I think games did a better job when they surveyed a cross section of people who liked those kinds of games rather then listen to only the hard core crowd who logged in everyday with tons of feedback usually along the lines of make it harder. The general masses usually don't log in everyday but every once in awhile just to see how a game is going and usually don't contribute much during development unless a survey targets them.
But as some say this game is doing just fine and growing better everyday. So no worries for them.
You're not doing fine if you have to beg to keep the lights on, and that's exactly what they're doing.
Lol no they are not in any shape like that. They have been doing Telethons all the way back to R13 maybe earlier. They have always done things the same. I actually like the new Twitch better as they are now more focused on content and QA as well what they are doing vs all the silly things they use to do pre-release. They are not in any sort of financial crisis at all.
If you paid any sort of attention to their published April 2018 financials you most certainly understand they are definitely in dire straits.
The debt and deferred tax bills can't be put off indefinitely (especially as they "launched" and are a going concern now) and they don't have nearly the customers necessary to pay all of that down and build out the game.
They are moving soon, will be interesting to compare the old and new quarters to see if it is a downsizing to save costs.
Link please to the financials, I am aware they are looking at moving as they stated that.
There is so many sexy parts in their papers (and especially between the lines!), it's really hard to pick just one; Say:
Annual Report April 30, 2018 Portalarium, Inc.
The Company currently requires approximately $300,000 a month to sustain operations. Liquidity and Capital Resources As of April 17, 2018, the Company has approximately $394,073 in cash on hand. The Company is a business that has not yet generated profits, has sustained net losses of $3,496,371 and $3,068,579 during the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, has an accumulated deficit of $21,585,453 and $18,089,082 as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and has current liabilities in excess of current assets by $13,448,648 as of December 31, 2017. PORTALARIUM, INC. NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (UNAUDITED) As of December 31, 2017 and 2016 and for the years ended
These factors, among others, raise substantial doubt about the ability of the Company to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time. The financial statements do not include any adjustments relating to the recoverability and classification of recorded asset amounts or the amounts and classification of liabilities that might be necessary should the Company be unable to continue as a going concern.
Their reaction, to avoid bankrupcy, was quite natural: fire half of the rest of their staff, go much more aggressively with telethons (popularly called "begathons") by doubling, keep on promissing more and asking for more money - cynically, already with a long list of unfulfilled promisses behind, and with no manpower to fulfill even these.
Now, when these papers were revealed couple months ago - typical reaction during discussions was to expect a quick bankrupcy, but I kept telling them that a silent death scenario is much more likely; Which is exactly what is happening as we speak.
I have no idea of RG's net worth, but I'm sure it's enough to cover the month to month operating expenses.
He doesn't have to cover the debt, probably be better off to file for bankruptcy and make an offer to buy it back for a fraction and take it all private.
I think Derek Smart did something similar with Alganon when he took it over.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
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I agree, it's very likely he can cover it; especially now with the team size greatly reduced. Say I'd estimate Portalarium's current monthly expenses as ~200k, and it will go even further down as they move to new (likely much cheaper) workplace. BUT why would he - or anyone else for that matter - do it?
I don't think anyone would really want to own that corpse and to, furthermore, pay for it. Anyway I'm not an expert in legal mumbo-jumbos such as selling then byuing your own company and such tricks.
For what it's worth, based on his tweets, interviews and public appearances in last months, it seems like RG isn't interested at all. He behaves like SotA never existed, repeats these well known stories from Ultima days, continues his political obsession with Trump and so on.
I have no idea of RG's net worth, but I'm sure it's enough to cover the month to month operating expenses.
He doesn't have to cover the debt, probably be better off to file for bankruptcy and make an offer to buy it back for a fraction and take it all private.
I think Derek Smart did something similar with Alganon when he took it over.
The only reason he may want to put his own money into it is to prevent it from dying a super early death, to salvage what he can of his own reputation. It looks better if it dies a year after release than if it does so after a few months.
They will want to keep it going until they at least get all their money back. When they Kickstarted SOTA the company was already $10M or more in the hole because of the Ultimate Collector fail.
