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Investigation into Paragon Institute Raises More Than a Few Red Flags - Marvel Heroes Omega - MMORPG
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Investigation into Paragon Institute Raises More Than a Few Red Flags - Marvel Heroes Omega - MMORPG.com
Marvel Heroes Omega News - Remember Paragon Institute and it's IndieGoGo campaign called Marvel Heroes Rebirth? You may recall its hope to talk Disney in to buying up the assets from the now-closed Marvel Heroes Online? If so, you'll be fascinated to read MMOFallout's discovery when trying to track down the Institute and its owner. While nothing outright fraudulent appears to be going on, the writer believes that there are more than a few red flags raised with regard to the "Institute" itself, as well as the credentials of its founder.
Comments
Good job MMORPG for reporting this scam.
Oh wait, this project hasn't left the $300 range for donations. I guess most people didn't need his protection.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Information is power and the intelligence of our readers proves that they absolutely understood what this "project" was. Kudos to our discerning readers.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's incredible that providing information means that there is no need for the reporter to investigate, read further, look at the information you are presenting and decide whether what you are doing is right. Just read anything and put it up on the feed, I suppose. If MMORPG wants to take a loose definition of news and take no responsibility for what is posted or how the information might be construed, then at least it's good to know that when reading the "news" here now.
Okay, so if its a news event story, and a section of readers say that they think this is a scam and shouldn't be reported as simply a "news event" the answer is to talk down to them in the most condescending way possible?
If I had money, I'd bet on Lucas and Disney keeping their money. And possibly mine.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
#GG
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
C o m e o n!! The one who report the News is held responsible for the authenticity of the News. mmorpg.com didn't quote another News site ( like they did here ). They reported directly from the source. That is the problem. But hey! Is like you want this site to throw any shit of "News".
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
I think I pretty much did yesterday. And asked the question what did Indigogo do.
Oh wait here is the Indigogo Trust & Safety statement:
We have safeguards in place
Your trust in Indiegogo is important. We do our best to ensure you have a positive and safe experience with Indiegogo. Our experienced Trust & Safety team is as passionate about innovation as our community is, and we’re dedicated to making sure that we do everything we can to prevent fraud on the platform so that we can keep you safe. This includes both automated and manual reviews of campaigns, and working closely with payment leaders to ensure your funds are processed securely and efficiently. We also have round-the-clock monitoring to protect the information we collect online and prevent unauthorized access.
Our team also investigates real-time feedback and concerns from our community and partners. We hold our campaign owners accountable, from verifying the identity information they provide to making sure they communicate frequently with their backers. Indiegogo does not tolerate abuse of our system and takes appropriate action when necessary to maintain the integrity of our platform.
Well ... if this passed the automated and manual reviews of campaigns .... it doesn't say much about their reviewe process.
MMORPG did their job. They reported the news and more information as it became available.
It's still news, the original news article is still correct, and some people (primarily, you) need to deal with it. Fraud or not, it doesn't invalidate that it is news, that people are responsible for their actions and their wallets, and that posting of any news isn't an endorsement of whatever it is the story is on.
It's like some people have never read the news before, lol.
News Policeman might be something an orange clown might come up with, but it is not, as of yet, a current occupation. You win no points for trying to shout down an unbiased piece of informative news.
Thank you, SBFord, for reminding me that real journalism is still alive somewhere.
Oh and fuck the haters. They just gonna hate.
I want to address this bit because I think there is an important distinction here.
The legislation that I quote in the article and that the company is talking about is unrelated to public domain. Parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act deal with criminalizing the circumvention of copyright protection tools, for instance bypassing a key check or server authentication. For a long time, this meant that if a company shut its authentication servers down, customers were out of luck.
A few years back, the DMCA rules were changed to exempt defunct video games. This doesn't put the games in the public domain or relinquish the company's ownership of them, it offers limited legal protection to people cracking games that have been rendered unplayable due to, for instance, CD authentication servers no longer being online. This exemption only extended to single player games, did not cover online servers, and there has been a push to expand that exemption to allow for entities to bypass restrictions and bring online servers for defunct online games and MMOs.
It doesn't revoke ownership of said property, but it essentially allows for protection regarding products that the rights holder has shown no interest in supporting (and thus would have no damages to claim), or is no longer around to support. To put it in perspective for Marvel Heroes for example, if this exemption gets pushed through a group would be protected should they decide to create a Marvel Heroes private server. This would not, however, give them the rights to develop new content or profit off of said game.
The instance about public domain in my piece was a backup plan noted in the Indiegogo Campaign that if the attempt to secure the Marvel license fell through, that the Marvel licensed heroes would be replaced by old characters that are already in the Public Domain and thus could be added without licensing issues.
I don't feel that they properly served the readers here and were a bit lazy to blindly link it.
Not to rain on your parade but it actually came from MMOBomb
and MMOFallout. MMORPG.com reported on it here since most of us missed those sites.
As a friend once said it best; ignorance is the choice not to know.
Hold on now for a moment, was it not your website that directed your viewers to this scam gofundme in the first place (without doing your due diligence to verify it was legit)?? Kind of shocked how you are washing your hands of this bungle to be honest. I just hope none of your patrons donated to this before some other website did the homework for you...You really should do a little more investigating before you direct your viewers to scam gofundme's.
except mmorpg didn't, infact they were irresponsible in directing their viewers in the first place without doing their own due diligence as a news site, you know information and all...its funny apparently everyone else is supposed to do their homework and fact check stuff EXCEPT this news website who publishes the "information"
uhm WRONG, there is an intrinsic responsibility that is part of providing news "to verify its actual real information". that is what news actually means its real verified unbiased facts or that is what it was supposed to mean before liberals hijacked the industry and turned it into a propaganda machine. Good try though lol.
We want independant, non judgemental reporting and that is exactly what we got. I am all in favor of it.
Also, it isn't a scam until proven, even though it looks like it.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Here's another newsflash for you, kickstarters start every single day. I guess you backed all of those that were reported on too right?
The audacity to give people information and expect them to just have the information instead of expecting them to throw their money at projects.
The worst part is, the first post was factual and accurate, it's just a shame that there are people out there that need every piece of information spoonfed to them immediately for fear their little butts might get wet from their tears if they make a poor decision and back the wrong thing.