for the Final Cut material, though I forget if they may have partially paid me for it. I'd have to look back in my records.

What I'm saying is that the potential for IMR/CGL to abuse their contracts with freelancers definitely exists (and hell, we know they've abused the situation before). But the Ghost Cartels material isn't really an example of that.

Until someone does that, the space material will always be inaccessible to player characters. At which point it may as well not exist.

Not really disagreeing with you there, I'm just saying that Shadowrun has had space orbitals for a long time. They remain a largely inaccessible part of the setting and there's been a lot of freelancer/developer discussion over the years about how to change that or even whether that should be changed.

[Semerkhet]

A series of related questions:
Any news on potential other bidders on the SR license?
If Topps decides to drop IMR/CGL on May 16, does Topps announce they are soliciting bids/proposals for the licenses or what?
Would Topps let the Battletech and Shadowrun licenses go to different companies?

If anyone on this board was around and involved when IMR/CGL originally picked up the SR/BT licenses, I'd be curious to read a precis of what transpired and what the terms of the licensing contract were.

[Username17]

A series of related questions:
Any news on potential other bidders on the SR license?

Yes. There is more than one bidding company. Those bids are sealed and I have no idea at all whose are most appealing.

If Topps decides to drop IMR/CGL on May 16, does Topps announce they are soliciting bids/proposals for the licenses or what?

Probably not. They already have bids. I made my case for them announcing that they were soliciting bids at the end of April, but they already had plenty of interested parties.

Unfortunately, there's a very good chance that there would be a news blackout for several months while the new company tried to pry the rights to recently produced materials from a recalcitrant IMR. Weird negotiations of course, since IMR would be in full control of valuable materials... that they could only sell to one company.

Would Topps let the Battletech and Shadowrun licenses go to different companies?

Yes. Battletech and Shadowrun are both properties. They can be licensed individually or together. Honestly, there isn't much synergy between the brands, so no real reason to think that the same company will grab both properties.

We think of them as having gone together always, but the reality is that when FASA broke up those were just two properties that happened to go to the same entity (FanPro), while other properties went to other companies. We could as easily conclude from the fact that they didn't move with Crimson Skies that they are properties that go their own way.

If anyone on this board was around and involved when IMR/CGL originally picked up the SR/BT licenses, I'd be curious to read a precis of what transpired and what the terms of the licensing contract were.

The exact transcripts are sealed of course. The experience of the move was that when the financials at FanPro Germany started falling apart, that the devs went on strike and defacto forced all of the rest of the creative staff to go on strike with them. Rob, Peter, and Rat held up book productions for nearly a year in a starve-the-beast proposal to force FanPro to let the license go after FanPro stopped cutting checks to people.

The primary difference this time around is that it is the local controller and developer who are the ones in the financial malfeasance and it was the creative staff who decided to hold up productions to force them to cut checks.

-Username17

[Smeelbo]

As for me, barring special orders, I won't be bringing any new ShadowRun books into the store until the Coleman situation is resolved. Instead, I will be putting our store's dollars into Cubicle 7, which is offering a broad line of innovative games, and appears to pay its rights holders and contractors in a timely fashion.

Smeelbo

[Semerkhet]

Unfortunately, there's a very good chance that there would be a news blackout for several months while the new company tried to pry the rights to recently produced materials from a recalcitrant IMR. Weird negotiations of course, since IMR would be in full control of valuable materials... that they could only sell to one company.

Interesting. So if another company got the license, IMR would still own everything they had produced under the license, including not yet published material in the development pipeline? They could no longer publish it themselves and they could only sell it to the new license holder. That sounds messy.

I guess that means that the new license holder would basically have no access to IMR's existing revenue streams. That makes the start-up a tad more capital-intensive for whichever company might pick up the license. My understanding is that credit for small business start-ups is nearly non-existent right now, so whoever is bidding must be an established company or be an individual with a fat bankroll.

[JongWK]

I've created a thread for SoLA's chapters.

Jay, you might want to post a link to your stuff in that thread.

[Jilocasin]

My understanding is that credit for small business start-ups is nearly non-existent right now, so whoever is bidding must be an established company or be an individual with a fat bankroll.

Pretty much, although it might be a bit different now. I was feeling out the climate on small business loans (this was about a little over a year ago), and every banker I talked to essentially said that unless your business had already existed for at least five years and was currently in the black there was no way you were going to get any kind of loan.

