OMG I love the chiptune RickRoll playing in the backgroundOriginally Posted by OldSchoolGamer
For all that doubted the Coleco Chameleon dream!
OMG I love the chiptune RickRoll playing in the background
So uh........Mike's back! All I can say is WOW. Just WOW. You can't make this stuff up. He ought to write for crazy comedies like The League, Always Sunny, or You're the Worst on FXX.
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247...5#entry3484040
Hello Everyone,
I hate to light this thread up any more but at this time I have made the decision that my reputation is worth protecting and wanted to come in here and break my silence and fill in some holes and answer some questions about the hardware “team” (term used loosely) behind the Coleco Chameleon.
This long winded response will explain:
- There were only (4) engineers (or people) EVER working on this project with Steve Woita and myself ( and in the beginning there were two working together) despite what Scott Schreiber has been spewing. And none were EVER working simultaneously on the project. And Scott had nothing to do with much of anything and was never considered to be “working” on this project. Has he ever produced and shown anything he was working on? Nope!
- It will for the first time reveal who the hardware person was that took over after the “John Carlsen” era. And it will show that I paid him considerable amounts of money for what was essentially two fake prototypes. One that I saw (Toy Fair unit) and one that I never saw in person (clear PC card unit). I was not building that crap in my garage.
- It will also reveal the shady background of said hardware person so that he can be stopped and hopefully save anyone here from dealing with this guy in the future.
- And as a side note, Carl Williams IS NOT taking over RETRO Magazine nor has he ever talked with me about it. And I am not selling it or giving it to ANYONE! Carl? Explanation?
To understand how this ended, I want to direct your attention back to the early times of this venture, early to middle 2014. At this time, my first choice to design the system, Curt Vendel (who Scott Schreiber helped introduce me to thus ending his minimal involvement in the venture) decided he wouldn’t have the time to devote to this venture and opted out soon and never got started. At this time I researched others that could step in and bring this product to fruition and that lead me to Clay Cowgill. Clay really took this project under his wing from Nov 2014 to January 2015 and helped us (me and Steve Woita) define the hardware and its capabilities – this is when we were considering, at Clay’s recommendation, architecting something in-line with the Beaglebone Black.
It was also at this time, that another person entered into the mix, Sean “LEE” Robinson. Sean was a “acquaintance or colleague” of Clay’s and it just so happened that he had moved from Washington (state) back to Southern California. He had heard that I was working with Clay on this project and offered to help. Since he and Clay were colleagues, and the fact he was local and very close to me, it seemed like a good idea to have them partner up on the project, which they did to some extent. Supposedly, Sean had a working prototype ( that I NEVER saw) playing Neo Geo games in Jan 2015. This prototype was later used again when he rejoined the project explaining how we supposedly had a prototype so fast AFTER Carlsen left. Read further . . . . .
In late January 2015, Clay alerted us that he was contracted by SONY and that he would be leaving the project. At this time, Sean also decided to leave as well. Enter in the John Carlsen/Steve Woita FPGA “era”. Now I am not going to go into this part of the timeline because we know how all this worked out. Fast forward to John Carlsen leaving the failed RETRO VGS project.
At the time of John’s leaving in September 2015, Sean “LEE” Robinson re-entered the picture and reached out to Steve and I. He indicated he wanted to help us get this project back on track, but his condition was that he remained “behind the curtain” (his words) due to the mess he was inheriting from Carlsen. At this time I agreed to that condition and also agreed to let him and Steve work together on this without my interference. While I thought I had a competent hardware “team” working on this, and was being told early on by Sean we had games running on our hardware/software prototype and that our costs had dropped considerably, I felt confident to go ahead and continue building this venture, bringing a “go-to-market” team together and making the decision to launch this under the Coleco brand. Things seemed to be coming together. Chris from Coleco invited us to demonstrate a prototype at Toy Fair. This did pose a challenge to Sean as it expedited the process a bit to try and make the show deadline.
