Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, SegaSnatcher said:

I still find it interesting how so many members who frequently engaged in the "Happy Fun Times" Amico thread and trashed skeptics with any reasonable takes have gone MIA from this forum.  I find it very cowardly that these people couldn't just admit they were wrong for going to bat for Tommy and trying to dismiss our critiques.  

I think it's pretty simple. Many people struggle with accepting or admitting to how wrong they are. Considering how they attacked people here for being reasonable, yet hopeful, it is pretty easy to see they lack integrity and are as you put it cowardly.

 

I heard a rumor some of them were going to PMs to tell those with reasonable thinking to go eff off. I'm pretty sure I would have got a nasty gram myself, but I had them blocked so they couldn't message me.

 

Speaking of, has anyone checked up on Swami? I haven't seen pictures of my kids being used as a threat, or accusing me of being someone for awhile.

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by MrBeefy

[Cebus Capucinis]

Wasn't that guy banned for that stuff? If not, he should have been / should be.

[jerseystyle]

3 hours ago, SegaSnatcher said:

I still find it interesting how so many members who frequently engaged in the "Happy Fun Times" Amico thread and trashed skeptics with any reasonable takes have gone MIA from this forum.  I find it very cowardly that these people couldn't just admit they were wrong for going to bat for Tommy and trying to dismiss our critiques.  

I don’t think any of them wanted to actually engage with the community here- they just came to support TT. They had no interest in being anything other than the world’s shittiest stormtroopers.

[MrBeefy]

3 hours ago, jerseystyle said:

I don’t think any of them wanted to actually engage with the community here- they just came to support TT. They had no interest in being anything other than the world’s shittiest stormtroopers.

Some were for sure employees. It was just a matter of how many exactly.

 

Remember they had a marketing team, yet we never saw any marketing materials but one random GameStop poster with a bogus launch date on it.

 

So what exactly was the marketing team doing?

[digdugnate]

11 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Wasn't that guy banned for that stuff? If not, he should have been / should be.

 

not banned, just put on indefinite mod preview.

 

 

[Flojomojo]

On 7/3/2023 at 3:11 PM, MrTrust said:

 

It's called a "joke", bud.

 

Also, what am I missing here?  I've looked back through the thread and can't find the Genesis of these references to a trial.  I'm assuming TT is getting sued civilly.  Can someone give me the crib notes?

When you give up recreational browsing for lent, you miss stuff. Not that much has happened in Amicoland, so you should be able to catch up.

 

The gist of it: Tallarico signed the company’s furniture lease as a personal guarantor, then defaulted on the agreement. The furniture company liquidated the assets and is suing for the remainder of the money in the contract, a bit over $100,000. Tallarico has been slow to respond and is bluffing with delaying tactics, which most agree will go poorly for him.

 

It seems that Intellivision (the company) hasn’t responded to the furniture company, so they had to go after Tallarico (the person), which is how the personal guaranty is designed to work. 

 

There should be links to the legal documents in these Reddit posts. If you want to catch up fast, just watch the CUpodcast video about the “INSANE response.”

 

Whether you find this sad or entertaining depends on your level of appreciation for dark humor. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hydro Thunder]

While I am quite aware at how unbelievably expensive "office furniture" can be...I am still mortified that they racked up a six figure bill for said, given that it's a company of like TT and another patsy or three.  I work for a company of 1500 and even before Covid / WFH stuff, I don't suspect our entire office inventory comes to that sum.  Or maybe I'm completely wrong but even so...W T H kind of office furniture are we talking for such a small group / team???

[Bill Loguidice]

13 minutes ago, Hydro Thunder said:

While I am quite aware at how unbelievably expensive "office furniture" can be...I am still mortified that they racked up a six figure bill for said, given that it's a company of like TT and another patsy or three.  I work for a company of 1500 and even before Covid / WFH stuff, I don't suspect our entire office inventory comes to that sum.  Or maybe I'm completely wrong but even so...W T H kind of office furniture are we talking for such a small group / team???

