[Deuce]

Originally Posted by Senator_Thack

No one is behaving in a mean-spirited fashion. No one is treating you negatively because they don't like you personally. You are receiving negative feedback as a direct consequence of your posts. It will not help to put the blame on someone else's "mean-spiritedness" when the problem is your reaction to the current situation.

As far as I can tell, J5 created a nice WSOP replica design, had ABC print it with aligned edgespots, liked the results, and posted to basically say, "look how cool this came out!" You then responded without thinking things through and accused all and sundry of misbehaving. Negative feedback followed, prompted by more childish ranting from you, and it kept going downhill. In the meantime, everybody demanded that J5 and ABC make these public at the same time you made everyone not want to buy your chips.

You have harmed your own business worse than they could have. You would have been in great shape if you had read the first post, thought about it, and responded with something along the lines of, "Wow, those are great! If you want sweet WSOP replicas with aligned edgespots, I've got them ready to ship." If you had responded that way, I doubt J5 and ABC would have offered to make them available to the public.

If I were you, I would apologise to all you offended and let it go. Explaining why you were right or someone else was wrong just makes people want to disagree with you more. Joe from Palm Imports gave a great example of how to get out of a hole - quit digging! Everybody hated him after his first couple threads and never wanted to do business with him because he kept arguing with everyone. Finally he quit arguing, and started offering products that posters here wanted. Now everyone loves him.

Chill out, offer good products, focus on why your products are good, and you'll be fine.

AMEN!!!!

[Matt]

Next time I feel like replying to something that upsets me I will cut all the cables to the computer. That should give me a couple of hours to calm down first.


Matt

[Wedge Rock]

Matt, I was pretty close to giving you negative feedback for the way you handled this. And I've never given a neg. rep.

I empathize with your plight. You *thought* somebody stole your design and you flew off the handle... You realized your mistake and seem to have calmed down somewhat. But did you ever apologize to J5 or Gene for accusing them of stealing your artwork?

You've got a niche market and you are not even realizing it...not WSOP replicas, but custom chips in Europe... What you could have done (should have done?) is collaborated with J5 to make the best chip design possible, and then worked with Gene to sell the chips...you to Europe and Gene to US... There would be no competition whatsoever, and you both could have benefitted. Because of shipping costs, its unlikely that Gene is going to sell many chips to Europe and likewise, you many to the US. But if you offered the same product, produced locally to save shipping, you might have done better for yourself.

You might have even been able to establish a relationship with Gene and distributed other ABC designs in Europe...I don't know. But that seems pretty unlikely now...

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Wedge Rock

Matt, I was pretty close to giving you negative feedback for the way you handled this. And I've never given a neg. rep.

I empathize with your plight. You *thought* somebody stole your design and you flew off the handle... You realized your mistake and seem to have calmed down somewhat. But did you ever apologize to J5 or Gene for accusing them of stealing your artwork?

You've got a niche market and you are not even realizing it...not WSOP replicas, but custom chips in Europe... What you could have done (should have done?) is collaborated with J5 to make the best chip design possible, and then worked with Gene to sell the chips...you to Europe and Gene to US... There would be no competition whatsoever, and you both could have benefitted. Because of shipping costs, its unlikely that Gene is going to sell many chips to Europe and likewise, you many to the US. But if you offered the same product, produced locally to save shipping, you might have done better for yourself.

You might have even been able to establish a relationship with Gene and distributed other ABC designs in Europe...I don't know. But that seems pretty unlikely now...

I never accused anyone of stealing my artwork, I just said "Are those based on my mockups?" because I was shocked when I saw the picture. That's a question, not an accusation. They looked just like my not-yet-perfect mockups with changed header and logo when I first looked at them. I did apologize for my original post here in public.

At this point I can only hope that my chips will sell OK. That will keep me floating. I know that I have a nich market but if I can not show a good sales result I will probably loose my role as a retailer and these ceramics is my only product so far. The chips in the first post could halve my initiate sales result.

I started working on my original mockups in June and have spent alot of time and money on bringing these to the market. I just hired a professional to redo my mockups from scratch a few weeks ago and we have allready gone through several prototype runs. I can't see myself working together with anyone at this point selling someone else chips when I have invested so much in mine and are so close (finally) to releasing them.

Can we just let it go now? I will stop my stupid posts if you stop your hating. The only one who has been damaged by all this is me, there's no point kicking a dead horse.


Peace,

Matt

[plagueboy]

When I read matt ask if these were based on his mockups, I personally didn't think he was accusing anyone of stealing. I don't think that improving your design by looking at someone's mockups is any more stealing than looking at the actual chips.

I think Matt's color and chip pattern is more accurate, while J5's inlay is better. But who wouldn't prefer aligned edge spots?

[caveney]

Originally Posted by plagueboy

When I read matt ask if these were based on his mockups, I personally didn't think he was accusing anyone of stealing. I don't think that improving your design by looking at someone's mockups is any more stealing than looking at the actual chips.

I think Matt's color and chip pattern is more accurate, while J5's inlay is better. But who wouldn't prefer aligned edge spots?

mmmmmmmmmmm aligned edgespots :drool:

[bmwguy525]

Boy how I would love to see a couple pics of stacks of these chips *COUGH COUGH YAKNOWWHATIMSAYINGENE COUGH COUGH*

[burnvalley]

Not to get all in everyones business but I believe I was the first to do ceramic WSOP mock ups in January of this year does that count?

[caveney]

Originally Posted by burnvalley

Not to get all in everyones business but I believe I was the first to do ceramic WSOP mock ups in January of this year does that count?

nope.

[Matt]

I have sent a pm to Johnny, Gene and EPD apologizing for how all this turned out. All this BS ruined Johnny's thread and I feel bad for it. My apologies to everyone who were angered by my posts. I now have some distance to all this and don't feel bad about it anymore. I hope we all can leave this behind us and that there will be no grudge between us in the future. This would probably have been the right time for a first post giving my congrats on the great looking chips. I really think Johnny and Gene is doing a great job and for the good of the community I hope they keep it up. Anyway, just thought I would let you know.

Sincerely,

Matt