The Cataclysm is Here...
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Post Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2020 3:03 am 
 

mbassoc2003 wrote in The Cataclysm is Here...:By hanging his son out to dry?! I can't see a father doing that to his own son.


Maybe he’s not deliberately doing that but my thoughts are this.

Bill ran the Acaeum KS in his name and promoted it hugely here and online. 7 years later and it’s still not landed completely for most people and it took over 5years to get anywhere near anyway.

He was online a lot then, holding his hands up and saying, “it’s on me” but that became less and less frequent. I spoke to Bill privately once and he had some private stuff going on which I’ve never shared, nor would I. Whilst I understand that was sad, he still kept missing promises and failing.

He came back to the Acaeum months ago when I called him up on this KS and he said he’d read the comments and reply the next day. That was 3 months+ ago.

Now his son (or possibly Bill himself again) has launched KS through PGS so if you look for their history it looks rosy. You look for Bills on KS and it’s shite. You can link his failures to the Acaeum KS and it doesn’t make good reading. You look up PGS and there’s no link now on KS to the Acaeum KS.

You could consider that a ploy to distance from the past. You could consider it a ploy to hide your past to glean another load of free cash.

From what I’ve read on the PGS KS comments section there appears to be a pattern that resembles the Acaeum KS almost like a mirror. Missed deadlines, broken promises, same excuses about change of email addresses, no response to direct contact with PGS.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pa ... d/comments

For me, this is borderline fraud as it’s an act potentially knowingly unfulfilling their KS completely so they get a shitload of money and produce a bare minimum over a very, very long time.

So for the same excuses and same failings, it sounds very much like father, like son. If I lived in the States, I’d be reporting them to the Milford (?) authorities and requesting a review of their company finances.


Edit addition -

In fact, having just checked the PGS KS profile, it is Bill, just using his full name, William, however Ben appears to be the one answering the questions online.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pa ... reator_bio


If you look at all their KS via the “6 created” button, there’s certainly a theme here!!


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2020 5:21 am 
 

Either way, Ben has a lot more to lose, and is the logical target to bring about some form of restitution.
You go after Ben's reputation and make him despised in the gaming for what he and his family do. You confront him at on mass at conventions, complain about his presence with potential employers in the industry destroying those employers' trusty worthy images with his links to his family, and do everything you can to publicise him and what he and his doing.
The natural response to that from Pacesetter is either, 'F*ck you! We will keep taking until we get shut down and we don't give a F! about our child's reputation' with Ben just following along like a simp.
Or, they will say, 'Okay this is getting out of hand. We're really sorry and we will immediately return the funds to those who want them, and those who can take the loss, we'll give yous our complete range in digital form because they cost us nothing but go some way to saying, thank-you.' At that point Ben tries his best to restore his reputation with a real employer if he can find one that won't push him out the door in response to publicity and public pressure, and Pacesetter kill the company and quietly open a completely new brand hoping they have either quelled the fires of old.

But, nothing will happen if only a half dozen people actually give a sh!t. And if only half a dozen people actually give a sh!t, then from a business point of view they have taken the right course of action. They have found a source of money that requires minimal work and are milking it while its available to them.

Social media as a means of rectifying problems only works when people care enough to talk and take action. I suspect that 99% of backers to things don't really give a F if they ever receive something or not. They go in at the minimum amount just so they can feel good about themselves for helping out. Just like GoFundMe and a lot of the beggar sites out there. They just want that personal self congratulatory pat on the ego, because maybe Ms Jones gets her medial bill paid, Company X survives another year, or Little Billy Wronged gets to sue the city. 99% couldn't give flying F! if the money doesn't ever get spend on what they patted themselves on the back about, just so long as they get their momentary feeling of, 'aren't I a good person.'

If you're in the 1% your problem is whether it's worth it to get together with the other 1%ers who actually care, are willing to organise, publicise and campaign for restitution.

Personally, when I go in to these things, I tend to go in at higher levels, and I really try to be selective with the projects I back. When I invested in RJK and then PP latterly, it was because of who he was and what he had already given to the hobby. If he had failed to produce I would not have cared. He had already given me so much enjoyable reading that I would have considered it an honorarium. When I put money into James Raggi I didn't know him from Adam, but from talking with him I could see he understood the difference between what the majority were putting out  and what a quality product really was, and I believed he was really going to publish a quality product, so I agreed to buy in bulk and resell them on eBay. I stopped after Vornheim, but I understand he had a really good innings, and I have no idea why the company withered. The rise of gig culture means authors and artists of quality no longer need to attached themselves to any one publisher.

