I just wanted to let our RCT*Mart Affiliates know of a member who has signed up here who is claiming to be Chris Sawyer. He posted in our Disney forums soliciting members to help him on an RCT3 Disney Expansion project, claiming to have contacts at Disney Imagineering backing him. (And yet, suspiciously needing members from here to help him with custom scenery, rides, and scenarios.) He also claimed to be in talks with Atari (though Frontier was the game's developer) and was waiting to hear back from them on their approval of the project. As most of you may know, or can at least understand, you don't start a project if you don't have the green-light (and the money) from the developer or distributor.

I pulled the topic until I could verify his idenity as Chris Sawyer, and after several PMs (in which I requested ways to verify his identity and the legitimacy of his project - least among them the name and contact information of his publicist) he has refused to provide any means to identify him and has now resorted to threatening me if I don't reinstate his accounts and posts here. Of course he has not provided any means by which to verify his identity and continues to provide more information (unintentionally) that proves he is NOT Chris Sawyer (like a Chicago IP address, yahoo email address, lack of knowledge of how the industry really works, etc.). Given my experience in the entertainment industry, and publicity in particular, I am convinced this imposter is simply that... and not a very good one, either.

I just want other RCT sites to be aware of any members who may have signed up on their forums (username variations of "c_sawyer" and "chris_sawyer") and that he may attempt to solicit your staff and/or members to participate in his supposed project. It sounds nice on the surface, but I'm certain that this is an imposter and wanted to warn the rest of you.

Let me know if you have any questions about this or need any assistance in weeding this imposter out.

I just saw this member last night and it isn't wise from his part to take the signature of Chris Sawyer from the credits of rct2. Anyway, this is only an another noob that came here so I don't think that an alert is necessary...

If he's posting on other sites and is trying to do the same thing as he did here, and if he is claiming to be Chris Sawyer, and if the other sites believe him and don't try to get verification... then an alert is necessary.

Someone tried a similar Disney project scam a few years ago at RCT Depot (claimed they had a project, with Imagineer backing, then week of the event they disappeared and never presented anything) and it backfied big time. Cost the Depot a lot of members and made a lot of people angry.

I don't know if this is the same group, but it sounded similar in many ways.

Sounds like someone I was told to keep an eye on at Twisted. Gets really upset after being caught in a lie or some other con. This guy jumps from forum to forum, wears out his welcome or gets bored and disappears. If he was Chris, he wouldn't be surfing the forums to get ideas. He already has his idea men, he doen't need our help.

But we do have a lot of young people who just might fall for the ruse. Good thing to add an alert. This'll put a few other forums in the know.

Chris likely would never do that, if anything members would be asking him for stuff.

Ill be on the lookout for him in the forums I moderate as well, thanks Brad

Sad some have to do this for attention!
Brad I think you should report him to Frontier and Atari! Maybe they will also inform Chris that someone is doing this. Now a days identity thief is a big threat this person could be in lots of trouble for claiming to be Chris Sawyer!

Judging by the current legal battle going on over unpaid royalties at the moment, I'm not so sure. Atari and Chris arn't on the best terms at the moment.

Regardless, I think that the only real viable way to reach C. Sawyer is through Atari. This low-life has to be taught a lesson, regardless. I'm sure C. S. would like to know this and might be able to stop it before it goes too far.

Heh heh, I almost fell for his little con. Luckily Rohn Starr put me back on the right track. Thanks Rohn.

Come to think of it, that's the second time fell for something like that. First back on my old forums, with another game creator, which turned out to be a prank by a friend of mine, (I was not amused) and now this.

Its sad that people have such little to do in their life that they have to pull tricks like this.

Links for Chris Sawyer related contacts are here

Quite undoubtedly devilman. 'tis a shame that unhappy (or mainiacal trying to ruin peoples' fun) people aren't being creative to be happy around here. Although I'm not familiar with things like fraud, identity theft,etc., I thought of this about what the perp should consider: Put your self in an imposter's position(especially of an important person). What risks have you put yourself in? Why did you think about doing this in the first place? Did you consider the risk of being fined, penaltied, jailed, or sued? Etc. I'm taking this into acount what to Jay2645 said, especially the penalty part. If the member is truly an imposter, he could have at least made a few helpful things, like coasters,scenarios, or trainers,etc.,etc., bad or not, as long as its legal, instead putting him/herself at legal risk.

Cheers,and be safe,
Canis Minor.

I think it's necessary to repeat that you would be posing those questions to the perportraitor, not Devilman.

But it is obvious that this impostor didn't take much respect to those points raised. Still, it doesn't seem to have effected many of the members of RCT Mart. Thankfully we have smarter members than those who would fall for such pranks. Also, members who would go out of their way to prevent others from such embarassments. I think we should be aware that in the future, we should take such events and keep a wait & see attitude, rather than act upon them, thusly, giving them the satisfaction of a successful prank. I think I speak for the rest of the community, that Devilman's reputation remains intact, in spite of the recent events.

I wasn't exactly refering to devilman, that part was meant for the perpetraitor, as you said and probably for some others to think about as well, just so it would remind others. (I'll edit the post, just so devilman won't feel bad. :-) )