DUMB DEALS THAT I TURNED DOWN

Steve Cole reminisces:

1. "Ok, sure, the deal (the way I want it written) is getting around the limits of your contract with Paramount by committing fraud, but nobody needs to actually know that."

2. "Notice how I am doing this under the corporation I just formed so if the joint ventures fails I won't actually have to pay you any of the money that I owe you."

3. "I am going to pay you $100,000 for the Star Fleet Universe, money that is to be paid a year later and isn't secured by anything and that I'm not personally liable for. Then I'm going to go borrow enough money secured by the Star Fleet Universe property that I can pay my rent and bills for a year while I try to get this deal up and running to produce money for both of us. Well, sure, if in the end I don't actually produce any income you'll lose the Star Fleet Universe and get paid nothing, but that's not going to happen!"

4. "You invest enough money up front for me to print 12 issues of this magazine, including my salary for writing and editing them. We'll sell enough advertising in those 12 issues to keep going, and eventually we'll be making a profit. No, I really don't want any goals written into the contract that you can pull the plug if we don't sell a set amount of advertising in the first few issues, or any of the first 12."

5. "You go find $250,000 from investors. I'll use it to pay the salaries of my buddies while we write a really cool computer game that will produce royalties for two or three years before players think it's old and out of date."

6. "You pay me $20,000 to run this advertising campaign, and if it doesn't produce any results, I'll run a second campaign for you for half price!"

7. "You sell your games to my web store at wholesale rates, and I will then sell your games to the public for a 40% discount, in direct competition with your own web store. Oh, sure, I need you to put links to my store on your website so your customers can find my store, and I'll let you handle all of the rules questions and other customer service. I'll also need you to promote my webstore on your bulletin boards. Oh, and I don't want to keep any inventory, so I'll need you to ship each order direct to the customer within 24 hours of when it comes in. Yeah, that will put your web store out of business and all of the brick and mortar stores will drop your line, but so what? Think of all the work you won't have to do! Nah, it won't cheapen your brand; it will just establish a new price level that your customers will love!"

8. "I will design a cool game for your company. You print it and pay me a royalty. Because I am a famous game designer, you'll have to guarantee me that I get royalties on the entire print run, whether or not they sell."

9. "I want to publish my own SFU games under your contract with Paramount. I will pay you a royalty, and you can pay them. Sure, that's not legal under the contract, so just don't tell them that I'm the one selling the games, and they'll never notice. I am not going to allow you to have any control over what I print, even if it contradicts something in a product you did. You can just do errata for your products. No, you cannot tell me to remove something that you think violates your contract with Paramount if I think it does not violate the contract."

10. "Buy this $100,000 printing machine that does the same thing as any two of your $7,000 printing machines! Plus, unlike the repair guys from your $7,000 printers (who show up in a few hours), our repair guys show up sometime within a week! But hey, our machine is SOOO much better!"