Star Citizen - The E.L.E.

[Moeis]

oh also Vinyl setup is most likely talking about something like this
http://www.vinylmeplease.com/3-beginner-hifi-vinyl-setups-under-1000/

[StanTheMan]

I'd say the collapse is the end of the ELE. But, just to get my head around your thought process, let's for argument's sake assume that Chris at the moment really is downsizing. Staff and contractors are leaving the building without coming back. Chris having no more money to pay for them or trying to cut costs before he can't pay them anymore would be a logical explanation.

Now, if CIG has enough money to pay for everybody, why would he be laying off all those people? Now we're not talking about one or two who just don't function, that'll be normal changes in staff, no, we're talking about 40 - 50 layoffs. How you'd explain that?

The main reason you lay of so many is a lack of $ or as a result of a significant business reorganisation making those skills redundant.

In CIGs case, it can only be the former.

[dsmart]

So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO.  I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.

Nobody stated anywhere that it was even remotely related. You just did.

[dsmart]

This is the juicy bit of the new shell co filing ..."69109 - Activities of patent and copyright agents; other legal activities not elsewhere classified"  of course these are owned by Coutts if they dont pay back the loan are they not ?

No, this has nothing to do with Coutts at this point. At least not that I am aware of. It's just more shady shit going on.

What this new shell company also highlights is how they have systematically taken money out of these entities.

Basically Chris took $75M of backer money and built/maintained F42-UK studio for his brother and lifelong friends (The Elms, Derek Senior et al). The corporation papers were filed in Sept 2013.

Then in 2014, at the height of the crowd-funding windfall, they turned around, and through CIG-UK, bought the company back from Erin et al for £440k, thus taking money OUT of the entity. Money which should have been spent on developing the games. Money which btw, is funneled from the US by CIG-UK via the RSI-UK subsidiary.

And during that time, they were putting the company into debt with not one, but two loans, even after taking money out of the entities for no good cause other that Unjust Enrichment.

All of the above in addition to Erin taking a larger than normal salary, even while giving himself salary raises - never having shipped a product.

The other question mark in their books is that in 2015, CIG-UK bought an IP “on paper” for £1.36m. That same year, it sold that same IP to the tune of about £2m, thus booking a “profit” of about £655k. Nobody knows what that IP is. But my guess is that, since they’ve never even mentioned it, and the fact that they “sold” it, points to them selling Star Citizen and/or Squadron 42 related IP among their shell companies. Hilariously, even with the profit, the end of year filing for the value of the aforementioned IP, is still £1.36m.

As there are no books to show who the IP was bought from or sold to, it stands to reason that it wasn’t sold to any of the UK entities (or it would be recorded there in the P&L which we have access to in the UK), but maybe to either one of the other shell companies in the US or in GER. Companies for which backers have no financial access or overview.

[Moeis]

So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO.  I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.

Nobody stated anywhere that it was even remotely related. You just did.

It was posted in the E.L.E thread... sooo how can I not make that connection?

[StanTheMan]

This is the juicy bit of the new shell co filing ..."69109 - Activities of patent and copyright agents; other legal activities not elsewhere classified"  of course these are owned by Coutts if they dont pay back the loan are they not ?

No, this has nothing to do with Coutts at this point. At least not that I am aware of. It's just more shady shit going on.

What this new shell company also highlights is how they have systematically taken money out of these entities.

Basically Chris took $75M of backer money and built/maintained F42-UK studio for his brother and lifelong friends (The Elms, Derek Senior et al). The corporation papers were filed in Sept 2013.

Then in 2014, at the height of the crowd-funding windfall, they turned around, and through CIG-UK, bought the company back from Erin et al for £440k, thus taking money OUT of the entity. Money which should have been spent on developing the games. Money which btw, is funneled from the US by CIG-UK via the RSI-UK subsidiary.

And during that time, they were putting the company into debt with not one, but two loans, even after taking money out of the entities for no good cause other that Unjust Enrichment.

All of the above in addition to Erin taking a larger than normal salary, even while giving himself salary raises - never having shipped a product.