This is where things started to take a big bad turn. In mid-January, I had a lunch meeting with Sean and point blank asked him what he needs from me to spend the next 30 days working on the prototype full-time to get it prepared for the Toy Fair. We agreed on $4,000, which I quickly got to him via a check that he cashed with me at my bank. It was then a day before I was traveling to the show that he came over to my house with the Toy Fair “Prototype”, with his instructions to NOT SHOW the back of the unit no matter what. But without any specific information as to why I shouldn’t show it, other than it used an aftermarket connector that was composite-out and that was used because he didn’t have the HD stable enough to get us through the show. I believed him and went to the show with that unit. My biggest concern at the time was getting this conglomeration through the TSA and on the plane.
During the show we were accused of not having that system even plugged in so I made the decision to take a photo of the back of the unit showing it was clearly plugged in. If that was true about using the composite connector, I really felt people would understand why it was used and decided to show the pics. I didn’t feel we had anything to hide. Then all hell broke loose and it was identified that SNES mini parts or the whole PCB from an SNES mini was inside the console shell. I was left in a terrible spot at this point and I had a decision to make that evening at the hotel. Do I take this thing apart and see what was in it and quit the show or continue on with the show, demoing the games that were going to be on the system, and then address this issue with Sean when we got back from New York. Right or wrong, I continued on with Toy Fair and it continued to impress people and the games were very favorably liked (Thanks Eli! For stepping in with his SNES multicart in place of Sean’s glitching out SD card driven demo cartridge). When I returned back home, I met Sean again and gave him the “prototype” back and he was still swearing that despite the SNES “parts” he used, the games were still running on the SNES FPGA software that he had constructed in a few short months. Again, I believed him and we moved forward. And he told me that during the Toy Fair he was preparing the next “prototype” board so I gave him the clear shells with explicit instructions from me to show “our” PCB inside the shell. This was going to be used to show the “real” prototype.
Then in a move to extract more money from me he indicated that for $3,000 paid now (2/29/16), and $3,000 paid in 60 days he could wrap this up and have a production ready prototype completed. So, again, I wrote him out a check he promptly cashed with me at my bank. Soon after this he emailed me the images of the clear unit with the PC DVR capture card in it. But, when he first emailed me the images, he indicated this was our prototype 100%. I made a comment that it looked great (in the photos) and he responded by saying something like “this is what we can do when given the proper time.” Keep in mind, these pictures were to combat the criticism of the “fake” Toy Fair prototype and were given to me by him to post on Facebook to show people the real “prototype”. Sean even joked about how people online were trying to identify the board in our shell, laughing and telling me they won’t find it because it’s our original work. He even made these comments through my car Blue Tooth speaker with my wife in the car and she heard everything. Again, I believed him.
Let’s discuss the Kickstarter for a moment. So, believing I was going to have a working prototype for Toy Fair, I told Sean and Steve I was going to move forward with the Kickstarter campaign and use Toy Fair as a launching point for the campaign. A date was set. Now to Sean’s credit, he played that this was not a good idea and didn’t agree with me scheduling the Kickstarter to begin during the campaign was a good idea. But, at this point, I thought I had a real prototype playing games and was assured by Sean many times that our costs were now hovering around $100, so figured, let’s not wait any longer. After it was learned that we essentially had a SNES duck taped in my console shell I decided to delay the Kickstarter because it was always my intention to show off the prototype completely in the campaign video, open it up and show it running and playing games from at least two different systems. Then once I saw the clear unit was also a “fake” I made the decision to withdraw from a Kickstarter campaign altogether and reevaluate this venture.
