draginol wrote on Dec 7, 2017, 16:22:

Beamer wrote on Dec 7, 2017, 14:28:
Man, delete that. It isn't needed, it's too much information, and I don't think you need to explain yourself. Others are doing the work for you in a way that would be better. This is one of those instances where more information doesn't help, and one of the rare ones where I think isn't warranted.

Normally I would agree with you. It's just ugly dirty laundry stuff.

But every time anything about Stardock shows up, this guy is right there spreading the same old BS. I appreciate the people who have patiently tried to correct him.

And yet, you come off looking worse and worse when you attack him over it. It absolutely does paint a picture of a vindictive sort of person, and it makes the original claims seem quite believable.

Beamer wrote on Dec 7, 2017, 14:28:
Man, delete that. It isn't needed, it's too much information, and I don't think you need to explain yourself. Others are doing the work for you in a way that would be better. This is one of those instances where more information doesn't help, and one of the rare ones where I think isn't warranted.

Normally I would agree with you. It's just ugly dirty laundry stuff.

But every time anything about Stardock shows up, this guy is right there spreading the same old BS. I appreciate the people who have patiently tried to correct him.

Man, delete that. It isn't needed, it's too much information, and I don't think you need to explain yourself. Others are doing the work for you in a way that would be better. This is one of those instances where more information doesn't help, and one of the rare ones where I think isn't warranted.

Please. We know that most lawsuits like these end up settled out of court so that corporations and individuals don't have to admit any wrongdoing. It's an expensive gamble taking something to court when a settlement is there for the taking. Of course she'd be happy to apologise to him in exchange for a nice payout and the dropping of the counter suit.

Don't forget this is the same man who said:

"If the government wants to take anything away from my company, that's when I shut it down. The way I see it I can walk around naked in my office and if I can't then I won't have one."

That's right, he feels he should have the right to walk around his office naked and women should just put up with that; if the government says otherwise he'd rather shut down his business. And yet you have a hard time believe he may have acted inappropriately around women?

He also admitted touching her inappropriately:

"Hence if I "jokingly" touched Alexandra's hair or teased her about her fiancee, I respect her request that this should cease. However, my general obnoxiousness is not subject to change and I would terminate the corporation and all jobs within it if I felt my rights were being curtailed."

That's right, he admits he was touching her but says that he has every right to be a dick to her. And there is evidence he sent her a purity test, which is of course paints the picture of sexual harassment.

The evidence seems pretty damning. He's a sleazy creep. But sure, I must be reading between the lines. Thumbsup
Avatar 22891

I normally wouldn't bother to respond to this kind of garbage but since I hang out here and really don't like seeing this kind of vile misinformation spewed out unchallenged let's get a few facts straight.

1. The things you quote me saying are so out of context as to be meaningless and completely misleading. One could only imagine the wonderful nuggets someone could use against if every thing you have ever posted were dug up and thrown into a court document.

2. Do you really want to know why she lost and had to write a public apology? Because the various "evidence" you keep referring to was fabricated and shown to be such during her deposition. As in, hilariously, bald-faced, we can't believe she is admitting to this on the record, fabricated.

The only reason we let her off with just apologizing was the jury verdict would simply have been "not liable" (civil cases don't have guilty or not guilty) and guys like you would still have run around sliming me. Whereas, with the apology letter and having her case dismissed with prejudice would be seen by reasonable people that she had no case.

And by the way, she didn't get a cent. Us letting her go with only an apology was the generosity.

3. My favorite part is the whole "hair touching" thing. Yes, apparently I touched her hair after she was ripping on non-present male coworkers calling them "metrosexuals" because they had highlighted their hair. I lightly touched her recently bleached blond hair and said "Really?" And this was all outside of work at a bar she wasn't invited to in the first place. And every witness corroborated this.

So yes, I touched the hair of a person who was one of those "huggy" people (i.e. would give others, including me, unsolicited hugs). So if I'm a sexual harasser because I briefly touched her hair one time to make a point of her bleaching it while ridiculing her male colleagues was hypocritical, what does that make the person who went around giving unsolicited hugs to people? And BTW, I am not one of those huggy people. I don't like being hugged and had told her not to hug me previously (she would still do so and then say "OMG! I'm so sorry I forgot!").

