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The review of A-Z of Atari ST Games Volume 3 book RetroLaird is trying to delete!


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On 6/13/2020 at 8:54 PM, Welshworrier said:

So who's the other publisher who would use him for a book?

 

I'm guessing the level of his involvement is actually much less than he's claiming but still.....

 

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Given that his A to Z pdf guides were a collection of his old RVG and Atari Gamer Magazine reviews, without new knowledge being used to make them relevant and accurate... 

 

 

Is it not possible he's found someone willing to publish something containing materials from his ill-fated crowdfunding attempt, that 8-bit on a budget book?. 

 

He'd have the material on file..

 

Just thinking aloud. 

 

 

 

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33 minutes ago, Welshworrier said:

Let me guess at "we'll use you as a ghost writer and not tell them. Is that okay Mr Smithee?"

 

Edit: looking at the link shows it as a book review from 3 months ago so probably old work or trying to curry favour for future work.

Was going to say, thought this book was a few months old. 

 

Newest Books by Bitmap Books were the Micro Machines and GTW books.

 

He's not been used in the latter as Frank has done his own writing and interviewing as far as i am aware. 

 

He used the Atari Corp documents Scott Stilphen passed onto myself and i into Frank, to find and conduct Skype interviews himself. 

 

Kieren's offer of assistance to the GTW site was politely declined years ago ?

Edited by Lost Dragon
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On 2/21/2020 at 4:25 PM, Lorfarius said:

 

I've been friends with him for close to 10 years and ended up getting named as part of this document. Thing is I'm not a big part of the scene in anyway anymore, I had dealings with Chris W in the past but it was around 2012... that's 8 years ago! We parted ways with problems sure which I was pretty cross about but nothing on the level of being included in this statement and I'm truly scratching my head as to why I've been mentioned at all. 

 

Noticed I was listed by name part way through but he's seemingly deleted me as a friend over on Facebook, without so much as a word a couple of days ago. No rows between us and nothing that I know of to be dropped in this so I'm a bit annoyed that people might be trying to contact me off the back of it. I don't publish anything and just hang around forums for the most part these days, yet here I am seeing all this stuff in a sort of strange awe with my real name plonked right in the middle.

 

I will say again I have no financial incentive about any of this this, no plans for books or anything in the works. I'm about as much a nobody as you can get online today. But 8 years ago when I did a small retro magazine there was a mini sort of Atari history article. This had several pages written by Laird. He was paid to do this and when I received the work I'd seen rumours online about past problems so to be safe I did a quick check of the paragraphs submitted. First thing I noticed was it's opening paragraph had mostly been lifted straight from Atari's Wikipedia page word for word, checking on it I'd found several more paragraphs just like it with a few sentences wrapped around to make it look new. I ended up rewriting sections that weren't taken from Wiki as we were getting really close to print. Was annoyed at the time and just brushed it off as this was a quarterly mag, I needed to get other stuff sorted. Glad I checked at the time but it's always stuck at the back of my mind.

 

Reading through the statement I'm surprised it's even been done under his own name. This stuff is very legally liable and could be taken to court as is.

Would this by any chance be Pixel Nation Volume II? 

 

Just found it on an old memory stick. 

 

2 articles in it by Kieren. 

 

1.Atari In Japan, very light on actual information, more a collection of images and soundbites from Sam Tramiel and rumors about Namco plans for the Lynx. 

 

P76-83

 

Not even all his own work, as Marty Goldberg is thanked in the credits section. 

 

 

2.The infamous Panther feature, Cats Out Of The Bag. 

 

The article Leonard Tramiel described as fake news having seen it ?

 

Little more than a collection of material acquired from UK magazine features by Games - X Magazine and The One Magazine. 

 

Martin Brennan quotes credited to the Konix Multisystem website, hardware photo from Atari Museum. 

 

The games section itself is laughable. 

 

Cybermorph (which has since long been confirmed as never being on Panther) is taken from the Jaguar demo tape Atari sent out, as is Super Asteroids (the sprite handling Jaguar tech demo). 

 

Steel Talons and Road Riot 4WD are the Falcon versions. 

 

Ditto Raiden..over 13 Ex-Imagited Design sources so far questioned and not a single one knew of any Panther development within the company. 

 

Pitfighter claim was false (sources within Domark and Tengen confirm this) and that's taken from The One Magazine. 

 

Completely missing is the test work Hand Made Software carried out on the system and Guildo H. moving his RPG, The Crypt from Konix to Panther. 