The other question mark in their books is that in 2015, CIG-UK bought an IP “on paper” for £1.36m. That same year, it sold that same IP to the tune of about £2m, thus booking a “profit” of about £655k. Nobody knows what that IP is. But my guess is that, since they’ve never even mentioned it, and the fact that they “sold” it, points to them selling Star Citizen and/or Squadron 42 related IP among their shell companies. Hilariously, even with the profit, the end of year filing for the value of the aforementioned IP, is still £1.36m.

As there are no books to show who the IP was bought from or sold to, it stands to reason that it wasn’t sold to any of the UK entities (or it would be recorded there in the P&L which we have access to in the UK), but maybe to either one of the other shell companies in the US or in GER. Companies for which backers have no financial access or overview.

That is some serious shit.

It does raise the question of ..how have they lasted so long if they effectively took $70 plus mil out of the company already and the $152 mil backer funding tracker is bull.

Those loans would have to be substantial wouldn't they or  have plenty of investors.

I dont remember the guys name only a year or so ago  he claimed in some twitter exchanges  to be some heavy weight involved with investors , the gaming or film industry financing who was bad mouthing you on twitter.  IIRC he was either saying there were plenty of investors or suggesting you knew nothing much about game financing/publishers.  I for one jsut took his comments as a different opinion or someone with a vested interest in supporting CRoberts.

[N0mad]

Regarding CLOUD IMPERIUM RIGHTS LTD, I'm no lawyer / IP expert so this is pure conjecture on my part, please feel free to correct me:

The non-shady angle to take is that perhaps this is a holding company for the Star Citizen tech / assets IP to be transferred into. It can then licence the tech to other firms with the profits going exclusively to the 3 execs - perhaps a nice little tax efficient side earning for them whilst work carries on on Star Citizen.

Alternatively, maybe they plan to "do a freelancer" and dump the whole mess (or just Sq 42) on a third party publisher, as they did when Freelancer was taken over. In which case, since the rights to the IP will have been transferred then the third party won't be liable for backer refunds etc. (and the proceeds of the sale go to the 3 execs)

Finally, the "cut and run" option: fold the other companies but sell the rights to this shell company to divorce the IP from the liabilities to the backers.

Personally, I don't see that CRoberts is ready to tear up CIG just yet, especially with CitizenCon coming up and an opportunity to screw money from the whales with more ship sales. But I suppose it depends on how dire the finances are.   

[Scruffpuff]

Regarding CLOUD IMPERIUM RIGHTS LTD, I'm no lawyer / IP expert so this is pure conjecture on my part, please feel free to correct me:

The non-shady angle to take is that perhaps this is a holding company for the Star Citizen tech / assets IP to be transferred into. It can then licence the tech to other firms with the profits going exclusively to the 3 execs - perhaps a nice little tax efficient side earning for them whilst work carries on on Star Citizen.

Alternatively, maybe they plan to "do a freelancer" and dump the whole mess (or just Sq 42) on a third party publisher, as they did when Freelancer was taken over. In which case, since the rights to the IP will have been transferred then the third party won't be liable for backer refunds etc. (and the proceeds of the sale go to the 3 execs)

Finally, the "cut and run" option: fold the other companies but sell the rights to this shell company to divorce the IP from the liabilities to the backers.

Personally, I don't see that CRoberts is ready to tear up CIG just yet, especially with CitizenCon coming up and an opportunity to screw money from the whales with more ship sales. But I suppose it depends on how dire the finances are.   

Tricky to predict.  I know a few things about Gamescom though, regarding Chris - he was pissed as fuck about the quality of the presentation, for one thing.  Second, when an impressive number of people saw through the demo and realized it wasn't true in-game functioning code, but rather a series of barely-functioning setpieces with the demonstrators actually using console commands to make the events seem to "occur", Chris lost his shit and took a sabbatical.

Ironic that years of his own employees telling him shit isn't working just results in tantrums and sackings, but when backers finally cry foul, he slinks into a cave and sulks.

I think the stress of this situation (financial and otherwise) is taking its toll on the guy.  This isn't his first failure of this type.  In fact, it replicates previous failures so closely it makes it look like Chris is stuck in a time loop.  Him just calling it quits is a way to break that loop.  Sure, it means he failed at making the game, but at least he gets to choose when he fails, instead of letting the reality of the situation expose his ineptitude yet again.  Maybe he wants to engage in some final act of agency.

[Motto]

Chris is looking for a way to get rid of Star Citizen without a risc of being held accountable when it collapses. Preferrably with as much money as he can take with him, because it'll have to support him until his death. The big shot he so desperately wants to be, that dream now really will be over. He will never work again after this. Only in low jobs.

The big question is, will they get away with it? Does it have a change of succeeding?

[dsmart]

So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO.  I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.

Nobody stated anywhere that it was even remotely related. You just did.

It was posted in the E.L.E thread... sooo how can I not make that connection?

Regardless of where it's posted, there is no connection. It's all in your head. Posts get made in wrong sections all the time. And I even had to relocate some of yours. And if you read the article I wrote, you would see I mentioned people quitting or resigning.

Move on to something worthy of discussion.

[dsmart]

Chris is looking for a way to get rid of Star Citizen without a risc of being held accountable when it collapses. Preferrably with as much money as he can take with him, because it'll have to support him until his death. The big shot he so desperately wants to be, that dream now really will be over. He will never work again after this. Only in low jobs.

The big question is, will they get away with it? Does it have a change of succeeding?

No, he won't get away with it. There is to much money and notoriety involved. I for one believe that someone is going to jail over this project failing.

[dsmart]

Regarding CLOUD IMPERIUM RIGHTS LTD, I'm no lawyer / IP expert so this is pure conjecture on my part, please feel free to correct me:

The non-shady angle to take is that perhaps this is a holding company for the Star Citizen tech / assets IP to be transferred into. It can then licence the tech to other firms with the profits going exclusively to the 3 execs - perhaps a nice little tax efficient side earning for them whilst work carries on on Star Citizen.

Alternatively, maybe they plan to "do a freelancer" and dump the whole mess (or just Sq 42) on a third party publisher, as they did when Freelancer was taken over. In which case, since the rights to the IP will have been transferred then the third party won't be liable for backer refunds etc. (and the proceeds of the sale go to the 3 execs)

Finally, the "cut and run" option: fold the other companies but sell the rights to this shell company to divorce the IP from the liabilities to the backers.

Personally, I don't see that CRoberts is ready to tear up CIG just yet, especially with CitizenCon coming up and an opportunity to screw money from the whales with more ship sales. But I suppose it depends on how dire the finances are.   

This shell corp has no reason to exist. They don't need another company to handle licensing when they already have two shell companies (CIG, RSI) which don't do anything except hold assets and move money around.

This is an exit move. And doing it end of Aug, starts the 90 days clock after which they can legally move IP and assets from the companies they are going to dump, and into this new company. If they pay off their two UK loans in the process, then they won't have issues with the creditors (banks etc). Which means that they would only have backers to answer to.

Mark my words, this is happening. The project is dead. Any money they get now, is going towards funding their exit.

[nightfire]

This is an exit move. And doing it end of Aug, starts the 90 days clock after which they can legally move IP and assets from the companies they are going to dump, and into this new company.

So basically, this would suggest that things are being set up for a Dec 31 evacuation?

[dsmart]

This is an exit move. And doing it end of Aug, starts the 90 days clock after which they can legally move IP and assets from the companies they are going to dump, and into this new company.

So basically, this would suggest that things are being set up for a Dec 31 evacuation?

Not really. It just means that if this is in fact what some of us think it is, then they can make that move any time after Dec 30th.

As I said, anyone who gives them money now, is just funding their exit strategy.

[Motto]

I can't imagine there being a viable exit strategy though. Surely Chris isn't thát stupid, to think that there is a possiblility to get away with Star Citizen without releasing the game?