Also, I'm going to address parts of the update where I have relevant info to expand or refine what Carmen posted.
As a side note, the next post will certainly NOT be about the Rifts® Board Game Kickstarter - I promise gaming content! ;)
The gestation period of this Kickstarter was 5 years. Or, at least, the idea is 5 years old. And it doesn't seem to be solely Carmen's idea, as Kevin was involved in the "feasibility" discussion. Now, 2 years may be the time period that Carmen said "Let's get 'er done!" but its not the time frame of the idea.
Makes perfect sense. To not use a license you paid for would be foolish.
I agree. Harassing backers of the project is simply wrong.
The LLC being in Michigan while Carmen is in Canada raised some flags. I'm glad this was addressed and answered.
Alright, back to fun stuff with the next post.
I kinda wonder if his "suicide attempt" was a ploy to bulletproof him from additional personal criticism. What did he do actually? Anything goes wrong and people come after him and the masses will go, "Leave the man alone, don't push him!!". Remember when Ken used the suicide gambit to shut people down? "You people are driving me to suicide!!" and next thing you know people are all of a sudden playing defense for him. It's a useful tactic for a scam artist. Just keeping it real here. This KS comes right on the heels of his "attempt" and objectively this has Palladium games written all over it. I'd go so far as thinking this is a Hail Mary attempt for that company to get any revenue stream going.
ReplyDeleteI think it is unwise for anyone in a fragile emotional state to sponsor a Kickstarter. I thought this vendor's comments were dead on, until I read this last part. This sounds a lot like the issues most Kickstarter sponsors go through - both real and imaginary. The fact that he suffered these symptoms before the Kickstarter began does not bode well. Not well, at all.
ReplyDeleteThe RRT backers don't "dislike" Kevin Siembieda. They see him as a liar and a thief, a criminal bad actor who has wronged them personally - as anyone who did their due diligence knew he would. Their grievances are specific and quantifiable, and asking them to go away and pretend that none of this ever happened so that "we can go on making people happy" or whatever phrase the terminally irresponsible use to cover their depredations seems overly optimistic and somewhat immoral.
ReplyDeleteHere's the overall impression I get from the post:
ReplyDelete- Carmen is either entirely sincere or a real genius at faking sincerity.
- Carmen is very strongly influenced by Kevin and Palladium, having graduated from being a fan of theirs to being a friend. As such he is simply not to countenance any nay-saying about Kevin, because the familiar "He's not like that with *me*" scenario is in full effect. Hopefully, things never hit a point between Kevin and Carmen where Kevin decides it's time to jettison Carmen, because the disillusionment involved is likely to be very painful.
- As a fan, Carmen really, really wants this to be a RIFTS thing, hence the licence. He also seems convinced that RIFTS has significant pull, and I'm not really sure it does - from where I'm sitting it looks like there's a limited little Palladium bubble where RIFTS holds great sway, and then there's the rest of the world where it's got no pull. But hey, you could probably viably run a small business selling to the Palladium bubble.
- Carmen is enough of a novice in business and is close enough to Kevin that we have to assume that Kevin has a lot of influence over Rogue Heroes. I mean, if you were close buds with someone who had run a game company for thirty-six years, and you were starting out your own company, you'd be a complete buffoon not to hit them up for advice, wouldn't you?
- It's overall a good post which addresses a bunch of subjects usefully. Unfortunately, based on the comments it seems like it's not enough to drive away the trolls. In particular, there's at least one who's talking about the Michigan thing as though it's super-dodgy, when actually Carmen's explanation is perfectly sound. And the emotional endorsement of Kevin verging on hero-worship won't put off those who consider Rogue Heroes to be a Palladium puppet, especially when Kevin is down as a collaborator on the project.
Fuck him. His blurb about keeping RRT issues on that KS is bullshit. He's the one who went there and started shit with his comments.
ReplyDelete