 

As is the planned Tiertex version of Strider II. 

 

 

The Jeff Minter test demos are included, but article doesn't state they were intended for his planned Ian M. Banks/Star Raiders style epic game on Panther or Jeff abandoned the system after a mere few weeks, Kieren makes the claim the demos went onto become Llamazap on the Falcon. 

 

 

The article had zero fact checking, borrowed imagery from the Jaguar and Falcon, took magazine claims at face value. 

 

Yet here we are today with at least 2 individuals saying they found no issues with the recent work Kieren submitted to them and 1 going as far as to say the stories  Kieren has submitted on a system he himself never owned, sound authentic. 

 

Learn from history and the accounts given would be my advice to future publishers he approaches. 

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Bless!
He does try, but for some strange reason no-one seems overly excited about jumping onboard HMS Hawken.
"Lot of people been asking how they can support" his endeavours and close on two years later we find the amber ass-munch with six whole patrons.
Fusion Magazine went live on 20th June and had 43 Patrons in just over an hour.
You must be doing something wrong Moley?
Can't begin to think what that might be.

 

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3 hours ago, LostInThePast said:

No doubt he will find some reason to get the review pulled.

I mean, its written by the master himself, so it MUST be brilliant....any reviews saying otherwise are clearly libelous....

 ? With Amazon using an automated review checking system and a community team based in Bangladesh and Kieren having of course written for the award winning Retrogamer magazine, Bitmap Books, Bret Weiss and being such a prolific author... 

 

 

Plus, he was recently interviewed on a CDi forum.. 

 

 

Why the review must be libelous ?

 

Next thing you know, you'll have people asking why Guru Larry is having to make correct to the facts Kieren provided him for his original edition of his Fact Hunt book. 

 

 

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14 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Guru Larry is having to make correct to the facts Kieren provided him for his original edition of his Fact Hunt book. 

Really? that sucks as it will just end up tarnishing Larrys name for those of us not in the know.

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11 minutes ago, blot said:

Really? that sucks as it will just end up tarnishing Larrys name for those of us not in the know.

Whoops, didn't spot the phone auto correct in my post. It should have read make corrections not make correct to the facts. 

 

My last communication with Larry was some time ago, but he reached out to myself, to thank me for purchasing the book and via constructive criticism, highlighting how certain Atari facts Kieren had supplied for the book had zero credibility. 

 

Via private messaging i put forward the case why the supposed facts simply held no water and who would of been needed to of been contacted to get a far clearer understanding and if it wasn't possible to reach these people, the facts should go, as they were very misleading. 

 

 

Larry spoke of a revised edition of the book being planned, with corrections made, budget not being available from publisher to do a substantial rewrite of some aspects. 

 

Larry seemed very keen to correct errors that had crept in or he had taken on in good faith and it was very reassuring to see a creator putting his fan base first and not ashamed to admit he got things wrong. 

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46 minutes ago, LostInThePast said:

Everyone gets things wrong at some point, intentional or not.

Its how we act when we realise, that define the person we are.

 

Fair play to Larry.

 

Not so much to others....

Larry was probably THE most genuine person who responded to a review of videogames book purchased by myself, i have ever encountered. 

 

The review i left was rather critical, as after listening to Larry talk about the amount of research and fact checking that had gone into it, I was rather dissapointed to find quite so many errors. 

 

But fair bloody play to Larry for taking the time to reach out, thank me for the purchase, admit errors had made it in, despite his best efforts.. even thanked me for the review. 

 

He then asked for help in rectifying the errors i had highlighted and explained he planned a revised edition and why full rewrites of certain sections were not possible. 

 

Full credit to Larry for his openness, honesty and respect for his customers. 

 

There were no attempts to deflect blame, hide who had contributed what and no attempts to bribe a glowing review. 

 

Also no knee jerk reactions to criticism. 

 

I can't say the same for a good few other authors books i have purchased. 

 

He earnt my respect that day. 

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Btw for anyone left in any doubt as to Kierens console history. If you listen here with his 2020 interview, you'll discover a lack of Nintendo.

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzQ5NzA3NjkucnNz&ep=14&episode=dGFnOmF1ZGlvYm9vbS5jb20sMjAyMC0wMS0wMzovcG9zdHMvNzQ2OTA1Ng&pe=1&pep=1655065

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15 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Larry was probably THE most genuine person who responded to a review of videogames book purchased by myself, i have ever encountered. 

 

The review i left was rather critical, as after listening to Larry talk about the amount of research and fact checking that had gone into it, I was rather dissapointed to find quite so many errors. 

