Star Citizen - The E.L.E.

[GaryII]

Maybe we should implore Gordon Ramsay to take over management of CIG and the Star Citizen project?

Their only hope:

All other attempts will fail... 

[nightfire]

Not quite a proper analogy, as failing your five year plan in the Soviet Union was a great way to take an unscheduled ten-year vacation to Siberia -- if you were lucky. I don't think CIG is doing that with their employees.

Let’s see… List of United States extradition treaties… Russia negative – check!

If push comes to shove, we might actually live to see CIG top brass take that vacation in Siberia, first class 

[dsmart]

Not quite a proper analogy, as failing your five year plan in the Soviet Union was a great way to take an unscheduled ten-year vacation to Siberia -- if you were lucky. I don't think CIG is doing that with their employees.

Let’s see… List of United States extradition treaties… Russia negative – check!

If push comes to shove, we might actually live to see CIG top brass take that vacation in Siberia, first class 

Nah. I have no reason to believe that they will run. In fact, depending on how this goes, they will crash and burn, the rest of the money will be lost, neither of the two games will be released. Then there will be lawsuits and of course govt. (State or Fed) action. I still firmly believe that, ever after they're bankrupt from lawsuits, someone is going to jail over this project. Mark my words.

[nightfire]

Nah. I have no reason to believe that they will run. In fact, depending on how this goes, they will crash and burn, the rest of the money will be lost, neither of the two games will be released. Then there will be lawsuits and of course govt. (State or Fed) action. I still firmly believe that, ever after they're bankrupt from lawsuits, someone is going to jail over this project. Mark my words.

No matter how this turns out, „MVP release“ or lawsuits, please make sure that we can have 5-year and 10-year veteran badges in our forum user profiles when the time comes  :toot:

[Serendipity]

https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/897199372785651712

https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/629759763878965248

From 2 years ago. Derek claiming the money had all gone.

You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before, more than once, and yet here they are, still in business, still hiring, still producing the game?

You've heard of the boy who cried wolf right? So why should we trust you this time?

[N0mad]

You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before

Why can't all those statements be true - the money probably is all gone given the huge costs of running 4 studios. It's only because of dreamers like you giving the company more money that they manage to stay afloat at all without producing a single product with the promised features.

[Serendipity]

You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before

Why can't all those statements be true - the money probably is all gone given the huge costs of running 4 studios. It's only because of dreamers like you giving the company more money that they manage to stay afloat at all without producing a single product with the promised features.

So the money was all gone 2 years ago yet they're still around and paying wages and hiring and making the game today? This might be a thing that happened? You're serious?

Why is it that Derek never gives any evidence of his claims do you think? How many people at CIG have access to the financial state of the company do you think? How many of those 3 or 4 people are passing information onto Derek?

He asks me to trust him in his tweet and I've given reasons as to why that isn't happening. If Derek can give me a reason to trust him this time then maybe I will. Evidence required. Citation needed etc.

Edit: Also, I thought the funding graph was obviously fake and their income was from investors and bank loans? You need to get your story straight...

Answer to Question 1: Uhm, investors that we don't now about? Bankloans? Who knows where they got the money. I think they've ran out and that's about to come out.

[Spunky Munkee]

You simply need to know that regardless of the claims CIG made after the fact, after the news of the second loan was taken out, that companies do not take loans out because they are sitting flush with cash. We do not need to convince YOU of anything. Any REASONABLE person knows that people who have money don't borrow money unless borrowing it is cheaper than using their own. They never established that with any sort of EVIDENCE. They just hammered off a quick letter asserting certain things that the world is supposed to take as fact with no EVIDENCE to support it.

We do know that the tone coming from Chis Roberts has changed over time. First he says he has plenty of cash on hand to complete the game. Then he says the complete game will be a Minimally Viable Product. Well the original product he pledged at 5 million dollars fits the description of the MVP, he has not given us any reason why after 155 Million dollars we will get a minimally viable product. Then this changes his story to even if we didn't have the funds to complete Star Ditizen we could complete Squadron 42 and from the profits of additional sales of S42 we could complete the game. well things seem to be going down hill rapidly . Then he starts making releases that if the backers would simply continue to support the project we would have the funding needed and wouldn't need to cut back. From https://www.pcinvasion.com/chris-roberts-pleads-for-more-money  "Roberts concluded his plea for more cash citing features the game has had for quite some time."  All this transpires as they quietly take the second loan, that they didn't need as you say, or they say which is followed by the letter from Ortwin in an attempt to cover up the gaffe.

People who pay attention will put 2 plus 2 together if they want to. People who don't want to see things as they are, never will, and then they will be incomprehensibly demoralized as their world collapses around them. It does not matter to me that you don't want to see the  emerging patterns. Please be an adult and disqualify yourself from jury duty as you are unfit. Some people want to maintain infantile naivete for reasons only they can comprehend. nobody needs to prove anything to you. Since you are secure in your beliefs why do you show up here? Do you want people to kick you out of your never never land? I know he will see a small surge in funding after the conventions, they always do. They will sell more pixels and create a new short film to impress the gullible backers who live in their echo chambers. In the end it will certainly fail miserably. I have no doubt.

