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It seems some internal documents concerning the Amico were leaked from a disgruntled employee. Hilarious stuff.
https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/l...t-grim-picture
Here's some direct links to download the documents themselves.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Intellivisi...vest_in_amico/
I was optimistic before, but now I think it's time for us to accept it, Greg2600. It's not going pull through and be released.
Man that is one toxic reddit page... Must suck for the people who are actual fans of the product. But I guess that is Reddit for you.
I have not been optimistic about this thing for more than 2 years. Just wanted to point out that the trademark hadn't been completely given up, though now it has.
The vitriol towards this project, similarly to others in the past, both successful and unsuccessful, always shocks me. Why is there such vitriol in the gaming community? These are TOYS!!! It's not politics, it's not life or death issues, or religion. They're effing toys.
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I find it strange that people who have been into gaming for as long as the average user here would be asking 'why drama'. Drama runs this shit and has since the Atari days. There were likely two assholes arguing over how Tennis for Two was bullshit and that one intern was a fucking cheater while performing oscilloscope maintenance.
In this case, the vitriol is because the names SoCalMike and Tommy Talarico are at the top of the project list. Two clowns with a hiking trails length worth of failed projects and all the charisma of a Trump statue made from wet socks. This was doomed right out the gate and literally anyone with adult level object permeance knew that from word damn one. I get that folks like to jerk them off around here, but times come to call an apple an apple.
Last edited by JSoup; 08-15-2022 at 09:12 PM.
what gets me about this whole thing is how this thing is in dev hell while the Evercade can come out of no where, actually sell, and the handheld version seems to be getting an upgrade, all while these guys just eff up a decent name.
its gotta be some sort of money laundering/front for something.
usually when people screw up this often they dont have any one to work with after a while but these guys seem to keep getting backed for more projects that never see the light of day
I've got the first reply in this topic, and yeah.....I called it. Not surprised by any of this. I'm more surprised that so many people actually believed in the project.
As for how somebody like Tommy Tallarico keeps getting people to work with him, he's a huge shmoozer, and he loves to name-drop Steven Tyler being his cousin. I wouldn't be surprised if the latter actually worked for him at some point in his life or if he asked his cousin for a favor at some point. With the fields he's worked in, meeting the right people at the right time gets you further than talent and experience.
I don't know this SoCalMike but Tommy had a positive reputation in the gaming industry, he's not someone that those who have actually worked in the industry viewed as a crook. Yeah I get the drama is what the internet is, but my point was it's like every project that comes around, there's vicious hate for. Unless you stay within a small niche group only, such as flash cart makers. Though hell, Krikzz got blasted for fleeing Ukraine with Russian bombs dropping by immature douche's who were pissed he hadn't shipped their orders.
I think they were honestly working on the product up until the pandemic. Was it along enough? Did they have a proper financial plan? Who knows at this point. The pandemic ended the project one way or the other, and Tommy and co. had to have known they were screwed, mostly out of no fault of theirs. Commissioning chips at that point was going to be impossible. Then they tried begging for more money, at which point forget it. Maybe it was never going to happen? They bit off too much here, I don't know, we'll never know.
The Evercade is based on existing hardware technology, and utilizes emulation software which already exist. The Amico crew were building something largely from scratch, it's apples and oranges.
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That's Mike Kennedy, the creator of RETRO Video Game Magazine, former owner of Game Gavel, and scammer with the fake/non-existent Coleco Chameleon console. If you're unaware of who he is or what the Coleco Chameleon was, there's various threads on this forum which you can search for. It was a big deal back when it all happened and I'm surprised you're unaware of all of it.
Plenty of people already hated him for years. Not for scamming, but just being someone unlikable with a massive ego. People remember him from G4 when he reviewed games on a show, apparently giving bad reviews to good games because he's not skilled enough at playing games and just outright dislikes certain genres. Choosing someone already disliked to be the front face of your new product isn't the greatest move.
Most projects just seem unnecessary or exploitative, or ineptly handled. Very few seem like they're actually something useful or competently put together. When a project seems like it's creating a solution for a problem that doesn't exist, of course collectors call them out. Nobody likes being exploited. Most projects are simply a waste of time and potentially a waste of money for most of the intended targeted market.
Who knows at this point? That's literally mentioned in the documents that were leaked, the ones I mentioned in this thread. No, they didn't have a proper financial plan even before the first e-begging started. I posted an article earlier that sums up parts of the documents to make it easier to sort through, and through that article there's various other links to other things people noticed when looking over the documents.
