f13.net

Enough people have now sent me this that it officially gets its own topic.

http://days-since-cheyenne-mountain-employees-have-been-paid.com/

gack    :ye_gods:

Is "gack" code for "obvious death is obvious?" Just wondering.

That's not good.  

Even if it's not true...

That's a shame.

I don't get it.  :sad:

Cheyenne Mountain is a company based out of Phoenix, AZ. They were making The Stargate MMOG, as well as who knows how much other shit. Development went slowly and they kept hemorrhaging cash on various bad projects. It seems like a classic case of mismanagement. But really, even good management wouldn't have made a Stargate MMOG a success.

Not exactly.  You'd think I'd be inured to start-up companies doing the death spiral dance after seeing it up close for years, but it still manages to make me flinch.

Lies.  Good management and good developers can make any IP a success.  IP really doesn't matter that much beyond the first media blitz.

And among IPs for MMOs, Stargate's a pretty good fit (hi instances).  If IP mattered.  Which it doesn't.

That's adorable.

You seriously think City of Heroes would have any different subscriber numbers today if it was City of Marvel?  If Eve was Eve: Babylon Five Online anything would be different?  If Vanguard was Vanguard: Vice City it would have saved it?  If Blizzard made World of NewSetting it would have done worse?

Doesn't matter. 

I seriously think that some IPs can help and some can hinder, in addition - some are worth the money whereas most aren't.

This conversation can only go to one place.   Don't go for it guys.  Stay strong!   Avoid  :dead_horse:

IPs just force you into doing stupid shit.

And they force you to talk to embarrassingly familiar characters, like Legolas and Hans Solo (went there).  They are like a great horrible Disneyland. 

Is that the Swedish Han Solo?

Nerd Foul!

wut.

lol. Nerd foul :-)

IP isn't going to save bad decisions. We've seen that in every IP based game, much less those few that were MMO.

IP can get you better initial sales though, both for recognition itself and because the IP holder can sometimes be relied on to put cash into marketing it just as you are. We've seen that too. There are certain shall-not-be-named games that had no business enjoying the success they had, but did so entirely because a lot of people attracted by the IP were otherwise unawares of the problems the veteran set knew were there. And I'm vague on this because, in reality, every single genre has been hit with versions of the same thing, and as such the list is pretty long.

As it pertains specifically to MMO, we've discussed this ad nauseum. The moment the new shiny wears off, which it does even for genre newbs, the game has got to stand up for itself. IP is not going to carry bad ideas nor bad execution.

Ok, so, see, the problem with SWG at the time was...

FIRST!

*runs*

I had little hope for this (well, more than I did for Africa Online) but I did want to see them launch. 

Thank god we still have Darkfall!



On a serious note: I'm sorry to see people lose their jobs/go without pay this time of year. 

How long 'till SOE buys it?

It's like I don't even know you anymore.

Who are you? What have you done with Signe? Bring back the lollipop avatar.

It's got to actually go live and fail first. 

Stargate is a worthless MMO IP.  I could demonstrate this, but I don't feel like drawing a snarky Venn diagram right now.

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3120/3083379200_743c1a8648_o.png)

Not what I was thinking of.

I just don't see any real cross over appeal with gamers, MMO gamers specifically and how the Stargate IP would bring them all together in a way that would offset the restrictive nature of choosing that IP. 

World of star trek....
World of Sponge Bob Square pants....
World of Barbie....
World of Warhammer...
World of Beer...
World of aliens vs predator....
World of Generic military dudes....

Yeah it could have been any of those and still have rocked out that tight game play.

Blizzard is an inappropriate example because "Blizzard" itself carries about as much street cred with gamers as Warcraft does.

A better example would be games from less well-known companies that secured major IP like Star Trek, Dune, etc where it's only the strength of the IP vs the strength of the same exact game without that IP that can be assessed. That's why SWG is actually the perfect example. That game without that IP would rightly have been called UO 2.0, and might not have gotten anywhere near the initial accountbase that they did.

The more recent and maybe even more appropriate example would be AoC and WAR. Imagine both without those IPs making anywhere near that many sales. I don't think the genre was hungry enough for generic pretty DX10-wannabe 3D world nor generic WoW-like-game with PvE 0.25 and PvP 1.5.

Word has it Bionic commando sold surprisingly well and that is a pretty recent example of an IP making a difference.

Although I can think of some examples where an IP drags a game down more than anything. You can make an amazing game and have a bad IP and have it sell horribly.

If you don't believe IPs can have a major effect on game populations, I don't think you're paying attention.

Do you think that Barbie Girls would have a 3500 Alexa rank (got no idea what it's playerbase is like) if it was not Barbie?

Do you think that Pirates of the Caribbean Online would have ANY players if it weren't for the PotC license?

Would AdventureQuest Worlds have any players were it not for using the AQ IP? (I wouldn't even be aware of its existence without the AQ IP, I know.)

How about Final Fantasy Online?

Would LotR have nearly as many players if it was not using the Tolkien license?

Keep an eye on Lego Universe. Nobody would give two shits about this game were it not for the Lego brand.

IP is clearly just one factor in an MMOs success or failure, but to dismiss it as not mattering is to deeply misunderstand the role of IP.

Regarding the IP thing, there was an article about this (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_104/772-Playing-the-Spread) in the Escapist about a year-and-a-half ago.

However, it compared revenue takes for a spectrum of successful/unsuccessful releases under four scenarios: new game/internal IP, franchise (sequel) game/internal IP, new game/external (licensed) IP, new game/external IP. Note that "internal" generally means "original", particularly when applied to new games.

The sequel/internal had the very highest peak revenues, but the number of these megahits is vanishingly small; it also had the largest standard deviation - meaning the largest uncertainty in revenues. However, the average revenue over all the titles sampled was generally excellent. New/internal was the highest risk - even the highest take of all the new games sampled did not exceed the take in sequel/external games, had a much lower average take, and a high standard deviation. New/external games had the lowest average revenue, but also the lowest standard deviation, while sequel/external games had an average take comparable to sequel/internal games (albeit with a lower peak), and a much lower level of risk evident in its standard deviation.

What does this mean? It means that licensing an IP generally makes your game a safer bet, regardless of genre. It can also tamp down on your potential earnings somewhat, but in the average case, you'll still do OK. The same cannot be said of original IPs; the disparity between the losers and megahits there is much, much greater. That kind of uncertainty kills investment.

squad based instance combat with PvP (ideally)

Let me break down the effecitve uses of IP contained in the above:

Shoveling shit to a bunch of rubes:
-Barbie Girls
-PoTC Online

Seriously, you stick a popular IP and slap it onto to a complete crap title, it's going to do things. I doubt these had AAA MMO OMG budget or aspirations. Budget kid MMOs will work great for this.  ToonTown was pretty decent, however, and will make me look like a jerk if anyone brings it up.

Carving a small piece out of the giant nerd pie:
-LOTRO

You can add SWG to this.  Just because someone is a big fan of nerd IP doesn't mean they game or are going to game.  But there are enough nerds that game to make this viable (hello me).  Helps if you don't make giant stupid design decisions to piss off your user base at some point. 

Selling MMO games to gamers

-Final Fantasy Online.  Seriously, how was this not going to do well, despite all of it's efforts to make it the most soul crushing grind on the planet? 

What's even better is trying to sell a MMO IP to a bunch of gamers that have already been playing games online competitively for years in that very IP.  There is money to be made here, I wonder who will actually pull it off.  /GREEEEEEEN

Lego MMO will end up either being shoveling shit to rubes or really MMO game to gamers.  Lego is essentially an established game IP at this point. 

Of course, IP is a success factor, but banking on it here is just fucking silly. You're just hamstringing yourself with lore and continuity issues with a huge helping of design limitation for what?  Marketting recognition on a brand most people are still going to associate with Kurt Russel and very small subset of an already small fanbase.  HUH?

Edit: heh, to touch upon what Yoru posted while I was still typing up this nonsense: at least you'll get some VC money.

I didn't really want to get into an IP pissing match. But comeon. IP can matter, but it doesn't always. It's not particularly fascinating. The bigger issue here was handing a shitty IP (as in an IP with minimal crossover of minimal quality in terms of translation to a game people would care about) to an incredibly amateur dev team and expecting something impressive. And if anyone here had been watching Cheyenne over the past few years, you would've seen them spreading themselves very thinly.

It was a disaster waiting to happen, no doubt. Doubly so by having such an incompetent group of folks masterminding the whole thing. I'm still not sure how they expected to build a good team to execute it by setting up in Phoenix. Though, I suppose, that was mistake #3 - the first two being the Stargate IP and the owners of the IP even thinking it was a good idea to begin with.

Wait, MMO development is more than just fleecing investors?!  :awesome_for_real:

They were in the SW because that's where their investors (Utah in particular I believe) are all from.  No I'm not making that up.

I don't think that's true, but I'm not positive. I've heard that they have dozens of angel investors scattered all over the place. Some sports stars, Donald Sutherland (not the actor...the founder of Cold Stone Creamery), some others. I can't really substantiate that beyond Donald Sutherland (who I'm positive about) though.

They had a shitload of backers, yes.

Edit: Must've had an INCREDIBLE sales-pitch. Though I suppose that's easy when you're dealing with people who just know that games make money sometimes and have no fucking clue why, or how. Probably even easier when Stargate has a little bit of notoriety among hypernerds.

Holy shit, I thought you were talking about NORAD.

their BoD Chair and several of the Execs went to BYU. I remember reading it years ago, but whatever.  See link.  /shrug
http://www.cheyenneme.com/company/board/

Yoru is awesome for bringing stats.

But there's a huge structural difference between subscriber MMOs and the generic universe of games that The Escapist examined.  In a typical game with a single upfront purchase, early hype and launch sales make up a significant chunk of revenue, so anything hype-inducing (including getting good IP) is a win.  MMOs depend on repeat customers, and very, very few subscribers are going to continue paying for a shitty or even average game just because they like the IP.  They will move on to a game that all of their friends say is awesome, whether they've heard of the IP or not.  The early hype strategy DOES NOT WORK with MMOs.  You will sell a shitload of boxes and then all of your players will cancel and go play WoW.

