Modding Alchemy Case Design Contest Closing

We'll see...

 

Ok, so you didnt win.. big deal! Everyone cant win! I'd say that Geno deserved to win. He has made alot of nice cases, and the design he's got right there is just awesome. All I can say is: Good choise Static Lullaby!

 

Thank you! I agree... Geno really has some awesome work under his belt as well as some excellent ideas.

 

So you are indeed willing then to sign a release stating we have rights to your design exclusively? I will e-mail the release to you today. You will need to sign it and send the original back via mail. If you wish to be paid faster, you can fax a copy to us along w/ tracking information for the post.

 

Typical... now there's a release form... what happened to the rule, "By accepting winning proceeds you agree to allow ACS to utilize this case design solely, and not sell or accept proceeds for the same case design."? Did that change?

You can send the check (cashier's check would be the prefered method, in response to your query) along with any release form you want. I'll happily sign it.

 

A release ensures 100% legal and binding. Covers us a bit more than the post on the forums legally if we decide to put your case into production. Your actions here proved a warrant for such an action on our part and it is being enforced for all of the winning participants.

 

A pre-payment release is nothin' more than a stall tactic. What, you're afraid I'm gonna sell the images posted on Bit to LianLi or Alienware?

Yah, they've been knockin' down my door to get to it...

 

Fine, you were warned. More than once. You are disqualified from this event for your conduct here. Not only are throwing around alegations in a slanderous manner towards me and ACS, but you are being highly unsporting from the start.

As for the "credibility" factor you keep insisting on. I am certain Geno and j.Laeret will be happy to verify their payment upon receipt for all to see.

 

Do I get a signed release from the contest?

 

So it's not registered in WI as ACS, fine. But we still don't know where and under what name your company is registered. Company registration is public anyway, so making that information clear from the beginning could have saved you a lot of discussion.

The designers could say exactly the same, after all you are also a complete stranger to them. Still, you are CEO of a company that I hope has some solid financial background, but most of the designers are private persons. For a healthy company $25k should be affordable, to most people spending $5k without any guarantees is an extremely large investment. Something that could be solved with offering these people some sort of contract...

After all, spending 25 grand on a contest is a very cheap way to get a new design isn't it? If you have to pay let's say 2 teams of 5 designers for 1month making the design, and another 2 months putting it together, plus pay all manufacturers for some custom-made prototype parts, you would be spending a lot more money.

If I stated "I have been around TV's all my life", you would think I have a whole lot of experience with them, no? Still I have been watching them most of my life, and have been working on them for only about 2 years. This is a very misleading statement, one you should better not make if you want to appear trustworthy. Or at least you should also have stated your professional experience too.

You have allready had a number of businesses? Any examples? I don't know about US law, but around here you can only start a business once you are 18years old. Given the fact you are 28 and allready had a number of them, one would suppose none of those companies did very well, right?

About geno's design having everything calculated out & stuff: I'm sure some of the other contestants could have done the same. But you clearly stated that a bill of materials, costs and such would only be asked once the prototypes were being build. I think it is wrong to base your decision mainly on that, without giving the other designers a chance to do the same. I also believe that in your initial post you asked to design a "dream rig" that would still be produceable, wich some of the designers did. Not an as cheap as possible design with every penny calculated out.

If you wanted the case to be ready within 6 months, you could have said so at the beginning of the contest. Since most of the designs are cases that have to be custom built, it takes time, a lot of time. Especially since most of the designers will have to build it in their free time. If you have any experience with casemodding you should know that.. If the designers would have known a timeframe, they could have adapted their design so that it would be possible to build it within the given time.

Anyway, good luck with your new company, and I hope for you it will last longer than your previous ones.

 

As I stated to him, if it were asked for it would have been provided.

Again, it was offered for $ to be put into an escrow account. Would you trust 5 random people w/ $5k and call it "good business practice"? If so, I hate to see what type of business model you would be following.

Let me correct that then. I have been around computers in a technical aspect since I was approximately six years old. My first program was a fully functioning calculator before I was 7years old. I was in the air force working on computers and networking, and I have a LOT of experience in the PC aerna.

As stated in the email. Some did well, some did not. If none of them went anywhere or were such failures as you would like to beleive I certainly would not have been able to obtain funding and investments for ACS.

We sent out e-mails to all of the final 5 designers asking them for a materials list as well as other information, that was more than adequate for a decent analysis of the production costs, etc...

It will... (& while none of my other businesses are of much concern to you @ least a few of them have done very well. I am no longer involved with them as they were sold off)

**since you edited your post to add this in, I will simply add response here**

All but ONE designer was able to complete their design within a few months. Even working and going to school full time. He was uncertain about some of the function of his design and hence his reasoning for not being able to get his finished within a reasonable time. He did offer to build a different design within the allotted time frame, but we could not accept a substitute like that.

