CPUWIZ Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 LOL Maybe he still has some. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Spriggy Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 Wow. Did't jump on the thread again for 24 hours ... and had to put on my slippers, set my alarm clock and make a full pot of coffee to catch up. 13 hours ago, MrBeefy said: I feel bad for him and Brandon Harris. They seem like genuine enthusiast and aren't assholes like the Heir Werners. Yeh. I smash JP fairly hard at times, on a jovial note mind you. Definately a harmless fanboy that deserves more than a shoebox that runs off a 12 volt battery. 12 hours ago, Osgeld said: Whats up with that rats nest of bodge and debug wires hanging out its ass Well, that would be because of who and where they've produced this prototype ... 11 hours ago, CommodoreCEO said: How Chesnais can justify paying himself just under €1m despite the company losing millions over the course of a financial year genuinely astounds me. .. and that at this years Atari Annual Meeting of Shareholders, just held on 30th Sept, it was pretty much a unanimous decision to do so! 10 hours ago, Inky said: 10 hours ago, Curt Vendel said: The news that Rob Wyatt hasn't been paid for 6 months comes personally as no surprise whatsoever. As many of you who know me personally remember, I ran Legacy Engineering, well I was hired by Fred Chesnais to develop the Gene Simmons Axe Controller for guitar hero. I spent 6 months and put over $90k out of my own pocket to develop the controller and have several golden sample prototypes made. I was given a song and dance about getting royalties and such... well in June of 2008 I had to be admitted to the hospital for emergency open heart surgery. I suffered a severe heart infection and had to go in for emergency heart surgery. While I'm in the hospital, Freddy calls me and desperately asks if I could get the prototypes out to him, he needs to get them to Gene Simmons immediately as Gene is going to put them on his show and announce them. So I had someone get them packed and shipped to Freddy, well he took them, they never went to Gene, they went right to Freddy's friend up in Canada at Beat Street, they reverse engineered the samples (since they weren't protected yet and everything was on development boards inside) and had cheap knock offs made. He told me that they couldn't get on the show in time, after several weeks of recovering I finally called to get the status on the project, he said it was canceled which was a lie. He ended up bankrupting my consultancy and I was out all of my investment, my prototypes and royalties... sounds like he basically has done the exact same thing to Rob Wyatt. Freddy is a serial scumbag. BTW, notice how while they dangled all of the eye candy, they put in a small disclaimer --- the first units won't have any OS... that's because there isn't one, Atari also quietly announced that they have dropped development of their own custom linux distro. There won't be an OS, they'll give you your box and you're on your own. You of course could've just bought any of the Ryzen dev boards that are currently out there now and gotten what Atari is pushing for $300... Damn. Sorry to hear Curt ... and thanks for the disgracefull story. What a f#cking douche! Hope that ticker is still going strong. 9 hours ago, The Strangest said: My 40 year old light sixer turns on too. Likewise my Vader ... 9 hours ago, ColecoJoe said: yeah but does it have a LED????? .. and yes sir, it does ..... and it runs off mains! 6 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said: DANG IT THOMAS, JUST READ THE BLOG POST. IT'S ACCURATE AND ALL IS WELL!!! NOW, WHO WANTS TO TELL ME ABOUT THEIR BEST ATARI MEMORY? E.T. WAS DOPE, AMIRITE? Jesus Shaggy, please don't set-off Brandon and John again you bastard! 6 hours ago, Woulfe said: Stefan is easy to impress, a freaking light comes on " PROGRESS ! " P. S. I can make a light go on with a potato... Does that make a potato a game machine ? 5 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lodmot Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 You know what's funny about all this? I remember reading a recent article a couple months ago about the Sega Saturn, and it was an interview with a japanese ex-Sega employee that worked on the system (don't remember the guy's name). But he said something along the lines of, "it costs about $500 million to launch a game console". So yeah, that's something to think about when you look at Atari's situation here......... think they have $500 million? LOL! On a side note though, I'm actually kinda curious how much it cost Sega to do the Genesis Mini. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 7 hours ago, dj_convoy said: I especially like Curt as, in addition to being one of us, he's been completely consistent and open about this stupid thing from the very beginning. