Karma

[Senglent]

This just reinforces why I broke all ties with Simutronics.


Karma at it's best.

9255

And yes all the GM's visit and look at stuff here, they usually have choice words for most of the content amongst themselves.

This however I find very just, and satisfying after working for them.

Not sure why it poped into my head to take a look tonight, but it is amusing/gratifying to see what I see.

[Tgo01]

What am I looking at here?

[Stumplicker]

What am I looking at here?

Stillfront's stock price on the Swedish exchange.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SF.ST/

[Taernath]

What am I looking at here?

It appears to be a line going down.

Could this be the end for Simutronics?

[Stumplicker]

It appears to be a line going down.

Could this be the end for Simutronics?

They're still up 50+ points since 2017. The initial picture is drawn in a very "Dreaven citing Trump Approval Polls" way. It's just the bottom of a bump.

[Parkbandit]

Was Senglent a GM?

When I quit playing, I don't think I ever considered it "breaking all ties with Simutronics"

:shrug:

[Neveragain]

This just reinforces why I broke all ties with Simutronics.


Karma at it's best.

9255

And yes all the GM's visit and look at stuff here, they usually have choice words for most of the content amongst themselves.

This however I find very just, and satisfying after working for them.

Not sure why it poped into my head to take a look tonight, but it is amusing/gratifying to see what I see.

I have been watching the markets over the past couple of weeks, the gaming industry has been taking some severe hits. European countries have already started to ban pay2win models, another has sent a huge tax bill to the makers of candy crush, the state of Pennsylvania is trying to pass a 10% tax on MA rated game sales.....there's a lot of bad shit hitting the gaming industry right now.

P.S. The majority of the GM's are fucking terrible.

I'm not making any predictions here but I would not be surprised if GS is no longer around by this time next year.

[Gelston]

Yeah, I don't think GS really does much to effect the stock price of Stilfront.

[Astray]

I have been watching the markets over the past couple of weeks, the gaming industry has been taking some severe hits. European countries have already started to ban pay2win models, another has sent a huge tax bill to the makers of candy crush, the state of Pennsylvania is trying to pass a 10% tax on MA rated game sales.....there's a lot of bad shit hitting the gaming industry right now.

That's the video game industry fucking up hard enough to get the eye of the government on it. The stock price EA 'freakout' was recovered within 48 hours. Sales and activity regarding pay2win models has nothing to do with the European bans and more to do with 'protect the children'. Which also applies to Pennsylvania saying some really ignorant, dumb shit.

I hugely, highly doubt that anything regarding the mass of bullshit from the video game industry is applying directly to Gemstone or Stillfront or Simutronics. They simply aren't relevant enough to warrant actual reporting on.

[horibu]

9256
9257

They're not doing bad, but again they aren't doing great. They're doing ok. GS4/DR aren't going anywhere. It's one of their "CORE" products used to fund and have steady income. Doubt we'll see it go away. It's easy revenue for them.

https://www.stillfront.com/investor-relations/the-share/

[BLZrizz]

This reminded me to take a peek at the investor documents. Interesting data from the annual report: https://www.stillfront.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Stillfront-Annual-Report-2017.pdf
(page 61)

Simu 2016 Revenue: 14,274,000 SEK ($1,539,31)
Simu 2016 Profits: 116,000 SEK ($12,507)

Simu 2017 Revenue: 36,933,000 SEK ($3,982,131)
Simu 2017 Profits: 3,764,000 SEK ($405,844)

[subzero]

Hah, they don't even spell Simutronics right...

https://www.stillfront.com/tag/simOtronics/

[Seran]

This reminded me to take a peek at the investor documents. Interesting data from the annual report: https://www.stillfront.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Stillfront-Annual-Report-2017.pdf
(page 61)

Simu 2016 Revenue: 14,274,000 SEK ($1,539,31)
Simu 2016 Profits: 116,000 SEK ($12,507)

Simu 2017 Revenue: 36,933,000 SEK ($3,982,131)
Simu 2017 Profits: 3,764,000 SEK ($405,844)

How dare you post information that contradicts the implication of dire failings within Simutronics. Factual evidence has no place on these boards. /sarcasm

[AnOrdim]

That report is probably better for figuring out what Gemstone and DR pull in by themselves then it is to say how much DR/GS made during that time frame. Simutronics released that mobile game clone Seige:Titan wars. Mobile games bring in huge money, doubly so if they are getting the income from the China market.

Sadly, it also confirms that there really isn't any money to actually pay staff.

[Gelston]

Guys, GUYS! He cut all ties with simutronics okay? ALL TIES.

