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Palladium In Trouble

Started by Zachary The First, April 19, 2006, 08:33:50 PM

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Cyclotron

Quote from: AcinonyxI would have loved to see a D20 Rifts books.
Ditto, for my part...

At the moment, the more I play Spycraft 2.0, the more I think, "This game would be perfect for a D20 RIFTS conversion...  If only Siembieda would let them."
Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace,
 NFPA 70E, Article 330.4 (F):
"Laser beams shall not be aimed at employees."

Guest (Deleted)

Quote from: YamoIt's too late now on my end. If they mods want my posts in a new thread, that's within their power to do.
Threads already derailed - no point in trying to clean up the mess.

Zalmoxis

Quote from: AcinonyxI would have loved to see a D20 Rifts books. Sometimes you just want to blow shit up with a big ass robot and a few D100s.

I agree with this. RIFTS is a wonderful setting with crappy rules. D20 would be great for it.

Basara_549

Hmmm.

After a few days listening to the loose nuts on the ground spew their mistruths, I thought I'd clarify a few things.

First of all, someone referenced Kevin's supposed behavior on the net. NANI???? He's not even HAD any sort of personal net presence for most of the last 10-12 years, after some fanatics started attacking him online over the WotC issue (see below). Instead, at various times, Maryann (his now-ex wife, and still a good friend of his), Wayne Smith, and one or two other employees handled ALL online presence for the company. In fact, only in THE LAST THREE TO SIX MONTHS has he even started posting on Palladium's forums, mostly due to the issues concerning the employee theft. In fact, he never even had an actively-used e-mail address since those early 90s events, until he HAD to have one, to sell what wasn't stolen from the company vault, of his private animation cel and toy collections (most of the really valuable stuff got stolen, prior to then). If you ran into someone online claiming to be Kevin in 1995-2005 it's 99.9% sure IT WASN'T HIM.

Most of the "Palladium Bashing" results from reports by disgruntled persons AFTER their dismissal. Having written for the company myself, I know what really happened in some of the cases. I can't be sure which line of BS you're using for your basis, so I'll detail the ones I know.

1. In the case of one of their more famous early artists, he kept missing a deadline, giving excuses that later turned out to be not true. It is also suspected (by fans and Palladium bashers alike) that he plagiarized a number of his mech designs he drew for Rifts from anime art books, though no one has said if that had any bearing in his departure from Palladium. After leaving the company, he and another person formerly associated with the company printed an RPG that used a blatant copy of Palladium's system, with the only difference being the copyrighted term names being changed - the mechanics were Palladium's "with the serial numbers filed off". It cost a company they was working with its existance. The artist, according to a Ral Partha sculptor I knew, was later fired from FASA for blatant copying of mech body parts from a Gundam art book, in a period where FASA had ordered that no anime reference books be kept in work spaces (including home offices), due to the furor over the anime-based designed they'd unwittingly bought a bogus usage contract for*.

1.a. (*a long story - up until the 3055 art book came out, everyone thought their contract was legit - it was only found out when the yearly payment for the Macross/Dougram/Crusher Joe designs came back "return to sender", and they went through HG & Palladium to try to find where to send their payments to. It was Playmates who sued FASA & vice-versa - Palladium specifically signed a waiver opting out of any part in the suits, except where they were called to testify - more bizarrely, even though both suits (one dismissed, the other settled) went in Playmates' favor (I've seen the rulings/settlement details), there are still Battletech fanatics that insist FASA won both suits and it was Palladium suing them - Jesus Christ on a crutch!)

2. The WotC/Palladium suit (pre-magic, involving a book of conversion systems for converting from one RPG to another) was more of a friendly/white knight suit than an attack. In fact, Maryann Siembieda was one of the first people to be given one of the promotional pre-Alpha Black Lotus cards - not something one would expect if they'd been really hostile. The settlement in the case removed the WotC product from the market, but little else - and it pre-empted a lawsuit from the Williams-era TSR, which was going to try to take WotC down outright (having already crippling out the original incarnation of Mayfair for daring to release the "Role-Aids" books, and about to similarly demolish GDW for Dangerous Journeys). the decision for Palladium pre-empted any more draconian measures from occuring, and saved WotC, so that they could prosper, and eventually do unto TSR what TSR wanted to do to them.

