.com.unity Forums - A response that has to be made about SFI

David E. Gervais has written several provocative statements in this thread:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...art=7&vc=1

The thread is now closed but I felt that his statements warrant a response:

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YOU DO NOT KNOW THE DETAILS OF WHAT HAPPENED TO SFI. Even stardock probably does not know the details. All they know is they did not recieve sums due to them and some payments were 'late/delayed'. I can guarantee you there was no 'malicious intent' on the part of SFI.

As President and CEO of Stardock and someone who was privy to the bankrupcty details of Strategy First, I can assure you that I do know the details.

"Some" payments delayed were in the millions of dollars to a wide variety of creditors. Stardock was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

No where, has anyone from Stardock (who you claimed was "bad mouthing" Strategy First) every implied that anything malicious occurred.

Strategy First ran out of money and wasn't able to pay a host of creditors. That is, in essence, what has been stated.

However, it should be noted that we remained silent on the issue for a very long time because we were very loyal to Strategy First. And because the people there are, generally, very good people. We allowed them to publish our expansion pack, Altarian Prophecy despite them owing us a great deal of money. We even allowed them to do a "Deluxe" edition. They sell it today, on their site.

We don't hate Strategy First. But are you suggesting that what Strategy First did should be swept under the rug? Because you seem to be implying this when you criticize those who point out that Strategy First made use of the bankruptcy laws of Canada to clear their debts and continue forward as if nothing happened.

And if you think it is otherwise, consider this example:

Stardock agreed to distribute certain Strategy First titles on TotalGaming.net and to take royalties from that to offset Strategy First's debts to us. However, within literally weeks of the bankruptcy clearing out the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt they owed, Strategy First *sent us a bill* for the couple thousand dollars in royalties.

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I'm curious, before GalCiv (Published by SFI) was Stardock even on the map? Didn't SFI bring them to the forefront and help make them a part of the mainstream? Would GalCiv2 have the same chance at success if the groundwrok was not done by SFI? It seems to me Stardock, not only survived SFI's Desaster but managed to thrive and prosper. Perhaps the damage to Stardock was not as severe as most people think. And did Stardock have to dismiss any employees? (SFI was forced to send 100+ talented people to the unemployment lines) Do you think ANY company would take joy in having to dismiss that kind of numbers of staff?

The first question that comes to mind is what exactly do you think Strategy First did with Galactic Civilizations?

Do you really think Strategy First somehow had a significant positive impact on the game? Stardock did virtually all the PR marketing. Its strong retail sales were almost certianly due to Stardock's existing user base (We run WinCustomize.com, a site with over 3 million users today, almost 2 million back in 2003).

Stardock paid 100% of the development effort on Galactic Civilizations. We handed the finished game to Strategy First who put it in a box (that we mostly designed) and then handed it to Encore who put it into the stores. The stores then paid Encore who then paid Strategy First who then kept the money without paying us our share.

Strategy First's marketing involved a banner ad on Gamespot, and a couple of magazine ads. Are you suggesting that THAT is what put "Stardock" on the map? (Ignore the fact that other Stardock products such as WindowBlinds, DesktopX, Object Desktop, The Corporate Machine, etc.) had amongst them millions of users and that we had a pretty long time retail presence on many of our products before Strategy First.

The ONLY reason why Stardock's game team didn't disappear is because our contract allowed Stardock to sell the game directly too where we got to keep that money. The 15,000 or so copies we sold directly of GalCiv 1 in 2003 were enough to keep the game team alive.

Does anyone take joy of having to lay off workers? Of course not. But what kind of argument is that? The question is what was Strategy First's value-add? Space Empires V is supposed to be out this Spring correct? Where are the ads? Where is the preview coverage? Heck, where's the box?

Stardock did virtually all the work for Galactic Civilizations and Strategy First collected most of the money. Sure it's sad that they had to lay off people. But what about the people who -- you know -- actually made and supported the games?

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What happened was a desaster that affected allot of people and the biggest and hardest hit was SFI itself. Could it have been avoided.. Possibly,.. but you know what they say.. "Hindsight is 20-20".

No, the biggest and hardest hit are gamers who will miss out on games from up and coming developers who got creamed by Strategy First. Talk to Paradox, who has also been "verbal" about what they went through. Talk to Auran in Australia. Strategy First's non payment caused a cascade effect. Strategy First, in effect, acted as a drag on the game industry without providing value in return.