 

OK... I looked up my question to you about your company... here it is, the second time I asked (because the first certainly had a blow off response):

Your response was about advertising you secured (and we already heard about) and your 22 years of computer experience. I can glean as much from what someone doesn't say as from what they do say sometimes. That your 22 years of experience was foremost on your list was quite telling.

After they designed something for my firm based on a promise? First, I wouldn't consider them "random people" anymore and second, yes, I would.

 

I didn't say that Geno should "resign as winner". I said that he should withhold signing off his design until the contest played through proper completion. Not having submitted a design myself, I had no idea what was playing through behind the scenes. It was just all of a sudden, BAM contest closed, winners announced. Oh by no means did I question Geno's ability to produce an astounding case, but it is difficult to see that the design was chosen over the images alone.

In all honesty, if given a part by part breakdown of a case and a thorough cost estimate, I probably would have went with the same choice. Some of the cases do look flashier and more feature-rich, but would cost substantially more to produce than similar cases (in terms of available features) typically go for.

Who are you trying to fool, yourself or us? The contest was put forth to save you costs. Throwing a contest allowed you to a) receive free community feedback and opinions on what people were looking for in a case, b) different designs at a relatively low cost, c) prototypes and troubleshooting at a low cost. If you instead hired staff to go through the steps of 1) seeing what types of cases enthusiasts wanted, 2) designing several case varietyes 3) prototyping, troubleshooting, and finalizing case designs, it would have cost you a lot more.

All I'm saying is that without knowing who wronged who in this, as a spectator my only desire is to know what happened and/or see the contest followed through. Imagine that you go to the superbowl. The halftime show ends and the players never return to the field. The team that was losing before half time is declared the winner and the fans are asked to go home.

BUT... Static Lullaby, it is somewhat unfair for me to criticize your stance without knowing the complete situation. BUT contests exist so that a company acquires a service, or information that would otherwise be unobtainable or more expensive. I believe I am (or rather, was) unbiased in my role as idle spectator, but it does seem that the contest was absurptly closed with the designers being left high and dry once you got exactly what you were looking for. I honestly don't know if that is or is not the case, but I hope that everything is worked out so that everyone is satisfied.

 

I am glad you see this now and understand why the decisions were made as they were

I understand your frustrations as much as anyone and I trully wish it was as easy to finish the contest out as it was meant to be played out. When two of the designers could not complete their designs, or would not complete their designs we had to make a decision. The only "fair choice" was to review all of them based on the information given for materials, the images, sizes, features, and costs of each design.

Geno, even stepped up and offered to build one design himself (outside of his own design) so that it could all be played out as it was initially meant, but the other designer refused for creative reasons (which are understood).

 

From what I understand from the posts by some of the contestants, they asked for more information about you company on multiple occasions. I would think the place and name of your company's registration is one of the most important pieces of information you can give.

And you can consider my previous post as a request to post that information here. You have nothing to loose by doing so. You can only gain the trust from people around here. Your products are targetting the gaming and modding community needing high-end computers. That would be the people on this forum, so gaining our trust can only be in the advantage of your company.

 

"Information" was asked for once by dutch. I gave him information pertinent to the company on our plans for growth and our target market, etc... Things that a designer should "know" in planning out or building a design.

ACS, is a start-up company. As stated previously still in its baby stages. We have not officially registered anywhere as of yet, but will be registering in Delaware as an S-Corp. Up until now it has been a debate within the company as to what particular type of company we should be registered as and where we should be registered. (Certain states/cities have better tax laws for companies doing businesses online) This is one of the most important aspects of our company since we will be doing a great deal of online sales. The type of company effects our investors as well as us. The location effecting how we are able to operate, and other laws effecting us. Obviously not a decision to be taken lightly, our registration is being submitted no later than the end of next week. Our main offices are in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and we are currently in negotiations with the city for a manufacturing facility.

Any further detail or information requests can be submitted directly to me.

 

Information was asked for twice, in writing through e-mails by Dutch (me) and other times by other people I was in contact with and you chose to be not forthcoming. That someone reserved future advertising space or misleading someone by saying you have 22 years experience is not being forthcoming, nor is it impressive. I knew already that you were 28 (I found that out without your help), it raised my suspicions. Searches through contacts I have in Wisconsin came up with zero, zip, nada.

Now we find out there is no Alchemy Computer Corporation. At least not yet. There is no registration in any state for the corporation. Jeez, Louise. And you actually had the audacity to question my methods for finding information about you and your company?

Do you even have a DBA? Do you even have checks? Hmmm.

