1876

I think you are being a little unfair here. While after really thinking about it the idea of offering a free game with a contribution to the legal defense fund is an obvious non-starter, the initial notion of wondering why they didn’t do that isn’t crazy for someone to conceive of.

1877

Yet you are the one who is making assumptions about their personal wealth and then castigating them based on that assumption.

1878

I’m not the person saying that. I do think that using nostalgia to sell a product is pretty clearly distinguishable from selling a warm and fuzzy feeling. I might even go further and say that selling a classic Nintendo with games is very different to me than using a name to sell something peripherally related a la Stardock and Star Control.

I recognize the legal obstacles. It wasn’t a serious suggestion so much as saying that at least you’d have something tangible at the end of the process. Your willingness to pay for warm and fuzzy feelings is likely higher than mine.

1879

I’m not sure why you are replying if your only point is that buying a product is different from a legal defense fund. Yes, yes it is. And so what? There’s an argument that that difference is the make or break point as to what is ethical and what is not. If you have nothing to say on that what is your point?

Yes, the difference being discussed is a difference.

1880

I’m pretty sure I answered that in my first post. Yes, I think that selling a product is not nearly as much taking advantage of nostalgia as asking for money for a legal defense fund. I have yet to see an argument from anyone as to why that’s not the case.

Spend your money on what you like, but I think selling something tangible is much less questionable than selling warm and fuzzy feelings.

1881

You haven’t actually made an argument as to why that is the case. It’s not up to anyone to make an argument against it until then.

You are putting forth the notion that anyone contributing to a legal defense fund is being taken advantage of since they do not receive a tangible product. In fact if tangible product is the dividing line, you are basically saying anyone who has every given money to a charity or anything where they have not received a tangible product in return is being taken advantage of. You’ve got quite a bar to reach before anyone is obligated to refute that notion.

1882

It is amusing that the dividing line being drawn as to the ethics of the behavior of others is “do I get something out of it”.

1883

In the context of “give us money so we can someday maybe sell you a game”, yeah, kind of. Regardless, your way more invested in this than I am, so I’m out.

1884

Well, bye. Thanks for giving us some insight into the “it’s okay as long as i get something out of it” school of ethics.

1885

As I see the little typing indicator pop up, remember, after realizing one’s positions is ridiculous and indefensible and says more about one’s self rather than the persons being judged and pulling an “I’m out”. Coming back to respond to gently mockery kinda blows the whole thing.

1886

Last comment:

What is anyone getting out donating to P&F’s legal fund? A warm and fuzzy feeling? The burning certainty that you’re fighting the good fight against an evil corporation?

If you were donating to an actual charity, there would be a positive benefit at the end of the day. People’s lives would be better. That’s a clear good. If you were buying a product for nostalgic reasons, you’d have the product at the end of the day. That’s a clear good to you or you wouldn’t have spent the money.

Asking for money for a legal defense fund for an IP you have let lie fallow for many years is a less clear benefit to anyone. Losing it to a company is an injustice but compared to all the other injustices in the world, I have a hard time getting too exercised.

Have fun with your righteous indignation, though.

1887

Strange, you seem to have replied to me instead of the guy talking about disgusting and shameful or any of the people like yourself showing indignation over a legal defense fund.

What a perfect cap you provided to such a ridiculous conversation.

1888

I note that you failed to answer my question. Feel free to try to play the victim but your purpose seems to be more obvious with each post.

1889

What question might that be? Cuz it isn’t in this thread?

1890

That really is unnecessary. In a conversation involving the silliness of attributing unethical motivations to people it doesn’t help to assign motives to others in the conversation.

And as Kevin pointed out, I think you forgot to ask the question. It’s probably a little late now.

1891

Fwiw I thought it odd to set up a go fund me for legal purposes.

Alex Salmond also did it and I thought it was in poor taste too.

However I also feel the vast majority of charities are morally wrong organisations profiting from (mostly western) collective guilt over (insert whatever here. Lack of water, schooling etc) and I do mean profiting.

I’m quite familiar with how several charities operate in Kenya and the volunteers pay to work for them quite often (often because they feel it is a CV booster) but the executives etc draw a very very healthy salary, such that they rarely want to return to the UK/USA etc.

And very very little of the donated money goes towards the stated objectives and very little actually gets done.

I first got thinking about it because I had to do an essay on it in high school. What I read and ascertained put me off.

