back to article ZX Spectrum reboot project's Great Ormond Street charity cash questions

Tens of thousands of pounds destined for Great Ormond Street Hospital from ZX Spectrum Vega firm Retro Computers Limited appears not to have been paid. Retro Computers Limited (RCL) had promised to pay 10 per cent from proceeds of sales of its Vega console to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London, England, under the …

  1. LeahroyNake

    I must have missed. .

    An explanation of why Great Ormond Street Hospital hold licences on Spectrum games ?

    I'm not saying they shouldn't just interested in how they acquired them in the first place.

    1. Steve Todd

      Re: I must have missed. .

      They don't have licences. The deal with the original game developers was that they would forego licence payments if a portion of the profits were paid to charity, Great Ormond St being the one that RCL nominated.

      1. LeahroyNake

        Re: I must have missed. .

        Thanks for clearing that up :)

  2. wolfetone Silver badge
    Holmes

    Silence is deafening

    "We asked if this meant that rights-holders agreed to delete the clause guaranteeing charitable donations to Great Ormond Street. Levy did not respond."

    Because if he says "yes" he could be a liar, if he says "no" then he could still be a liar.

    There are 10 day old fish carcasses that don't smell as bad as the Vega saga.

  3. ADRM
    Stop

    Children

    Please think of the children the money was supposed to help. Little kids suffering horrific injuries and awful diseases like cancer and genetic disorders. Bugs me more than anything when children suffer. Life is just not fair.

  4. Dan 55 Silver badge

    So that's the Recreated Spectrum, the Vega, and the Vega+

    All of those have ended up with non-payments to licensees and manufacturers getting rid of stock directly to recover money.

    What's the moral? If you want a Spectrum emulator connected to the TV use a Pi, if you want a handheld one run a homebrew emulator on a Nintendo DS.

    Maybe the Spectrum Next will manage where everyone else has failed.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm curious what makes GOSH different from all other so called charities?

    Are they not NHS?

    Please don't take my post as being negative but why should they need external funding?

    1. cosymart
      Facepalm

      Try Google

      If you genuinely don't live under a bridge why not do what everyone else here has to do and Google GOSH. May you find enlightenment :-)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    30 year love for the rubber.

    So in summary, GOSH has received much cash from "predominantly" 40-50 year old British men with a fetish for grey rubber! :) We should be so proud!!!!

    If anyone is interested....

    GOSH was picked by LiveWire Design when they built the ZX Spectrum Ultimate Play the Game apps for Windows / WinPhone, which later became part of the Xbox One Rare Replay game. This was Rare's idea and LiveWire Design picked GOSH.

    Elite Systems makers of the Spectrum style Bluetooth keyboard infamously followed and did the same for their Atic Atac app on their iPhone ZX Spectrum Emulator, during their kickstarter campaign that almost failed, they had to hastily pay the GOSH amount on the app sales.

    Shortly after Vega did the same, if I remember correctly one of directors of Vega popped up a blog post explaining their connection to GOSH too. But I guess this was done because the other two did it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      IP protection only for those with deep pockets?

      How is it that the original game developers contact has been ignored but their IP is stil being sold?

      Is this just another example of justice only for those able to afford it?

      Where are FACT now or are they really Fail to ACT unless paid up front?

  7. m0rt

    Think this is bad? Just wait till someone brings out the QL version..

    Should make this launch look hunky dory.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Think this is bad? Just wait till someone brings out the QL version..

      "Just wait till someone brings out the QL version"

      Will that include all three games released for the QL?

      1. Steve Todd

        Re: Think this is bad? Just wait till someone brings out the QL version..

        Surprisingly there are about 80. Not a great piece of hardware, but they did manage to attract a reasonable number of developers.

  8. DavCrav

    "If all 6,500 Vegas remaining from the orignal 10,500 toal were sold direct to the public, the sum due for donation would be £64,350."

    That's assuming £9.90 per console. So we are assuming that Amazon don't take a slice of the cash then? If they take 30% say, then we get about £7 instead, which brings us to the same sort of range as the other estimates.

  9. GaminGuys

    Sick of the mud slinging

    I've seen more back and forth with the Vega+ than my life's worth of ping pong.

    Is it too late to start a campaign to buy the fucking lot of this project out and shut everyone up whilst maintaining some business acumen for those that brought the project to life? IE the backers?

    I don't watch soaps cos there's a murder every fucking minute and this is no better.

    The one thing this project needed from the offset was clear translatable information sent from those making the console to those supposedly receiving the console, regardless of court actions this remained a must and has failed due to sniping from one side to the other and back again.

    Everyone needs to grow up and get this shit back on track!

    I'm even more disappointed that we were promised 1 of the 5 developer units to aid a girl with cancer, we still haven't received it over 6 months later and it only supposedly needed a button changing.

    She's fkin dead now so that worked out splendid.

    My main thought now is that RCL need to send out the products to the backers and put this whole affair to bed at least on that side of things. Sort the rest of your shit out in your own time.

  10. itzman
    Trollface

    If you want to revive an authentic Sinclair product

    You have to copy Sir Clive's business model as well.

    This sort of behaviour is only to be expected.

  11. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Interesting question

    Why GOSH?

    One answer is simply to echo Why not? It's a kids' charity for very sick, suffering kids within a cash limited NHS. OTOH there are still other serious kids' charities- NSPCC/Childline for a start.

    But FFS, at least let the money get to the charity, whichever one they chose.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Interesting question

      Great Ormond Street is world renowned and consequently has patients from all over the world.

      My daughter was born with a genetic metabolic disease, without the benefit of a doctor trained by GOSH she would have died at about the age of two months at which time she was roughly 70% of her birth weight.

      A paediatric doctor at the hospital she was bornin had worked at GOSH, she was called in by a nurse who was not happy with the decision of the attending consultant to send my daughter home inspite of her problems not being resolved. The doctor listened to us and the nurses regarding the symptoms and immediately made arrangements for us to go to GOSH, her first tentative diagnosis was proved correct and my daughter was then treated accordingly.

      One of the symptoms of the disease initially was projectile vomiting, the first 6 or 7 weeks of my daughter's life, vomiting every time she was fed resulted in her having little to no appetite. So that she could be fed via a nasal tube at home I had to stay at GOSH twice for a couple of weeks at a time to learn how to pass the tube and provide other treatments.

      When you live there like that and see not only your own child but all of the other seriously ill children who are treated there equally and with immense regard for the wellbeing of not only the children but their familiesas well, regardless of who they are, where they come from, I cannot praise GOSH highly enough.

      So many times when I have taken my daughter for routine visits and seen some of the other kids there, I have left with a huge lump in my throat.

      All I can say is anyone who has welched on a deal to help GOSH is a heartless bastard and I wish them just a tiny percentage of the suffering that the kids at GOSH go through in their lives, that would be more than enough for anyone.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Interesting question

        Chris G

        See icon.

        For making the point so well.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hang on....Net selling price? - RRP?

    I really doubt an agreement would be in place taking a percentage of final selling retail price....

    I really don't see how it's possible to enforce (say) Amazon to rebate a percentage of the sell price back depending on how much they want to sell it for that day.....

    More likley the agreement was a percentage of net selling price to the trade....i.e. sell to amazon @ £55, amazon sells for whatever they want

    Sell to xyz with less buying power for £65....

    Total contributions would therefore still be significant, but far less than the upper amount said....

    either way, a charity hasn't received significant intended monies :-(....

    can't wait for the book to come out

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