Chris Roberts - A Legacy Of Failure

[dsmart]

SO I found out today that croberts used to be the [remote] CCO of Blink Media in Vancouver

He worked for this guy:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-mcmillan-04a40444/

Also...

http://www.wcnews.com/news/update/11311

BREAKING NEWS: More Wing Commander Details Come to Light

There's more evidence suggesting Chris Roberts is developing a new Wing Commander game tonight, as another months-old article mentioning the project has come to light. St3lt3k discovered the May 27, 2011 piece from the Detroit Free Press, which is about a $25 million spending cap for Detroit film projects. It again quotes Chris Roberts... and this time directly refers to the project as Wing Commander. The article also refers to it as a multiyear project and indicates that it will likely be developed in Quebec.

"Wing Commander," a video game project that would be a multiyear task, would change gears if it got approval tomorrow, says Chris Roberts, chief creative officer of Blink Media. But at the moment, it's focusing on Quebec as its future home.

"The cap sort of put a spanner in the works," says Roberts.

The big questions now: has Chris Roberts been able work out financing since these articles were published? What part do rights-holders Electronic Arts play in any of this? And why hasn't anyone noticed these references before now?

[_Flin_]

As a long time lurker i wanted to chime in in regards to German film funds and VIP (friend of mine was lawyer doing contracts at one of those funds, not VIP).

The key point of those film funds - the money of which was known at the start of the Millenium as "silly German money" in Hollywood - was to spend it. The legal construct included a financing structure and an insurance that somehow enabled the investor's money to be lost only by 80%, regardless of whether the financed movie was a success. So even without earnings the investors got 40%-50% tax credit on 100%, and then 80% of their money back. So they made a profit, until German IRS stopped issuing tax credits.

The core business model was to make movies and allow investors to save taxes. Making profit with these movies was not necessarily the key goal. But to spend the money the investors brought. And when VIP was sloppy in regards to their advertisements and descriptions of their funds, and the German equivalent of the IRS stopped accepting the money spent for tax deductions, the investors sued and won.

VIP Medienfonds spent about 50 million dollar on movies over the years, and Wing Commander was one of the financed movies. As were "Perfume", "Lucky Number Slevin", "Lord of War", "Monster" and many more. One fund film - although not a VIP film - even won a "Best Picture" ("Crash") at the Academy Awards.
So while "Wing Commander" was a flop, the whole media fund issue is totally unrelated to his success or business conduct. Because the main issue for the funds was to actually spend the money. Earning it back was a secondary objective.

My friend once said "it's really sad we aren't allowed our business model and the tax deductions anymore. Because while we (the film fund business) fell for every single Hustler and Gangster of Hollywood, we finally have learned how to professionally produce movies. And now we can't continue.".

[dsmart]

Yup, well aware of this. It was a huge racket in Germany, until the govt closed that loophole.

[David-2]

When I was a kid the big tax hedge/scam was investing in railroad cars.

Movies are a lot sexier as an "investment".

I mean, who wants to go into a bar and tell the sweet lady next to you "yeah, my money's in railroad cars".  That's hardly a winning line.

[Wipeout]

As a long time lurker i wanted to chime in in regards to German film funds and VIP (friend of mine was lawyer doing contracts at one of those funds, not VIP).

The key point of those film funds - the money of which was known at the start of the Millenium as "silly German money" in Hollywood - was to spend it. The legal construct included a financing structure and an insurance that somehow enabled the investor's money to be lost only by 80%, regardless of whether the financed movie was a success. So even without earnings the investors got 40%-50% tax credit on 100%, and then 80% of their money back. So they made a profit, until German IRS stopped issuing tax credits.

The core business model was to make movies and allow investors to save taxes. Making profit with these movies was not necessarily the key goal. But to spend the money the investors brought. And when VIP was sloppy in regards to their advertisements and descriptions of their funds, and the German equivalent of the IRS stopped accepting the money spent for tax deductions, the investors sued and won.

VIP Medienfonds spent about 50 million dollar on movies over the years, and Wing Commander was one of the financed movies. As were "Perfume", "Lucky Number Slevin", "Lord of War", "Monster" and many more. One fund film - although not a VIP film - even won a "Best Picture" ("Crash") at the Academy Awards.
So while "Wing Commander" was a flop, the whole media fund issue is totally unrelated to his success or business conduct. Because the main issue for the funds was to actually spend the money. Earning it back was a secondary objective.

My friend once said "it's really sad we aren't allowed our business model and the tax deductions anymore. Because while we (the film fund business) fell for every single Hustler and Gangster of Hollywood, we finally have learned how to professionally produce movies. And now we can't continue.".