Like noticing a mathematical "irregularity" in the Amico investment pitch. They were incompetent from the beginning, or actual frauds deliberately falsifying values at the worst.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Intellivisi...co_investment/
You may never know but most other people will as the information is now available publicly.
First off, Mike Kennedy had zero to do with the AMICO project or Intellivision, so other than to compare him to Tommy, his name has no relevance to the project. I personally am not a TT fan, never have been, but I also didn't hate on the guy. He had a lot of old industry support and friendships, as did the others who worked at the head of the AMICO project. Frankly, if you examined any project or company like this, you might *gasp* at the holes in planning or financing. Quite a lot is done with risk. Higher the risk, higher the reward. Honestly this entire thing bores the hell out of me. I'm of the opinion that had it came out at retail, I probably would have bought one to give it a whirl. I don't do kickstarters anymore almost never, I find them useless. I have pre-ordered many homebrew hardware after it's been shown to work. My point remains that I truly don't understand the need by many in the game fandom (no one here) to waste their time lampooning these projects. Frankly the Pat Contri videos were simply cringeworthy. Enough already.
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I never said he did.
You said you didn't know who that was so I just gave information on who he is. Of course, now I actually spent time researching and there are some connections between Mike Kennedy and Intellivision CEO Phil Adam, apparently Mike Kennedy considers him a personal friend, and Phil Adams was the "VP of Business Development" for the Coleco Chameleon.
Here's a transcript of an interview Mike Kennedy gave where he mentions Phil Adam and calls him a personal friend.
https://www.retrogamingroundup.com/d...Transcript.pdf
And here's where Intellivision Amico CEO Phil Adam had direct involvement with the Coleco Chameleon. It's funny how someone directly involved with the Coleco Chameleon console is now involved with this failed Intellivision console.
https://i.imgur.com/44MoEy3.png
I'm not saying Phil Adams is a scammer, just that he has direct connections to Mike Kennedy and the Coleco Chameleon. I didn't even know this until researching now, I never said they were connected previously.
There was also a forum post elsewhere where Phil Adam is given credit for helping educate Mike Kennedy on how to turn his idea into an actual product, good work right there. This was posted right before the Chameleon was revealed to be a scam, and the original post is gone or unviewable so I can't post a link to it here. All I can find is a crappy video still showing it so I'm not bothering to post it.
Personally I didn't know who he was outside of hearing him involved with the Amico, I've only looked into him now. Most information I can find about him online basically calls him a douchebag. I've never met him so I wouldn't know, he just talks trash a lot in interviews and seemed to make up a ton of incorrect information about the Amico he was promoting.
I'd be more willing to believe the financing was normal if it wasn't tied to a company that went bankrupt during development of it's very first product. These are supposed to be well experienced professionals too, not just young adults fresh out of high school or college just trying to start something out of their basement or garage.
For me, money isn't as disposable as it is for other people. I wouldn't just buy something for hundreds of dollars just to "give it a whirl", I would have to do research to verify and decide if it's worth spending the money on, and do I really need it or actually want it enough to justify the purchase. I know plenty of people are ok with going to a casino and losing thousands of dollars and just consider it fun, but that's not me.
I barely knew any of the behind the scenes stuff until now, I never usually bother to do so much searching with random kickstarter projects but it seems like I have to give explicit evidence on why I don't support projects that seem outright sketchy when introduced. Maybe I'm just not as much of an optimist as you are. I just want to verify if a product or project is worth supporting before I throw money at it or hype it up like it's the next great thing. Maybe some people want to warn others before they invest in something sketchy thinking it'll be a sure thing, plenty of people lose money on these failures and scams.
Pat Contri is cringeworthy. I don't like him much in general as he comes across as irritating to me for whatever reason.
Skepticism about this project I understand, but I don't get the hate and anger either. I mean, nobody was forced to put any money down for it. Don't like what you see? Then don't give it a cent and move on. You haven't been slighted by the mere existence of the project. But this is what modern times are all about. Everybody is divisive and raging about everything, and gamers in particular are, or have become, some of the most hateful malcontents I've come across. I know a ton of people who like retro and modern games just the same as me but won't refer to themselves as "gamers", not anymore at least, just because it has such a negative connotation now that they don't want to associate with. I remember when gamers used to get online to talk to other gamers about what they loved and were excited about and, generally, what brought them joy. Now gaming discussion is mostly people just talking about what they dislike ad nauseam. Having a baby and having a lot less time for interacting with people online has honestly been great for me.
