Report of the Week is one of the best things on the internet. Which makes no damned sense, it’s some weird dude reviewing fast food in a tie, but here we are.
Is it? YouTube keeps trying to make me watch it but the guy is super creepy looking so I haven’t.
Rumors (rumors mind you, take with grain of salt) is the ND really, really wanted SSR before this buyout, but as the beta demonstrated, it was nowhere near ready.
According to Wikipedia they have about 40 devs and their yearly revenue is about $3M (2022). $30M is a reasonable valuation for such a company.
It’s just strangely wholesome for the most part. Hard to explain.
He takes it pretty seriously and does it well and is just an odd duck, but it’s still kind of great.
Is that 40 employees total, or 40 people in development positions (artist, programmer, designer, producer), I wonder. Three million in revenue once you subtract out the, what, maybe 15% or so general and administrative overhead which is likely, gives you an average of about $64k/employee, which once you figure the cost of things like health insurance, retirement, and other benefits (if any, of course), doesn’t leave a lot for an average salary. Of course, I’m sure there are more at the bottom of the pile than at the top, and money isn’t distributed equally, but it sure seems like a bit of a shoestring operation?
Seems to be 40 employees total, but take the number with a grain of salt. The $3M revenue seems legit since it’s mentioned in the acquisition brief.
Likely they are operating at a loss, banking on revenues from the new release. But that means they likely also have significant liabilities. Given declining sales lately across the industry, and the likely not-cheap sticker on this game, I can see the managers being willing to secure future funding/projects.
Again, seems like a pretty decent valuation to me. You hear about all these $1B+ acquisitions, but those aren’t the norm. Many small-mid size studios are acquired for seven-eight figures.
Thanks for the info!
The numbers in the article linked above are lower though. The 30M$ are in a different context. Atari will pay in two tiers:
(1) 10M$ immediately, half in cash, half in shares.
(2) Another 10M$ in cash, but only if certain performance targets are met. (Read: If SSR sells, because it’s their only premium product.)
That’s a best case scenario of 20M$, so significantly lower than 30M$.
The maths behind the 40 employees and the 3M$ revenue indeed suggests they’re not exactly swimming in cash.
I misread. 20M$ is still a decent valuation for a company that size (which they seem to agree with because they sold).
Oh, yeah, I wasn’t quibbling with the value of the company, just musing about their cash-flow and how solvent they were.
Woohoo, maybe I’ll finally play this at some point!
If it’s well reviewed at launch, I’ll buy it to show my support, but yeah, I want to finish Jedi Survivor and then play Diablo IV. Ain’t got time for Shock right now.
Huh, it’s available on Steam, Epic Store and GoG. Each one has System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition (to be released in the future) as a pre-order incentive.
I’m not sure which store to get this on. Epic Store so that Night Dive Atari get a bigger cut? GoG so that I have a DRM free copy? Or Steam in case I want to play it in the future on GeForce Now or a future Steam Deck maybe?
Of course, I also will want to get it on Xbox if it’s a good game, to earn Xbox achievements. But they’re not talking about ports yet.
Apparently one of the few classics I never played.
It was brilliant but an acquired taste in its original form. It didn’t even have mouse support IIRC, until a CD edition came out some time after launch. It was though one of the most amazing experiences in gaming I ever had up to that point, and still among my top three probably. Not sure how I feel about playing it again though.
I’m an OG backer who has waited the better part of a decade for this, so I’ve played with the backer beta a while. I’m interested to see what fixes were incorporated in this “Gold” release from all the feedback we provided.
You do not RC. Mouse support was always an integral part of the controls since it was used for weapon aiming and operating the interface. What the CD version mainly added was full voice acting, higher quality cutscenes, and higher-res textures.
Mouselook, on the other hand, didn’t exist until it was added in a fan patch, and then again in System Shock Enhanced Edition, which was a full source port to Night Dive’s Kex engine.