4. The "purity test" email thing was one of the pieces of evidence that was fabricated on multiple levels. First, I didn't write it. It was sent to her by my executive planner (a woman who was also her friend) by accident. She didn't realize she was on with my account (part of her job was to respond to incidental emails for me). And it became clear that she knew that I hadn't sent the email during deposition.

The whole thing was a case of a pissed off 21 year old kid who got embarrassed for being shown to be a sexist hypocrite in front of her friends by the boss and decided to try to teach me a lesson.

Now, I could go on but I know I'm wasting my time on you. Every time there's an article that involves Stardock you come crawling out of your hole to crap on me as if I personally gored your ox.

But at the very least, I hope, others will see how ridiculous that whole thing was, especially in light of seeing what actual sexual harassment looks like (hint: It involves harassment that is sexual).

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Dec 5, 2017, 01:05:

Beamer wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 13:50:
You're an opportunistic troll. 1 person here said the sexual harassment thing, and was corrected by 5.

Still you cry.

Troll = stuff you don't like because it hurts your feelings. Even more so when it's ideologically in your camp, and it's shitty people being shitty. And instead of actually dealing with that problem you'd rather not dispute that, rather it's all deflect, deflect, deflect.

Maybe you can go find some trendy cause to go virtue signal over and show you're a great ally.

I told him he was wrong, I don't have a camp, and it's hard to imagine anyone with less humanity than you.

What is shittier than no humanity? You can't even imagine empathy with others, hence your idiot MRA buzzwords like virtue signal. Are you so miserable with who you are?

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Dec 5, 2017, 06:44:

Kxmode wrote on Dec 5, 2017, 01:26:
"virtue signal over" doesn't make any sense. Is this like the Bat signal for causes?

It makes perfect sense, maybe you should read it more slowly? Or go watch some virtue signalers in action to see how it all goes down.

Read it slowly numerous times. Still makes no sense. Not dogging your creative use of language, it's just not clicking for me. Care to define?

Kxmode wrote on Dec 5, 2017, 01:26:
"virtue signal over" doesn't make any sense. Is this like the Bat signal for causes?

It makes perfect sense, maybe you should read it more slowly? Or go watch some virtue signalers in action to see how it all goes down.

Creston wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 15:04:
You need to stop reading between the lines. Both lawsuits were dismissed with the only stipulation between the two that SHE apologizes to Wardell for what she did. If she had a leg to stand on, do you think that's what would've happened?

Please. We know that most lawsuits like these end up settled out of court so that corporations and individuals don't have to admit any wrongdoing. It's an expensive gamble taking something to court when a settlement is there for the taking. Of course she'd be happy to apologise to him in exchange for a nice payout and the dropping of the counter suit.

Don't forget this is the same man who said:

"If the government wants to take anything away from my company, that's when I shut it down. The way I see it I can walk around naked in my office and if I can't then I won't have one."

That's right, he feels he should have the right to walk around his office naked and women should just put up with that; if the government says otherwise he'd rather shut down his business. And yet you have a hard time believe he may have acted inappropriately around women?

He also admitted touching her inappropriately:

"Hence if I "jokingly" touched Alexandra's hair or teased her about her fiancee, I respect her request that this should cease. However, my general obnoxiousness is not subject to change and I would terminate the corporation and all jobs within it if I felt my rights were being curtailed."

That's right, he admits he was touching her but says that he has every right to be a dick to her. And there is evidence he sent her a purity test, which is of course paints the picture of sexual harassment.

The evidence seems pretty damning. He's a sleazy creep. But sure, I must be reading between the lines.

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Dec 5, 2017, 01:05:
Maybe you can go find some trendy cause to go virtue signal over and show you're a great ally.

"virtue signal over" doesn't make any sense. Is this like the Bat signal for causes?

Beamer wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 13:50:
You're an opportunistic troll. 1 person here said the sexual harassment thing, and was corrected by 5.

Still you cry.

Troll = stuff you don't like because it hurts your feelings. Even more so when it's ideologically in your camp, and it's shitty people being shitty. And instead of actually dealing with that problem you'd rather not dispute that, rather it's all deflect, deflect, deflect.

