Schilling's Green Monster Games

[HaemishM]

Schilling is a total douche, but good on him for reverse-trolling those shitstains who went after his daughter. You don't go after a man's kids, FFS, they ain't done shit.

[Paelos]

The best part is the asshole getting fired from the Yankees. Who seemingly just realized they hire assholes.

 

[WayAbvPar]

You can't mention this shit and then not link a pic of his daughter  

We really need a Quagmire smiley.


In all seriousness, good for him for tracking down those shitheads and fucking them over. He is still a huge douche though.

[Xanthippe]

I was rather agnostic about Schilling's game company debacle (because I never bothered to inform myself of the facts and don't much care; shit like that goes on in every industry and it's not always what it seems), but as far as I'm concerned, that man just went up a mile in my esteem for him, no matter what else he's done. Good for him.

Not just in the doing but in the telling the world about it. Those stupid shitbags deserve every last bit of rancor that rains down upon them in their lives.

[IainC]

I was rather agnostic about Schilling's game company debacle (because I never bothered to inform myself of the facts and don't much care; shit like that goes on in every industry and it's not always what it seems), but as far as I'm concerned, that man just went up a mile in my esteem for him, no matter what else he's done. Good for him.

Not just in the doing but in the telling the world about it. Those stupid shitbags deserve every last bit of rancor that rains down upon them in their lives.

You're posting in the thread where all of the facts about his game company debacle are laid out, including many, many journalistic pieces. You only have to go back two or three pages at most to get pretty much the whole thing. It seems odd that you'd give him a pass on all that because he stands up for his family - shouldn't that be the default assumption?

[Mandella]

I'm fine with him outing these jerks, but does anybody think he actually did the legwork himself? Don't you think it's more likely he (over)paid some PI to do the thirty minutes of investigation work required?

[Paelos]

I'm fine with him outing these jerks, but does anybody think he actually did the legwork himself? Don't you think it's more likely he (over)paid some PI to do the thirty minutes of investigation work required?

No he crowdsourced it. He mentioned as much in the article. He let his internet goons do the dirty work.

[Mandella]

I'm fine with him outing these jerks, but does anybody think he actually did the legwork himself? Don't you think it's more likely he (over)paid some PI to do the thirty minutes of investigation work required?

No he crowdsourced it. He mentioned as much in the article. He let his internet goons do the dirty work.

Thanks. The summery article I read didn't mention that (or I skimmed right over it).

Somehow I didn't think he did it himself...

[Senses]

I feel like a couple of years ago the public might have been against the outing of a couple of anonymous tweeters despite the horrible things they twit, but things are changing quickly.  The wild wild west as it was is over.

[HaemishM]

Especially when you go after teenage girls.

[Xanthippe]

You're posting in the thread where all of the facts about his game company debacle are laid out, including many, many journalistic pieces. You only have to go back two or three pages at most to get pretty much the whole thing. It seems odd that you'd give him a pass on all that because he stands up for his family - shouldn't that be the default assumption?

I have skimmed the posts, and I'm not giving him a pass. I'm agnostic on it. Shit like that happens in all industries, and I doubt that anyone writing in this thread even knows all of the facts. (That would be a first for f13.net, if someone did).

Not everyone has the resources to stand up for one's family the way a public figure does, and get the attention a public figure gets.

[Paelos]

I feel like a couple of years ago the public might have been against the outing of a couple of anonymous tweeters despite the horrible things they twit, but things are changing quickly.  The wild wild west as it was is over.

Ten years ago we thought anonymity was a great part of the internet. Now we're ten years wiser, and a we know it's an absolute shitpile.

[Teleku]

Could somebody please tl;dr for me this thread concerning why Curt is a douchebag?  All that I've really gotten is that he started a game company, was bad at it, it went out of business, and he lost a lot of money.

[Ironwood]

Everyone lost a lot of money.

[Paelos]

Could somebody please tl;dr for me this thread concerning why Curt is a douchebag?  All that I've really gotten is that he started a game company, was bad at it, it went out of business, and he lost a lot of money.

Curt started a company with no experience on how to run one. Company got completely bloated due to a deal with the RI government that demanded increased hiring for funds. Government got cold feet when progress stunted and pulled back, Curt couldn't find additional funding beyond his own money, and the company folded without warning. People moved and were later stuck with places they couldn't afford, people worked for weeks without knowing they weren't getting paid. Curt lost $50M and found out later he had cancer.

Company put out one game, but they blame the RI government for not promoting their product more, and political games causing their funding to drop off. RI says the company was mismanaged. Both are correct.

[Abagadro]

You left out that he is a giant hypocrite on the subject of government assistance and a whack-job in areas concerning science.

[Ironwood]

Actually, he left out a LOT of the 'flavour'.

 

[Paelos]

You left out that he is a giant hypocrite on the subject of government assistance and a whack-job in areas concerning science.

He asked for a short version. Those are the short details of the company closing.

[Rendakor]

"Why is Curt a doucebag?" is an entirely different question than "How did his company close?"