I'd love to see the same analysis done just on subscriber MMOs, but I'm lazy.  As a back of the napkin analysis of the biggest revenue games in each generation, and whether they used external IP:

1st gen successes: Everquest (no), UO (yes, barely), Asheron's Call (no), Lineage (yes, barely)
1st gen marginal: Anarchy Online (no)
2nd gen successes: DAoC (no), RuneScape (no), Final Fantasy XI (no), EVE Online (no), SWG (yes), Lineage II (no), CoH (no)
2nd gen marginal: ww2 online (no), Shadowbane (no), Planetside (no), Puzzle Pirates (no)
3rd gen successes: EQ2 (no), WoW (no), LoTRO (yes), Conan (yes), WAR (yes)
3rd gen marginal: PotBS (no)

And here's some epic failures: TSO (yes), AC2 (sequel), DDO (yes), Vanguard (no), Tabula Rasa (no), The Matrix Online (yes), Stargate (yes)

Do you see a pattern there?  The only thing I see is that in the latest generation nearly every game has external IP. . both the successes and the failures.  IP doesn't mean squat.  Games with compelling gameplay keep their subscribers, and games without it don't.  D&D is a premium IP for gamers.  The game sucked and it's dead.  

Matt, I said it doesn't have an effect on subscriber numbers, not all games.  Certainly IP has a huge impact on console games.  I'm not talking about free to play, browser-based chat games.  Maybe in that universe IP matters more, because there's more competition. I don't know and it's not relevant to the question of Stargate.  But to answer one of your specific questions, PotC without the license would like like PotBS which launched better than PotC.  God knows what they're doing now.  Also, it's free.

Edit: changed from 'established' to 'external' IP for clarity, meaning whether they had to pay for it and were constrained by it

Yes. They'd be higher.

On CME:

I don't care about the Stargate: Worlds MMO, firstly because I don't care about Stargate and secondly because we really don't need SGW to confuse with SWG.

However, I DO care about another game under Firesky (the publisher CME set up) with is being developed by Superstition Studios: Deadlands. It hasn't been officially confirmed, but Shane Hensley (creator of Deadlands, ex-CoH/V) is the head dev of Superstition and has always insinuated that this is what they are working on. I think a Weird West MMO would be a great addition, especially under the creator of the IP.

If CME go bust, it is because they spread too far too soon. They went from SGW development to SGW development + their own publishing arm + two other studios + god knows whatever else.

Schild: I'm assuming that is 21 days since they should have been paid?

I would assume so.

Let me revise this.

If you use an IP that wasn't originally a video game as a basis for a MMO game, you will be forced into doing stupid shit.

They would have started higher. Everything else being equal though they'd be where they are today. Which means a more precipitous falloff from start.

We've talked before about the IP thing. The best IP for MMOs is an IP that resonates with MMO gamers coming from a company respected for doing good games. Blizzard/WoW wins here. Turbine/LoTRO was considered to be, but did not because the abject faith placed in Turbine was premature. Someone mentioned FF to which I'd say TSO. Sure there's enough money to throw at the right game. Doesn't mean it's going to get spent the right way.

Short form: the right IP needs the right game from the right talent and skill to see it through.

I think you underestimate the nerdgasms some players get from teaming up with Spider-Man.

CoH/V had one of the highest player retention rates (according to them) in MMOs - up in the 90% range. Higher subs + high player retention = better position to be in. And they we can assume that CoV (or Marvel U: The Dark Side) didn't flop and that the dev staff weren't cut and everything worked out better.

Also, in this version of reality I'm sleeping with both Megan Fox and Megan Gale and have discovered simple cold fusion which has solved the world's power problems in one fell swoop.

I actually met one of the artists on PoTC at a party recently in LA.  Charming (half true) compliments about how she'd managed to do some really evocative renders within Disney's low-poly constraints did not get me laid, alas.  But I think I actually liked the game better than she did; I remember it having passably interesting ship combat when I tried it in beta, but she felt the game itself was a pile of dog crap.


Best example thus far.


How does DDO fit into the 'epic failure' category at all?  It's still chugging along fine, with paying subscribers and regular content updates that have been pretty well received (newest one just released), the chart people peg it at somewhere around 50k subs last I checked.  The other games you named in that category all either shut down, never released, or are on extremely dim life support (The Matrix Online).  How on earth does DDO qualify as an epic failure when you list WW2 Online and Shadowbane as 'marginal'?

((Accidentally posted double.  Is there no delete button?))

The delete button is labeled "D E N"

I know for a fact that if FFXI was not based on the final fantasy franchise I would not have even played it.

Here is the thing.
Saying that IPs dont matter at all is wrong. Saying that IPs are absolutely important for success is also wrong. That is why this argument could go on for so long. Both sides are half right.

Development cost and the evolving standards of player base size.  My charts say 20k subscribers, which is as many as Shadowbane had in December of '04, less than double MXO, and IIRC around where Vanguard was when the wheels came completely off.

There are over ten thousand people who find it worthwhile to subscribe to MXO?

I mean I know it's nothing by MMO standards, but doesn't it seem weird?

Like imagine them all in one place. Just an arena full of thousands and thousands of people who all think MXO is great and pay on a monthly basis to play it.

Fucking freakish.

They're probably all on SOE's Station Access. I'd be really surprised if there was even a single person who paid $15/month JUST to play MXO.

Fix your quote, I didn't say that.  :oh_i_see:

Obviously, I cannot comment about the URL at the top of this thread.


The Stargate is really a perfect way to handle transitions between instanced and non-instanced spaces.  It's one of the things that attracted me to Stargate Worlds, I can't think of a better IP that handles instancing (Star Trek, with the holodeck might be close, but I still prefer Stargate).  As for it mattering...


Exactly.  It's also worth considering what that licensing can get you.  For instance, Stargate Worlds has had some TV commercials (during Stargate Atlantis) already.  That's something that isn't likely to occur on a project without an IP behind it.


This is the key.  If the game isn't good, sure you may be slightly better off, due to the IP bringing in some users who simply must play a game that takes place in that IP, but you're never going to reach the levels of success that investors and developers dream of. 

Well, yes and no.  What charts are your charts (are you going by a specific one, or is this your own special knowledge?), and since it peaked significantly higher than that (and I recall seeing it at 50k now, not 20k?), aren't dev costs recouped (Was there some obscene budget for DDO I wasn't aware of?  Didn't they already have the engine mostly developed from AC2?), and it's simply running at a profit at this point?  Turbine's shown a willingness to shut games down when they're not making money (AC2).

A game that's stable, making money, and generally well liked by the people who play it -- that fits into the 'epic fail' category, and Anarchy Online, a game that was hemorrhaging players so badly it had to go free, is a 'marginal success'?

"evolving standards of playerbase size" only really matters if you're a studio deciding what to greenlight.  The game got made, it's running, and it's profitable.  There's no logic for applying an 'evolving standard' here.

Raising a lot of money is never easy unless you're doing it from one or two sources who trust you immensely and have a couple of magnitudes more money than you need. So, if you're Will Wright (even with the disappointment of Spore), investors will throw money at you. If you're most people, it's an incredible amount of work to raise money at all in my experience (as I fall into the "most people" category), and only a very small % of people who attempt it succeed.

As you say, their sales pitch must have been awesome, because raising money from a few dozen investors in an early stage company sounds like a headache of epic proportions to me. Also sounds like the kind of arrangement that creates extra costs because of the number of parties to deal with.

My 2p worth:

While on contract away from home last year, I spent a lot of time in a sleazy hotel room with nothing but some stained magazines a PS2 and a TV to watch.  Apart from playing a lot of GTA: SA, Lego Star Wars and catching up on some 24, I ended up watching a fair bit of Scrubs and Stargate. I'm not a Stargate fan and I still wouldn't go out of my way to watch it even after 2 months of doing nothing but.

But the one thing that struck me about the show is that it could be the perfect setting for an MMO.  The whole show is geared around travelling to different places from a central hub and doing quests.  There's exploration and combat and a couple of different factions, artifacts to collect - all sorts.  I think it would have/could still work.

As for IP mattering - I think it's a definite influencer, whether or not it's an internal or an external. I avoided WoW for quite a while because it was Warcraft and I hated the first game. I went to SWG because it was SW (in name, at any rate).  I avoided MXO and FFwhatever because of the IPs. I probably wouldn't play a Star Trek game because it's Star Trek.  Having said that - if it was good and people said it was fun then yes, I'd give it a go. Despite not being a fan of Stargate, I'd probably have still given/still will give it a go.

On a side note: sucks for the employees and I hope this all comes out in the wash.

Could be that the publishers are just rationally risk-averse and don't view a fairly insignificant profit as being worth the risk of engendering a lawsuit over <whatever>. I have no idea. Iron Realms runs games that are much smaller than anything EA has, and they run profitably even today, when the text MUD market is not exactly what one might term sexy.

--matt

I'm not sure how you're calling TSO an "external" IP since it was an EA studio that developed TSO without considering WoW external - it was a singleplayer/multiplayer property that was yanked across genre lines, much like TSO. The only major difference is about 11 million subscribers and a raft of moneyhats.

Either way, if you look at the success category, about half of what succeeded was based on external IP, and two of the six were based on existing game franchises (EQ2, WOW). Like I concluded earlier, you do see a bit of a tamping effect on the success of the licensed titles, but also less spread between them - LOTRO, Conan and WAR all had fairly similar subscriber peaks and both Conan and WAR seem to be following similar subscriber curves. That this is all lies at the feet of their IP is, of course, ludicrous. The conclusion that IP helps boost/tamp your initial subscriber spurt seems more rational.

MMOs behave like computer networks in terms of Metcalfe's Law; the value of your game is proportional to the square of the playerbase, as your larger playerbases will provide more word-of-mouth evangelists that help your game grow and dominate the market. Without converting a large number of your initial spurt into evangelists, you're fucked, and no amount of marketing or IP can change that.

To put it another way, which I'm certain has been said many times over around here: it's all about retention.