[AnOrdim]

You never cut full ties.
Until they cut them from their end.

[Fortybox]

Guys, GUYS! He cut all ties with simutronics okay? ALL TIES.

https://media.giphy.com/media/J5LkuDO1EDgre/giphy.gif

[Stumplicker]

Sadly, it also confirms that there really isn't any money to actually pay staff.

What it means is that they're dumping money into development heavily, just not into the properties actually bringing them income. Just like it was with Heroes Journey. Just like it was with Dragons of Elanthia. Just like it was with Tiny Heroes. There is plenty of profit margin in their income properties. Hell, Amazon only claims 3-4% profit margin, and in 2012-2014 that number was even lower. They just dump money back into development.

Gemstone and DR make huge profits, as shown when the Stillfront reports were breaking them out individually back in 2016. They just haven't put any money back into them since the 90s. We pay to develop other failed games because apparently we're more than happy with them just adding more slot machines to the successful games we play. It's a company with $4 million in revenue whose development staff for their flagship products work for the loose change between the couch cushions.

[Astray]

What it means is that they're dumping money into development heavily, just not into the properties actually bringing them income. Just like with Heroes Journey.

I have seen nothing of importance or substance from them in the mobile game department.

[Stumplicker]

I have seen nothing of importance or substance from them in the mobile game department.

Yep. They're good at making cancelled games. They've been dumping money into holes with various labels since the late 90s. Their only truly successful products are the ones they've been all but ignoring for the past 20 years, and we keep rewarding them for it.

[Astray]

No. They're good at making cancelled games. They've been dumping money into holes with various labels since the late 90s. Their only truly successful products are the ones they've been all but ignoring for the past 20 years, and we keep rewarding them for it.

The cancellation is just as important as the conception and again, I have seen nothing of importance or substance.

[Gelston]

How dare you talk shit about the high speed Dragons of Elanthia.

[Stumplicker]

The cancellation is just as important as the conception and again, I have seen nothing of importance or substance.

They spent the better part of the 2000s dumping money into Heroes Journey with a team of what I'm assuming are Midwestern farmers because there's no tech sector when you found your business on the prairie. They threw development behind Dragons of Elanthia in the late 2000s. That tanked. They spent a bit of development time making free to play and an ad push for GS/DR in 2014/2015, as well as Tiny Heroes, Lara Croft Relic Run, One Epic Knight, got acquired by Stillfront while probably on the verge of bankruptcy, and now this Siege: Titan Wars.

For a Midwestern tech firm that's been in dire financial straits due to bad decision making for several decades, that's a good amount of development. And who knows how many failed projects were in the works that we -didn't- hear about.

Edit to add: Also, something I didn't know til now, Whatley founded another company to produce other mobile games in 2009, claiming the same development team as Simutronics on their own site:

http://www.criticalthoughtgames.com/

[Gelston]

They spent the better part of the 2000s dumping money into Heroes Journey with a team of what I'm assuming are Midwestern farmers because there's no tech sector when you found your business on the prairie. They threw development behind Dragons of Elanthia in the late 2000s. That tanked. They spent a bit of development time making free to play and an ad push for GS/DR in 2014/2015, as well as Tiny Heroes, Lara Croft Relic Run, One Epic Knight, got acquired by Stillfront while probably on the verge of bankruptcy, and now this Siege: Titan Wars.

For a Midwestern tech firm that's been in dire financial straits due to bad decision making for several decades, that's a good amount of development. And who knows how many failed projects were in the works that we -didn't- hear about.

No, I heard they made a pretty good amount of money on HeroEngine.

DoE didn't take much money, because they wanted to kickstarter it, and that failed so it just got shut down.

[Seran]

They were nowhere near bankruptcy. The licensing and eventual sale of Hero Engine brought them more than a decade worth of profits. That game literally had no overhead. A CEO salary, a pair of customer service reps and twenty year old machines to run a /text based game/. Their biggest expense past Whatley's salary was the electricity bill.

[Stumplicker]

No, I heard they made a pretty good amount of money on HeroEngine.

DoE didn't take much money, because they wanted to kickstarter it, and that failed so it just got shut down.

I'm sure they recouped some losses on the end result of the Hero Engine, but remember the one that actually turned into an engine was like, the fourth one. They started in 97-98 and scrapped the whole thing three times over a decade before finally selling off the end result because they couldn't finish the actual game. I don't think they made back a decade's development costs on it though. I think it just staved off bankruptcy for a while. I don't see why Stillfront would have needed to buy in if they were in a good financial position coming into the 2010s. Also, there'd be no reason to incorporate another company to make games with the same development team in 2009 if there wasn't trouble on the homefront.