 

ACS is real, in fact very real. Registration is one of many steps in business and you know full well that fact. MANY months of planning, research, etc...more time to find investors and capital.

If all you can focus on is that you doubt I have been programming/ working with hardware, networks etc... for the last 22yrs of my life. You need to move on and be done here.

That said, are you quite done yet with your slanderous trash talk? Quite frankly it is not only old, but showing more so with each repetetive post, that you are a sore loser.

I will say in closing to you. I find it overtly ironic that you wanted to only submit your images since you could not complete your design that was submitted, yet are among the first to complain that the contest ended "unfairly". (and you asked for information once, I replied asking you what exactly you would like to know and you replied in response. That isnt asking twice, that is clarifying from one time asked)

 

Well, that went rather well...

I think the basic problem here is that conditions for the contest were not layed out very well at all --everything was too vague and subject to ad-hoc change. Let me illustrate:

First you are asking for an easy-to-produce, but original case with watercooling. There is a reason why Dell churns out bland boxes. Original designs incorporating watercooling are anything but easy to produce. Even the Voodoo Computer systems are just tarted-up Lian-Li's. They went that way for a reason. This is why you had to eventually settle for a more modest design.

You set no concrete limit on production costs (important!).

You do not require CAD/CAM, but you do require a design fit for commercial reproduction.

You edit and change the competition rules (particulary this one, and the one on requiring to build a prototype --which are BIG rules to change) as you go along. With that, you move the goal posts, and effectively, the winner.

This is because you are trying to satisfy two requirements: market popularity (i.e. which one is voted for most) and commercial reproducability (for which you are consulting your own team). Well, sorry, but you should know by now that most design involves commercial compromise. Else you end up in the Bang & Olufsen or Porsche league and you price yourself out of the market. Your competition rules should clearly reflect that.

So you may request a design... Also note the many edits again.

But at the same time you also want them to be able to build it. Why is that, if building the prototype is not a sine qua non condition? You do not require a CAD/CAM design, but the contestant has to be proficient in its use.

Since then you have shifted the goal posts from may require a prototype to must produce one, and slapped a deadline on it that was not mentioned in the original rules. It doesn't really matter whether one contestant was able to meet it. Different people, different designs, different build time.

What is the kicker is that you expect the contestants to foot the bill. Then there is the fact that we have no proof of the existence of your company. This feels a bit like those "Work at Home Earn Lots of $$$" schemes where the first step is you having to pay a substantial fee to an anonymous employer who you've only corresponded with by post. Can you see why people are, well, at least a bit weary?

The whole contest (indeed, you being allowed to run it on these forums) is entirely based on trust. Now consumer trust is the most important thing for a company. You have to inspire it and nurture it by showing:

- expertise. I do not get the impression that you know what you are doing --too many changes, too vague conditions suggesting that you didn't really think this one through in the first place, and possibly do not know what it actually takes to produce a complex, innovative product in a competitive and limited market;

- consistency: you make a promise, you deliver exactly when and how you promised to deliver, even if it means making a loss. You do not change the terms of the transaction/contract mid-way, even in the tiny details. And a contest IS a transaction/contact also;

- credentials: people have to believe you are the real thing. If you were Voodoo PCs for instance, you could get contestants to put the money up front for building the prototypes (although arguably, you wouldn't; you would give them a specific limited budget to work within up front). Right now however, you could just be another Lieberman Computers. I'm not saying you are, but the crucial point is, we don't know. We know nothing about you, really. You don't even host the competition on your own site (and before you say anything about exposure, you could have just placed a link here). Yes, it takes many steps to set up a registered company, but they are steps you take first. There is a correct order to go through in business, and you appear not to be following it.

The whole thing is more tricky because this competiton is run all by internet. As Pat Cadigan once said: "on the internet, there can only be lies". Frankly, I would not build a costly prototype and send it to you until the check cleared. That, too, is plain business and you should understand that. Again, I wonder why you don't.

I am leaving this thread open because I want to allow Static Lullabye a fair chance to reply. However I am not intending for this to turn into a playground squabble with members on the forum acting as jury. the moderators have allowed this competition to take place here at the request of the members even though we could clearly see it spelt T R O U B L E the moment we saw it. However, it is now over.

 

I must say I really feel like we were scammed through all this. I regret sending an email to this so called ACS company/almost company/maybe company/whatever.

There are way too many holes, too many inconsistencies, too many changes in their story. The sad part is there were some nice designs here and alot of people spent alot of their free time creating them. So i find it a huge disrepect to the designers and moderators/admins of this forum that this so called "contest" turned out the way that it did...unprofessionally and in a deceiving manner.

Sorry to the guys who worked hard on this, just move on and keep on modding