I want World of Song of Ice and Fire. Of course they'd ruin it, but wouldn't it be the best RvR ever conceivable? Of course they'd have to implement diplomacy and treachery, also called social PvP. Moneyhatz!

I think you underestimate the backlash of the nerds when they discovered their only interaction with Spider-Man would be to go see him for training when they level or maybe run his errands, fighting thugs for him while stories of him saving the planet circulate.  The first problem with using a the Marvel IP is that people want to BE Spider-Man, not be some random unknown hero who Spider-Man occasionally talks to.  This is illustrated by the number of people who tried to recreate Marvel heroes in City of Heroes leading to the law suit against Cryptic for allowing infringement on copyright.

I think Darinaq is right... it would have started higher (which, yes, would mean more box sales and more cash for early expansion development), but would have eventually settled to about the levels CoH/CoV has today, which is superhero/comic fans content to create their own heroes.  Its the same issue that LotR has... you aren't the guys ferrying the One Ring across the world to Mordor.  To enjoy it, at some level, you have to be content that you are just a random guy whose importance in the greater story is small at best.

Back on the original topic:


Source (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/50624).

It seems that CME are having liquidity problems but still consider themselves a going concern. Some people have been let go recently and it's possible that some of those may have ... less than fond sentiments towards the place. I think that announcing the death of the studio off is a little premature.

1. I didn't announce the death of the studio. I put it on death watch.
2. If I had a dollar for every time someone said a guesstimate or statement of mine was premature and it turned out not to be, I'd be rich. I'm not geldon. Sorry.
3. SGW will probably be pushed out the door and fizzle - though it's probably a waste of money to do so and their investors would be (and some probably are) wise to pull out when they could. But all those other projects they started up? Comeon now. They didn't have funding for all that shit, once again, they spread themselves too thin. The latter being a pretty common error in the gaming industry, one which folks still haven't learned - for whatever reason.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you say Schild. I don't have a lot of background other than a handful of press releases and some stuff gleaned by the usual industry osmosis. If you say they've been pissing money away, then I'll take you at your word, I don't know. The statement made to TTH is pretty much the only thing that CME can say in the circumstances (other than 'crap, you got us, we're closing down next month') and I don't expect them to put on any other public face.

As I understand it, the game (which may be awesome or not, it doesn't matter) is in a decent state of completeness and that should help to overcome any temporary solvency issues if the final payday is close enough. I'm hearing that it's not as black as people are painting it - but to be fair I heard the same thing before Flagship went down too.

How is being 22 days late on paying its employees not the death of the company?
I would have been out of there the second I was given a talk about not being paid.. I cannot imagine how long a company can go while retaining its best people when something like this happens. The head hunter emails must be at maximum capacity..

That's something about the industry I hate. Sure, most of the time games live and die on their producers, project management, and leads, but at the same time, morale trickles down. I would not want recently scorned employees working at my company. But that's just me, maybe the industry is a fan of taking in the misguided and angry.

I suppose it matters how much pride you take in your work.

This is America we're talking about.

Ah its not always like that.
I like to crunch sometimes it can be fun. I think most people understand the nature of the business and see through all of the bullshit. Shit like this happens and it just part of the job. You go to a new place with new people under new management its like going out with a new girl. Its refreshing, you might miss your old relationship but in general you are more glad you have a place to work than anything. Anger was the last thing on my mind when I knew I was free. Its more like an earth quake or something or a natural disaster. Its just something you have to deal with.


This can happen with new people sometimes.
Honestly 9 times out of 10 when you work on something it gets beat into your head that it does not belong to you anyway. Especially with really long projects that go for years and years. Its just tiresome and seeing it end often is more of a relief tbh... Anger is one of the things most devs check for when leaving a company though hehe... But that's about it.

Yes, but just judging by your post you are 1. an outlier and 2. crazy. Forgive me for not taking your example as average. :oh_i_see:

Really you think I am lieing? :grin:

Actually maybe I have been lucky I suppose. I have heard of some pretty amazing things happening like suicides from crunching too hard. IMHO that just sounds retarded. I have been through some pretty hard times though but I usually walk out of them relatively fine. I'm telling you the only people who are effected as negatively as you say are the ones that think the project is somehow their baby. That is more of a sign of being inexperienced than anything.

However 2 could be perfectly accurate because not one motherfucker has ever accused me of being sane.  :grin:

Someone needs to start an Erotic Realms MUD then!  An epic struggle between sexy demons and beautiful angels with a trashy romance novel wrapping.

Viola!  The text market gets sexy.

Wouldn't that basically be like Forumwarz but on slashfic sites?

You just described half the MUSHes and MUCKs out there.

I don't know that this is true.  Most developers are very intrinsically motivated (take pride in their work), even if it's some ridiculously banal accounting software.  Game developers have to be doubly so, though I haven't asked any.

Besides, wouldn't you feel like a chump if you walked off a project that became the next big thing because there were some choppy waters in the last months?

FWIW, my wife and I both like SG and its universe.  We would've subscribed.   :heartbreak:

That said, I am skeptical but still hoping.  So all props to Jerrith and his colleagues.  :heart:



CME should just release SG in GW-like setup in a year long beta.  Create a really stable, free PvP arena for people to signup and wail on each other.  Get the combat, movement and basics really crisp and working well.  Worry about quests and MMO gooey stuff later while players whisper about how fast and fun the combat is.  Do the MMO stuff as the Beta is worked on.  Even release it just as a great PvP areana.  Beat SWG, Planetside, GW, TR  in the squad based PvP stuff.  Perfect PvP and Combat (do ranks and rewards later).  And watch the positive whisper campaign spread.

Right now, my impression is that CME is trying to release a scifi WoW, which is not wise.

Didn't someone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(computer_game)) already try something like this? We all know how great it turned out.

Best wishes, AR (and Steve too if he reads this)!

Absolutely depends on the situation. Not getting paychecks would not be entirely ignorable. While on the other hand working on a project you will know what its current state is first hand. It would take a pretty amazing spin if I felt the game was not in very good shape to not be ready to leave. Cant speak for the guys with families and such though. very different situation for them.


Taking pride in your Resume is a more healthy plan of action. If something I am working on gets canned now it barely phases me. I mean IMHO it would be nothing compared to anxiety of not getting a paycheck. But maybe that's just me and maybe a handful of people around me.

I really honestly feel bad talking about this so frankly knowing people from over there might be reading this though.. It didn't even occur to me until I saw one of the other responses..

 :grin:

As IainC indicated the PR statement (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/50624):


is remarkably similar to the one from a few months ago (http://www.massively.com/2008/09/18/stargate-worlds-studio-faces-cash-flow-issues/):


Start-up companies that face this kind of cash flow problem go out of business. It is called bankruptcy. It is 'typical' in that a lot of start-ups fail to, well, start-up.

If CME folds, it is a hell of a cap to a hell of a year for the MMO industry.

I would think that, given the economy, right now would be a bad time to be a company that relies on people giving you money for a product you'll release down the line.

Software development being what it is, that's how it works, but I think the only MMO's in development that aren't going to be seriously crimped for cash now are the the ones being developed "in-house" -- getting subsidized by already existant properties or games.

Bluntly put: There aren't enough people anymore with enough spare cash to play risky "Let's be the next WoW" games . Recessions are bad times to be a startup. If CME's money woes are that bad, the best they can hope for is that they're far enough along for someone to snap up for cheap and finish in-house.

Like, you know, SOE -- although that would depend on how far along SG:W's actually is.

Well, for what it's worth, the game is still being advertised during SG:A. They apparently have a contest going to have one lucky winner's likeness inserted into the game. Of course that could have been a promo tacked in weeks or months ago and it was either too much bother to remove it or someone just plain forgot. I think I would enjoy a SG MMO. I hope it sees some small light of day.

Depending on which rumours you listen to, SGW is between 2 - 8 months before being ready for release. This isn't good for CME, who obviously need cash injections right now.

Payroll is the last to go. Once you stop paying people it's all over. Morale and productivity is destroyed and employees immediately start shopping around. Even if CM got an angel investor today they'd have significant difficulty recovering from that. You simply cannot stop paying people unless they have ownership or preexisting profit sharing agreements in place. Stick a fork in it.

According to another internet rumour, CME has burned through US $40 million and has debts of US $12 million. Again, rumour, but it would make it very hard to go back to all those angel investors and get enough money to keep going. They'd really need someone big to buy them out... and that won't happen. It is much more likely large backers will wait until the studio dies, then buy things cheap in a fire(sky) sale.

Over the last year or so, it seems to me that the whole thing has been a 'Let's get money from investors to give us a job over the next couple of years' charade.

It's completely amateur hour over there.

Whether or not that rumor is true, they have burned through cash over there.  Extravagent decorations in their offices, the whole interview in HumVees thing, etc.

Edit: also, lulz (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/50818). 

When I first clicked on that, I thought it was a mean-spirited joke by the people at TTH.  But its actually serious and they are matching donations for the first 25 premium memberships purchased- good for them. 

By all means...Feed the problem that is the gaming industry (i.e. help reward the people that make crap and do it over budget).

Oh, lighten up.  The coders and artists, etc. on the bottom aren't the problem, they are just trying to provide for their families like anyone else.  The people who made actual management decisions (and who get paid like it) probably aren't the ones this charity is aimed at. 

There's lots of unemployed programmers, coders, and artists out there.  Why no pity party for them?

I'm sure management has their fair share of the blame, but the people doing the actual (crap) work have no one to blame but themselves for their respective failures that pushed the game overbudget and late to release.  Everyone likes to blame management, and I'm sure there's enough to go around.  But doing your job and doing it right should be a given.  You (speaking generally, not you in particular) shouldn't have to be told to 'not do shit work'.

Edit to add:  It just amazes me, that in such a 'public' endeavor, how mediocrity is rewarded.

As to Point #1:  Why aren't they donating to children in Africa or raising breast cancer awareness in Norway?  Its an MMO site.  So when they do charity, it involves people who work on MMOs.