The people playing it seem to be ok with all the problems, lag, bugs, so much that the devs aren't even trying to fix things. They reduced their staff by half and then doubled the number of telethons and are introducing all new micro and macro transactions. Pre-Buy a dungeon, Pre-Buy a new POT for episode 2, You can already Pre-Buy episode 2. Buy lots of dye and sparkle glitters for the dance party.
I find it absolutely fascinating that they are able to raise this kind of money on an ongoing basis by basically begging. How much money are their whales willing to spend? Do they have no limits?
The globe’s richest 1% own half the world’s wealth, according to a new report highlighting the growing gap between the super-rich and everyone else.
I guess these whales have very little limits when it comes to buying pixels.
My guess is very few of the 1% is playing MMOs, least of all Pantheon.
Think about it. They could to buy the studio, fire everyone, have them imprisoned or made to "disappear" and hire in a more capable team.
At the very least one could have floated Richard a $50M loan.
Yeah you might be right but my point is that game developers deciding to listen more to players with better real life economy as in SotA is devastating for future gaming. SotA seem to fail in their mission of segregating players and that is very important for future gaming.
It should never be your real life economy that influence how game development proceed. It should be a majority decision from backers.
What's the Henry Ford quote -- 'If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would've said 'a faster horse'. '
Not listening to the majority of your community have this effect. Developers made a wrong turn when they decided to only listen to the hi money pledgers.
Now they pay the price.
I am glad that future developers now can see for themself that this kind of funding model and segregation of players is very bad if you want to make a successful game.
That's exactly what killed Elite:Dangerous
Elite Dangerous is a little weird though. It has a very stable playerbase, always being ~3k players. That's not amazing but for a complicated space game that involves a lot of just space trucking, it's retaining quite a few players.
Not to mentioned that Elite Dangerous wasn't even a pay-to-win model (you can pretty much only by skins) or that they have any expensive early backer packages at the beginning either.
It is actually quite weird why anyone would think Elite Dangerous is an example at all for SoTA's case. Elite Dangerous has very dismal funding actually compare to a lot of early backer games, and they seem to be doing okay for how much funding they had.
I think games did a better job when they surveyed a cross section of people who liked those kinds of games rather then listen to only the hard core crowd who logged in everyday with tons of feedback usually along the lines of make it harder. The general masses usually don't log in everyday but every once in awhile just to see how a game is going and usually don't contribute much during development unless a survey targets them.
But as some say this game is doing just fine and growing better everyday. So no worries for them.
You're not doing fine if you have to beg to keep the lights on, and that's exactly what they're doing.
Lol no they are not in any shape like that. They have been doing Telethons all the way back to R13 maybe earlier. They have always done things the same. I actually like the new Twitch better as they are now more focused on content and QA as well what they are doing vs all the silly things they use to do pre-release. They are not in any sort of financial crisis at all.
If you paid any sort of attention to their published April 2018 financials you most certainly understand they are definitely in dire straits.
The debt and deferred tax bills can't be put off indefinitely (especially as they "launched" and are a going concern now) and they don't have nearly the customers necessary to pay all of that down and build out the game.
They are moving soon, will be interesting to compare the old and new quarters to see if it is a downsizing to save costs.
Link please to the financials, I am aware they are looking at moving as they stated that.
There is so many sexy parts in their papers (and especially between the lines!), it's really hard to pick just one; Say:
Annual Report April 30, 2018 Portalarium, Inc.
The Company currently requires approximately $300,000 a month to sustain operations. Liquidity and Capital Resources As of April 17, 2018, the Company has approximately $394,073 in cash on hand. The Company is a business that has not yet generated profits, has sustained net losses of $3,496,371 and $3,068,579 during the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, has an accumulated deficit of $21,585,453 and $18,089,082 as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and has current liabilities in excess of current assets by $13,448,648 as of December 31, 2017. PORTALARIUM, INC. NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (UNAUDITED) As of December 31, 2017 and 2016 and for the years ended
These factors, among others, raise substantial doubt about the ability of the Company to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time. The financial statements do not include any adjustments relating to the recoverability and classification of recorded asset amounts or the amounts and classification of liabilities that might be necessary should the Company be unable to continue as a going concern.
