The MovieCentral Mafia

If you've ever been on marketplace (as I'm sure you have), take a moment and search for Shared Media. It is inevitable that you will come across a WebTV from MovieCentral. Now don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy Shared Media, but these WebTVs seem poorly thought out and when I attempted to use one that I bought (apparently a "steal" for only 899L on a non-copyable version) many of the streaming channels did not work. I went through the first and second pages of icons clicking treet.tv and other "channels" only to see a white blank screen. Maybe it was a glitch of sorts, maybe the creator did not take into account the dynamic nature of the web or streaming links. I do know this: If their product is broken, then their "customer service" is totalitarian and hostile. Shortly after posting a review (2 Stars) on the 899L version of the MovieCentral WebTV and the reason why, I received this in my IMs in-world:

Hollywood Quicksand: Your comments are untrue about the WebTV. Are you blind the TV has the best youtube you can get. Its a full custom search API and plays in full screen exact fit and using the native player. I know your a rivals alt piece of shit

[15:21] Hollywood Quicksand: (Saved Wed Nov 03 09:03:28 2010)wipe you off the updates list asshole

[15:21] Hollywood Quicksand: (Saved Wed Nov 03 09:05:00 2010)no one else has a problem with accessing those channels nice of you to contact the seller and the reason you didnt is because you an alt now im going to crush your business out of existance :)

[15:21] Hollywood Quicksand: (Saved Wed Nov 03 09:08:39 2010)I wil make sure the seler sees your lies and have him ban you from updates

Yes, I intentionally left the text unedited and without spell check.
So of course I replied, very cordially:

Aeonix Aeon: You must have me confused with somebody else. Firstly, I am not an alt. Secondly I merely conveyed the truth without being overly critical of the product. I have no alt account, nor do I sell anything to compete with that WebTV.

[15:25] Aeonix Aeon: But now that you speak so "highly" of me, through insult and accusation, as well as threatening discontinuation of support for your own product simply because I voiced concern over the product in thinking it did not deserve the glowing reviews it was getting, I believe I'm now inclined to build a better TV system.

[15:26] Aeonix Aeon: No, I am not an alt. But if you want to know who I am - you can check my profile any time, and then look at the viewer 2 credits - my name is in there.

[15:28] Aeonix Aeon: Thank you for your reply, however long winded and insulting it was. You have only confirmed a hunch that I had concerning the 5 star ratings on that product being from associates of moviecentral and not actual users of the product who are unbiased.

So there you have it. While I should warn that this is not a reason to ignore Shared Media altogether, I would definitely not buy anything from MovieCentral again. Their WebTVs are overpriced, half broken, and their associates are hostile and threatening - not to mention more than likely rating their own product with 5 star reviews for better ranking on Marketplace. This is about as dishonest as it gets all around.

However there is a bright side to this fiasco, in that I did mention in that conversation that I'm inclined to make a better WebTV system. After months of planning and procrastination, Jon Bee and I finally wiped away the tears of laughter from reading that conversation and decided to actually finish koios. The prototype of koios is sitting in my house right now, but will not be released - however, the new version does have a release plan. While most WebTVs in SecondLife do a handful of things, koios will more than likely be built on an Apps system and feature pretty much anything you'll ever want and more on a WebTV. The prototype alone is more advanced than most TVs in Secondlife today, and we discontinued it for the purpose of making a better and more powerful one.

So not only has MovieCentral lost my money and respect, they've lost all hope of me changing that 2 Star rating into something higher, and have actually spurred Jon and myself into showing these kids how it's really done.

I wish MovieCentral and the other TVs in SecondLife the best of luck.

They may need it when koios is launched.

Update:

Yes, as if they haven't realized they are digging their hole deeper, Hollywood Quicksand has continued the assault. If I were the person in charge of MovieCentral, I would have immediately fired this guy:

[18:11] Hollywood Quicksand:Ok im glad to hear you are not a rivals alt. Its hard to believe you after al your lies so far.It seemed strange somebody would be so critical without even seeking help from the seller allowing me to test those channels which are all owned by other Networks and often go down and come back up due to the nature of the small networks. However because you have defamed my charactor with your lies and innuendo i will consider that abuse and a breach of our stores TOS contained in the User Manual. There for i am going to be removing you from updates and asking my boss to blacklist you from further use of our products or services.

[18:11] Hollywood Quicksand: You didnt even request assistance, so anyone that does something so low in my mind has to have some ties to a rival store or simply a low life. I also do not think you are capable of creating such a fine product because people as crital and arrogant as yourself usually lack the skill to build even the most simple of devices. Our products are driven by the most advanced APIs on SL and connected to some of the best real web services on the Net. Everything you in your review was contrary to that and for that i disrecpect you. You have ben banned from the over 300 sims i own surrounding my store. You disgust me.

My reply:

Aeonix Aeon: Well good for you. However you have a bigger problem on your hands. I highly doubt *any* of the movies on the movie rental service you are touting on the product are actually legal, and therefore are subject to untold millions of dollars in legal damages from the IP holders of those movies. Feel free to ban me from the sims or refuse to update a product I legally bought from your service. The other things you are liable for would be breach of the SecondLife TOS, not to mention International Copyright laws. And that, my friend, is the lowest you can get in moral character.

Aeonix Aeon: I highly recommend that you discontinue your assault on me over this issue.

Hollywood Quicksand: Btw you hide your profile so i can not read it. Nor do i have any interest in reading it. I can see why aman like yourself would want t hide. I can only imagine the hatred so many people in SL have for you. I am personaly friends with many Linden staff and a proud assoicate of moviecentral.ca one of the bigest media companies on the web. I know for a fact we would never have such great sponsors and support if our products were anything like the way you described. All of them love our products and so do our 20 000+ in world customers. We are new to the marketplace yes and it doesnt help when low lifes like yourself get a chance to write their hate and lies about such a great product. I do however respect your right to do so however it was nothing but lies and you did not give me or the other staff a chance to help you or refund you. Instead you prefer the method of hate.

Aeonix Aeon: My profile is not hidden. But I have no interest in continuing this conversation over something as trivial as a rating on a product. But for the record - your treatment and assault of me is recorded and now made available to most of the Who's Who of Second Life. If I were your boss I would have fired you by now for this. Have a good day :)

Hollywood Quicksand: You sir have now stepped over the line and have personally defamed my companies products and service. i am now going to have my companies RL lawyers file suit over this. Our movie service is an API that conects to the movie cental service. Now i am going to let the company know you have defamed them as well and they can join us in our law suit. Good luck sir my bosses are all multi millionaires see you in court.

Aeonix Aeon: I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. If this is how you treat your other 20,000 customers, I fail to see how any of them are actually satisfied customers. I apologize that a single 2 Star rating on a product would have angered you so much as to threaten legal action for defamation. I wish you the best of luck, really...

Final Update:

They removed the product from Marketplace after the rating, and I am supposing it's so they can resubmit it and flood the product again with 5 star ratings from their associates. In short, this is about as dishonest as it gets.

Should you trust them or their products? I'll leave that up to you to decide. For now, I've simply blocked Hollywood Quicksand because if I laugh any harder I'll piss myself.