As to Point #2:  I'll respectfully step aside and let someone who has actually worked in the industry smack you back to next Tuesday.  I'm sure Lum can work up a witty paragraph that explains how people working 90 hour weeks on a project that requires 200 hour weeks to finish by the arbitrary deadline unrealistic management dumbasses have set aren't exactly the devil, in the most sarcastic and devastating possible manner. 

Nobody cried (made a donation drive) for all those poor people from NCsoft, Midway, and a few others that have lost their jobs.  Sure, people hooted and hollered about the tragedy of all these people losing their jobs, and yeah, I suppose I can sympathize, but hey...If they (collectively) did their job, they might not be in such dire straits, yeah?

Don't want the demands?  Don't be work in the games industry.  Everybody knows what the workload is like before they apply. 

I can only guess that you're a lower level worker bee that wants to blame everyone else for your failures.  So to that I say again:  Do your job.  Do it right.  Things generally have a way of working out themselves.

The games industry, once you sign on with a company, and get involved with the development is a 3 to 5 year meal ticket for anyone hired on to that project.  If you truly do fuck up enough to be fired, they're (the company, management, whatever) get backed into the corner because they'll have to go through the interview process and then train the person up to their tools (especially if it's custom in house created tools).  So, people know this.  They undoubtedly take advantage of it because they KNOW if they get fired, it's going to cause a delay to the whole project.  Management knows this.  It's a cyclical fucked up situation that serves no one and wastes millions of dollars.

Again, it's an industry that rewards mediocrity (see Raph, Vogel, McQuaid, Garriot, and a whole slew of others that get (or got) by on name alone).  (edit to add) Hell, the guy running the show for the development of SGW (Ledaye) was the lead honcho for the defunct Earth and Beyond.  That wasn't mediocrity, that was flat out failure.

Edit: spelng iz hurd.

First, your guess about me would be wrong.  This isn't the thread to compare salary epeens, though, so I'll let it drop there.  Second, its one thing if you give the coders an assignment and a month later all they've done is create Picard and oRLY gifs.  But the low-level people work their asses off and are ultimately torpedoed by bad macro design decisions, poor management or unrealistic sales pitches given to investors, etc. 

I'm sure there are isolated cases where rank low-level sloth has materially impacted a project, but I sincerely doubt its a factor 99% of the time. 

Isolated? No.

99% of the time? No.

After reviewing this attempt at a Stargate MMO I am going to say that there is no way in hell it could have ever been profitable and I would have concluded this fact before they had had a money crisis.

What the fuck?  No they don't!  This is the same pedantic bullshit masquerading as insight that everyone who grew up in the suburbs and achieved minimal competence at whatever they do thinks, but it really, really isn't true.

Leave it to SnakeCharmer to make this thread borderline politics material.

SnakeCharmer angry. SnakeCharmer smash!

 :grin:

I have no idea what CME's actual problems are. I merely suspect they got in over their head with a license they thought was more popular than their more recent market data is probably showing them. This isn't the first project lead by IP geeks who convinced the money people the game was worth a larger budget than it had any right to get, which caused the technical and experiential expectations to rise to an unachievable (for them) level.

But the "industry" does not work like this. Only some companies do. Other companies are filled with people who realize they can be replaced, who realize that if their co-workers leave they'll be left holding the bag, who have a huge disconnect between an outward-facing management team (or an upward-facing one) that makes promises that either are impossible to achieve in even the most vague sense or are never communicated to those doing the actual work, have inexperienced co-workers/consultants/managers, and so on and so on.

And there's a rare few that are so outwardly successful the internal machinations are unknown except to insiders who are or were so successful during their stint they actually abide by the corporate NDAs.

Hey that's what the US government is doing right now, albeit in a totally different industry. The US government can't be wrong, can it?

SG-1 cancelled  August 21, 2006
SG Atlantic cancelled August 21st, 2008
Stargate: Universe to start 2009, maybe

Don't remember when CME started, but yeah risky when the main TV driver's were being cancelled. Losing Atlantis may have been a surprise.

I believe it's a tradition among the Stargate spin-offs to end each season wondering if you were going to have a freakin' job next year. I think SG-1 was almost cancelled all but like 2 or 3 years out of it's 10 year run.

I watched an episode of that TV series and it was crap.  The movie was entertaining.

I saw a few episodes of Atlantis.  Interesting a bit.

How about management's responsibility to actually pay people for the work they do?

In other words, don't be a douche about people being given a hand when their employer is shitting all over them.

Nobody is more important in a company than anyone else. Leaders get the money and set the overall visions. Managers manage up to the leaders and down to the workers. Workers actually do the work assigned or envisioned, but they get the resources as parsed by the managers who got the resources themselves from the leaders.

ANY of these not being done right screws everyone. Workers not getting paid is just one problem. They're not getting paid not because they did bad work. They're not getting paid because the managers aren't getting the resources to do so.

And I'm being purposely generic here because in no way is SGW nor Cheyenne unique in this regard. Every company can go through this. Many companies have in the past skipped payment cycles. Many companies force unpaid vacation time. They all end up closing or otherwise being split.

As it pertains specifically to SGW though, I'm almost positive the current state has less to do with game/developer quality and far more to do with them biting off more than they rightfully should. That is not an important IP. It should not command a $40mil development budget. And both an overhyped IP and over budgeted title set expectations this team seems incapable of delivering against.

So it's not about who's right, wrong, good or bad. It's about having set the wrong expectation and then suffering the reality of it. THAT at least has specific blame that can be applied. And that blame goes to the leadership.

/clap
/applause

That's all they deserve.

My giveashit meter is barely being nudged on this.

I sincerely hope you never have to feel what it's like to be stuck in a job where your paycheck bounces on a regular basis because your boss is shitty with money. (And a criminal/incompetent, but that's another story). Your milk of human kindness is full of pus.

Small update: Things are grim.

Have they taken to eating other staffers to survive?

How long can you survive by chewing on your mousepad?

I can only guess that you're living in some sort of dreamworld where the "worker bees" decide on the strategy for the company.

I've been a CEO of small companies for 12 years. I can tell you right now that things do not "generally have a way of working themselves out" unless you count epic failure as things being "worked out." Of course, in that case you may as well just say, "Things happen" which, while true, is also so devoid of content as to be meaningless. When the airplanes crashed into the WTC, things "worked themselves out" but that's really not any comfort at all to the 3000 people who died as the towers fell down.

When things really go wrong, there's one place to point a finger at if you're obsessed with the blame game: Management. It's our job to ensure the project gets done and the buck stops here. If the worker bee isn't doing his job, guess whose fault that is? Management's. Must have mishired. Must have failed to lead the employee and motivate him properly. Sure, if a worker bee is just sitting around all day looking at porn that's his fault, but as far as the company is concerned it is management's fault for allowing that to happen. With decent project management and time tracking, an employee doing nothing for even a single day shows up like a red flag. It's then management's fault for not doing something about it.


You're kidding, right? I run small companies (Sparkplay is currently only 22 people, for instance). I've fired three people in the last 6-9 months. One of them "fucked up." The other two (one of whom was one of my best friends) were mishires (meaning the employee's skillset wasn't as good a fit for the position as it could have been), which is management's fault (in fact, my fault in both of those cases). And again, good project planning takes into account the fact that people will leave, need to be fired/replaced, etc.

I want to emphasize a point again: It is management's responsibility to bring the right assets to the table in order to complete the project and to manage those assets (human and otherwise) in such a way as to reduce risk and maximize the chances of success. When a project fails, it is entirely fair to point the finger at management since in 99% of cases it is management's fault. I can't think of a single project I've ever heard of where a "worker bee" caused the project to fail in any meaningful way.

--matt

You're an asshole.

CME does look a little mgmt top heavy. Sign of VC-blight?

Snake, do yourself a really, really big favor.  You don't have to actually *tell* me you did it... you can just do it, not say anything, and it'll be our little secret.

Re-read your post.  Then re-read Matt's reply.  Then read your post again, for a third time.  Then read Matt's reply, for a third time.

Repeat this process until you've internalized the stark difference between actually knowing something, and talking out of your ass and poorly attempting to mask it with internet bravado.

So.  Who's the dumbass that keeps/kept you in a job?  Or funded?


Weak.  See Haem for better material.

And tell me something I don't know.


Hi, this is the internet.  Have we met?  We're all experts out here on the web!

...Or you could do that.

awesome

At Iron Realms, our own success kept me in a job and kept us funded. 10 consecutive years of double-digit growth tends to work out pretty well. Iron Realms then funded Sparkplay Media until we had a good enough prototype to go out and get significant external investment. It remains to be seen whether Sparkplay will be successful. I certainly believe it will be, but the proof is in the pudding and we haven't released anything yet.

I'd love to find out more about how you've handled personnel management issues and financial forecasting at your games company. I'm sure I can learn a lot from you.

--matt

Uhrrr.  What the fuck?

Snakecharmer is a cock, gets called on it and then claims victory for reasons only he can understand.

Iniquity turns out to be an alt account of someone who was previously banned.

Ah, okay.   NOTHING TO SEE HERE THEN. 

Bump.

Did something new happen? I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for them to die. Then I can go on vent and rub it in the face of a Stargate fanboy I know from England.

You're a 10 year old. And your friend has bad taste.

Cheyenne Mountain lives to fight another day!

Details or you're just postcount++ ing   :awesome_for_real:

I don't do "details."

(http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/728/burnpunchxu3.jpg)

Hah. Touche.

If the website is correct (and it is on the internet, SO MUST BE TRUE!) it's been over a month since people have been paid at CME. Death must be incoming soon.

Problem solved! (http://community.stargateworlds.com/news/5/1271/)

I suppose that's a step up from golf clubs.

I wonder how many people here will even come close to getting that.  Nicely done  :grin:

Oh, cmon. Who here wouldn't get that? :)

EDIT: But yes, it was nicely done.

Its been quite awhile, and the original story never got the traction the Dawn fiasco did.  Still, this reminded me to read that article again- still good for a lol. 

Nope, don't get it and couldn't find it. Article link Tri?

http://gbob.onlinegamers.org/dragon.html

Semi-necro: CME getting sued for not paying bills (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/stargate-worlds-developer-sued-over-unpaid-bill).