Back to the clear shell prototype. Since this all fell apart I have been trying to get Sean to explain to me why he would point blank lie to my face about that being “our board” and passing that two-bit PC board off as our prototype and he can’t give me an explanation that makes any sense, in fact I get no explanation other than that there was more going on in there than people can see. He mentioned we had chips located underneath the board even and assured me that the cartridge was also plugged into our cartridge connector. Something was just not adding up to me and I continued to lose sleep at night wondering how this all could have happened. First, he never showed me anything in person, that he was working on. I never went to his house, nor was ever given an address where he lives or works. He subscribes to my magazine so I looked at the address the magazine is sent to – a UPS store PO Box. I have paid this guy $7,000 and have nothing to show for it. Oh, I also bought two FPGA cores from a “friend” of his (whom I never met in person) whose wife was having medical issues and needed to sell some things and just so happened his friend had made an Intellivision and Amiga FPGA core. Sean told me his friend would sell them to me for $2,500 which I, again agreed to, and wrote Sean out another check which he promptly cashed at my bank and was going to give the cash to his “friend”. Did I ever get any software cores? NOPE! So, in total, with a couple other smaller checks I wrote to him, paid him nearly $10K in January and February 2016. Nothing to show for it except two fake prototypes and NO FPGA CORES! And, he swindled out my Crystal Castles Commodore 64 prototype cartridge as part of a payment as well!!!!!!!
So, trying to make more sense of all this, I started Googling Sean and this is where things get super crazy. I will just post the links that are online for all to see and you can all take it from there. There is even more stuff you can uncover if you want to all look:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.video.arcade/bs4zJtfa4oY
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.video.arcade/almightyarcade
http://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=msg&goto=297838&
http://compgroups.net/comp.sys.cbm/sean-robinson-founder-of-commodorecomputerclub.c/3039131
In addition, I have confirmed with the Riverside County (CA) Assistant DA, Sean was charged a few years ago for 7 counts of Felony Grand-Theft and served part of a one-year sentence in jail and then got out on probation which he evidently complied with and then he made a plea to have the prior conviction AND his admittance of guilt overturned. A loophole that the DA mentioned drives prosecutors crazy.
At this point I can only hope to recover any of my money paid to him, and can no longer live by my word to keep him “behind the curtain” while his deceit led to my defamation of character and demise of the company and opportunity and also I feel I was intentionally setup to take a fall. Because why else would he give me the clear shell “prototype” photos to hang myself? Seems strange as we both knew these photos would be scrutinized like crazy based on the last “fake” SNES prototype he gave me.
I also hope that you will also wonder why I would go to all this trouble surrounding this venture with guys like Ben Herman (he was a Rockstar at Toy Fair, and had tons of legit retailer interest in this thing) and Phil Adam, Paul Wylie and eventually Steven Rosenbaum. Why would I go out and bring Coleco on board as a licensing partner? All done and then just try and pass off fake prototypes? This is just something that I would not intentionally or knowingly do. I have way more integrity and respect for this hobby to pull that shit. I did remain silent the past few weeks though while I put the pieces of this train wreck together and worked with my attorney to define my moves. And I apologize for the delay. Timed with the release of this statement here on AtariAge I have also emailed Sean a demand letter asking him to make arrangements to pay me back the money he scammed from me as well as a heads up I am going public with his participation in this deceit. But at the same time, I wonder who he might have to take advantage of to get the money to pay me back. That is the shitty part. And I am still working with my attorney and local authorities to find out what my options are.
I want to apologize to all of you for the past few months. The John Carlsen era was an honest to goodness list of I mistakes. But there was never any intention to deceive or pull the wool over any of your eyes. These past few months with these fake prototypes was inexcusable and I hope you can all understand a bit more about how this all happened and why I have remained silent the past few weeks. It is not in my nature to trick people into anything. My end game has always been to give back to this hobby that I love and respect and to make and do things that people will enjoy. I’ve never taken one penny from anyone that wasn’t genuinely earned!
You will all be glad to hear that I am officially tabling the console venture for good. I have negotiated with Albert (AtariAge) to take over the Jaguar tooling so we can all be assured it’s in good hands and won’t get destroyed or lost to time. And I am sure Albert will do some very cool things with the console and cartridge shells.
