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Palladium Books Going Out of Business
kainewynd2 writes to mention a public plea put out in the Palladium books forums by the company owner Kevin Siembada. He bemoans the Rifts publisher's poor financial outlook, and asks people to buy a $50 print to save the company. From the post: "The truly wonderful Rifts® videogame - Rifts® Promise of Power - was stillborn. The N-Gage platform never took off in North America. That meant the N-Gage and Rifts® Promise of Power would NOT be available on the mass market in the USA and Canada. Finding it anywhere in North America required an act of God. There would be no Nokia royalty-based revenue stream. Nor would there be a Nokia videogame sequel and the money that might come from it. Nokia treated me nothing short of GREAT. They lost truckloads of money on this venture. We're both the victims of marketing fallout. Please don't blame these wonderful people for Palladium's woes - circumstance just didn't make them part of our solution." Wow, they made a game for the N-Gage and then lost a bunch of money. Who ever could have forseen that?
Palladium made interesting and rich game worlds. Unfortunately, their game system is much to be desired, IMNSHO. Book formatting, editing and quality were always under par (I had trouble looking up most things in any of their books). Great ideas and poor execution. I'm personally suprised they lasted this long.
Two things we needed to see in the post that make this Slashdot post misleading, all important items in the full article, are that:
1.) Palladium is close to going out of business, but not out just yet.
2.) Their primary reason for being on the brink appears to be embezzlement, or some related crime. Their real business isn't enough to overcome the loss incurred due to that legal trouble.
I'm not a big RIFTS fan, but I'm all for responsible reporting.
A plea for their fans to bail them out of several thousand dollars worth of debt sounds like a 'going out of business' sign to me. I understand your objection, but the content of the post is pretty clear.
I have very, very little sympathy for Palladium. They're a business. They may be selling fantasy, but they work in the real world. In the real world, if you want to call yourself a business, you don't go screaming to the people who have been propping you up all these years because you have some financial troubles.
That's what Chapter 11 is for.