I wish crowd funding required open reporting of financials. It would be interesting to see how much money Chris, Sandi and Ortwin have taken from the project over the last 5 years.
Don't forget his brother. I'm sure the lot of them have taken higher then normal salaries and kick backs to celebrate certain milestones
I wish crowd funding required open reporting of financials. It would be interesting to see how much money Chris, Sandi and Ortwin have taken from the project over the last 5 years.
Don't forget his brother. I'm sure the lot of them have taken higher then normal salaries and kick backs to celebrate certain milestones
*edit cause I can't spell lol*
If that were the case, those who have been going over this game with a fine tooth comb looking for any sort of bad behavior would have a field day. And not over something dumb as hell, like a door. Plus lets completely disregard that Erin never left the industry, and would be tearing his whole career down around his ears if he did that.
If anyone had remotely anything close to evidence against CIG for financial wrongdoing, we would be following the court proceedings, not development.
I liked the article. It seemed fair as far as the information he had available and never hated on the game. His further thoughts in the comments section were interesting as well.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I liked the article. It seemed fair as far as the information he had available and never hated on the game. His further thoughts in the comments section were interesting as well.
I'm on a grain of salt, especially when seeing he went registering in DS's forum and praised him saying it was nice to see other minded people on the project... I guess?
Just calculations that were done before out of the publicly announced info, the rest is still the same old story of assumptions and speculation.
I liked the article. It seemed fair as far as the information he had available and never hated on the game. His further thoughts in the comments section were interesting as well.
I'm on a grain of salt, especially when seeing he went registering in DS's forum and praised him saying it was nice to see other minded people on the project... I guess?
You SC fans really need to let this DS complex go.
I wish crowd funding required open reporting of financials. It would be interesting to see how much money Chris, Sandi and Ortwin have taken from the project over the last 5 years.
Don't forget his brother. I'm sure the lot of them have taken higher then normal salaries and kick backs to celebrate certain milestones
*edit cause I can't spell lol*
If that were the case, those who have been going over this game with a fine tooth comb looking for any sort of bad behavior would have a field day. And not over something dumb as hell, like a door. Plus lets completely disregard that Erin never left the industry, and would be tearing his whole career down around his ears if he did that.
If anyone had remotely anything close to evidence against CIG for financial wrongdoing, we would be following the court proceedings, not development.
Never said we had any evidence except for Erin's salary which does seem like a lot. Based off Erin's I can only imagine what CR is paying himself and his wife.
You SC fans really need to let this DS complex go.
I don't disagree, I would find nice if we could have this sort of stuff from people who do not interact with him.
No, it's asinine for you to completely dismiss any points he makes because he's got a friggin account on DS forums. It's a straw man. Got information that would directly refute the author's analysis? Argue that, but quit being petty.
Actually posting properly here on the article itself ~~
The number he bases himself, the 90k head cost he claims already low, fails to consider most of CIG in on the UK/Germany, where the medium of 90k turns into a medium of 60k.
As he states his numbers are based on "...ridiculously low $90,000 per head cost..."; what is fine, for US.
I think FQ42's financial report puts the head cost on even lower, 45k? Also, things like the 25% tax credit the UK gives back can't be ignored, the likely 3/4 million they get from the gov.
No, it's asinine for you to completely dismiss any points he makes because he's got a friggin account on DS forums. It's a straw man. Got information that would directly refute the author's analysis? Argue that, but quit being petty.
I didn't... I just wish we could have this sort of analysis from people who do not empathize with one side of the SC discussion spectrum. I re-posted the bit of info that popped my eye superficially about the number he based his analysis on of being too high.
Actually posting properly here on the article itself ~~
The number he bases himself, the 90k head cost he claims already low, fails to consider most of CIG in on the UK/Germany, where the medium of 90k turns into a medium of 60k.
As he states his numbers are based on "...ridiculously low $90,000 per head cost..."; what is fine, for US.
I think FQ42's financial report puts the head cost on even lower, 45k? Also, things like the 25% tax credit the UK gives back can't be ignored, the likely 3/4 million they get from the gov.