Phil Adam was one of many who were duped by Mike Kennedy; that might have been motivation for getting the AMICO project off the ground for Phil and others.
I should have said, give it a whirl and then sell it!! Trust me, when they sold out and never made more, people would want one. It's a game console, pretty sure I would have made my money back the way eBay is these days. I actually shared your skepticism, that's why I didn't go near the crowd funding or pre-orders for this thing. Anyway, in terms of "experienced professionals" this is really where a lot of these projects go off the rails. They are NOT people who have spent much if any time running software/hardware businesses. I'm not sure if AMICO had anyone who was, like I said, didn't pay it a lot of attention. They likely did not.
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So if you saw someone actively being scammed by someone else, you'd just ignore it and mind your business as you personally weren't being affected?
I personally wouldn't care so much if these types of projects weren't being publicly funded. Just wait for a review of the completed project and make a decision. If you're asking for other peoples' money up front when you don't have anything tangible at that point, that bothers me. If you're asking for money up front, there's going to be people more critical of what you're producing and of your development process. Plenty of completed projects still took years too long to actually get released, people who funded those projects still remember that. I think people openly point out visible warning signs with these projects the same way consumer affairs shows try to warn others of avoiding scams. These projects make the hobby look bad.
That includes me. The idea of a "gamer" is basically someone who plays either FIFA or Fortnite for 12 hours a day, every day. Video games aren't my entire life, and I play them far less now than I ever used to.
There's just far less to talk about now with video games. There's really no more "hidden gems" waiting to be discovered as it's all been discovered and talked about endlessly online, there's few lost/unreleased games that are being found now, most information about older games' development has been openly discussed online by the original programmers, etc.
It used to be that I could find a bunch of cheap games and just start playing them to discover a new game I would like, something I never heard of previously, but that doesn't happen anymore. Really the main way to find games now is to fully research a title to find something you want, then pay full retail for it, usually online and shipped directly to you. There's just less to be excited to talk about these days related to the hobby. Most talk about older consoles is related to emulation or modifying hardware in some way.
Plus looking at modern games, there's very little I look forward to anymore. Modern games by large studios are mostly online focused, digital download only, endless DLC, crammed with loot boxes and microtransactions, etc. I just don't like what video games are anymore from most studios. And plenty of independent releases are are like this Amico project, just kickstarted with questionable unproven developers, or are just cheap ripoffs of other better games. Plus there's plenty of talk about abuse of employees in the industry now, it's not the fun industry to be in anymore. There's lots of things to dislike with the hobby these days.
Ok, that's fair. Planning to sell it off makes sense. Though I'm not sure if you'd make a profit on it, there's a good chance it'll still be a loss after you played with it. Or are consoles like the Ouya collectible and valuable now? I really don't keep up with modern consoles or independent projects like this, I just don't find them interesting like with older hardware.
Phil Adam was the president of several large video game companies including Spectrum Holobyte and Interplay, you would think that's enough experience to run a software business today. Or at least to know if a company you work for as CEO isn't being run properly and to leave as fast as you can from it.
I don't like seeing people get scammed, but what I see as a scam isn't necessarily going to match what others claim is a scam. People are both extremely hyperbolic and entitled these days and will scream "Scam!", "Thief!", etc. even over something shipping a couple days later than the buyer expected. I think most campaigns on crowdfunding services aren't scams. I don't think the Amico was designed to be a scam either. Crowdfunding is a gamble, however, and every service frames it as such to cover their butts. That's why I think crowdfunding sucks, and I generally avoid it because I've never been fully satisfied with what I got out of any campaign I've backed. In my experience, there's always been something promised that wasn't totally delivered on. But that's sort of the nature of any product, crowdfunded or not. Better to wait and see what it is in the end than blindly trust the marketing. So I wouldn't recommend people crowdfund these types of projects, but I wouldn't tell them it's a scam either.
As for making new discoveries, I feel there's plenty left to explore in gaming. There are tens of thousands of games I've never played, dozens of systems I've never touched, new things I learn about games I have played, and so on. I care more about genuine interactions where I talk about my personal experiences with somebody talking about their personal experiences than some e-peen contest to see who has info to share that's never been shared before. I couldn't care less how thoroughly something has been covered online. I'm not here to break news, I just want the socializing that can be had over a shared loved hobby. I derive no pleasure from a social interaction that's like "I hate this" and "Yeah, I hate that too. This hobby sucks now."