I've been with startups before and you typically try to get used stuff or at least the bare minimum to begin. Clearly, they thought it was more important to go for the newest and best stuff to make it superficially seem like a big-time operation. It was clearly a fantastic plan.

[MrBeefy]

29 minutes ago, Hydro Thunder said:

While I am quite aware at how unbelievably expensive "office furniture" can be...I am still mortified that they racked up a six figure bill for said, given that it's a company of like TT and another patsy or three.  I work for a company of 1500 and even before Covid / WFH stuff, I don't suspect our entire office inventory comes to that sum.  Or maybe I'm completely wrong but even so...W T H kind of office furniture are we talking for such a small group / team???

Cushions needed to be in Amico blue.

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, digdugnate said:

not banned, just put on indefinite mod preview.

Maybe he's actually replying to ALL of our posts but his posts are not approved by a mod. Wouldn't that be something™️? 🙂

[+cvga]

3 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I've been with startups before and you typically try to get used stuff or at least the bare minimum to begin. Clearly, they thought it was more important to go for the newest and best stuff to make it superficially seem like a big-time operation. It was clearly a fantastic plan.

It would have worked if it hadn't been for you meddling kids...

 

[+H454]

The Stupidest Thing I've Ever Bought - Scott The Woz

 

[MrTrust]

On 7/4/2023 at 7:55 PM, MrBeefy said:

Speaking of, has anyone checked up on Swami?

 

If he's gone, good riddance.  That dude was way over-the-top.

 

14 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

The gist of it: Tallarico signed the company’s furniture lease as a personal guarantor, then defaulted on the agreement. The furniture company liquidated the assets and is suing for the remainder of the money in the contract, a bit over $100,000. Tallarico has been slow to respond and is bluffing with delaying tactics, which most agree will go poorly for him.

 

This is interesting.

 

Back when he was still here, I told him it looked to me like the whole thing was a big cash grab: sell cheapo hardware you make margin on and a handful of zero-budget games phone games at $10 a throw.  Once the initial hype dies down, you take the money and go back to licensing Astrosmash ROMs or whatever.  When I saw that presentation where they had an "exit plan" slide that was just a bunch of big corporate logos, I became more convinced this was all a scam (albeit a stupid one) to try and make a quick bunch of bucks before bailing.  All the execs who supposedly loaned the company their own money were all going to get to dip their beaks before the investors.

 

I don't know how rich Tommy is, but I can't imagine he's 100k+ don't hurt rich.  To expose himself like that suggests he really was delusional enough to actually believe in the snake oil he was peddling.  Why else would you do something so idiotic?

 

9 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I've been with startups before and you typically try to get used stuff or at least the bare minimum to begin. Clearly, they thought it was more important to go for the newest and best stuff to make it superficially seem like a big-time operation. It was clearly a fantastic plan.

 

But for what?  To attract investment money?  Get press attention?    I know their whole marketing plan was essentially dog & pony hot air, but he must have expected the company to either make millions in revenue, or sell for an inflated dot com bubble price.

[Matt_B]

1 hour ago, H454 said:

The Stupidest Thing I've Ever Bought - Scott The Woz

 

Coming from a guy who has made a career out of buying stupid crap and talking about it on YouTube, that's really saying something.

The comments section is already full of people telling him to watch the hbomberguy video, so there may well be a follow-up to this at some point.

[Matt_B]

3 hours ago, MrTrust said:

I don't know how rich Tommy is, but I can't imagine he's 100k+ don't hurt rich.  To expose himself like that suggests he really was delusional enough to actually believe in the snake oil he was peddling.  Why else would you do something so idiotic?

I suspect that it could be as simple as him not reading the fine print. He may even have thought that he was just blowing company money - that they'd raised from crowdfunding by the millions - on furniture, without realizing that he was signing a personal guarantee.

 

Or, at the very least, he was assuming that the company would last long enough to pay off the loan before running out of money. If they had managed to pull off that 'exit strategy' as per the investor slides, it'd have become someone else's problem rather than his, after all.

