General

[Instien'spaintball]

Originally Posted by ITSPB-Rogue

It must be nice to have the luxury of being able to pick and choose your employment based on (in the grand scheme of things) a pretty minor ethical qualm... Don't get me wrong I don't like the Gardners particularly much either but to imply that the people underneath them got what they deserved is pretty f*cking callous.

You Put that Much better than I, Thank you SIR!

[druid]

Quoted out of order to lump similar responses together...

Originally Posted by ITSPB-Rogue

You know, its real easy to make that call from a completely outside perspective...

If it comes down to working somewhere that I get a big enough paycheck to bring home and support my family/pay my bills, frankly, that company has to be doing something a lot worse than putting other companies out of business for me to have a moral objection to working for them. You guys make it sound like SP made a business of grinding up adorable puppies to put into baby food or something. You may not like that they directly or indirectly drove other companies out of the industry but you know what, from an employees perspective, I very much doubt you'd care as long as your paycheck is coming in on time and you're getting enough $$ to pay the bills.

It must be nice to have the luxury of being able to pick and choose your employment based on (in the grand scheme of things) a pretty minor ethical qualm... Don't get me wrong I don't like the Gardners particularly much either but to imply that the people underneath them got what they deserved is pretty f*cking callous.

Precisely. Personally, I work for the biggest thieves, Liars, extortionists and thugs you could ever hope to work for - the Government. Why? I have a wife and 3 daughter's to feed. Since I refuse to engage in anything illegal [drug sales as the example], job security with a high-paying income is what I require.

Originally Posted by Chappy

1. Sorry dude, but SP has consistently been the worst of the worst when it comes to this shtuff. They got their rep for a reason; it just didn't magically appear out of nowhere. All those companies have made some decisions based on their own business, instead of the players and industries needs. But none of them have built a business model based on deceit the way sp has. Well, maybe Sheridan, but where'd that get 'em?

2. You mentioned Tippmann, Palmer, and AGD. Tippmann could've patented the pin valve. They didn't and thus the industry grew drastically on that tech. Same thing with Palmer and the auto-cocking mech, and AGD with the HPA reg. Think about what the industry would be like if they had "protected" themselves like sp did with the electro...

1. It's called business. Why does someone go into business? To make money and obviously the Gardeners were more "business savvy" than others. Who's fauilt is that? They went to school to learn how to be scheisters...so blame their professors.
All the BS aside, you really think the TacOne Mag really costs $600+ to build? Are you saying that TK didn't make profit off the sales of his gear? Please...

2. And look at what they missed out on. Everyone likes to pride TK, Tippmann and Palmer for these things and others sit back and say "what morons." If you create something that you WANT to protect as IP, you patent it. Don't patent protect something and someone else does...well that's your own freaking fault.......don't cry foul later like some people do.

Originally Posted by russc

Nobody else really compares to SP. I mean, yes, there are many companies out there who have acted shady or pulled some crap to shut the little guys down, but what SP did over the course of like 20 years is pretty much unparalleled. They consistently misinformed their customers, squashed little guys with legal threats and to boot, the Gardeners were even internet famous for being cheaters before the WWW was invented.

The only other company that comes close IMO is WGP in their K2 sue-happy phase, but it's a little more understandable there since they were bought out by a giant corporation. WGP and NPS are gone, and Virtue is pretty much a legitimate board maker now, so who do you suggest we hate on?

Like I said...you can't "grade" a companies' deceits by "lesser than other evils." They are either stand up or shady...there's no in-between...and there are companies out there right now doing similar crap but no one cries about it - not as much, anyway.

So...for all those hypocrites out there blasting SP while sporting their Virtue-boarded, Dye marker with a Draxxus Pulse loader......and other similarly hypocritical purchases...I salute you all for your blinded mindset. Keep up the good work...we need more people like you running the country.

[Chappy]

Originally Posted by druid

obviously the Gardeners were more "business savvy" than others.

Wait, what? Why are their doors closed, then?

Business ethics mean something, accept it.

[Schmitti]

Originally Posted by Chappy

Wait, what? Why are their doors closed, then?

Business ethics mean something, accept it.

Double Bingo!

Ethics are a huge part of business... and a lot of people live by the "I'm fine unless I get caught mentality" Unfortunately I saw that too much in the private engineering world and got tired of it. The Gardners seemed to live by it and even shoved it in everybody's face because they knew they could work the overtaxed patent review system. There wasn't anything savy about that... ok maybe it was savy, but it was far from ethical.

Anyways... I feel like this has been beat to death over and over and over again in the past 5 years or so... all I can say is that the Brothers Greed have had it coming to them for a long time.

E

[wolf13]

To be fair, WGP did target AKA with a lawsuit that would have bankrupted them and splatt attack, and that was with Budd Still firmly at the helm. It cost WGP a lot, and peopel were no less outraged over it then they were with Brass eagle and SP's shenanigans of the day. WGP died though, and SP became the evil empire doing it over and over, so SP is remembered and remarked on. WGP did a few not very nice things, and I don't see them mentioned as a nice company very often, not like AKA, Palmers or AGD tend too.

Had K2/WGP not sent those letters I expect things would have still ended up mostly the same as they are now. CCM I think from what has been said, was loosing interest in making autocockers, to expensive to build and not enough interest. AM was already failing. The other companies still making cockers that could have been subject to the C&D were either moving to new lines or were already failing or failed. The cocker market was already on life support and K2 was looking for ways to pull the plug, inject cyanide into the IV and hack its head off with an axe all the while wondering why things were going bad. K2 had already let the brand fall out of the mainstream and couldn't/wouldn't figure out a way to get back in, and couldn't figure out that the rela problem wasn't low volume similer competition but th emarket and thier own ineptitude.

[saintnoir]

I always just shake my head over the sp hate the Gardner brother are egotistical blowhard sleazebags.The company pulled some very unethical practices but so does every company nowadays.
Its like a twisted game of six degrees of kevin bacon.There isn't a major company out there that isn't connected to some major sleazy quasi-legal bs if not outright illegal
Where sp failed was most companies try to hide it they shoved it in you're face and laughed.

[heinous]

Originally Posted by saintnoir

I always just shake my head over the sp hate the Gardner brother are egotistical blowhard sleazebags.The company pulled some very unethical practices but so does every company nowadays.
Its like a twisted game of six degrees of kevin bacon.There isn't a major company out there that isn't connected to some major sleazy quasi-legal bs if not outright illegal
Where sp failed was most companies try to hide it they shoved it in you're face and laughed.

nooooo where they failed is they do it in an industry in which a company can get by just fine without pulling this crap. because now they're just doing it to be a dick. all the companies were growing before things hit the fan, no?

[PistolRogue]

Well, not like this thread will ever really get back to the topic at hand, but, has anybody heard anything? Any store owners getting orders placed again or do they seem to be dead?

[Harbinger[TG]]

Originally Posted by ITSPB-Rogue

You know, its real easy to make that call from a completely outside perspective...

Probably easier than you assuming I was a total outsider during all of this time, and that I have no knowledge or interest in any of this. You seem to forget a lot of us have been around a long long time, and that some of us were very close to other companies in this ordeal. So to assume that we were all outsiders is laughable at best. Not to mention some of us actually were involved as third party researchers for some of the companies that were sued out of existence.

[Fluff]

Originally Posted by ITSPB-Rogue

Well, not like this thread will ever really get back to the topic at hand, but, has anybody heard anything? Any store owners getting orders placed again or do they seem to be dead?

SPs new European form is back in business, according to Sean Scott's facebook about a week or two ago