[Gelston]

I'm sure they recouped some losses on the end result of the Hero Engine, but remember the one that actually turned into an engine was like, the fourth one. They started in 97-98 and scrapped the whole thing three times over a decade before finally selling off the end result because they couldn't finish the actual game. I don't think they made back a decade's development costs on it though. I think it just staved off bankruptcy for a while. I don't see why Stillfront would have needed to buy in if they were in a good financial position coming into the 2010s. Also, there'd be no reason to incorporate another company to make games with the same development team in 2009 if there wasn't trouble on the homefront.

I'm pretty certain you're thinking way wrong. They made millions on the HeroEngine.

Stillfront didn't buy all of Simutronics either, just a controlling share. And of course there were reasons to buy them. They wanted into the US market and now have US assets. Just because you can't see them doing anything doesn't mean they aren't.

[Stumplicker]

I'm pretty certain you're thinking way wrong. They made millions on the HeroEngine.

Stillfront didn't buy all of Simutronics either, just a controlling share. And of course there were reasons to buy them. They wanted into the US market and now have US assets. Just because you can't see them doing anything doesn't mean they aren't.

It's very possible. Everything we're doing is making guesses, from each standpoint. I definitely have not seen them as a company in a solid financial position though, and they're a development studio who sold off 10 years of development in the middle of a global recession and then a few years later were purchased. During that time they hadn't released a new commercially successful game in 20 years of active development.

Just, none of that screams success to me.

[Taernath]

No, I heard they made a pretty good amount of money on HeroEngine.

DoE didn't take much money, because they wanted to kickstarter it, and that failed so it just got shut down.

They had DoE already mostly finished at the point they set up the kickstarter, remember? The kickstarter was just about 'going global' or something ridiculous. That's several months or years of development money (to actual developers!) that they lost with nothing to show for. I suspect DoE hurt them more than people think.

[Stumplicker]

I really doubt that it was anywhere near completion. An established game development studio making a kickstarter reeks of "We only had enough money to make exactly enough resources for a development concept video". Studios release "almost finished" games all the time when they run out of money. They just do it on Steam as early access now. Look at The Guild 3 for a perfect recent example. The studio touted it as almost finished, early access'd a pre-alpha version to stay afloat, and was replaced by another, more competent studio within months.

I'm not positive when Steam started offering early access, but if DoE was so close to done, I'm betting it was soon enough after 2009 that they could've revisited it and gotten an influx of cash to finish development.

It was a global recession and I think Simutronics was out of money to develop at that point. I think that's why they jumped into the mobile game market. At the time it was a higher payout for less development time. Again I'm guessing here, but the only difference I see between Simutronics and all the studios that tried and failed to release Duke Nukem Forever in that same time period is that Simutronics had DR and Gemstone bailing out its sinking ship to keep their heads above water.

[Taernath]

I really doubt that it was anywhere near completion. An established game development studio making a kickstarter reeks of "We only had enough money to make exactly enough resources for a development concept video". Studios release "almost finished" games all the time when they run out of money. They just do it on Steam as early access now. Look at The Guild 3 for a perfect recent example. The studio touted it as almost finished, early access'd a pre-alpha version to stay afloat, and was replaced by another, more competent studio within months.

I'm not positive when Steam started offering early access, but if DoE was so close to done, I'm betting it was soon enough after 2009 that they could've revisited it and gotten an influx of cash to finish development.

It was a global recession and I think Simutronics was out of money to develop at that point. I think that's why they jumped into the mobile game market. At the time it was a higher payout for less development time. Again I'm guessing here, but the only difference I see between Simutronics and all the studios that tried and failed to release Duke Nukem Forever in that same time period is that Simutronics had DR and Gemstone bailing out its sinking ship to keep their heads above water.

They had a mostly feature-complete alpha demo that people -seemed- to enjoy, released in '13. I think they just vastly overestimated the interest, and when they only made 10% of their kickstarter goal it kind of scared them because they know how much had already been sunk in the project.

Here's their kickstarter video, always worth a watch:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6BZRvp9ATU

[Gelston]

They had DoE already mostly finished at the point they set up the kickstarter, remember? The kickstarter was just about 'going global' or something ridiculous. That's several months or years of development money (to actual developers!) that they lost with nothing to show for. I suspect DoE hurt them more than people think.

DoE was no where near finished.

The problem with DoE is it looked like a game from 2003 and not 2013.

