Asking for money for legal fees via crowdfunding is really out of line for multi-millionaires in my mind.
That really rubbed me the wrong way as well. Same can be said for a lot of Stardock’s actions, obviously.
Really wish this all could have been amicably resolved, legal fights are incredibly ugly.
IMHO, it depends on the value of “multi-millionaires”. If your likely legal fees are $2M, and your assets are about $2M, then asking for help seems perfectly justified. If your assets are $20M, then yeah, I’d say it’s a bit penurious.
There would also be a question of how much of that is easily accessible to them and how much is tied to Toys for Bob, which isn’t just them.
Think about it this way. If you put in even $1 to a defence fund. You’re basically commited to it’s outcome no matter what evidences is brought to the table.
I’m making some assumptions here for sure. But we know how much the heads of other Activision studios make in salary and bonuses from SEC filings. It is hard to imagine these guys weren’t pulling in millions per year given they created Skylanders.
Whose salary, and which SEC filing, are you looking at?
What exactly is offensive about setting up a legal defense fund regardless of one’s net worth? They aren’t annoying people and soliciting door to door. They put up a gofundme for people who would like to help. Some people would like to help out and contribute, so they set up an avenue for people to do that. Where exactly is the offense?
Even assuming they are billionaires, why is the existence of a legal defense fund a problem?
Mike Morhaime was making $12 million a year.
Infinity Ward was being paid $82 million in bonuses to 38 people at Infinity Ward in 2009/2010.
Again, I don’t know what Toys for Bob executives make. From these examples it seems reasonable to assume seven figure annual compensation for studio heads and creators personally responsible for the creation of a billion dollar franchise. And if they aren’t getting that they need to re-negotiate their employment.
My objection boils down to the fact they can afford their own legal defense. By rattling their tin cup begging for donations - which don’t actually need - they’re taking advantage of average income people’s goodwill and nostalgia for their own personal enrichment. I think that’s shameful and disgusting.
Well, I guess one can look at a legal defense fund as being for one’s own personal enrichment. Though mitigation of a loss isn’t exactly “enrichment”. It’s a rather dark way to perceive the whole thing. With language like “taking advantage of” and “for personal enrichment” you are practically equivocating a legal defense fund with some sort of scam simply on the basis that the defendants may be able to afford a legal defense.
I happily contributed to the defense fund, and I consider it completely irrelevant how much money Paul or Fred have. It’s important to me as a creator that what Stardock is attempting to do fails.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who makes what. It matters who MADE what.
I don’t think the CEO’s salary is a good comparison point. There’s usually a very large pay cap between the “C-Suite” executives and the next tier down.
It would surprise me if their base salaries were that high (I’d guess mid-six-figures), but I’d believe that they had bonuses that could push it into seven figures in the years when they had a successful release. It’s tricky to gauge those, though, because the bonuses were probably paid in restricted Activision stock with a multi-year vesting schedule. That’s how mine worked, anyway, when I was at a large public company.
They are C-suite executives of Toys for Bob - an Activision Blizzard subsidiary. Blizzard is another Activision Blizzard subsidiary. So I think this is a reasonable comparison. I don’t expect they made as much as Morhaime, but knocking a zero of his salary brings me back to the seven figure estimate I started with.
Maybe everyone who contributed to their GoFundMe is a millionaire too. In the absence of any actual information about their finances or the finances of the people contributing, I feel like you’re just hunting for any half-way plausible reason to dislike P&F.
It’s not either/or, you can think Stardock’s behaviour is shameful while still being put off by P&F asking fans to pay their legal bills. I had a similar reaction, although it’s clearly not shared by everyone here and that’s okay.
I thought the defense fund was “bad optics” for them where they otherwise have done a good job in PR. It certainly gave Stardock something to chew on.
Setting the goal as $2m was a mistake. It is an unrealistic marker for such fund raising. So it gives shock value and not in a good way. The number is incredibly high, and they have no other data to back the figure up beyond “we were told”. It makes it look like they want whales to pay all of their legal bills without any accountability or detail, and it can be cited as an (incorrect) measure of how many people care about the the case (only 2% reached).
