Brad Wardell/Stardock sue employee for one million dollars

Hem, I was scrolling up to re-read Brad's blurb and I didn't scroll up enough 'cause instead of Lum's actual quote I read kerzain's spoof, without realizing it.
I'm not sure whether that happened because I'm stupid or because Brad's writing is indistinguishable from parody. Probably both.

I've since dropped it in spoiler tags to help avoid future situations like that.

Holy crap the quotes from that crappy Elemental book are epic.

I can see how Brad thinks posts like that will stop the abuse.






That's a lie, Brad. You're fucking nuts.

Man what a review. I've never read anything so devastatingly scathing. No wonder Brad's bum still hurts. Angie should put that review up on Amazon.

Until I remembered his previous gems it was a little hard to believe his rant trying to teach us terrible people to stop the hate by calling us the worst things he could imagine.

Oh, he did already:
http://littletinyfrogs.com/article/436123/2012_Presidential_Exit_Poll_Results

Another lesson in not hating vast groups of people you've never met. Not to mention the idea that those making more than $50k must have never received any great benefit from the government. Of course the absurdity begins with this supposedly learned man positing that it was the Democrats who somehow bought the election. There's so much wrong in that post, it'd take a long time to dissect it all.

The brilliant summary of what happened with Hostess. People should really understand more when CEOs are raking in fortunes while their companies fall down around them. I wonder if it's tough existing as a caricature of a rich, white Republican instead of a human being.

To be completely honest, I suspect that the sexual harassment suit probably didn't impact on sales that much. Such things create a lot of noise, but unless it is an issue that is really important to Stardock's customer base, it probably didn't turn too many people away (if they actually heard of it, of course).

What would have hurt a lot more are the mixed reviews and however many free copies that went out. The free copies went to what would be arguably Stardock's base customers, while mixed reviews means a lot of people are going to wait for it to go on sale.

Some of the comments to Angie's review put Youtube comments to shame.

At least on Youtube the idiots are effortlessly stupid.

Agreed, not to mention the price was too high. Read the reviews for Warlock and the ones for FE and they're about identical...except on you can get routinely on sale for $10 or less while the other will run you $40. Why buy FE over Warlock?

And face it, little Bradley has pissed off a good portion of the audience that would bring him good word of mouth. If this were 3 to 5 years ago - before he started wearing his neo-Nazi costume in public - there would be strong word-of-mouth on FE. For example, I bought Gal Civ II and the expansions from word-of-mouth (which I regret - they're dishwater dull), something I wouldn't have done otherwise. Anywhere you turned, there was positive buzz on stuff they released. Many people felt good supporting his products. Now we've come to know the real Bradley and he's severely pissed off quite a few people who would provide that kind of invaluable marketing. So on many forums his detractors are going to vocally try to dissuade anyone from buying a Stardock game - a 180 from a few years ago. Not everyone reads gaming forums, but the people who are likely to buy a more "cultish" game like FE do. .

This is very true. I remember a lot of people saying how much they loved Stardock's attitude and would buy games from them to reward their ideology.

Then Wardell started letting his political views leak in relation to delivery service companies and people who once supported on Stardock on principle avoided them for the same reason.

There's a case study in that.

the things that soured me on Stardock were these instances:

• the Gamer's Bill of Rights ..and the subsequent disappearance of said Bill of Rights
• Demigod's at-launch multiplayer/network backend ..the game never recovered from this debacle
• Elemental ..and the decrying of how horrific it was by Brad Wardell on Qt3.. backed by Tom Chick's hammer
• and lastly, the berating of the Stardock's potential customer base

i left out the whole lawsuit stuff because i was done with Stardock after the Elemental fiasco.

the only time i ever think about Stardock any more is when i happen to see this thread pop up. fortunately, there are many other people & companies that are making games and hacks/utilities that i am interested in- i've found better games that i actually play and cheaper (free) hacks/utilities that i actually use.

who in their right mind would support this guy or his company at this point?

But he doesn't ! After all, he spent all that time writing that message to tell us that he doesn't care.
Actually, shouldn't this be a dream for him ? Consider that he is now the wrongly prosecuted randian god fighting the masses of people that are too stupid to see his greatness. Pretty soon he is going to take his ball and leave. Of course only because we do not deserve his help.

This is the land of neoclassical economics, right? So don't worry; he'll be replaced by Bart Werdall and all will continue as before.

Is bradenfreude a thing yet? Because it is now.

You know, if I ever I felt the nagging desire to give Tom the slightest benefit of the doubt with the whole easily bruised thing, that would pretty much be the end of that.

I mean, I don't! Douche-move through and through. But it's whole 'nother level to come out and say "hey guys stop condemning sexual harassment. You can totally do that on your tumblr."

I sense a toggling for someone.....soooooon.

Feeling harassed for your bad boy behaviors? Don't worry -- your moderator friend has ways of shutting that down.

I guess we now have a developer meltdown checklist for Tom:

(Q) Have you ever been accused, IN COURT, of sexually harassing your employee? Do you respond to the many, many, many, many, many accumulated detractors - many of which were once fans or friends but whose goodwill has soured due to repeated scandals/debacles and the ensuing interactions with said employer - in the most inflammatory, divisive and disruptive way possible? Do you invite much of the controversy onto yourself by not simply shutting up about it?

