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Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble

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Wasn't this already addressed in the Star Citizen Verse Awakens thread?

Star Citizen is not Apple. They didn't even disclose the loan to their backers, which is something Apple has to do since it is a public company.

The concern here would be, what is the budget for the game? Is the money they have raised already not enough? Where did that money go? How was it spent?

Apply produces quarterly and yearly financial reports. Star Citizen doesn't.

There is zero reason to trust Star Citizen company at even the same level as Apple.

The rest of that private bank, rich clientele and all that is what people say when they want to make someone feel good about taking out a loan. Apple didn't have to pledge their whole company to take a loan, SC had to do that. That also means the loan is large enough to account for everything SC owns.
 

Stop It

Perfectly able to grasp the inherent value of the fishing game.
Is this a joke..?
No, read the filing at companies house. If you're not familiar it's the UK central company registrar and keeps details of companies details financially, ownership and in this case, secured loans.

In this case, if the company behind Star Citizen defaults, Coutts & Co ( A private bank here in the UK) can take literally everything related to Star Citizen and the studio (I think just the UK one).

It's serious stuff, and to get a loan secured like that implies financial distress, otherwise you'd just have a funding round by the usual private equity suspects or less drastic loans.

Of course this isn't an issue as long as they keep up their Loan payments but if things hit then fan, this project is gone.
A company taking a loan is in no way a sign of it being in financial trouble. Jesus, GAF.
You don't mortgage the company unless if you have no other option. Bond issues are the closest equivalent and even they are tied to specific collateral, rather than basically everything you've got in the case of this charge order.
 
Would you people mind looking at the debt to equity ratio of your favorite game company? You might be surprised.

Most people's favorite game companies are:

Public - so they put out detailed financial statements.
Proven - have an established track record of delivering things.

Star Citizen is neither.
 
Would you people mind looking at the debt to equity ratio of your favorite game company? You might be surprised.

Do all those other companies put their IP, studios, code and brands up as collateral for that debt? The answer is no. This isn't about a regular loan, this is mortgaging everything.
 
This huge amount of money is likely triple the average of an AAA game development budget, wow.

You could have funded Rap Rabbit with a fraction of that but instead we get this.

The darkest timeline.
I was going to make a similar comment about Rap Rabbit 🐰, if only they advertised it better!
 

Bar81

Member
Wow this came out of nowhere... I hope everything turns out alright.

Not really. If you've been following events, this type of end result has bern expected. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is freedom/too many choices. They raised so much money and have been managed so unprofessionally that the scope kept ballooning with no end in sight. No budget is adequate in that case. Maybe with limited funds now they will be able to focus and finish but more likely is that they will push out a halfbaked game when the money runs out.
 
The anti-hype surrounding SC will never deflate. People have been begging this thing to fail since the crowdfunding first exploded.

When you mortgage your entire rights and company for just "everyday loan" that screams "HELP!!!!!". Maybe most of the hate earlier on development was what you mentioned but dude this is a different animal.

This kinda of news for an indie studio late in development is not something you can bush off.
 

DocSeuss

Member
Wasn't this already addressed in the Star Citizen Verse Awakens thread?

no one's gonna read this because people really want Star Citizen to be a boondoggle for some reason. At least it sure feels that way. :\

When you mortgage your entire rights and company for just "everyday loan" that screams "HELP!!!!!". Maybe most of the hate earlier on development was what you mentioned but dude this is a different animal.

This kinda of news for an indie studio late in development is not something you can bush off.

Again, read what Crossing Eden quoted.
 

moggio

Banned
Not really surprising their cash flow is drying up. Everyone who wants this game must have it already and whales must feel the fatigue by now.

No-one with any sense is going to touch this with a barge pole.
 
no one's gonna read this because people really want Star Citizen to be a boondoggle for some reason. At least it sure feels that way. :\

Again, read what Crossing Eden quoted.

No deal that involves putting everything you own as collateral implies you're in good financial standing.

If you were in good financial standing you'd be able to get a loan with little to no collateral.

Banks would want to lend you money, not require you to put the whole company up just to reduce the risk.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Star Citizen is not Apple. They didn't even disclose the loan to their backers, which is something Apple has to do since it is a public company.

The concern here would be, what is the budget for the game? Is the money they have raised already not enough? Where did that money go? How was it spent?

Apply produces quarterly and yearly financial reports. Star Citizen doesn't.

There is zero reason to trust Star Citizen company at even the same level as Apple.

The rest of that private bank, rich clientele and all that is what people say when they want to make someone feel good about taking out a loan. Apple didn't have to pledge their whole company to take a loan, SC had to do that. That also means the loan is large enough to account for everything SC owns.
Considering the game isn't released yet, what else would they have to use for such a loan?
 

orient

Neo Member
A company taking a loan is in no way a sign of it being in financial trouble. Jesus, GAF.

It's the type of loan. Also,why does this project need infinite money when they've actually cut back on previously-promised features?
 
Considering the game isn't released yet, what else would they have to use for such a loan?

Why do they need more cash if they have 2400% more funding than they initially said they needed to complete the project?

I'm missing the backer "this is actually good for Star Citizen" defence here.
 

Dryk

Member
Heh I said it years ago that this project will never go gold.
It was a reasonably safe bet. A project that grows as fast as Star Citizen did tends to hemorrhage money. It probably would have been wise to start over from the planning stage with more people in the management structure than trying to cobble so many features together ad-hoc.
 

artsi

Member
Glad I didn't spend more than $50, too bad for the people who spent thousands if the project sinks.

I hope it doesn't though, I've enjoyed what I've played so far and I want to see it finished one day.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
I have a hard time reading Lawyerenglish but It seems like it's not everything:

aPrdrdf.png
 
I have a hard time reading Lawyerenglish but It seems like it's not everything:

That's their old loan (which they still haven't paid off), they're basically saying they can't sell the assets they put up as collateral to Natwest up as collateral for Coutts as well. Basically between the two, they've put up everything.
 
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