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Escapist's clarification on their sources for the Star Citizen op-ed
- Thread starter Last Hearth
- Start date
Wow, if this would be true, then it would be the most hilarious story of the year. It even makes sense
----
DAAAAAAMN!
10/10
Makes you wonder how much backer cash is going to be funnelled into this legal diversion now.
Edit: also wondering how backers are going to feel about Roberts distracting himself with this kerfuffle now, instead of focusing on development. Surely the rebuttal on his site was enough, given the level of funding secured for the project? Or is he afraid of refunds?
I would lose my shit. All of it.
None of it. Founder of CIG, and founders work for free btw, is a lawyer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortwin_Freyermuth
Cabbagehead
Member
Pretty sure CIG has what is called a legal fund... given the firms they listed at the bottom in both the US and the UK.
If they are pursuing the case in the UK though I would imagine Freyermuth is not licensed to practise law there.
ultrazilla
Member
I think what would really silence all of this is for
Chris to release the amount of funds he has left
for the game. There's no need to dodge it. He says
he's being transparent with the whole process, then
show us the money. It's the one thing he has NOT responded to which is not a good thing. Especially with the rumor of only 8 million total
left in the bank and on course to run dry by Q1 2016.
Chris to release the amount of funds he has left
for the game. There's no need to dodge it. He says
he's being transparent with the whole process, then
show us the money. It's the one thing he has NOT responded to which is not a good thing. Especially with the rumor of only 8 million total
left in the bank and on course to run dry by Q1 2016.
keycards are mostly blank in companys. (so that when you lose it and someone finds it, that he dont know where this keycard belongs to)
Cabbagehead
Member
Wat?
Are you crazy or ignorant? no company is going to show their checkbooks for the internet to see with out legal precedence. Regardless of how transparent they may be their is a limit to how much you can show. Given that term is not a blanket word meaning absolute. Also there is a reason that its called a rumor...because they can't legal show that stuff regardless of said rumor.
What about the person who verified their identity with pay stubs?
So why hire an external firm?
Which is funded by..?
So why hire an external firm?
Which is funded by..?
crazyrabbits
Banned
I've been... out of the game for some time now. I was going to go back and edit my post when I realized my mistake, but it is what it is. No biggie.
Not quite. Sources are still used, regardless of whether it's for a political story or for a game publisher.
There are lots of reasons why a source would go "on deep background" - usually, it's to protect their own job or livelihood until such time when they can extricate themselves and go public. Sometimes it's because they're leaking confidential information. They can do it to spur on change from inside the company. It's not as simple as saying "find someone else". Often, they're the only ones willing to speak out in the first place.
Like I said earlier, I hope their sources are rock-solid, because it's a very daring play they're making. Putting your company's rep on the line for a scandalous story written by a "beat" reporter could blow up in your face, and we've seen more than once how that can destroy a publication's rep (Stephen Glass).
I believe the lawyer's letter - there's a hell of a lot of inconsistencies, and he very rightly points out that the Escapist shouldn't have rushed to publish the story if there was no pressing time constraints and they were still waiting on a comment from Roberts. Hell, in the past, I killed stories for less while working at my college paper.
When looking for information on their financials I saw this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3mk6cx/please_cig_could_we_have_a_financial_statement/
Which has a link about a similar company and why releasing direct financial information may be ill-advised:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-the-rage-of-the-jilted-crowdfunder.html
At the very least it offers an interesting perspective on it.
Cabbagehead
Member
Umm paystubs can be easily forged and for that matter the Escapist didn't even follow their own protocol by providing clear evidence of said confirmation. A picture a blanked out image anything to corroborate such a thing and without that its just hear say.
Which Funded by?
There is other money other then the crowdfunded money, there are loans and things like slush funds. Are you new to this arena?
Plus if CIG was going to use Crowdfunded money to go along with this. They would tell us straight up.
CyberPunked
Member
Lol.
I heard that they've only got £10 left.
I didn't hear that, I made it up. Do you see how easy that is? I wrote something on the internet that I made up. People could chose to believe that if they're the sort of people that believe things without any proof whatsoever....
Cabbagehead
Member
Case in point those people are called gobble.
You don't say. It's just that is was mentioned in the Escapist's retort and nobody has questioned it along with the keycards.
Oh goodness, I must be. Typical GAF snark when we could've had civil discourse instead.
If it's a project that has received as much backer funding as Star Citizen has and there are some doubts over whether or not CIG will deliver (and what they've been spending backer money on), it's worth asking further questions about where their funding for these legal problems is coming from. So far you've just answered with fairly general assumptions.
Companies or organisations that have in-house lawyers still engage external counsel, where the nature of the legal matter is such that the in-house team either cannot or chooses not to deal with it itself.
Often this is where the matter is sufficiently important, complex and/or serious. Also where the matter involves a jurisdiction that the in-house team is not qualified to advise on.
Which won't be free, hence the question about how it'll be funded.
Cabbagehead
Member
Because i don't know and speculating about if they will use CF money or not is just that worthless speculation. Given something like this has not happened and this is new for everyone really. So until we get the verdict in the next whatever hours. Then we will know.
But given its legal matters we are talking about and it going into play ball territory then its funding are most likely not going to be made public, especially since CIG is a private company.
I agree, was just answering your question
From my experience of these situations, legal spend at this stage will be minimal. If Escapist calls CIGs hand, then the latter will need to decide whether to follow through with legal action, at which point costs ramp up quickly, particularly in defamation claims.
