Seems like maybe the net loss over the past 3 years created a situation where CIG was more willing to court a serious investor to make up the difference.
Of course, nothing confirms that, but the timing of the event coupled with the swing towards a red net balance the past 3 years is interesting to consider.
EDIT- it's also interesting that 46 million here and 86 million total on the year means this year was on track for another red bottom line without the investor cash.
So this shows they want to keep the development of the projects on the scale that they are, hence this big cash injection.
I wonder what changed?
In the past, Chris said that development would scale based on income, as in, if they had less income, they would scale back development (I also recall he stated that they had enough cash to finish one game, and use that to fund development of the other), so if this does indeed show they want to keep development at the level it is now, why?
It is a funny world we live in. We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
Bear in mind that the US employees earn double that of the EU employees according to Chris.
At the time of the article linked below he's saying 450 staff at CIG. One third of which are in the US but cost as much all the employees in the EU. Which means ~$40 million for 450 staff or $89,000 per head on average.
In the past, Chris said that development would scale based on income, as in, if they had less income, they would scale back development (I also recall he stated that they had enough cash to finish one game, and use that to fund development of the other), so if this does indeed show they want to keep development at the level it is now, why?
In my personal opinion:
I think they may already look into the future. For games beyond Star Citizen, using the infrastructure and technology created during the Star Citizen project.
In the past they may have planned to scale back certain parts of the company once their SC tasks were completed. It now seems to me that CIG wants to keep the number of employees at a comparatively high level .... which suggests to me follow up projects after SC. To fund this studio size, i assume they will turn more and more to normal investors.
In the past, Chris said that development would scale based on income, as in, if they had less income, they would scale back development (I also recall he stated that they had enough cash to finish one game, and use that to fund development of the other), so if this does indeed show they want to keep development at the level it is now, why?
It means they do not want to scale the company down to crowdfunding income.
The reason why they prefer to get investors to keep the company at this level is something related to them not willing to give up resources working on the project if they do so that would be because they have no other alternative but scale down to income.
What tbh would not be a major hit, from the 44 million income average, they would have to cut costs around 5-6 million a year to achieve stability.
The much delayed public filing which was due in Sept 24, 2018, was finally filed on Dec 11, 2018. That shocking disclosure showed that back in May 2018, the execs (Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts, Ortin Freyermuth) either sold or transferred at no cost, a total of 18500 personal shares to a British Virgin Islands entity (Infatrade – the filing appears to be a typo) which also has a UK entity. They also created 113861 new company shares which we later found out they definitely sold to two Cayman Islands entities (Indus & Erloch).
At the time, we had no idea what the newly created shares were valued at. There was also speculation that these transactions were some sort of bridge funding. The reason for the latter speculation is that Infatrade happens to be an outfit that provides bridge funding for various enterprises. While they owned Ascendant Pictures, Chris and Ortwin had worked with Infatrade which according to IMDB provided the bridge/gap funding for their movie, Lucky Number Slevin.
The other piece to the puzzle was finally made public when the Dec 14, 2018 filing showed the value of the 113861 newly created shares as £149.63. So in that transaction, they raised £17M for CIG. And if the 18500 personal shares were actually sold by the three execs, that would have raised £2.7M for them, assuming the same share price.
CIG
113861
£17,037,021.43
Chris Roberts
14598
£2,184,298.74
Erin Roberts
1301
£194,668.63
Ortwin Freyermuth
2601
£389,187.63
132361
£19,805,176.43
The timing of this transaction is interesting because it happened mere months before the CitizenCon (their biggest yearly fund-raising) event in Oct. Which also explains why they deliberately didn’t file the confirmation in Sept as they were required to. Instead, they waited until after CitizenCon to do so. Obviously not wanting to spook the whales or other parties who would have an interest in this transaction
I picked this off Derek's Musings. Cayman Islands was supposed to be joke the "haters' raised like spectres but looks like it's true.
In the past, Chris said that development would scale based on income, as in, if they had less income, they would scale back development (I also recall he stated that they had enough cash to finish one game, and use that to fund development of the other), so if this does indeed show they want to keep development at the level it is now, why?
It means they do not want to scale the company down to crowdfunding income.
The reason why they prefer to get investors to keep the company at this level is something related to them not willing to give up resources working on the project if they do so that would be because they have no other alternative but scale down to income.
What tbh would not be a major hit, from the 44 million income average, they would have to cut costs around 5-6 million a year to achieve stability.
While it does not really matter, your reply is a none answer.
If it really is about maintaining development at the current scale, why is that now important? Why the change of plans now? why not just scale back development as previously planned/stated?
Maybe @Erillion is right, and they have plans for something beyond SC/SQ42.
Maybe they feel that slowing down development by scaling back will be detrimental.
Aside from satisfying my curiosity, as I said, it does not really matter.
It is a funny world we live in. We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
In the past, Chris said that development would scale based on income, as in, if they had less income, they would scale back development (I also recall he stated that they had enough cash to finish one game, and use that to fund development of the other), so if this does indeed show they want to keep development at the level it is now, why?
In my personal opinion:
I think they may already look into the future. For games beyond Star Citizen, using the infrastructure and technology created during the Star Citizen project.
In the past they may have planned to scale back certain parts of the company once their SC tasks were completed. It now seems to me that CIG wants to keep the number of employees at a comparatively high level .... which suggests to me follow up projects after SC. To fund this studio size, i assume they will turn more and more to normal investors.
Have fun
bwwaahaahaah I really cant say what I want to say because I will get banned. But are you SERIOUSLY trying to suggest that after 7 years of this complete and utter sham that the excuse for why they havent come close to getting anything done with THIS game, the game to end all games, the best damn space sim ever, the most ambitious and largest scope game ever created were they were ALREADY looking past it? Even though they have spent over 200 million and 7 years on it?
That post really should be reported because its so stupid but whatever. But since you said 'my personal opinion' I guess you covered yourself (Your master Chris taught you well)
The fact that the infastructure cant even handle this mess negates the whole premise of the comment. Cryengine no matter what version they want to call it cant handle what they want it to do. That was the number one reason why we all said this thing would never become anything. And while they have made some amazing changes (thanks to Amazon taking a massive load off the server part) it still cant handle it and its glitchy and buggy as hell, and it doesnt have a portion of the assets a 'normal' MMO would have implemented yet.
That whole statement in its entirety is both untrue and outright propaganda (for lack of a better word) I have a pretty decent vocabulary. But even I cant come up with anything to describe what you wrote in that post.
"Investor, Daniel O’connell Offner, has now joined CIG. Which means he probably has the title here in the US as well, since like Ortwin, he is only licensed to practice here. Dan has an extensive experience in steering companies to acquisitions, raising investor money etc. He is the quintessential heavyweight with notable deals under his belt. Dan also owns Blue Heron Ventures. These are his short list of clients. I have no reason to believe that either of these are likely to buy CIG. At least not the game companies (e.g. Ubisoft) who know better than to give Chris ANY money for ANYTHING. Regardless, that someone like him would be willing to join this train wreck, is probably a sign that something can be salvaged in the end.
Oh, if you read his bio, and the words “Columbus Nova” jumps at you, pat yourself on the back. That company (owned by Viktor Vekselberg a Russian oligarch under US sanctions since this past Summer) also owns Daybreak Games. That furor was blazing this past Summer if you recall.
Anyway, Dan now joins Chris, Erin, and Ortwin as director, an exec level position. So he’s either an investor, or he is representing a client. Either way, you don’t get a seat at that table without money or other incentives."
Columbus Nova raises its ugly head again. Did you guys know this ?
While it does not really matter, your reply is a none answer.
If it really is about maintaining development at the current scale, why is that now important? Why the change of plans now? why not just scale back development as previously planned/stated?
Maybe @Erillion is right, and they have plans for something beyond SC/SQ42.
Maybe they feel that slowing down development by scaling back will be detrimental.
Aside from satisfying my curiosity, as I said, it does not really matter.
Because it can be multiple things, the answer is simply on the fact that they do not want to scale down push to sustain their current scale.
Now as SQ42 alone is still years of work, and SC also beyond that as well, I don't think they have the capacity or would ever want to undertake other projects.
But the change is not now, they have been constantly growing the company for years now, 4 years now that they have been spending more than their yearly income, opening new studios and all, so the direction they were going for was visibly one of expansion.
I think while they can afford to not scale down they won't do so, if they can manage the income then they have more resources, the income here is beyond the crowdfund as we now see.
"Investor, Daniel O’connell Offner, has now joined CIG. Which means he probably has the title here in the US as well, since like Ortwin, he is only licensed to practice here. Dan has an extensive experience in steering companies to acquisitions, raising investor money etc. He is the quintessential heavyweight with notable deals under his belt. Dan also owns Blue Heron Ventures. These are his short list of clients. I have no reason to believe that either of these are likely to buy CIG. At least not the game companies (e.g. Ubisoft) who know better than to give Chris ANY money for ANYTHING. Regardless, that someone like him would be willing to join this train wreck, is probably a sign that something can be salvaged in the end.
Oh, if you read his bio, and the words “Columbus Nova” jumps at you, pat yourself on the back. That company (owned by Viktor Vekselberg a Russian oligarch under US sanctions since this past Summer) also owns Daybreak Games. That furor was blazing this past Summer if you recall.
Anyway, Dan now joins Chris, Erin, and Ortwin as director, an exec level position. So he’s either an investor, or he is representing a client. Either way, you don’t get a seat at that table without money or other incentives."
Columbus Nova raises its ugly head again. Did you guys know this ?
yes but there is so much to get to that is still speculation. When the stuff right in front of you is so bad you dont need to jump to that.
As far as 'value" I said that right off the bat. This 'company' has almost zero assets. The only thing of value would be the IP, and how much 'value' will that have if it flames out and crashes and someone else takes it over?
That would be the TRUE test of what all this was about. Was it about Chris Roberts and his cronies or was it about actually make the frigging game?
It is mimicking Fall out right now. People would probably love to see Obsideon take it over or hpoe that the new game theyre making is the successor to it. But since SC has and probably always will be associated with Roberts could some other company make it and even if its awesome would it still hold the same allure?
I think its a coin flip on whether they can salvage themselves. Its THAT bad. SQ 42 does have a chance to save them, it will come down to them doing a complete 180 and actually trying to finish it and sell it. But theyre basically a bad ship sale away from bankruptcy right now. Unless they have people willing to work for free or on contingency.
"Investor, Daniel O’connell Offner, has now joined CIG. Which means he probably has the title here in the US as well, since like Ortwin, he is only licensed to practice here. Dan has an extensive experience in steering companies to acquisitions, raising investor money etc. He is the quintessential heavyweight with notable deals under his belt. Dan also owns Blue Heron Ventures. These are his short list of clients. I have no reason to believe that either of these are likely to buy CIG. At least not the game companies (e.g. Ubisoft) who know better than to give Chris ANY money for ANYTHING. Regardless, that someone like him would be willing to join this train wreck, is probably a sign that something can be salvaged in the end.
Oh, if you read his bio, and the words “Columbus Nova” jumps at you, pat yourself on the back. That company (owned by Viktor Vekselberg a Russian oligarch under US sanctions since this past Summer) also owns Daybreak Games. That furor was blazing this past Summer if you recall.
Anyway, Dan now joins Chris, Erin, and Ortwin as director, an exec level position. So he’s either an investor, or he is representing a client. Either way, you don’t get a seat at that table without money or other incentives."
Columbus Nova raises its ugly head again. Did you guys know this ?
Well, you COULD just link to the TheSmarty's twitter feed instead of cutting and pasting verbatim his text ;-)
The 46 million dollars investment was over a minority seat holding 10% of the company, in a combined valuation of the company agreed upon close to 500 million dollars.
"Investor, Daniel O’connell Offner, has now joined CIG. Which means he probably has the title here in the US as well, since like Ortwin, he is only licensed to practice here. Dan has an extensive experience in steering companies to acquisitions, raising investor money etc. He is the quintessential heavyweight with notable deals under his belt. Dan also owns Blue Heron Ventures. These are his short list of clients. I have no reason to believe that either of these are likely to buy CIG. At least not the game companies (e.g. Ubisoft) who know better than to give Chris ANY money for ANYTHING. Regardless, that someone like him would be willing to join this train wreck, is probably a sign that something can be salvaged in the end.
Oh, if you read his bio, and the words “Columbus Nova” jumps at you, pat yourself on the back. That company (owned by Viktor Vekselberg a Russian oligarch under US sanctions since this past Summer) also owns Daybreak Games. That furor was blazing this past Summer if you recall.
Anyway, Dan now joins Chris, Erin, and Ortwin as director, an exec level position. So he’s either an investor, or he is representing a client. Either way, you don’t get a seat at that table without money or other incentives."
Columbus Nova raises its ugly head again. Did you guys know this ?
Well, you COULD just link to the TheSmarty's twitter feed instead of cutting and pasting verbatim his text ;-)
Have fun
There is a lot more than what I pasted. I just pasted the parts that were not him being resentful and jealous. He does exude a lot of that. I just copied these bits that were not him misrepresenting stuff and things that are able to be proven.
I don't like the guy and I am well aware of his hatred for Chris but some of what he writes is interesting. I don't have a horse in this race though so just a spectator.
different sides of the same coin. One is a self promoting guy (who has been almost 100% right about this thing from the start) and another self promoting (if it can be called that) release of some graphs they claim to be 'financial' records.
The only thing 'legal' are the board members (I guess) I am not even sure how the company is set up. basically people posting second and third hand crap from a half dozen countries all with differing laws.
But there is no need, as I said to 'fear monger' on speculation the facts should be enough to scare anyone who wants to see this thing released. Unless of course theyre hoping Roberts is forced to sell it and someone competent gets to take over. My how history would repeat itself there.
different sides of the same coin. One is a self promoting guy (who has been almost 100% right about this thing from the start) and another self promoting (if it can be called that) release of some graphs they claim to be 'financial' records.
The 46 million dollars investment was over a minority seat holding 10% of the company, in a combined valuation of the company agreed upon close to 500 million dollars.
You're right of course but this being a forum some readers may be aware of the public stuff or not and not have the interest or time to check the public stuff. So it's just little old me being helpful.
Also spilling coffee on your screen from laughing ? ;-) Join the club ....
Have fun
His delusional rants still surprise me at times because I am impressed at his ability to conspiracy theorize and nitpick anything that he then mixes with his speculation to build his narrative. Tho what he does here is just to spite us, you can see how bothered he is the moment he constantly has to have a go at the "pig and rabbit" on his posts lol
Derek Smart is (ironically since he hates the guy) a lot like Trump. gets blamed for a lot of shit he doesnt do and gets away with a lot of shit he does do. He is also a big mouth ass hat but in a lot of ways he is right about a lot of things people with 'sensitive' feelings dont want to admit or try and kid themselves into thinking arent reality.
You might not like HOW he says it or even WHAT he says most of the time, but when he says it you should really pay attention.
I am no fan of the guy because he is just that a ego-maniacal myopic turd. But he has contacts who have information and this 'revelation' that was released yesterday Smart was posting about weeks and months ago.
Like it or not the guy knew what he was talking about and a lot of his speculations were right on point.
Like it or not the guy knew what he was talking about and a lot of his speculations were right on point.
lol
DS is the equal of me going into twitter predicting the outcomes of a game by posting every possible result, then posting "I Called it!" when I was right because I will be right.
Because he called both CIG not able to get one investor or publisher cause reasons and also predicted CIG getting one investor or publisher (even Amazon publishing SC at that!).
Anyone with some intelligence would have noticed his MO on this stuff by now.
He has SomethingAwful / 4Chan / Goons and they are feeding him some morsels of data-mined information and a lot of drivel ... making him feel like he is one of them and all the while laughing tears about his antics like they always do.
You guys can keep burying your heads in the sand. If you truly are guys who arent getting paid then I really feel sorry for you. But I think after yesterdays revelation the wheels are going ot fall off this thing in a hurry for the few people with even a little bit of common sense who thought that if it were 'really' close they could support it. But no one in their right mind would continue to throw money at this thing now when theyre nearly broke and 3-4 years (and that BEST scenario) from anything release worthy.
And as with all charities the longer theyre in business the more money they need so basically for every year theyre going to need to finish add 50 million.
Comments
In the past, Chris said that development would scale based on income, as in, if they had less income, they would scale back development (I also recall he stated that they had enough cash to finish one game, and use that to fund development of the other), so if this does indeed show they want to keep development at the level it is now, why?
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
>>>
The reason why they prefer to get investors to keep the company at this level is something related to them not willing to give up resources working on the project if they do so that would be because they have no other alternative but scale down to income.
What tbh would not be a major hit, from the 44 million income average, they would have to cut costs around 5-6 million a year to achieve stability.
The much delayed public filing which was due in Sept 24, 2018, was finally filed on Dec 11, 2018. That shocking disclosure showed that back in May 2018, the execs (Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts, Ortin Freyermuth) either sold or transferred at no cost, a total of 18500 personal shares to a British Virgin Islands entity (Infatrade – the filing appears to be a typo) which also has a UK entity. They also created 113861 new company shares which we later found out they definitely sold to two Cayman Islands entities (Indus & Erloch).
At the time, we had no idea what the newly created shares were valued at. There was also speculation that these transactions were some sort of bridge funding. The reason for the latter speculation is that Infatrade happens to be an outfit that provides bridge funding for various enterprises. While they owned Ascendant Pictures, Chris and Ortwin had worked with Infatrade which according to IMDB provided the bridge/gap funding for their movie, Lucky Number Slevin.
The other piece to the puzzle was finally made public when the Dec 14, 2018 filing showed the value of the 113861 newly created shares as £149.63. So in that transaction, they raised £17M for CIG. And if the 18500 personal shares were actually sold by the three execs, that would have raised £2.7M for them, assuming the same share price.
The timing of this transaction is interesting because it happened mere months before the CitizenCon (their biggest yearly fund-raising) event in Oct. Which also explains why they deliberately didn’t file the confirmation in Sept as they were required to. Instead, they waited until after CitizenCon to do so. Obviously not wanting to spook the whales or other parties who would have an interest in this transaction
I picked this off Derek's Musings. Cayman Islands was supposed to be joke the "haters' raised like spectres but looks like it's true.
If it really is about maintaining development at the current scale, why is that now important?
Why the change of plans now? why not just scale back development as previously planned/stated?
Maybe @Erillion is right, and they have plans for something beyond SC/SQ42.
Maybe they feel that slowing down development by scaling back will be detrimental.
Aside from satisfying my curiosity, as I said, it does not really matter.
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
That post really should be reported because its so stupid but whatever. But since you said 'my personal opinion' I guess you covered yourself (Your master Chris taught you well)
The fact that the infastructure cant even handle this mess negates the whole premise of the comment. Cryengine no matter what version they want to call it cant handle what they want it to do. That was the number one reason why we all said this thing would never become anything. And while they have made some amazing changes (thanks to Amazon taking a massive load off the server part) it still cant handle it and its glitchy and buggy as hell, and it doesnt have a portion of the assets a 'normal' MMO would have implemented yet.
That whole statement in its entirety is both untrue and outright propaganda (for lack of a better word) I have a pretty decent vocabulary. But even I cant come up with anything to describe what you wrote in that post.
"Investor, Daniel O’connell Offner, has now joined CIG. Which means he probably has the title here in the US as well, since like Ortwin, he is only licensed to practice here. Dan has an extensive experience in steering companies to acquisitions, raising investor money etc. He is the quintessential heavyweight with notable deals under his belt. Dan also owns Blue Heron Ventures. These are his short list of clients. I have no reason to believe that either of these are likely to buy CIG. At least not the game companies (e.g. Ubisoft) who know better than to give Chris ANY money for ANYTHING. Regardless, that someone like him would be willing to join this train wreck, is probably a sign that something can be salvaged in the end.
Oh, if you read his bio, and the words “Columbus Nova” jumps at you, pat yourself on the back. That company (owned by Viktor Vekselberg a Russian oligarch under US sanctions since this past Summer) also owns Daybreak Games. That furor was blazing this past Summer if you recall.
Anyway, Dan now joins Chris, Erin, and Ortwin as director, an exec level position. So he’s either an investor, or he is representing a client. Either way, you don’t get a seat at that table without money or other incentives."
Columbus Nova raises its ugly head again. Did you guys know this ?
Now as SQ42 alone is still years of work, and SC also beyond that as well, I don't think they have the capacity or would ever want to undertake other projects.
But the change is not now, they have been constantly growing the company for years now, 4 years now that they have been spending more than their yearly income, opening new studios and all, so the direction they were going for was visibly one of expansion.
I think while they can afford to not scale down they won't do so, if they can manage the income then they have more resources, the income here is beyond the crowdfund as we now see.
As far as 'value" I said that right off the bat. This 'company' has almost zero assets. The only thing of value would be the IP, and how much 'value' will that have if it flames out and crashes and someone else takes it over?
That would be the TRUE test of what all this was about. Was it about Chris Roberts and his cronies or was it about actually make the frigging game?
It is mimicking Fall out right now. People would probably love to see Obsideon take it over or hpoe that the new game theyre making is the successor to it. But since SC has and probably always will be associated with Roberts could some other company make it and even if its awesome would it still hold the same allure?
I think its a coin flip on whether they can salvage themselves. Its THAT bad. SQ 42 does have a chance to save them, it will come down to them doing a complete 180 and actually trying to finish it and sell it. But theyre basically a bad ship sale away from bankruptcy right now. Unless they have people willing to work for free or on contingency.
https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-games-appoints-two-new-board-members
https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-investment-fact-sheet
The 46 million dollars investment was over a minority seat holding 10% of the company, in a combined valuation of the company agreed upon close to 500 million dollars.
I don't like the guy and I am well aware of his hatred for Chris but some of what he writes is interesting. I don't have a horse in this race though so just a spectator.
The only thing 'legal' are the board members (I guess) I am not even sure how the company is set up. basically people posting second and third hand crap from a half dozen countries all with differing laws.
But there is no need, as I said to 'fear monger' on speculation the facts should be enough to scare anyone who wants to see this thing released. Unless of course theyre hoping Roberts is forced to sell it and someone competent gets to take over. My how history would repeat itself there.
Oh, you two are perfect for each other then.
You might not like HOW he says it or even WHAT he says most of the time, but when he says it you should really pay attention.
I am no fan of the guy because he is just that a ego-maniacal myopic turd. But he has contacts who have information and this 'revelation' that was released yesterday Smart was posting about weeks and months ago.
Like it or not the guy knew what he was talking about and a lot of his speculations were right on point.
DS is the equal of me going into twitter predicting the outcomes of a game by posting every possible result, then posting "I Called it!" when I was right because I will be right.
Because he called both CIG not able to get one investor or publisher cause reasons and also predicted CIG getting one investor or publisher (even Amazon publishing SC at that!).
Anyone with some intelligence would have noticed his MO on this stuff by now.
>>>
And as with all charities the longer theyre in business the more money they need so basically for every year theyre going to need to finish add 50 million.