3. The conflict between GDW & Palladium was simply over letting Palladium have the chance to oversee articles that impacted their games (which would add 1-3 months additional time before the articles saw print - maybe more if licensed). Part of this dealt with licensing issues (with Harmony Gold in particular, if articles were Robotech-based - my own Robotech article got delayed a YEAR by HG, but you also had Mirage Studios and TMNT.) Some of the lesser problems GDW had in its last days were, in fact, over Star Wars and Star Trek articles from Challenge, that they published with permission of the RPG rights owners, but without oversight from Lucas or Paramount, respectively, but this aspect was overshadowed by the TSR 800-lb-gorilla lawsuit monkeys of that time period, and their attack on GDW.

4. One former Palladium writer with a fascination of munchkin tech/supernatural, exponentially escalating power creep, and (with other companies) the walking dead, repeatedly sent in a manuscript that kept getting sent back for revisions, after people complained about his previous 4 or 5 books for Rifts having too much power-creep (The CS, Triax and (later)Japan were supposed to be the highest tech, and the author had banana republics with superior technology to them). A typical exchange was a list of items that were too munchkin for the Rifts setting, that needed tweaking; the result of the rewrite typically was a slight power reduction for part of the list (but not sufficient for the request), while INCREASING power levels for other things on the list, and others not yet on it, to where the situation was still as bad, if not worse, than before (sort of like the negotiation process I see in some games of raising your initial sale price, after you feel insulted by the offer being made - "It will cost you 700 gold" - How about 100? - "It will cost you 750 gold"). Needless to say, it didn't work. After letting the book slide backward through the print queue for over a year, it ended up having a replacement written in-house.

4.a. Rumor (never commented on by staff, but by others - at least one of which is now one of the Palladium bashers) has it that one of the artists feature in this person's books got let go for some art issues - like passing off AND SELLING the same piece of art as two different things, for two different books' (one an exoskeleton for a sentient cetacean, the other as a spacecraft), and that his mechanical art was just too wanky, never really matching the writeup (if the writeup came first), or being too odd to actually  function on a battlefield, if the art came first. His character art was incredible though - but he practically abandoned drawing people by that point.

5. Another recent vocal complainer was let go after attempting to take Kevin's personal baby (the Fantasy game that started as a heavily home-ruled OD&D campaign in Detroit around 30 years ago) in a direction far different from Kevin's vision for it. And, as RPers, you all should know how GMs react to others trying to mess with their personal campaign setting.

6. As for payment issues, we do have the revelation of embezzling occuring within the company, and the fact that a number of the online orders mysteriously disappearing (or being diverted), apparently by the same person. Evidence seems to indicate the person was intercepting the orders, taking the payment for themselves, then mailing out the order by filling it with stock they'd already stolen from the warehouse (eliminating the record of the transaction in the process). One of the early parts of the investigation involved a query to persons that ordered the Palladium X-mas specials, about delayed/misplaced orders that ended up being shipped from outside Palladium's area of operations.

6.a. One of the things Palladium has always had in its contracts, and so did many other gaming companies, is that payment to an author only occurs if and when the book or article sees print. The persons I have heard the most vocal screams about non-payment from are ones who wanted payment for manuscripts never published, because of failure to comply to editor/publisher decisions and directives. The SAME types of contracts exist for the vast majority of fiction and non-fiction books outside the RPG market, yet one never hears any complaints about this from those writers - because THAT IS HOW THE INDUSTRY OF PUBLISHING WORKS. And, since RPG products tend to use proprietary information, they can't be shopped around to other publishers all that easily (hence the D20 OGL, to make it easier for such products to be done for that system, that aren't limited to one company - but, one can hardly write a book for, say, Freeport, and expect to shop it around if Freeport's owners reject it, without massive changes to genericize ALL the setting material. This is especially true for WotC-owned or licensed settings, though an OGL setting was used to illustrate it.)

