Tag Archives: online

Worlds Beyond

Extra Credits parts company with The Escapist.

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Breaking news is happening more and more often on socail media as people, groups and collectives choose to speak first to the people who are their fans and have connected with them. This is what happened this evening as the ExtraCreditTeam used Facebook and Twitter to announce they have parted company with The Escapist.

Statement taken from the Facebook status page:

http://www.facebook.com/ExtraCredits?sk=wall&filter=2

Hi Guys
I’m sorry about a lot of things over the last month. I’m sorry that I’ve been incommunicative. I’m sorry that I’ve been snappish. I’m sorry that I haven’t talked to you about what’s been going on. It’s been a rough few weeks, but I can finally talk about it, so here’s what’s been happening with us…
(this may take a bit, I’m sorry for spamming you too…)
When Allison hurt her arm all I wanted was to help her. I believe that a person has a responsibility to those near them and you should feel shame when you can’t live up to that responsibility…but I couldn’t. I was near destitute. I had spent all my money on the show.
Dan and I work on it for free and I pay Allison’s salary out of pocket each month, then, in turn, The Escapist was supposed to pay us for our work – not much, but enough to cover Allison’s wages – unfortunately they were never able to.
When Allison hurt her arm, The Escapist had only paid us for four episodes over the course of a year. That meant I was down $20,000. That was the $20,000 I could have put in to help Allison. That was the $20,000 I would have used to get her surgery while figuring out how I could earn more money. It hurt that I couldn’t tell you that then but I was asked not to.
I felt so bad asking without being able to do more than sell a computer and call in old debts…but you taught me a lesson in humanity and the goodness of people. I had never lost my faith in mankind, but that first Rockethub week you redoubled it.

And that was truly one of the greatest weeks of my life. Better than releasing games, better than lecturing in the halls of GDC. I really can never say thank you enough.
But since then things have not gone so well. We joined The Escapist because we believed in what was going on there. We believed in the idea of examining games more thoroughly, whether it was Yahtzee’s blunt honesty or ENN delivering game news, we liked the idea that it was a place where consumers and developers could have a real conversation about games. We believed we were all in this together, fighting for the same ideals and goals.
We asked the guys at The Escapist if we could trade some of the debt they owed us for the rights to our intellectual property back if they weren’t going to be able to pay us so we could do things like sell t-shirts or write a book. We thought this was going to be an easy discussion. Instead they responded by telling us that they felt that they were entitled to 75% of the Rockethub money, thus their debt was covered and, despite not paying us for nearly a year, we owed them $9500 dollars
What followed was weeks of legal wrangling, lies and muck. Unless you guys really care about the details I won’t go over them here. I do think The Escapist does some good, and I wouldn’t want to destroy what good it does with how they operate their business. I’m going to work under the idea that our situation was unique and that their other content creators are paid regularly and don’t have a contract that was as onerous as ours.
Again: we don’t want to add to the damage done. I’m already kind of heartbroken that things turned out this way. I had faith in what The Escapist stood for. That faith is in tatters, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t good people doing good things for The Escapist.
What matters is that the show won’t stop. We’ll be releasing it on YouTube every Thursday until we find another site to pick it up. We’ll be posting links to here and on our twitter feed whenever a new episode goes up…but we’ll be counting on you guys to help let people know.

More of the issue esp around money outstanding and the nature of the contracts signed was posted about on twitter. That The Escapist held the rights to all the Intellectual Property rights associated with the Extra Credits show.

http://twitter.com/#!/ExtraCreditz

@ExtraCreditz ExtraCreditTeam
(I’ve now spent more on lawyers than we were ever paid for the show…this isn’t what I wanted at all)

@ExtraCreditz ExtraCreditTeam
The Escapist is still claiming our IP and our back catalog of episodes as “work for hire” though we weren’t paid ;_(

Extra Credits is a show which I have always watched, the content being some of the best which I have see discussing female gamers, gender in games, how achievements play a part in the gaming experience, the socail impacts of games as we learn about the psychology of gaming and how it can be used in other areas of life.

When 1 part of that team needed surgery the many fans of the show who want to see the show go one, chipped in to make it happen and frankly it is galling to read that the powers at be at The escapist tried to say they had a right to that money, esp when they had not been for filling their end of the contract which was in place.

I wish the Extra Credits Team the very best and hope that they will continue their good work else were.

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MineCraft and my brats.

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This has been a huge hit in our house and with a lot of my gamer friends.

Both kids have their own accounts and work together and with others to build, mine and explore. It’s been my daughters first foray into online servers for a pc game and it’s going well. Yes she has discovered asshats but is learning that as with real life if you don’t like how people are playing there comes a point where you walk away.