[Tgo01]

Dragons of Elanthia sure looked like it was almost finished. I remember Whately did a stream on Twitch where he played with a few other people and it looked like a finished, playable game. Maybe there were some bugs to work out and some features to add but it easily could have been an early development on Steam these days. They even said the game was in alpha and invited everyone who signs up to test the game.

Here is their Kickstarter and why they say they need more money:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simutronics/dragons-of-elanthia/description


We think this game is special, and we want to keep it that way. And Kickstarter is the best way for us to do that. Not only do we avoid the headaches of working with a publisher who might not share our vision, but we get to reach out directly to all of you fine folks. And of course bringing you guys along with us on the journey is a nice bonus.

We've already produced tons of content, and spent a lot of time refining our gameplay, but we need your help to finish the game. And because we respect your time and money, all the money we collect goes directly into our ongoing development. The more we get, the more we can add:

More support for major platforms
More international infrastructure
More maps
More dragons
More riders
More skins

I'm not saying there is no development involved in making maps, dragons, riders, or skins, but once they already have the basics down and have created several of these already it's not really the same as starting from complete scratch.

Sounds like the main reasons they wanted to start a Kickstarter was because they didn't want to go through a publisher who would take some of the profi...I mean who wouldn't share their same vision! Also because they apparently had grand visions of porting this game to Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, and probably even mobile, and also they apparently thought the game was going to be so popular that they would have to create servers all over the world like this was the original launch of WoW or something.

They probably saw that very few people even cared about this game and the fact that their Kickstarter and that the game was supposed to be free2play so they couldn't even gouge people by charging them 50 bucks up front so they probably thought the game was a flop and decided not to waste anymore time or money on it.

[Gelston]

Dragons of Elanthia sure looked like it was almost finished. I remember Whately did a stream on Twitch where he played with a few other people and it looked like a finished, playable game. Maybe there were some bugs to work out and some features to add but it easily could have been an early development on Steam these days. They even said the game was in alpha and invited everyone who signs up to test the game.

Here is their Kickstarter and why they say they need more money:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simutronics/dragons-of-elanthia/description



I'm not saying there is no development involved in making maps, dragons, riders, or skins, but once they already have the basics down and have created several of these already it's not really the same as starting from complete scratch.

Sounds like the main reasons they wanted to start a Kickstarter was because they didn't want to go through a publisher who would take some of the profi...I mean who wouldn't share their same vision! Also because they apparently had grand visions of porting this game to Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, and probably even mobile, and also they apparently thought the game was going to be so popular that they would have to create servers all over the world like this was the original launch of WoW or something.

They probably saw that very few people even cared about this game and the fact that their Kickstarter and that the game was supposed to be free2play so they couldn't even gouge people by charging them 50 bucks up front so they probably thought the game was a flop and decided not to waste anymore time or money on it.

I played it. It didn't feel finished in any way to me, from the physics, to the graphics, even the controls were fucked up. He might have said all that stuff, but that shit was just trying to raise money and you shouldn't believe any of it. They only had like, one map.

[Tgo01]

Here's the video on YouTube for the game:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6BZRvp9ATU

Starting around the 4:37 mark Whately explains the game is "really far along" and the game is "beautiful and playable" so they get the question "why Kickstarter?" and he explains that they want to "scale it out" to "get as many players as possible", they have to "scale it worldwide", and that all takes a lot of infrastructure. So his answers sound like what I said in my last post: they had high hopes this game was going to be so popular they really thought they were going to port it to Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, Mobile, etc before they even released it on PC to see how well it was received and they wanted to dive to a worldwide market before even seeing how well it did in a US wide market.

Oh also he gave the gloom and doom speech about going through a publisher in his answer too, a publisher might want to make this game a sequel to another game (LOL!) so by going straight to fans for money instead of a publisher they can keep the game "pure."

Maybe they should have went with a publisher because they could have helped with some actual graphics or something because for a 2013 game those graphics and animations were pretty sad.

[Tgo01]

I played it. It didn't feel finished in any way to me, from the physics, to the graphics, even the controls were fucked up. He might have said all that stuff, but that shit was just trying to raise money and you shouldn't believe any of it. They only had like, one map.

Other than the graphics that's all relatively minor tweaking stuff in comparison. If they were planning on upgrading the graphics then that would have cost a pretty penny but were they really planning on upgrading the graphics? I was under the impression they were going with those graphics.

[Gelston]

Other than the graphics that's all relatively minor tweaking stuff in comparison. If they were planning on upgrading the graphics then that would have cost a pretty penny but were they really planning on upgrading the graphics? I was under the impression they were going with those graphics.