I suspect Ben's problem is he's not an author but a middle man. A project manager. And it's so easy to fail at that when you're surrounded by f*ckw!ts.

With Cataclysm... Were the maps really just scans of graph paper and magic markers!? It costs like $200-300 to hire a cartographer. WTF!


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Post Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:13 am 
 

mbassoc2003 wrote in The Cataclysm is Here...:Maybe we should keep a list of bad Kickstarter and Indigogo recipients and track them, out their future projects and publicise their frauds to future backers. Just like we track and out eBay fraudsters and their new IDs.


It would be a much shorter list to track the ones that ran a project well.  :lol:


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Post Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2020 9:13 pm 
 

I promised myself I would not post here. Every time I see a bump, the anger and frustration though... Like how many times can one blame needing an address, or waiting til they get home from work, or fluffing stamps dot com?  Put the book in the mail, or print off some more, or refund the money.  Dodging your customers who’ve prepaid for your work is as shady as it gets. But I am repressing my bitterness and won’t post. I feel bad for others like me for all this baloney.


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2020 3:11 am 
 

Maybe the thread should be re-titled 'Don't buy from Pacesetter Games'.
It would be in keeping with the general sentiment.

Reading and watching a lot from FGG and in particular Matt's opinion on delivery products as promised, and the risks with Kickstarter projects, and Chuck Wright's opinions on what constitutes a good quality product in particular.

Is it possible Ben Barsh was 'pushed' because his values in regard to delivery and quality don't align with FGG?
Or did he really think he could introduce quality and integrity to Pacesetter Games?
Based on the performance being displayed to date in Pacesetter, maybe FGG found him wanting?


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2020 10:37 am 
 

A Knight's Tale ...

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Post Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2020 12:56 pm 
 

Hahaha brilliant


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Post Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2020 4:35 pm 
 

Pacesetter Games now has a channel on Youtube.

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Post Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:20 pm 
 

Is the "Pacesetter Games" in this thread the same as Goblinoid Games? Goblinoid Games – Old-School Games since 2006

  


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 2:21 am 
 

sauromatian wrote in The Cataclysm is Here...:Is the "Pacesetter Games" in this thread the same as Goblinoid Games? Goblinoid Games – Old-School Games since 2006


I believe Bill picked up the Pacesetter name years ago from an older company, from memory.

Looking at the Goblinoid games site, there’s one thing that worries me to say it is to do with Bill. It’s using a yahoo.com email address which screams Bill Barsh but digging around on KS and Goblinoid games is being run it seems by someone else thankfully

Might be worth looking at the Pacesetter link though the KS run by Goblinoid all seem legit


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 3:13 am 
 

It's possible Goblinoid are acting as publisher for Pacesetter, on account of Pacesetter not being able to manage that side of the business well, and also now offering their back catalogue of old Pacesetter IP.
Would be worth asking Goblinoid directly exactly what their tie is to the Pacesetter advertised on their website, and if then asked why, or if reluctant to explain, offer the explanation of concerns for their company's previously good reputation, and the increasing deteriorating quality coming out of the Pacesetter staff, and the repeated failure/looting of customers through serial failed Kickstarters.

How many Kickstarters have there been in the past 6 or 7 years?
How many were completed and delivered?


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 4:41 am 
 

It looks like Goblinoid Games own the old Pacesetter Limited from the 1980s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacesetter_Ltd) and some of their old games like Timemaster and that isn’t connected with Bill Barsh’s company, which simply uses a very similar name, Pacesetter Games & Simulations.

  


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 6:59 am 
 

This is where Bill launched PGS to the site

Looking for Logo Artist

I thought he’d referenced Pacesetter somewhere saying it was defunct, but I can’t find it... Seems it’s a slight change of name but not related to the original Paceseter and Goblinoid games thankfully


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 8:14 am 
 

You mean this post? Unauthorized

  

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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 8:21 am 
 

Why would you name your company after another company and pretend you're something you're not? Lack of imagination? Desire to profit off of someone else's merit?
That's no different from me setting up a company called Troll Lords, Necromancer or Frog God Publications? If he had no right to bask in the glory of the old company, that should have been a red flag from day one as to how the 'family business' as Ben Barsh puts it, was going to operate.

bbarsh wrote in Pacesetter GS - Suggestion Box:So I decided to try and carry on with the legacy.

Well that went well. Glad the Pacesetter name still has the same connotations as it did back in the day.


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 1:25 pm 
 

What seems weird is his other choice was Task Force Games and Simulations. Another non-defunct company.

Also what is the Simulations bit?  Is he simulating being a games company?

  

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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 1:36 pm 
 

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 2:28 pm 
 

:lol:  :lol:


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