She has been playing that more then online games for the xbox as chat is the norm on xbox live and she no longer wants to be in a situation where she gets hassle for being a girl and young and playing on xbox live.

This doesn’t happen with Minecraft, both my brats know well how to stay safe online and not to give out info and how to quit any conversation they are not happy with and how to block people who are annoying asshats and to be careful they aren’t the annoying asshat.

Notch/Markus Alexej Persson (the creator of minecraft) currently is the desktop picture on my son’s pc. It seems that he may have replaced Peter Molyneux as the person he wants to be when he grows up. Yes Santa is bringing Fable 3 but the indie start up of Minecraft has certainly captured his imagination and at almost 13 he has already decided that he wants to do Computer Applications in TCD and then the MA in game development in DIT.

Minecraft is giving them both a chance to have control and crate the virtual environments they play in. They have both toyed around with level editors for games, usually race track games but the scope of minecraft is something they keep coming back to.

And they are not alone, they are reading the wikis and sharing knowledge on how to make and create things with others who log on to the sever to share the experience. I guess I have to face up to the fact my kids are pretty much immersed in gaming culture esp when I dragged from the kitchen to
watch this.

Minecraft and country music, my daughter is thrilled and is doing her best to learn all the words, I guess that will join Jonathan Coulton‘s song ‘Still Alive‘ from portals as a sing along in the car song.

I guess I don’t write that much about the types and amount of gaming we do esp as a family, I guess I should. So be warned there will be more posts.

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Re my recent departure from a certain online ‘clique’.

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dissociate
vb
1. to break or cause to break the association between (people, organizations, etc.)
2. (tr) to regard or treat as separate or unconnected
3. to undergo or subject to dissociation

I recently left a certain on line grouping or a clique if you will,I did so quietly hoping to cause as little disruption as possible. I requested one of those who had the power to remove my access to do so and thought I had made it pretty clear that it was about me, that there was no one outstanding issue, I didn’t want there to be any drama, I just didn’t feel comfortable posting there and if I am not going to be posting I didn’t see the point of me being nosey and reading about others.

I never asked for a fuss not to be made, I didn’t post a thread saying sod you all I am leaving.
I had hope my request to go quietly would be honored and it would just look like I wasn’t arsed posting and that people would eventually forget that I had had access there.

Unfortunately this didn’t happen, and I ended up with emails, pms and texts last Friday when I was up the wall with kids, co parents in transatlantic transit, missing bankcards and Gaelcon. I am still in the wake of Gaelcon with work to be done still, but I have finally recovered enough to have the time to write this, an explanation and an apology.

I am sorry if any one has had hurt feelings about me leaving.
I am sorry if it came as a shock to you, but I didn’t have any input to what happened or how things were handled, or any announcements made after my access was removed.

I am sorry if any one has felt/was made to feel that they and/or their actions alone were responsible for me leaving, as they are not, so no finger pointing please; if I had outstanding personal issues with someone I would have dealt with them personally. I have not removed/blocked anyone from my friends/contact lists on any of the online media I use, in fact I have added people.

I asked for my access to be removed because I didn’t feel comfortable posting there any more.
I had feel something shift in me and I took a long hard look at the reasons why and I first felt that way over 10 months ago so it’s not like this was a impulse decision or a reaction to any one thing.
The whole of a things being greater then the sum of it’s parts is something I have found very much to be true of on line groupings and communities and somewhere along the line my affection for that place waned.

My affection for those who are a part of it has not but there seemed to be at least to me an under current of tension and bitchiness which had not been there before and it unsettled and disturbed me. I didn’t know if anyone else felt the same way, I know that is just how I have been feeling and if everyone else was happy I wasn’t going to piss in the punch cos I was the only one not enjoying the party. So I opted to leave quietly, to slip out and leave people to get on with it, knowing that even with not being in that online place there are others were we would interact and be in touch.

The gods know there is more enough interaction between different pockets of people in that large clique via phone/email/ghcat that seems to go on in the back ground( I say seems as I was never a part of such things), so it’s not like people don’t interact with each other away from that one online space and as I have already told someone who connected with me via facebook I am always happy to be in touch with people who want to be in touch with me and what is going on in my life.

My perception, my feelings, my disquiet, my choice, my life and I for one don’t think my actions in this have been something I should say sorry for, I did my best to not let my choice of action to negatively impact on people and the group as a whole unfortunately other’s didn’t have as much consideration it seems which I am saddened and disappointed by as it has lead to hurt feelings and confusion and me having write this tract. I hope this has cleared things up a little and will help calm things down, I never meant to ruffle any feathers and wish everyone the best for the celtic new year to come. Happy Hollow’een.