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Top CME Devs & Executives form new game company

KyriesunsetKyriesunset Member Posts: 162

Skidoosh Games, (Arizona Registration) by Dan Elggren, Howard Lyon, Demetrius Comes, and Rod Nakamoto, looks to be off to a running start out of the gate!   



The game company doesnt have an official site, looks like it's running off Demetrius's personal webspace at http://www.thecomesfamily.com/skidooshgames.com/ 

They have some information here about their upcoming anticipated line of games!  http://skidooshgames.blogspot.com/ 

So exciting!  

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Comments

  • ariccaronariccaron Member Posts: 95

    Well I suppose CME/Firesky couldn't keep getting investers to hand over cash without delivering a product forever.

    Probably hoping a new name will fool people, but that oh so professional website just screams trustworhyness.

    I love how their name dropping has one very glaring omission :)

  • WisebutCruelWisebutCruel Member Posts: 1,089
    Originally posted by ariccaron


    Well I suppose CME/Firesky couldn't keep getting investers to hand over cash without delivering a product forever.
    Probably hoping a new name will fool people, but that oh so professional website just screams trustworhyness.
    I love how their name dropping has one very glaring omission :)



     

    I noticed that also. So, who wants to bet these new games are for the mmoguls bs?

  • supremeaaronsupremeaaron Member UncommonPosts: 189

    heres what im thinking and I bet it will sound fan boyish. But I think this new company that the heads of CME are making will more then likely be the new coders for SGW. In my opinion the investors that were thinking of geting involved would invest with mmoguls hanging over it, so they  have made a new company to code SGW with firesky probably still publish it and let mmoguls and GW rot and say good by to their old office CME. Probably wishful thinking but who know I would love to be proved right :)

  • KyriesunsetKyriesunset Member Posts: 162

    You fanboy's make me ill. What is going on is that the executives and devs are out making their own mark and money in the world!



    I bet when things were not so bright at the year-end, they found a way to make some cash since Mr. Whiting wasn’t paying them. Hey, lets pretend to go to work and make SGW, but instead we are secretly making our own game!    Nothing wrong with this thinking since Tim did it with all his little companies. 



    Although I find it extremely odd that a senior executive (vice president) like Rod is able to pursue business interests outside CME that are for his monetary gain. Wasn’t he a business development VP? Then I’m thinking anything he pursues falls under the CME ownership and the proceeds should be going to fund Stargate Worlds.

     

  • supremeaaronsupremeaaron Member UncommonPosts: 189

    im glad i make people llike you ill. Makes me feel so much better. LOL not I actually pitty you so im a freaking fanboy stop the fecking presses.

  • Agricola1Agricola1 Member UncommonPosts: 4,977

    Educational games aimed at teaching children to learn with the mummy and daddy, seems they used the average FanOri poster on the official SGW forums as a demographic! I also noticed you have SOE, Turbine and EA involved however CME and Firesky are absent. I doubt this is Supremeaaron's fantasy company pretending to make games whilst actually coding a POS vapourware product so the FanOri can all keep blowing eachother on the official forums. Quoting things such as "The lights are still on so STFU NOOB!" or "It's a media blackout you moron, they're completely silent so the three developers left can concentrate really, really, really hard on coding 70% of the game and getting it launched by next year!".

    I think it is what it is, the guys in upper managment have seen CME/Firesky crumbling around their ears. Whilst sitting around scratching their balls during a coffee break from laying off developers and handing out MMOGULs memberships someone said "**** this! I reckon I could do better than these nob ends at running an MMORPG company!".

    But yeah, maybe it's all a big front so they can employ people to code SGW in secret instead of CME just employing them. And maybe the Illuminate faked the moon landings and the aliens will return and conquer us and make Tom Cruise our supreme leader?

    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"

    CS Lewis

  • supremeaaronsupremeaaron Member UncommonPosts: 189

    Ok Agricola one question we know you dont like SGW and you went on a holy crusade with blakey here to destroy SGW, but as you see blakey stoped so why dont you follow him and stop? Also agricola learn to know what speculation is, apparently you have something against stargate fans since you said I have a fantasy no I dont its called writing an idea out loud. :o

  • Agricola1Agricola1 Member UncommonPosts: 4,977
    Originally posted by supremeaaron


    Ok Agricola one question we know you dont like SGW and you went on a holy crusade with blakey here to destroy SGW, but as you see blakey stoped so why dont you follow him and stop? Also agricola learn to know what speculation is, apparently you have something against stargate fans since you said I have a fantasy no I dont its called writing an idea out loud. :o



     

    Don't like SGW? Since it doesn't actually exist I neither like nor dislike it at this point, nor could I destroy something that doesn't exist. I wanted this game to be released until I saw what was going on with the managment, pyramid schemes and the thirty odd shell corps made to raise capitol that evaporated into other ventures! Not to mention the fact people weren't paid for work they did.

    A holy crusade against SGW? I've done nothing but post facts and opinions, which is alot more than I can say for most of the 15 members left on the official forums that still post more than once a month. Speculation and fantasy can often be one and the same, "I think I could win the jackpot on the Euromillions lottery this week" is both speculation and fantasy. Much like "I think this corporation could be coding SGW" or "There is a media blackout so that they can concentrate on finishing SGW" or "Gary Whiting's other business ventures have nothing to do with CME" ect.

    As for "writing an idea out loud" (looks like a contradiction in terms or something like that!), I doubt it's anywhere near possible and I'm certain you know so too. If it was associated with SGW in anyway, at best I'd say it's another one of the plethora of shell corps to add to the list being used to milk investors. I guess if I an Blakey were on a "Holy crusade" to "destroy SGW" then it would be time to return back to merry old England. Since SGW is screwed and will never make it to launch in any state other than Alpha (if that!), I'm just hanging around the holy land and getting my kicks from torturing the few sad Infidels left that still believe they haven't been vanquished!

    Come on Aaron, tell me the lights are still on after the 5 month media blackout, massive lay offs and payroll being missed. Everytime I need a good laugh I go to the SGW official forums and with the other 8 people viewing have a good hearty laugh, to think about I'll be a bit depressed when CME announces it's closing and closes down that website. :(

    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"

    CS Lewis

  • ZhirocZhiroc Member UncommonPosts: 220

    One thing I was wondering about with this venture is whether those who started it are still with CME or not. The only one I have seen that isn't still listing his job as being with CME is Comes, who lists it as Petroglyph. Seemingly being into educational games, it might not break a noncompete agreement.

    Perhaps it is either a "hobby" game studio, or like someone said, one that will produce for either MMOGULS or Mondelis.

    However, I very much doubt that IF CME folds, that they would get the nod. If you were MGM, looking at the train wreck, would you pick some of the same team to take over (even IF it wasn't their fault)? It is very unlikely that the license to SG is an "asset" of CME that could be bought in an asset sale should it go belly up. At least, I would think that a studio would be stupid to make it transferrable like that.

  • supremeaaronsupremeaaron Member UncommonPosts: 189

    actually agricola there are lights on at CME and firesky I have spoken to some staff members via email which include Kevin Balentine ( senior marketing manager) and Wendy Dickerman ( director of customer care). Im not saying everything is brilliant at CME and firesky infact I actually do agree they have some major issues at the country to my knowledge about 20+ devs have left and like many are deeply troubled that SGW will fail and be only played by the few that were aloud into closed beta ( which I heard was a lot like a alpha from people) also we know CME keep missing deadlines which is again depresing closed beta was 2 months delayed and phase 2 seems to have a increasing delay which isn't always good and sometimes means that the end is coming. I suppose I am catorgried as a fanboy here but even I have my eyes open I am not blind to whats happening at the business end of cme.( maybe I should have stayed awake more when I was being thought business studies and accounting :P )

  • Agricola1Agricola1 Member UncommonPosts: 4,977
    Originally posted by Zhiroc


    One thing I was wondering about with this venture is whether those who started it are still with CME or not. The only one I have seen that isn't still listing his job as being with CME is Comes, who lists it as Petroglyph. Seemingly being into educational games, it might not break a noncompete agreement.
    Perhaps it is either a "hobby" game studio, or like someone said, one that will produce for either MMOGULS or Mondelis.
    However, I very much doubt that IF CME folds, that they would get the nod. If you were MGM, looking at the train wreck, would you pick some of the same team to take over (even IF it wasn't their fault)? It is very unlikely that the license to SG is an "asset" of CME that could be bought in an asset sale should it go belly up. At least, I would think that a studio would be stupid to make it transferrable like that.



     

    I agree that they probably haven't left CME, as many Whiting companies have a mixture of the same board members and managment teams. Which begs the question how do they manage to run one single company properly let alone 20+? The answer being they don't, maybe it's a way of raising more capitol by creating another pretend games studio and getting small investors to buy shares?

    As for the license being an asset, I'm not certain what would happen when/if CME goes bankrupt. Sigil was a different case as they (McQuaid) owned the sole rights to it. Perhaps MGM would just get them back if they weren't sold, or if someone bought the rights to the work done on SGW so far MGM might sell them the rights. Or perhaps SOE could purchase the rights to the work done so far then MGM would hand them the rights, keeping it in the family so to speak?

    Either way, this isn't going to be pretty, that is a fact.

    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"

    CS Lewis

  • supremeaaronsupremeaaron Member UncommonPosts: 189

    hmm I say MGM will try to find a way to get SGW released if CME folds. The most obvious one would be SOE since sony own a certain amount of MGM and would be have the least hassle of all the transfering etc. But who knows what the future holds for CME or SGW.

  • PuglaPugla Member Posts: 88

    You know, everybody hated on Ralsu from TTH for referencing his experiences with Vanguard and Mythos in comparison to SGW. Well, I was there for both games. I got my Mythos beta key from TTh, and I was on their forums a lot. There was a company (Flagship) that had sole possession of the IP and put it up for collateral. When they went under and could not find funding to repay their investors, they essentially junked the code and left no instructions so that no one would have a chance of building their game with out them.

    I say if CME goes under SGW will never see the light of day. It's so frustrating going a decade of watching shows and following a franchise (Even that lame cartoon called Infinity) only to have it all come crashing down. Some of it had to be because of this crap economy, but I have never seen another game with this type of crap going on. Pyramid schemes? Rumor or not, holy hell.

    Geeked for FFXIV
    Freelance FFXIV guide author for Ten Ton Hammer.com

  • TylantiaTylantia Member UncommonPosts: 69

    Time will tell. I -do- believe it'll arrive; when I don't know, in what capacity I don't know.

    Constantly having people 'rag' on about any downfall (or whatever they see fit) no matter how trivial is just pathetic; if you don't have an interest in the game, then leave the forum to people who actually DO. People who would like to discuss it, debate over it : -not- constantly whine over it.

    Old saying works here I guess : "don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all" ;)

    # SW:TOR : Tylantia, Sivis, Aeonis, Aehris, Xaehrin, Vhyce, Tehren, Suvis
    # Ryzom : Kasumi / Secor / Anuihlm
    # City of Heroes/Villains : @Tylantia
    # Age of Empires Online : Tylantia (Abydos server)
    # Stargate Worlds : Kadael
    # WoW : Tylantia, Siinaar, Sivis, Moofangles, Aehr, Cehr, Chaizen, Ocep, Tzias

  • Kvasir_029Kvasir_029 Member Posts: 46
    Originally posted by Tylantia


    Time will tell. I -do- believe it'll arrive; when I don't know, in what capacity I don't know.
    Constantly having people 'rag' on about any downfall (or whatever they see fit) no matter how trivial is just pathetic; if you don't have an interest in the game, then leave the forum to people who actually DO. People who would like to discuss it, debate over it : -not- constantly whine over it.
    Old saying works here I guess : "don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all" ;)

     

    I don't think it has anything to do with ragging on the "downfall" of the game and it has nothing to do with not having an interest in the game. I have a great interest in the game. The problem is all of these bad choices, scams and all the other moronic things the company has done over the past years to get to the place they are at now.

     

    Honestly, I saw the state of the game with the "beta" testing they did. One of my friends showed me the horrible alpha state the game was actually in. Personally all this horrible management, scamming the investors, and now this "new" game company, I hope MGM pulls the license and gives it to someone that deserves it. Cryptic Studios is one off the top of my head that know what they're doing and don't pull the bs CME has.

  • Kvasir_029Kvasir_029 Member Posts: 46

    Oops, double post.

  • ScribbleLay1ScribbleLay1 Member Posts: 177
    Originally posted by Tylantia


    Time will tell. I -do- believe it'll arrive; when I don't know, in what capacity I don't know.
    Constantly having people 'rag' on about any downfall (or whatever they see fit) no matter how trivial is just pathetic; if you don't have an interest in the game, then leave the forum to people who actually DO. People who would like to discuss it, debate over it : -not- constantly whine over it.
    Old saying works here I guess : "don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all" ;)



     

    Wow, for a minute I thought I was on the Star Gate Worlds forum, I may be mistaken, but I do believe that that is the first time I ever seen anyone tell someone to leave if they don't like it in this forum.

  • RaltarRaltar Member UncommonPosts: 829
    Originally posted by Kvasir_029


    Honestly, I saw the state of the game with the "beta" testing they did. One of my friends showed me the horrible alpha state the game was actually in. Personally all this horrible management, scamming the investors, and now this "new" game company, I hope MGM pulls the license and gives it to someone that deserves it. Cryptic Studios is one off the top of my head that know what they're doing and don't pull the bs CME has.



     

    I agree with you that with everything we have been hearing about this game (employees not being paid, big wigs admitting the game won't see the light of day, the game changing hands all the time) is a pretty bad sign as to what the future of this game is going to look like. And I agree even more that with all the dissapointments, let downs and outright scams we have had to suffer in this industry in the last few years that we as the consumer need to be keeping a suspicious eye turned toward any company that has incidents like these on its record.

    But what really shocks be is that whenever I hear someone say "I don't think 'company X' is doing a very good job, lets give this game to 'company Y' instead" it almost always turns out that company Y is just as bad if not worse than company X.

    I honestly would not give this game, or any other game right now, to Cryptic. Why? You need to understand a bit about Cryptic's history and where their company is currently headed. Cryptic just came out of nowhere one day and made City of Heroes and it was good. But not great, just good. While Cryptic was running the game a lot of questionable decisions were made about it and it didn't improve a lot. Eventually CoH/CoV gets sold off to NCsoft who was the publisher for the game but has now taken over in full. I can tell you now as a person who has played CoX both before and after, I like AFTER a whole lot better. NCsoft and the people they have working on the game are doing a much better job in my opinion than Cryptic.

    Now I'm not saying that Cryptic is a bad company. I just don't think they are perferct and more importantly I think that their company is currently taking a very different direction than it has taken in the past. They started out as a small company working on one game with all their efforts. Now they have SOLD that game to someone else (a thing which doesn't happen often in this industry) so that they can begin work on not one but TWO brand new games AT THE SAME TIME. Can Cryptic manage to totally change their business strategy and pull this off? I surely hope that they can because the games they are working on look very interesting and I hope they do manage to live up to the promises they have made about these games.

    But at this moment Cryptic has a lot work to do and not a lot of time or resources to do it with. If they bone this up nobody will trust them again (much the same way I doubt anyone will ever trust Funcom again) and they can't afford any screw ups. I don't think we should be putting any extra issues on their plate just now.

    As for Stargate Worlds, I think its best chance for success is to stay with the people who have been working on it up to this point. Maybe go underground for a few years and continue development in secret. Perhaps later in 2010 when the game is closer to completion and some of the loudmouths who have been mucking things up so far have been taken out of the picture this game will have a better chance to actually see the light of day.

  • ZhirocZhiroc Member UncommonPosts: 220
    Originally posted by Raltar 
    As for Stargate Worlds, I think its best chance for success is to stay with the people who have been working on it up to this point. Maybe go underground for a few years and continue development in secret. Perhaps later in 2010 when the game is closer to completion and some of the loudmouths who have been mucking things up so far have been taken out of the picture this game will have a better chance to actually see the light of day.

     

    Perhaps, but realistically, this would be hard.

    For one, the current code is part of the assets that are owned by CME, and to get the major problem out of the way, GW would have to be separated from it. That will take either a buy out (thus letting him profit from his shenanigans), or a bankruptcy. The current developers can't continue to work on it until get these rights.

    There's still the question of funding, and I would think that you'd need at least $2 million/year to fund even limited development, and in an "underground" mode, the risk would be enormous for the investors. You might get another GW... but in any case, you still sell the soul of the game to whoever would step up.

    (FYI, in my mind THIS is the problem with these games nowadays. They are so expensive to make, that the only way to fund them is to treat them as businesses first, game second...)

    And finally, you have MGM who would have to be willing to keep the IP license with this team in a non-producing way for a while, with no guarantee anything ever comes out.

  • ariccaronariccaron Member Posts: 95
    Originally posted by Zhiroc


     

    And finally, you have MGM who would have to be willing to keep the IP license with this team in a non-producing way for a while, with no guarantee anything ever comes out.

     

    This is the part that worries me. MGM just not caring enough about having a software title for SG and just leaving the lisence with CME/firesky. CME/firesky/handcranked/whatever can't put out titles. They are a company that makes moeny by collecting investors, NOT delivering products. We can argue about what companies we'd like the lisence to go to, but the fact is ANY other company that has a title thats made it to release would be better than where we are now.

    The lights may still be on, but no one is home.

    Cryptic/NCsoft/EA/SOE/Bioware/Bethesda would ALL be better at this point. They are actual proven software companies.

     

     

  • Kvasir_029Kvasir_029 Member Posts: 46
    Originally posted by ariccaron
    This is the part that worries me. MGM just not caring enough about having a software title for SG and just leaving the lisence with CME/firesky. CME/firesky/handcranked/whatever can't put out titles. They are a company that makes moeny by collecting investors, NOT delivering products. We can argue about what companies we'd like the lisence to go to, but the fact is ANY other company that has a title thats made it to release would be better than where we are now.
    The lights may still be on, but no one is home.
    Cryptic/NCsoft/EA/SOE/Bioware/Bethesda would ALL be better at this point. They are actual proven software companies.

     

    I totally agree with you. Honestly, any of these companies would be better than what the Stargate license is getting right now.

    MGM isn't going to take the lack of product for too much longer I don't think.

  • CopelandCopeland Member Posts: 1,955


    Originally posted by Kvasir_029
    Originally posted by ariccaron
    This is the part that worries me. MGM just not caring enough about having a software title for SG and just leaving the lisence with CME/firesky. CME/firesky/handcranked/whatever can't put out titles. They are a company that makes moeny by collecting investors, NOT delivering products. We can argue about what companies we'd like the lisence to go to, but the fact is ANY other company that has a title thats made it to release would be better than where we are now.
    The lights may still be on, but no one is home.
    Cryptic/NCsoft/EA/SOE/Bioware/Bethesda would ALL be better at this point. They are actual proven software companies.
     
    I totally agree with you. Honestly, any of these companies would be better than what the Stargate license is getting right now.
    MGM isn't going to take the lack of product for too much longer I don't think.

    The game is dead. The series' are dead. MGM isn't going to put money into a franchise that's sitting in the critical care unit on life support. Currently MGM is waiting to see the returns on SGU. If SGU pans out (which i hope it will but from what i hear i don't like it already) they will greenlight the 3rd SG1 movie and the 1st Atlantis movie.

  • KyriesunsetKyriesunset Member Posts: 162

    There's been discussion about some poor choices management made, and I remember reading an interview with Ybarra where he talked about a wrong person in the wrong position .... but with a 71% turnover, it makes you wonder about the state of SGW really is.   It' gets hard  for a company to function with with 25%, but at 71% ...ouch!      Heck, even Sigil had lower turn-over.



    Below is a snapshot of known employees at August, 2006 as found on the SGW boards and the Meet your Dev Team posting.  I know the list is incomplete, but with the revolving door shown on linked-in, it's hard to figure out so I just stuck to the two linked snapshots.  While it's not scientific, I assumed devs were gone with their admin accounts disabled as well as linked in and rumors.

    Gone Gone Still Around

    Jim Brown

    Jake Simpson

    Colin McLaughlan

    Sara Baker

    Maxfield

    Scott Hill

    Zeb Cook

    Jason Bucher

    Chris Bernert

    Tim Talley

    Nick LaMartina

    Matthew Henry

    R.C. Torres

    Kevin Duc

    Jimbo Younkin

    Karl Coss

    David Sauter

     

    Matthew Maher

    Shad Lee

    Chee

    Matthew D'Arcangelo

    Rebecca

    Kate b,

    David Adams

    Stu Rose

    Tim Sweeney

    Bo Bell

    Anne Toole

    Irene Mátar

    Khatie Postma

    Martin Ellis

    Derek Sunshine

    Matthew Doyle

    Steve Williams

    Phil Speer

     

    David ?

    Bill Slease

    Conan Brink

    Josh Kurtz

    Eric Johnson

    Raphael Robbins

    Gary Whiting

    Timothy N. Jenson

    Joseph Ybarra

    Chris Klug

    Mike Whiting

    Nick Heitzman

    Rollin Hafner

    Dan Elggren

    Austin Germer

    Neelam Patel

     

     

     

  • supremeaaronsupremeaaron Member UncommonPosts: 189

    You know you left out a lot of names like Wendy Dickerman directors of customer care, Kevin Balentine senior market developer. Also according to Nick laMartina's linkedin profile he is still working for CME and there is still about 100 devs at CME. So I would like to know, how you know all these people are gone from CME.

  • ariccaronariccaron Member Posts: 95

    Real game companies like Blizzard, Bioware, EA rarely have #s like that on a project.

    100 devs at CME, LMAO.

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