[quote=“Giles_Habibula, post:4966, topic:74635, full:true”]
I’ll admit that this unnamed source fits nice with your theories, and I’ll further admit that in most rumors lie a grain of truth; sometimes more than a grain. So I can’t dismiss it outright.
But in the end, it’s an unnamed source.
So, grain of truth? Maybe. Am I taking it with a grain of salt? Absolutely.
If this unnamed source wants to be taken more seriously, he should at least give some kind of hint or indication as to what his role is, and maybe flesh out his story a bit more. There is simply too little to go on for an impartial observer.
Not trying to dis you here, @dsmart. I really do appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into this, and have read many of the links you’ve provided. But … there’s a lot to read. :) This whole thing for me has been akin to going down a bottomless rabbit hole. My time is limited, and I appreciate your patience (and your summaries here) for those of us who have not been able to keep up. And as much as I’m trying to keep an open mind, I am currently leaning more toward your direction at this point.
But I’m always interested in hearing counter-points as well. And in reading the comments section from your “and so it begins” link, I think I’ve pretty much seen most of those counter-points in there, which so far just strike me as being incredibly optimistic, especially in regard to their financial condition. However, I’d love for that optimism to be proven correct in the end. But it’s getting increasingly difficult not to have some pretty severe doubts.
Oh that’s perfectly OK, and I don’t mind at all. Since I started writing about this farce back in July 2015, practically everything I’ve written, specifically that they can’t build the game pitched and not for less than $150M (back then they had just pulled in $85M), has come true. Last I checked (yes, I’m that studious & autistic guy who tracks mundane stuff like that), a decent 93% of what sources tell me, has come true.
Know what’s funny? They’ve been losing money for years now, and only relying on backers. After they pulled the biggest lie (see 3.0 fiasco) in Q4/2016 between Aug-Oct (GamesCom & CitizenCon), rumors were already flying as to why they had no choice. They raised over $6M based on lies (which they got busted over later btw - exposed by me of course).
Here is some context about their financial woes:
In April 2016, I wrote the Extinction Level Event blog. You should read it. Here is a choice quote:
“Rumors and unconfirmed reports have been swirling for months that they’re running out of money to complete these projects, that they’ve been seeking external investor funding, trying to take advantage of tax credits etc. Even over in the UK, where reports like this come out, there is no evidence of them ever filing with the BFI if they did in fact take advantage of UK tax credits. If they’re out trying to raise investor money, it should come as a complete shock to anyone who thinks that $112M should have been enough to, you know, develop the game as promised. All the negativity surrounding the game, the shitty and toxic community that has sprung up around it; the aforementioned videos of a shitty tech-demo (aka CryEngine mod) everyone is now laughing (1, 2) at, are collectively likely to affect any efforts to raise money outside of a bunch of gullible whales firmly entrenched in sunk cost fallacy and cognitive dissonance.”
I subsequently wrote a follow-up comment to that.
At that point, Chris had already started talking about shipping an MVP, instead of the game that was fully funded to $65M in Nov 2014. Also, at that point they had already realized that the CryEngine wasn’t going to cut it.
Since that time, they’ve pulled every trick in the book to continue raising funds because their burn rate simply can’t sustain the development.
It’s bad enough that he opened studios to benefit/profit his friends and family first, not building a game. That’s why him and Sandi are in LA, Tony Z and some of his guys from the Origin old days are in TX, and of course his brother Erin is at the largest studio in the UK. The GER studio was incidental because CryTek was on the ropes, so CIG not only took advantage of that, but also poached some critical CryTek devs. He did this because he needed people familiar with the engine, and who he thought were capable to providing an engine to build the game he was pitching. Except for the part where they ALL missed the key part of gamedev: an engine is just as good as the people using it; and it’s not going to build your game for you. I said this, right from the start. Next thing you know, they switched to the Lumberyard implementation (unveiled in 12/2016) in order to not only get around apparently having to pay CryTek royalties (as per their deal), but also because AMZ was now doing the heavy lifting of supporting the engine which CryTek has been unable to do due to their own financial troubles. Except that Lumberyard is still CryEngine at it’s core and isn’t going to solve their problems.
For instance, let’s say the rumor is true. $75M would buy them, what…two years more of dev time at most? Which might be enough to get them to 3.0 (based on what they’ve accomplished so far with the money they’ve already raised to this point, and considering all of the work still remaining to get to a stable 3.0 - admittedly all speculation on my part), and maybe slightly beyond. But then what? I’m seriously wondering if $500M total would be enough to actually finish this game as currently pitched. At this point, I’m even wondering if $1B is out of the question (in theory, because there’s no way in hell they’ll actually manage to raise that kind of money).
They need to keep afloat until they can ship whatever it is Chris is tagging as the MVP.
They did the Coutts loan, and when I wrote an in-depth analysis explaining why it was highly unusual to take out a loan for such an inconsequential tax credit - assuming it’s true that was the reason - some people just waved it off. It was yet another sign that they were in need of funds.
We know - beyond a reasonable doubt - that the funding chart is inaccurate. What we don’t know is to what extent. This means that not only have they raised less than the amount indicated, but even without taking into account loans and investor money, they have to have burned through over $150M by now. Easy. Through wasteful spending, and from what sources have said, wanton malfeasance (which is what is going to send someone to jail, since this is public funds) and such.
So if word is now getting out that they’re looking around for investment, I have every reason to believe that it’s true because I’ve known about it for months now. The only problem is that nobody is going to go on the record to say it. And quite a few top tier people both at CIG and in the industry, already know about this.
The only thing about this person’s “rumor” is that it’s got nothing to do with the engine because 1) they don’t have an engine worth anything, since it’s custom based on CryEngine & Lumberyard 2) they can’t sell/license any such engine due to the license restrictions put in by both CryTek and AMZ about the engine use.
Though I have no reason to believe that they are, God help them if they’re using the public funding chart numbers as evidence of health in the project; because then we’re in bank fraud territory since those numbers are patently false. My guess is that their internal books may or may not reflect different numbers, and they can easily explain away the disparity between the two by saying they don’t take certain things (e.g. refunds) into account when tabulating the public numbers.
Listen, this whole thing has collapsed. All we have to wait for now is too see how long it takes to the final curtain, and what form it would take. There is no rescue coming for Chris. He’s burned all his bridges. And with industry money hard to get, I can’t imagine any industry person - let alone investor - looking at a project that asked for $5M to ship a game, got $150M+ and never shipped said game, being a good investment. Especially given the pre-order debt liability that it’s already saddled with.
He’s done. And he’s out. This time, for good.