[Motto]

@Serendipity:

I never said that their funding chart was fake and that they got their money from bank loans and investors instead. What I said was:

I think the funding chart is fake (as in they don't still collect 3 - 4 m. every month).
And I said that there is a possibility that they have (had) other income as well, like bankloans or investors.

I did not combine those two items into one as you're quoting now seems to imply.

The thing is, to pay for everything that CIG now is, you need a lot of money to keep it going. Say you need 100m to keep on for another 4 years. If you don't have that kind of money left right now, you're basically fucked for the long run. So you need to keep the money flowing in regularly. And that's where I think it already went wrong. The money is gone, there is not enough left to keep CIG going for an extended period. The Referral Contest and the UK tax-rebate-advance-loan are clear signs of that. The trouble for Chris is that he can't say or act as if he has financial troubles, because that would draw an immediate attention to the millions and millions apparently being gone and that news would kill CIG in an instant. So, carry on with business as usual everyone (front - with soothing hand gestures) and get me the fuck some fresh money now! (back - with panicing hand movement) of Chris at the moment.

When my own employer went bankrupt, he also lasted longer than expected. Maybe by 6 months longer or so. But in the end, he couldn't stop it. And the same will happen with CIG. Since Games Com and Shitizens Con most likely won't bring in the cash they need, let alone they want, it'll start falling apart soon. And it will crash hard, unless Chris has enough stashed away to keep a very reduced CIG going for at least the MVP that'll bring backer faith back. But my guess is that he doesn't have that kind of money, especially considering how little they've achieved over the years, and that the whole gaming world is going to wait and see what that skeleton crew pushes out before sponding another penny.

@Spunkee Monkey:

actually, it is very customary for companies to have loans/outside money even if they have enough cash. Basically they do that to get some deductable costs and tax-benefits and stuff. But you normally don't do that when in return you have to sign over your complete business as collateral. Not for as little as 4m that is backed by a tax-rebate. That just is a major warning sign about financial trouble.

[Serendipity]

This certainty of failure is hilarious. You talk about echo chambers whilst being within one, right here. So much so, my contrary opinions have resulted in me being asked to leave a couple of times. Nice open forum you got here, nice place for an exchange of views...

Referral contests and taking a loan mean nothing, one helps generate sales, which is normal for companies to do, and the other saved/s money on currency conversion. No big deal. Same for warbond sales, just generating revenue like companies do all of the time. When Wal Mart have a sale it's not because they don't have any money.

I'm here to enjoy the conspiracy theories and to laugh at all the definites and certainties that you you all simply can't be sure about. Just as I'm not absolutely certain I'll get my hands on 2 ground breaking video games in time. I think I will but it's obviously not certain. Nothing is.

When a loan is made the interest charged on the loan is related to the amount of collateral obtained. The more collateral offered, the lower the interest rate. It doesn't mean they are in financial trouble. Economics 1-01.

  If the borrower stops making the promised loan payments, the lender can seize the collateral to recoup its losses. Since collateral offers some security to the lender should the borrower fail to pay back the loan, loans that are secured by collateral typically have lower interest rates than unsecured loans.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/collateral.asp

[N0mad]

You talk about sales a lot, but please clarify, what exactly are CIG selling?

[Padrepapp]

Referral contests and taking a loan mean nothing, one helps generate sales, which is normal for companies to do, and the other saved/s money on currency conversion.

Is this the first time they took a loan for currency conversion? If so, why don't they do this every year?

[Serendipity]

You talk about sales a lot, but please clarify, what exactly are CIG selling?

CIG are selling digital licenses to use assets they have created for use within the video games they're in the process of creating and licenses to play the games they are producing. Licenses that can be revoked at any time for any reason. Every asset sold remains the property of CIG at all times.

All normal for selling video games so as to prevent anyone getting prosecuted for stealing an asset in game because no transfer of ownership occurs meaning no theft has taken place.

Referral contests and taking a loan mean nothing, one helps generate sales, which is normal for companies to do, and the other saved/s money on currency conversion.

Is this the first time they took a loan for currency conversion? If so, why don't they do this every year?

Because Britain hasn't voted to leave the EU, causing the pound's value against the dollar to crash, every year.

I do find it interesting that I answer all the questions put to me but very rarely receive an answer to my own questions...

[GaryII]

This certainty of failure is hilarious.

 They promised BDSSE, but after 5 years and +150m later all they have is semi-broken pre-Alfa...
To me this is a failure already.

 Currently Elite (current BDSSE) and even No Man sky v1.3 are better games.

 And don't tell me, that game development is hard - its a weak people poor excuse..maybe its too hard for CR and his team..maybe then they need to simplify game to get it done...   


 

[N0mad]

CIG are selling digital licenses to use assets they have created for use within the video games they're in the process of creating and licenses to play the games they are producing.

So the buggy, limited alpha version with virtually no playable content is what people are paying for?

oh but wait, they get a great ship, to do all that nothing with

is that a reasonable assessment of the current state of affairs?