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 (edited) 38 minutes ago, Lodmot said: You know what's funny about all this? I remember reading a recent article a couple months ago about the Sega Saturn, and it was an interview with a japanese ex-Sega employee that worked on the system (don't remember the guy's name). But he said something along the lines of, "it costs about $500 million to launch a game console". So yeah, that's something to think about when you look at Atari's situation here......... think they have $500 million? LOL! On a side note though, I'm actually kinda curious how much it cost Sega to do the Genesis Mini. in today's technology it cost about 45$ in hardware to launch a saturn Atari had 3 million to make a generic content consumption device and 2.98 million left over to work on marketing / software ... but they didn't pay the bills Edited October 9, 2019 by Osgeld 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 3 hours ago, DurradonXylles said: Oh, I could almost guarantee you it was, but limited liability companies aren't completely absolved from legal recourse, and the shape that Atari SA is in now means that they could still end up bankrupt if and when this project proves a failure even if the money is only coming out of the LLC's funds. For example: under US law, if Atari SA attempts to make Atari Gamebox LLC insolvent by way of the Vega+ as @x=usr(1536) pointed out, the individuals who started it up could still be held legally liable as the result of the actions performed through the LLC. For Atari, this could be a catch-22: they likely do not have the funds to deliver a product they promised and can be held liable for all of the preorders, but if they go the nuclear route and completely shut down the LLC they could still be held liable for the same reasons. It's registered in Delaware? Figures. America's tax haven. I once worked for a guy who registered his company in Delaware. He wasn't exactly on the level either. He had set up a gay dating site but was a raging homophobe. If companies weren't paying him on time he'd jam up their fax machine by repeatedly sending the invoice on a loop. And once, someone in the US had joined up with his site but then decided to do a chargeback on their card. He left a message on their answering machine telling them to pay up or he'll call the FBI and have him charged with fraud. Guy paid up. I've seen numerous complaints about him and the way he dealt with customers to his site, which was one of the most popular gay dating sites out there (he was an amazing programmer, I'll give him that). Never trust a foreigner who sets up a company in Delaware. 3 hours ago, Flojomojo said: That's what I figured. It's right in the name, "limited liability company." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability_company Yep. I have a limited liability company. In the UK, there are several entities you can choose from. The two most popular are sole trader and limited company. The primary differences are: Sole Trader: Individual owns the business. Personally liable for all debts. All the money made by the business is theirs. Less paperwork. Limited Company: Individual is a director of the business and, effectively, an employee. Generally not personally liable for debts. Company is a "person" and the director can't just take money out at will - they have to be paid wages/bonuses/etc by the company and it has to be accounted for. More paperwork has to be kept and submitted each year. Atari SA, are a third type of company. A PLC in the UK ... Public Limited Company. They have to be even more on the ball with paperwork, not just for the national authorities but also the stock market and their shareholders. Other than that, they work more or less the same as a Limited Company, except that shareholders typically hold the power, not the directors. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roots.genoa Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 3 hours ago, Spriggy said: .. and that at this years Atari Annual Meeting of Shareholders, just held on 30th Sept, it was pretty much a unanimous decision to do so! And it's quite common unfortunatelay. When French company Titus was going bankrupt, its bosses got a lot of huge 'bonuses' that way while employees (like a good friend of mine) were not paid... 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 I only glanced at the IGN article yesterday, thinking they'd have nothing new to offer. It seems I was mistaken, as they got an Atari response. Atari says they are continuing on schedule, so that means December is still a go! Quote In a statement to IGN, an Atari spokesperson says the Atari VCS is still on track: "The Atari VCS is proceeding according to its previously announced schedule." Atari also says updates on the project can be found on Medium. In regards to Wyatt's claims of unpaid invoices, Atari issued the following statement: "It is Atari's policy not to comment on an isolated matter under dispute, only to say that the Atari VCS project has always been a team effort and its success has never been and will never be dependent on any single individual or partner." 3 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 How about the Atari VCS is released to backers in December, but it has no operating system or games content. Then someone hacks it in order to add content, Atari finds out and sues backers for breaking into an otherwise still unusable system? 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBerel Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 45 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said: I only glanced at the IGN article yesterday, thinking they'd have nothing new to offer. It seems I was mistaken, as they got an Atari response. Atari says they are continuing on schedule, so that means December is still a go! What they said was, "The Atari VCS is proceeding according to its previously announced schedule." That's clearly double speak for, "we're still on track, until we're not." Ya gotta read through the bullshit in everything they say. It will not ship in December. That's just like how they responded to, "Did Rob Wyatt quit?", and they said, "Unfortunately that rumor has been circulating on the internet. Robb works on many projects." They couldn't give a straight answer if a gun was to their head. It's sickening that some are giving them credit for being so forthright in their recent update when, the only reason they provided one at all was to specifically respond to what the Register had already told them was being published. Manipulative scumbags. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 1 hour ago, JBerel said: That's just like how they responded to, "Did Rob Wyatt quit?", and they said, "Unfortunately that rumor has been circulating on the internet. Robb works on many projects." They couldn't give a straight answer if a gun was to their head. I just posted "December is still a go" for illustrative purposes only, but nice comparison! It's amazing that the backers don't have torches and pitchforks in hand. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 58 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said: It's amazing that the backers don't have torches and pitchforks in hand. You can't be that surprised. This has been shady AF since the beginning. Backers have sunk time and money into this, and have been told there's no way out, so they're grasping for the crumbs they're given. It's still early, but the penny stock is up 5% from yesterday's crash, now at €0.28 per share. It's resilient, like a cockroach. https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/ATA:FP I'm most surprised that Michael Arzt is still around. Why hasn't Fred cut him loose? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agillig Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 57 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said: I just posted "December is still a go" for illustrative purposes only, but nice comparison! It's amazing that the backers don't have torches and pitchforks in hand. Quite the opposite, they're seeing everything as proof that the system is a smashing success. Rob Wyatt doesn't get paid in 6 months? One person justified it as though he was a freeloader, maybe trying to milk his injury too long. It's like the two sides are seeing something totally different. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 1 hour ago, Flojomojo said: You can't be that surprised. I don't understand why I keep getting kicked when I turn the crank. 2 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 1 hour ago, Agillig said: Quite the opposite, they're seeing everything as proof that the system is a smashing success. Rob Wyatt doesn't get paid in 6 months? One person justified it as though he was a freeloader, maybe trying to milk his injury too long. It's like the two sides are seeing something totally different. It pains me to say it, but "PowerDubs" and "AtariArtist" (ugh) on Reddit are saying some stuff that I agree with. They're throwing Rob Wyatt under the bus for non-delivery, which certainly lines up with what we could reasonably expect from him, when looking at his public persona and recent behavior. We're definitely not getting the whole story from anyone, though. "Atari" just wants to keep everything private, while assuring everyone that things are humming along just fine. If "Atari" can really afford Surfaceink, they might be able to deliver something. As we've said before, if Atari could match the delivery experience of Ouya (which Surfaceink worked on), that's better than they deserve. Ouya launched on time and under budget, with a retail presence and a store full of content, AND become an internet joke and the poster child for bad crowdfunding. Something about this doesn't add up. It would be interesting to hear the rest of the story. From Kieren's story: Quote It is unclear whether Atari will be able to complete its beleaguered project without Wyatt. It only received a prototype motherboard last month, and Wyatt and his team were in the middle of debugging it before deciding to draw stumps and quit. So which is it? Were Rob and friends diligently working on this without pay for 6 months? Or were they hung up by "Atari" delaying delivery of prototype motherboards? I strongly suspect Rob "Broken Femur from Skydiving" Wyatt was slow and ineffective, AND not being held to the schedule by Michael "Let's Make Netflix for Mom" Arzt, with plenty of unnamed and unsung fsckups before, during, and after the events of Keiren's reporting. Feargal's payout would suggest there's more money in lawsuits than in product development where "Atari" is concerned. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoJoe Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 Hamster wheels are twirling!!!! 1 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 20 hours ago, Curt Vendel said: The news that Rob Wyatt hasn't been paid for 6 months comes personally as no surprise whatsoever. As many of you who know me personally remember, I ran Legacy Engineering, well I was hired by Fred Chesnais to develop the Gene Simmons Axe Controller for guitar hero. I spent 6 months and put over $90k out of my own pocket to develop the controller and have several golden sample prototypes made. I was given a song and dance about getting royalties and such... well in June of 2008 I had to be admitted to the hospital for emergency open heart surgery. I suffered a severe heart infection and had to go in for emergency heart surgery. While I'm in the hospital, Freddy calls me and desperately asks if I could get the prototypes out to him, he needs to get them to Gene Simmons immediately as Gene is going to put them on his show and announce them. So I had someone get them packed and shipped to Freddy, well he took them, they never went to Gene, they went right to Freddy's friend up in Canada at Beat