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10 Responses to “Letter to Telcogames Customers”

1. N/A says:

   May 27, 2008 at 1:17 pm

   How funny is this – collecting money but not given it to the developers and publishers.
   This whole thing is a bad joke!

   Reply
2. Irate says:

   May 27, 2008 at 3:15 pm

   I wonder how many distribution partners these crooks will continue to collect royalties from, for content providers who have since cancelled their contracts with Telco…?
   They may have succeeded in phoenix-ing the company, but I’m afraid these fellows have their cards well and truely marked. Noone but newbies and fools will touch them now.

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3. John says:

   May 27, 2008 at 4:04 pm

   When’s the next operator drinks? please tell me they’re attending, wouldn’t miss that one for the world!!!

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4. Matt says:

   May 28, 2008 at 11:33 am

   The company downfall was in its accounting and reporting, it is standard practice to report sales to developers BEFORE payment is collected from sales channels. This led to an ongoing black hole of unpaid invoices both to TelcoGames and to developers. Unfortunately due to the nature of having shareholders is that you often have to pretend things are ticking along nicely. The company’s solution to the black holes was to employ more high-paid commercial figures to resolve it, unfortunately the problem was nigh on unresolvable and the balance was shifted in the company from many good sales and technical staff to a skeleton team with a vast number of high profile Senior Management.
   Victims of their own success? No, but fly by night shady characters certainly not.
   There’s a lesson for everyone in the industry here, not just aggregators but sales channels, operators and developers alike. Let’s just hope the long term impact on the industry is minimal.

   Reply
5. John Bridges says:

   May 28, 2008 at 1:26 pm

   To Matt :
   Absolute RUBBISH.
   These idiots funded expansion of their business into non-core areas using the proceeds from content they have distributed without ring-fencing the suppliers proceeds.
   Specifically they wasted a vast amount of capital on their development studios – not only the purchase but the ongoing staff costs of FatHammer and other “deals” they performed.
   To also prove their “shadiness” they executed invisible arms length agreements with “other branches” of Telco – TG GmBH and Telco Asia – which they then used as an excuse to avoid paying royalties from these regions.
   These guys are con-men of the highest degree.

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6. Richard says:

   May 28, 2008 at 2:58 pm

   Not sure what you’re talking about there Matt and John’s spot on, also not quite sure where any confusion can possibly arise here. TG have been taking content from partners, selling into channels, not paying out partners and buying developers within a ‘TG Group’ umbrella with their proceeds… quite easy to grow a company that way and even easier to set aside funds to establish a phoenix while you’re doing it.

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7. N/A says:

   May 28, 2008 at 3:20 pm

   And the operators like o2 UK, Orange UK knew that they rip of the developers and such companies were sending developers to TG also after they knew that the developer will NEVER see any money. In my opinion they are part of this scandal and perhaps the industry will find this out soon.
   The only thing the operators can do is paying the developers directly. But they still want to cheat the developers cause thats what they are doing for ages already.
   Normally the developers should boykott the operators/partners they worked with cause they are part of it.

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8. Adrian Cummings says:

   May 28, 2008 at 10:22 pm

   Regards the last post, I brought this up with Orange at least quite some time ago and got stuck in an endless loop as a content developer between Orange an Telco oddly enough?, so I guess have to agree with all that pretty much from first hand experience.
   Telco burned the developers cash to expand their own business too rapidly and that made the black hole that ate them up and developers cash.
   Personally I’m not owed much money from them as I only had one title live under their distro channels (as a test run thank the lord) and am not going to chase it for the record either, as it’s not my worth my time. I do however feel the pain of many others content developers and suppliers here.
   I personally would never with them again whatever the outcome and am happy to print my name in public to this end.

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9. Anon says:

   May 29, 2008 at 9:18 am

   Also to underline even if Telco had invoicing issues (2 years come on that is just incompetence!!!) – they took 50% rev share on the content – and the “devs” put up with that because they would expect a publisher/distributor to either “strongarm” the smaller players into paying promptly OR (SHOCK HORROR) use a factoring agency to take over the cash-flow – typical cost 5 – 6% of invoice value.
   Telco avoided paying their devs over a long period through obsfucation and delay tactics.
   It doesn’t matter which way you cut it Telco were one or more of the following:
   1. Incompetent
   2. Negligent
   3. Crooked
   Obviously Menzies did not believe 3. – but then Menzies were bought in by the Telco principals – so there is no surprise that they are acting their favour.
   On the other hand if they are not “3” then both 1 and 2 should disqualify them from running another company.

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10. name says:

    May 29, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    @matt
    TG was build to rip of the developers. Operators and Handset manufacturer like SonyEricsson are still using TG to rip of developers.
    TG had problems for over two years and a lot of information is still not offical.
    Lets see when some real hot topics are offical. Perhaps some information why operators are still working with this the cheaters from TG now MED.

    Reply