20 employees filed complains, Herve forced to attend meeting

...does California not require payroll records to be kept on paper form? because up in IL all payroll records must be kept on paper for a min of somthin like 3 years
 
I just read in the Spy Fly column of the June issue of Swedish PC Gamer that Interplay's planning to release BG3 and Fo3 after all (and they stuck Fo3 in the release calendar for good measure). Was this little piece of brilliant journalism/reality bending/witless page-filler in the UK edition as well?
 
Wow some very witty posts here - I needed a grin today...

That said, ignorance of the law is not a defense. Hiding / losing / not having access to your financial records does not excuse you from having to follow California Employee Benefits Law.
 
Per said:
I just read in the Spy Fly column of the June issue of Swedish PC Gamer that Interplay's planning to release BG3 and Fo3 after all (and they stuck Fo3 in the release calendar for good measure). Was this little piece of brilliant journalism/reality bending/witless page-filler in the UK edition as well?
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They're just behind. Or dumb.

Interplay can't release BG3 as they lost the D&D rights.

Interplay announced during the last stockholder meeting that Fo3 would be developed "through an outside studio". Or rather that there were plans to do so. In other words, bull.

They were prolly just a bit late. Happens with big mags.
 
Yeah, only they lamented the death of BI months ago and sensibly removed Fo3 from the release calendar. You'd think they mean something by putting it back, if only that they think Caen is a credible person.
 
Sorry for you Europeans, but I have found the credibility of Euro Game Press to be even more lacking than the Press in the States. The reality is that Troika and Obsidian are busy doing other work, and that no developer in their right mind would touch a product from Interplay - the only reason you work with a publisher in the first place is because they have the resources. No cash, no game. Especially if the developer in question does some due diligence and reads a few quotable quotes from Herve... hoo boy!
 
All In The Family

All In The Family



Trouble in paradise.

Does not the head of Vivendi have a ""lot of 'splainin' to do"" (*).

Was on the radio Monday, but can't google a hit.

WAIT, found this:
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=040621&cat=business&st=businessd83bp6ug0&src=ap
AP mentioning that Vivendi is cutting game jobs in California ....

The Caen story about 'money from Vivendi' might as well be a parable: 'loaves and fishes', 'mana from heavan', and "the check is in the mail''; if ya'all, and the copywrite holder of the text, pardon the mixed Biblical reference.


* No, that was Ricky R. cornering Lucy to own up on another TV comic classic in perpetual syndication rotation.



4too
 
So, does anyone know if Herve found pulled his head out of the sand and went to the meeting?

If not, I say we grab our pitchforks and torches and have ourselves an old-fashioned lynchmob!
 
The story about VUG cuts was also in the LA Times. Cuts primarily in their swank LA Offices, though it sounds like the NW ops got hit as well (the old Sierra offices).

Lot of Sr. VUG mgt. got axed about 6 months ago; new mgt. started in January, 2004. This is just the other boot dropping.

Interestingly, their VP of Development (Vijay Lakshman) is now the VP of Development at Turbine. I wouldn't be too pleased if as VUG I cut a guy, and he ends up at one of my key developers in charge of an important project (the Middle Earth Online gig). Only the Warcraft Online project has higher profile (though this is being developed inhouse, so is in safer territory).

Both VUG and Infogrames/Atari played a huge role in keeping IPLY on life support for years beyond when it should have imploded based on its own incompetence. Remember the Shiny deal? That alone gave IPLY an additional 9-12 months of life. The reality is that the sugar daddys of old are no longer around to bail IPLY out, and quite frankly IPLY doesn't have any bullets left in its bandolier. Only Fallout is worth anything, and only unless it was paired up with a "devil may care" publisher like TakeTwo who embraces M rated product and celebrates sex, drugs and violence. As a flanker to a product like GTA3, Fallout could kick some serious ass. But handed to a pansy-ass publisher like THQ or Activision, the game will never reach its potential and would probably die some ignoble death in a darkened focus group room on the West Side (assuming these folks were confused enough to pick up the rights in the first place).
 
MrMarcus said:
GTA: Fallout?

Stuff those ideas right in the bin where they belong. :evil:
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Haha... What I mean is that TTWO has set up Rockstar as their "bad boy" publisher to handle hot properties with mature content (though they are all the same company). Fallout would thrive in an environment where the developers could actually embrace the mature content without being worried about moral types flame-mailing the public parent company. You should have seen some of Menze's PiPBoys that didn't make it into FO2 - yikes! TTWO wasn't too happy with the negative press from GTA3, but they were smiling all the way to the bank. My point was just to suggest that Fallout would be much happier with a Publisher that was interested in developing a line of mature content products, rather than someone more interested in skate board games.
 
The reality is that the sugar daddys of old are no longer around to bail IPLY out, and quite frankly IPLY doesn't have any bullets left in its bandolier.
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So true, definitely so true. I`m pretty sure Herve knew that after he failed to pull off that deal with a new distributor in October/November, beeing forced to get back to VU`s hands, just to see them delaying BGDA2 for a few months in order not to pay him imediatly and put him cornered, while they tried to sort out their own cash problems, wich they still didn´t. No more Mr. Nice VU guy since August, and from that episode he surely understood the tide had turned.

Still he pretended everything would work out, it was just a case of going one step forward in his relantionship with SGCapital, that had found some crums for them to continue in 2003, putting the sale of the company on his hands and failing to sell it himself. Going to ask for help to the new VU management when he saw there was no time to turn the events shows how desperate he was, but the new bosses were even more sick and tired of him than the previous ones, after reading the records of their "partnership".
 
As the French-Worm Squirms

So, does anyone know if Herve found pulled his head out of the sand and went to the meeting?
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According to my sources, Herve did show up to the Labor Board meeting, as did 20+ disgruntled employees. :twisted:

Apparently, Herve didn't have any legal representation with him, so he had to face the music alone.

I don't know what what finally agreed upon between Herve and the Labor Board, but it was made very clear to him that the penalties for non-payment of wages would continue to accumlate on a daily basis until all matters were settled.
 
Chromosome 25 said:
My point was just to suggest that Fallout would be much happier with a Publisher that was interested in developing a line of mature content products, rather than someone more interested in skate board games.
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The M-rating of Fallout 3 is of secondary importance. Unlike the people that cried wolf when BIS stated Fallout 3 would not be M, I do not think prostitution, killing or swearing are the most important parts of Fallout 3. Important, yes, but on a list of things that "make Fallout Fallout", it would not make the top-10
 
Briosafreak said:
Unlike the people that cried wolf when BIS stated Fallout 3 would not be M
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The game was being made to a Mature rating since the beginning Kharn.
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To clarify this:

I think it started when Feargus, as usual, posted some stupid shit at Terra-Arcanum.com. I think it had something to do with "making the game a bit more saleable at Wal-Mart" or some such idiocy as that.
 
Roshambo said:
To clarify this:

I think it started when Feargus, as usual, posted some stupid shit at Terra-Arcanum.com. I think it had something to do with "making the game a bit more saleable at Wal-Mart" or some such idiocy as that.
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*nods*

I was a bit unclear on this, but if you dig back in the archives of either DaC or RPGCodex, don't remember which, you'll find a newspost flaming BIS because they "were obviously planning to not make it M"

Sorry, I misstated. The point about the reaction remains, tho'
 
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