Star Citizen Thread v6

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Tippis

Tippis
Britney said:
I love how many interpretations there are for this document that totally contradict each other [yesnod] the web never changes. If the security for the loan is basically everything doesn't that speak for a rather big chunk of cash?
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it could also speak for a high perceived chance of default.
 

MTBFritz

MTBFritz
Snarfbuckle said:
My god, the doomsday patrol is really active.

- It's standard practice to set up EVERYTHING as security just so that the Bank has a means to demand payment from liquidated assets just so the loan taker cant just run away
- Banks today would NOT loan money to a company they view as a security risk
- It also means that F42 can now RAISE the loan at need as long as the total value to their security allows it.
- The loan is at 0.25% which is not improbable with todays interest rates AND the ability as a customer to negotiate in todays extremely low interest rates
- The loan will be tax deductable
- If F42 need money to finish the SQ42 game it's MORE expensive to MOVE money from the US to UK than taking a loan
- With that low interest they can easily MAKE money by borrowing money and invest part of it to counter the low interest rate
- And no, the bank owns nothing of CIG, they have security of CIG assets in case of CIG failing to repay said loan

Source: My 20 years experience as an investment, financial and general banker.
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LOL damage control at its finest :) You claim things you have no idea about until you have seen the contract so your theory is somehow "better" then other peoples?
 

Thargon

Thargon
VidarSnipes said:
I think he just refers to the fact that Sandi, as one of the people responsible for PR, posts photographs of developers' screens while they work on some kind of a feature or a model, so the message is "Ignore that scary loan thing, look, shiny!".
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Oooh look! Shiny! https://twitter.com/SandiGardiner?lang=en

Add's more more fuel to the fire: https://heatst.com/gaming/huge-crow...zen-gets-negative-articles-scrubbed-from-web/

Especially this: http://archive.is/JLByy

*Runs away and hides*
 
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Faybs

Faybs
Huh. Roberts said he didn't want a game publisher breathing down his neck, so instead he puts the game in the hands of a multinational banker. Makes... sense? :)

At least, as someone else mentioned, this puts pressure on CIG to actually release something. From what they've put on the web, it seems to me they could easily take what they have done so far, tie it together and release this year something that would be on a par, quality-wise, with the 1.0 release of ED. It won't be up to Roberts' perfectionist expectations of "fidelity", but the backers would have a game, and CIG could update it post-release like hundreds of other game developers have done.
 
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ChiefRedCloud

ChiefRedCloud
Thargon said:
Hey, this might even be a GOOD thing.

Imagine this scenario:

1. CIG defaults on the loan.
2. SC and all it's assets (physical and non-physical) now belong to Coutts & Co.
3. Coutts and Co. seek another publisher to buy the assets from them (they wouldn't want to keep a game IP and assets in their portfolio - would make no sense).
4. Coutts sell SC and all its IP to a large game publisher.
5. Large Game publisher now takes hold of the project with proper project managers (sorry Chris we gotta let you go!)
6. Large Game publisher decides to honor the backers original stretch goals, manages project well and releases a decent Star Citizen that everyone backed for originally.
7. Profit
8. Backers happy.
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Bought by Frontier Interprises ??? Just kidding ...

I have been reading your (all of you) posts and you all seem fairly level headed. At least in the realm of it. I was wondering how many of you have bought into SC? I know I did even though I had/have suspicions that it will never come to fruit. Much like Oleg Maddox vision of the NEW IL-2 Cliffs of Dover. His dream was so big that it was finally abandoned and he was drummed out. Maddox and Roberts share similar ambitions but I'm not sure SC will even see the light that CloD saw.

Now I am not bad mouthing anyone there as I bought into it purely out of curiosity with my eyes wide open. Perhaps just so I could talk about it if you will. But on my personal observation if the Alpha of what, four years, is any indication they are a long way from a finished product. If I am proven wrong, that's fine. But honestly I do not see it. 3.0 may be a game changer. But as it is it's kind of user unfriendly to me. If you play me in ED you'll find that I am one of the most pitiful PvPers in the universe.

Perhaps that's why I do not think much of SC first few introduction missions. Go fix a comm relay seems fairly simple. But fighting off bad guys is not so I found out. Even though it's an Alpha, I find it hard to believe that introductory missions meant to help you get a financial (assumed I admit) start in game are so difficult. And without a manual or instructions on getting your ship back you have no idea what you are dealing with.

They had a manual but pulled it because things were changing so quickly. So I wondering just how much frustration is behind all those happy faces we see on the weekly update videos.

Chief
 

Zetta

Zetta
ChiefRedCloud said:
Bought by Frontier Interprises ??? Just kidding ...

