First, for the posters above who say "well, the victims deserved to get scammed because they didn't successfully protect themselves": That's a griefer's excuse. And I see exactly the same thing in Minecraft: "If you don't protect your server/stuff/whatever from griefing, you deserve to be greifed." Or, in short, if someone can successfully perpetrate a crime against you, then you deserve to be a victim of a crime. Robbed? You deserved it. Carjacked? You deserved it. Murdered? Yeah, you deserved to die. If you didn't, you wouldn't have been in that theater in Aurora, you wouldn't have been in the Twin Towers, you wouldn't have been at Fort Hood. But you were, so it's your fault, not anybody else's, that you were murdered. Malik Hassan, James Eagan Holmes, and an assortment of Al Quaida terrorists, didn't do anything wrong. It's all the fault of the people they murdered.
Ridiculous, isn't it? It's a comforting thought to have -- "I'll never be a victim because I'm too smart to let it happen." But it's not that easy. Someone who's just as smart, if not smarter, than you are might want you to be their victim, and when it's them versus you, two or three or ten versus one, you may very well lose, even if you think only people who aren't you are ever the targets of successful crimes.
In any crime, you have two people with opposing goals. Let's say, for instance, that Al wants to break into Zoe's house and steal Zoe's TV. Zoe, on the other hand, does not want her house broken into nor her TV stolen. They both take steps to accomplish their goals. Zoe locks her door, and Al breaks a window instead. Al succeeds in his goal: he breaks into the house and steals the TV. Would you seriously say that this is Zoe's fault? Al succeeded in what he set out to do; Zoe failed in what she set out to do. The outcome was what one of the two people wanted, not the other, and it's the person who wanted it that way, and worked to make it happen that way, who gets the blame (or credit), not the person who wanted it to be some other way.
Now, specific to MOTM and the situation.
First, some background here: I have been a member of the convention committee of two separate science fiction conventions. I have worked as a volunteer -- including security -- at numerous others. I was a volunteer staffer at the professionally-run Game Developers' Conference for two years. I have been an exhibitor/vendor at multiple conventions, from college student-run conventions in spare rooms of the student union building to GenCon and Dragon*Con. And I have attended dozens of volunteer-run SF, anime, and comic book conventions over a period of decades, from student cons to Worldcons. In short, I have a lot of experience with conventions, both behind and in front of the scenes, and this speaks directly to that experience.
It's obvious that the guy is lying from his own words.
Quote from Kevin Roman »
My wife and I, just like many other parents, were bummed that our children were unable to attend the official Minecraft Convention - Minecon, back in November of last year, being as though tickets sold out in a matter of seconds. In response, we thought it would be a nice idea to create our own Minecraft gathering....
Okay, so his kids couldn't go to MineCon, so he wanted to create his own. I can see that. But if that's so, why did he decide to also do the same thing somewhere else -- NYC -- too? If you're doing something for your friends and family, you do it near home; you don't do another one in a major market because that's not where your family is.
Now, as for the claims in his statement:
He says that there were no decorations, no displays, no nothing, because the attendees stole all of them. They apparently even stole the signs from the walls and the decorations from the ceiling, and of course the table drapes, curtains, etc. But if that's the case, how come all of the videos show people standing around in a barren room, and none of them show people hauling all this stuff out the doors? I haven't seen a single picture of someone stealing so much as a "Welcome to MOTM" sign. Is it a 1024-person conspiracy against Kevin Roman or something? He says that this was a success because only 10% of the people who were there have complained on Facebook. So all those other people who didn't complain (and by his logic, therefore supported him), they must have videos, or at least stills, of attendees stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and prying loose that was. Where are those pictures? Where is the evidence that would support him? For that matter, where are his pictures of a beautifully-decorated convention venue before they let the paying customers in? You don't do all that work, set everything up, and not at least pull out your cell phone camera and get a couple shots of how nice it looks. Yet he expects us to believe that all this stuff existed, and was set up, and nobody took a picture of that, and then after the doors opened, it was stolen, and nobody, not one of the 1024 attendees, not one of the volunteers, and not him, took a picture of that either.
