Catalyst Game Labs -- Major Corruption

[Nargrakhan]

There evidently has been some MAJOR fraud and corruption going on at Catalyst Game Labs:

http://catalystgamelabs.com/2010/03/17/ … ss-release

Unfortunately I came late to the party, and there’s been a whirlwind of post deleting on the official forums. Seems that a former employee who was let go, unleashed the cat out the bag. Interesting stuff… and very disheartening considering it’s from a major pen-and-paper RPG publisher. Trying to learn more. If anyone knows a good link with the juicy rumors and allegations, please post. :o

I hope this doesn’t seriously screw up Battletech or Shadowrun.

EDIT
Nevermind… it will. The person who orchestrated the fraud is none other than [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_L._Coleman]Loren L. Coleman[/url].

http://twitter.com/adamjury/status/10588358473

http://adamjury.com/2010/no-longer-with-catalyst/

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=504776

http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=118 … stcount=11

I guess that be like Lamuness using JastUSA money to buy twincest slave wives from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
I’m watching you Lamuness: I put in my bids for them first!

[Nandemonai]

Damn. That sucks. (And apparently has happened before? I especially like the posts going ‘so I note the irony of a game like Shadowrun having this happen … again’)

[Nargrakhan]

@Nandemonai

Damn. That sucks. (And apparently has happened before? I especially like the posts going ‘so I note the irony of a game like Shadowrun having this happen … again’)

Yea. FASA (original creators of BT and SR) had some $$$ problems during 2000, then finally closed shop in 2001 without paying everyone what they were owed. FASA then became WizKids (more or less), who licensed their IP for others to make games about.

Enter FanPro - who reprinted and reimaged FASA stuff for five years. In or around 2006, FanPro stopped paying the licensing bills to FASA. Their failure to pay the bill also hit again in 2007 and 2008. Reasons were never stated, but was really nasty it seems, because WizKids told FanPro to shove it and get lost. They then licensed their stuff to Catalyst Game Labs.

And now this happens.

BT and SR are cursed with corruption… kinda ironic, considering both games are all about corruption (BT = political and SR = economical).

[linger]

That’s a shame, I really like what Catalyst has done with Battletech. Their introductory boxsets make the game really accessible, with miniatures and everything. I was hoping they’d be able to get that Clan Introductory Boxset out soon.

And I appreciate their fresh RPGs like Eclipse Phase and Cthulhutech. I think Eclipse Phase might become my favorite tabletop RPG ever (OK, just because I’m a hardcore transhumanist. But it’s so less stodgy than GURPS Transhuman Space). I worry about those more, because really, with the hundreds and hundreds of Battletech and Shadowrun sourcebooks out there, how many more do we really need?

[Nargrakhan]

Their license has expired. Lawsuits have flown. CGL’s end is likely neigh, if they can’t get Battletech and Shadowrun back. They’ve lost two major lines now.

It’s D-Day…

Catalyst Game Labs Negotiating To Part Ways With WildFire And Posthuman Studios

Catalyst Game Labs is currently engaged in negotiations to end its agreements with WildFire and Posthuman Studios. Once the terms are finalized, Catalyst will no longer publish CthulhuTech or Poo: The Card Game for WildFire, nor will they co develop and publish Eclipse Phase for Posthuman Studios.

“It’s been fantastic to be involved with growing CthulhuTech alongside WildFire, while also launching Posthuman Studios’ Eclipse Phase,” said Randall Bills, Managing Developer. “We love both of these universes and want to seem them grow and flourish. However, in our current situation we need to re-focus on our core brands of BattleTech and Shadowrun, while developing our original games. As such, while we are parting ways with both companies, we’ll be doing everything we can to support WildFire and Posthuman Studios as they assume the full mantle for their game lines.”

Future details surrounding CthulhuTech will be found at http://www.cthulhutech.com, while future Eclipse Phase details will be found at http://www.eclipsephase.com.

While Catalyst has been publically quiet, we’ve been working behind the scenes these last few weeks, reviewing our processes across the board and changing and updating as necessary, while still working on future products.

As announced on March 20th, a select list of Shadowrun books was put on hold as we negotiated with several freelancers concerning those products. We’re pleased to say that within the last three weeks we’ve been able to make 65 payments to dozens of freelancers covering a variety of projects and resolved the hold issues. This process included completely paying off four books already in print while simultaneously auditing past due contracts in order to continue payments on completed projects. We also chose to pay off a book in preparation for sending it to print. We believe that this three-fold approach of resolving the disputed contracts, establishing a payment plan for completed work, and ensuring new product continues down the pipeline is the best recipe for success at this time.

Catalyst has been in negotiations with some additional parties for weeks concerning how to pay down debts, including making partial payments, turning over stock and so on, as they’ve requested. We’ve been notified that some of these parties are pursuing additional legal means to secure the monies owed despite the negotiations. Our legal counsel has advised that the lawsuit is baseless. As such, Catalyst will defend against it and expect it to be dismissed in the near future. Regardless, we’re continuing our negotiations and will continue to move, as we’ve been doing, to pay debts down as quickly as possible.

Finally, as some of you may have noticed, we’ve just changed the legal text and logos on all our appropriate sites that reference Shadowrun and BattleTech from WizKids to The Topps Company, Inc., per their direction. We’ve been in contact with Topps for weeks regarding these situations. We are currently in negotiations to re-secure the Shadowrun and BattleTech licenses.

EDIT

Found the actual law suit documents. Narg has recently become good at that. They name… err… names.

http://ia331218.us.archive.org/3/items/ … 66.1.0.pdf

http://ia331218.us.archive.org/3/items/ … 66.2.0.pdf

All this hoopla for $58000… seriously…

[Nandemonai]

In the past couple of years, a large number of courts have been making vast amounts of new paperwork available online.

Some courts only have a few select “general public interest” case opinions available, typically relating to big cases that have attracted news interest. Others actually have more or less everything recent up. Very few have nothing at all.

The documents were all public records before, but it wasn’t as simple as spending 10 minutes with Google - you had to know where the courthouse was, and go in person and request a copy of the paperwork. Or you had to buy a very expensive bound volume. Behold, the Power of the Internet.