I have been reading your (all of you) posts and you all seem fairly level headed. At least in the realm of it. I was wondering how many of you have bought into SC? I know I did even though I had/have suspicions that it will never come to fruit. Much like Oleg Maddox vision of the NEW IL-2 Cliffs of Dover. His dream was so big that it was finally abandoned and he was drummed out. Maddox and Roberts share similar ambitions but I'm not sure SC will even see the light that CloD saw.

Now I am not bad mouthing anyone there as I bought into it purely out of curiosity with my eyes wide open. Perhaps just so I could talk about it if you will. But on my personal observation if the Alpha of what, four years, is any indication they are a long way from a finished product. If I am proven wrong, that's fine. But honestly I do not see it. 3.0 may be a game changer. But as it is it's kind of user unfriendly to me. If you play me in ED you'll find that I am one of the most pitiful PvPers in the universe.

Perhaps that's why I do not think much of SC first few introduction missions. Go fix a comm relay seems fairly simple. But fighting off bad guys is not so I found out. Even though it's an Alpha, I find it hard to believe that introductory missions meant to help you get a financial (assumed I admit) start in game are so difficult. And without a manual or instructions on getting your ship back you have no idea what you are dealing with.

They had a manual but pulled it because things were changing so quickly. So I wondering just how much frustration is behind all those happy faces we see on the weekly update videos.

Chief
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I remain a backer of Star Citizen but only at a very base level, something like $50.
I think they'll get something done but I also think it will be a long, long way from what we thought we were originally going to get. I am, and have always been very sceptical of Roberts' grandiose promises.

What I find most off-putting is how little gameplay we get shown, nearly everything is a static shot or a quick pan, never do we see characters actually engaging in game mechanics despite 3.0 being just around the corner. If they are so willing to show off a vending machine or the sole of a janitor's boot then why are they loathe to show off something about piracy, bounty hunting, moving cargo, mining or any other of the professions etc
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Faybs said:
From what they've put on the web, it seems to me they could easily take what they have done so far, tie it together and release this year something that would be on a par, quality-wise, with the 1.0 release of ED. It won't be up to Roberts' perfectionist expectations of "fidelity", but the backers would have a game, and CIG could update it post-release like hundreds of other game developers have done.
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Exept that, unlike ED 1.0, SC currently doesnt have missions, trading, mining, exploring, smuggling. There is only a part of a system, it runs at about 20FPS in multiplay if you have a NASA workstation and crashed every 15 minutes. They will need at least another 1-2 years to get it up to ED 1.0 quality. Heck, they probably need at least a year to fix the techdemo they currently have, never mind add gameplay of any sorts. Which, as a reminder, was a game that the SC community despised 2.5 years ago. Pretty sure they wont appreciate something worse than that, almost five years after ED launched. :p
 

ChiefRedCloud

ChiefRedCloud
sleutelbos said:
Exept that, unlike ED 1.0, SC currently doesnt have missions, trading, mining, exploring, smuggling. There is only a part of a system, it runs at about 20FPS in multiplay if you have a NASA workstation and crashed every 15 minutes. They will need at least another 1-2 years to get it up to ED 1.0 quality. Heck, they probably need at least a year to fix the techdemo they currently have, never mind add gameplay of any sorts. Which, as a reminder, was a game that the SC community despised 2.5 years ago. Pretty sure they wont appreciate something worse than that, almost five years after ED launched. :p
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Then perhaps it's not so far fetched if SC goes belly up that Frontier might want some of the scraps .... I seriously doubt it as it would most likely cost more to make it work (with ED) than be useful.

Chief
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
ChiefRedCloud said:
Then perhaps it's not so far fetched if SC goes belly up that Frontier might want some of the scraps .... I seriously doubt it as it would most likely cost more to make it work (with ED) than be useful.

Chief
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Unfortunately, that wont happen (not just FD, in general). The 'core game', for as much as there is one, isn't worth anything to any designer. No matter what another dev is planning, doing it from scratch would be better than take some weird and super buggy frankstein-engine wannabe-MMO as foundation. The only thing of worth are the assets (sound/graphics). The sound in SC is very sub-par so far. ED easily destroys it, as do most other sci-fi games. The graphics are *great*, but only really useful to a dev designing a game, preferably UE based, without having any assets yet but looking for something in the SC style. FD has zero use for them as it clashes with their own style. And noone will 'finish' SC for them if that means investing for many years while having the obligations to the current backers.

They are on their own.
 

hairychris

hairychris
Thargon said:
Hey, this might even be a GOOD thing.