Now, the matter of how people could steal all of that stuff in the first place: Where was his security? I'm not talking rent-a-cops (though given the location and the expected attendees, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to hire a couple) but convention volunteers. I've been one, multiple times. They're the people with the little red "Security Staff" ribbons hanging from their badges who say "Hey, don't mess with that!" when someone tries to walk off with something -- and takes a picture of them for future identification if that doesn't dissuade him. Where were those people when this massive wave of theft was happening? Convention security is something that anyone who is trying to put on a convention -- even if they're just a student SF club at a small branch state university -- has, because if for no other reason you need someone to check to make sure everyone coming in actually paid. I'm pretty sure he made certain that the attendees had shelled out the required $50, and he certainly had some way of ejecting everyone when he shut the whole thing down after 2 hours (probably when his venue rental was up), so how come those people were unable to stop -- or even report on -- this massive theft of, well, everything?
He says all the rest of the stuff -- the LEGO sets, the PS4s, etc. -- that he promised to give away was in a back room so people wouldn't steal it. Fair enough; I've done my time sleeping on the floor of the video equipment room at an SF con so that people wouldn't make off with the equipment overnight. But how come when he did giveaways -- remember those pens? -- he didn't give away THE LEGO SETS instead? He was doing a giveaway. Whatever the setup, whatever the circumstances, he was doing a giveaway. He had a choice of what items to give away: "Let's see, should it be these Minecraft LEGO sets that I bought and advertised? Or should it be some spare boxes of pens that I got at the dollar store for the staff to use?" Then he chose the pens. He's expecting us to believe that he left the advertised items on the shelf and gave away junk instead. He already had those LEGO sets (or so he claims) but he didn't give them out; instead, he gave out boxes of cheap pens. Why not use the LEGO sets, if they existed, and make people happy instead of angry? The only reason I can see for this is if the LEGO sets never existed at all.
I've seen screwed-up conventions. Even a screwed-up Worldcon. I have a pretty good feel for what screwed-up conventions look like. And this doesn't look like one. If he'd told the truth, I'd be able to accept it as a huge screw-up. But he didn't. As I demonstrated above, just from his statements in his own defense of what happened, he lied, liked, and lied some more. That's not what people who make mistakes do.
Really is a shame stuff like this happens. I remember Guude talking about a convention that seemed like a scam to. Hope people can stay ware of this crap in the future.
I feel bad for the person who set it up. People started slandering him and his wife, threatening his kids. Even if he truly did scam them, threatening kids and releasing private information is not acceptable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Unfortunately people often take things to far. Taking legal action is perfectly OK but threatening physical harm is not.
Finally someone who agrees. Posting pictures of their daughter and asking people to harass them is not ok. And though very few people will know the true outcome of what happened, what if he didn't scam, yet after stealing stuff you threaten them?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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It's definitely NOT legal! If I was God, I'd send him burning in Hell after the fake con. The fans of Minecraft SHOULD NOT have to face their lives being crushed by a money mad person who doesn't know how to play fair!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
As a Foot Soldier/Demolitions Expert in the Overworld Threat Protection Squad, Alpha Wolf Squad, I protect the Overworld from the latest threats. Creepers.......BAM! Zombies.....SLICE IN HALF! And when the battle gets rough........EXPLOSIVES!!!!!!!!!!!
Never underestimate the Alpha Wolf Squad!
"Not Creeper, nor Endermen, or even a Slime, Nothings to strong for the Alpha Wolf Squad!"
It's definitely NOT legal! If I was God, I'd send him burning in Hell after the fake con. The fans of Minecraft SHOULD NOT have to face their lives being crushed by a money mad person who doesn't know how to play fair!
Lol, nobody can even prove what happened, and really? People are threatening to track him down, rape his kids and then murder them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hey, please check these links out if you're looking for a unique Minecraft server:
And if you were this so called God, would you send the people who threatened him to Hell, too?