[Crissa]

Even companies that are in the black and have detailed plans aren't getting loans.

Heck, we just had $28K of credit pulled from under us 'because you were using it' even though our income and credit rating has risen and our credit use has stayed the same.

-Crissa

[Jilocasin]

Well sure. I didn't mean to imply that that meant it was likely you'd get a loan. I mean that at the time that was the absolute bare minimum to even be considered.

[Stahlseele]

Well what do we have here?
http://www.shadowrun4.com/wordpress/201 ... b/#respond

“We’ve been working with Lone Wolf to make this happen for a long time,” states Randall Bills, Managing Developer of Catalyst Game Labs. “Once we finalized the details, Topps approved the license quickly, signifying their appreciation of the importance of digital tools in further developing the Shadowrun line. Lone Wolf Development has a history of bringing innovative technology to the gaming industry, and we look forward to diving into this great new opportunity for Shadowrun alongside them.”

[Username17]

It's very confusing right now. Randall Bills claims that Topps renewed their license. But the license isn't even up for renewal for four days. Jason Hardy says that they have a new lawyer who is specialized in bankruptcy law, but Pacer doesn't have the data for whatever their court submission was (if anything) yet (Pacer often has a lag of a few days, so no surprise there).

The audit that was supposedly demanded by Topps isn't finished yet. So again, I'm not really sure what Randall Bills is talking about, save that he uses a lot of weasel words. You can read Randall's Announcement Here.

At this point I have received so many statements from Randall that are very nearly lies and couched deeply in corp-speak, runaround, and bullshit, that I inherently read everything that man writes unfavorably. Here's my deeply unfavorable reading:

Catalyst Game Labs and Lone Wolf Development are pleased to announce that they have entered into a new, long-term license for the Shadowrun intellectual property. Lone Wolf will shortly begin development of a Shadowrun data package for its award-winning character management software, Hero Lab.
...
“We’ve been working with Lone Wolf to make this happen for a long time,” states Randall Bills, Managing Developer of Catalyst Game Labs. “Once we finalized the details, Topps approved the license quickly, signifying their appreciation of the importance of digital tools in further developing the Shadowrun line. Lone Wolf Development has a history of bringing innovative technology to the gaming industry, and we look forward to diving into this great new opportunity for Shadowrun alongside them.”

You'd think this would be titanic news. And would come under a headline "Topps renews Catalyst's License! The period of anxiety is over!" But... it doesn't say that.

I think he's not saying that Topps gave Catalyst a license for anything. Topps approved a license for Lone Wolf, and Catalyst approved a license for Lone Wolf too. Topps to use the IP, and Catalyst to use the books they were licensing. So the statement "Catalyst Game Labs and Lone Wolf Development are pleased to announce that they have entered into a new, long-term license for the Shadowrun intellectual property." doesn't mean that they both got a license from Topps, it means that they entered a license agreement with each other.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

Ah, i see.
Someone over on dumpshock said it might be a different license alltogether.

[Username17]

Ah, i see.
Someone over on dumpshock said it might be a different license alltogether.

Having seen a really consistent pattern with the spin coming out of Randall Bills, I can say that I would be incredibly surprised if the ambiguity regarding the "long term license" that was "approved by Topps" was in any way an accident.

Which I think should probably bring us to the "Mormon Conspiracy" theory. No, I don't think that the Prophet had one of his continuing revelations to take down Shadowrun. But the theory that "The current plight of Shadowrun is very closely tied to Mormon theology" is looking like a pretty good theory.

First of all, let's go back to Randall Bills' own statements about his Mormon faith. He said it was compelling him to take Loren Coleman's side. Now, if you are like me and a total Mormon outsider, that probably sounded like a total lie. No one is compelled by religion to fight for a thief against their lawful victims who are trying to recover their money. That doesn't even make sense, right? Well, sort of. Remember, while Randall Bills will twist truth so far that it meets itself coming through turnstyles, he goes out of his way to not literally lie. He's like Darkseid that way. If he says that he is religiously compelled, it's very possible that this is literally true, though of course he throws in all kinds of obfuscatory language about forgiveness and such to make it seem pretty meaningless.

