Someone is running an online hate campaign against me. Obviously he has never met me and has too much time on his hands.
But he has found an interesting way to market his campaign. He has set up a bogus Twitter account called bruceongames2 and made tweets to it pointing to websites that support his hate campaign. Then comes the clever bit. From this account he then followed the followers of my legitimate account. Each one then gets the follow notice, and then if they click through to find out why I’ve apparently started another account they get to see all his hate tweets.
London MCM Expo 2009Saturday 24th – Sunday 25th October 2009 09:00Excel London, E16 1XL, Adult Ticket (15 years old & above): £10 l Child Ticket (11 to 14): £5 l ‘EARLY ENTRY’ Tickets £13 Per Day
Sunday October 25
London MCM Expo 2009Saturday 24th – Sunday 25th October 2009 10:00Excel London, E16 1XL, Adult Ticket (15 years old & above): £10 l Child Ticket (11 to 14): £5 l ‘EARLY ENTRY’ Tickets £13 Per Day
Host (Gareth Edmondson, Reflections studio introduces the event).
11.00 – 11.30
Ed Vaizey, discussing the games industry and its importance to the UK economy.
11.30 – 12.15
KEYNOTE: Charles Cecil, MD of Revolution studios will take a look at the British games industry where are its roots and what made Britain the birth place of the games industry. What are the key USPs of Britain moving forward?
12.15 – 13.30
Lunch and Networking
13.30 – 14:15
“Darwinia + playthrough”: Mark Morris MD of Introversion will talk about the benefits of being a British independent studio and how they have managed to transform from a small time indie to professional console developer. Mark will be talking about the influences of their latest and most exciting game Darwinia+ which is due to be released on XBLA later this year.
14:15 – 15:00
“Marketing Browser games” Simon Seefeldt is Head of Business development at Jagex – a world-leading developer of high quality, browser-based games and the largest independent games developer and publisher in the UK creating games such as Runscape and funOrb. Simon will talk about how they build their communities and market their games and how Britain is a great place to make games
15:00 – 15:30
Tea Break and Networking
15.30 – 16.00
Title: “I, myself and iPhone”: Paul Farley, MD Tag games will be talking about how Tag games started and what the benfits are of being a casual games company in the UK. Paul will also be highlighting the pros and cons of iPhone versus some of the other platforms.
16.15 – 17.00
“Give us a break”
Gareth Edmondson and a panel of leading developers and games experts will be discussing the prospects for a Games Tax Relief and the implications for the industry as a whole if the measure is implemented. Games Tax Relief could benefit developers by reducing their over-reliance on publisher funding, promote original IP development and encourage a move to more sustainable online business models. The availability of government subsidies overseas is making the UK less competitive, not only from the point of view of costs, but also of skills as government support in other countries has attracted key staff away from the UK. The panel will be looking at what the Government reaction has been so far to TIGA’s lobbying and what are the next steps in ensuring tax breaks happen.
17.00 – 17.05
The decision – what is the best ever British game? All delegates will be asked to nominate a game at registration the top 10 nominations will then be voted on by the audience.
Then on Friday I am going to Eurogamer Expo. A consumer event with lots of games, development sessions and a career fair. And which is sold out!
As regular readers will know Evony are trying to sue me for libel in an Australian court. So we have a plaintiff from country A trying to sue a defendant from country B in country C. They can do this because judgements from Australian courts are enforceable in England. And they are trying to say that because internet content is available globally they can sue me in any country they feel like. Obviously they have chosen Australia to create the maximum difficulty in my defending myself, they are misusing the Australian legal system to censor the internet.
Libel is incredible expensive to bring to court, some cases end up with legal costs of over a million pounds. To get my case just to the first day of court in Australia should cost me over £50,000. You can see why freedom of speech is threatened here. Because my case is setting a precedent my lawyers have agreed to act on a no win no fee basis with no win no fee. In other words they will try and extract costs from Evony for bringing a frivolous case before the courts. But in the mean time there are a lot of costs to cover in putting the case together.
Obviously I can reduce myself to penury and send every penny I have to them. This seems a little harsh for just telling the truth. I have already sent them a substantial sum, as much as I can reasonably afford. So I have created a way that you can contribute to the fighting fund with the PayPal donate button at the side of this article. Anything would help, £1 even. It all adds up. So please help with a donation. And a big thank you to those who have already donated, it is much appreciated.