At present, it's just a strongly worded letter. Although it seems very forceful, it pales in comparison to legal correspondence over really serious, high-level disputes.
Cabbagehead
Member
I agree, was just answering your question
From my experience of these situations, legal spend at this stage will be minimal. If Escapist calls CIGs hand, then the latter will need to decide whether to follow through with legal action, at which point costs ramp up quickly, particularly in defamation claims.
He asking rather or not CIG will use CF money or not or other money. Which is a question no one can answer at this moment. So i don't understand why they are asking.
Agreed. He asked "why use external lawyers", which is what I was answering.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Did escapist forget to include an "allegedly"?
CyberPunked
Member
Could you explain?
There isn't a shred of independent corroboration or on-the-record secondary sources for any of the (civil and criminal) allegations put forward in The Escapist's article. That's not investigative journalism, that's a libel suit about to happen.
This article never would have made it to print at a respectable news organization. Tabloid press or Breitbart? Sure, they'd run with it 'cause they're not organizations actually committing acts of journalistic integrity. It's shoddy and poorly sourced, a horrid example of yellow journalism. Might there be kernels of truth hiding somewhere in the story? Let me be very clear here:
IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.
And in fact, if there is fire in the smoke, this article has made it significantly more difficult to both bring it to light and deal with it.
This article was a very poor career choice for a number of people.
neurosisxeno
Member
From the sounds of it they forgot to include some facts too.
From the company's cash reserves, which will have multiple sources, one of which being crowd funding. I've got the feeling that you're wanting to be outraged about crowd funded money being used to provide legal protection for the company/game. But I mean, when you crowdfund a game, do you not think that they pay money getting stuff copyrighted/trademarked? Legal has it's place in game development, a rather large one in fact.
Regardless, if the little I know about libel law in the UK is true, this case is open and shut, and probably will be free, with Escapist will be picking up the costs.
I agree with both of you. For a project that is being accused of misusing funds from backers, it's a question worth asking- even if we don't know the answer just yet. I just find it interesting that CIG is going to pressure the Escapist in this way, when it's not really a necessary course of action. Instead of dismissing the Escapist's claims and pointing to fairly flimsy evidence, Roberts seems to want to bury them.
I've no interest in being outraged, so you're wrong there.
Dictator93
Member
The thing about ID cards... yikes.
It's highly necessary. Talent makes games good and accusations of rampant racism, harassment and embezzlement and misuse of funds can very easily scare away those talented people. Not mention the consequences on additional investors and vendors that they try to deal with.
In the end, this sort of issue is a possible consequence of development as is its defense. It's not a misuse of funds to protect the company (and the game by the way) from being derailed by libel.
The staff already there is aware of the truth whichever way it swings I'm sure. But these sorts of accusations can have dire consequences especially in this industry where employment is already shaky at best. I mean would you uproot your family to go work for the racist, mismanaged, possibly broke company that CIS is being purported to be?
I don't think that those are doubts that would be silenced by a successful defamation lawsuit. If anything, the amount of attention that Roberts is devoting to this in public would make me wary if I were a prospective employee. It would've come across a lot better if he'd produced a terse and dignified response to the article, then left the Escapist to flounder when its own flimsy riposte fell under scrutiny. Writing a massive post about Derek Smart and GG and following it up with a a very public lawsuit a few days later makes him seem angry and impulsive.
joey_bone_bomb
Member
Very awkwardly written letter. Even if you ignore grammar mistakes and poor syntax, it kind of fluctuates back and forth between professional and casual in its tone.
I was half expecting the author to use ellipses and emoticons.
I was half expecting the author to use ellipses and emoticons.
Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
Sounds like The Escapist (or CIG) might consider launching a Kickstarter for their impending legal fees.
Ya dun fucked up Escapist.
welp
Yeah, I thought exactly the same thing. It contains some apparent good points, but it doesn't strike me as lawyer talk (and I bet there's a good reason why lawyers have that kind of talk).
Which will be interesting because if the Escapist retracts/apologises then they pretty much admit that they didn't have anything in the first place and shouldn't have published the article. It would basically destroy the credibility of the entire publication (not that there was a lot of it left anyway) and we could dismiss future articles out of hand.
That doesn't seem to bother Gawker.
Reading the letter from a lawyer's perspective (mine), the demands are interesting. Demand 3 (for an independent review) will not be met; Escapist know what they did (whatever that is), and will seek to resolve with CIG. One could argue that demand 1 (an apology) could be acceded to without also acquiescing to demand 2 (retraction), but any apology would need to be carefully worded so as not to compromise Escapist's legal position.
I suspect that Escapist will issue a "lawyer's apology" that apologises for any distress that may have been caused by the article, and perhaps for the (according to them) technical/admin issue that meant CIG's response was not included in the originally published article. Then it will be for CIG to decide whether or not it is worth taking further. From a financial perspective, the answer to the latter is probably "no", but Chris Roberts is a rich man (source: by his own admission) and can afford legal action (the law firms he uses are at the very top end for this kind of work (source: me, my job is researching law firms)); and his somewhat rambling but very emotive response on his website suggests that this article may be the last straw; he is clearly incredibly upset and angry about (what he sees as) a lengthy campaign against him by Derek Smart.
It will if the Hulk Hogan case goes against them, though.
even the shape of your post is insane
I was talking about the article where they outed that executive, but that works too
ScatheZombie
Member
"We don't have racist hiring practices because 1% of our employees are African-American."
Ya dun fucked up Escapist.
Wow.