Walt

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Walt is a online marketing and web development guy, not a gamer. He is also something of an expert on the Great Depression. However, he does not know much about the Sims at all.

Walt bought the site Insimenator.net completely oblivious to thorny issues within the Sims 2 community such as the controversy over commercialization of Sims 2 content and issues of content ownership. The site was handed over to him very abruptly without any explanation from the previous owners to the members & staff, which caused understandable upset. It also became public that Insimenator was profiting from ad revenue and donations, with a hosting monthly bill of $500 vs. advertising revenue of $2000, plus the average $1200 per month in donations, and this added further fuel to the controversy which would become known as Waltgate 2008.

Immediately members & staff of Insimenator.net and other Sims 2 sites were suspicious of Walt and his motives for buying the site. Obviously his claim was bogus, a businessman who is not a gamer does not buy a Sims website because he thinks "it's really a terrific community."

In an email message to then-Insim Super-Moderator Paden, Walt divulged his business plan for Insimenator.net:

Insimenator.net has potential...for profit?

"The potential for InSIMenators.net is very great. Over 400,000 people have become site members in the past 3.5 years. That's a sizeable pool, and it seems reasonable to me that we can get at least some of them to become subscribers." - Walt, 2008 November 27

Pay to access the peeners & bewbies?

"I'm trying to decide between a VOLUNTARY subscription-based membership system and a MANDATORY subscription -based membership system for Insimadult." - Walt, 2008 November 27

Insensitive toward his 'terrific community'

Walt also managed to piss people off further with this exchange:

carlymichelle: walt can you understand why so many of us are concerned and upset though we had NO warning whatsoever and IMO that isnt right what we need now is honesty

Walt: Sure, I understand. What I don't understand is why some people think I can fix the way they left. I can't. No one can. Get over it.

In the wake of all this, several long-time creators pulled their downloads from Insim, not wanting their creations to be profitable for Walt. J. M. Pescado also began creating mirror of the Insimenator & Insimadult sites, featuring, among other things, "100% less Walt." As of now (2008 December 04) the site Insimenator.net is unreachable.