Their reaction, to avoid bankrupcy, was quite natural: fire half of the rest of their staff, go much more aggressively with telethons (popularly called "begathons") by doubling, keep on promissing more and asking for more money - cynically, already with a long list of unfulfilled promisses behind, and with no manpower to fulfill even these.
Now, when these papers were revealed couple months ago - typical reaction during discussions was to expect a quick bankrupcy, but I kept telling them that a silent death scenario is much more likely; Which is exactly what is happening as we speak.
Those are some eye-opening figures...
Makes you wonder about these companies trying to make an MMORPG with 1...2...4 million.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
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I think games did a better job when they surveyed a cross section of people who liked those kinds of games rather then listen to only the hard core crowd who logged in everyday with tons of feedback usually along the lines of make it harder. The general masses usually don't log in everyday but every once in awhile just to see how a game is going and usually don't contribute much during development unless a survey targets them.
But as some say this game is doing just fine and growing better everyday. So no worries for them.
You're not doing fine if you have to beg to keep the lights on, and that's exactly what they're doing.
Lol no they are not in any shape like that. They have been doing Telethons all the way back to R13 maybe earlier. They have always done things the same. I actually like the new Twitch better as they are now more focused on content and QA as well what they are doing vs all the silly things they use to do pre-release. They are not in any sort of financial crisis at all.
Obviously, you got links to prove that. So, i guess you agreed that the company is in a financial crisis, right ?
Comments
Portalarium, Inc.
The Company currently requires approximately $300,000 a month to sustain operations.
Liquidity and Capital Resources As of April 17, 2018, the Company has approximately $394,073 in cash on hand.
The Company is a business that has not yet generated profits, has sustained net losses of $3,496,371 and $3,068,579 during the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, has an accumulated deficit of $21,585,453 and $18,089,082 as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, and has current liabilities in excess of current assets by $13,448,648 as of December 31, 2017.
PORTALARIUM, INC. NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (UNAUDITED) As of December 31, 2017 and 2016 and for the years ended
These factors, among others, raise substantial doubt about the ability of the Company to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time. The financial statements do not include any adjustments relating to the recoverability and classification of recorded asset amounts or the amounts and classification of liabilities that might be necessary should the Company be unable to continue as a going concern.
Source (bottom of the page 9 in the second part) - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1522456/000152245618000001/portalariumformcar.pdf
There is a simpler version of this, you can find lots of interesting data in comments on their Kickstarter page - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0/comments
Their reaction, to avoid bankrupcy, was quite natural: fire half of the rest of their staff, go much more aggressively with telethons (popularly called "begathons") by doubling, keep on promissing more and asking for more money - cynically, already with a long list of unfulfilled promisses behind, and with no manpower to fulfill even these.
Now, when these papers were revealed couple months ago - typical reaction during discussions was to expect a quick bankrupcy, but I kept telling them that a silent death scenario is much more likely; Which is exactly what is happening as we speak.
He doesn't have to cover the debt, probably be better off to file for bankruptcy and make an offer to buy it back for a fraction and take it all private.
I think Derek Smart did something similar with Alganon when he took it over.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't think anyone would really want to own that corpse and to, furthermore, pay for it. Anyway I'm not an expert in legal mumbo-jumbos such as selling then byuing your own company and such tricks.
For what it's worth, based on his tweets, interviews and public appearances in last months, it seems like RG isn't interested at all. He behaves like SotA never existed, repeats these well known stories from Ultima days, continues his political obsession with Trump and so on.
The people playing it seem to be ok with all the problems, lag, bugs, so much that the devs aren't even trying to fix things. They reduced their staff by half and then doubled the number of telethons and are introducing all new micro and macro transactions. Pre-Buy a dungeon, Pre-Buy a new POT for episode 2, You can already Pre-Buy episode 2. Buy lots of dye and sparkle glitters for the dance party.
Makes you wonder about these companies trying to make an MMORPG with 1...2...4 million.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Then they collapsed the monthly postmortem onto the monthly telethon.
Right after the layoffs they started doing multiple telethons per month, and just recently they started doing telethon stretch goals every Friday.
Maybe a brain surgeon or rocket scientist can weigh in with their opinion here on what these dramatic swings in fundraising represents.