Street, they reverse engineered the samples (since they weren't protected yet and everything was on development boards inside) and had cheap knock offs made. He told me that they couldn't get on the show in time, after several weeks of recovering I finally called to get the status on the project, he said it was canceled which was a lie. He ended up bankrupting my consultancy and I was out all of my investment, my prototypes and royalties... sounds like he basically has done the exact same thing to Rob Wyatt. Freddy is a serial scumbag. BTW, notice how while they dangled all of the eye candy, they put in a small disclaimer --- the first units won't have any OS... that's because there isn't one, Atari also quietly announced that they have dropped development of their own custom linux distro. There won't be an OS, they'll give you your box and you're on your own. You of course could've just bought any of the Ryzen dev boards that are currently out there now and gotten what Atari is pushing for $300... I'm sorry to hear he did that to you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 16 minutes ago, Flojomojo said: It pains me to say it, but "PowerDubs" and "AtariArtist" (ugh) on Reddit are saying some stuff that I agree with. They're throwing Rob Wyatt under the bus for non-delivery, which certainly lines up with what we could reasonably expect from him, when looking at his public persona and recent behavior. Inasmuch as it'd be fun to dance on the shambling corpse wearing Atari's skin, I'd like to think that we at least try to look at it honestly. Wyatt is no saint, and we were happy to point that out back when he was the Atari rock star (my, how quickly pigeons forget). OTOH, Atari has been completely awful throughout this whole ordeal. Neither are heroes, and I'm not sure either can be trusted completely. Which is why tacos are a still a better use of money than NuTari. 7 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 8 minutes ago, ColecoJoe said: Hamster wheels are twirling!!!! Heheh. Herr Werner is going to be so triggered by that CNN comment from Andy. They should have a debate. If only "Atari" knew where to look, all the product development advice they'll ever need is in this roadmap. Simple as that! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBerel Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 (edited) Clearly Rob's cheese done slid off his cracker a long time ago, but everyone involved is clueless. The one constant in all of it has been Fred and his corporate entity that exists for no other reason than to get license agreement checks and issue lawsuits. It's in their damn annual statements. Those kind of scumbag outfits only release funds under a pending lawsuit because all their activities are performed by lawyers in the first place. Feargal didn't get paid until he sued, Rob won't get paid until he sues, Curt didn't get paid, the folks who designed the controller initially didn't get paid presumably. Do you see where all this is going??? Backers may not get anything unless they sue, which is not likely due to the crowdfunding protections used by these scammers. They've openly wiped their ass with the Indiegogo terms from the start, and only complied with any of it to keep up the B.S. communications to paint the story they wanted. That much has been obvious through all their public actions with fraudulent videos, props and renders. I expect their entire effort has been deliberately half assed strictly for appearances, and they didn't have any motivation to really go through with this thing until there was some other legal precedent from other crowdfunded projects that convinced them their ass was hanging out if they didn't deliver something. That's still highly unlikely at this point. It just depends on which scenario has Fred less liable for financial losses. P.S. -It's funny to see Biffster and Andy Blakely comparing the Register to Fox and CNN respectively. Truth knows no bias like a whack nut enraged. Edited October 9, 2019 by JBerel 6 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lodmot Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 (edited) 40 minutes ago, JBerel said: Clearly Rob's cheese done slid off his cracker a long time ago, but everyone involved is clueless. The one constant in all of it has been Fred and his corporate entity that exists for no other reason than to get license agreement checks and issue lawsuits. It's in their damn annual statements. Those kind of scumbag outfits only release funds under a pending lawsuit because all their activities are performed by lawyers in the first place. Feargal didn't get paid until he sued, Rob won't get paid until he sues, Kevin didn't get paid, the folks who designed the controller initially didn't get paid presumably. Do you see where all this is going??? Backers may not get anything unless they sue, which is not likely due to the crowdfunding protections used by these scammers. They've openly wiped their ass with the Indiegogo terms from the start, and only complied with any of it to keep up the B.S. communications to paint the story they wanted. That much has been obvious through all their public actions with fraudulent videos, props and renders. I expect their entire effort has been deliberately half assed strictly for appearances, and they didn't have any motivation to really go through with this thing until there was some other legal precedent from other crowdfunded projects that convinced them their ass was hanging out if they didn't deliver something. That's still highly unlikely at this point. It just depends on which scenario has Fred