Quote from: ggroy;392225Did Kevin go to law school?  If he did go, did he pass the bar exam?

If memory serves, he went to art school.  I think his original career path was to be a graphic artist, but I admit I could be completely misremembering that.

Quote from: RPGPundit;392416

Quote from: Koltar;392229Well if he did, he probably thought civil liability cases needed a mega-damages chart.


- Ed C.

That's funnier than it ought to be.

RPGPundit

Indeed! :teehee:

Quote from: jgants;392563If memory serves, he went to art school.  I think his original career path was to be a graphic artist, but I admit I could be completely misremembering that.

Failed comic book artist, is my memory, but otherwise correct, art school grad.

Quote from: Novastar;392679Failed comic book artist, is my memory, but otherwise correct, art school grad.

I first remember seeing his name as an artist illustrating a TRAVELLER adventure in a magazine.

Vaguely remember him possibly doing artwork for either Paranoia Press or the original version of FASA - back when they did TRAVELLER supplementary material all the time.


- Ed C.

Siembieda is also an artist, best known for occasionally illustrating Palladium Books' products. Some time prior to 1973, he started the now-defunct Megaton Publications in Detroit with Alex Marciniszyn. They published a science fiction fanzine called Nightspawn in 1973 and a digest style title called A + Plus Comics in 1977. He also contributed art and cartography to several early Judges Guild products, the Traveller and Dungeons & Dragons lines

Quote from: FrankTrollman;390754Steve Jackson still makes GURPS and is still in business. Most of his revenue is from party games, but GURPS products still do happen.

They do indeed. Since the vast majority of those GURPS products are released in PDF, the volume tends to be overlooked. In 2009, GURPS had around 30 new releases, and we hired an assistant for Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch. The sales are quite good: this is a link to the top 100 sales for 2009.

As others have pointed out, SJGames has never been a pure *anything* company. Remember, both Chez Geek and Munchkin were first released during GURPS' heyday, In Nomine was delayed several times because of INWO, and GURPS was originally published when pocketboxes were the hottest thing around.
--
Paul Chapman
Marketing Director
Steve Jackson Games
paul@sjgames.com
(512) 447-7866 x206

I stand corrected; 18,000 copies sold in a year is not chicken-scratch!

I'll also admit to being pleasantly surprised how forthcoming SJG's is about it's sales numbers. Most companies seem to think releasing those numbers will cause some kind of business apocalypse.

Quote from: Novastar;392794I stand corrected; 18,000 copies sold in a year is not chicken-scratch!

I'll also admit to being pleasantly surprised how forthcoming SJG's is about it's sales numbers. Most companies seem to think releasing those numbers will cause some kind of business apocalypse.

Yeah, how exactly would it hurt a game company if people knew exactly how many books they sold?

Quote from: mhensley;392886Yeah, how exactly would it hurt a game company if people knew exactly how many books they sold?

Gamers are cliquey, trend-chasing douches just like everyone else.  A game that isn't selling more than X copies is "dead" and not worth playing.

I miss the old historical sourcebooks.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;392977I miss the old historical sourcebooks.

RPGPundit

I miss the entire GURPS 3 line.  And when SJGames sole target demographic wasn't the people who post on their forums.

Hi there. I came here very specifically because a friend of mine pointed out that I was being cited as a point of reference concerning Steve Jackson Games. I know that was going on two effing weeks ago but the week immediately following my being informed of it I was where I am every year for the past 9 now for the first weekend in July. At CONvergence running more games than any other individual volunteer. This year it came to over 30 in a 4 day stretch. The week after I was getting the rest of my life back on track after 4 straight days of wallowing in Geek Heaven.

Now, to clarify. Yes, I was a member of the Steve Jackson Games MIB program for roughly ten years. During that time I was the most active member of my cell and one of the most active in the Midwest, running an average of 4 hours of events every week, week in week out for roughly 45 weeks a year and really pulling out the stops at CONvegence where I would routinely pull 20+ hours of gaming events over a 2-3 day stretch.

Was I kicked out of the MIB program for what I consider spurious and unjust reasons? HELL YES! More on that in a second.

Am I a liberal? Yes! And proud of it.

Did that have ANYTHING to do with my being kicked from the program? HELL NO!

What about forum behavior in general? Did my actions on the forums cause my being fired from the program? See Previous.

So what's the deal? The deal good people is simple. Roughly two years ago I made a series of what can only be called, in retrospect, crashingly bad choices, starting with befriending and then encouraging to join the MIB program, a young woman I learned the hard way was a mentally unstable, sociopathic, abusive, chemically dependent mental case of biblical proportions.

This psychiatric catastrophe asked my wives (yes, I said wives, plural, no we're not Mormon, yes they all know about one another and are cool with it. Google "polyamory" to learn more) and I to participate in her wedding. A wedding , I will note for the record which celebrated the "everlasting union" between the father of her child and herself and lasted LESS THAN SIX WEEKS before she told the groom "It's over, I never loved you and I've been screwing this other guy here who I'm leaving you for practically since our wedding day." . She never gave us any information on where or when or what assistance we were to render until the very last minute. And I'm talking hours before the event here. So, needless to say, we never made it to the wedding.

She then proceeded to go into the MIB mailing list- not the forums at SJG.com mind you but THE LIST EXCLUSIVE TO THE MIB PROGRAM- and say that I was not to be trusted on the grounds that we "bailed" on her wedding. She said this REPEATEDLY where it could be read by my fellow MIBs.

