Stargate Worlds Forum » General Discussion » I have discovered the missing link between Gary Whiting, CME and MMOGULs

That last post was a quote by the way.

Vaporware?

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Originally posted by Moretrinkets
Vaporware?

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All games are vaporware until released. This game is currently in development and as such has a chance to shut down before it goes gold, I however still think it is moving forward dispite some of the internal problems plaguing the company. At this time the best we can hope for is to see Beta testing return. I think that will be the turning point to put the masses at ease.

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Originally posted by Fumbles

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Originally posted by Moretrinkets
Vaporware?

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All games are vaporware until released. This game is currently in development and as such has a chance to shut down before it goes gold, I however still think it is moving forward dispite some of the internal problems plaguing the company. At this time the best we can hope for is to see Beta testing return. I think that will be the turning point to put the masses at ease.

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I agree that only the resumption of beta testing will blow the doubt of the release off of this game. The sad part is, that's the SMALLER hurdle this game is facing. Once we get to beta, its a matter of whether or not the developer's hard work on this will get washed away by suspect and predatory business practices. I personally couldn't give a rat's ass if the developers choose to update the community. Because either way, whether they do or don't, the game is either going to come out or its not. Updates won't change that one way or another.

What I do care about is a game free of pyramid-scheme guilds spamming my chat box. The whole "Where games and social networks collide" thing scares the shit out of me when the social network they seem to be talking about is MMOGULs.

I really want to play this game. I wouldn't be in here talking if I wasn't interested. But the dark cloud that has been allowed to form around it due to the information blackout and the bad business press makes this seem like a disaster in the making. I really hope this game makes it.

Darn shame about all this. The game itself was sounding pretty interesting....and the Dev staff sounded like they were pretty on the ball. Too bad it had to get torpedoed by a shady VC at the top.

The only thing that's surprising about all this is that he was able to get the license in the first place. I can see the group that origionaly came up with the concept getting blinded by the promise of venture capital... but I'd expect a Major TV studio would be doing better due dilligence before handing over a license to some-one like Whiting.

Oh well, I suppose we'll just have to hold out hope that a reputable game studio takes some interest and considers buying out the project.

I wonder what happened to the thread on MMOGULS at scam.com? I tried to look it up, couldn't find it, and when I tried to use a link from the email notifications that came from it, I get a "thread not found" error.

Originally posted by Zhiroc

I wonder what happened to the thread on MMOGULS at scam.com? I tried to look it up, couldn't find it, and when I tried to use a link from the email notifications that came from it, I get a "thread not found" error.

Not sure mate, the admin said he had to move it but said nothing else, it seems that Thurston or Whiting may have intimidated them into deleting it. Atleast that's my assumption until scam.com tell me otherwise.

However I started another thread here feel welcome to post mate, remember don't let the Moguls get you down!

Originally posted by Agricola1 

However I started another thread here feel welcome to post mate, remember don't let the Moguls get you down!

Not working. Is that site down or did the thread get deleted again?

Originally posted by Pugla

Originally posted by Agricola1 

However I started another thread here feel welcome to post mate, remember don't let the Moguls get you down!

 

Not working. Is that site down or did the thread get deleted again?

Yep, it seems it got deleted again with no explanation fromm the site, seems scam.com are under the thumb of MMOGULs!

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Originally posted by Agricola1

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Originally posted by Pugla

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Originally posted by Agricola1 
However I started another thread here feel welcome to post mate, remember don't let the Moguls get you down!

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Not working. Is that site down or did the thread get deleted again?

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Yep, it seems it got deleted again with no explanation fromm the site, seems scam.com are under the thumb of MMOGULs!

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So I guess scam.com can be taken off the list of reputable sites? If MMOGULs isn't a scam, I don't know what is.

Thurston has come out and said it:

Cheyenne Mtn Games will license its games to an internet mall called www.itzyourMall.com. Mmoguls (the network marketing opportunity) will get its games from itzyourMall.

I think I said somewhere around here that I thought that's how CME maintained the fiction of there being no "relationship"

On a totally different note, is the whole thing imploding? From an affiliate website:

I am sorry to say that our new CEO, Brent Barton, has stepped down and resigned his position as of last Friday. I do not have any answers that I can share with you as to why. But, due to the changes that seem to be occurring at MMOGULS, I will be cancelling all future webinars until further notice.

Wow, I can’t believe he stepped down less than a month after being MMOGULS' CEO. Guess there is no honor among thieves these days!