The people who threatened him aren't money mad. And I'm someday going to be a Bounty Hunter. I'm the descendent of Boba Fett. I'm planning on having a fully working replica of Jango Fett's armor(with jetpack, a must). No jetpack missle or blasters, but all other weapons on the armor are functional. Plus 50 cans of Obama and Lucasfilm-approved jetpack fuel. But back on tropic(a joke). No scammer should go to Heaven.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I've been thinking about tracking him down when I become a Bounty Hunter since yesterday(after I saw the vid).
As a Foot Soldier/Demolitions Expert in the Overworld Threat Protection Squad, Alpha Wolf Squad, I protect the Overworld from the latest threats. Creepers.......BAM! Zombies.....SLICE IN HALF! And when the battle gets rough........EXPLOSIVES!!!!!!!!!!!
Never underestimate the Alpha Wolf Squad!
"Not Creeper, nor Endermen, or even a Slime, Nothings to strong for the Alpha Wolf Squad!"
The people who threatened him aren't money mad. And I'm someday going to be a Bounty Hunter. I'm the descendent of Boba Fett. I'm planning on having a fully working replica of Jango Fett's armor(with jetpack, a must). No jetpack missle or blasters, but all other weapons on the armor are functional. Plus 50 cans of Obama and Lucasfilm-approved jetpack fuel. But back on tropic(a joke). No scammer should go to Heaven.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I've been thinking about tracking him down when I become a Bounty Hunter since yesterday(after I saw the vid).
1. We don't even know the details, we just base it off of American parents, who if he's totally the truth, would be the ones stealing. Have you ever had an event or done something and literally everything possible gets screwed up (Besides the cake, oh wait, turns out the icing was expired)? For him, it might have just so happened at that time, I mean, to start, a lot of their contract wasn't done right (It was still a mess), people had already started stealing things and they weren't even there because their truck had a flat. And even if he did do it, is threatening to rape their daughter acceptable? If God was real and was all for justice, then even if he did do it, the people who threatened to rape his daughter and then kill his sons would go to Hell, too.
2. Ok then. My son knocked you into a sarlacc.
3. We don't even know if he was a scammer or not, and did you read his couple thousand response telling everything that happened? He gave the boy in the Creeper costume $1000, too. It was bounced a few times, but he did give it and he got to keep it.
4. And kill a man that could be innocent?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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<Click me! It only takes a few seconds!
First, for the posters above who say "well, the victims deserved to get scammed because they didn't successfully protect themselves": That's a griefer's excuse. And I see exactly the same thing in Minecraft: "If you don't protect your server/stuff/whatever from griefing, you deserve to be greifed." Or, in short, if someone can successfully perpetrate a crime against you, then you deserve to be a victim of a crime. Robbed? You deserved it. Carjacked? You deserved it. Murdered? Yeah, you deserved to die. If you didn't, you wouldn't have been in that theater in Aurora, you wouldn't have been in the Twin Towers, you wouldn't have been at Fort Hood. But you were, so it's your fault, not anybody else's, that you were murdered. Malik Hassan, James Eagan Holmes, and an assortment of Al Quaida terrorists, didn't do anything wrong. It's all the fault of the people they murdered.
Ridiculous, isn't it? It's a comforting thought to have -- "I'll never be a victim because I'm too smart to let it happen." But it's not that easy. Someone who's just as smart, if not smarter, than you are might want you to be their victim, and when it's them versus you, two or three or ten versus one, you may very well lose, even if you think only people who aren't you are ever the targets of successful crimes.
In any crime, you have two people with opposing goals. Let's say, for instance, that Al wants to break into Zoe's house and steal Zoe's TV. Zoe, on the other hand, does not want her house broken into nor her TV stolen. They both take steps to accomplish their goals. Zoe locks her door, and Al breaks a window instead. Al succeeds in his goal: he breaks into the house and steals the TV. Would you seriously say that this is Zoe's fault? Al succeeded in what he set out to do; Zoe failed in what she set out to do. The outcome was what one of the two people wanted, not the other, and it's the person who wanted it that way, and worked to make it happen that way, who gets the blame (or credit), not the person who wanted it to be some other way.
Now, specific to MOTM and the situation.