less liable for financial losses. Sad, but true. The thing that pains me about all this is, why not just make a good product that everyone likes? If they did, hell-- they'd be making way more than $3 million. Why even do this project if none of them give a shit about it? If you don't care about something, of course you'll half-ass it. LOL It's not rocket science. Most sane people would only want to pay for quality products. If you put out a product that's shitty, you're going to end up losing money-- simple as that. Edited October 9, 2019 by Lodmot 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBerel Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 Also, these comments from Atari's latest news release strike me funny.... Quote The front-end graphics interface we teased at E3, along with with our Atari VCS store framework and apps, including Antstream Arcade and other native entertainment and game applications, are still in varying stages of development and not yet ready to be shared or installed into these particular units. We have all of this working in other environments and it will be working in concert on the Atari VCS soon. Am I wrong to conclude that those comments clearly negate their last two "updates" as utter bullshit? By their own claim, the stuff shown at E3 was a fraud not even running on anything they were supposedly working on, as most of us suspected. And, the Antstream Arcade thing doesn't even have the slightest integration so there's nothing in place to provide any of the exclusive AntStream features they hyped in the last update. They have completely acknowledged none of the last two updates were true. I know cultists will contort that fraud into truth by suggesting their intent, but to those of us living in reality, those are called deliberate lies. 4 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lodmot Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 (edited) 8 minutes ago, JBerel said: Also, these comments from Atari's latest news release strike me funny.... Am I wrong to conclude that those comments clearly negate their last two "updates" as utter bullshit? By their own claim, the stuff shown at E3 was a fraud not even running on anything they were supposedly working on, as most of us suspected. And, the Antstream Arcade thing doesn't even have the slightest integration so there's nothing in place to provide any of the exclusive AntStream features they hyped in the last update. They have completely acknowledged none of the last two updates were true. I know cultists will contort that fraud into truth by suggesting their intent, but to those of us living in reality, those are called deliberate lies. Yeahhh...... I highly doubt any of the UI menus we saw actually exist in any form. Sucks, because I actually particularly really liked the layout. If it was implemented, it would work really well I imagine. I could actually probably recreate something similar to it in Game Maker Studio 2, compile it, then replace explorer.exe with the executeable file of the menu I made, so it would actually fire up when the system boots up. LOL. That's basically what I did to make my custom built "Sega console" use LaunchBox as a UI. It's not hard to do in Windows. Also, for the record-- as much as the Ouya sucked ass, it actually made it to retail and it was a real product with its own UI. They had like $8 million, and you can tell they made good use of it. It just needed quite a few more bug fixes, then it could've been stellar. Edited October 9, 2019 by Lodmot 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Flojomojo said: It pains me to say it, but "PowerDubs" and "AtariArtist" (ugh) on Reddit are saying some stuff that I agree with. They're throwing Rob Wyatt under the bus for non-delivery, which certainly lines up with what we could reasonably expect from him, when looking at his public persona and recent behavior. We're definitely not getting the whole story from anyone, though. "Atari" just wants to keep everything private, while assuring everyone that things are humming along just fine. If "Atari" can really afford Surfaceink, they might be able to deliver something. As we've said before, if Atari could match the delivery experience of Ouya (which Surfaceink worked on), that's better than they deserve. Ouya launched on time and under budget, with a retail presence and a store full of content, AND become an internet joke and the poster child for bad crowdfunding. Something about this doesn't add up. It would be interesting to hear the rest of the story. From Kieren's story: So which is it? Were Rob and friends diligently working on this without pay for 6 months? Or were they hung up by "Atari" delaying delivery of prototype motherboards? I strongly suspect Rob "Broken Femur from Skydiving" Wyatt was slow and ineffective, AND not being held to the schedule by Michael "Let's Make Netflix for Mom" Arzt, with plenty of unnamed and unsung fsckups before, during, and after the events of Keiren's reporting. Feargal's payout would suggest there's more money in lawsuits than in product development where "Atari" is concerned. As we've said before: like Fergal Mac before him, Rob Wyatt is not a hero or a saint, just another guy willing to sleep with the dogs and got fleas as an end result. I am not sure if Atari can financially keep this project going, and are probably scrambling to release a functional, barebones piece of hardware to the backers with the idea of outright cancelling the retail release being seriously considered. Remember, as far as I could find, the lawsuit that Digital Frontiers started against Atari almost three years ago is still ongoing or pending, and if Digital Frontier wins that means Atari owes them about as much as they spend annually outside of Freddy's salary (so they'd end up in the red). As for who's right in the situation of Wyatt's cause for departure... 