No, it's asinine for you to completely dismiss any points he makes because he's got a friggin account on DS forums. It's a straw man. Got information that would directly refute the author's analysis? Argue that, but quit being petty.
I didn't... I just wish we could have this sort of analysis from people who do not empathize with one side of the SC discussion spectrum. I re-posted the bit of info that popped my eye superficially about the number he based his analysis on of being too high.
So you're submitting that the employees, on average, are being paid less than 45k a year?
So you're submitting that the employees, on average, are being paid less than 45k a year?
From what I can remember from the analysis made on FQ42 financials they are far less from the 90k he bases himself on.
When the average in the US is visibly higher than the average in the UK, then you can't stand by the 90k US average when most of CIG lies on the UK. This is rather localized.
I'll try to look that analysis up to confirm the average including tax and other expenditures.
If that were the case, those who have been going over this game with a fine tooth comb looking for any sort of bad behavior would have a field day.
How would anyone be able to find out how much money these folks are earning? Can you stop making stuff up please? I swear some of you "fans" make up as much crap as Derek Smart.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
So you're submitting that the employees, on average, are being paid less than 45k a year?
From what I can remember from the analysis made on FQ42 financials they are far less from the 90k he bases himself on.
When the average in the US is visibly higher than the average in the UK, then you can't stand by the 90k US average when most of CIG lies on the UK. This is rather localized.
I'll try to look that analysis up to confirm the average including tax and other expenditures.
Wow, you fans are really laying on the horse manure today. The only financial records that CIG is releasing are for their UK operations only. The Frankfurt office and all the others are under no legal obligation to report financials. The company is free to move money around and make that one report look as good or as bad as they want. There is really very little in the sense of company wide "accurate" information that can be drawn from the UK reports other than the expenses that office incurs.
Can you point us to this "analysis made on the FQ42 financials" please? Can you point us to any other financial reports from the other locations/companies? All 15 of them?
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Wow, you fans are really laying on the horse manure today. ~~
I could go with "wow you haters...", but meh.
The financials released are the UK right, so is most of their operation in the UK, that stands the point where most of the operating cost IS.
Hence it is flawed that this article stands the average in 90k when that is normal in US but in the UK the average go quite lower than that, so with most of CIG operation lying in the UK then this fact can't be ignored and those hundreds of employees can't be calculated under the US average.
As for the analysis, it was made when this was posted earlier this year, not easy to find but if I do I'll gladly post it.
So you're submitting that the employees, on average, are being paid less than 45k a year?
From what I can remember from the analysis made on FQ42 financials they are far less from the 90k he bases himself on.
When the average in the US is visibly higher than the average in the UK, then you can't stand by the 90k US average when most of CIG lies on the UK. This is rather localized.
I'll try to look that analysis up to confirm the average including tax and other expenditures.
The average in America is actually 120k, as he mentioned, and he lowballed it intentionally. And, based upon the salary data I could find on video game and software developer salaries in the UK, if they're averaging 45k per head cost, they're only hiring employees with zero experience.
In other countries, such as Germany, 45k won't even cover salary costs, as the median software developer salary is almost 45k.... Euro. At current currency conversion rates, that would make the average salary alone over 50k USD.
EDIT- Changed average to median to make it more accurate. If CIG is averaging less, they're, again, hiring no experience employees or severely underpaying almost everyone on staff.
The average in America is actually 120k, as he mentioned, and he lowballed it intentionally. And, based upon the salary data I could find on video game and software developer salaries in the UK, if they're averaging 45k per head cost, they're only hiring employees with zero experience.
In other countries, such as Germany, 45k won't even cover salary costs, as the average software developer salary is almost 45k.... Euro. At current currency conversion rates, that would make the average salary alone over 50k.
Okay having a quick read in the actual FQ42 full accounts.
We have a cost of 9.8 million pounds in employees (all costs as social security and pensions included) for 221 employees.
So we have a 44k (pounds!) head cost for more than half of CIG, we convert that to USD and get indeed the head cost in 60k USD. That makes it so this base number the article runs, over calculates up to 30% the head cost for most of their employees from the ground-up.