(A) That's fine by me! Why are so many people being mean to Bradley?


(Q) Does Bill Huffman follow you around trying to instigate flame-outs? Are you a flamboyant and controversial, but ultimately harmless (and even productive and enjoyable), member of the internet gaming community?

(A) BANNED.

Tom is a wretched moderator on so many levels.

Yeah. Weird that he didn't show up, when we were discussing the work environment at EA or Epic Games.

But this has gotten so personal!


Can't imagine why.

Like Brad, Tom is shitty human being, so of course they should defend each other.

This exchange makes me laugh. For context, that thread hadn't been bumped for 5 weeks or so before Brad's latest meltdown. But folks just wont let it die.

"So everytime there's new information about that thing we're discussing here, you guys are going to talk about that thing again? Yikes"

I am really beginning to see, why Tom was such a shitty moderator. He has no idea how forums work. And he never did partake in that many threads, unless they were about him (or he made them about him).

If he was that bothered about it he'd just lock the thread and deal with the grumbling for a few days but instead he's doing his usual passive aggressive nonsense. "I am so disappointed in you all but I'm not going to do anything about it because you're all terrible people and should know better".

Just to give people someone else to attack ;) - I'd be more bothered by it if Tom locked the thread. Surely he has the right to express his feelings, like anyone else on the forum, even if no one agrees with his feelings? Since he didn't lock the thread down, I don't see an effective difference in his post from anyone else's. (Of course, as soon as I write this, he'll lock the thread down, and I'll be cleaning egg off my face, LOL!)

I've not posted in these threads, because Brad has been a friend of mine from the time I met him when his "booth" at E3 was a stool at the Atlanta show and we discovered a mutual love and history of the old Apple ][ games. He was a really nice guy, has been in our interactions (mainly just the occasional email) over the years in which we mainly discussed game theory and computer gaming history, he handled criticisms in reviews that I wrote very professionally, etc. So I'm not sure what to make of all of this - you can't ignore everything that has been published, but man, it sure doesn't fit the guy I have known over the years. No need to repost all that has been posted in response to that - I've read everything in both threads, here and elsewhere and I'm not defending anything. I'm just really baffled.

(I know a lot of people are wishing there was a "dislike" button right now, ;) )

Eh, my preference is to just not post in the threads. (Obviously I am breaking that approach at the moment.) I see no reason to post more attacks, there's not a shortage of people talking about what an evil guy he is. And I'm not going to try to post a defense of his actions. So I don't really have anything to add, other than everything seems very different from the Brad that I've known over the years.

This is just the sort of post Tom Chick would make!

Dear People Who Have Gotten Over That Other Forum,

YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

Love,
The people (well, person) who quickly tire of Brad's antics, because honestly it's all just more of the same, and easily gets sidetracked by other stuff.

Jethro, some people have a very weird switch in their brains that toggles their personalities between how they behave in the company of men and how they come across in the company of women. Also some people have a very different view on social relationships versus how they believe it's fair to treat underlings. Brad probably treats you like an equal, and you see the side of him that brings out. The pattern seems to be that women and employees (or perhaps female employees in general) are not on an equal footing in his mind, hence they don't deserve that same treatment.

Hell, I knew a guy back when I went to junior high in northern Idaho who absolutely hated blacks and Mexicans. As long as you weren't a black or Mexican, he was the friendliest guy you'd find - the kind that would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. As long as the topic of conversation didn't involve blacks or Mexicans, you'd probably never realize.

Did you read Charles' whole post? This seems kind of non-sequitur.

Sure I did. And my reply was just what I said, I just don't have anything to add to the thread beyond what was already said.

Except you did the same thing you've done repeatedly lately, Jethro: ignoring the content of a person's post to deliver a Jethro-certified statement based on anecdata. You even did it in regards to Tom's post and the subsequent discussion thereof, outright ignoring the fact that he is a moderator and, therefore, any post he makes on any subject, even if made without the mod boots on, especially in which he condemns virtually every avenue of discussion about a topic, carries more weight than if he were just another forum member.

If you didn't have anything to add then why did you add it? Answer: you wanted to stir the pot. You even said as much. I'm sure you "know" Brad and "know" that he is a perfectly nice guy to his friends in the same way that we all "know" rabid evangelicals who are anti-gay marriage but are perfectly accepting of their gay children and how that totally doesn't make them horrible people and how that makes them the majority and the loud and proud Fox News Bigots the minority, but that's anecdotal evidentiary non-data, and all providing it does, especially while twirling around in an office chair giving everyone the LOL!-birds, is make us think you're taking the piss or being contrarian because you're biased.

See, the interesting part of Charles' post was where he suggested that someone who considers himself a personal friend of Brad might want to try and get across to Brad that his actions are harmful to himself and potentially his company. Not as a way of haranguing him, but as a way of expressing friendship by trying to offer an alternate perspective in the best interests of one's friend. But instead of addressing that idea, you just...said you weren't going to post hateful stuff on the internet. Which really isn't a sensible response to what Charles said. So my initial impression is that you sort of skimmed his post and didn't actually glean the point of it. What he was suggesting had nothing to do with adding to this thread further. No one here would likely ever even know you did it. Just a weird aspect of his response to ignore.