In the interesting times of chaos and uncertainty that we now live in, its somewhat comforting to know that some things are constant.  One of those things is Kevin Seimbieda's pathetic need to feed his own super-sized ego by backstabbing his freelancers.

The new zombie game from Palladium, Dead Reign, is theoretically arriving back from the printers today.  It was originally written by a couple of young freelancers named Josh Hilden and Joshua Sanford.  Who, prior to this, were big Palladium fans.

They wrote the original manuscript, got people interested, and generally showed a lot of enthusiasm for the company and the upcoming game, right up until Kevin predictably stabbed them in the back.  He apparently did his "editing" (read: rewrote everything) and now is not even giving them co-author credit and instead gave them a pathetic "with additional ideas by" credit.

Yes, that's right, the man blatantly stole their ideas and is taking credit for them.  For all the fire and fury about the "crisis of treachery", when it comes down to it, it seems that Kevin is essentially no less a thief than the guy who stole from him.

If you want to read Kevin's side of the story, feel free to read his recent murmur.  

But the story is an old one, and the same one that has already been told by so many previous former Palladium freelancers (and ex-fans).  My theory is that his fragile ego can't handle the thought of anyone else being remotely thought of as an equal or better writer than him, so he has a pathological need to sabotage them.

Unfortunatly not a big shocker.

A lot of invisible, wooly stuff goes on under the auspices of 'editing' - quite often as justification not to pay the agreed amount. Witholding credits is just petty by comparison.

A link for those interested in reading Kevins point of view.

Quote from: One Horse Town;266330A lot of invisible, wooly stuff goes on under the auspices of 'editing' - quite often as justification not to pay the agreed amount. Witholding credits is just petty by comparison.

I'm not saying it's a big deal in the grand scheme of the world, just pointing out that Kevin yet again screwed over some freelancers despite the continuing proclamations of what a "nice guy" he is by himself and his fans.

I find it funny, myself, as the man's true colors show up so often.

Had a thought. If you were displeased with a manuscript. To the point you have to rewrite 80-90% of it. Why bother? Espcially when you have a dozen other things in the hopper waiting to be done. Just a thought.

Quote from: Ronin;266334Had a thought. If you were displeased with a manuscript. To the point you have to rewrite 80-90% of it. Why bother? Espcially when you have a dozen other things in the hopper waiting to be done. Just a thought.

Yeah - basically it's a question of "Is Kevin lying or just really stupid?"  Because its pretty hard to suggest he isn't at least one of those in this situation.

Quote from: jgants;266337Yeah - basically it's a question of "Is Kevin lying or just really stupid?" Because its pretty hard to suggest he isn't at least one of those in this situation.

I don't follow Palladium but this is at least the 3rd time I've heard of him trashing a freelancer and redoing a book.  Once, I could blow off as a bitter freelancer.  The pattern makes him either a dick trying to screw writers or a guy with pathalogical problems.

Quote from: Ronin;266334Had a thought. If you were displeased with a manuscript. To the point you have to rewrite 80-90% of it. Why bother? Espcially when you have a dozen other things in the hopper waiting to be done. Just a thought.

Any developer worth his salt would know early on in the process if things were not going in the direction he wanted. He can then talk to the freelancers and tell them what to put right, or hand the project to other people if he thinks that he won't get the desired results from current staff. At the very least, i have yet to encounter a project that doesn't have a 'half-way turnaround'. Here, you are supposed to hand in 1/2 your wordcount to keep the developer up to date and for the reasons noted above. However, e-mail contact, questions & answers etc through the whole process have been the norm in my experience. It's once your finished work has been handed in that you lose control - looks like Kevin takes even more advantage here than others do.

Quote from: Ronin;266334Had a thought. If you were displeased with a manuscript. To the point you have to rewrite 80-90% of it. Why bother? Espcially when you have a dozen other things in the hopper waiting to be done. Just a thought.

Not speaking to Kevin's particular intention but as a publisher who receives a lot of "manuscripts" I can say that there are often good ideas that are implemented, well, pretty poorly. Just last week I got a 400 page manuscript (in the mail) that looked like it was typed old school. It was a rambling incoherent mess that used Iridium as though the author did not understand roleplaying. The one great thing, a one page summary. A really good idea about a star spanning empire based on an ascension of the Greeks in straight line. I think someone had already done it but it was still a cool idea. If I took it on, I would need to rewrite 99.9% of it. I would still give credit where credit was due and I make sure to have all credits hammered out before I even started but I am weird like that.

So, it does happen.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWelt;266341Not speaking to Kevin's particular intention but as a publisher who receives a lot of "manuscripts" I can say that there are often good ideas that are implemented, well, pretty poorly. Just last week I got a 400 page manuscript (in the mail) that looked like it was typed old school. It was a rambling incoherent mess that used Iridium as though the author did not understand roleplaying. The one great thing, a one page summary. A really good idea about a star spanning empire based on an ascension of the Greeks in straight line. I think someone had already done it but it was still a cool idea. If I took it on, I would need to rewrite 99.9% of it. I would still give credit where credit was due and I make sure to have all credits hammered out before I even started but I am weird like that.

So, it does happen.

Bill

See, that case would make more sense.  


But, of course, that's not what happened here.  This wasn't random guy mails in completed manuscript with one or two good ideas.

These guys had already written a preview version of the game that was published in the Rifter magazine.  That Kevin reportedly loved.  They then worked with Kevin to write the full thing.  They handed in their pages periodically, and Kevin kept telling them he loved every bit of it.  He even went on and on in his blog about it for the last year or so.

Then, after it comes out, he declares the writing was crap and he had to redo everything, so clearly he deserves sole author credit (despite previously claiming he had little to no knowledge of the zombie genre).

somthing smells iffy about the way kevin summed up his excuse as to why he is listed as author to me.....then again 90% of the stuff ive read by him recently has smelt the same, ah thats the word i was after bullsh!t

Quote from: jgants;266343See, that case would make more sense.  


But, of course, that's not what happened here.  This wasn't random guy mails in completed manuscript with one or two good ideas.

These guys had already written a preview version of the game that was published in the Rifter magazine.  That Kevin reportedly loved.  They then worked with Kevin to write the full thing.  They handed in their pages periodically, and Kevin kept telling them he loved every bit of it.  He even went on and on in his blog about it for the last year or so.

Then, after it comes out, he declares the writing was crap and he had to redo everything, so clearly he deserves sole author credit (despite previously claiming he had little to no knowledge of the zombie genre).

Like I said, I was not speaking to what Kevin did (which truly sucked if accurately portrayed). Like I said, I am stupid serious about credit for those who work on my games even peripherally. I often err on the side of giving too much credit to others and not so much to myself but I really do believe any book like this is much more a team effort than a "Look at my name on the cover!!" exercise. The artists I work with are incredible. Matt Kaisar has been more patient with me than any writer should be required to be. Editors like Peter Schaefer have done great things for my writing style and done a good job at keeping my ego in check. The problem with this business is that so much of it is about ego for a lot of folks. It is the nature of the RPG industry. You should see some of the industry only forums, scary on a surreal level. Stuff that would make Kevin look tame.

Bill

Do the guys get paid the same whether Kevin decides to rewrite most of it or not?

Quote from: CavScout;266356Do the guys get paid the same whether Kevin decides to rewrite most of it or not?

If they are getting paid by the word (which is, by far the most common kind of agreement) then no-siree.