EDIT: 12/12/2011 Due to sale of Agares Media to a trusted partnership, I have deleted the original post in order to give the new owners a descent chance to make something happen with what was and still can be a fantastic script. You can count on me cooperating and doing all I can to help the new owners where I can even though I still intend to release a competitive script of my own.
I wish I would have sold Agares Media to you Doug. Alex stole that company from me for almost half of what he agreed to pay for it, ripped me off for almost $10,000 and caused me to default on some loans as a result (see my negative itrader.) He then tried to get me to produce Arcadem Pro 3 for slave's wages all the while trying to strong arm me with legal threats. I lost my company, my house, my whore of an ex, my kid, got my power shut off, lost my next business, and was homeless as a result of that asshole. Stay away from Agares Media at all costs everyone. Total scammer/demon who will rape you for everything he can.
Quite interesting. When I resigned he told me that you told him not to use me as site admin and development lead. We did agree on future earnings, but when he failed to pay the developers and his own hosting bill, I began to distrust more and more. He's scammed everyone involved I think and still doing it in the forum. He's got his tech admin hooked, line, bait and sinker. To be honest, Jeff, I had issues with you too, but I stated them honestly and you made the decisions you did. Least you never violated confidentiality or lied about things I said or did. Feedback I gave you was intended for the good of the company. As for buying that company I could not of afforded to buy it at the time or I would of bidded. But I doubt if I would of paid what you were asking at the time. I might of agreed to a royalty system though.
Doug, I know you had dissenting opinions about my time running Agares Media, and in retrospect you and others were right with many of the reservations you had, especially regarding the future of Arcadem Pro after the sale. If I could go back in time, I would of held on to Agares Media at least until after Arcadem Pro 3 was released. Hindsight is 20/20 All feedback, even negative feedback, is good. I always welcome it, even if it's not what I want to hear, and anyone who refuses to listen to feedback is going to fail. I certainly never banned anyone for dissenting opinions, and other than scammers and spammers, I don't think I banned anyone else at all. You had sent me an offer to buy Agares Media by running the site and taking the profits and paying them to me until all $20,000 had been paid, something like that. I think that could've worked, because the main reason I wanted to get rid of the gaming script company was because it took too much time up... time that I wanted to use to launch a game development company instead. However, that crashed and burned thanks to Alex. He destroyed Agares Media and Weishaupt Games. I think the chances of both of those companies thriving now would've been much greater had I taken you up on your offer. Hell, I even turned down $30,000+ offers because I thought Alex was the best man for the job.
I know you had a lot of criticisms after the sale as well, but I was bound under the first contract to not discuss the sale. I was unable to defend myself, and on the flipside, I knew Alex was pumping you full of BS regarding my position, hedging his bets and lining up his alternative slave labor strategies. Several times I typed up long emails to you and to the Agares Media community, but before declaring an all out legal war, decided to back down and bite my lip. After several months of cussing each other out over emails and myriad legal threats, we finally agreed to nullify the original contract, and to sign a new contract agreeing not to sue each other. This 2nd contract doesn't have any terms requiring either party to keep anything confidential, and since the first contract was completely nullified... I am able to finally openly talk about the sale.
He has Ady doing his dirty work for him now in the forums. However, I learned it's better to not even acknowledge that guy. It was a huge mistake making him a tech admin of anything. The slop of a forum is a perfect example why. I kind of feel for the guy, because he is now getting scammed too, but I can never trust him again. Yeah I did offer you the profits until you got the money back. I also offered to run it for free because I felt you were starting to get burned out. Been there and done that, got the t-shirt too.
@Jeff: I wished I would of believed you at the time of the sale. Now I do. A couple interesting facts. Alex did indicate he was worried you might try something. He has the domain registered to one of his buddies and the Paypal account is not even his. He had problems with it, more likely mismanaged it, so I got suckered into using mine. He tells everyone he allowed me to keep the money for a spell, but that was only for January and February 2011. The chargebacks offset any money I could of got out of it. The entire time "owned" Agares Media, I got only $540.00 and he tells people he gave me more than $10,000.00. He says he "wished he kept the receipts". Well you know me, I do keep books (as you know with the affiliate earnings I approached you on after the sale). I even got audited this year and the money was right on. I hope Alex has paid his taxes because they recorded a lot of info. Anyways, the fraud is clear. You have been ripped off. Adrian West, aka Ady is another character for you to keep your eye on. He is a troll big time. He said that if he could ever do anything to hurt you he would. I am willing to bet he's trolled at your websites you had. He is so rude in the Agares Media forum he has it near dead now. He thinks getting rid of the "spies" and that, that the forum will be boombing. Truth is, Alex needs to ban Ady himself and get a new admin if Agares stands a chance. I doubt it does at this point. I bet Agares Media falls flat on it's face with 3.0 IF it ever comes out. As rude as what Ady is, and Alex blaming everyone but himself and Ady, the business you created is dieing a slow death unfortunately. As much as Alex pushed me to keep things confidential, he sure seemed to be in a hurry to selectively post bits and pieces of my emails into the forum to try and prove a point. So far it's backfired, as everyone has left the forum except a few.
@Jeff: You have been scammed. Do a search of these forums on Agares Media. I linked several accounts to Alex where he has solicited jobs or ran "contests". One is stansoft. You can find them all fairly easy watching the various "sales" promotions he ran and go into the profile and look for all the posts. Then look at some of the itrader comments. You may want to pursue legal action irregardless of any "agreement" you signed with him.
Here is what someone forwarded to me looking for information on where to serve legal notices on Alex: "I called the Police in Citrus Heights CA, the street is correct, but the house number is bogus. The phone number listed is bogus also. The lady that called me back said she started using that number 2 months ago. It is for a cell phone not a land line." This is from a customer that looked up the information on the whois lookup. I haven't decided yet if I want to pursue legal action for what I lost, but apparently we are not alone.
I haven't messed with my arcade site for several months until today. I tried to visit the Arcadem site but see it's down. I could tell I made a mistake shortly after purchasing. I had a feeling the guy running the company was full of BS after reading some of his posts and the way the v3 release date kept getting pushed out. So where is Agares Media now? Did they close the doors. What's a good replacement arcade script?
Yes Agares Media is completely dead. Found this after some Googling http://www.talkarcades.com/arcadem-pro/17631-alex-agares-media-owner.html
@ilook Thanks for the link. I did not come across that thread in my googling. I wish Alex the best with his family but I was not at all impressed by the way he handled the business and I was sorry I wasted my time and money right after I installed the script. Since I really didn't care much for any of the other arcade scripts, I switched over to Social Engine and added an arcade plugin. I like it much better! Lots more functionality, less buggy, cleaner and the scoring works.
To all reading this thread, I deleted the original post as Alex has sold the assets of Agares Media to a partnership of which I trust both individuals involved without condition and consider them both friends. I am deleting all the negative posts I have ever done against Agares Media under Alex's ownership. Arcadem Pro is still a good script and with better development, it can rise to greater heights.