Maybe you can go find some trendy cause to go virtue signal over and show you're a great ally.

He who controls the Kor-Ah controls the universe!

Kxmode wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 15:52:
Thanks for the article. Fascinating insight from 2001. The author does appear to mirror my point.

The idea of making a game that just doesn't use the name "Star Control" doesn't seem to be addressed.

Besides that, it's well known that publishers with trademark and publishing rights have blanket protections against creating any games that share similar name. Although not exactly a direct comparison, CBS versus "Star Trek" Axanar is a good example. The before video and after video is crazy in how much the show was gutted to the point where it is merely implied it takes place in the Trek universe without explicitly claiming it does.

I mean, it would be like Star Trek if CBS or Paramount or whoever had the rights to the name "Star Trek" but Roddenberry retained the rights to, say, the original series and TNG. The evidence seems to support what the paper says, that Reiche and Ford negotiated an unusual sweetheart deal that gave them the rights to the games they made, providing a leg to stand on for the claims they're making now. It seems to me that Stardock is more on the Axanar side of things, not using anything from the first two games, but unlike Axanar, having the rights to use the name itself.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 15:36:

Numinar wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 08:12:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 06:47:
It's worth noting that Brad Wardell is famous for sexually harassing a female employee, sending her a 'sexual purity test', making unwanted sexual contact, telling sexist and vulgar jokes and violating her private life. When she filed a lawsuit he then manufactured a counter-suit to destroy her credibility. It ended with a behind the scenes settlement that involved the woman publicly apologising but it's pretty obvious he paid her off.

Unsurprisingly for someone obsessed with sexual purity he is also a devout conservative famous for boycotting UPS after they withdrew advertising from Fox News due to Glenn Beck making racist and derogatory remarks about Obama.

Put simply he's a bit of an arsehole and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the allegations made by the original developers are entirely true.

It fucking sucks. These women stay quiet as making a complaint no matter how vaild makes you poisonous to litigation phobic corporations who find it easier to keep the lecherous creeps they employ or answer to happy than handle complaints properly. You take the money because your chances of getting another job are greatly reduced so unless you are independently wealthy there is no profit in sticking to your guns.

Though who knows, maybe she was gold digging through litigation and he in an innocent conservative wanker? Seems less likely and certainly not profitable long term.

If women had just stayed in the home, none of this would have happened.

/S

Nicely, the whole idea of women staying quiet to avoid being blacklisted (which was absolutely a real thing) is rapidly draining away.

And while I feel women deserve the benefit of the doubt, and very few make it up, it does seem like there's some evidence that this woman made it up to cover for having been caught with other wrong-doings. I'm not saying I'm fully convinced and therefore ok smearing her (predominantly because I haven't looked into it particularly hard), but I'm also ok saying Brad shouldn't have this held against him. The circumstances are about as clear as they can possibly be in his case. If this doesn't clear a name, not much can.

Orogogus wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 15:08:
I don't think you're right. I don't believe Reiche & Ford would have asserted that Atari's rights expired if they had no reason to think so, to the point of publishing Star Control II online in the form of The Ur-Quan Masters, uncontested, and complete with source code for a commercial version, for 15 years. GOG lists Toys for Bob and Stardock as the company for Star Control 2, which I don't think they'd do for no reason.

Some quick Internet research turned up an interesting student paper that describes some of the history of SC and SC2: Link

Thanks for the article. Fascinating insight from 2001. The author does appear to mirror my point.

Accolade still owns the trademarks, so Crystal Dynamics (which now employs Toys for Bob) would have to buy the rights first. Given how much Accolade spent on the last two games, they would probably ask for a large sum to recover the losses. On top of that, Star Control 3 and StarCon were deliberate attempts by Accolade to change what "Star Control" was, so that at some point in the future, they could create new games without having to worry about acknowledgements and royalties for using Reiche and Ford's ideas. To Reiche and Ford, these attempts were successful enough to make it difficult for them to return to Star Control.

