My rule is .. always follow the money trail ... and then you find out The Truth.



Well, there was a BIG in$urance payment made after 9/11, but you sure would have a problem finding the receipt for the ballistics used to topple them towers. Jet fuel don't melt steel.



But this here story (trying to be folksy, folks), well, I think it's time we took a look at the subculture of profit$ to be made in a world of paranoia, in$anity, war and trouble$ ....



I think the article needs a few comments posted too, cuz the whole thing is just uneffingbelievable. What does all this have to do with visionary planetary healing ...? If we are all ONE, where can there be an REAL infidels ...?

Investors Give No Quarter to Convert-or-Die Videogame

By jhutson


03/22/2007 05:45:40 AM EST

First posted on Talk to Action

When Left Behind Games launched its convert-or-die videogame Left Behind: Eternal Forces
in mid-November 2006, its stock traded at a peak price of $7.44 per
share. Breathless boosters at RedChip issued a "strong buy"
recommendation and predicted that within 18 months, the stock would
soar to as much as $18.70 per share. Really?

In fact, Left Behind Games' stock chart
looks like a ski slope. Not a gentle bunny hill, but a World Cup grand
slalom course, groomed for a world-beating downhill run. Today, you
could buy a share of Left Behind Games for a quarter -- with change
left over. On March 21, 2007, the stock closed at 18 cents a share.

Left Behind Games has sunk more than $27 million and four years into
the development and marketing of a game that has been critically panned by gamer blogs, who sneer at its bugginess and built-in spyware, and was boycotted by members of its target audience.

Although game sales have brought in some revenue, the stock has yet to earn a dime of profit, according to the latest quarterly report
of Left Behind Games, filed on February 20, 2007. And, according to the
quarterly report, "As of December 31, 2006... we had $698,763... of
deferred salaries due to our officers." Moreover, in December 2006 and
January 2007, a corporate officer made two interest-free loans,
totaling $23,000, to help the enterprise with "working capital." (folks: I think they are talking about crapitalI$M here.)

And the road ahead looks even bumpier. For example, the firm is
obligated to pay Bible publisher Tyndale House, by March 31, 2007, a
hefty $750,000 royalty payment for licensing the game, which is based
on the best-selling and profoundly bigoted Left Behind novels co-authored by Southern Baptist minister Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

These concerns are summarized, in wonky accounting language, in the
firm's Going Concern statement, found on page 21 of its quarterly
report:

As
of the three months ended December 31, 2006, we have started to
generate revenue, and through December 31, 2006 have incurred net
losses of $31,157,019 and had negative cash flows from operations of
$6,383,394 since our inception through December 31, 2006. Our ability
to continue as a going concern is dependent upon out ability to
generate profitable operations in the future and/or to obtain the
necessary financing to meet our obligations and repay our liabilities
arising from normal business operations when they come due. We plan to
continue to provide for our capital requirements by issuing additional
equity. No assurance can be given that additional capital will be
available when required or on terms acceptable to us. We also cannot
give assurance that we will achieve significant revenues in the future.
The outcome of these matters cannot be predicted at this time and there
are no assurances that if achieved, we will have sufficient funds to
execute our business plan or to generate positive operating results.

Our independent registered public accounting firm has previously
indicated in its report included with the Form 10-KSB filed in June
2006 that these matters, among others, raise substantial doubt about
our ability to continue as a going concern.

How have the mighty fallen?

One thing's for sure, spouts Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon: It wasn't the fault of Talk to Action for breaking the story of the convert-or-die theology behind this videogame.

Mr. Lyndon has publicly proclaimed that the controversy has spurred
sales of the game. The controversy, Mr. Lyndon boasted to the Los Angeles Times, "has been great for the product."

So, if Mr. Lyndon is to be believed, if it hadn't been for the consumer boycott first called for by Talk to Action, and organized by CrossWalk America, the Beatitudes Society, Christian Alliance for Progress, The Center for Progressive Christianity, and Campaign to Defend the Constitution (DefCon), then the company would have sold far fewer copies of its sole product.

Yet Mr. Lyndon has not expressed gratitude (not a crumb) to these
bloggers and faith communities, to whom he claims to owe so much.

While Talk to Action
was the first to call for a consumer boycott of the product -- not
because of the level of violence, but because it makes a children's
game of hate literature -- no one has called for the game to be
censored. Rather, this blog and others, joined by both progressive and
conservative faith communities, have asked consumers to reflect on
whether they really want to buy a buggy, spyware-laden videogame that
teaches mass killing in the name of Christ, and that also lets children
switch sides and command the armies of the AntiChrist, unleashing
demons that feast on the bones of conservative Christians. (Wait:
before you say, That sounds like fun!, just know that the game is
programmed so that the AntiChrist can never win.)

If Left Behind Games fails, it won't be because the stock price got
blogged down. It will be because they made a crappy, hate-filled
product that managed to offend its two target audiences: Rapture-ready
Moms and hardcore gamers. As SapphireGrl
wrote on RaptureReady.com, ""Where in the Word does it say to 'kill the
infidels'? Where are we told to kill anyone that won't convert? Jesus
said to shake the dust from your feet, not to mow them down with
automatic weapons!" And as Gameinatrix Cori
wrote in a smash-mouth review by a gamer who had really wanted to like
the game but found that it stank out loud: "Let's just leave this
behind us and never speak of it again."

* * *

And let us not forget, the more publicity this game got, the more it sold. Sad to think that Mssr. Lyndon laffed his was to the bank ...

As the Mom of a gamer, just what STRATEGY is this "game" based on. Without it the games are just NO FUN.

And as for the fact that the anti-Christ can never win: consider - the person(s) who come along to set the record straight on the gospel are EXACTLY the ones to be perceived as anti-Christs, eh what?

A true shoot-'em-up game with no soul ....

Ever hear of a CON game - this must be its Ultimate Definition.

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