I want to ask you all for some level of forgiveness and I hope you all understand that I would have never gone to Kickstarter with a blatant rip-off of a prototype. That was never my intention. And please, don’t let this mess carry over to the magazine. I have a great team of people working on it. We are pouring a lot of heart and soul and sweat equity into keeping the magazine going and it’s only getting better.
And, I want to thank those on AtariAge (and other public forums) for opening my eyes to the craziness of all this happening right under my eyes. The fact that Sean indicated he wrote this SNES FPGA software in such a short time was questioned here and that opened my eyes. Of course, the uncovering of the fake prototypes has opened my eyes. You guys really go above and beyond to protect the hobby and it wasn’t until I have had the time to reflect back on this fiasco that I saw how you all came together and your alerts spread like wildfire across the internet. Again it was never the intention of myself or those legitimate guys on my team to deceive or potentially defraud anyone. In the end, I am the only one that has lost anything, money, potential opportunity and my reputation in this hobby.
Mike
The Paunch Stevenson Show free Internet podcast - www.paunchstevenson.com - DP FEEDBACK
It's wild how the entire focus of that diatribe keeps drifting to how he was swindled. It's very much a "I got screwed, too! Don't hate me, guys! My money's all tied up in video game ventures! Like me!"
At any point, stopping and examining a project of which you are a principal backer and architect would have prevented the prototype embarrassments, and I can't believe that any businessman with a lick of sense wouldn't have fully examined and tested a prototype unit to be publicly displayed in order to be able to best present and speak to it. This is all asinine.
Nobody ever said Mike Kennedy wasn't gullible. Last I checked, that wasn't a crime.
I'm not suggesting ignorance as a defense, but if the allegations against "Mr Lee" are true, then he is guilty of outright fraud, and with the amounts involved being upwards of ten thousand, it is a very serious felony at that.
Well, ignorance as a defense is exactly what's being used here. Yes, if true, those allegations are very serious, but if that level of ignorance is truly at play, I would stay far away from any business ventures from this group in the future.Nobody ever said Mike Kennedy wasn't gullible. Last I checked, that wasn't a crime.
I'm not suggesting ignorance as a defense, but if the allegations against "Mr Lee" are true, then he is guilty of outright fraud, and with the amounts involved being upwards of ten thousand, it is a very serious felony at that.
Nice!
"Ai Oboete Imasu Ka?"
Look I don't know Mike. I didn't greatly follow this after it fell apart the first time as the VGS, but all that said I've talked to him a couple times before I think it was over at NA years back around his game gavel venture which I found interesting and he seemed nice and straight forward enough.
Giving some benefit of the doubt here for the sake of argument alone, lets assume he's being 100% honest here. I actually feel bad for the dude. Publicly embarrassed more than once in a years time, shamed repeatedly, made to look like some laughing stock moron trying to troll and steal from people. And in the end, he was the one being trolled, screwed with, and robbed effectively of $10000. All of it was wisely by the thief kept on the up and up right down to going to the bank to cash checks in person so Mike would stupidly feel the cash went to where it belonged, and it did, just not the intended output of it though. I am surprised though he would not being local ever demand to see production not once, and would not have put a boot down after the SNES debacle either demanding proof. He's a trusting fool if what he's writing is true.
The convenience of it though he can be easily absolved of it all but being a chump with time and much of that rep and trust other than being a fool to others cleaned up too. He says he's talking with the DA, he's working with the cops and an attorney. There should be plenty enough public documentation online of the scam works that jerk pulled off, bank records for the cash going out, and more. If he's being straight here, it takes time but charges can and would be filed even if he did return the cash given the opportunity, because he committed felony fraud with intent to deceive. Given the guys past rap sheet for semi-related in a way shenanigans again which were felonious it shouldn't be hard to throw the book at the dude and put him away for a good stretch of time. Right now it is best for him to play it out, maybe he can get some back (even if the dude steals again to get it) which sucks too but it would add more time to the crimes.
If this is up and up with the explanation thanks, I was curious what happened and hope you get your cash back.