FOOL! They have MUCH better things to spend their money on rather than paying employees and debts...

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3254/2793298588_595a2478a0.jpg)

Because as we all know, decorated vehicles are a tried and true road to success..

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ICBbkFnPJKo/RnFeWJPIE6I/AAAAAAAAAD8/IkUfMSqj98Q/s320/jeep1_lo.jpg)

Hummers are small.  Think bigger...

(http://jerrith.com/images/SGWBus.png)

CME isn't in good shape, but for what it's worth, I have been paid for all but my last partial week there.  I wish all my former co-workers the best, and hope the game makes it out.  It won't be easy, but it can still happen.

Oh for fucks sake I didn't realize it was Greyhound bad.

It's like being on the Madden cover. Advertise on anything with wheels and it's time to eat shit.

To be fair, you could probably buy 3-4 of those Jeeps for the price of one tricked out hummer.

Living in Arizona, I can't think of a stupider place to own a Hummer. Maybe they should've done the Stargate worlds Geo Metro or Pinto and bought another artist or two FOR A FULL YEAR.

Edit: Honestly, I knew something was up about 3 years ago when I saw local AZ businesses investing in CME. I just didn't know what.

I was talking to one of my buddies who lives with a cat who works there. It is a freaking ghost town. maybe 3 or 4 people in there a day at best, and they can't get more funding because it doen'st look like the place has any workers.

http://www.days-since-cheyenne-mountain-employees-have-been-paid.com/

That still makes me sad...  :heartbreak:

Holy shit they have a cat that can program?  :ye_gods:

Either this will be the greatest game ever or we know why it will suck. Cats are cheaper to hire than people right?

Dude.  Are you drunk?

I had the first same thought as chargerrich.  Technically, that is what the sentence implies  :awesome_for_real:

Clearly drunk. Cats are awesome programmers.

Doesn't mean the cat is a programmer.  Human Resources seems popular with cats.

(http://binfuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/house-kitty.jpg)

(http://growabrain.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/cat_on_computer_1.jpg)

Edit for source: http://lolcode.com/home (http://lolcode.com/home)

(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/99701/e3ecattech.jpg)

Always looking for an excuse to whip this out.

None of the SGW ones were actually bought, of course.  The bus was advertising at ComicCon in San Diego, and the Hummer (complete with big plasma screens in back so people could watch the game) were at Leipzig.  I don't know the details, but I believe much of the advertising for those two events was covered by MGM, not CME.

As I had two paychecks waiting for me when I arrived here in MD, I suspect they have managed to acquire funding to finish the game.  While important people have been lost, for the right person, it could be a good opportunity to jump into the industry and quickly get a shipped title on their resume.  I think it's unlikely to be a highly successful AAA title, but it won't be the worst thing out there either.  If it gets out, I'll have quite a bit of respect for those who accomplished it.


We actually joked about rewriting the UI scripting language (Lua) as LOLLua at one point. :)  I wrote up a toggle inventory window function in LOLLua as a sample for everyone. :)

What's odd is that someone paid for this (http://www.teamstargateworlds.com). CME claims they didn't, but named sponsorships don't come cheap.

By the way, we're just about at the 4-month mark of beta suspension, but it still seems to be hanging on somehow.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the MLM marketing scheme that CME's main investor is starting that SGW will be a part of, called MMOGULS.

That's because we have an entire thread on it (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15853.0). Do try to keep up.

Amusing.  Never heard of it while I was at CME, though I did hear about them visiting the studio once.
I've been fully paid for my work there now.  Work is still being done, I IM'ed with an engineer that's still there yesterday about a detail of a system I'd worked on.
One of the reasons I left. :)  In reality though, can you honestly imagine anyone signing up?  $250 up front, and then $50 a month, and you don't get to play the games until some large number (200,000 was it?) have done the same.

But you could win a car a month! A MONTH! Just for playing games! It's a fantastic offer!  :why_so_serious:

The second I read about Social Networks At Play (SNAPs, one of FireSky's launch buzzterms) it raised a flag about exactly what that was going to be. It turned into iSNAPs (Incentivised SNAPS). That would have been a fun day at the office, learning about that one. "Hai guyz, you've heard about pay-to-beta? We've found a new way, a better way!"

I keep waiting for CME / FireSky to go bust. They went too big too fast and without even getting one game done to bring in some revenue. Build a city before you build your empire, pleesekthanx.

I missed that one. I only looked at the first page. But still, it seems more oriented at debunking the TTH story on it, when to my mind, since Gary Whiting is the Chairman of the Board of MMOGULS, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, Cheyenne Mountain Games, Cheyenne Mountain Productions, and Cheyenne Mountain Marketing, and since the MMOGULS contact office in AZ is one floor down from CME, the link is pretty solid. Maybe no contractual obligations at the time, but well, if you control everyone, you don't need to write a contract with yourself...

If you look at the online pitch for MMOGULS at mymmoguls.com, it's pretty careful to not mention CME or SGW.

But if you look at some of their affiliates, like this one (http://www.majelyn.com/FAQs.html), it makes some pretty outlandish predictions like:

• 150-200 mil MMOGULS subscribers
• If SGW "bombs" and "only" gets a million subscribers...
• Saying that Age of Conan got 1.5 mil subscribers in a month

They must have gotten this from somewhere at MMOGULS

Oh, yes, the "win the car you race with" deal... :)  How long until there's some "feature" like...  For each item on your car that is broken, everything that isn't broken gets a boost.  All in the interest of "balance" of course, but still leading to $100 junkyard wrecks winning the races. :)

Hm. I just notice there's a part of my brain that reads SGW as SWG.

Well, breaking things to "boost" other things is a standard operating procedure in the MMO industry. So why not make a game about it? :grin:

But yeah, it was a dumb idea, written by someone who hadn't thought about the implications.

An executive producer of the Stargate TV series has cast serious doubt on the future of the licensed Stargate Worlds MMO. (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/tv-producer-on-stargate-worlds-its-a-shame)


 :heartbreak:

Look at whats happening.  They didnt pay designers for months.  They are being sued by one of the companies they work with for unpaid bills.  One of their ex-designers on the FOH forums has been posting about how few people work there now.  This TV producer who must have some insight is calling out the bad.  Their webpage hasnt offered hardly any info for months other then the occasional screenshot.  All of this = not good news but people on their forums want to sugar coat it all.  I expect this game to fall short of launch, or if it does launch they will do it as a very incomplete game to start pulling in cash which as we all know works wonders for the long term! :P

I wish I was smart enough to legally steal that kind of money.

Wanna start a game?  I've got a couple lore ideas bouncing around, princes and princesses and all that shit.  I'm sure we could sell it to someone.  Hell, even the kid that is going to beat WoW got $50,000 or something. 

Were fetuspults ever trademarked? Also, zombie predator pirates vs vampire alien ninjas.

Werewolf terminator vikings can be in the expansion.

I demand the title of Chief Lead Designer, but won't ever show up at the office. My edicts will be delivered via email written in haiku.

No McQuaids allowed! 

Game must have ridable unicorns.

It's hardcore title, so you can ride those unicorns, but you won't be in the saddle while doing so. The horn needs to be used for something, after all.

Wait, was this about the unicorn or the McQuaid?

Official response

"Our official response is that the lights here are still on and the development team is working hard every day to get this game built.

I’ve been asked from many corners lately to provide an official response to a story circulated by Gateworld.net. I spoke with Darren Sumner, the author of the story, soon after it was posted and gave him a detailed response to the article which he decided not to publish.

Our official response is that the lights here are still on and the development team is working hard every day to get this game built. Team members are in the office seven days a week to deliver Stargate Worlds. Brad Wright is the Stargate expert and a creative consultant on Stargate Worlds who advises us on the story; unfortunately we had not recently updated him on our progress or the impact from the current global economic crisis, and he was not fully aware of the continuing progress on our game.

It’s true that the production of Stargate Worlds has been significantly impacted by the greatest worldwide economic downturn in decades, but we are still raising enough money from angel investors to keep the dev team working.

We are currently negotiating several deals that will cover our financial responsibilities and fund the remainder of development. When we sign those deals, you’ll hear about it. Until then, we’ll keep building Stargate Worlds, because right now, that’s the only thing that matters to us. "

I guess there is a new article up on Gateworld as well.  They are still struggling though to find investors so this certainly doesnt lock the game down.  I want to see this game go live and hopefully they get the funds they need.  We need another Sci-Fi MMO, had enough of orcs and sorcs. 

"Our unofficial response is that we've got no money, we're way behind schedule, the developers are leaving as soon as they can find another job and the game is fucked."

Epic fail.

McQuaid's more into dragons, and the chasing thereof.

I think "the lights are still on" is the worst grasping-at-straws PR statement I've ever read. "The lights are on" is the bare minimum required for functionality.

Instead, how about "The article was in error - we are all working full steam ahead to deliver this title to you". Still vague, but makes it sound like CME aren't running on fumes.

I hope that programming cat doesn't demand overtime. 

I'd like to agree, but in game development, that's status quo.

Programming cat is lucky to get into the industry on such a prestige title. Also, there is a programming gerbil that would love to have programming cat's job and is a whiz on C+, so programming cat better pull his head in.

And one wonders why most MMOG's suck horribly at release.

From my experience, it's no benchmark of competency. Sometimes shit happens and people have to stay late. Sometimes management is subpar and people spend the first half of a project playing air hockey instead of working, etc.
Although with this economy, the impetus to limit overtime is stronger than ever...

Until I left at least, it would be safe to say "Team members" = people who meet with potential investors, not the programmers, designers, or artists. 

As a programmer at CME, while there were occasional nights where we would crunch, they were very few, and generally to make specific milestone targets we thought reasonable at the start of the milestone.  Nobody at CME ever asked me to work a 85+ hour week (which did happen, once, at Sigil).

We all have to do overtime at some point. It's certainly the nature of... well, most things. My problem is with the game industry's unwritten rule that says "Thou shalt always have crunch time and thou shalt like it. 60 hours a week is normal. 80 hours a week is expected. 100 hours a week is necessary. Asking why is heretical."