[roots.genoa]

Don't underestimate the power of The Secret.

[roots.genoa]

I just realized that it would be hilarious, if the Amico was to be released some day (I know, I know), and the physical products weren't working because they had to change something on a technical standpoint. 🙂

Edited July 6, 2023 by roots.genoa

[MrBeefy]

7 hours ago, Matt_B said:

If they had managed to pull off that 'exit strategy' as per the investor slides, it'd have become someone else's problem rather than his, after all.

I believe this was the goal all along. Build up hype and dump the Homer Car on someone else's lap.

 

All of this was a ruse to try and show off to a potential buyer. Make it seem like a turnkey operation that has the big offices ready.

 

I heard rumors they tried to sell to Microsoft and Tommy was wanting to stay the face of Amico in any of the deals. 

 

They knew they had a bad product and needed to get rid of the lemon in hopes they wouldn't be expected to make it. Well no one bought them and they still don't want to make it.

 

It was always a look at what we've done with what little we had, and think about what your company could do with it's resources. We got "100,000" preorders and we haven't started marketing. Think about how many will sell when you start marketing it. 

[Bill Loguidice]

5 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I just realized that it would be hilarious, if the Amico was to be released some day (I know, I know), and the physical products weren't working because they had to change something on a technical standpoint. 🙂

What physical products? You don't mean the game boxes, right? There's nothing inside game-wise. It would all be done with a digital code. 

All other things aside, considering this was essentially an Android box variation, I don't see a scenario where it would have issues playing anything previously worked on should something be released at some point (which we know is basically a zero percent chance). 

[Bill Loguidice]

11 hours ago, MrTrust said:

But for what?  To attract investment money?  Get press attention?    I know their whole marketing plan was essentially dog & pony hot air, but he must have expected the company to either make millions in revenue, or sell for an inflated dot com bubble price.

I've been at places before - albeit not since the dotcom era - where the idea was to present as bigger than you were, which meant making sure cubicles had warm bodies in them, there was a lot of activity going on, every desk and surrounding area was neat and tidy, etc. They could have very well had that old school mentality at Intellivision, meaning when investors came they could show a beautiful office with lots of activity, etc., like these were real professionals, etc., with their acts together and we should invest in what's already a clearly successful and/or well-run business. You're taking on (hopefully) short-term debt for long-term investment. In other words, nothing more than smoke and mirrors for investors. It sounds like they did OK from an investment standpoint, so perhaps it worked, but you're supposed to follow that up with execution of a sound business plan so you actually generate income.

[SteveTheColecoDude]

2 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

I believe this was the goal all along. Build up hype and dump the Homer Car on someone else's lap.

 

All of this was a ruse to try and show off to a potential buyer. Make it seem like a turnkey operation that has the big offices ready.

 

All of their decisions and Tommy's desperation makes sense when you look at it from that perspective.

 

The huge unnecessary office in Irvine, the setting up of offices abroad (which were just virtual addresses not physical locations), the paid awards from Octane, the "tour" videos, the stupidly controlled events, the trailers featuring friends and actors, curating a very dedicated (albeit very small) group of rabid fans, sponsoring events like that Mom summit which did nothing, Tommy falsely announcing that they had entered production, the "unboxing" video, buying up old cheap game licenses so they would have a "library" to boast about, the fake competitions that they harvested people's email addresses for...

 

Everything points to them just being desperate to pretend they had this whole big thing going on to try and make an appealing looking company.

 

And let's not forget that Tommy literally said in an interview that he thought Intellivision would be bought by a big multi-billion dollar company.

[roots.genoa]

6 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

What physical products? You don't mean the game boxes, right? There's nothing inside game-wise. It would all be done with a digital code.

What I meant was, given that the digital code is just a URL apparently, maybe they will realize it would have been better to encrypt them and the RFID cards in the boxes won't even work on a real Amico.