This happening right after the MGM visit, plus with the CME devs not getting paid …. I can’t put my finger on what the bigger picture is.

However, it seems to me MMOGULS is defunct, which is bad if it was keeping Stargate worlds development moving forward.
 

Originally posted by Kyriesunset

Wow, I can’t believe he stepped down less than a month after being MMOGULS' CEO. Guess there is no honor among thieves these days!

This happening right after the MGM visit, plus with the CME devs not getting paid …. I can’t put my finger on what the bigger picture is.

However, it seems to me MMOGULS is defunct, which is bad if it was keeping Stargate worlds development moving forward.
 

MMOGULS is on the rocks, any member can tell you that based on the information, or lack thereof, coming from it's remaining executive staff (the MMOGULS CEO wasn't the only one to bail).  While this will make many folks cheer (MMOGULS is of questionable legality for sure) it is very bad news for CME.  The employees may not want to hear it but their pay checks were being paid by the tenuous relationship between the two entities.  Without MMOGULS, payroll goes away again.  As evidenced by the sudden MMOGULS trouble and lack of payroll being met last week.

Unrelated to the CEO story, but perhaps interesting....

From an affiliate MMOGULS blog:

• "We cannot talk about the Stargate Worlds game in meetings. For the time being, MGM is being protective of that franchise name, and is taking a 'wait and see' posture (for lack of a better word). When MMOGULS is up and running, they might view that differently. This statement DOES NOT mean that Stargate Worlds will not be available for play in the MMOGULS network when the game launches, so please don't misinterpret that."
• "We can tell people that Cheyenne is one of the game companies that will be in the network along with the games that they produce."
• " There are 3200 in MMOGULS as of noon today." (Feb 28)

That blog is over 6 weeks old. A majority of the site changes that were, until recently, viewable occurred after Feb 28th.

O/T: Hey, Lisentia, good job on getting the weekly Q&A thing on the official forums.

Originally posted by Lisentia

That blog is over 6 weeks old. A majority of the site changes that were, until recently, viewable occurred after Feb 28th.

The age of it doesn't matter much to me. What it shows is the "we have to say this, but wink-wink don't worry CME is on board with us" situation. If I was considering to buy into this MLM, that would stop me cold, because the whole existence and viability of MMOGULS rests with CME and SGW. If MGM were to come in and say NO! (which maybe they are doing), then the whole venture collapses.

It's clear that the MMOGULS management has set up some nice plausible deniability should that come to pass, yet use the winks to draw people in. They probably win either way. And given the Whiting connection to it all, I don't doubt that they had a "plan to succeed" where  SGW would be the cornerstone of this. But if falls apart, well, they got their cash out of it, I imagine.

The number of members, 3200, is where it would be nice to hear more up to date figures, but if it is true, they managed to accumulate US$800K out of them, and if they managed to keep them all, are generating US$160K/month from them. I can imagine that the founders are making sure they skim a nice profit off the top of that, but still, this is a pretty good source of income to "keep the lights on".

However, it's not enough to run a beta, which is probably why its been two months since tkksnow said: "Builds are being completing [sic] and internal tests are occurring, but no set date on when we open the servers". With respect to the beta, being unable to fund it is actually the best light one can throw on the situation. The others in order of  "goodness" are:

1. they are looking to sell themselves and/or the license away and shut down, so the reason is similar to why there is a complete info blackout (it's only good because then maybe someone else can bring it to completion). And no, I don't buy the fact that they are "working too hard" to provide information. This is what you have the non-technical staff do, like marketing.
2. the game between the last beta and now has gotten completely bollixed up due to loss of talent, and they can't build a working game to even get past QA, not to mention put in front of beta testers.
3. he was being told facts from CME management that were lies
4. he's lying himself

I doubt the last is true, though perhaps #3 might be. I'm not sure that tkk is even in the CME office (being a community manager, he might not be). After years and years of corporate mismanagement (and political spin), I take no statement from any company representative (or politician) at face value. It is just a point of view that I weigh against other facts and common sense.

I had to laugh! I came across this yesterday in search of why all of MMOGULS management fled and how this event corresponds to CME and their ability to pay employees.

Apparently, the MMOGULS lifestyle is floating around on 99 cent floats, drinking beer in a free lake.   Remember, you too could have this lifestyle!!  (laugh)

MMOGULS Lifestyle

Originally posted by Kyriesunset

Apparently, the MMOGULS lifestyle is floating around on 99 cent floats, drinking beer in a free lake.

