Blackmoor Vituperative

In a surprising turn, after ignoring two separate previous emails [1] [2] (one of which was also CC’d to Ben Seeman, another Hero Games representative), I did get responses to Aloha, Hero Games from Darren Watts and Steve Long.

From Darren Watts:

I’m sorry, Mr. Blackmoor, but I honestly haven’t the slightest idea what you’re referring to. I assume the unnamed “representative” you mention is Dan Simon, and I’m aware that you do not believe that he doesn’t work for us, so I won’t bother to go through that discussion again. I haven’t received any previous letters from you, at least since our discussion of the veracity of our claims about 5ER’s paper quite some time ago. I’m not aware of what you think we should be apologizing for, so it’s not a surprise that I haven’t done so. As for offering us thousands of dollars of work, I have neither received such an offer from you, nor are we in any need of editing or layout assistance. I certainly have not “jerked you around,” as I’ve had no discussions with you about such a thing in any way. I don’t know who is in your gaming group who may have been banned- if there’s a specific banning you’d like us to review, I’ll be happy to, but once again I haven’t the slightest idea to whom you are referring. (And I personally have only ever banned one user in my life, which happened about a year ago, so I’m pretty sure you’re misinformed about my involvement in any bannings recently.) I hope this is a simple misunderstanding which can be resolved, but I’ll need some information to go on. If you’re interested in discussing the matter, please let me know. dw

From Steve Long:

To echo Darren’s response, I’ve received no e-mails or other communications from you for many months, until this one. I have no idea at all what you’re referring to.

As for your offer of “thousands of dollars’ worth of professional editing and layout work,” in no way, shape, or form did we “jerk you around.” We attempted to take you up on your offer, which was generous, but it quickly became apparent that you are simply too unpleasant a person to work with. This latest letter of yours only proves the point. A mature, reasonable, polite person would first politely inquire about whether we received the first letter. You instead prefer to become hostile and insulting and to make baseless accusations. There are plenty of decisions I’ve made in my professional life that I might make differently if I had them to make over again, but deciding not to work with you definitely isn’t one of them.

If you’re willing to raise any concerns you have in a polite, reasonable, and mature fashion, we’ll certainly look into them. If you’re going to continue to be rude and accusatory, then please stop wasting your time and ours — just go away.

Steve Long
HERO System Line Developer

Claiming not to have received the previous two emails, when they both admit to receiving this one, is an odd claim to make. Odd enough for me to wonder if somehow they (and Ben Seeman) really didn’t receive the previous two emails. But that really does seem unlikely.

Watts refers to a discussion of the paper used in Hero System Fifth Edition Revised. You can read the facts in my review of that book. The “discussion” Watts refers to was the attempt by Hero Games to spin those facts.

As for not jerking me me around, Dan Simon’s not being a representative of Hero Games, or Hero Games not having banned my friends from their discussion forum, these are either deliberate deceptions or the result of willful ignorance. Which it is, I really do not care: the motivation for each, and the result, is the same.

In case anyone is curious, “jerking me around” consisted of giving me a manuscript to lay out, without a style guide, without any of the images or even the sizes of the images to later be inserted, and with numerous passages “to be written later”. I asked several times for the missing content, but it was never provided. Finally, I realized that either these guys really didn’t have their act together, or they were screwing with me, so I withdrew my offer of free editing and layout work. At the time, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and assumed they were just incredibly disorganized. I no longer think that is that case.

I want to point out that, in all three of the emails I’ve sent them, I haven’t asked Watts or Long for anything for myself. I didn’t ask for my access to the Hero Games forum to be restored, nor did I ask for an apology for being jerked around last year. All I asked for was for them to apologize for allowing their respresentatives to treat their customers so poorly (my friends are only the latest in a long line of such customers), and to make a credible effort to prevent it from happening again. If they had done these two small things, they would have regained my respect and my patronage. But not only would they not do that, they couldn’t resist throwing a few parting shots my way.

On the bright side, it makes me feel a bit better about not buying their products anymore.