First, some background here: I have been a member of the convention committee of two separate science fiction conventions. I have worked as a volunteer -- including security -- at numerous others. I was a volunteer staffer at the professionally-run Game Developers' Conference for two years. I have been an exhibitor/vendor at multiple conventions, from college student-run conventions in spare rooms of the student union building to GenCon and Dragon*Con. And I have attended dozens of volunteer-run SF, anime, and comic book conventions over a period of decades, from student cons to Worldcons. In short, I have a lot of experience with conventions, both behind and in front of the scenes, and this speaks directly to that experience.
It's obvious that the guy is lying from his own words.
Okay, so his kids couldn't go to MineCon, so he wanted to create his own. I can see that. But if that's so, why did he decide to also do the same thing somewhere else -- NYC -- too? If you're doing something for your friends and family, you do it near home; you don't do another one in a major market because that's not where your family is.
Now, as for the claims in his statement:
He says that there were no decorations, no displays, no nothing, because the attendees stole all of them. They apparently even stole the signs from the walls and the decorations from the ceiling, and of course the table drapes, curtains, etc. But if that's the case, how come all of the videos show people standing around in a barren room, and none of them show people hauling all this stuff out the doors? I haven't seen a single picture of someone stealing so much as a "Welcome to MOTM" sign. Is it a 1024-person conspiracy against Kevin Roman or something? He says that this was a success because only 10% of the people who were there have complained on Facebook. So all those other people who didn't complain (and by his logic, therefore supported him), they must have videos, or at least stills, of attendees stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and prying loose that was. Where are those pictures? Where is the evidence that would support him? For that matter, where are his pictures of a beautifully-decorated convention venue before they let the paying customers in? You don't do all that work, set everything up, and not at least pull out your cell phone camera and get a couple shots of how nice it looks. Yet he expects us to believe that all this stuff existed, and was set up, and nobody took a picture of that, and then after the doors opened, it was stolen, and nobody, not one of the 1024 attendees, not one of the volunteers, and not him, took a picture of that either.
Now, the matter of how people could steal all of that stuff in the first place: Where was his security? I'm not talking rent-a-cops (though given the location and the expected attendees, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to hire a couple) but convention volunteers. I've been one, multiple times. They're the people with the little red "Security Staff" ribbons hanging from their badges who say "Hey, don't mess with that!" when someone tries to walk off with something -- and takes a picture of them for future identification if that doesn't dissuade him. Where were those people when this massive wave of theft was happening? Convention security is something that anyone who is trying to put on a convention -- even if they're just a student SF club at a small branch state university -- has, because if for no other reason you need someone to check to make sure everyone coming in actually paid. I'm pretty sure he made certain that the attendees had shelled out the required $50, and he certainly had some way of ejecting everyone when he shut the whole thing down after 2 hours (probably when his venue rental was up), so how come those people were unable to stop -- or even report on -- this massive theft of, well, everything?
He says all the rest of the stuff -- the LEGO sets, the PS4s, etc. -- that he promised to give away was in a back room so people wouldn't steal it. Fair enough; I've done my time sleeping on the floor of the video equipment room at an SF con so that people wouldn't make off with the equipment overnight. But how come when he did giveaways -- remember those pens? -- he didn't give away THE LEGO SETS instead? He was doing a giveaway. Whatever the setup, whatever the circumstances, he was doing a giveaway. He had a choice of what items to give away: "Let's see, should it be these Minecraft LEGO sets that I bought and advertised? Or should it be some spare boxes of pens that I got at the dollar store for the staff to use?" Then he chose the pens. He's expecting us to believe that he left the advertised items on the shelf and gave away junk instead. He already had those LEGO sets (or so he claims) but he didn't give them out; instead, he gave out boxes of cheap pens. Why not use the LEGO sets, if they existed, and make people happy instead of angry? The only reason I can see for this is if the LEGO sets never existed at all.