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All this 'Bashing SFI, just for the sake of venting frustrations' has to stop at some point. I am surprised that so many people managed to form an opinion on hearsay (and one sided hearsay at that) And I'm not saying your information is wrong,.. I'm saying you only have one side of the story.

Pointing these things out isn't "Bashing" Strategy First. We still work with Strategy First - to this day. But I absolutely refuse to simply stand by and pretend that what happened didn't happen.

What I am describing isn't in dispute that I know of. And Strategy First, who they owed, and the other sordid details are a matter of public record due to their bankruptcy. There isn't a "side" to this. They mismanaged their business, owed people a lot of money and filed for bankruptcy protection in order to avoid paying creditors what they were owed. And they still laid off nearly all their workers, so the ones protected were the same people who mismanaged things -- who are still there incidentally, their salaries are also part of public record. I seem to recall that they were nearly $200,000 a year and thatwas as of last year -- after the bankruptcy.

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It seems to me, bad press like that can only hurt everyone involved. If you want/need/deserve money back from someone, using a hydrolic nail gun with 'bad press' nails to seal the said publisher's coffin is like biting off the hand that feeds you, (or in this case falied to feed you) then complaining the still havent fed you and yet they have no more hands in which to feed you. (you just bit them off remember)

With only the opinions of the 'jilted' developers being posted in what can only be called 'venting due to frustration' We are getting only one half of the story. Yes it does appear to be mass agreement that SFI did a bad thing, but I'm just saying there are 2 sides to every story, in this case the publisher cannot comment on what happened and obviously will not comment.

Which is one reason why we remained silent on it for a very long time. Only AFTER Strategy First filed for bankruptcy did we start talking about it. And even then, we made no announcements. We never sued Stratgy First.

But we weren't going to sweep it under the rug. We simply wanted to make sure there was a public record of what had occurred. Developers should be aware of what happened so that they can make informed decisions.

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No one said the developers were never going to get their due, No one said that SFI is 'Still' Working to make things right. (SFI seems to be a bit 'classier' in the sense they do not spread bad news just to vent. That is called slander.)

If you know of any incidents of slander (or libel) I would like to hear it.

I've seen very little "bashing" going on. Just a statement of verified facts. If Stardock wanted to harm Strategy First's reputation in a really damaging (but still legal) way we most certainly could. I've only touched on the surface of things.

But like I said, we don't think Strategy First did anything malicious. But there's nothing malicious in some poor developer (or us for that matter) pointing out that their years of hard work were repaid with broken promises and fat salaries for SFI executives who are still there.

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Stardock will need to say is "Finally we got what they owed us" But can they undo the 'Badmouthing' they perpertrated over the net? SFI gets a bad rep because thay didn't want to play the crybaby game? I know the people at SFI. They have always tried to do the right thing.

"Tried" is a matter of degree.

Stardock, which is older than Strategy First incidentally, used to be an OS/2 developer. When the market collapsed in 1998, we owed people too. I took out a second mortage on my home (despite having a wife and infant son) in order to pay developers.

Galactic Civilizations shipped in 2003. It's now 2006. Strategy First, since bankruptcy, has been very reliable about paying NEW royalties but I can assure you, there is no intention on their part to make good on the back royalties from before the royalties. As far as they're concerned, the bankruptcy settled that issue permanently.

Contrary to what you might think, I don't have an axe to grind. It's part of business. Strategy First won't be the last company that files bankruptcy owing us money. They certainly weren't the first.

But what makes Strategy First a little bit unique is that they filed for bankruptcy, cleared the books, and then continued on as if nothing happened with apologists running around trying to make the case that developers who aren't willing to simply pretend that nothing happened are some how bashing them or being mean.

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but they are not making it easier for SFI to makes things right.

Nonsense. Perhaps you should ask Don over at Strategy First how critical us allowing them to publish Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy and Galactic Civilizations Deluxxe was to their continued existence. Perhaps you should ask for a break down on their revenue from sales of our software -- software that we continued to allow them to sell even to this day.

If we had wanted to harm Strategy First, we could have taken those products away from them when they filed for bankruptcy. But we didn't because we wanted to help them. Because by helping them they would hopefully be able to help other developers which was/is good for other indies.

Ironically, it's Galactic Civilizations 1 (from the expansion and deluxe) money that will help pay for the marketing and publishing of Space Empires V. So don't tell me we aren't helping -- despite what has gone on.

-Brad
Brad Wardell
President & CEO
Stardock Corp.