In the wake of controversy over Battletech going woke, with the company blocking a vast number of its customers on X, Catalyst Game Labs fired most of its staff in a Stalin-esque purge. This comes soon after creator Blaine Pardoe whistled about the operation and how Catalyst Game Labs has fallen to new lows in recent years.
Wargamer and YouTube commentator Mage Leader took to X to talk about the firing of their Community Manager, exposing this new take in Catalyst Game Labs’ long saga of destructive politics harming their games. However, this purge was possibly a DEI cover as the company is likely not doing well judging how poorly Catalysts has handled their Kickstarter fulfillment campaigns.
It was revealed that a consulting company called Rem Alternis was put in charge of Catalyst Game Labs’ online presence after the moderator of the Battletech subreddit was removed.
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The moderator, Valk, was promptly suspended by the company for threatening to kill TERFs and taking pictures of firearms while at a convention. Valk then ran to a secret discord server, complaining about it to Rem Alternis.
However, after complaining to Topps, Rem Alternis reinstated Valk, and the entire staff was eventually fired and replaced with more ideologically friendly allies.
The Rem Alternis company website is filled with DEI and BLM propaganda, stating that they have a commitment to fight “injustice” as they stand “with our Black communities.” What this has to do with Battletech and Catalyst Lab Games or even forum moderation is unclear, though, like many of these consulting firms, it appears as if they are actively trying to insert politics into gaming.
Catalyst Game Lab’s litany of woes has become increasingly apparent after the firing and attempted cancellation of well-loved and respected Battletech author Blaine Pardoe. This left them in creative dire straights with their flagship products release. Il-Clan is the major in-universe story moment when the clans were supposed to invade and conquer Earth, which the community has slowly cooled on after its release. Community event organizers have complained about lack of interest in the new era. However, their diversity push has left the fans scrambling for greener wargaming pastures in droves.
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The company’s latest offering on their Battletech Mercenaries Kickstarter campaign has hit around $7 million dollars. However, their focus on diversity over quality has left the supportive fan base high and dry when it comes to the high standards expected by the company’s usual offerings. Late fulfillment and poor quality models that arrive broken or deformed have been plaguing the plastic miniatures boxed set, which has now broken into the 5th attempt at release.
This most recent attempt has proven that the franchise is still popular amongst the community.
However, Barnes & Noble has reportedly received and sold Mercenaries boxed set products well before the fans who backed the campaign. Of which Catalyst Game Labs promptly blamed B&N for releasing the miniatures boxed sets early.
Catalyst Game Labs has revealed that the community that largely kept the ailing game alive after FASA shut down and folded was full of problematic and toxic behavior. The resulting purge, due to DEI mandates, could quite possibly be considered yet another entertainment industry death knell.
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It is of note, however, that the largely conservative wargaming community does not approve or condone backstabbing behavior by the people who are running the company. And have quietly pulled their support from Catalyst over this reprehensible behavior.
To compensate for budget shortfalls and further disastrous DEI hiring practices, Catalyst Game Labs has created a meme mech pack of the beloved Urbanmech in a Land Air Mech configuration, which is useless in-game. The demand is there, but most fans are asking why they keep pushing more content when what they paid for has yet to be released.
Battletech was a science fiction wargame set in the year 3025. Pilots, who were akin to knights, piloted giant walking war machines called Battlemechs and would battle to the death across thousands of star systems for semi-feudal houses of the Inner Sphere. The game was released in the hazy cassette-laden era of the 80’s. And was full of heavy metal appeal as well as giant stompy robots. And has spun off several pieces of media. From hideously bad cartoons to beloved video game mech sims.
However, gamers will game, and they still quietly play this fantastic game at home with their friends without Catalyst Lab Games’ intervention or any of the woke community moderators causing problems for their tabletop fun.
What do you think of Battletech and how Catalyst Games is treating the franchise? Let us know in the comments!
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Well, to be fair, all three of the black Battletech players already know full well that they are smarter than 80% of the human race, they don’t need the NAACP, BLM, or affirmative action to tell them that they are only able to compete with whites because they give them money, They are pretty damned good at competing with them already, especially in the heavier mech categories.
I am still trying to figure out what they mean by ‘dialogue with black communities’ means, though… I have yet to see them set up a large-scale battle map off Benning Road in DC, or in downtown Detroit. I think that they are liars.
Well written summary of the current state of Battletech and the travesty that is CGL’s management of the IP. Reality speaks for itself, but I wouldn’t say CGL is completely going to die off. They will last a few more years through selling product, if the quality is still ok quality, and if the product remains affordable. If they try to up the prices or if the quality of product starts to suffer, or if this latest kickstarter fulfillment is handled worse than last time with missing pledges and missing items all together, it might be the last time a large swatch of people invest in CGL and perhaps will choose instead to just wait for sets to be on store shelves as they appear to show up there instead of backer hands anyway. What a pity.
I played Battletech for twenty years. But I left the game and sold all of my extensive collection after the line developer at the time, Herb Beas, told me that he was ‘driving the bus’ in terms of the direction of the game universe. There was so much more potential in the Battletech game universe that was being wasted. It seems that things are only getting worse.
So much factually incorrect stuff in this the author opens himself up to a defamation suit. Article is basically a version of the game telephone where they are repeating 3rd and 4th hand information from the echochamber discord servers where these rumor are drummed up. If the author was interested in the truth and not a one-sided hit piece he’d have done some actual research.
So first, the Kickstarter was always slated for June fulfillment, it’s still March, so this article is deliberately lying, as there is no late fulfillment, CGL still has three months to just be on track. And based on the videos of the Kickstarter product being packaged, looks like it’s on target.
Yes some people are upset about the memory urbanmech lams, but most people think they funny. The community had turned urbies into a major meme, and this is… Part of that. I’ve seen more excitement than annoyance though.
As far as the reddit stuff, that’s probably the most accurate part of this article, but it does leave out the big part that the older reddit mods were allowing or even putting up Nazi inspired minis (battlemechs with WWII wermacht symbols) while banning anything else flag related, can’t say one flag is political and banned and other ones aren’t. It’s be nice if you included some pictures of the stuff you say Valk did. Not saying I don’t believe it, but if you make accusations you need proof.
You don’t need proof when you say that a tranny is being a degenerate freak. That’s like demanding a proof when someone says a specific fish lives in a water.
This is awesome! I love satire 😀
Yeah I just got banned from CGL Facebook after I commented on their Pro furry crap.