[Teleku]

Well, I should have phrased it better.  I meant in the context of this whole debacle.  Wasn't aware of the other stuff mentioned, which is certainly douchy.  But I thought from the talk here it was over the actions he had done during all this, like screwing over employees or evil business practices.  If its not that, then I don't see much reason for the hate.  I know a lot of good people who have absolutely crazy beliefs.  

[Paelos]

Also why people here might think he's a douchebag would be totally different than my reasons, which are almost entirely financial and sports based.

[Chimpy]

The hypocrisy of his vocal "anti-government handouts" rhetoric and his totally using his position and notoriety to suck on the government teat to an extent that no one without his level of fame would have ever in a million years gotten is the prime cause for most of us thinking he was a total douchebag in the context of the 38studios debacle.

[Paelos]

Baseball players in general are as dumb as hockey players. Listening to anything they say about life other than "here's how I throw/hit the ball" is going to end poorly.

[Merusk]

If only you'd been there to tell Rhode Island's governor that.

[Lantyssa]

Rhode Island's governor would have ignored him what with being a huge Shilling fanboy.

[Shannow]

I feel like a couple of years ago the public might have been against the outing of a couple of anonymous tweeters despite the horrible things they twit, but things are changing quickly.  The wild wild west as it was is over.

Ten years ago we thought anonymity was a great part of the internet. Now we're ten years wiser, and a we know it's an absolute shitpile.

Cept several of these douchebags didn't even post anonymously. Got every thing they deserved.

[UnSub]

One key area that helped drive 38 Studios into the ground was that Schilling was completely unwilling to give up partial control of the company in exchange for the capital. It's what scared a lot of investors off - they didn't mind him being there, but wanted to control how the money was being spent.

It was an exercise in hubris and that's why Schilling deserves a lot of the criticism sent his way. The fact he managed to blame RI's government for screwing up his ability to attract investors is just part of that; the sad part is that people believed him.

[Paelos]

That's true and one of the major reasons I think he's a douche. His financial accumen was nil, and his business sense was even less. He had no understanding of what an investor would want or was looking for in a company. He would have been better off getting marginalized by someone with some sense, because it would have likely led to a company that ran somewhat efficiently. But remember, that's not just a Curt problem. That's a problem with the gaming industry as a whole being run by man-children with just as little business sense as Curt.

However, the die was cast when RI stepped in and made sure that he hired 400+ employees. No gaming company can survive that overhead in the first 5 years. Hell, almost no company at all can handle that kind of boom. The pressure you put on your deliverables with that kind of sunk cost is insane. That's the major problem with a government acting as a speculative investor. Mainly because nobody I know in governments have a hell of a lot of business background. When they read a financial statement and a forecast, you should be able to see how 150 extra employees would bankrupt a startup. So would regular investors. Except they didn't, and everyone was driven by greed and politics.

EDIT: I mean I try to use a 2/3-1 principle in my service industry. If my gross margin isn't at least 2-3x my payroll, we're going to lose money. The better off we are in that ratio the higher my yield. If I took on 150 employees on average at 50k a year, that's $7.5M in overhead. I'll have to clear at least $15M in gross margin to basically break even on that with all my other expenses. That's 300,000 in game sales at $50 a pop. The math never made sense.

[HaemishM]

Well, I should have phrased it better.  I meant in the context of this whole debacle.  Wasn't aware of the other stuff mentioned, which is certainly douchy.  But I thought from the talk here it was over the actions he had done during all this, like screwing over employees or evil business practices.  

Paelos forgot the part where he moved his company from Boston to Rhode Island as a result of the sweetheart loan he got from Rhode Island, claimed he would pay for the moving expenses of his employees and didn't - but also didn't tell them those expenses weren't paid. Oh and how he didn't tell any of his employees that he wasn't paying their health insurance premiums for months, a fact some of them only found out when they went for doctor's visits for pregnancies and shit.

[Senses]

Still, if he had actually produced a game, he'd just be any other asshole in the gaming industry.

[Paelos]

Still, if he had actually produced a game, he'd just be any other asshole in the gaming industry.

He produced one game. He basically is every other asshole in the industry. The difference is he stopped, and Kickstarter wasn't a thing yet.

The reason most people hate him is his opinions.

[Senses]

Yeah I guess you are right, I guess I meant *if* he had produced a game with Rhode Island's money.

[Ard]

Lets also be fair.  He did not produce that game.  He bought the company that was already making that game and repurposed it for his shitty lore.

[Paelos]

Lets also be fair.  He did not produce that game.  He bought the company that was already making that game and repurposed it for his shitty lore.

Meh that's sort of revisionist. The game came out in 2012. Big Huge was picked up in 2009. I think you have to give credit where it's due. There's a 3 year gap there where a game could have easily not made it out the door.

And the other part is that the game is actually good. The music and atmopshere of the game is well done, and the environments have many nice details. The combat is a good middle ground of twitchy/rpg/combo. The story is silly and the main character is unvoiced, which I like. Lots of quests, lots to do, and it reminds me of DA:I in that regard, but less grand.

[HaemishM]

That is in no way revisionist. THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Big Huge were already working on the game that became Amalaur, they got bought out and the game in progress was adapted to fit the MMO's lore. The only revisionism is you saying that that is revisionist, because it fucking is not.