News Community Update (01/05)

[Dutchman141]

It would show on the financial report as a 10 million investment from a third-party.

No it won't.
Only after gettting access to their book keeping through a permission by the appropriate tax agency can you learn the exact numbers, thank goodness for that.
Companies and private investors are protected by law, for all sorts of reasons, at least in the Netherlands they are.

 

[StuartGT]

No it won't.
Only after gettting access to their book keeping through a permission by the appropriate tax agency can you learn the exact numbers, thank goodness for that.
Companies and private investors are protected by law, for all sorts of reasons, at least in the Netherlands they are.

Yes it would. It would also be announced to the Stock Exchange via RNS that FDev had received 10 million investment from a third-party. Do you not know how publicly traded companies work?

Edit: here you go:

Corporate law 101s: capital contributions into UK companies

Our lawyers explain what a capital contribution is, where they sit on the balance sheet, their practical consequences and the tax risk.

www.osborneclarke.com

Where does a capital contribution sit on the balance sheet?​

Because it represents shareholder funds, a capital contribution will be found on the bottom half of a company’s balance sheet, usually as a separate line item headed “Capital contribution” or “Capital contribution reserve”.​

 

[StuartGT]

Public filings. E.g. just Google "Braben selling FDEV". So far he's taken out more that half ED has ever earned.

David Braben has gained £50m+ from selling FDev shares to investors? Congrats to him!

 

[Kubicide]

Too funny. Using COVID as an excuse is pretty lame. I work for a mostly software development based company and this disruption has had minimal impact on schedules. Same with others in the biz. Retailers with product or services? Sure, they're severely impacted. This is simply a lame excuse for whatever delay or problem that was already existing.

 

[Dutchman141]

Yes it would. It would also be announced to the Stock Exchange via RNS that FDev had received 10 million investment from a third-party. Do you not know how publicly traded companies work?

Heh, well I don't know all ins and outs, PWC takes care of that for me but I do know that my credentials don't show up on any anual report and neither the sums I invest in any company within the EU.

I don't know whether Tencent is still injecting funds into Fdev or not, I do know they're not responsible for all the actions taken by Fdev, they've got a board of directors for that.
I was just pointing out that the amount of shares is not always the only factor that determines someone's right of vote.
I think it's save to assume that Braben still has a firm grip on the company, he's the dominant share holder as far as I can tell.

 

[Dutchman141]

Too funny. Using COVID as an excuse is pretty lame. I work for a mostly software development based company and this disruption has had minimal impact on schedules. Same with others in the biz. Retailers with product or services? Sure, they're severely impacted. This is simply a lame excuse for whatever delay or problem that was already existing.

Imho It's pretty lame to compare every software company to the one you're working for.
If in my days the company I worked for was struck by this situation they would've gone bankrupt.

 

[[VR] Dr Gentech]

If Tencent the world's biggest games microtransactions company wanted a vmicrotransqctions currency added to ED - call it ARX shall we - then would they promote the delay caused by the resulting total ballsup of the code and live game?

No they would not. I'll be they were every bit as surprised and shocked as you were not.

But they got it anyway.


In games business every involvement feeds through to development and release dates.

And clearly they want to be more involved than normal because unlike the banks that now own a lot of FD, Tencent has taken a seat on the company board.

I don't like microtransactions either but how is ARX different from Frontier Points or whatever in that regard? Aside from the fact that you can earn it in-game.

 

[StuartGT]

If Tencent the world's biggest games microtransactions company wanted a vmicrotransqctions currency added to ED - call it ARX shall we - then would they promote the delay caused by the resulting total ballsup of the code and live game?

No they would not. I'll be they were every bit as surprised and shocked as you were not.

But they got it anyway.

Hot take: "Tencent went back in time two years to 2015 and made FDev add the microtransaction currency Frontier Points to Elite Dangerous' console edition. Tencent invented time travel!"

 

[Stelar 7]

FD delaying for quality?? Wot??

ED history shows later means cruddier every time. Who can forget the priceless community update pushing back to maximise quality on ... Engineers. Not even mentioning fleet carriers.

Sorry, couldn't hear you over all that salt and tears.