 

But fair bloody play to Larry for taking the time to reach out, thank me for the purchase, admit errors had made it in, despite his best efforts.. even thanked me for the review. 

 

He then asked for help in rectifying the errors i had highlighted and explained he planned a revised edition and why full rewrites of certain sections were not possible. 

 

Full credit to Larry for his openness, honesty and respect for his customers. 

 

There were no attempts to deflect blame, hide who had contributed what and no attempts to bribe a glowing review. 

 

Also no knee jerk reactions to criticism. 

 

I can't say the same for a good few other authors books i have purchased. 

 

He earnt my respect that day. 

Larry Bundy Jr., with his history through TV (more so than Kieren Willam Hawken BTW) playing and reviewing video games at a very early age, is a really chill dude to talk with and I can back this up, as I talked to him about Jaguar development stuff one time. So it sucks to see that he was embroiled with Kieren's "expertise" for his first book.

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On 6/26/2020 at 3:07 PM, Welshworrier said:

And in case anyone thinks it's a slip of the tongue.

Here's his interview from 2014 where he says the same.(From 1 hour and 14)

 

https://podbay.fm/podcast/663593797/e/1409277390

Such a good 'writer' that he just created the word 'travellable'. The Atari scene in the UK is really big?


Also @ around 1 hour 23, decides to take credit for Revival! What a @~!*house! 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, ∞ Vince ∞ said:

Such a good 'writer' that he just created the word 'travellable'. The Atari scene in the UK is really big?


Also @ around 1 hour 23, decides to take credit for Revival! What a @~!*house! 

 

 

The Atari scene in the UK isn't that big, at least in relation to the demoscene / homebrew scene, but we are spread out across the country. I know of at least one other guy who is based close to me, just outside Cambridge, alongside my best man (and friend) from Northampton; various people from Hull, one from Nottingham and others based around the Greater Manchester area and a couple of people in Kent.

 

Whilst the wotsit's event that was held in 2009 in a small "business room" in a hotel near to the northern part of the M25; yes, he tried to call it 'Jagfest: Retro Revival' but this was totally different to the Revival events which have been organized by Mr T and Chris Wilkins over the years. These were always much larger events (even the Revival Mini events over the years were much larger) than the wotsit's "events" ever could be. He relied on other people's money too much.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Felice_Atari said:

The Atari scene in the UK isn't that big, at least in relation to the demoscene / homebrew scene, but we are spread out across the country. I know of at least one other guy who is based close to me, just outside Cambridge, alongside my best man (and friend) from Northampton; various people from Hull, one from Nottingham and others based around the Greater Manchester area and a couple of people in Kent.

 

Whilst the wotsit's event that was held in 2009 in a small "business room" in a hotel near to the northern part of the M25; yes, he tried to call it 'Jagfest: Retro Revival' but this was totally different to the Revival events which have been organized by Mr T and Chris Wilkins over the years. These were always much larger events (even the Revival Mini events over the years were much larger) than the wotsit's "events" ever could be. He relied on other people's money too much.

 

 

Yeah, so lets say 50, maybe 100 Atari hardcore fans in the UK, that isn't many. AA has what more than 20,000 users and most of them have at least some love for the Atari.

 

Kizza just says whatever pops into his head to impress the person he is talking to at any given moment and no care if it is complete Bollocks or not.

 

I think it is fair to say that Craig/Mr. T has clarified the totality of Kizza's input into Revival. He brought along a couple of consoles one time. The way he was going (in that interview) 'we're going to get a bigger venue' like he was running it, he's a complete fucking fantasist! 

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Happened to get a private message (despite it being blocked) on FB from the wotsit this morning. Empty threats no doubt along with insisting that he 'organized' Revival and had invited me to the event for the first time. As it knows itself, it is definitely wrong. Message was deleted rather than replying back.

 

The wotsit a loser and what's worse, it keeps coming back for more ....  it will never win.

 

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On 7/1/2020 at 5:05 PM, Felice_Atari said:

Happened to get a private message (despite it being blocked) on FB from the wotsit this morning. Empty threats no doubt along with insisting that he 'organized' Revival and had invited me to the event for the first time. As it knows itself, it is definitely wrong. Message was deleted rather than replying back.

 

The wotsit a loser and what's worse, it keeps coming back for more ....  it will never win.

 

You're not the first.
He's up to his old tricks again, spreading baseless "rumours" about person A saying things about person B.
The cycle continues.

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