Haystakk and I have decided to no longer continue running a fansite for Joint Operations. The main reason that we are shutting down is because we feel the Novalogic PR department backstabbed us. We feel that we can no longer support a software company that treats it's fansite like the way Novalogic PR treated us.
We created a map contest to help advertise the release of Escalation. We did all the hard work designing and making it and Novalogic repayed us by encouraging and aiding a larger fansite to completely duplicate it. For the sake of sales they stabbed us in the back. We will no longer be chumps putting money into the pockets of Novalogic. Novalogic has a large PR department that gets payed well and there is no reason why they must steal from a fansite that works for free.
What's the big deal you ask? Are we overreacting? This is a bit of a long story and the best way to explain it all is to show emails between Novalogic PR and us:
Back on Mon, 26 Jul 2004 we first contacted Anthony Newall (Marketing Coordinator) at Novalogic UK and asked him this question:
From Slippery Jim (admin at Typoon-Rising.com): "Has any fansite contacted you yet about holding a mapping contest for when the official map editor does come out? We would love to hold a mapping contest at Typhoon-Rising.com and are wondering if there is anything that Novalogic can do in the way of prizes? What are your thoughts on the matter?"
Here was Anthony Newall's reply on Tue, 27 Jul 2004:
From A. Newall: "With regard to the map making contest, you are the first site to contact me and it sounds like a great idea. However, it is all dependant on whether we decide to do an official map making contest or not. Let me get the lowdown on where our US office is regarding this and I'll get back to you ASAP on this..probably early next week."
After checking with Novalogic USA, here was Anthony Newall's reply on Mon, 02 Aug 2004:
From A. Newall: "With regard to the contest, we have no current in-house plans yet and it would be great to do something with you guys. I would like to wait until the map ed is out and see whats its capable of before we decide on anything."
The above emails took place when we were a new fansite and I really do feel Novalogic did not want to supply us with prizes because we were just one fansite out of many. In time slowly our website grew and became more popular. When we won first place in the Novalogic fansite competition in Europe on Fri, 20 Aug 2004 things changed.
In that fansite competition we won several prizes that neither Haystakk or myself really wanted. We decided that we would hold our long desired map mapping contest and put up some of those prizes. I contacted Novalogic and once again let them know we were interested in doing a map making contest and hoped that they would also supply prizes too.
Slippery Jim on Fri, 08 Oct 2004:
From Slippery Jim: "Some of the prizes we are thinking of putting up in a contest (the prizes we don't really want). We were thinking of holding a mapping contest or perhaps a "design a new banner" kind of contest."
After several emails back and forth it is decided that Novalogic would throw in some prizes for the contest and Typhoon-Rising would throw in several more prizes to make the contest even larger.
From Slippery Jim on Mon, 18 Oct 2004:
From Slippery Jim: "We are still hoping to have that map making contest and in your previous email you mentioned prizes that you could provide us.
If we move quickly setting up the contest I think it would be great to hold the contest so that it ends the same day that Escalation is in stores in North America (November 16th) or possibly Europe (November 18th).
Our plan is to have a contest to make the best AAS map. The top 5-10 maps would be included in a map pack from Typhoon-Rising.com at the end of the contest. If you do supply us with prizes of course we would mention all over the place that Novalogic supplied the prizes.
I am working on writing up rules now but would need to know exactly what prizes you could provide us for the contest."
After working a whole week on the contest I emailed Anthony Newall to show him the contest design. I spent many long hours making graphics and writing up the rules of the contest so that it was as professional as possible. Below was his reply when he saw the hard work that we had done.
Anthony Newall on Mon, 25 Oct 2004:
From A. Newall: "Heya, Wow, what can I say... that is absolutely brilliant, its obvious you guys have put so much effort into this comp, expect a couple of copies of escalation to find its way to your door upon release. Timing sounds great."
(On a side note I never received a copy of Escalation like Anthony promised me in his email above. I called this to his attention and he still has never sent me a copy. - Slippery Jim).
Below is the key email that shows Novalogic's interest in our contest and the main source of our anger. Once I received this email I knew we were in trouble and feared what the PR department would do. We got this email from Novalogic PR a day after the contest started.
Anthony Newall on Tue, 26 Oct 2004:
From A. Newall: "Our US office love what you guys have done (and are now quite jealous that they decided to put off an official map making comp!). Would it be ok with you if we knock up a little press release and post it up on novalogic.com + perhaps other general press sites. Naturally this is still completely your baby, and will treated as such in the press release."
Novalogic did NOT do a press release like they promised in the above email.
After our contest had been running Anthony Newall inquired how the contest was going. We let him know that that the mapping contest wasn't as popular as we hoped. Shortly after (in an amazing coincidence!) a duplicate version of our contest magically appeared on the larger fansite Nova-Inside.com. We were completely pissed off needless to say! It was an identical copy of what we worked so hard to make. In my opinion Novalogic PR decided that they would give a larger fansite our mapping contest just to increase their sales of Escalation. They back-stabbed the fansite that won first place in their own fansite competition just to increase their sales.
Now some of you may say all contests are the same. However the design of this contest is almost identical. Not only did they steal the graphics from us but they stole the layout of the contest. There are thousands of different combinations they could have done but they decided to directly copy our mapping contest.
After much complaining to Nova-Inside they have since realized that legally and morally they were wrong so they have mildly changed the contest photos on Nova-Inside. However the contest is still almost identical and was obviously taken directly from ours. Novalogic has played a part in helping Nova-Inside completely duplicate our contest.
We have run fansites for many games in the past including Swat 3, Enemy Territory, Raven Shield, and others. We doubt very much that we will ever run another fansite again after being screwed over by Novalogic. We will not put ourselves in a position to be screwed over by PR types again. How can any fansite trust them when all they care about is profits? Fans are just sources of cash to them and they have absolutely no loyalty.
I urge all Novalogic fansites to remember this. All future webmasters should think long and hard about starting a Novalogic site. Let the PR department earn the money they get payed for and make the buggers work instead of us doing the work for them.
Shame on Novalogic, shame on Novalogic PR, shame on Anthony Newall and Marcus Beer, shame on Nova-Inside.com.
At this time we would like to thank all of the community who supported this website. You guys are the best. Novalogic needs to get it's head out of it's ass and start treating the commmunity with respect. We would also like to take this time to apologize to the people who participated in our mapping contest. We are so sorry that we could not complete it but we could not continue to be a fansite for Novalogic. Sorry guys but we are sure once you release your maps to the community they will get the appreciation they deserve.
- Slippery Jim and Haystakk
Former Typhoon-Rising.com Admins