The developer-publisher conflict is fairly well illustrated in the relationship between Toys for Bob and Accolade. Where Toys for Bob was primarily interested in making the games they felt would be fun, Accolade was most worried about maximizing return on their investments, and maintaining the value of their properties. Not all publishers have this sort of relationship with their developers (for example, Toys for Bob was very happy with its relationship to Crystal Dynamics after they left Accolade), but the fact is that sometimes the publisher and the developer simply have different concerns and understanding of the situation, leading to these sorts of conflicts in the relationship.

Besides that, it's well known that publishers with trademark and publishing rights have blanket protections against creating any games that share similar name. Although not exactly a direct comparison, CBS versus "Star Trek" Axanar is a good example. The before video and after video is crazy in how much the show was gutted to the point where it is merely implied it takes place in the Trek universe without explicitly claiming it does.

Numinar wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 08:12:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 06:47:
It's worth noting that Brad Wardell is famous for sexually harassing a female employee, sending her a 'sexual purity test', making unwanted sexual contact, telling sexist and vulgar jokes and violating her private life. When she filed a lawsuit he then manufactured a counter-suit to destroy her credibility. It ended with a behind the scenes settlement that involved the woman publicly apologising but it's pretty obvious he paid her off.

Unsurprisingly for someone obsessed with sexual purity he is also a devout conservative famous for boycotting UPS after they withdrew advertising from Fox News due to Glenn Beck making racist and derogatory remarks about Obama.

Put simply he's a bit of an arsehole and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the allegations made by the original developers are entirely true.

It fucking sucks. These women stay quiet as making a complaint no matter how vaild makes you poisonous to litigation phobic corporations who find it easier to keep the lecherous creeps they employ or answer to happy than handle complaints properly. You take the money because your chances of getting another job are greatly reduced so unless you are independently wealthy there is no profit in sticking to your guns.

Though who knows, maybe she was gold digging through litigation and he in an innocent conservative wanker? Seems less likely and certainly not profitable long term.

If women had just stayed in the home, none of this would have happened.

/S

Kxmode wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 14:50:
The ownership stays with whoever published the product. It started with Accolade, then Infogrames. All the while Infogrames owned Atari. If Infogrames decided to transfer ownership of Star Control to Atari to reinvigorate the brand, then control belonged to Atari. When sold, Star Control would have then transferred ownership to Stardock.

Toys for Bob lost ownership of their game as soon as they signed the publishing contract with Accolade and even more so as the property moved from one publisher to another. This is the primary reason Chris Roberts couldn't make a new Wing Commander game, and Derek Smart had to fight Take-Two in court to get his BC3000 IP back.

It sounds like now that their property is very popular again Toys for Bob is total butt-hurt over their ability to fully own the property. They should have continued to work out a licensing agreement with Stardock, the current owners of the property, instead of taking this nonsense online. It reeks of an amateur move.

I don't think you're right. I don't believe Reiche & Ford would have asserted that Atari's rights expired if they had no reason to think so, to the point of publishing Star Control II online in the form of The Ur-Quan Masters, uncontested, and complete with source code for a commercial version, for 15 years. GOG lists Toys for Bob and Stardock as the company for Star Control 2, which I don't think they'd do for no reason.

Some quick Internet research turned up an interesting student paper that describes some of the history of SC and SC2: Link

They were able to get a contract with Accolade, as outside developers. They were on their own for the most part, but they were paid for meeting milestones and would collect royalties on sales (while Accolade made most of the money, to recover the costs of paying the bills). Accolade would own the trademarks, but Reiche and Ford were careful to retain ownership of the ideas.

Unusual, but it would explain why two high profile developers would be willing to run what would otherwise be a heinously illegal abandonware fansite.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 14:47:
Wrong. Brad Wardell himself stated the case was settled and that each side agreed to withdraw their claims. He claims no money was exchanged as part of the settlement but there are plenty of ways to compensate her whilst still claiming she received no money. The entire situation seems quite sketchy and completely in keeping with the exchanges I've had with him over on Neowin, which is partially owned by Stardock.

Wardell filed the counterclaim to destroy her credibility and it was only after she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. Even in Wardell's subsequent interviews he's gone out of his way to attack feminism, so I really don't have any doubt he created a hostile work environment in the manner described. Here's a direct quote from Wardell about feminists: "They don’t like men. They’re the ones who say they drink male tears and that sort of thing, I don’t like that."