For those who live in the UK, a letter to their MP may help. Here is a draft that could be used:
Dear MP,
As you know there is a significant threat to freedom of speech with lawyers practicing reputation management on the internet. They threaten libel action against the authors of content that their clients don’t like, whether it is the truth or not. Those authors are then forced to withdraw that content because of the massive costs of defending their, often truthful, position. Obviously this mechanism is used most frequently by those with the most to hide. The libel law is thus being used against the interests of your constituents.
In a further twist we now have a Chinese video game, Evony, with a recently incorporated Delaware front company, sueing a British blogger, Bruce Everiss, in an Australian court. They are indulging in this extreme libel tourism firstly because Australian libel judgements are enforceable in England and secondly in order to make it as difficult as possible for Mr Everiss to defend what he maintains to be a truthful position. If Evony succeed it will open the floodgates of undefendable action being taken against British people in Australian courts.
As your constituent I would like to know what you are doing to maintain the freedom of speech on the internet. Also I would like to know what the government are doing to prevent the total abuse of the legal system that is happening in the case of Mr Everiss and Evony,
regards, etc
So there we have two ways that you can help. Please do so because what Evony are doing is a threat to every one’s freedoms.
Jon Blyth – Freelance (PC Zone)
Tom Francis – PC Gamer
Matt Handrahan – Games TM
Matthew Castle – NGamer
Darran Jones – Retro Gamer
Gillen McAllister – Official Xbox 360 Magazine
Specialist Writer (Web)
Dan Howdle – Nowgamer.com
Wesley Yin Poole – Videogamer.com
Pat Garratt – VG247.com
Ellie Gibson – Eurogamer.net
Chris Schilling – Gamerzines
Simon Parkin – Freelance (Eurogamer)
Games Coverage in a Mainstream Magazine
Zoo Weekly – Bauer Consumer Media
Nuts – IPC Media
Shortlist – Shortlist Media
FHM – Bauer Consumer Media
Front – Flip Media
Games Blog
Rockpapershotgun.com
VG247.com
Ukresistance.co.uk
Guardian Games Blog
Nowgamer.com
Coverage in a National Paper
The Guardian
The Daily Telegraph
Daily Star Sunday
The Independent
The Sun
The Daily Mirror
Games Broadcast/Podcast
One Life Left – www.onelifeleft.com
Eurogamer.tv – www.eurogamer.tv
Game On – BBC Radio 5 Live
Start/Select – uk.gamespot.com
Games Weasel – www.gamesweasel.com
Johnny Minkley – BBC Radio 1
Rising Star
Neon Kelly – Videogamer.com
Samuel Roberts – 360 Magazine
Matthew Pellett – Xbox World 360
Chris McMahon – Games TM
Graham Smith – PC Gamer
Mike Channell – Official Xbox 360 Magazine
Regional Games Columnist
Ross Wilkinson – Press Association
Dave Cook – The Scotsman
Steven Fox – Metro
Dan Slingsby – Games Addict
Ian Crump – Southern Daily Echo
Games Media Legend
The winner of this award will be named on the night
“Edinburgh Interactive Industry Conference
The Edinburgh Interactive Festival Conference will deliver a lively schedule from a wide range of industry sectors including video games, social networking, mobile entertainment, education, music, film and television. The two-day industry conference runs from Thursday 13th until Friday 14th August. Participants will share and gain knowledge and insights into innovations, trends and the coolest possibilities. Keynotes, panel sessions and presentations makeup the key components of the festival conference.
Conference delegates will be able to relax and network in an intimate environment during the conference and at the various Festival Networking events.”
Yesterday you saw the first interview in Bruceongames. Ed Vaizey, shadow Minister for the Arts told us some of what Conservative policies will be towards games when they take over government 0f the UK within the next year. The idea now is that this will be the first of a series of regular Tuesday interviews. The interviewees will all be people who are very important to the games industry. And the questions, based on my 30 years of industry experience, will try and elicit interesting and useful insights. So in future readers of this blog will not only be getting the benefit of my world view, they will also be seeing things through the eyes of some very informed people.
Coming up:
Tuesday 4th August. Philip Oliver, CEO of Blitz Games Studios, one of the world’s biggest independent game developers. Philip works tirelessly to improve the industry. Just recently he had breakfast with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, where he was able to effectively communicate a wide range of industry views. Next week you too can benefit from reading his views in his own words.
Tuesday 11th August. Jez San OBE. Game designer and developer, book author, microprocessor designer and highly successful businessman. Jez is famous as the author of the 1986 game Starglider, but these days he is a business angel, investing in a number of companies related to the games industry. So he has a wide ranging and highly informed perspective on many elements of gaming.
As you can see we are off to a brilliant start and I have promises of interviews from some impressive game industry leaders. I am really looking forward to what they have to say. I hope you find it interesting too.