6.b. I also remember that one of the D20 companies (was it Green Ronin?) also fell victim to employee theft/embezzling, and that there was one asswipe in the back of the ENnie awards pounding on the table screaming "PAY YOUR AUTHORS!!!" repeatedly - despite the fact that he was NOT one of those authors, just a "friend" of one, according to his comments. And, to PAY even one of those authors in full would have made the company insolvent, and kept any of the others from being paid - the company staying open, and getting more product into the pipeline to generate revenue, was the only way that the authors owed money had a prayer of being paid anything close to what they were owed.

What was it Kosh said about a three-edged sword?

You can hear anything you WANT to hear on the net. Compared to what I've heard from real people, including those on the OTHER side of these debates, I equate most of the net attacks on Palladium with the "Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name to KFC because the birds are so gene-modified they don't count as chicken anymore" bullshit - because they have about the same level of factual basis, and similar origins, being from those with some sort of vendetta against the attacked.
 

Zachary The First

As several individuals, including Maryann (the former Mrs. Siembieda) have also pointed out, in many cases, you're only hearing one side of the story--the anti-Palladium one. In several recent instances of former authors being rather vocal with their issues re: Palladium or Kevin Siembieda, keep in mind that it is simply that individual's interpretation how things went down. In several cases, Palladium will not refute these claims due to legal or personal considerations. Ask yourself this--how many times have you heard people, after they were fired or quit (sometimes in lieu of being fired) complain about their previous employer? Pretty damned common, isn't it?
 
If folks have personal experiences with PB or PB staff jerking them around, by all means, they should feel free to voice it. And others should feel free to remember that it is one side of things, and there are just as many positive testimonials for the defense (if you bother to look, and as evidenced by the fact there are a stable of regular employees, freelancers, and artists that have stood with the company for many years). Certainly Palladium has made some mistakes, but they or their founder are hardly the Great Satan some individuals and many adherents of a somewhat mauve-tinged site would have you believe.
 
EDIT: I should point out there are also several long-running fan sites. Palladium does not instantly throw out a "cease & desist" to anyone putting up a Rifts or Palladium Fantasy webpage. Instead, they have a set of guidelines they request these pages follow, especially in regards to posting or reprinting core elements or rules or conversions that the company feels might be trouble down the road. Hardly as wide-open as OGL, true, but sites like the Nexus Point and Editor's Wastebasket continue to thrive, as well as the Palladium webrings links hosted on Palladium Books itself!
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Settembrini

OK, but there still is the big issue of Kevin denouncing manuscripts and then mining them for ideas, because he has to write it himself again over a weekend.

And the scheduling. lemuria anyone? Old Kingdom Mountains & Lowlands?

And the fact, that he is very hard to get to answer sometimes, lacking an eMail account.


Sure there is always two sides of the story, but the stuff Bill Coffin wrote is a lot more convincing, than some hysterical Kevin-writ in the next worldbook. I mean how many of my 50+ RIFTS books have that infamous "manuscript-sounded-exciting,-turned-out-shitty,-I-had-to-do-it-myself,-sorry for-five-year-delay" line
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

Zachary The First

Quote from: SettembriniOK, but there still is the big issue of Kevin denouncing manuscripts and then mining them for ideas, because he has to write it himself again over a weekend.
 
And the scheduling. lemuria anyone? Old Kingdom Mountains & Lowlands?
 
And the fact, that he is very hard to get to answer sometimes, lacking an eMail account.
 
 
Sure there is always two sides of the story, but the stuff Bill Coffin wrote is a lot more convincing, than some hysterical Kevin-writ in the next worldbook. I mean how many of my 50+ RIFTS books have that infamous "manuscript-sounded-exciting,-turned-out-shitty,-I-had-to-do-it-myself,-sorry for-five-year-delay" line

Hey, you will not find me arguing about the release schedule, though it's been surprisingly better as of late. However, to my knowledge, Kevin has never addressed the Coffin situation directly, and none of his oft..interesting...prefaces in their books has done so, either. I love Bill's work, and believe along with Wujick he's the best hired talent Palladiun's seen. But we don't really have any way of telling what's gone on, have we?
 
