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| and with that I threw up a little in my mouth |
Holy shit, talk about nepotism in the gaming industry.
Is there controversy* associated with Adamant? Certainly. Gareth is the first to admit it, but he's also had a very difficult road along the way, and many in his position would have thrown in the towel, dumped the whole mess, and moved on to another path.Does Gareth admit it with his small quote later in the article? Fuck no. Hell, Far West isn't even mentioned until you follow the "asterisk" and get this gem from Sean:
(*) - I know as I type this that the Comment section will contain some vitriol, as there are those who have very strong opinions about how Far West has gone so far. I will not engage, so don't expect me to, and I really would prefer if folks could keep their tone civil, please. You are welcome to your opinions, and reasonable discourse is encouraged... but cruelty and angry, accusatory rhetoric is not helpful. This effort by Gareth to come back from adversity and get things on track is the way to successfully executing all that has been promised, in this columnist's humble opinion.What exactly is "accusatory rhetoric?" Mentioning a KS over 4 1/2 years late? Broken promises? Outright lies? How about Buckaroo Bonzai?
What a fucking load of bullshit.
My opinion of Mr Fannon has ebbed and flowed since he became a columnist for ENWorld, but this poor excuse of an article isn't news, it's propaganda to white wash his friend's failures and lies. "Stalwart" my ass! Try "unreliable" and you'd be closer to the truth.
Con Crud lingers years later.
Working for Enworld has become like working for Pravda.
ReplyDeleteSadly you seem to be correct. Fannon gets paid for his articles and gets affiliate monies for all the links he shares when he hocks his releases and those of his friends, all under the pretense that he's giving unbiased opinions.
DeleteHe was pretty heavy into self-promotion before the EN World thing came along and it's only gone up since. I had noticed the affiliate link thing a while back and it bothers me, so I'm glad to see someone else pointing it out. Though he did mention it in one of his articles it's the kind of thing that would require a disclosure in every article on a more formal site - or just wouldn't be allowed at all.
DeleteThe first sentence of the article kind of puts me off. It reads:
ReplyDelete"Gareth Michael Skarka is an icon in the game hobby and industry that is hard to ignore. "
An icon? Frank Mentzer , Tim Kask, Monte Cook, Jolly Blackburn...those guys (and many more I didn't mention) are icons. The only reason I've ever heard of Gareth is because of Far West and I'm not sure that really qualifies him.
well, he is Iconic for "failure to deliver on a RPG KS"
DeleteWOW, LOL.
DeleteIt's a pun. He has a design credit on Icons.
DeleteStalwart isn't even a noun. How do skill-less writers get cool jobs? I need to use poor grammar- I mean, me use not goods letter scratches
ReplyDeleteWell yeah it is a noun too. Essentially the definition of a Stalwart (noun) is someone who is stalwart (adjective). It got cropped from the definition above.
DeleteI think it's supposed to be spelled Stallwart.
Delete/dumb joke about a stalled Kickstarter that's grown warts.
Well, I was a bit stupid about Gareth - I didn't realize he was part of Admant until you mentioned the company here. Just didn't make the connection that he was the same Gareth who was one of the people behind Thrilling Tales, one of the best Pulp supplements for Savage Worlds to ever be released. Same guy who botched Far West, huh? Sad...
ReplyDeleteSean Patrick Fannon was one of the few who chimed in (on the side of censorship) when Alpha Blue was temporarily banned from OBS. He rhetorically asked what the hell was wrong with me and compared the "rape fantasy" I was selling to horse manure in a donut shop. Furthermore, he stated that content like Alpha Blue should be forcibly removed from RPG retailers like OBS so it can only be sold through a porn site.
ReplyDeleteSo, yeah... fuck that guy.
Gareth and Adamant have 3 notable failures that I am aware of:
ReplyDelete- Team-Up for ICONS was a book that he took pre-orders for beginning in 2011 and did not deliver for years. After a lot of heat he got it out in August of 2013.
-Buckaroo Banzai the RPG was offered in 2011 also and has yet to appear in any form.
- Far West - Tenkar's documented it but note it also was offered in 2011 and has yet to appear.
So there's 5 years, at least 3 products worth of repeat failed efforts here, and we're calling that "stalwart"?
Right.
And the Icons book was PDF-only, not the printed version as promised.
Delete(And that disaster seemed to be what caused Adamant to lose the entire Icons line, and going to another publisher.)
Delete