I've seen screwed-up conventions. Even a screwed-up Worldcon. I have a pretty good feel for what screwed-up conventions look like. And this doesn't look like one. If he'd told the truth, I'd be able to accept it as a huge screw-up. But he didn't. As I demonstrated above, just from his statements in his own defense of what happened, he lied, liked, and lied some more. That's not what people who make mistakes do.
This wasn't a screw-up. This was a scam.
I have no clue what I'm doing.
GET DEM LAWSUITS WRITIN'!
- ToxiCraft Server Network Owner
Hey, please check these links out if you're looking for a unique Minecraft server:
Infinite-MC Website
Infinite-MC (Minecraft Forum)
Finally someone who agrees. Posting pictures of their daughter and asking people to harass them is not ok. And though very few people will know the true outcome of what happened, what if he didn't scam, yet after stealing stuff you threaten them?
Hey, please check these links out if you're looking for a unique Minecraft server:
Infinite-MC Website
Infinite-MC (Minecraft Forum)
Humans.
Hey, please check these links out if you're looking for a unique Minecraft server:
Infinite-MC Website
Infinite-MC (Minecraft Forum)
It's definitely NOT legal! If I was God, I'd send him burning in Hell after the fake con. The fans of Minecraft SHOULD NOT have to face their lives being crushed by a money mad person who doesn't know how to play fair!
As a Foot Soldier/Demolitions Expert in the Overworld Threat Protection Squad, Alpha Wolf Squad, I protect the Overworld from the latest threats. Creepers.......BAM! Zombies.....SLICE IN HALF! And when the battle gets rough........EXPLOSIVES!!!!!!!!!!!
Never underestimate the Alpha Wolf Squad!
"Not Creeper, nor Endermen, or even a Slime, Nothings to strong for the Alpha Wolf Squad!"
-motto
Lol, nobody can even prove what happened, and really? People are threatening to track him down, rape his kids and then murder them.
Hey, please check these links out if you're looking for a unique Minecraft server:
Infinite-MC Website
Infinite-MC (Minecraft Forum)
And if you were this so called God, would you send the people who threatened him to Hell, too?
Hey, please check these links out if you're looking for a unique Minecraft server:
Infinite-MC Website
Infinite-MC (Minecraft Forum)
The people who threatened him aren't money mad. And I'm someday going to be a Bounty Hunter. I'm the descendent of Boba Fett. I'm planning on having a fully working replica of Jango Fett's armor(with jetpack, a must). No jetpack missle or blasters, but all other weapons on the armor are functional. Plus 50 cans of Obama and Lucasfilm-approved jetpack fuel. But back on tropic(a joke). No scammer should go to Heaven.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I've been thinking about tracking him down when I become a Bounty Hunter since yesterday(after I saw the vid).
As a Foot Soldier/Demolitions Expert in the Overworld Threat Protection Squad, Alpha Wolf Squad, I protect the Overworld from the latest threats. Creepers.......BAM! Zombies.....SLICE IN HALF! And when the battle gets rough........EXPLOSIVES!!!!!!!!!!!
Never underestimate the Alpha Wolf Squad!
"Not Creeper, nor Endermen, or even a Slime, Nothings to strong for the Alpha Wolf Squad!"
-motto
1. We don't even know the details, we just base it off of American parents, who if he's totally the truth, would be the ones stealing. Have you ever had an event or done something and literally everything possible gets screwed up (Besides the cake, oh wait, turns out the icing was expired)? For him, it might have just so happened at that time, I mean, to start, a lot of their contract wasn't done right (It was still a mess), people had already started stealing things and they weren't even there because their truck had a flat. And even if he did do it, is threatening to rape their daughter acceptable? If God was real and was all for justice, then even if he did do it, the people who threatened to rape his daughter and then kill his sons would go to Hell, too.
2. Ok then. My son knocked you into a sarlacc.
3. We don't even know if he was a scammer or not, and did you read his couple thousand response telling everything that happened? He gave the boy in the Creeper costume $1000, too. It was bounced a few times, but he did give it and he got to keep it.
4. And kill a man that could be innocent?
Hey, please check these links out if you're looking for a unique Minecraft server:
Infinite-MC Website
Infinite-MC (Minecraft Forum)