I'm trying to understand this.  Are you saying that when the German Govt put a stop to that program that it ended up hurting their movie industry as a whole?  I mean from my point of view it stopped Uwe Boll and Chris Roberts from making horribly bad movies and still profit it from it, and I feel that is a good thing.  But if it hurt the industry as a whole and even hurt the ones that actually did make good movies, then that is a sad outcome from stopping that program.

[_Flin_]

I'm trying to understand this.  Are you saying that when the German Govt put a stop to that program that it ended up hurting their movie industry as a whole?  I mean from my point of view it stopped Uwe Boll and Chris Roberts from making horribly bad movies and still profit it from it, and I feel that is a good thing.  But if it hurt the industry as a whole and even hurt the ones that actually did make good movies, then that is a sad outcome from stopping that program.

Depends. It hurt the private industry that produced films. They did so, however, mainly abroad and with non-German jobs. From a German government perspective perfectly understandable. And they only removed the possibility to use a fund as a vehicle that allows a large number of investors to participate in it's losses fo tax purposes.

[dsmart]

Blink Media Inc, the Vancouver co Chris Roberts used to be CCO in 2010, is now defunct. It used to be at www.blinkmediainc.com and Chris used to work for Bruce McMillan when they evaluated CE3 for the game in 2010. As I reported on Twitter, Sean Tracey was involved in that evaluation.

[Gendo]

Blink Media Inc, the Vancouver co Chris Roberts used to be CCO in 2010, is now defunct. It used to be at www.blinkmediainc.com and Chris used to work for Bruce McMillan when they evaluated CE3 for the game in 2010. As I reported on Twitter, Sean Tracey was involved in that evaluation.

This got me thinking about how Turbulent fits into all of this. If you look at the SC case study on their website (http://turbulent.ca/en/case-studies/28-Star-Citizen) they hint at being involved in overall strategy too (I love the “beyond a standard crowdfunding paywall” bit). Are they just making a bunch of money too? If so; why brag about it? It’s like putting up a billboard saying you made the tires in the tire fire...its just not good optics or business. Their name was plastered all over the GC2017 presentation...if they’re being paid a reduced fee for SC’s ‘promotional value’...nothing about this makes sense...but I’ve been watching for years just because...well...I love a good train wreck.

I can’t wait to see the contracts behind this aspect though...nothing better than watching marketing/PR folks doing damage control on themselves. There’ve been some other promotional partners but those have mostly been low key. Intel is hilarious...I’m betting they figure if they’re dumb enough to shell out five figures on JPEG’s then that optane drive (a rediculous piece of equipment) will be an easy sell.

Another interesting bit...while I was looking up SC Montreal links I noticed that BI has their SC page showing that its for WIN and MAC...probably a mistake but quite amusing given croberts past multi-platform rants. Its does make me recall an appropriate Steve Jobs quote (yes I think quoting him is cliche but...):

Real Artists Ship

[dsmart]

I saw this in Reddit. There is also a response by OSC in the thread.

Dear OldSchoolCmdr,

This matter is a little more complex than what it appears because Derek Smart has missed two more businesses in which Chris Roberts was the director of with regards to this story. Both were based in the Republic of Ireland.

Bl!nk Media International Limited Registered office: 70 Sir John Rogerson's Quay Dublin 2 Ireland Principle activity: Management Activities of Holding Companies Incorporated 17 December, 2009 Dissolved 18 January, 2013 https://www.solocheck.ie/Irish-Company/Blnk-Media-International-Limited-478972#report-2
Directors https://companycheck.co.uk/company/ie478972/BLNK-MEDIA-INTERNATIONAL-LIMITED/companies-house-data

Bl!nk Media Ireland Limited Registered office: 70 Sir John Rogerson's Quay Dublin 2 Ireland Primary activity: Other Computer Related Activities Incorporated 17 December, 2009 Dissolved 20 January, 2012 https://www.solocheck.ie/Irish-Company/Blnk-Media-Ireland-Limited-478973 Directors https://companycheck.co.uk/company/ie478973/BLNK-MEDIA-IRELAND-LIMITED/companies-house-data

I hope this might help answer your question. Do of course note the dates when these companies were formed and dissolved and then compare them with particular dates offered on the full GLA that also includes the GLA Autodesk (Exhibit C, Exhibit 4, p.24). Do appreciate that if you study these carefully you will note that three dates have been offered. One for the header, and another two, one for each signatory. You can examine these for yourself on this public domain copy https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mPjfXrjAf9RUq3_5cJgd-hF-I5XoCQta

As you can see, this business relationship that Derek Smart has alluded to cannot be viewed in the past tense because these legal documents, filed in Ireland, positively demonstrate that Chris Roberts was a joint director with Bl!nk Media International Limited along with Bruce Edwin MacMillan and Frank Peter Cuneo right until 18 January, 2013. So this association cannot be denied within a court of law without facing the prospect of a potential perjury charge.

