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The end is nigh
Zhiroc
Member UncommonPosts: 220
If you haven't been over the official boards, you may have missed this official posting by CME. (It seems to be the new Receiver who wrote it.)
It's really hard to see CME coming back from this one. The receiver lists about $16 million in debts (real or potential due to lawsuits), with almost no money in the bank, though they hope to get $3 mil in tax credits back from AZ
One of the interesting points is that SGR was spun out to a new company, Fresh Start Studios, composed of current shareholders of CME. The timeline however, throws that into a bit of question, since bankruptcy was declared in Feb., but the FSS joint venture was agreed to in early March, prior to the appointment of the Receiver.
Comments
Is that legal? Making spin-off companies and moving assets around while in bankruptcy? I thought the Judge had to approve the sale of assets? The company shell game continues even after Whiting was kicked to the curb.
From reading the press release and the thread, they are thwarting paying back wages for employees who actually worked on SGR that were then laid off, let alone the 1M in other wages they owe, in addition to expenses for making SGR that might not have paid for already.
I just hopped on Pacer to look at the bankruptcy filing documents, and there are already close to 5M in claims.
Who benefits? I do not see SGR as a product that would make Fresh Start Studios or… Dark Comet Games? (someone mentioned that company in the thread too) sustainable for very long.
The receiver's posting mentions how he hasn't decided on the issue of FSS, but he does say he will have to go to the bankruptcy judge to make a recommendation. While I imagine that the judge might not like what happened, it is probably true that this was the best way to preserve the value of the SGR asset, since otherwise it would have been necessary to shut it down, which would have destroyed its value. And since asset preservation is the receiver's job, I have a feeling he will recommend that the deal be sanctioned and left in place.
All firesky, CME, Stargate, Stargate Resistance websites are down -- FAIL ! It's amature hour when you can't keep your customer facing sites up.
so 1st of april lights go out.. longest april fools joke in history
If I recall, there was a post on the site mentioning that they were being evicted from the premises as of the end of the month. The question is "will they come back"?
I also see that SGR is offline too, atm.
The SGR game servers are back up.
And here I've been waiting for them to invite me back for the next stage of beta...
I think this game should be picked up by Cryptic. Seriously the combat in this game was pretty close to the ground combat in STO, Cryptic could polish it up, add some items to the Cstore and have yet another mediocre MMO based on a well known IP.
It wouldn't be the first time an mmo has survived via dodginess. Horizons took that route.
http://en.allexperts.com/e/h/ho/horizons:_empire_of_istaria.htm
July 2004:Artifact Entertainment filed in the courts for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Project leader David Bowman expressed that this will not result in an interruption of service and the game will continue as planned.
September 24, 2004,:It was announced that (subject to court approval) the assets of Artifact Entertainment would be sold to Tulga Games, LLC, a new company managed by former AE Director of Business Development Chris Tulumello. It should be noted that while the press release from Artifact Entertainment states that Tulga Games is managed by Chris Tulumello, a search of the Arizona Corporation Commission website shows that David Bowman is both the new corporation's Statutory Agent and the sole manager (and Tulumello's name is never mentioned).
I think it really sucks that SGW went down in flames. I'm a HUGE Stargate fan. I would have loved to play a Stargate MMO and I was excited by their overall game design.
Very droll :P
Cryptic thankfully are unlikely to touch it. Their whole business plan revolves around all of their MMOs using the same underlying engine. I doubt they'd take on someone else's half-finished software.
I think with SGW having spent so long in development, with SGU not doing anywhere nearly as well as they'd hoped, and with still no sign of the long-promised third SG-1 and first Atlantis movies, the IP is at a low point and this half-finished MMO isn't really worth much.
But.... if anyone were to nab it, my money would be on SOE.
Sony own 20% of MGM and have taken on unfinished MMOs before (eg. Vanguard).
I just got an email to log in a try Stargate Resistance today..