YoshiM (08-22-2022)
t least compared to the Chameleon, at least people were able to play with real functioning controllers and such. It LOOKED like it could be fun but me personally can't justify it. It's sad that it went sour because they could have had something pretty fun.
Not every crowdfunding project is an actual scam, or at least isn't intended to be when started. I suppose I mostly mean projects where the creators are grossly incompetent, though essentially claiming that you're skilled enough to deliver a finished quality product when you're not is basically scamming. If I'm hiring a "professional" plumbing company I would be angry if the three stooges showed up to do the work. This Intellivision project just screamed incompetence from the beginning, which is really what killed the project in the end.
Although with crowdfunding in general it's basically a scam as the people giving money are taking all the risk, yet won't ever get a portion of the profits if it's successful, which is what investing actually is supposed to be. It's like buying a lottery ticket where the potential grand prize is just the same cost as the original ticket price. Crowdfunding should really be used to pay for essentially completed projects where the creators can't afford the final manufacturing costs, the last step of a project.
As for new discoveries in gaming, I'm sure there's still plenty I could find for myself but it just seems so much more difficult and time consuming compared to years earlier. I'm sure I could still find new games I've never heard of which are actually good, but it feels like I would need to search for several hours to find anything promising. Years ago I could just ask on a forum for recommendations, these days I would probably already know most if not all of the titles people would recommend. As for hidden secrets with games, it's more like any game I was curious about the programming like how certain effects were done on older consoles, those games are already fully discussed online. It's not that I constantly want new things to learn about with games, but what I've mostly been curious about has already been found and talked about so those mysteries are answered for me. Same with certain lost unreleased games, a lot of the big ones have already been found and explored. I do still have plenty of games in my collection I still haven't got to playing, I just haven't spent time playing games lately at all. There's just not as much to talk about with gaming for me anymore.
CEO message (finally) sent to backers....
Greetings,
This is Phil Adam, CEO of Intellivision. I had planned to respond sooner with the company status, but the team has been working through some production pipeline bugs that have delayed this update. As I've stated previously, updates from myself will be made when material facts are available and relevant. That being said, here are a few updates.
1. One of the primary goals for the small pilot run was to uncover any issues in the production pipeline before starting a larger production run. Fortunately, we did catch one significant problem. Diagnosing this issue and implementing a solution was a significant effort and caused a delay. The symptoms pointed to a bug in the controller firmware, but that was not the case. The problem was an order-of-operations issue when provisioning the console on the production line with its unique identifiers and security keys. The error manifested on the next reboot in a way that looked like a controller bug. With that resolved, the path is clear to finish the pilot run in the next few weeks.
2. We signed a licensing deal with BBG Entertainment GmbH, the details of which will be announced later. Here is a quote from Stephan Berendsen, Managing Director:
"We are very pleased to have licensed four Amico games and the original game versions from Intellivision. For the past three years we have been working with Intellivision on the development of our games DYNABLASTER and BRAINDUEL for Amico. We are excited about Amico and hope that customers will be as well. We are looking forward to offering the four licensed Amico games and original Intellivision versions on other platforms soon.”
3. We have another partnership deal that will ensure that 2 of our most anticipated IPs will be available across multiple platforms as well as Amico. The details of that relationship will be announced at a later time. The target for these IPs is simultaneously (or later) with the Amico release.
Given that we will have a limited number of Amico units initially, these partnerships will get the games into more hands who have been waiting to play while helping get the word out to a larger audience. As stated above, we are doing everything we can to make sure that we have a stable system before starting production. That is a key milestone in moving forward.
I would like to thank you again for your support, and thank you to our internal team and external developers that work tirelessly to create a family gaming experience on Amico that brings people of different ages and skills together in group play.
Phil Adam, CEO
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Wait, he's claiming that the console is still somehow going to be released?
1. So the console is somehow still being manufactured, but didn't they already run out of funding?
2. and 3. The games developed for the Amico are now going to also be released on other platforms...so there's no point to buy an Amico then?
And no mention to the office shutting down and being completely emptied. It must be hard for Phil to currently run the Intellivision company out of his car.
Now it's actually starting to feel like a giant scam, rather than just massive incompetence. The whole "everything is fine" attitude with no explanations to actual widely talked about detriments feels incredibly strange, the last news people had is that the company went bankrupt and shut down, yet no explanations about the office shutting down or any possible relocation. Like there's no physical location for the company anymore. Baffling.