Fuck that noise. If I get asked to work late, it's either because I fucked up, someone else who was supposed to get me stuff fucked up or the client fucked up by pulling their puds instead of getting me the stuff I need to finish. There is nothing inherent in game design that makes 60 hour work weeks necessary other than fuckheaded project management.

Preaching to the choir. Although cashing that OT paycheck can be rather nice.

Paid overtime? Are you some kind of Communist?

If it's paid overtime, he can't be working in the games industry.

Working for free? Are you some kind of socialist?

Asking questions? Are you some kind of anarchist?

Typing words on the internet?  Are you some kind of asshole?

I am just a QA monkey. I don't do salary.  :grin: Yet.  :ye_gods:

Isn't that obvious?  :grin:

Continuing to play MMO's after a decade of disappointment? Are you some kind of masochist?

Well..yeah, kinda.

Another "days since payroll" site has popped up (http://cme-skipped-payroll.webs.com/). A little fancier this time :)

Also, there are reports (http://www.iampaidtoplay.com/) that the CEO of MMOGULS, Brent Barton, has resigned after having only been announced as the new CEO around Feb 25. I have also heard that the VP of marketing, VP of business development, IT director, and member services manager have also gone, but that is sketchier info mentioned on a forum at scam.com (http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=116805).

I'm trying to decide if the Navy recruitment ad at the top is ironic, tasteless, or apropos.

I know Zhiroc knows about this, but this blog (http://davesmmoguls.blogspot.com/) is full of hilarity:


This is going to sound cold, but just die already CME. Or find a new set of investors to clear out the current management.

 :uhrr: :oh_i_see: :ye_gods:

FYI, that blog was dated Feb 28. So, if you use the figures that a Platinum membership costs US$250 plus US$50/month, this means that MMOGULS has bilked earned US$800K and if they managed to keep them all, US$160K/month. This was probably why they managed to "keep the lights on" even with a good profit off the top.

But it was likely never enough to restart beta. And I've heard rumors (completely unsubstantiated) that MGM recently showed up for an "audit", whatever that means. Is it coincidence that MMOGULS execs left around the same time as this rumor, along with paychecks supposedly stopping as well?

The whole thing smacks of a pyramid. 

WHAT

SERIOUSLY?

IT WAS SO WELL HIDDEN.

Apologies.  I have a tendency to state the obvious when I'm preoccupied posting.   :oh_i_see:

Do you honestly believe that 3200 number is real paying members?  :) As I recall, every employee of CME got a free "membership" (that none of us wanted) and I would be shocked if there weren't other groups out there that got the same...

You mean you weren't interested in all that phat lewt? A million subscribers giving you $500K/year!?!

Don't forget the new car I was going to win playing the racing game too! ;-p

While I do miss CME / SGW / AZ a bit, it's hard to express just how much happier I am to be in a stable, normal job here in MD at ZeniMax.

I do wonder what the MGM audit was...  Is the Stargate license gone now (or soon)?

I don't like that MMOGULs had more subs than f13.

You all need to correct that. Just sayin.

I've actually run the numbers on what it would take to sell a pig in a poke (build an MMO off of the money from gamers who wanted it so bad they'd contribute to potential vaporware).  It doesn't work.  Putting it into an MLM "matrix" scheme wouldn't help any, anything you gained from viral motivation you'd lose in overhead.  Now, it's not *guaranteed* to fail, but you're not going to fund a AAA grade project that way, and you're not going to get a high enough interest level if you're not aiming at AAA.  If you had a game that was right on the verge of launch, had a large active player base and a clear time target, you might manage to push it over the line that way.

This is more of a demonstration of how MLM architects are continuously looking for virgin fields to exploit than anything else.  The surprising part is that they managed to get MGM involved, although it appears they didn't start the shenanigans until after they already had the license.

--Dave

You're just not thinking big enough. Here's what they are going out and selling (http://www.majelyn.com/FAQs.html)...

100K Platinum members, generating $25mil plus $5mil/month, and then on top of that, the 150-200 million paying subscribers (conservative estimate)!

 :grin:

No offense intended for you at all but I've heard sigil were a joke. I have played vanguard one of sigil's title for a month then quit and would say one most of the worst at launch of a game ever.

Old (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9253.0) discussion (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=6843.0).

As to the main (current) topic: sucker born every minute. I've long felt you can get at least 1,000 people to agree to just about anything, particularly in this genre. For every person whose been there and done that since M59, you've got hundreds of people coming off their first MMO (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com) looking for somewhere to channel their love for this "new" genre they "discovered".

You're the one who deleted all the Jacobs' star fuckers...

They're the same types that are going to put money down on vaporware ponzi schemes.  You really want your numbers boosted that way?

You must be lost, lemme help.

"The conservative figures are 150,000,000 - 200,000,000 people will be a part of MMOGULS."

And remember, that 150 million is the conservative figure! The best-case is measured in jillions.

Things I love about that FAQ:

1. A complete description of how pyramid schemes work, even down to the 'What if it tanks? Well, the early birds won't be fucked!' You have to admire honesty in a gyp.
2. A complete dismissal of Conan as 'Who the fuck knows who that is? And that shit got a mil and a half!'.
3. Repeated mentions of 'genealogy trees' and 'The Computer' brought this momentary image of a fusion of Paranoia and mormonism, which might be a more interesting MMO than half the shit that's come out.


I think I'ma grab "would say one most of the worst at launch of a game ever" (for drunken rants where I can't string two words together) before he hits the bin.

You should have redirected him to the subscription page.

Well, this is more MMOGULS news, but since CME and it are tied at the hip...

The former CEO of MMOGULS, Brent Barton, has gone and formed a new MLM, named "Mondelis" (http://sites.google.com/site/paidtoplaysite/announcements-1/firstmondelisconferencecall)  to compete with MMOGULS. In his first conference call, he alleges that funds went missing from MMOGULS, supposedly corroborated by the credit card processor, and that the "ownership" declined to return it. I'm presuming this was probably money that funded CME, but that's just a guess.

I smell nasty lawsuits from many directions. MMOGULS affiliates vs. management, MMOGULS vs. Mondelis....

Support via a gmail address is the hallmark of a legitimate organisation. Doubly so when you aren't sure what the support guy's actual name is.

A Gmail account doesn't raise my eyebrows like this:


Before I read the part that told me who Frankie Muniz was, I was thinking "that kid from the Munsters is still alive?"

Sigh. Life is unfair.

Not if you're one of the top five recruits it's not

Does the word "Thru" bother anyone else?

IT'S THROUGH, OK?

That's a legit word though. Isn't "thru" just the wrong way of saying "thruway"?

I hope this game gets 2 to the head soon, I'm a big fan of all the Stargate shows and it would be nice if the IP was done properly by a new developer.

MMORPG.com says this (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/242/feature/3316/Source-August-1st-Deadline.html):

Their anonymous source probably couldn't even tell you who the doctors are.

As to why a group of doctors would invest is beyond me. That said, they did get Coldstone Creamery to invest, so who knows.

They're not Ray and Greg, I can tell you that.

Did you know that the fat content of one serving of ColdStone Creamery is the same as eating a bucket of chicken wings?

This whole thing makes me feel less guilty we never published our horrible interview with their tools programmers.  That bald irishman was going to kill Cristo.

I was so hungover.

Edit: Errrr, no, we redid the interview and never published the SECOND ONE. Not kidding. I was just wrecked.

This sounds about right.

I love the Stargate series as well and have followed this game since 2006.  I have doubts it will launch also considering the issues the last 7 months

1)  Media blackout including no show at any gaming shows to advertise their product
2)  Beta stopped completely
3)  Multiple designers leaving company and posting blogs about the bad situation they are in
4)  Couldnt afford to pay their employees
5)  Lawsuits for payments not made including their building, servers and other
6)  Third time the launch date is pushed back(last one was early 2009) and now no indication of a new date, if it will launch at all

Overall, does not look at all good for them.  Almost expecting SOE to pick this up, poop in the code and launch the sucker

I do not love the Stargate series.

They'd be better off converting it into a "Planescape" MMO.

Those were some fucking terrible interviews, let me tell you what.

Well, August 1 is nice and close.  Hopefully we'll hear something officially, one way or another, around then.  I've heard that even some of the hold outs (people who really didn't want to leave the area and stayed, for various reasons) are looking for new positions now, which doesn't bode well...  In the end, it's the high level CME management that killed this game.  They had offers to fund just SGW that they refused to accept, because they wanted to fund the entire company.

Oh well...  Stargate is a neat license for an MMO.  Perhaps someone else will try it? :)

Not my high point. But honestly, feigning interest in Stargate is hard.

It can't help that all of the Stargate series are off the air.  It seems I did hear something about a new Stargate concept coming to SciFi...oops, Syfy (horrible right?) in the near future, but I havent heard anything about it since months ago.  The concept is really tailor made for a pretty good game but it could just as easily be a console FPS.

All the moves SyFy has made in the past few years have been absolutely ludicrous.  It'd be equally ludicrous if they renewed Stargate in anywhere near a similar concept as they had before.  It's just a crappy show.

As for the game, the design was horribly flawed from the get-go and the engine equally uninspiring.  It seemed to amount to nothing more than a promo. game for the show.

SyFy just isn't hardcore enough for you, its a niche channel :P

Part of me hopes SGW gets launched, at least so everyone can see the design and look at its mistakes.

However, what's more likely is that if CME fails - and it is management's fault - that no-one will learn anything from what went on.

... and the Deadlands MMO will go on development hiatus again.

Are there really any lessons left to teach in the MMO industry?  If this were a college course you'd already have 10 textbooks of failures and a single notecard of successes.

Part of me wants to see the "if only this game had launched everyone would have seen how awesome it was going to be!" thing that follows around aborted MMOs not happen for SGW.

And yeah, I think there are some lessons to be learned, like focus on one title and don't grow your studio too fast or convert it into a dev & publisher on your first attempt. Gazillion appears to be walking the same path.

There have also been a good number of successes, but people appear to learn the wrong lessons from them too.

