Star Citizen Citizenship

[N0mad]

Has CRoberts and his useless wife actually been removed by the Calders as creative director and the board of directors and allowed ACTUAL developers to progress this trainwreck? We can only wait and see.

Yeah thanks for that - I kept watching and waiting for the promised "bombshell" which didn't come until the last third of the 70 minute runtime.

Well, ok, I skipped through most of it.

Personally, given the last year's schedule full of minor updates and missed targets (and caves and jails - seriously? for a space game?) I think Chris has been firmly in charge during this time. I think changes may well be coming, and the new game mode may very well be the start of this. In fact Theatres of War would be the sort of multiplayer game mode which would nicely fit alongside a polished singleplayer game. If I were the Calders I'd have given Chris a year to finish as much of the PU as he can before switching all the studios to working full time on Squadron 42 and promoting a serious game designer to take over. Perhaps leaving Chris with just the LA studio to keep the PU alive.

The idea being that when you're dealing with the more limited environment of an offline singleplayer game then a lot of the problems (networking lag, server slowdown, buggy physics) all go away: Cryengine was designed specifically for a singleplayer experience after all. If you're not fussy about re-using existing assets, having a few load screens and not trying to make the AI act like it does in the Sims then you can probably put together a decent singleplayer game quite fast: you just can't have Chris in charge while you're doing it.

I guess we'll see what happens in the new year. I wonder what Derek thinks...

[Slapmeandcallmegurl]

"Funding isn't even close to slowing down." Have you discounted the possibilty that CiG are just adding the 47 million dollar investment that theh recieved early last year to their monthly report? 47,000,000 ÷ 24 = 1.958,333 monthly.

Nah, that's a little far fetched. Not impossible but hugely unlikely.

"I guess prediciting anything about SC is hard". Like how Derek predicted that CiG will make it nigh on impossible for backers to get redunds after the constant revisions being made to the TOS that led jim to that assertion, especially after the trainwreck of 3.0?

EULA always had 'no refunds' within it. At least, ever since I first backed in 2014. Not exactly Nostradamus to 'predict' something like that.

Also take into accout the amount of times Derek claimed that CiG were insolvent in the years 2016/2017 and were basically on the ropes at the end of 2017? A claim that was confirmed by CiG themselves after they finally released their financials revealing they needed a bailout for "marketing" and not to mention "financial security" to stop CiG fron folding.

These aren't minor predictions they're quite huge in fact.

I thought Derek had sources inside CIG that told him such things. Not really a prediction if he's told it now is it. It also appears like they're still in business so, 'insolvent' or not, doesn't really matter.

He also predicted that they wouldn't be able to get any investment at all, I remember that quite well. He called them names at the same time. It was incredibly childish. Did you forget?

To be fair, he's spewed enough bile and vitriol towards CIG over the last few years that it's just the law of averages that he wouldn't be wrong every time.

[N0mad]

It also appears like they're still in business so, 'insolvent' or not, doesn't really matter.

He also predicted that they wouldn't be able to get any investment at all, I remember that quite well. He called them names at the same time. It was incredibly childish. Did you forget?

Of course, the elephant in the room is why did they need that investment at all? Wasn't this meant to be the new way to make AAA games: direct funding by the players giving the devs the creative freedom they needed without an evil money-grabbing publisher telling them what to do? If it's all OK then why do they need an investment? There is no way that the money didn't come with conditions attached: I can't wait to find out what they may be.

[Slapmeandcallmegurl]

Of course, the elephant in the room is why did they need that investment at all? Wasn't this meant to be the new way to make AAA games: direct funding by the players giving the devs the creative freedom they needed without an evil money-grabbing publisher telling them what to do? If it's all OK then why do they need an investment? There is no way that the money didn't come with conditions attached: I can't wait to find out what they may be.

It's a fair question with only one obvious answer. They were running out of money. Getting significant investment for around 10% of equity was one way of keeping the lights on.

I'd always maintained that a start up business generating the income that CIG had in its first few years, would have little trouble attracting investors to bring the games to market. Turns out, only one of myself and Derek was right about that.

I'm still pretty sure that any company that can generate nearly ten million dollars of revenue in a single month, without releasing anything, could still garner significant investment interest.

This is why I'm quite relaxed about the financial side of the business, they'll keep on trucking until it's released, definitely.

I'm also quite relaxed about it because it's just a video game and I don't do stress about video games. Stress is bad m'kay.

[wiser3754]

I'm still pretty sure that any company that can generate nearly ten million dollars of revenue in a single month, without releasing anything, could still garner significant investment interest.

I'm also quite relaxed about it because it's just a video game and I don't do stress about video games. Stress is bad m'kay.

Generating 10 mil in one month is purely due to CitizenCon. Very rare it would happen month on month for a whole year I'd wager. And you're forgetting that CiG are going on their annual leave soon so almost have of that CitizenCon money is going towards it with no development being done.

Stress is a bad thing. I can't imagine the stress the employess at CiG went through when CiG released their financials and they realised how close they were to bankrupcy and redundancy. Not to mention development crunch which is becoming very prevelant in this industry.

And yeah, it's just a game. But should it fail it'll send ripple effects through the kickstarter/indie developent movement and not to mention the space sim genre. The same genre Derek himself built his company around.

[Slapmeandcallmegurl]

Here's a useful image: https://dto9r5vaiz7bu.cloudfront.net/q282hg461drhk/tavern_upload_medium.png

Of course they wouldn't make 10 mil a month every month, they normally grab around 2-4 mil depending on sales and events. November and December are always the big funding times though, almost making up the yearly shortfall.