I been pretty close to Palladium over the years, and all I have to go on with any certainty is the way I've been personally treated, which has been nothing short of awesome. Yeah, I've got my issues with them, but I'm not about to let them die, and I sure as shit can't endorse that "they deserve it" stuff, especially when you're talking about the livelihoods of at least 7 or 8 other folks who AFAIK have never done a thing to offend any gamer.
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Settembrini

I´m with you that nothing is to be gained from bashing PB. But there still seems to be some truth in the criticism. And the stuff Kevin writes on real world stuff always sounds...off kilter and sometimes downright hysterical.

BTW, where is Kevin Long?
He defined the RIFTS look and feel for me. I wonder what he is doing right now?
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

Zachary The First

Quote from: SettembriniI´m with you that nothing is to be gained from bashing PB. But there still seems to be some truth in the criticism. And the stuff Kevin writes on real world stuff always sounds...off kilter and sometimes downright hysterical.

BTW, where is Kevin Long?
He defined the RIFTS look and feel for me. I wonder what he is doing right now?

Well, the last time I saw his art in a Rifts Book was in the Bionics Sourcebook, circa '02.  I'm pretty sure he did some more work for Shadowrun as well.

He was the lead artist on Quake 4, and is involed in software games, notably with Activision.  I think he's working for Raven Games now.
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cnath.rm

Quote from: SettembriniBTW, where is Kevin Long?
He defined the RIFTS look and feel for me. I wonder what he is doing right now?
Kevin Long rocks, anyone have any idea on if he has a website?
"Dr.Who and CoC are, on the level of what the characters in it do, unbelievably freaking similar. The main difference is that in Dr. Who, Nyarlathotep is on your side, in the form of the Doctor."
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Take care Nothingland. You were always one of the most ridiculously good-looking sites on the internets, and the web too. I\'ll miss you.  -"Derek Zoolander MD" at a site long gone.

Zachary The First

Quote from: cnath.rmKevin Long rocks, anyone have any idea on if he has a website?

I haven't see a personal website, but he does indeed rock.  Aside from Ramon Perez, he's likely my favorite PB artist.
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Basara_549

I'm stll waiting for proof of this so-called "mining". For that matter, most contracts for most major game companies indicate that any submission, printed or not, becomes property of the company (or, in some cases, the property of the owner of the property licensed for the game). If a project requires 95% rewrite, it would be hard for anyone to determine what, if any, compensation the original author might be due - especially if the basis for the plot within the manuscript came from (partially or completely) the publisher, or even previously presented books by the author FOR that publisher, that are already in print. It would be like Tom Clancy sueing Osama bin-Ladin for plagiarism of one of the Jack Ryan books (Debt of Honor, IIRC), for using Boeing aircraft on 9/11 to attack the US via ramming governmental buildings.

As for the products you mentioned -
Lemuria - a new author is finally working on a manuscript for it, actually.
The original author was NOT part of the writing staff of Palladium - his duties were editing and proofreading other people's work, and he volunteered to write the Lemuria book - only to find out that it wouldn't be as easy as he thought, and it got shelved after only getting the first draft about 20% done in over a year's work.

Old Kingdom Mountains & Old Kingdom Lowlands
Original manuscripts written for the First Edition of the Fantasy RPG. Would need major re-working to fix. In addition (I don't know how much the speaker was joking), one now-former Palladium staffer said that there was another delaying factor, in the form of a diminuative humanoid race with furry feet being added into the setting by the author, woven hard into the plot - a race which has never existed in the Palladium setting for obvious legal reasons. The person who said this has since denied this (and they have a reputation for pulling one's leg), but it leaves one to think, having not seen the manuscripts.

BtS
BtS books from the early 90s (FOUR of them) were proposed, but they were swamped by Rifts success (two authors were Palladium editors, the other author left the company) after they were announced.