Then we have your second point, and the simple counter point is the tax credits, that for their scale and the info shown is set to be around up to 3/4 million per year, what counters things like the currency conversion rate.
Wow, you fans are really laying on the horse manure today. ~~
I could go with "wow you haters...", but meh.
The financials released are the UK right, so is most of their operation in the UK, that stands the point where most of the operating cost IS.
Hence it is flawed that this article stands the average in 90k when that is normal in US but in the UK the average go quite lower than that, so with most of CIG operation lying in the UK then this fact can't be ignored and those hundreds of employees can't be calculated under the US average.
As for the analysis, it was made when this was posted earlier this year, not easy to find but if I do I'll gladly post it.
LOL, am I a hater? Is that how you justify your point that the majority of CIG operations are in the UK? So in your opinion, the UK office has more staff then Frankfort, LA and Texas studios combined? Could you please share where you got that information?
You can not reasonably assume an average salary of CIG employees from anything you have stated. Not the geographic average and certainly not the financial report from one of several offices. But you just keep calling me a hater and using that to justify the weak logic behind your made up numbers. At this point most of us are used to it.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
The average in America is actually 120k, as he mentioned, and he lowballed it intentionally. And, based upon the salary data I could find on video game and software developer salaries in the UK, if they're averaging 45k per head cost, they're only hiring employees with zero experience.
In other countries, such as Germany, 45k won't even cover salary costs, as the average software developer salary is almost 45k.... Euro. At current currency conversion rates, that would make the average salary alone over 50k.
Okay having a quick read in the actual FQ42 full accounts.
We have a cost of 9.8 million pounds in employees (all costs as social security and pensions included) for 221 employees.
So we have a 44k (pounds!) head cost for more than half of CIG, we convert that to USD and get indeed the head cost in 60k USD. That makes it so this base number the article runs, over calculates 30% the head cost for most of their employees from the ground-up.
Then we have your second point, and the simple counter point is the tax credits, that for their scale and the info shown is set to be around up to 3/4 million per year, what counters things like the currency conversion rate.
Which may be why he intentionally lowballed the overall head cost amount to 3/4 of the USD average, right? Again, he admittedly estimates some things and in no way does he give the intent that his is anything but an estimate where applicable. Also where applicable, he includes the industry average as a reference point and explains why he deviates from it in some estimates.
It's honestly one of the most straightforward estimates of the financial situation at CIG that I've seen written, as it provides a logical reasoning behind every number (which you are free to agree or disagree with) that doesn't seem to directly come from an emotional level of some sort. To imply it should be ignored because he isn't a DS hater seems more the grain to me.
LOL, am I a hater? Is that how you justify your point that the majority of CIG operations are in the UK? So in your opinion, the UK office has more staff then Frankfort, LA and Texas studios combined? Could you please share where you got that information?
You can not reasonably assume an average salary of CIG employees from anything you have stated. Not the geographic average and certainly not the financial report from one of several offices. But you just keep calling me a hater and using that to justify the weak logic behind your made up numbers. At this point most of us are used to it.
Uh, I actually linked the full accounts fillings on my response, the accounts show 221 employees in the UK, CIG states 400 total employees so most of their operation lies in FQ42 by that fact. With the German office states 75, leaves the US offices to around 110-120 employees.
Which may be why he intentionally lowballed the overall head cost amount to 3/4 of the USD average, right? Again, he admittedly estimates some things and in no way does he give the intent that his is anything but an estimate where applicable. Also where applicable, he includes the industry average as a reference point and explains why he deviates from it in some estimates.
It's honestly one of the most straightforward estimates of the financial situation at CIG that I've seen written, as it provides a logical reasoning behind every number (which you are free to agree or disagree with) that doesn't seem to directly come from an emotional level of some sort. To imply it should be ignored because he isn't a DS hater seems more the grain to me.
And even that low ball is up to 30% higher than the real cost for most of their employees, that is why the total numbers will be messed up by it. If he wanted to be accurate then he should have done the localized calculated average for the 220 in the UK, 70 in Germany and around 100-120 in the US, and not use the US average (I think it's a safe assumption that they pay under the normal average in the US studios by default, their US reported salaries backed that up) to all of them.
