Also, Ken got back to me straight away about a share thing even though he's crazy busy. Suggest you email from e.g. gmail and send a PM with a suitable topic.

I love you. You're amazing!

That's a vaguely more sensible post.

Creative stuff is professional though. The creative element in a game varies from quite a bit to very small indeed.

The vast majority of people in the game dev world are engineers or artists. The artwork is creative in a way obviously, but it's usually little different to working on The Simpsons or whatever. It takes talent and effort but you're a cog in a machine, and there is no shortage of good artists.

In both of the above cases you're looking for experience every single time. Within the indie world, many people are surprisingly experienced and amazingly talented. Often there is a mix, and often there has been a lot of tutoring going on. In almost every case, advice is given by other indies to help out on a lot of areas that you simply can't know about without having experience.

I also wouldn't describe creative stuff as willy nilly. That indicates you don't understand the nature of creativity or how it applies to game development.

In your second paragraph you say 'the experienced are never the dorks declaring that on some lolforum'. Actually you're very wrong. I, and many other game developers, well known and otherwise, are on a number of forums.

Being obnoxious when you don't know who people are, let alone when some of us are not anonymous, is very poor business sense. That is how people will see you, gamers, and professional developers.

I may have been on the fence over the fund if it wasn't for your attitude, but if anyone asked me now whether to work for MP I'd say no way and point them here. It makes the fund wreak of lack of professionalism. Don't you see that?

To be fair, Ken has made quite a number of mistakes and his board persona is poor. I understand people having issues over ActiveMiner. I've spoken to him more in person and he's quite different as others have said.

The reason I called for a board was precisely to deal with these concerns and deal with ActiveMiner's image problem (which isn't alone in Bitcoin - see the S.MG thread for something I'm far more dubious about). If they do then it's good for everyone and will free Ken up to get on with the important stuff.

 

Eskimo, no board exists. Moves are being made to form one but it won't be instant. I hope it moves quickly but you have to allow some time to do these things properly.

It will definitely involve some higher value shareholders.

It's actually about the time to receive funds as much as anything. Gox isn't practical if you need to pay anything in advance, let alone the current risk. I would assume that private deals are being done but I don't know.

Gox may be in use and it may be ok, and payment terms for suppliers may be 30-60 days credit.

Once we've had confirmation from eASIC themselves that the deal is done then we're on the way. Ken is there this week so if this is all going to happen we'll know very soon.

This. Although flash and mobile stuff shouldn't take years.

And not to have Mpoe-pr anywhere near pr. You can imagine how that will turn out with journos, gaming forums, reddit, et al! Popcorn time.

The company concept may yet be ok - not that I have evidence of that - but the pr will kill it even if it is.

Are they paid for now?

I am no fan of java and you have to be crazy to start any web project in it these days, but there are successful games that still run in Java profitably.

If you guys can read back a few pages you'll see that this has been discussed at length. Ken has been told in no uncertain terms, publicly and privately, that this was unacceptable.

In addition, as shareholders some of us have requested urgent formation of a board to prevent all such occurrences happening again, and to handle communication and financials in a proper manner.

That was the planned one afaik

If the offer isn't being rescinded then yes, the market is dead until his happens.

However, this needs to be the last offering that happens like this.

Woah there. If you want a deal for a game that's not the way to do it!

Publisher: you don't need one. You may want a funder.

Terms: 70:30 in their favour? That had better be a lot of funding.

And lots of other stuff...

Cool. Looking forwards to seeing more

I did look. I just, well, wow.

Mpoe, don't let them down.

Has it actually raised 1 million dollars? Really?

Oh dear.

There is some truth in that as long as people are confident they won't be undermined and on how future share issues will be run.

Great report, thanks babefoot.

A board comprising of top shareholders would have been an option (the best one) had the share issue been done differently and board seats being a part of that. It's barely practical now, and it would be yet another unplanned thing to do (now go find the high value investors, work out who gets a seat, deal with all that stuff, etc).

However, absolutely the board should include some of those deeply vested in nominal terms. And everyone is speculating, it's just a matter of over how long of a term. Besides, one or two members of a board can't swing it, and it's advisory only. There would also be a formal way to remove a board member if they were disruptive.

This would be a board that has to be hands on and needs to be able to persuade Ken to do some things differently, whilst freeing him up to focus engineering. It also needs to oversee the project, particularly the financials. It is not just to 'report to'.

Edit: John, a board seat is not something to fight over here, it would not be just a case of sitting in and listening. If it's not entirely based on shareholding then even high value investors need to bring something to the table to make them be more appropriate than another high value investor.

Bobboo - if you think that about me then you clearly haven't been reading my posts. Meanwhile, vbs and street have done a great deal sorting the wheat from the chaff.

It's still down to ken, but if he doesn't get something arranged then people here can still organise 'something unofficial' to try and improve the situation and protect shareholders.

There's another guy who said he was deeply invested if you scroll back far enough.

I got somewhat burned on the amc offering so ActiveMiner is something I've only been convinced about recently. This is why I'm frustrated at the misstep yesterday. I like things done properly and they haven't been. I'm also not anonymous so can check my background out easily.

Re: lolstate - all I can say is that part of the point of the board is to instill confidence. Juvenile behaviour and taking flame bait is absolutely against this. So lolstate would have to not post the stuff he posted yesterday for example, as supportive as he clearly is. Being a board member is a serious job and comes with significant responsibilities. It is not something you do because you like ActiveMiner, and you can still be helpful and supportive without being on a board, yet without the responsibility.

In the end this is all a moot point. It's completely up to ken and he may well already have a board in mind. I don't really care as long as they do their job properly.

Task 1 is still for ken to agree the core terms with someone he trusts to do the necessary to set this up properly, even if it starts informal (it would need formalising in the near future).

Right now, it's quite clear that a board of 7 people comprising of e.g. those suggested here, who would advise and to on e.g. Share offerings, would likely avoid the problems we are seeing. Ken could still overrule them but to do so would look bad.

My suggestion: Request Street is given this responsibility if he wants it. He puts together a board of eg 7 people, including at least two higher value shareholders.

In the very short term this will be unofficial while plans to make it a firm proposition are worked out.

The board would have regular scheduled meetings, and the chairman of the board (voted for by the board) would speak to Ken on a daily basis.

No share offerings could take place without the boards agreement.

Communication and pr would be handled entirely by the board on Ken's behalf.

All significant expenditure must be discussed with the board, I.e. as part of the long term business plan.

The board will represent both large and small shareholders, and shall act in their interest at all times.

Full bookkeeping by a party other than ken will be required and evaluated by the board on a regular basis, and the board would be responsible for ensuring financials are published in a professional manner.

Confidentiality would be utmost and all board members would be party to a legally binding non-disclosure agreement.

Edit to add: Board members should not be anonymous (at the very least to each other)

The board would be advisory only; Ken could overrule it at any time (at his own risk).

These are just off the cuff starting points. Input from someone who has done this before or who knows a lot more about e.g. Asicminer's board reporting would be eminently sensible here, and of much more value than my thoughts.