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Greed Monger Cancelled; $100,000+ in Kickstarter Funds Unaccounted For
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Unfortunately, it doesn't really add any sort of information to the conversation, and it's just more smoke, mirrors, and CYA. Basically a restatement of what James has already claimed that Jason said.
TL;DR: He blames the community and still refuses to provide proof of allocation of KS funds.
Between you and me you are kind of late for that, there is a game already out there that is doing that, lets say that it has to do with stars and citizens.
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http://www.swtor.com/r/ZptVnY
Well, they've at least provided backers with some of the promises they made originally, and clearly are working on a game that's both playable and being updated with regularity.
Why do people care so much about what James did or did not do? The contract to create Greed Monger was between Kickstarter backers and Jason Appleton. Whatever agreements Jason Appleton made with James, it doesn't really matter to us because we're not a party to any of those contracts.
To us James was just one of the employees/contractors representing Jason Appleton. If we want to get some kind of justice, we should stop dissecting James' actions and focus on Jason. He's the person who could be sued for all this, not James.
It's also childish to expect that James would help clearing this mess. He'd have only to lose if someone took this to court or officials started investigating the matter. It's clearly in his best interests to tell us whatever fairytale is required to avoid that.
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In terms of legal action, there's likely little that could be done to Appleton or to Proctor. However, it's imperative people know the history James Proctor has with Greed Monger, as he is already claiming to be seeking funding for another project.
Legal actions aren't likely, but reputation is important in situations like this.
James was just as much part of the debacle as Jason.
Jason replied in the rpgcodex thread about the funds. James did too, a couple pages back.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/greed-monger-insider-thread-drama-inside.98177/page-18#post-3937789
Sums it up: "To call this all a scam is just an easy way to drum up negative support against what we attempted to do and I get it. But the fact is, we certainly tried to do what I now know is impossible."
And neither of them posted any sort of confirmation, other than "we used it all, but can't show you how".
Exactly this. Make reasonable sounding explanations (excuses), blame those calling you to account, try to make others feel bad for you by listing your problems, and then try to make yourself out to be the good guy for all the sacrifices you've made. The end result? Still no finished product, still no accounting for where the money went. This is con artistry 101.
___________________________
Have flask; will travel.
Yeah, that's become a sore point with several friends who were enthusiastic backers.
___________________________
Have flask; will travel.
Wait. People are surprised that a bunch of money went "missing" from a project titled "GREED MONGER"?
If you are an original backer of the Greed Monger game and American, and currently thinking about filing a lawsuit.
Then I'll send you $250 through paypal of your choice if you can send me a copy of the official court papers. My offer is serious, and you can drop a private message on how we can verify my claim, and discuss details.
I pledged $5 to this some years ago. I thought it looked promising.
I've just spent probably 8 hours or so pouring over all of this information and I'm dumbfounded. I think one of the most important lessons about this is that if you are a developer, if you don't have something substantial accurate and relevant to say, say nothing at all. That the developers of this "game" have come to forums to defend themselves and conduct themselves in such a vulgar way is totally unprofessional and has undermined the credibility of them and their game 100%.
Furthermore, it's the little things. The fact that Jason Appleton on here as Mogus posts his own face as his profile image, that he is such a snake oil salesman and involves himself in so many projects. When I see him in these professional projects of his (real estate or whatever) and he's wearing a suit and those glasses, I just see the same snake oil salesman in different clothes. I think he's a narcissist, especially being on some reality show or whatever. He's addicted to money and will do anything to get it. Ironically, though, I think he really did just want to create a good MMO because I do believe he's a gamer, but he made a massive mistake in wanting to be a game developer and certainly lacks the credibility and competence to do it.
James Proctor is strange but overall an honest character (look on facebook for Jim Proctor to see what he looks like). This is clearly someone who is just incompetent (no insult intended). I believe that, much like Jason Appleton, James Proctor is just an incompetent dreamer but someone who thinks way too highly of his abilities and lacks the ability to admit that he's finished nothing and has no credibility.
I don't think that the $100,000 is unaccounted for or squandered, I think that this group of people are literally so incompetent that they don't even realize giving this money back to people is the best option. They're so incompetent I bet they don't even know how to do this.