The numbers for the UK include salaries in London which are higher but not that critical.
Exchange rates are also a factor. If - as has been mentioned - most of the money is being raise in the US then the UK-US exchange rate over the last 15 months will have been good for RSI. Same goes for money raised in EU that isn't funding work in Germany.
"Tax credits" was another factor and the $50M marketing costs for a pre-sold game. (The game may be marketted after it has launched but that is different from pre-game marketing costs that may prevent the game being launched.)
Nothing wrong with him doing the stuff but he needs to check out our forums!
LOL, am I a hater? Is that how you justify your point that the majority of CIG operations are in the UK? So in your opinion, the UK office has more staff then Frankfort, LA and Texas studios combined? Could you please share where you got that information?
You can not reasonably assume an average salary of CIG employees from anything you have stated. Not the geographic average and certainly not the financial report from one of several offices. But you just keep calling me a hater and using that to justify the weak logic behind your made up numbers. At this point most of us are used to it.
Uh, I actually linked the full accounts fillings on my response, the accounts show 221 employees in the UK, CIG states 400 total employees so most of their operation lies in FQ42 by that fact. With the German office states 75, leaves the US offices to around 110-120 employees.
Which may be why he intentionally lowballed the overall head cost amount to 3/4 of the USD average, right? Again, he admittedly estimates some things and in no way does he give the intent that his is anything but an estimate where applicable. Also where applicable, he includes the industry average as a reference point and explains why he deviates from it in some estimates.
It's honestly one of the most straightforward estimates of the financial situation at CIG that I've seen written, as it provides a logical reasoning behind every number (which you are free to agree or disagree with) that doesn't seem to directly come from an emotional level of some sort. To imply it should be ignored because he isn't a DS hater seems more the grain to me.
And even that low ball is up to 30% higher than the real cost for most of their employees, that is why the total numbers will be messed up by it. If he wanted to be accurate then he should have done the localized calculated average for the 220 in the UK, 70 in Germany and around 100-120 in the US, and not use the US average (I think it's a safe assumption that they pay under the normal average in the US studios by default, their US reported salaries backed that up) to all of them.
Again, that's why he gave the reasoning behind it. As I mentioned, you are free to agree or disagree with his estimates, but you can't act like he's some kind of hateboat crony just because he doesn't hate DS. That's asinine.
I read his article, found it insightful because it included information about SC itself I didn't formally know (i.e. the graph of staff size), and he seemed to be coming at it from a rational, rather than emotional, viewpoint. It wasn't really going to change much about my opinion on the game because, and he mentioned this several times, it was an estimate.
The numbers for the UK include salaries in London which are higher but not that critical.
Exchange rates are also a factor. If - as has been mentioned - most of the money is being raise in the US then the UK-US exchange rate over the last 15 months will have been good for RSI. Same goes for money raised in EU that isn't funding work in Germany.
"Tax credits" was another factor and the $50M marketing costs for a pre-sold game. (The game may be marketted after it has launched but that is different from pre-game marketing costs that may prevent the game being launched.)
Nothing wrong with him doing the stuff but he needs to check out our forums!
Oh that article is useless on this, that's a general thing you need to focus on the game development average you'll find numbers much lower:
The numbers for the UK include salaries in London which are higher but not that critical.
Exchange rates are also a factor. If - as has been mentioned - most of the money is being raise in the US then the UK-US exchange rate over the last 15 months will have been good for RSI. Same goes for money raised in EU that isn't funding work in Germany.
"Tax credits" was another factor and the $50M marketing costs for a pre-sold game. (The game may be marketted after it has launched but that is different from pre-game marketing costs that may prevent the game being launched.)
Nothing wrong with him doing the stuff but he needs to check out our forums!
Oh that article is useless on this, that's a general thing you need to focus on the game development average you'll find numbers much lower:
It's much lower. It's not reasonable to apply the US average when seems over 70% of CIG's operation lies in Europe.
