Got a big chunk of writing at lunch yesterday. Was depressed to find that I got twice as much written in half an hour than I did in two hours at the type and gripe. I don’t know why I hoped to be more productive there. I’m usually not. Overall making good progress to hit 70K by the end of the month. Assuming, of course, that I can manage to wring that much plot out of the book. =P
Current Word Count: 56640
New Words: +1014
Words to Go: ~13360
Today – Writing at lunch, gaming in the evening.
Tomorrow – Gaming in the afternoon. Evening and morning are free. Need to get some game prep done. Or, at least, I need to get more familiar with the baroque rules.
Sunday – Coffee with a friend in the morning, gaming in the afternoon. Possible writing in the evening if I have any energy left.
Monday – Possible exercise at lunch assuming my toe is better. Writing in the evening.
Tuesday – Writing at lunch. Dinner with a friend in the evening.
Wednesday – Possible exercise at lunch, assuming toe improvement. Date night in the evening.
Thursday – Writing at lunch and in the evening.
Friday – Exercise at lunch and writing in the evening.
Saturday – Getting together with a friend in the afternoon, possibly to write. Going to a burlesque show in the evening.
Sunday – I have most of the day free, aside from a trip with the Buddhism Meetup to the zoo.
How does a guy get expelled from a company that has something like two products and virtually no sales? It’s not like he was forced out by the shareholders.
They have a bit more than just two products, but mostly it’s PDF publishing:
http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=557
The basic story as I understand it is that after getting a few products in print, and a few PDF items, Hopcroft was turning a profit. Not a huge profit, mind you. Heartquest sold something like 600 copies over six months. Which I think is impressive given the number of problems with the book (extensive typos, inconsistent rules, literally amateurish art) and the fact that he did absolutely no advertising outside of word of mouth.
So, feeling ambitious, he started recruiting people wanting to get something in print in the game industry. I was one of those poor shmucks. He offered no money up front, simply a poorly worded contract that offered a percentage of profits from the books sales.
Along the way, he had some people that wanted to invest in his enterprise, and he went from a sole proprietorship to a full-fledged corporation. And that’s where life for Hopcroft went down hill.
I wasn’t privy to any of the specific events. I just saw his gradual fall from grace through various announcements, and his occasional attacking of his fellow SG staff on the official mailing lists and in off-list discussions. Starting out he was the President.
In early February the company formed some sort of alliance with Windstorm Creative. The exact details of the alliance have been unclear. The general impression I get is that Windstorm is the senior partner.
I got an email in early March saying that Michael had resigned from his position as “Chairman” for personal reasons, mostly to focus on his writing. Hopcroft popped up a little bit later to publicly confirm this and introduce the new president, William Andersen. Hopcroft’s title at that point was “Creative Director.”
In April Hopcroft made a cryptic statement to the effect of, “Until I am formally relieved of those duties, I am continuing to serve as Line Dveeloper.”
In May Andersen was replaced by Chris Gurnee, the current President I guess. That same month the VP announced that “Michael is no longer exclusively in charge of product development.” A few days after that email, there was apparently a post to a Fudge mailing list from Hopcroft announcing that he was forming his own company due to difficulties with the management of SG.
Earlier this month, Gurnee announced on the site, “We are currently under brand new management who will attempt to fill the giant shoes left over from the departure of our founder, Michael Hopcroft.”