And using someone else's generic MLM coaching video to try to sell your product :-P

Wow, what an unfolding of events today. The team of executives and sales pods that left MMOGULS have created their own MLM, to compete with MMOGULS (assuming it resurrects itself) I Am Paid To Play boasts about their better discount mall, real games to play, and NO creepy malcom in the middle logo (whoever made that logo was the fail!).   I'm guessing their games will be web flash games. 

I know that many of you had your hopes set on seeing something happen at MMOGULS. I did as well. But if you think about it, what made you fall in love wasn't the name and certainly not the creepy logo. What attracted all of us was the simple business plan that acknowledged why network marketing is so difficult and showed us how each and every one of us could overcome the most common stumbling blocks associated with this industry. The promise and potential were truly staggering.
I also know that many of you expressed a desire to work together should a similar opportunity arise. I am happy to say that I have found that opportunity. Join us with your team this coming Saturday night to find out more.

Sincerely,
Todd Lawson

 

It looks like the only hope for Stargate Worlds is to possibly take these folks to court for some sort of breech of something /shrug Hopefully, Gary Whiting was smart enough to have had them all sign non-disclosures and non-compete when they came on board.
 

I saw a curious comment today on this video blog:

"I can’t believe Whiting would dare put out a email threating the down line of Moguls [sic]. Moguls [sic] & Whiting will be down in flames soon."

This is below the video, and is not part of it.

Anyone know what the poster is talking about?

I am by no means an MLM expert, but I will try to interpret what the comment on the video blog meant.

First, you have to understand a bit about MLM’s and their ‘down lines’. To build a successful MLM system, you need retention especially from the first set of recruits that you have out pimping your deal.

With the exodus of MMOGULS management team forming their own MLM, the new entity will most likely take everything already built under MMOGULS to the new gig.  I am guessing that Gary’s e-mail was to try to keep what he has already built and that person perceived it as an angry threat.

I doubt there is a new MMOGUL’s team already in place to lead these down lines – you have to keep feeding them cool aid to keep them happy and out getting new MMOGULS. Therefore, I would expect much attrition to the newest and hottest cool aid in town.

I would love to know what the old management of MMOGULS came across that was such shoddy business practices that they would all leave.
 

Originally posted by Zhiroc

I saw a curious comment today on this video blog:

"I can’t believe Whiting would dare put out a email threating the down line of Moguls [sic]. Moguls [sic] & Whiting will be down in flames soon."

This is below the video, and is not part of it.

Anyone know what the poster is talking about?

"Where do I sign up?"

No ... must stop greed ..... must hold back and reboot my common sense chip!

Ahh that's better.

Maybe the guy in the vid is an ex CME employee that is getting rich of his platinum account that all employees got? Maybe that's why they all left, CME didn't lay anyone off they quit as they were all making $15,000 an hour now and decided to retire to Hawaii? Just this guy is a really benevolent soul that wants to help us get rich the same way, he's so rich now he doesn't care about competion. Considering that every CME employee makes $600,000 in a working week of 40 hours why would they need a paycheck?

As for the guy posting, I'm not sure about the email but if I had to make a guess it would be that team Whiting is abandoning ship for their new pyramid scheme and sent an email to high level partners to get to the life boats. Maybe they passed it on and finally it's getting around?

But hey they're all making $600k a week, why would they be looking for new investors?

I listened to the first Mondelis (former execs from MOGGULS) conference call posted on their site. Brett talked about some of the reasons why he left MMOGULS after 3-4 weeks. First, he talked about how he didn’t have control of MMOGULS. Secondly, and more importantly, about how funds were missing from the MMOGULS accounts. (were the funds used to pay CME employees as planned or were they to support Gary's other stuff?)

Jeff Knowles, the credit card processor, first approached Brett with his concerns about the missing funds. Brett also encouraged people to call or write him or Jeff Knowles about what happened.  (anyone got their e-mail addresses?)

Mondelis jacked everything that MMOGULS had, down to the pricing, the compensation, etc. I bet they even have Jeff Knowles from Vision Bank Card processing for them too!

While Stargate Worlds has been shed of the MMOGULS shroud of shame, the game most likely will never get finished without the funds MOGGULS provided or one hell of an angel investor.   
 

hmm I say the funds that went "missing" where supposed to be used to help fund CME. So I say Gary Whiting pocketed the money to try and save his failing business's itzyourmall and nowcorp. Hopefully GW will get caught out for what he has done. GW can't really do anything about Brett saying what he did and if he did Brett has this info in his defence and GW will face criminal charges( heres hoping) :)