Imagine this scenario:

1. CIG defaults on the loan.
2. SC and all it's assets (physical and non-physical) now belong to Coutts & Co.
3. Coutts and Co. seek another publisher to buy the assets from them (they wouldn't want to keep a game IP and assets in their portfolio - would make no sense).
4. Coutts sell SC and all its IP to a large game publisher.
5. Large Game publisher now takes hold of the project with proper project managers (sorry Chris we gotta let you go!)
6. Large Game publisher decides to honor the backers original stretch goals, manages project well and releases a decent Star Citizen that everyone backed for originally.
7. Profit
8. Backers happy.
Click to expand...

I support Portsmouth Football Club (yes, I know). We've had some problems with owners. A few years ago our then-owner, an Israeli arms dealer (IIRC) sold us to an oil sheik. It was all given the OK by the FA, with background/credit checks & alll supposedly completed. Said oil sheik wasn't. 2 months or so after he took over he defaulted on the load that he'd made to buy the club and all of a sudden a rather cnfused banker in Hong Kong was the new owner. It was an interesting few years, but as a FC there were actual physical assets and a source of income. It wasn't pretty, though, and included literal last minute deals to stop the club from being permanently wound up while in receivership.

So yeah, hoping for #1 isn't great.

Also, IMO, no publisher would want to touch Star Citizen. For one, only one of the big boys has the cash to push the project to any sort of completion, and they all already have their own scifi IPs. Would they want the trouble of trying to push out and run an over-hyped FPS/MMO with that fanbase? Not if they wanted to retain their sanity.

The only way you'll get a complete game is if CIG are the ones to create it.

Snarfbuckle said:
My god, the doomsday patrol is really active.

- It's standard practice to set up EVERYTHING as security just so that the Bank has a means to demand payment from liquidated assets just so the loan taker cant just run away
- Banks today would NOT loan money to a company they view as a security risk
- It also means that F42 can now RAISE the loan at need as long as the total value to their security allows it.
- The loan is at 0.25% which is not improbable with todays interest rates AND the ability as a customer to negotiate in todays extremely low interest rates
- The loan will be tax deductable
- If F42 need money to finish the SQ42 game it's MORE expensive to MOVE money from the US to UK than taking a loan
- With that low interest they can easily MAKE money by borrowing money and invest part of it to counter the low interest rate
- And no, the bank owns nothing of CIG, they have security of CIG assets in case of CIG failing to repay said loan

Source: My 20 years experience as an investment, financial and general banker.
Click to expand...

It's still not a good look for a fully funded enterprise even if this is the case.

If we hear that all digital assets, staff & etc get moved to F42 then I'd hazard a guess that management are preparing to default and bail with whatever cash is elsewhere.
 

Remus

Remus
So I've just heard the latest news, and sadly my expectations of 2017 being the last year of star citizen's existence might come true after all.


All I will say is this.

" It is Coutts who've donnit Guv' ! "
 

Zetta

Zetta
V.M Varga Ortwin has this to say

We have noticed the speculations created by a posting on the website of UK’s Company House with respect to Coutt’s security for our UK Tax Rebate advance, and we would like to provide you with the following insight to help prevent some of the misinformation we have seen.


Our UK companies are entitled to a Government Game tax credit rebate which we earn every month on the Squadron 42 development. These rebates are payable by the UK Government in the fall of the next following year when we file our tax returns. Foundry 42 and its parent company Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd. have elected to partner with Coutts, a highly regarded, very selective, and specialized UK banking institution, to obtain a regular advance against this rebate, which will allow us to avoid converting unnecessarily other currencies into GBP. We obviously incur a significant part of our expenditures in GBP while our collections are mostly in USD and EUR. Given today's low interest rates versus the ongoing and uncertain currency fluctuations, this is simply a smart money management move, which we implemented upon recommendation of our financial advisors.



The collateral granted in connection with this discounting loan is absolutely standard and pertains to our UK operation only, which develops Squadron 42. As a careful review of the security will show and contrary to some irresponsible and misleading reports, the collateral specifically excludes “Star Citizen.” The UK Government rebate entitlement, which is audited and certified by our outside auditors on a quarterly basis, is the prime collateral. Per standard procedure in banking, our UK companies of course stand behind the loan and guarantee repayment which, however, given the reliability of the discounted asset (a UK Government payment) is a formality and nothing else. This security does not affect our UK companies’ ownership and control of their assets. Obviously, the UK Government will not default on its rebate obligations which will be used for repayment, and even then the UK companies have ample assets to repay the loan, even in such an eventuality which is of course unthinkable.



This should clarify the matter. Thank you.
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https://robertsspaceindustries.com/...e-uk-tax-rebate-advance-for-foundry-42/277779
 
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