But you're probably asking yourself, how can any religion end up compelling people to support a thief against their creditors and employees? How does that even make sense? The answer is that Loren Coleman is also a Mormon. And within the Mormon church, you're supposed to give more leeway to another Mormon that you are in business with than you would give to anyone else. Indeed, turning on a Mormon business partner is a big deal no-no sin - worse than supporting a fraudster in an ongoing con. This is why Utah has more multi-level marketing scams running in it per capita than any place on Earth. The Mormon teachings literally and specifically make people weak against that kind of dishonest business practice.

Right now, Loren Coleman has precisely two vocal defenders: Jason M. Hardy and Randall Bills, both of whom are apparently Mormons in religious fellowship with Loren Coleman who risk severe censoring from their church and their god if they stop supporting Loren Coleman. Precisely the effect that keeps all those pyramid schemes going in Salt Lake City.

Which actually makes it pretty hard for me to stay mad at Jason Hardy. Looked at from that perspective, he's even more of a victim than the freelance writers who got burned and burned their bridges in return. He's exactly like the Mormons who keep getting their lives destroyed by such Utah luminaries as MonaVie, Sunrider, Nu Skin, Xango, HerbaLife, and Agel.

I still got no problem hating Randall Bills though. While structurally he's being victimized same as Jason, he's actually close enough to Loren Coleman that even though personal benefit from the embezzlement isn't strictly necessary to explain his behavior, it's still exceedingly likely. Randall Bills simply spent too much time in Lorens flash new house and has been too close to Loren for too long for it to be plausible that he didn't benefit directly from some of the theft.

-Username17

[BeeRockxs]

It's very confusing right now. Randall Bills claims that Topps renewed their license.

No he didn't. He just said that Topps quickly approved the longterm license CGL gave to Lone Wolf.

[Zinegata]

Eh? They're actually claiming the license was renewed? So why are they hiding the announcement in the middle of a tie-up deal with LW instead of simply saying "Woo! We got the license back!"

[Username17]

It's very confusing right now. Randall Bills claims that Topps renewed their license.

No he didn't. He just said that Topps quickly approved the longterm license CGL gave to Lone Wolf.

Well yes. That is what he said. But he said it in a way that was deliberately crafted to be misconstrued as to being that Topps had renewed the license. After all, the short form of his announcement was: "a new, long-term license for the Shadowrun intellectual property." Stating it in that manner was definitely intended to give the impression that the license for making books had been renewed.

Similarly, when Randall Bills announced that the icv2 article about how several Shadowrun and Cthulhutech books could not be sold because of withdrawn copyright was "incorrect in parts" and that "no Cthulhutech books have had copyright withdrawn" it was clearly intended to lead people to the assumption that Cthulhutech books were still in IMR's hands and that things were going better than the article implied. The reality of course was even worse, in that the real reason that Cthulhutech books were off the shelves was that WildFire had canceled their contracts and were pursuing legal action for nonpayment!

Randall Bills' statements aren't exactly lies, but the way in which they are barely true often has little to do with what natural English speakers would normally expect with the sentence constructions he uses.

So when he says:

"a new, long-term license for the Shadowrun intellectual property."

You might think that he is talking about getting a new license for the long-term Shadowrun intellectual property rights that are about to run out for his company. But that's just because that's what absolutely everyone else is talking about when they talk about a long-term license for the Shadowrun intellectual property right now. But it's still technically correct to say that if you're talking about "a completely new, long-term license that is also for the Shadowrun intellectual property." Those italicized bits could be left out of that sentence if for some reason you were having a conversation where that would be contextually relevant. And if you brought Randall up in court, he would swear under oath that he intended it that way the whole time. It's just that it happens to be part of a long running campaign of similar tortured wordings that are all consistently easy t misconstrue into much more positive statements than those which are legally defensible as being true.

-Username17

[duo31]

well at least he is doing his job.

he is the public voice of the company, yes?

which says to me: marketing and sales

which is all about misleading the public.

most salesmen try to not outright lie, but bending the truth into an origami crane is their art.

-duo

[Zinegata]

well at least he is doing his job.

he is the public voice of the company, yes?

which says to me: marketing and sales

which is all about misleading the public.

most salesmen try to not outright lie, but bending the truth into an origami crane is their art.

-duo

It was actually Jason Hardy who posted the above stuff.