That's just the problem. It USED to be a niche channel, now all they play is RASLIN' and horrible shit shit shit B horror movies. I foresee them going down the G4 path. First they rename the channel, then they slowly start removing the shows that made the network sci-fi. In a year or so, your gonna be seeing cops, cheaters, and some rendition of attack of the show.

I think they have run out of every variation of giant insects,reptiles and natural disasters at least.

Nah, they'll just start overdramatizing mundane shit.

LIGHT SNOW!
DUST DEVILS!
ATTACK OF THE LADYBUGS!
CHANCE OF RAIN!

The problem as I see it is that seems to be... but really, I don't think it is, if you want to keep true to the show.

Personally, what I think made the show great was the cast and characters, not the premise. But even if you like the premise, the one in the heyday of the show is more about a small number of small units doing guerilla and exploratory missions. For me, the premise started getting tired when earth started getting enough technology to travel around with impunity, and fight all-out wars.

Nevertheless, translating it to an MMO means you have thousands of humans using gates, and then you have to try to justify the usual MMO tactics of an economy (SGC members "looting" and selling it for Naquada, to "buy" upgrades?), and player independence (i.e., going through the gate on what amounts to private trips).

To me, this is what made MxO something that only superficially felt like the movies.

One of the huge immersion breaking things for me about Tabula Rasa was having to buy your own weapons and ammo. Here I am, fighting as the last line of defence for humanity and I've got to BUY my bullets? WTF?

It wouldn't have even been that hard to create a system that served the same purpose - call it Scavenged Items, or Battlefield Loot or whatever - and make the lore reason that humankind is so pushed for resources that the army can only convert what you bring back for your use. They can't afford to give the good weapons and armour to soldiers who aren't doing their share.

SGW could do something similar by having stolen tech items unlock research upgrades for your team - there would only be so many to go around based on alien tech after all so you get rewarded for bringing them back. Or, it could, if it was ever going to launch.

I pretty much new the sci-fi channel was going down the tubes when they cancelled Stargate Atlantis to make this new shit SGU show, combined with their amzingly graphic sci-fi movies along with wrestlers showing up on shows like Ghosthunters :P  SyFy will soon be DyFy...see what I did there

I'm going to have a bah dang whippersnappers moment here because

1) Sci Fi has been the worst thing ever since the day they canceled MST3K

and

2) That channel has ALWAYS been fucking terrible with one flagship show everyone needlessly creams their drawers about surrounded by movies worse than what MST3K was making fun of in the first place.

Also: genre fiction sucks. That extends to pablum du jour like Stargate.

Yes, the channel that offered Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, a fine remake of The Wizard of Oz featuring Zooey Deschanel, and reruns of Jericho, The Twilight Zone, and the X-Files is the 'worst thing ever'.  Worse than Ebola.



Ghost Hunters is garbage, though.  I'll give you that.

FUCK NO!

But then again i liked their Earthsea and Dune attempts.

Could you imagine what some of us would do with our very own Sci-Fi channel?  (I shudder)
I think that's what's saddest about it... we all know the greatness it should be, but it aint.  And I've lost count of the plethora of great pilots and 1-season wonders that they never picked up (from other networks) but should've.

Sci Fi costs too much money to do well for such a niche audience.  On top of that you have even more costs to license the good shows from the big media guys who want to show them on their own networks.  Sci Fi was doomed as a channel from the moment the cable sector started on its ever-expanding number of channels and advertisers began realizing they weren't getting enough eyeballs for their dollars.  Shit, if Hulu and the like take off like the internet did, I'm expecting the companies to come to consumers asking for us to accept the a la carte option we were all yelling for 5 years ago so they can keep revenues up.

Stargate: crap
BSG: Not crap but overrated character melodrama
Oz: Holy fuck no. I will judge people forever if they liked that abysmal turd and everything you ever like forever is now suspect.

Reruns don't count. But it really isn't the worst thing ever. They could be Lifetime.

Oz was awesome.  Of course I'm referring to:
(http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h88/bzalthek/oz1.jpg)

The SciFi Oz was like the HBO Oz, except it was the audience that was assraped instead of the cast.

I like the idea of a movie that is billed as a re-imagining but reveals as a sequel.  But yes, Tinman sucked.  DG and the witch are pretty hot so that helps a bit.

The problem is that the re-imaginings are not imaginative anymore. They all follow the exact same formula: take kids classic, blow up the wink wink nudge nudge adult parts to ludicrous levels, slap a coat of 3dgy Goth crap on top of it. Sit back and watch the sorrow cows squeal about how dark and edgy and beautiful it is that Classic Character is wearing goggles or has a nose piercing.

American McGee and Tim Burton have done more harm to the arts than anyone in the world. Except Joss Whedon. Maybe.

Oh my.

Considering that the source material for most Tim Burton flicks is considered Adult, I do not think he has done any harm to the arts.

Disney was the one who took adult material and made it acceptable and accessible for children.  Perhaps you should be focusing on Disney's impact on the arts.

As for the Stargate franchise, I am interested to see how Stargate:Universe turns out.

+1 for making me lawl  :grin:

Michael Bay and Stephen Sommers wipe their brows in relief.

It was pretty close but the secret rankings I have don't lie.

UPDATE(sort of):

Hi all--quick update. A lot of people are on leave right now (including myself) but the guys showing the game to investors and upper management are all there trying daily to get us re-started.

My understanding is a significant portion of the funds have been raised, but it's one of those situations where everyone involved (us and the investors) want to make sure there's enough to cover all our needs. To be clear, let's say we need X million. If someone puts in $100,000 right now, that's great and much appreciated, but it doesn't get the game shipped and that investor would lose his money if the rest isn't raised in the long-term.

Needless to say, every single investor does substantial due diligence due to the delay of the game and negative press we've received. A significant number *have* pledged money on completion of their research into our books, however, so I find that very encouraging.

Otherwise, it's an ongoing process and there just won't be much news until then, but the day we return to full operations I'll let everyone know. In the meantime, thanks very much for your support and well-wishes.

Thanks

Shane

http://forums.stargateworlds.com/showthread.php?t=29655

Thanks. This is very important to those of us that like pouting and saying "goa'uld".

"indeed"

Im impressed you know how to spell that

Sounds like it's basically dead then.  Even if they get the money, SGW is going to miss its tech window, and appear dated to everything else that comes out at the same time. :(  Won't have a chance to be a Jaffa that always calls the stargate a Chapa'ai, yelling Kree all the time. ;-)

Either that or it'll run well on older computers.  That's not a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all.  However, it had already been made with that in mind (running well on current "older" computers).  Go too far down in tech, and you'll have people opting to play the newer, shinier alternative instead.

If it launched charging $10 a month for a sub it might have a shot at survival for a while.

Assuming it runs smoothly and is fun, of course. 

Why is this conversation bouncing back and forth as if there were a chance in hell of this being anything other than an unfinished trainwreck cobbled together by a company that's more of a fraud-scheme shell than a game development studio?

Why are most posts on this board lately about how others shouldn't be posting about something because its dumb?  I think that's always been this site's MO, but for some reason its grating on me recently. 

The alternative is that we talk about PvP in Aion. This topic at least has the chance of fun.

Posting about Stargate Galaxies or whatever the hell this is called isn't dumb. Pretending that there's a non-zero probability of it being something other than a turd is.

And that's different from most other MMOGs in what way?  :grin:

CME gets some new funds, means they can probably launch SGW. (http://www.massively.com/2009/08/21/stargate-worlds-receives-new-funding-development-to-continue/)

... or someone is going on a holiday to a non-extradition country, take your pick.

EDIT: Also, I found it interesting to see that Shane Hensley is Creative Director of CME where before he was just Lead Designer of one of CME's minor studios. And apparently Director of Business Development. Guess he must be one of the few senior people left and perhaps his other ventures provide enough income to live on since CME probably isn't paying him that much.

Stargate Worlds under limited development; CME producing Stargate: Resistance FPS instead.  (http://www.massively.com/2009/12/09/cheyenne-mountain-entertainment-reveals-stargate-shooter-instead/)

Stargate: Resistance site (http://stargateresistance.com/index.html)

Well that makes sense.

I would grief my team by "penetrating" the gate with my staff throughout the whole match while replaying songs through I Am T-Pain over my mic.

This game dropped off my radar some time ago and after the farce(sp) of a TV show that is Stargate Emoverse Ive lost a lot of interest in the Stargate thang.  Gimme some KOTOR

Eh, I still think that Stargate was a solid franchise for a MMORPG.

First off, it screams "instances". :) Second, there's enough lore and concepts there to make a lot of it a no-brainer.

Although, admittedly, I'd still want a Tok'Ra class where I could pretend to be Goa'uld until it was a perfect time to screw them over. Like...Sith done right. All the benefits of kitten-killing evil, PLUS the ability to backstab your supposed allies, and still claim to hold the moral high ground.

It would also be one of the more easily expandable MMOs due to the nature of those instances.  Content could vary widely to introduce new themes pretty easily.

I want to be that one token white Jaffa.

Stargate would a be good MMO license but it's in bad hands.

Isn't that what they said about Communism?

Oh, I kid.

Stargate Universe is awesome and there's nothing you can do about it.

As an IP for a MMO, it's better than a lot of others, especially as a theme park title.

This is insane.  They're developing a Stargate FPS again?  After they cancelled the first one?  This franchise is so fucked.


Fixed.

A stargate FPS is probably even MORE of a no-brainer, assuming you got someone marginally competent to make it.

Of course, deep down I want a Honor Harrington Naval Simulator, but I suspect I'd be bored halfway through the first battle -- and I suspect I'd get my ass blown out of the sky so fast the AI would laugh at me.

Why would Stargate be a good license? Because it has doors to anywhere? Is this a joke? Every handling of Stargate past the first movie has been trash. It's like the asshole's sci-fi version of Planescape.

People always think Stargate is a good license because the "doors to anywhere" don't have to maintain a consistent theme.  Ooo, look! Roman world!  Now Look! Sci-Fi Space Station!  Hey! Russia!  Awesome! Pyramids!  Neat!

Map after map, zone after zone, no matter what theme you pick you can shoehorn it into Stargate by just making it on the other side of a portal.