People here keep saying they were nearly bankrupt after seeing the financials, but that's ridiculous imo. They had tens of millions in the bank and sales haven't slowed down. As I said, they were always going to get investment or credit if required, no problem, and they continue generating millions and millions in pre sales. They've never even used an overdraft FFS!

I don't think the space sim genre is in trouble, it's flourishing right now, no doubt partly due to SC's financial successes. Quarter of a billion dollars ain't to be sniffed at. Frontier doing ok too, infinity battlescape, no man's sky, everspace...there's loads.

They've beaten the record for annual funding already this year. It's not slowing down. How many of you guys were absolutely, positively, definitely sure that funding would be slowing by now? I think most of you predicted a crash and burn by now right? Yet, here they are breaking records.

Y'all must feel a little daft, surely.

[dsmart]

Generating 10 mil in one month is purely due to CitizenCon. Very rare it would happen month on month for a whole year I'd wager. And you're forgetting that CiG are going on their annual leave soon so almost have of that CitizenCon money is going towards it with no development being done.

And we have proof of that actually

[dsmart]

Meanwhile over there

[DemonInvestor]

Here's a useful image: https://dto9r5vaiz7bu.cloudfront.net/q282hg461drhk/tavern_upload_medium.png

Of course they wouldn't make 10 mil a month every month, they normally grab around 2-4 mil depending on sales and events. November and December are always the big funding times though, almost making up the yearly shortfall.

People here keep saying they were nearly bankrupt after seeing the financials, but that's ridiculous imo. They had tens of millions in the bank and sales haven't slowed down. As I said, they were always going to get investment or credit if required, no problem, and they continue generating millions and millions in pre sales. They've never even used an overdraft FFS!

I don't think the space sim genre is in trouble, it's flourishing right now, no doubt partly due to SC's financial successes. Quarter of a billion dollars ain't to be sniffed at. Frontier doing ok too, infinity battlescape, no man's sky, everspace...there's loads.

They've beaten the record for annual funding already this year. It's not slowing down. How many of you guys were absolutely, positively, definitely sure that funding would be slowing by now? I think most of you predicted a crash and burn by now right? Yet, here they are breaking records.

Y'all must feel a little daft, surely.

People (like you in that post) are often ignoring that loans and investments aren't really based on number of sales alone.
Potential profits is what's getting people on board (more so with investments than loans). And the blooming market you speak of is actually not solely positive for CIG, as this also means they're getting more direct competition for that kind of players.
By the way what do you actually think would be the overdraft limit for a limited liability company with no hard assets?? Which main shareholders might also not have that many assets?

But then again, i've written often enough that i don't think CIG will burn overnight.

[dsmart]

That's a lot of mental gymnastics in the comments

It's pretty simple, and it's all right there in the CIG press release

They [CIG] PURCHASED the [Turbulent] shares. As in PAID for it.

They [Turbulent] ACQUIRED the CIG shares; as in they didn’t pay for it.

They [CIG] bought 25% of Turbulent in a CASH (1) + STOCK (2) deal.

AFAICT, the Turbulent guys needed cash because they probably aren’t making enough money to continue funding ops (of which CIG is their sole and/or biggest client) for an extended period.

So CIG bought 25% of the company (we will know the amount when CIG files the 2019 financials…in 2030) for cash, and also gave them [worthless] CIG stock as part of that deal.

If you are wondering why they would do such a thing, it’s simple (and it happens all the time btw): CIG didn’t want to outlay a lot of cash. So the rest of the purchase price was paid for with worthless CIG stock (which I am certain comes with restrictions on resale, vesting etc).



Turbulent handle their entire funding backend, websites, ALL of their web services etc - for which they are paid. It’s no different from contractors and employees being paid by CIG to work on the project. It looks to me that the Turbulent guys wanted to cash in on the incredible amount of money their work helped produce, and this was the way to do it.

So basically Turbulent owners (not the company btw) cashed out just like how Chris, his brother, Sandi, Ortwin et al have all cashed out over the years - and thus taken [backer] money OUT of the project and into their pockets - without having shipped a single complete project.

The collapse is coming. You heard it here first. And it’s going to be epic.

[wiser3754]

Quote DSmart;

"So CIG bought 25% of the company (we will all know the amount when CIG files the 2019 financials in 2030)".

You're giving CIG ten more years of operation? That's awfully optimistic wouldn't you think, LOL.

[StanTheMan]

I don't have 70 minutes to listen to some Australian sitting in a six-point-harness office chair in front of a bunch of computer boxes .

I  agree.

It would be a lot more natural if he had used cake boxes instead !

[wiser3754]

Regardless, had the Calders removed Chris from running the day to day operations (aka running CIG into the ground) and let the senior experienced staff such as Zurevec, Chambers and Tracey lead the project, wouldn't you think that would be beneficial to Star Citizen?

[Slapmeandcallmegurl]

The collapse is coming. You heard it here first. And it’s going to be epic.

I don't believe you, so here's a story I wrote to explain why:

There's this young male shepherd right, and he runs into town screaming that he's seen a wolf. Problem is, he does it all the time. Nobody believes him after the twentyhundredth time.

The end.

It's pretty good isn't it? I'm very proud.

[N0mad]

I don't believe you, so here's a story I wrote to explain why:

There's this young male shepherd right, and he runs into town screaming that he's seen a wolf. Problem is, he does it all the time. Nobody believes him after the twentyhundredth time.

The end.

It's pretty good isn't it? I'm very proud.

I've corrected your factual error:

There's this young male shepherd right, and he runs into town screaming that he's seen a wolf one of these days a Wolf will come.

It doesn't matter how many times or over how long a period he does this, eventually he will be right.

On a more serious note: do you really believe that with just a bit more time and money they'll be able to make an MMO game good enough to release so as not to rely on ship sales any more ? !!!