[MrTrust]

6 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

You're taking on (hopefully) short-term debt for long-term investment. In other words, nothing more than smoke and mirrors for investors. It sounds like they did OK from an investment standpoint, so perhaps it worked, but you're supposed to follow that up with execution of a sound business plan so you actually generate income.

 

But at least in the dot-com bubble, the business itself was theoretically the product.  That is, it didn't matter if Pets.com was hemorrhaging money; they were going to have the market share, so the brand and the domain name would be valuable once their market-leading position was established.  The whole thing was about being first past the post.  You can't be first past the post in anything to do with video games; at some point, you have to actually produce a product and follow that up periodically.  

 

So, what were they supposed to be selling, exactly?  Apple was going to want to get into the console business, but rather than develop their own machine, they were just going to buy this thing?  That's beyond delusional.  What the hell was IE supposed to be at the end of the day?  This is one of those things I never understood, and apparently, nor did they.

[MattPilz]

5 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I don't see a scenario where it would have issues playing anything previously worked on should something be released at some point (which we know is basically a zero percent chance). 

One potential complication is that the cards all have a hardcoded URL to Intellivision's website. If they ever lose control of the domain, which has happened before and is currently only being renewed year-to-year sporadically, scanning the cards with any NFC app will direct users to some unrelated (potentially even malicious) link instead.

 

The cards themselves are in a perpetual state of nothingness. They are dependent on the system being done, then the back-end hosting architecture being implemented, then the entire user infrastructure for activation and validation, then the games actually being fully developed and v1 released. The system can parse the IDs from the card URLs to activate and download the data, but again this is all contingent on the entire Amico infrastructure working. The Youtubers with test units have said that this works, but it has never been demonstrated by anyone on camera. They also said the system/controllers were FCC certified when they aren't. So without seeing it in action I don't have high confidence. My theory is that the dev units came preloaded with the same games that the one Jon demonstrated did, but some may be software-locked to simulate NFC activation by scanning the cards.

[MrBeefy]

7 hours ago, SteveTheColecoDude said:

All of their decisions and Tommy's desperation makes sense when you look at it from that perspective.

 

The huge unnecessary office in Irvine, the setting up of offices abroad (which were just virtual addresses not physical locations), the paid awards from Octane, the "tour" videos, the stupidly controlled events, the trailers featuring friends and actors, curating a very dedicated (albeit very small) group of rabid fans, sponsoring events like that Mom summit which did nothing, Tommy falsely announcing that they had entered production, the "unboxing" video, buying up old cheap game licenses so they would have a "library" to boast about, the fake competitions that they harvested people's email addresses for...

 

Everything points to them just being desperate to pretend they had this whole big thing going on to try and make an appealing looking company.

 

And let's not forget that Tommy literally said in an interview that he thought Intellivision would be bought by a big multi-billion dollar company.

Makes even more sense with how he "wanted people removed" from both his thread and AA. He was directing people to come here and "look at the biggest thread", that was, "popular" and had all these "gamers excited" about the console. And those people "weren't the intended market" and they "hadn't started marketing yet".

 

He had behind the scene meetings with the YTers to cull their comments and ban those he didn't like. The only reason I probably haven't been banned on a lot of their channels is I wasn't doing much commenting period. I know I was on a DO NOT HAVE ON PODCAST list as well as others.

 

The fear was a buyer seeing reasonable discussion. There were no real haters and no one wanted to see IE fail. Tommy needed to make that BS up to get his weak minded cult followers to do his bidding to snuff out reasonable discussion.

3 hours ago, MrTrust said:

So, what were they supposed to be selling, exactly?  Apple was going to want to get into the console business, but rather than develop their own machine, they were just going to buy this thing?  That's beyond delusional.  What the hell was IE supposed to be at the end of the day?  This is one of those things I never understood, and apparently, nor did they.

They wanted to sell themselves as a small company who wasn't able to match the demand for their console. They wanted you to both believe they were this great gaming company yet small underdogs. Big company due to old name and history with a new console that is selling like the Wii, yet too tiny to meet the 3.2 billion console demand!