Seems like a bunch of folks who loved the older games arguing in good faith to me.
They said they are personally paying for their legal battle, and are asking for help. They are the ones who are the target of a lawsuit initiated by someone else. It’s not like they initiated a suit against some other party and then asked for someone to help pay for it.
What about this fails your nebulous “optics test”.
I agree. Personally, Star Control 2 is one of THE formative games for me. It’s easily a top 3 game of all time, and P&F’s creation holds a special place for me.
I’m trying to not let those facts color my view of what’s going on now. I think my choice of words (posturing and bombast) doesn’t quite accurately describe my feelings on the matter. I think a better way for me to phrase my perspective is that I feel P&F has their share of the blame for escalating things to this ugly point. I get that it’s their baby and things probably get very heated and emotional, but it’s unfortunate that we’re where we’re at. Star Control: Origins is Stardock’s biggest project in years, if you start threatening that then you better expect hellfire and fury on the legal front as the other party tries to protect a project that’s literally going to release three months from now.
So knowing that, if you’re going to pick a fight with Goliath… well, it just isn’t a great look to me when you then come to the public looking for a sling.
I always got the impression that they were eager to escalate and play hardball, so going back to the fans to subsidize legal fees is a bit…lacking.
Please cite specific instances where you feel Paul and Fred “were eager to escalate and play hardball”.
I feel like this misses context. Putting aside whether or not it was justified, let’s not pretend P&F weren’t out there starting fires.
Just a couple things, though, peacedog. First, I’m a bit of a contrarian by nature. It’s not a conscious thing on my part, but likely has to do with an upbringing where I had to break free from an almost fundamentalist environment. I see a current going one way, and I subconsciously look suspiciously at it, I think. So that very well may color my perception!
Second, I’m not trying to sway anyone else’s opinion or perception, just sharing mine. I could be completely wrong and that might change as things continue to develop!
I don’t have any dog in the fight, other than I love Star Control, I think Stardock’s new project looks like something I want to play, and I’d love to see P&F return to the series. This whole thing just makes me grumpy because it feels like a bunch of kids who just couldn’t figure out how to play nice. There was a scenario here where everyone could have won, but we could end up where everyone loses. That sucks.
Anyway, I just want to make sure my tone is that of discussing different viewpoints, not yelling that I’m right and others are wrong. And I know I have the very small minority opinion here. :)
I would say all of their public disclosures of the legal discussions with Stardock, for one.
You don’t do that if you’re not willing to dig in and fight.
edit: To the clear, I don’t really care who wins this fight - I doubt I would play either game even if they were released.
I do strongly object to the idea of one of the parties taking advantage of fan goodwill and subsidize a business legal fight that’s not even linked to a product being delivered in the end.
I’m just noting the narrative seems to be that Wardell is the bad guy and Paul and Fred are completely innocent of all wrong doing and are laymen, almost impossible of defending themselves. Toys for Bob must be some small, no-name company with no money.
The tone in this thread definitely seems to lean that way at times.
I don’t have a dog in the fight as I wasn’t into Star Control and I don’t know Brad outside of a couple of emails.
Really just an observation.
Same here. I agree with you. I remain suspicious of how long P&F waited to react to what they knew had taken place and whatStardock was planning. If they felt that Stardock’s purchase wasn’t legitimate (meaning the seller didn’t have the rights to what they were selling) they should have declared that from the outset. My understanding is that they did not do so until much later.
Wardell has a long history that had proven time and again he is not so altruistic as a few of you are seemingly claiming now.
He has lied and cajoled with this from the start. It’s downright Trumpian what he is now doing to the original creators of the game. The difference is he’s smart enough to manipulate it so that you think he has claims he doesn’t seem to have AND he preys upon your good will toward his game…
Where on earth did anyone mention altruism? What does that have to do with either party making Star Control?
And “preying on your good will towards his game” would apply doubly so to P&F, wouldn’t it? Since they’re the ones that have a game with a whole lot of nostalgia attached to it? Star Control: Origins isn’t even out yet, so I don’t know how anyone would have good will towards it compared to something they grew up playing.
I don’t think that it is fair or productive to paint the whole thread as having some extreme one sided view. I own Stardock products, I own P&F products. I am likely to buy both games if they happen and review at least decently.
I have followed this on various forums and I think that Stardock has consistently made statements about their actions that have been shown to be false in various documents related to the filings or shared by P&F or Brad. He’s also shared e-mails on other sites, it’s not just P&F.
I won’t pretend to have any clue on any of the legal issues. I do think that Stardock has been aggressively pushing an inaccurate view of their actions.
@Lantz took the words right out of my mouth. I think on the whole we’re being pretty fair in this thread.
Good.
I didn’t intend that. Don’t think Jason did either. There have been occasions where people seemed to pounce on Brad in a way that appeared to be out of proportion to whatever was happening at the time. That may well be because they had more context than I did.
I was mostly replying to the response that anyone was getting that questioned a GoFundMe for 2 million dollars.
I really didn’t mean to derail things this bad, so just ignore my comments. Sorry if I upset anyone.
Given that Toys for Bob is not part of the lawsuit, I think your categorization of the “narrative” is certainly on point, if not on target.