1 hour ago, ColecoJoe said: I got a feeling this is a "little of column A; little of column B" situation. Atari might've been having its wheels spinning for the last nine months BECAUSE of the lawsuit with Fergal Mac, with a lazy AF Robert Wyatt as the cherry on top (why do I share the same first name with many, many assholes on the internet?). they eventually started cutting him loose because he wasn't making his contributions and focusing efforts on other projects. I got a feeling that Wyatt probably had invoices made in advance of work he planned on doing, and Atari was inept enough to accept them before he even did anything. The problem is, when you do that, you open yourself up to legal recourse regardless of what ensues afterwards. But of course... 1 hour ago, JBerel said: Clearly Rob's cheese done slid off his cracker a long time ago, but everyone involved is clueless. The one constant in all of it has been Fred and his corporate entity that exists for no other reason than to get license agreement checks and issue lawsuits. It's in their damn annual statements. Those kind of scumbag outfits only release funds under a pending lawsuit because all their activities are performed by lawyers in the first place. Feargal didn't get paid until he sued, Rob won't get paid until he sues, Curt didn't get paid, the folks who designed the controller initially didn't get paid presumably. Do you see where all this is going??? The issue, as @Flojomojo said, is that Atari doesn't want to have any transparency with this project whatsoever. The project is far behind where it's supposed to be, the funds have likely been starting to run dry, and they are emailing former employees and contractors with reminders that they're still under NDA gag orders. However... 1 hour ago, JBerel said: Backers may not get anything unless they sue, which is not likely due to the crowdfunding protections used by these scammers. They've openly wiped their ass with the Indiegogo terms from the start, and only complied with any of it to keep up the B.S. communications to paint the story they wanted. That much has been obvious through all their public actions with fraudulent videos, props and renders. I expect their entire effort has been deliberately half assed strictly for appearances, and they didn't have any motivation to really go through with this thing until there was some other legal precedent from other crowdfunded projects that convinced them their ass was hanging out if they didn't deliver something. That's still highly unlikely at this point. It just depends on which scenario has Fred less liable for financial losses. I definitely agree with that first part: backers won't get jackshit unless they open up a class action lawsuit against Freddy-boy and Atari SA. But why would they be making such a fuss and freaking out if the project has a specially created LLC specifically for it, and using the eponymous IndieGoGo, [in]famous for not requiring a working prototype in order to start a hardware crowdfunder, for raising the funds? It's simple: they put themselves in that trap. Think back to the Vega+ scandal for a minute, the project lead was still found legally liable despite making the project insolvable and dissolving it. Why? He worded and seriously implied that the campaign wasn't raising funds with public contributions acting as investments; instead, the project's page had wording that seriously implied that IndieGoGo was being used as a middle-man for use of taking preorders, with this blurb at the top of the page being amongst the most damning: Oh, what did Atari SA, through Atari Gamebox LLC, write on their page? A helluva lot more than implications of pre-orders or future production. Atari is now stuck on a house of cards and the wind's picking up. LLC or not, this is enough for a good lawyer to start a class suit against Atari, and considering the TacoBox is the promised product of a LLC it can still have every single founder of said LLC end up in court being tried and/or sued separately. IndieGoGo has also made it clear that they do not want another Vega+ debacle on their site, meaning that if anyone starts a suit it's probably them. I will subscribe to the idea of Atari having zero idea of what they're doing, and now only realizing that they're screwed. Edited October 9, 2019 by DurradonXylles OCD 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 28 minutes ago, JBerel said: Am I wrong to conclude that those comments clearly negate their last two "updates" as utter bullshit? By their own claim, the stuff shown at E3 was a fraud not even running on anything they were supposedly working on, as most of us suspected. And, the Antstream Arcade thing doesn't even have the slightest integration so there's nothing in place to provide any of the exclusive AntStream features they hyped in the last update. They have completely acknowledged none of the last two updates were true. I know cultists will contort that fraud into truth by suggesting their intent, but to those of us living in reality, those are called deliberate lies. I mean, I could say we should've assumed that from the beginning, but yeah it appears to be a case of the classic, cartoony: "But I'm not lying this time!!!" "...'This time'?" 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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