Building maps isn't minor tweaking. The collision detection was shit too.

There was also no skills, nothing carried over, no ranking up, any of that. It was just here is a map, go fly around and kill each other. It'd be fun for a second, but nothing to hook you. You didn't progress. None of that.

Like I said, they had a looooot of work to do.

[Taernath]

Building maps isn't minor tweaking. The collision detection was shit too.

There was also no skills, nothing carried over, no ranking up, any of that. It was just here is a map, go fly around and kill each other. It'd be fun for a second, but nothing to hook you. You didn't progress. None of that.

Like I said, they had a looooot of work to do.

Maps are comparatively easy to add vs. core mechanics.

Did they ever promise a progression system? I don't remember that.

[Tgo01]

Building maps isn't minor tweaking. The collision detection was shit too.

There was also no skills, nothing carried over, no ranking up, any of that. It was just here is a map, go fly around and kill each other. It'd be fun for a second, but nothing to hook you. You didn't progress. None of that.

Like I said, they had a looooot of work to do.

Looks like they're using skills in the video. Are you saying Whately put out a deceptive video and then lied about why they needed money?! My Whately would never do that!

[Tgo01]

Did they ever promise a progression system? I don't remember that.

I don't see anything about a ranking system, sounded more like it was going to be like Team Fortress 2, you just join a random match and start playing.

They did say your dragon and rider would level up though.

[Taernath]

I don't see anything about a ranking system, sounded more like it was going to be like Team Fortress 2, you just join a random match and start playing.

They did say your dragon and rider would level up though.

If you're leveling up you're probably also earning skill points or something, so that would be a progression system. Just because it wasn't in the alpha doesn't mean it wasn't there, though. It might just not have been turned on.

[Tgo01]

If you're leveling up you're probably also earning skill points or something, so that would be a progression system. Just because it wasn't in the alpha doesn't mean it wasn't there, though. It might just not have been turned on.

Yeah the idea might have been if you're level 100 or whatever you would get teamed up against other people around that level, but I don't think it had a player skill ranking system like Overwatch or LoL.

[Stumplicker]

Whatever the case, the end result is more money dumped into a hole. They just haven't made successful decisions since the early 1990s.

I mean, yeah I guess it's possible that behind the scenes they've been making successful business decisions, but based on the many failures we can point at as examples and our own experiences in dealing with them, I really doubt it's the case. They've continuously neglected their primary, potentially only source of income in favor of failed project after failed project. For 30 years.

[Taernath]

Whatever the case, the end result is more money dumped into a hole. They just haven't made successful decisions since the early 1990s.

I mean, yeah I guess it's possible that behind the scenes they've been making successful business decisions, but based on the many failures we can point at as examples and our own experiences in dealing with them, I really doubt it's the case. They've continuously neglected their primary, potentially only source of income in favor of failed project after failed project. For 30 years.

They haven't had too many failures, at least that I know of. DoE was certainly one. Hero Engine could have been, but they were able to leverage it for a fair amount of money in the end and started their mobile division which more than likely does okay. GS/DR of course are fueled by people with a unique combination of nostalgia and disposable income.

[Gelston]

DoE is the only failure I know of, and they have a lot of shit they've done that you just don't hear about unless you're really, really looking. Heroes Journey failed, but then again, you could wrap that up into them testing out HeroEngine. HeroEngine was a big enough success for them to not worry about jack.

[Stumplicker]

HeroEngine was a big enough success for them to not worry about jack.

Was it though? I've never seen any information saying that it was a financial success. I'm sure it sold when it sold in the millions, but when you consider a development team over a decade, that doesn't necessarily translate into millions in profit (or really, any profit). It was purchased by Idea Fabrik in the middle of a steep economic downturn and they hired the team that made it from Simutronics. Losing a chunk of your staff and selling off the thing you've been working on for your own purposes for a decade doesn't really scream success to me. Was there some released info that I just missed about it?

[Gelston]

Was it though? I've never seen any information saying that it was a financial success. I'm sure it sold when it sold in the millions, but when you consider a development team over a decade, that doesn't necessarily translate into millions in profit (or really, any profit). It was purchased by Idea Fabrik in the middle of a steep economic downturn and they hired the team that made it from Simutronics. Losing a chunk of your staff and selling off the thing you've been working on for your own purposes for a decade doesn't really scream success to me. Was there some released info that I just missed about it?

Dude, the company wasn't hurting. 8 dont know what to tell you. Whatley probably got tired of running it so he found a buyer and wild the majority stake.