So now you know that Chris Roberts was not only working with Bruce Edwin MacMillan and Frank Peter Cuneo before Star Citizen, but also for a number of months after the GLA was signed by the Crytek director, even though he, for whatever reason, choose not to sign it. Instead Chris Roberts only signed the GLA on 11 June, 2013 (E.U. date standard), or 6 November, 2013 (U.S. date standard). Both of which would be after he was no longer the director of Bl!nk Media International Limited. The sheer time gap of either seven or twelve months in Chris Roberts signature on the GLA will be a matter for Crytek’s legal representatives to address.

Yoda

[dsmart]

[David-2]

With Ready Player One coming out in the theatres I tried Cline's next novel, Armada.  Don't bother with it - it isn't nearly as good (IMO of course).

It posits that the Earth is going to be invaded by aliens, this was discovered in the 80's, and ever since there's been a hidden secret government conspiracy to prepare humanity for the invasion by getting movies made (e.g., Star Trek, Star Wars, Aliens, etc.) and videogames that involve fighting space and land battles.

And the reason for this post:  CR himself gets namechecked twice as one of a small set of brilliant video game designers who are recruited as part of this government operation to produce a exact simulation of space warfare as an MMO so that players, thinking they're just moving up in the ranks of an exciting BDSSE, are actually being trained to be spaceship drone operators to protect the human race when the inevitable alien invasion is finally launched.  SC is specifically mentioned as a forerunner of this MMO, Armada, because of its fantastic fidelity.

Anyway, even without these tiny little tidbits the book isn't nearly as good as Ready Player One.  This is just the icing on the cake, so to speak.

[dsmart]

With Ready Player One coming out in the theatres I tried Cline's next novel, Armada.  Don't bother with it - it isn't nearly as good (IMO of course).

It posits that the Earth is going to be invaded by aliens, this was discovered in the 80's, and ever since there's been a hidden secret government conspiracy to prepare humanity for the invasion by getting movies made (e.g., Star Trek, Star Wars, Aliens, etc.) and videogames that involve fighting space and land battles.

And the reason for this post:  CR himself gets namechecked twice as one of a small set of brilliant video game designers who are recruited as part of this government operation to produce a exact simulation of space warfare as an MMO so that players, thinking they're just moving up in the ranks of an exciting BDSSE, are actually being trained to be spaceship drone operators to protect the human race when the inevitable alien invasion is finally launched.  SC is specifically mentioned as a forerunner of this MMO, Armada, because of its fantastic fidelity.

Anyway, even without these tiny little tidbits the book isn't nearly as good as Ready Player One.  This is just the icing on the cake, so to speak.

What page is that on? The moment I read that, I would have closed the book, and tossed it into an open fire.

[David-2]

Armada, page 45:

Arbogast had then assembled a dream team of creative consultants and contractors to help make his bold claim a reality, luring some of the videogame industry's brightest stars away from their own companies and projects, with the sole promise of collaborating on his groundbreaking new MMOs.  That was how gaming legends like Chris Roberts, Richard Garriott, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Gabe Newell, and Shigeru Miyamoto had all wound up as consultants on both Terra Firma and Armada along with several big Hollywood filmmakers, including James Cameron ...

I wonder if Ernest Cline is a SC backer?  Given his obsession with the 80s and 90s he may just be a Wing Commander fan.

Anyway, don't hold this against him in general.  Ready Player One (the book) was truly entertaining and (IMO) well written (especially for a first novel).

(Disadvantage of Kindle: Can't afford the gesture of tossing it into to an open fire.  Can delete your book from the device but it still exists in the cloud.  You've got to go to your Amazon.com account "Manage Content and Devices" and actually click a few buttons to really get rid of it.)

[dsmart]

I don't have a Kindle, but use the app on my iOS devices. Gotta figure out a way to toss a digital book into an open flame though. Maybe the Recycle Bin would suffice? :)

Also, Ready Player One movie is supposed to be pure tripe. I can't wait to go see it.

[Penny579]

What page is that on? The moment I read that, I would have closed the book, and tossed it into an open fire.

Now now, you can not get upset by high levels of fantasy when you are reading a book about space invaders.