Chronicles of Elyria Outlines Expenses in Latest 'Developer Journal' | MMORPG.com

System · July 2023

Chronicles of Elyria Outlines Expenses in Latest 'Developer Journal' | MMORPG.com

In the latest journal by Soulbound Studios owner Jeromy "Caspian" Walsh, the financial numbers have been detailed in what appears to be a lengthy list of expenses.

Read the full story here

Slapshot1188 · July 2023

Once a clown always a clown.

Chart 1

22k for Education and training? Donors were paying for people to go to school or some other training? WTF?
$87k in Independent Contractor fees? Was part of this his wife doing "consulting"? Was this some other relative?
$185k in Loan Payments- What loans? To who? Did he pay off the loans he said he took out on his land to fund the 500k he said he started the company with?
Owner Distribution (took 233k which he says were used to pay taxes.)
38k in professional service fees? Again was any of this paid to any relative?
And of course... salaries are pointless without knowing the breakdown. It's 50% of the spend. but he points out that he paid himself "an average of around $120k per year - less than I made as a software engineer before starting Soulbound Studios. " Go watch a Shark Tank episode and see what happens when some "entrepreneur" says he was paying himself $120/yr while his company was functioning on donations and hemoraging cash.

So my largest takeaway is this: If I recall correctly he said he could deliver the FULL CoE game for something like $3million. Of course in my opinion he intentionaly hid that during the Kickstarter, but ignoring that, if we take that and compare it with the 3 years actual expenses listed you will see that he spent more than DOUBLE that number. So it wasn't just that his incompetence at game design made the number of years in development multiply... but even his PER YEAR cost was off by more than double.

It seems he did zero planning and had no clue how to run a company. It was a clownshow run by a clown.

slowz2secret · July 2023

that dude keep trying lmao

Eldrach · July 2023

Isn’t he doing this solo? Meaning he’s paying himself to travel everywhere, paying off his own loans etc? Or was this before he was abandoned? Edit: NM, this was just a typical mafia expense sheet where they invent costs in order to white wash cash

DAOWAce · July 2023

I've opted to keep the focus of this blog post on just the years 2017-2019. Here's why.

"So I could keep leading people on into giving me money for a nonexistent product".

I don't know why this guy just isn't outright ignored by all media on the planet at this point.

lahnmir · July 2023

Slapshot1188 said:

Once a clown always a clown.

22k for Education and training? Donors were paying for people to go to school or some other training? WTF?
$87k in Independent Contractor fees? Was part of this his wife doing "consulting"? Was this some other relative?
$185k in Loan Payments- What loans? To who? Did he pay off the loans he said he took out on his land to fund the 500k he said he started the company with?
Owner Distribution (took 233k which he says were used to pay taxes.)
38k in professional service fees? Again was any of this paid to any relative?
And of course... salaries are pointless without knowing the breakdown. It's 50% of the spend. but he points out that he paid himself "an average of around $120k per year - less than I made as a software engineer before starting Soulbound Studios. " Go watch a Shark Tank episode and see what happens when some "entrepreneur" says he was paying himself $120/yr while his company was functioning on donations and hemoraging cash.

So my largest takeaway is this: If I recall correctly he said he could deliver the FULL CoE game for something like $3million. Of course in my opinion he intentionaly hid that during the Kickstarter, but ignoring that, if we take that and compare it with the 3 years actual expenses listed you will see that he spent more than DOUBLE that number. So it wasn't just that his incompetence at game design made the number of years in development multiply... but even his PER YEAR cost was off by more than double.

It seems he did zero planning and had no clue how to run a company. It was a clownshow run by a clown.

Unfortunately it is not like veterans like Jacobs or Roberts, or any other for that matter, are better at predicting timelines and costs. One would almost assume that the regularly painted picture of ‘minimum costs and minimum time needed’ was done on purpose to “encourage” supporters to pledge some money to these projects. I mean, who would donate to a project that would need over a decade of development and 25+ million in funding up front? Walsh is a clown, like the rest. Truth be told, I think I prefer ‘no product’ to ‘absolutely trash product.’

Side note, I am a massive supporter of crowdfunding, just not when it comes to MMORPGs.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Ridrith · July 2023

Walsh is an absolute scumbag. Literally beyond incompetent. If this post isn't proof of that, I don't know what is. I'm so glad I never backed this garbage. I truly feel sorry for the people who buy into these crooks.

It would not surprise me if most of these Kickstarter MMOs don't have financials that look similar to this, just with more or less money kicking around depending on the project. Just all spending it just as unwisely and on bullshit.

Neoyoshi · July 2023

I thought this was all over with? Why is this happening? What is real life? o__o

Slapshot1188 · July 2023

lahnmir said:

Unfortunately it is not like veterans like Jacobs or Roberts, or any other for that matter, are better at predicting timelines and costs. One would almost assume that the regularly painted picture of ‘minimum costs and minimum time needed’ was done on purpose to “encourage” supporters to pledge some money to these projects. I mean, who would donate to a project that would need over a decade of development and 25+ million in funding up front? Walsh is a clown, like the rest. Truth be told, I think I prefer ‘no product’ to ‘absolutely trash product.’

Side note, I am a massive supporter of crowdfunding, just not when it comes to MMORPGs.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

I think there are 2 massive differences in those examples:

Jacobs has gotten private investors and used his own money. That was his focus for funding. The breakdown was 4.5M Crowdfunding. 5M Personal investment and 7.5M from other investors. Then in 2022 they announced a new 15M investment. So Crowdfunding was around 14 percent. Not an excuse in any way shape or form, but it's a stark difference. I would say that both were incompetent project planners, but Jacobs seemed to be correct on the cost per year but very, very, very off on how many years. While Walsh was clueless on both.

Roberts changed the game once he saw how lucrative this could be. It started as pretty much wanting to make an updated Wing Commander with much wider multiplayer, but then the funds started to roll in and the purpose of the project IMHO no longer became producing a final product but rather just a funding mechanism to keep the hundreds of millions flowing. I believe this long, drawn out production path was intentional and not due to incompetence. For once the goose lays it's last egg... the gold stops flowing.

Slapshot1188 · July 2023

Ok Jeromy.

Or on second pass… Hi to next level AI spambot. I almost missed the spam link in the text.

Kind of impressed the AI created that.

Scot · July 2023

Slapshot1188 said:

Ok Jeromy.

Or on second pass… Hi to next level AI spambot. I almost missed the spam link in the text.

Kind of impressed the AI created that.

They are incredibly hard to spot but here is a tip, they tend to speak in third person, they never have dramatic opinions and their overall temperament is summed up with "thoughtful."

Angrakhan · July 2023

Oh look! I think I can see my $75 from here! It's listed under "money I wiped my ass with".

Dattelis · July 2023

Why give oxygen to something you know is a farce....?

Mazeneal · August 2023

Slapshot1188 said:

Once a clown always a clown.

It seems he did zero planning and had no clue how to run a company. It was a clownshow run by a clown.

I think you're being generous, you have to own some clown shoes to be.........well sh1t

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Chronicles of Elyria Outlines Expenses in Latest 'Developer Journal' | MMORPG.com

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