New Robotech Books
Several were completed, and a couple other proposed, but had been sat on for a while, due to Harmony Gold telling Palladium not to release books until the (non-existent) new series was announced. Then, they were canceled as a result of the license not being renewed. Blame Harmony Gold, as they tied Palladium's hands. HG's requirements, BTW were:
1. licensing fees were to increase 100-200% for the original series.
2. Palladium would have had to buy a package that included both the original series AND Robotech 3000 rights, and pay the same amount for Robotech 3000 as the original series, despite Robotech 3000 had only a few seconds of CGI test footage done.
3. NO new material could be printed until Robotech 3000 can out, for EITHER license - but Palladium would still have to pay both license fees. (note that Robotech 3000 NEVER came out - hell, the THIRD proposed Robotech sequel project SINCE the cancellation of Robotech 3000 still hasn't come out, though it does have a completed short movie done - one that totally flies in the face of series continuity).
Now, how bad an idea did THIS seem? (if you want to see mismanagement, Harmony Gold is a lot better example of it than Palladium)

TMNT 2E
Palladium had it done. Mirage Studios WANTED it done. The distributors refused to order more than a total of 100 books BETWEEN ALL OF THEM. (that's compared to twice as many pre-orders from Palladium's online store). In other words, it was killed from lack of distributor interest.
 

Settembrini

Well, I still am convinced that there are severe communication problems between Kevin and the Freelancers. Even Erik Wujik sort of writes an apology into Rifts China. Don´t get me wrong: I´m a fan!
But I´m not so awestruck as to not see clearly the hysterical and egocentric way of Kevin running his business. Why do so many freelancers suck at doing what he wants? Just look at the 50+ Sourcebooks and reead the first page. This is some serious stuff going on! Why is it that only Kevin really knows what Kevin wants for a given Supplement? Not communicating and not reading the manuscript is the easiest answer, isn´t it?

I find Coffin´s line of argumentation very plausible. Especially as he also repeatedly says that Kevin can be one of the nicest guys on earth to talk to.
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

Zachary The First

Quote from: SettembriniWell, I still am convinced that there are severe communication problems between Kevin and the Freelancers. Even Erik Wujik sort of writes an apology into Rifts China. Don´t get me wrong: I´m a fan!
But I´m not so awestruck as to not see clearly the hysterical and egocentric way of Kevin running his business. Why do so many freelancers suck at doing what he wants? Just look at the 50+ Sourcebooks and reead the first page. This is some serious stuff going on! Why is it that only Kevin really knows what Kevin wants for a given Supplement? Not communicating and not reading the manuscript is the easiest answer, isn´t it?
 
I find Coffin´s line of argumentation very plausible. Especially as he also repeatedly says that Kevin can be one of the nicest guys on earth to talk to.

You know, I brought this same question up to 2 different freelancers of my aquaintance, both of whom have had books published with Palladium. Both of them gave me the exact same line: When Kev reviewed their work, he was pretty damned frank with them. They had heard about how it had been before, and were a trifle apprehensive when it came to that final review. Surprisingly, however, though he was pretty open about what he didn't like, he also was encouraging, and their books sailed on without (much) issue. They said he was tough, but all in all, fair. Keep in mind these are both guys who were only relatively recently published, so you can take from that what you will. I do know there are a lot of books where Kev talks about having to throw in some additions or rewrite stuff, and it can get a little irksome over time, but my current aquaintances who write or have written for him have been pretty straightforward about the whole business, and while I'm sure he'd tear my writing apart like a pair of cheap panties, it sounds like he's perhaps mellowed somewhat in his freelancer treatment. I guess I'll have to see what note is put in the front of the next Rifts releases. :heh:
 
And I doubt we'll ever hear the other side of the Coffin story. I'm sorry he's gone, to be sure (his work on Palladium Fantasy remains my favorite of anything done on that line), but I don't really care to see him throwing punches at guy not defending himself for personal/legal considerations what, 3 years after the fact? In any case, none of it is enough to outweigh the history of sterling personal experiences I've had with Palladium and Kevin Siembieda both in person and online, as a fan and as just plain folks.
 
That all said, there things KS does I certainly disagree with, sometimes vehemently. I won't ignore their mistakes, but see above.
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Settembrini

@Zach: My offer for the charity is still up.
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity