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Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

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Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#61

Post by wlesieutre »

jimnotgym wrote: post #55

EVERYBODY PAUSE! This is not abnormal at all (in itself). If you were going to lend money to a software company, what else would you take as security other than IP? A floating charge is just there to establish the bank as a preferential creditor in case they default. Otherwise if the company became insolvent, the bank would only be entitled to its share of what is left of the assets in proportion to what they had len…

I'd expect the loan is effectively borrowing against anticipated Squadron 42 sales (the single player game) to keep development moving faster. God forbid they delay that again.

Once that's out they can pay the money back and continue work on Star Citizen's persistent universe.

As to the ongoing debate over whether the project is "a train wreck", it would be prudent to wait another month or two for alpha 3.0 to land. This contains the first procedural moons, landing locations, significant overhauls to networking, more fleshed out NPCs/missions, initial version of cargo hauling, and more.

If they can't deliver on that then by all means get all doom-and-gloom. But it's not that far off to wait. Official schedule still has it targeted for July, but a slip back to August won't surprise anyone.

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#62

Post by SXX »

wlesieutre wrote: post #58
SXX wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$150M isn't that much of money if you consider their studious locations, game scale and quality of their marketing materials. I guess they spent a lot more money on marketing and communications with community since it's the only reason they managed to get so much money through crowdfunding. For instance one of best and largest games recently produced is Witcher 3. It's cost about $81M [1] (half budget is marketing an…

Minor correction, the communication with the community is funded by "community subscribers" separate from the game development crowdfunding.

Thanks. I didn't knew they funded it separately.

I still think some part of developers working time going on it. And due to how their marketing works they likely had to adjust usual development pipeline. In most of "normal" games there can be untextured models, unfinished animations until very end while on Star Citizen they try to show eye-candy updates all the time. So I guess this would likely drive development cost up.

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#63

Post by funnyfacts365 »

Klathmon wrote: post #30
mrmcd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terms of the loan we're really, really unfavorable. They essentially pledged every piece of IP they have to get the loan. It's not the kind of loan you take if your company is healthy and has easy access to financing.

IP which is basically worthless if the game doesn't ever release. A bank that gives out loans to a failing company with collateral that is worthless if the company fails doesn't seem that smart.

But the queen banks with them! /s

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#64

Post by ohyes »

funnyfacts365 wrote: post #60
ohyes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah so I did some research, there's 250+ employees at the subsidiary foundry 42, which would indicate far more than 100 employees to pay for cloud imperium. If it's 400 people or something working at that company, burning through 150 million starts to sound more possible. Also 4 nice offices in non-cheap locals.

Locations or locales isn't the same as locals

Thanks

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#65

Post by Mithaldu »

mistersquid wrote: post #59
git-pull wrote: post #17

You have to admit, they made really good commercials for in-game content. They stayed in character, too. A few hand-picked favorites: - Imagine: Star Citizen : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJ9TcGxhNY - Star Citizen - MISC Freelancer Commercial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO7RxsZpcKc - Star Citizen: Consolidated Outland Mustang Commercial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR07oZC0QHU - Introducing the 2944 A…

In the first video the barrel roll [0] followed by a person in an EVA suit in the interior of a (different) vessel [1] made me wonder about zero-gravity spatial relationships. (Before continuing, please excuse my ignorance in the subjects of gravitational physics and aeronautical nomenclature. Also, I do not intend to troll. I'm honestly wondering. I'm also a little embarrassed at the brainteaser-like character of my…

You can test it on earth! Take a glass, fill it with water. Put something in it that floats, keep it away from the sides. Rotate the glass.

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#66

Post by LMYahooTFY »

gdulli wrote: post #52
LMYahooTFY wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it the hip and cool thing to call the entire project a train wreck without any actual supporting evidence? Half the subreddit seems to be die hard acolytes while the other half seem to be extremely bitter vets of a game that hasn't been launched. The biggest game development project ever, with extraordinary transparency, and shoddy bloggers are still making money throwing out talking points about how it's a tr…

They successfully got the evidence scrubbed from the internet. That must have been expensive. http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/03/controversial-star-citi...

The article ends with a disclaimer saying it's all inconclusive.

It "must have been" nothing or anything.

Maybe they actually reached a mutual agreement. Who knows.

What it must be is an expensive and elaborate scam that is in league with moon landing conspiracies.

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#67

Post by LMYahooTFY »

resf wrote: post #53
LMYahooTFY wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it the hip and cool thing to call the entire project a train wreck without any actual supporting evidence? Half the subreddit seems to be die hard acolytes while the other half seem to be extremely bitter vets of a game that hasn't been launched. The biggest game development project ever, with extraordinary transparency, and shoddy bloggers are still making money throwing out talking points about how it's a tr…

You're right about one thing, it's a "game development project", it's not a game.

Are you implying anything?

It's a game that's not complete. What of it?

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#68

Post by mistersquid »

Mithaldu wrote: post #65
mistersquid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the first video the barrel roll [0] followed by a person in an EVA suit in the interior of a (different) vessel [1] made me wonder about zero-gravity spatial relationships. (Before continuing, please excuse my ignorance in the subjects of gravitational physics and aeronautical nomenclature. Also, I do not intend to troll. I'm honestly wondering. I'm also a little embarrassed at the brainteaser-like character of my…

You can test it on earth! Take a glass, fill it with water. Put something in it that floats, keep it away from the sides. Rotate the glass.

Thank you for your suggested experiment, though the set ups are different in one crucial regard.

The water molecules interact with the glass, each other, and the floating object.

The vessel's occupant (as mentioned in my earlier post) is in the vessel's interior which has no atmosphere (vacuum).

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#69

Post by valarauca1 »

shmerl wrote: post #34
hackerfakenews wrote: post #18

The fact that any bank considered lending to a tiny company like this with no revenue stream is actually a positive sign. As for pledging all their "assets", that is completely standard. They have no assets to speak of - their "IP" is 100% worthless without future sales, which will never happen if the game doesn't get released. And further, because the money was raised from crowdfunding, the only equity holders that…

Who will suffer are backers who supported this project.

There is no scenario where Crowd Funding backers profit. I don't know why people who Crowd Fund act like they are owed anything.

Funding a business via Crowd Funding is in most scenarios the dumbest economic decision you can make. Comparable to throwing money out the window in terms of ROI.

Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

#70

Post by w_t_payne »

ohyes wrote: post #22
ohyes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing this will involve unaffordable office space.

Yeah so I did some research, there's 250+ employees at the subsidiary foundry 42, which would indicate far more than 100 employees to pay for cloud imperium. If it's 400 people or something working at that company, burning through 150 million starts to sound more possible. Also 4 nice offices in non-cheap locals.

Manchester isn't that expensive.
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