I think this experience should not only be a warning when it comes to making kickstarter pledges but it should be a warning to people wanting to become a developer of games. This is a serious business and not some easily achievable thing you can do in your spare time.
James Proctor, for the hard work you've invested into Greed Monger, I thank you.
Jason Appleton, for sharing aspirations such as me to have an excellent sandbox MMO, I don't know, I high-five you.
But for being such incompetent, narcissistic morons who are so deluded as to how to fix this situation and for taking such a long time to simply scrap this project and give people their money back, I look down on you and scold you. Greed Monger is poison, its name is poison, we tried telling you this and we even insisted you change the name, and you didn't listen to us. Wipe this disaster from the history of our consciousness and redeem yourselves by paying their money back.
Then you can sell out and make whatever zombie facebook games you want.
(Tongue>Cheek) Give the assets to Eric and Sandra, they seem to be developing Project: Gorgon just fine with the two of them. Yes, I know it's not that easy but it can be done at a slow, steady pace. PG gets updates constantly.
I really feel for those that spent money and probably will never see anything for it.
For any backers interested, a few weeks back, Gloriva Victis offered an invitation to their game with proof of purchase for Greed Monger funding:
Meanwhile, if there are any Greed Monger, Embers of Caerus or another MMORPG Kickstarters backers who were not delivered yet what they paid for please contact me via support@gloriavictisgame.com with showing some proof of your donation for those projects. I will gladly send you invitation into the Gloria Victis hoping that you won't loose believe in Indie Developers.
I think that's pretty gentlemanly of them to do.
not much of an update but a related article -- 6 months later, Nov 2014
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/seattle-kickstarter-project-zioneyez-silent-after-/njBQK/
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They have yet to produce so much as a complete, itemized list of what the money was spent on which even the most basic of legitimate businesses would have to have for accounting purposes, let alone actual, documented receipts (even with account numbers redacted) proving the money was invested in the game. With every iteration of their story, there's a different claim about how many people were employed and what it was spent on, and all of it boils down to "trust us". That's the definition of unaccounted for. Classic con artist practice.
___________________________
Have flask; will travel.
Nice!
That is super impressive!
James Proctor claimed to be the only person working on the game, up until the time he originally quit. However, he also made multiple references to a "team" and often used the phrases "us" and "we" while talking about it's development. They never posted a proper list of employees working on Greed Monger, and none of them ever posted on forums or showed up to the "hangouts" where they claimed they would be introduced. This was likely to create the illusion that the game actually had a development team, when in actuality, it never did.
Even according to the original chat logs that James Proctor posted, Matt Eichler (the original lead developer) and David Bennel (World builder) both left the development team one week after receiving funding.
There was no evidence that more than on person was ever working on Greed Monger for any substantial period of time.
However, it's possible that a majority of the money was lost to scammers and con artists, looking to cash in on Jason's limited knowledge. This is a possible "reason" they refuse to post any sort of itemized account for funds; it would probably look worse and be more humiliating than having to admit you stole the money outright.
That's possible, but you would think at some point, rather than continue to have their names drug through the mud and taint their reputations for any future projects they might be involved with, that they would be forthcoming and expose those who scammed them, if that were the case. I haven't seen anything that even hints that this could be the case.
___________________________
Have flask; will travel.
That's the big one.
The company I work for had a web development contractor company overbill/disappear 13k in project funding and although the partners opted to not sue, word got around. Their contract was canceled, which cost them substantially more, and within our industry, their name because mud, losing them a boatload more money. That web development company closed at the end of last year, despite previously having 20+ employees.
If any of the people involved in Greed Monger think that the stink of GM and the "misuse" of the 100k is not going to dog them for a LONG time, they are even more deluded than people already think they are.
Yep, nothing sticks like sh*t does. They'll never polish THAT to a shine.
Does it matter?
Either they are scamers or they are incompetent to run a business. Either case, I don't think their reputation is worth anything in the future.
Heck, i wouldn't put money in KS even for those who has a good reputation. Why bother? If they actually have a product, i will look at it.
In order to substantiate the claims made by Jason and James regarding the financials of their project, a poster over on RPGCodex.com has offered to pay a third party to review the financials in order to avoid any personal information being leaked. This circumvents the issue Jason had with releasing the information, and would allow James and Jason to at least salvage some of their reputation.