If you talk exchange rates, mind different companies of theirs handled payments in different locations, in Euros it is/was paid to a German company.
And the "Marketing costs", nobody has any idea of how many millions are being raised from subs (what is excluded from the public funding).
The "exact" figures don't matter Max. Both the CNN article and the numbers you show are in the same general ball park (and both ignore the London weighting!). As such both support the actual average number derrived from the accounts published.
And that number is significantly lower than the $120k number and the and the $90 low ball figure. Which is what I said in both my first post and the follow up. We agree!
As far as exchange rates go as you say money raised in the EU will first and foremost be used to fund EU euro denominated work; same for UK money raised; same for US money raised.
Over and above that however exchange rates come into play.
If US spend exceeds money raised in the US but UK money raised exceed UK spend then UK money will have to fund US work. If this is the case the shift in exchange rates will have been detrimental to RSI.
However more money is - probably - raised in the US. I have read that this is the case and it makes sense but can't say if it is the case. If it is however the shift in US-UK exchange rates in the last 15 months will have been very good for RSI resulting in a significant reduction in UK costs over and above the difference in wage costs. The article didn't address this either.
As far as marketing costs go you may (?) have missed my point. The author - correctly - notes that the game is pre-sold. He then assumes $50M wil be needed however for marketing and uses this figure in the "has the game got enough funding to finish" speculation.
As you say we don't know what might be spent but what we do know is that ... the game is pre-sold. So $0 needs to be spent prior to the game being launched. So its not a factor. (More correctly the current costs include an element of "low level embedded marketing" - the cons, time taken to talk to magazines / show them around, the monthly videos etc. etc.)
At least the author recognised that the high numbers couldn't be right since the game was still being made. What the author should (imo) then have done - since it was so far out - was dig a little deeper. Especially given the fact that not only has RSI not folded but it has stated its belief that there is enough money to finish.
Nothing wrong in principle with the article in general however.
Comments
have taken higher then normal salaries and kick backs to celebrate certain milestones
*edit cause I can't spell lol*
If anyone had remotely anything close to evidence against CIG for financial wrongdoing, we would be following the court proceedings, not development.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Just calculations that were done before out of the publicly announced info, the rest is still the same old story of assumptions and speculation.
The number he bases himself, the 90k head cost he claims already low, fails to consider most of CIG in on the UK/Germany, where the medium of 90k turns into a medium of 60k.
https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#work-salaries-by-geography
As he states his numbers are based on "...ridiculously low $90,000 per head cost..."; what is fine, for US.
I think FQ42's financial report puts the head cost on even lower, 45k? Also, things like the 25% tax credit the UK gives back can't be ignored, the likely 3/4 million they get from the gov.
I didn't... I just wish we could have this sort of analysis from people who do not empathize with one side of the SC discussion spectrum. I re-posted the bit of info that popped my eye superficially about the number he based his analysis on of being too high.
When the average in the US is visibly higher than the average in the UK, then you can't stand by the 90k US average when most of CIG lies on the UK. This is rather localized.
I'll try to look that analysis up to confirm the average including tax and other expenditures.
Can you point us to this "analysis made on the FQ42 financials" please?
Can you point us to any other financial reports from the other locations/companies? All 15 of them?
The financials released are the UK right, so is most of their operation in the UK, that stands the point where most of the operating cost IS.
Hence it is flawed that this article stands the average in 90k when that is normal in US but in the UK the average go quite lower than that, so with most of CIG operation lying in the UK then this fact can't be ignored and those hundreds of employees can't be calculated under the US average.
As for the analysis, it was made when this was posted earlier this year, not easy to find but if I do I'll gladly post it.
In other countries, such as Germany, 45k won't even cover salary costs, as the median software developer salary is almost 45k.... Euro. At current currency conversion rates, that would make the average salary alone over 50k USD.
EDIT- Changed average to median to make it more accurate. If CIG is averaging less, they're, again, hiring no experience employees or severely underpaying almost everyone on staff.
We have a cost of 9.8 million pounds in employees (all costs as social security and pensions included) for 221 employees.
So we have a 44k (pounds!) head cost for more than half of CIG, we convert that to USD and get indeed the head cost in 60k USD. That makes it so this base number the article runs, over calculates up to 30% the head cost for most of their employees from the ground-up.
Then we have your second point, and the simple counter point is the tax credits, that for their scale and the info shown is set to be around up to 3/4 million per year, what counters things like the currency conversion rate.
You can not reasonably assume an average salary of CIG employees from anything you have stated. Not the geographic average and certainly not the financial report from one of several offices. But you just keep calling me a hater and using that to justify the weak logic behind your made up numbers. At this point most of us are used to it.
It's honestly one of the most straightforward estimates of the financial situation at CIG that I've seen written, as it provides a logical reasoning behind every number (which you are free to agree or disagree with) that doesn't seem to directly come from an emotional level of some sort. To imply it should be ignored because he isn't a DS hater seems more the grain to me.
And even that low ball is up to 30% higher than the real cost for most of their employees, that is why the total numbers will be messed up by it. If he wanted to be accurate then he should have done the localized calculated average for the 220 in the UK, 70 in Germany and around 100-120 in the US, and not use the US average (I think it's a safe assumption that they pay under the normal average in the US studios by default, their US reported salaries backed that up) to all of them.
This article lends credence to the numbers generated from the published reports:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/11/europe/germany-compared-to-europe/index.html
The numbers for the UK include salaries in London which are higher but not that critical.
Exchange rates are also a factor. If - as has been mentioned - most of the money is being raise in the US then the UK-US exchange rate over the last 15 months will have been good for RSI. Same goes for money raised in EU that isn't funding work in Germany.
"Tax credits" was another factor and the $50M marketing costs for a pre-sold game. (The game may be marketted after it has launched but that is different from pre-game marketing costs that may prevent the game being launched.)
Nothing wrong with him doing the stuff but he needs to check out our forums!
I read his article, found it insightful because it included information about SC itself I didn't formally know (i.e. the graph of staff size), and he seemed to be coming at it from a rational, rather than emotional, viewpoint. It wasn't really going to change much about my opinion on the game because, and he mentioned this several times, it was an estimate.
Or this specific to Germany:
http://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Industry=Entertainment_or_Video_Game_Software_Development/Salary
It's much lower. It's not reasonable to apply the US average when seems over 70% of CIG's operation lies in Europe.
If you talk exchange rates, mind different companies of theirs handled payments in different locations, in Euros it is/was paid to a German company.
And the "Marketing costs", nobody has any idea of how many millions are being raised from subs (what is excluded from the public funding).
And that number is significantly lower than the $120k number and the and the $90 low ball figure. Which is what I said in both my first post and the follow up. We agree!
As far as exchange rates go as you say money raised in the EU will first and foremost be used to fund EU euro denominated work; same for UK money raised; same for US money raised.
Over and above that however exchange rates come into play.
If US spend exceeds money raised in the US but UK money raised exceed UK spend then UK money will have to fund US work. If this is the case the shift in exchange rates will have been detrimental to RSI.
However more money is - probably - raised in the US. I have read that this is the case and it makes sense but can't say if it is the case. If it is however the shift in US-UK exchange rates in the last 15 months will have been very good for RSI resulting in a significant reduction in UK costs over and above the difference in wage costs. The article didn't address this either.
As far as marketing costs go you may (?) have missed my point. The author - correctly - notes that the game is pre-sold. He then assumes $50M wil be needed however for marketing and uses this figure in the "has the game got enough funding to finish" speculation.
As you say we don't know what might be spent but what we do know is that ... the game is pre-sold. So $0 needs to be spent prior to the game being launched. So its not a factor. (More correctly the current costs include an element of "low level embedded marketing" - the cons, time taken to talk to magazines / show them around, the monthly videos etc. etc.)
At least the author recognised that the high numbers couldn't be right since the game was still being made. What the author should (imo) then have done - since it was so far out - was dig a little deeper. Especially given the fact that not only has RSI not folded but it has stated its belief that there is enough money to finish.
Nothing wrong in principle with the article in general however.