 

[[VR] Dr Gentech]

Hot take: "Tencent went back in time two years to 2015 and made FDev add the microtransaction currency Frontier Points to Elite Dangerous' console edition"

You'd be surprised at the proficiency of Chinese time travelling technology. They're able to steal technology that hasn't been invented yet, force whole foreign governments to ignore crises for months and then travel back in time to fake evidence showing that they warned them, etc etc. We really need to work on getting this time travelling technology. As I'm 100% certain like everything else it was simply stolen from our great minds, all we have to do is wait for us to invent it in the future that the Chinese copied it from, and then problem solved, time travel for everyone!

 

[Dutchman141]

If Tencent the world's biggest games microtransactions company wanted a vmicrotransqctions currency added to ED - call it ARX shall we - then would they promote the delay caused by the resulting total ballsup of the code and live game?

No they would not. I'll be they were every bit as surprised and shocked as you were not.

But they got it anyway.


In games business every involvement feeds through to development and release dates.

And clearly they want to be more involved than normal because unlike the banks that now own a lot of FD, Tencent has taken a seat on the company board.

I don't know anything about games development, I only know that companies like Tencent are only interested in profits made by investing in other companies.
Are they filling a seat on the board? I didn't know that.
I'm not saying that Tencent doesn't have a say or vote regarding FDev's future strategy, they might as well, but it's not uncommon that investors like that don't get involved in the actual product development.
When a company is lucrative and open to investment then investors like Tencent are right on top of them, they've got immediate assets that can be very interesting for a company, companies such as Fdev.

 

[StuartGT]

ARX is the standard in your face full-on microtransactions model and was pushed on every player - including advertised in the game. Frontier Points was not - just a workaround to get cosmetics payments through some stores, and for only the very few ED players who are on console.

"Frontier Points were microtransactions used to buy cosmetics, while ARX are microtransactions used to buy cosmetics. They're totally different things! And earning ARX while playing is a bad thing too!"

Today is a good day for forum comedy

 

[[VR] Dr Gentech]

ARX is the standard in your face full-on microtransactions model and was pushed on every player - including advertised in the game. Frontier Points was not - just a workaround to get cosmetics payments through some stores, and for only the very few ED players who are on console.

I'm a console gamer. ARX involved zero change for me, except that now I got free currency for cosmetics every week I play, which means I might actually get cosmetics at some point (I have a commitment to never spend a single dollar on microtransactions). What exactly is so bad about that, aside from the existence of microtransactions in the first place which (while I dislike it) has nothing to do with ARX and even less to do with Tencent?

 

[[VR] Dr Gentech]

Hot take, Tencent went back further to poison the dummies of a very few babies making them grow up unable to tell the difference between Frontier Points store tokens and ARX in-game in-your-face microtransactions currency.

You still haven't explained what the difference is at all.

Also, I'm interested in that information on how many players play Elite on PC vs console, do you know where I could find that information?

 

[Dutchman141]

"Frontier Points were microtransactions used to buy cosmetics, while ARX are microtransactions used to buy cosmetics. They're totally different things! And earning ARX while playing is a bad thing too!"

Today is a good day for forum comedy

You're wrong, Frontier Points were meant for buying Vanity items, Arx are for Cosmetics.
I never use Cosmetics, my wife does, Vanity items though......

 

[StuartGT]

Hot take, Tencent went back further to poison the dummies of a very few babies making them grow up unable to tell the difference between Frontier Points store tokens and ARX in-game in-your-face microtransactions currency.

You really don't like Tencent and FDev, do you, hahaha!

 

[StuartGT]

Just look how many games follow MTX by FTP and then !!!. Clue: almost all of them.

"Cosmetic microtransaction currency was added to Elite Dangerous in 2015, the game will switch to Free2Play any day now, you'll see!"

 

[Dutchman141]

Hot take, Tencent went back further to poison the dummies of a very few babies making them grow up unable to tell the difference between Frontier Points store tokens and ARX in-game in-your-face microtransactions currency.

Arx are no different from Frontier Points, I'm on Xbox and there's actually zero difference in how it works.
I bought FPs and got store items for that, I buy Arx and get store items for that.

 

[Dutchman141]

You really don't like Tencent and FDev, do you, hahaha!

Now might be the time to post that Conspiracy meme again lol.

 

[StuartGT]

Arx are no different from Frontier Points, I'm on Xbox and there's actually zero difference in how it works.
I bought FPs and got store items for that, I buy Arx and get store items for that.

That's just what a Tencent time-traveller would say!