Looking as to why they felt it necessary, it may have been a gauge for emotional support for the older games. It could be loosely justified to the assertion that if Stardock wins the suit the open source project will die. Or perhaps an attempt to get more people emotionally invested in something that really does not impact them.
It should have been tied to something more like “our current out of pocket legal bills” would have earned just as much, if not more. Instead it potentially looks like a free money grab. I think it was a misstep.
EDIT: also I think it pins them or adds risk as far as negotiations, in that if they are seen in a settlement with Stardock,that appears to benefit SD, then it could be construed as a misuse of funds in the eyes of those that contributed.
Something to chew on? What? Never mind don’t answer that.
These sorts of cases are known to be expensive to fight and try. There’s nothing mysterious or unknown about it. The “they were told” figure didn’t come from some rando. It came from a lawyer who could sit them down and explain how this process would work, how long it might take, the potential hurdles they would face, the possible reasons why it could take longer than expected, and the risk at every step of the process.
The number of people who care about the case is 100% irrelevant. The law, and the merits of the arguments will determine the outcome. Not anyone’s feelings. The most public perception could do is influence one of the two parties in the case. However, only one side starter it, and only one side can decide to call the whole thing off.
We will probably never know all of Paul and Fred’s reasoning. But we can state with absolute certainty that it is their own personal resources on the line (not any corporate resources, e.g. Toys for Bob), and that going through a lawsuit like this - a lawsuit they did not initiate - is incredibly stressful. And incredibly risky. This is not a suit they brought.
What is it you think “current out of pocket legal bills” means exactly? What is about your mythical “other mysterious legal fees” that makes them different somehow? How do you think this works?
Paul and Fred didn’t slip the lawer a fiver and then say “ok just tell us how much more we owe when this is all done”. They’re going to get a detailed breakdown of costs as the suit is ongoing. For a variety of reasons, they’re not going to share that with us, nor should they. Just because they haven’t paid all of the ongoing costs yet (one assumes, but one does not know for sure) doesn’t mean those costs are somehow going to up and disappear. If they were to lose this suit and Stardock won damages (the latter does not automatically follow from the former), their lawyer fees don’t go away. They still have to pay them. The idea that somehow this would lead to “a misuse of funds” is completely drunk. Every dime Paul and Fred spend on this case is out of pocket. The gofundme is a drop in a bathtub filled to the brim with water, at this point.
Stardock could be on the hook for their legal fees (and vice versa, both sides have asked for it) but asking for it is by no means a guarantee that it will happen. I’ve read suggestions that it’s unlikely.
If you don’t like them asking for money, fine. But the contortions you (and others) are engaging in to try and frame this as. . . whatever. . . are absurd. Large portions of your post read like it was generated by a random post generator somewhere on the internet.
You seem to mistake me for someone that has picked a side. I have not. You obviously are emotionally invested in this case and so you view criticism as “contortions” trying to “frame” it in some way.
I brought up my opinion that they way they approached the fund was a mistake. And I stand by that. One of the things I have observed about this lawsuit is that appearance and public perception of the lawsuit for PF is important to them. Understandably so. And that is the context of my comment. Not in the context of “look at what scammers they are”, but in the context of they made a mistake in terms of PR:
I did not say whether i cared if they raised money, I frankly don’t. I find it interesting that they decided it was a good idea to do it that way when they could have done it differently and avoided the negatives that surfaced in people’s opinions because of it. I am not saying those opinions are wrong or right, I am saying they were formed by people.I think that could have been avoided.
And yes, Stardock did use the fact that PF did it this way as a negative spin. That’s a fact as well.
Agreed. I have no personal investment here. I have a lot of respect for everything P&F have accomplished in their careers. I’ve played their games my entire life.
I just think it’s obnoxious for the very wealthy to trade on nostalgia and goodwill to benefit themselves economically. Whether it is P&F or someone else.
For those that disagree… feel free. Feel free to impugn my motives or honor. To quote Dutch: “You might be the toughest little whacker at the junior high - but in my world, you’re about as worrisome as a cloudy day.”