So Mike thought he could get a working prototype for $10,000... then he got fooled both times when he is is given 2 fake prototypes. If this is really what happened then he got scammed and he is a naive moron for letting it happen and get so far. He should have known the first proto was a snes.
The whole 'ties to the Hong Kong Mafia' thing should have been the first red flag.
That's exactly what I think about the situation. I've never wanted anything personally bad to happen to Mike Kennedy, but the entire approach to this project was either deceitful or ignorant and negligent. Either way, it was unfit to continue, and if it was Mike being naïve, it sucks for him, but he should take away the lesson of humility to acknowledge that he got in wayover his head, and that he might not be the right guy to trust with investment dollars.
Also, remember that it wasn't just the prototypes. The Jag Bar script issue was rather poignant, there was the shuffling of money between Game Gavel, Retro Magazine, and RetroVGS, the Facebook editing and blocking, the fake forum accounts by people associated with the projects... there was a lot more wrong here than just the hardware stuff.
Last edited by celerystalker; 04-05-2016 at 01:35 PM.
Pshhhhh! And you guys wanted to lock this topic.
Well, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong!Pshhhhh! And you guys wanted to lock this topic.
Sean Robinson is unfortunately a real person, and has caused a lot of trouble and pissed off a lot of people up here in the Pacific Northwest (and now apparently down south, too). Like some of the folks posting there on AA I have met him, though thankfully haven't done any business with him directly.
As for Mike being an innocent party, who knows.
Deceiving yourself does not absolve you of also attempting to deceive others. If you go out there onto the public stage time and time again with some shady shit, telling everyone it's something it's not just because you WANT to believe so badly that it is, YOU are the one who bears the responsibility when people uncover the truth of said shady shit. If you fail to do the basic due diligence required to ensure that what you're offering to people is in fact what you say it is, that's not some other guy's fault. That's your fault.
If Mike was dealing with this guy 1-to-1 in private trying to get something concrete made before revealing anything publicly I think I'd feel differently. He'd just be letting himself be fooled by this guy and it'd all be kind of sad and unfortunate. But the moment you involve the public, you take on a new responsibility. Fooling yourself now means you're also fooling others.
So my feeling is that even if everything Mike said there is true, he's still completely and solely responsible for this entire debacle. The whole thing could have been avoided had he only given greater-than-zero fucks about the ACTUAL THING he was trying to sell to people, rather than being consumed with the idea of being able to wring a bunch of money out of the classic gaming community.
Apparently there is AA confirmation that Sean worked with Mike in some fashion in fall 2014, but since Mike couldn't properly define the specs, it basically broke down. There's yet to be confirmation this relationship actually continued in 2016. Sean has ripped tons of people off lately, so much so that he's likely in complete hiding. The perfect patsy?
The Paunch Stevenson Show free Internet podcast - www.paunchstevenson.com - DP FEEDBACK
That had crossed my mind, if Mike isn't still being on the level and trying to throw an easy target with known visual ties to him on the internet under the bus since he's done so much fraud and other garbage it would just fit too cozy into the pattern it would make an excellent deflection point.
Even if I try hard to take this explanation at 100% face value, it at minimum just confirms that even if everything had gone smoothly there was no way Mike Kennedy would have been capable of seeing the project through to completion, let alone making it a success. His explanation is that he was willing to repeatedly drop thousands in the lap of a mystery man who was actively scamming the shit out of him with insulting transparency. What was going to happen to the Indiegogo or Kickstarter money? We'd end up with a Jaguar shell full of magic beans.
Mike obviously had the attitude that if you throw enough money at a problem, it will solve itself or just disappear. Kinda like big government spending.
The IndieGoGo / KS money would be gone before long anything tangible ever appeared.
The SoCalMike post on AA has officially turned this whole thing into Schadenfreude Porn. It's dangerously delicious. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around that post.
Arrogance? Naivety? Delusional? All three? I don't even know. This is seriously going beyond lulz and getting into dark comedy. Almost uncomfortable to follow now.
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