You need to stop reading between the lines. Both lawsuits were dismissed with the only stipulation between the two that SHE apologizes to Wardell for what she did. If she had a leg to stand on, do you think that's what would've happened?

Holy crap you make a lot of shit up if you don't like somebody.

The ownership stays with whoever published the product. It started with Accolade, then Infogrames. All the while Infogrames owned Atari. If Infogrames decided to transfer ownership of Star Control to Atari to reinvigorate the brand, then control belonged to Atari. When sold, Star Control would have then transferred ownership to Stardock.

Toys for Bob lost ownership of their game as soon as they signed the publishing contract with Accolade and even more so as the property moved from one publisher to another. This is the primary reason Chris Roberts couldn't make a new Wing Commander game, and Derek Smart had to fight Take-Two in court to get his BC3000 IP back.

It sounds like now that their property is very popular again Toys for Bob is total butt-hurt over their lack of full control. They should have continued to work out a licensing agreement with Stardock, the current owners of the property, instead of taking this nonsense online. It reeks of an amateur move.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 10:06:
The case wasn't settled, it was dismissed with prejudice. Meaning that she lost due to lack of evidence. A number of other Stardock employees also came forward to say her claims was baseless. By all accounts, she lied to try to destroy someone who didn't advance her in the company at the pace she wanted. But of course, the ethics-bereft the games press that don't believe in due process parroted the lies because it made for good clicks. Several of the so-called "journalists" who spread that garbage have since apologised for getting it wrong. Most of them haven't though because hey, admitting you're wrong is a weakness to them and most of the games press wouldn't know what journalism is if it bit them in the ass.

Wrong. Brad Wardell himself stated the case was settled and that each side agreed to withdraw their claims. He claims no money was exchanged as part of the settlement but there are plenty of ways to compensate her whilst still claiming she received no money. The entire situation seems quite sketchy and completely in keeping with the exchanges I've had with him over on Neowin, which is partially owned by Stardock.

Wardell filed the counterclaim to destroy her credibility and it was only after she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. Even in Wardell's subsequent interviews he's gone out of his way to attack feminism, so I really don't have any doubt he created a hostile work environment in the manner described. Here's a direct quote from Wardell about feminists: "They don’t like men. They’re the ones who say they drink male tears and that sort of thing, I don’t like that."

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 13:28:

Creston wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 11:10:

That case was dismissed with prejudice. Iow, it's 99.9999% likely that she made all that shit up in an effort to extort money from her previous employer.

If you base all your decisions regarding stardock on that, you have a supremely sad world view. Let's hope for your sake nobody ever makes a false sexual harassment claim against Chris Roberts, hmm?

It's funny just how much the lie that Wardell sexually harassed someone is still making the rounds. The thing you forgot was: Not only was it dismissed with prejudice against the complainant, but she stole and destroyed corporate information belonging to Stardock. And the judge required her to write a public apology for the false claim. She's lucky she wasn't criminally prosecuted for that stunt and for the destruction of property. I believe Wardell's own words were something close to "the sooner she's out of the lives of our employees the better we'll all be."

It wasin't 99.9999% that she made it up. She 100% made it up. Ordering a claimant to publicly apologize is almost unheard of, and is considered a "confession of guilt." Meaning Wardell could have filed civil and criminally against her, and she'd be 100% screwed.

But it's the same old bullshit, "what about those special snowflake women who need all that protection!" You mean like the female developer who along with her husband were effectively run out of every "help girls get into tech" program because they refused to bow to feminist dogma, and that same group then started spreading lies in order to ruin her reputation. Oh and for some of the reasons they wanted to all "boys who need help or wanted to learn to code" into the programs, along with socially disadvantaged people. The group FYI was and is backed by google. Enjoy the next lawsuit on thins because it's gonna be really good fun.

Oh, and to the various people who said hur-dur-dur that list a few weeks back was bullshit. Are you enjoying it now? Because there's more to come. I'd also suggest some of you avoid looking at your childhood idols when the next group drops.

You're an opportunistic troll. 1 person here said the sexual harassment thing, and was corrected by 5.

Still you cry.