Iirc, something like 5% of your donation goes towards (building a well) and the rest is for rent, advertising, salaries.

So I would contest that donating to a charity is actually any better than a legal defence fund, and would broadly agree that both leave a bad taste in my mouth.

HOWEVER, despite having just done exactly this, 😀😯 I would maintain that it’s nobody’s business but theirs what they do with their money and that we shouldn’t be casting aspersions on it.

If you want to donate to a legal defence fund, your shout.

If you want to donate to the Brexiteers bonfire of the country fund, go ahead.

If you want to donate to the BBB in depth game reviews fund cough then please do so.

Anyway, from.what I can tell, the issues at hand could have been quite easily resolved.

SD could have come out smelling like roses by saying:

P+F are being dicks and won’t let us make SC, so we’ll make the same game but in the galciv universe.

That way they’d have been perceived as the victims and benefitted from all the nostalgia and not had to worry about specific race y or x.

I’m probably being very naive somewhere?

1892

No, it isn’t. It’s being tried in court. Well it’s not being tried yet, it’s still in discovery I believe.

I’m was a bit mean, let me try this again:

It’s ok not to like the defense fund. But all this nonsense about their motives, or how the optics are somehow bad from some sort of objective standpoint, is just that: nonsense. The defense fund might cost them sales from a theoretical future product that doesn’t exist, but that’s impossible to say with any certainty. Further, it’s not entirely relevant owing to the fact that they face losing their property unless they fight an expensive battle. Without this fight, there is no P&FControl: The Future Game. If they want to keep the property they have no choice but to fight.

Their prime motive - and no I haven’t asked them but I feel confident in saying this - is keeping all the Starcontrol stuff they own. The fact that they have the money to fight the suit entirely on their own does not mean that doing so is going to somehow be stress-free. Quite the contrary, as there is no certainty in any suit that goes to trial means this is incredibly stressful at every step of the way.

It’s understandable they might try to mitigate the risk somehow. It may not suit you to help them do that - that’s totally fine. If you want to argue they should have tried to mitigate the risk differently, do so. But make that argument (and this is speaking broadly to the thread) without trying to frame P&F as anything other than dudes who are getting sued and facing the loss of their property FOR-E-VER.

1893

@BloodyBattleBrain Yeah, I think you are. There’s a cost of goods sold involved in any venture of any kind. If you never donate money at all, that well never gets built, period. The fact that it takes a bunch of money to set up the logistics of building the well is just part of the COGS calculation for building a well. I don’t understand why that should leave a bad taste in your mouth when ultimately the well got built thanks in part to your contribution. All of those things you included are part of creating the mechanism for helping people.

Now, do some charities take advantage of that? Maybe you’re thinking of say the Trump Foundation? If that’s the case, then by all means do not donate there, as they’ve been shown countless times to use the money poorly (to be nice). If you give to the Red Cross, you can be damn sure it’s going to help someone, and there are many more organizations like it that you can help.

Again, as I said above, there’s no one making anyone donate to their fund. If you don’t like it, fine, you can skip it. On the other hand, someone IS making them defend their seemingly lawfully owned characters, story, and setting. They decided they might need some help if people want to help them, and according to one poster in this very thread, some people wanted to help them even before the GoFundMe was set up.

1894

No shit Chet. I just said that.

But there’s a difference between:

  1. “My feelings are that Paul and Fred’s move was poorly planned”

  2. “Paul and Fred’s move is poorly planned for [coherently given reason]”

  3. “Paul and Fred’s move is poorly planned for [incoherent reasons]”.

The arguments offered so far that fall outside of #1 have all been in #3.

If you fail to understand the differences between these things, I don’t know what to tell you.

1895

There is no “regardless of who is suing who”. Paul and Fred are being sued. It’s not an irrelevant fact. It’s the singularly important fact.

It’s not an either or as to who is paying for the legal proceedings. Even before the defense fund, Paul and Fred would have paid monies out of pocket, but never mind that. Unless the defense fund hits two-million, and the costs wind up not being more than estimated (a possibility, if it goes all the way to trial), Paul and Fred are paying out of pocket. It’s simply a matter of how much they are paying versus how much is covered by the fund.

The argument was this, specifically:

Setting aside the loaded emotional language, the idea that they are just looking to pick up some money, any money no matter what, in the face of a massively expensive lawsuit that could result in them losing their IP is insane. Saying they are reaping “economic benefit” is missing the forest for the trees.