Yeaaaaaa. That's what I was getting at.

Guys, Stargate in any setting is still fucking Stargate. It's a terrible license. End of story.

Sci-fi universe full of medieval worlds!  Most of stargate is just a bunch of hippy, ball-massaging cliches strung together in some pretense of a consistent storyline.  There was no depth, the little guys always beat insurmountable odds and came through at the end of the day.  If someone died, grief lasted roughly 40 minutes until credits.

And I loved watching SG1, it was a nice brainless sci-fi with either MacGuyver busting badass or Crichton delivering his snarky commentary.

You want to make a game out of this license?  You drop the boring-ass politics, throw all of civilization into a fast-paced transgalactic war, map out the overall flow of the war for a good 10 years and provide the illusion of actually making a difference by providing smaller-yet-trivial objectives to make the battle lines look fluid.

Also, the ability to kill a lot of the smug fuckers from the show would be awesome.

Errrrrrr. No, my point was to not take the license. Just because a license exists doesn't mean it's good. A good license has a fanbase that provides some sort of crossover to the other form of media, this being TV/Movies -> Games. The license has to provide some kind of benefit over "it's a license." A huge possible playerbase, for example. SG does not do this. It provides fuckall in a boring ass setting in a world full of boring ass tech and bland characters. It's a terrible fucking license. The idea is neat, but entirely unoriginal (the idea of a city of doors to everywhere is old as the hills) and SG - arguably - was the worst of them all.

It's a shitty license. Period.

Edit: Shit, it's probably one of the ONLY licenses that would be worse than straight up brand new IP. Seriously, it's so bad. It's power glove bad.

I think it would be a good license for an RTS. But then most of the fans would probably be bored to tears with that implementation.

Not really, no.

Oh, I know!  I choose you, teal'c!

Goa'uld, gotta catch em all!

Then, how about a freeware adventure game using AGS? (I played a little bit of this a few years back - wasn't bad if you like the old Indiana Jones adventure games)

http://www.freehare.com/index.php?nav=games&item=review&id=43 (http://www.freehare.com/index.php?nav=games&item=review&id=43)

It's an IP that practically demands zones and instances, whereas if you invented your own IP there's no reason not to have a seamless world. As such it's an IP Age of Conan should have used given their technical limitations.

The movie was pretty fun, but the tv shows were awful.  The best one (the first series) relied almost exclusively on cutesy character interactions, but the setting and antagonists were positively pedestrian.  You take those characters out and you're just left with mush.

If your studio is not capable of making as polished an MMO as Blizzard or taking the MMO genre to a whole new level, then Stargate is a better IP for your MMO than Star Wars or Star Trek. Your MMO is not going to be epic and Stargate does not try to be an epic IP.

SG is a transparent rip off of Mr Benn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPDUaPrD7x0#) tbh.

If you want multiple worlds and dimensional portals and shit, you may as well cook up your own IP and include them in it. Then you can do whatever you damn well please with it. Blow up the earth, add cyborg ninjas to an expansion, what the fuck ever. There aren't enough people who give a shit about Stargate to make dealing with a licensed IP worthwhile.

Depending on how much it cost, it might have saved a lot of time in lore and art development by just licensing the IP. Plus this MMO was announced back when SG was arguably a lot fresher.

I'm not saying that SG is a great sci-fi licence - it's got some nice ideas but is also fairly generic. But as an IP for a MMO it cuts through the "what?" barrier because a lot of people know what SG is, even if they aren't fans and the setting allows for instanced worlds of great variety. It's a better sci-fi IP for a MMO that lots of others - personally I think something like Dr Who is a bigger IP, but it would make an awful MMO.

Dr. who would have to ship with a bunch of LSD and bad poetry.

You think grinding for a Jedi was bad - just wait until you have to grind to become a Timelord!

I found the recipe list for a TARDIS.  Looks like there's a lot of subcombines too and that's not even counting the interior modules.

Daleks are even easier to craft as most of the parts can be picked up at any good hardware store. Plungers, egg whisks, washers, ballcocks...The tricky part is finding a decent ring modulator to get that really good raspy 'EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINAAAAATE!!' Of course you could just opt for a good sized fan and scream into that all day, but it's just not the same.

Holy shit, they finished something:  http://www.stargateresistance.com/

That seems to have a hard time loading up.

That game looks like a piece of shit. GO GO 1-shot Stealth kills!

Stargate: Resistance looks like they tore the combat system out of the MMO they couldn't finish and forced it into a mediocre third person shooter.  I mean, if you are going this route with a game right now, is there any reason not to choose Global Agenda?

I recognize most of those areas as from alpha. Combat looked weak.

It's Stargate! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJfckHxCw7c)

I was looking forward to Stargate Online and am a fan of the Stargate series but Im not even playing this. 

CME files for bankruptcy.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/loadNews/16270

I'm shocked.  :awesome_for_real:

Not unexpected.  I was impressed they managed to get Stargate: Resistance out, but after trying the beta, couldn't imagine it would sell well.  Seems like they stayed open just long enough to make sure that was the case, and then called it quits...

Oh well.

The interesting thing to me is that CME + other defendants (including MMOGuls, the potential Amway of the MMO world) have gotten together to sue former Chairman of the Board Gary Whiting.

Gary Whiting's bio has been stripped off the CME site and the board appears to now be made up of investors.

Whiting's CME bio is spoilered below for reference.


Putting aside the virtue of the SGW MMO, what is going to kill any hope for the title is this kind of management fighting. Lawsuits, countersuits, injunctions, blah blah blah. Even CME earned buckets of cash from SG:R, it is all going to be tied up very quickly.

For those still following the tale, CME is in receivership atm. This was posted (http://www.cheyenneme.com/news/589/) to their website recently (and it seems it was written by/for the receiver).

OMG OUCH. That's a ton of money, and ton not paid to the workers, O.U.C.H.  :ye_gods:

Disclaimer: IANAL, or finance expert, etc.

As much as I hate commenting on other people's situations, that whole thing sounds...hinky.  

Especially when you factor out a few things:

CMG contributed the software, computers, furniture and fixtures and other assets associated with the operations and development of Stargate Resistance to FSS...

...concern was expressed about the FSS transaction and the perception that corporate assets had or were in the process of being stolen as a result...

...alternatively, shareholders need to put up additional funds in an amount to be determined that would be used to repay the FSS principals and cover future operating expenses...

The receivership order specifically allows the Receiver to “incur indebtedness” for the benefit of CME and CMG.

...Clearly, under the current circumstances, traditional borrowing from a bank or other secured type lenders is not an option.


(Disclaimer #2: wild unfounded, likely incorrect speculation below )

Implying that taking on unsecured debt from existing shareholders, for no equity, is perfectly hunky dory?  

Best sales pitch ever: The assets are gone unless the existing shareholders lend us some money on faith.  But they weren't stolen.  Nosir.



Edited to add: Oh, hey, Schild updated my profile with the company name.  In that case, disclaimer #3!  My posting on forums has nothing to do with my employer etc etc.  This is my personal yadda yadda.

Ive followed this game for years and Ive pretty much given up on it even though Im a big Stargate fan, at least until I see something "positive" from them instead of the past year and a half of all bad news or no news at all

Incompetence, intrigue, arrogant douchebaggery and even the makings of a vapourware Ponzi scheme. Oh MMOG industry, thou truly art a gift that keeps on giving - though in this case purely from a callous and cavalier vantage point.

My sympathies to the people who lost their jobs. Having been in a pinch a few times during my career, I wouldn't wish this kind of nonsense on anyone.

While I'd like to say this means I picked the perfect time to leave (my last day at CME was the last day of Feb 2009), more realistically, I suspect it means that there are people (likely execs) that agreed to delay their payments due to the situation.  While other, normal (former) employees are likely missing some money, I suspect it's not a year's worth.

Personally, the point I'd be more interested in hearing about is if the transfer of assets to FSS included Stargate Worlds, not just what was used for Stargate Resistance.  Not that I suspect it matters much.  I'm not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if the transfer wasn't approved.   I'm sure SGW is dead, but at the same time, I do still wish it was released...

Thanks for the link Zhiroc, I might have missed it otherwise. :)

I would be curious to find out just how close SGW was to launch.  Based on their last expected launch time they realistaclly should of only been about half a year away. 

It seems like they were pretty much pressing the panic button with the Stargate: Resistance thing, trying to release it as a last ditch effort to fund the rest of the development.  My point being, they weren't close if they didn't have the money.

Half a year, maybe a bit less, with a fully staffed team of motivated people who were experienced with the game seems fairly reasonable to me.  In terms of the schedule, I believe it was just over half a year when the first problems started and productivity dropped dramatically... That might have been a little aggressive, but it probably wasn't too far off.

(http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll243/davidispikachu/RageFace.png)

My only concern is that this doesn't boil over to my favorite tabletop RPG company in some way. A guy named Shane Hensley was involved with this company (and Cryptic at one time.) He was the designer of an RPG called Deadlands which became the foundation for an awesome pen and paper RPG called Savage Worlds. I don't know how much connection he still has with the RPG company but I'd hate to see something crazy where this blows over onto this unrelated company.

Shane Hensley was working on the Deadlands MMO at CME. Shane went from being the head of one of CME's studios to the overall producer (or some kind of larger position) for FireSky / CME, likely because he was still earning some money form Pinnacle and wanted to see his Deadlands MMO finally get up.

Yep, Shane still runs Pinnacle.  I can vouch that he's a fantastic guy both personally and to work with.  I don't think there's anything that could happen at Cheyenne though that would cause any damage to Pinnacle proper.

I'm pretty sure Pinnacle is completely separate from CME.

Hensley made the jump from Creative Director to Head of CME imprint Superstition Studios (https://www.tentonhammer.com/node/33354), which is where the Deadlands MMO would have been developed, and then onto positions like FireSky Studio President and CME President.

Heh, you made me look at his LinkedIn profile (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/shane-hensley/1/11a/12b?goback=.cps_1247149767187_1) - turns out he's now Studio Head at Dust Devil Studios, which looks entirely separate to CME. Maybe the Deadlands MMO will appear after all.