I took severe personal offense at this. I'm no saint and am the first to admit it. I've got anger issues, a violent past and an assortment of personal shortcomings that I work on daily. Had she called me a pervert (guilty!) or a borderline sociopath (also guilty) or a man with a more than strictly healthy willingness to settle interpersonal conflicts in a non-verbal manner I would have kept my mouth shut because those are all true. Instead she called my trustworthiness into question. And that I won't tolerate. So I asked the head of the list to intervene. I did not flame her out or air all the personal shortcomings I knew about on her side of the scale. Like, say all the times she was home getting drunk and high with her newborn child either in the room or one room over while the father was out working for a living. Instead, I very calmly asked her for a public apology and asked the head of the list, who was also the head of the program, to make her A)apologize and B)Leave me alone. I did not swear or raise my voice or engage in anything that any reasonable person would call a flame war. He responded by booting my ass OUT of the program. I fought it for roughly six weeks. I had everyone from the parents of kids who were regular attendees at my events, to department heads of CONvergence to the staff of the venue where I run my events to John Kovalic himself (John is a family friend and my first, legal, wife is in charge of his website) contact the company requesting my reinstatement. The company upheld my termination from the program. I spent a few weeks using some VERY bad language around the house, found new sponsors and jogged the hell on.

After my termination as an MIB was made final I boxed up all my SJG products and packed them away in the basement. I haven't run any of them since and I haven't spent one solitary penny on their merchandise since that day. Nor will I. Ever. I wrote to the head of the forums and REQUESTED OF MY OWN VOLITION that I be placed on perma-ban status specifically so as to avoid any chance that my temper might get the better of me and I might blaze up the forums. In short, I went out with a little dignity rather than being remembered as a rabid mental case being dragged away foaming at the mouth.

Now, will I EVER play another Steve Jackson Game? Not until I get a letter of apology and offer of reinstatement from them. But does this make SJG a bad games company? No. They make a solid product with generally good mechanics and serious replay value. And when a guy who routinely uses the phrase "I gave those bastards ten years of my life and got paid in the ass for my trouble" to describe a company gives a review like that I like to think it says something about the quality of the product. They just have some internal practices that I personally find incompatible with my own sense of ethics.  

So now you know the real story, from the actual guy involved. As for my supporters, thanks. It means a lot to me to see those of you who know me in real life at my events every year at CONvergence. Your positive feedback gives me a huge lift and knowing that I was responsible for you having such a good time is something that never gets old. I'm an institution at CONvergence at this point and have exactly NO intention of ending my involvement in the gaming track of the convention. It's only been a week and I've already got two RPG scenarios of my own creation outlined for next year and a list of card games I'll be running as well. If any of you want to participate in games I run the other 50 weeks out of the year, get in touch with me either here or via the conventions Facebook page. There's always room at the table .
Cheers!
Bob Wagner/Mechgogo

holy shit that's hilarious, I am literally laughing so hard my sides hurt

Uh, you didn't show up at her wedding, she called you unreliable for it so you wanted her off your special programm which did backfire and now you go public saying that she gets high with her baby in the room.

I suppose you have called CPS?

Um yeah, let's not travel that road shall we?

Quote from: Saphim;393231Uh, you didn't show up at her wedding, she called you unreliable for it so you wanted her off your special programm which did backfire and now you go public saying that she gets high with her baby in the room.
I suppose you have called CPS?

Ummm. NO. She specifically said I was not to be trusted. More specifically that I was not to be trusted to perform my duties as the conventions senior MIB and  that, in general "You didn't show up at the wedding so how can you possibly be trusted?". I asked that she A)Apologize for her statements and B)Refrain from speaking to or about me. I honestly didn't CARE if she stayed an MIB as long as she stayed an MIB who didn't bother me or mine . I never requested she be exited from the program . The guys in charge of the program decided that it was easier to boot us both even though I had been going out of my way to avoid conflict and was the most active rep in the state. Hell, there were people in the Midwest running fewer hours of events in a YEAR than I did over CONvergence There were people coming to CONvergence specifically because of my events . I singlehandedly built the company presence at the convention and didn't receive ONE complaint about my behavior as an MIB during my term of service. I think in the nearly ten years I served got a single 48 hour ban from the forums for something I said but there were guys getting more than that in a single month. My reputation as an MIB was SPOTLESS until I had the audacity to say "This is unacceptable. It would be very easy for me to lower myself to a flame war but I'm refusing to. Instead I want the people in charge to put her in check before I feel compelled to." Sorry, but where I'm from there's certain things you just don't say about a person in public without it going unanswered. If people wonder why I'm airing this now, it's simple. I got dragged into this. People indicated a desire for details. I provided them. And I'll re-state my earlier opinion that SJG makes a solid, highly playable product and that my ONLY beef with them is on how they handled this one particular matter. Sadly, it's a serious enough point of principle to me that, while I won't deride the company beyond saying I disagree with their handling of things I can't, in good conscience, support them any more. I won't give them my money and I DAMN SURE won't promote them at my events. I spent a long time doing that and when somebody went over the line with me I got kicked out even though I took the high road. I got told "Let higher handle it." I let higher handle it and got handled like a proctology   patient. But hey, their program, their prerogative.  

  And yes, I DID call CPS. Nor was I the only one to do so. What they did about the matter from there is unknown to me. I do know I wasn't the only one she was lashing out at and at the time of our parting she had developed a pretty wide spread reputation for being an unstable, selfish abusive bitch to everyone around her, generally going off and verbally assaulting anyone who didn't give her her way right away. At this point I neither know nor care what she's doing with her life, though part of hopes that therapy and lots of it are a significant part of how she's spending her time. As for my own reputation, at the convention it's as a highly valued and extremely well liked volunteer. In the world at large it boils down to "Nice guy. Lots of fun. Funny as hell. Give you the shirt off his back if you asked for it. Don't fuck with him or his wives."