David Whatley No Longer CEO of Simutronics

[horibu]

Surprised someone hasn't posted about this yet over here. But for those that don't frequent discord, I give you this announcement and posts from Wyrom(Gemstone4) and Lyneya(DragonRealms):


[10:19 AM]Wyrom: The Simutronics team in St. Louis has become somewhat smaller. We are sad to see some of our our friends and family leave, but we want you to know that the same key team is still in place. DragonRealms, GemStone IV, and their communities will have the full support of Simutronics and Stillfront Group, and we will continue to develop and maintain the games with our full focus.

Wyrom's TL;DR Summary:

[6:53 PM]Wyrom: Placing all the recent information that was announced here in a single forum post.

The Simutronics team in St. Louis has become somewhat smaller. We are sad to see some of our our friends and family leave, but we want you to know that the same key team is still in place. DragonRealms, GemStone IV, and their communities will have the full support of Simutronics and Stillfront Group, and we will continue to develop and maintain the games with our full focus.

Chris "Skippy" Moore will be taking over as CEO of Simutronics. Skippy has been with Simutronics for over 20 years and was the COO over the company. He is very in touch with DragonRealms and GemStone IV and even started as a DR GM. He has been my direct leadership and we work very well together.

I want to reiterate that both DragonRealms and GemStone IV are the focus of the company and all of the Simutronics staff are committed to that. I know the general thought it that for years, Simutronics put all their efforts into other projects, and while other projects did take the spotlight, we're now the priority.

For us over here, you'll still have Chris in billing and myself working on the game. Chris does get split with DR and works directly with Lyneya, their Product Manager. For the time being, we're working on the transition, so I just ask for everyone's patience as we adjust to these changes. This news comes after Creating Adventure, and I did not know about any of this until this week, but we are still dedicated to everything we stated in that announcement as well. Our GameMasters are still here to continue to work on the game. I might be more behind the scenes, but I am still working around the clock to make sure we continue to have growth.

Lyneya's TL;DR Summary:

[12:53 PM]Lyneya: The studio is just IFE-focused now. From the meetings I've had with the SVPs of Stillfront this week, their intent is to give us the focus and support we need to continue being as successful as we have been. The changes were related to development of other games, and the losses were mainly people who did not work with our department at all.

As far as immediate impact - Well, there's going to be a transition period of course. The office in St Louis is very large, and with fewer people needing to be on site there's no need for that amount of space. So I imagine that'll be a thing in the coming months. There's a lot of detangling to do, contracts to end and services to cancel. Additionally, as the engineers we do have left turn their attention more specifically to us, they're going to need some time to research some of the older pieces of our engine. You all may remember that our dedicated engineer retired last year, and his position had not been filled yet.

As far as longterm impact, we can expect that in time we'll have a bit more help and support with some of our legacy issues with the IFEs. As far as other/future projects, at this time we're going to be entirely focused on our existing and successful games. If the studio does take on another project down the road, it will be after the dust has settled, things have sorted out, and we have a handle on what the best foot forward is as a team. If and when we do take on a new project, it will not impact this focus on the IFE games.

[1:06 PM]Lyneya: It's always stressful to know so many people are out of work. There's a bit of survivor's guilt, I'm sure you can understand. But there's also some optimism - Stillfront is invested in me, my team, our game. They were very good about making sure that I (and Mario over in GS) know that what we've been doing is great and awesome and that they want to give us the tools to continue doing it for a long time to come.

Budget/Expansion:

[1:18 PM]Lyneya: It would be premature to make changes to the budget while we're working through a transition period. For the company, this is a big change. For our department, it isn't. We'll have to wait and see what things look like as the dust settles.

[1:24 PM]Maintain: Interesting. Does that mean there's a full-time on-site programmer for IFE now/coming?
[1:28 PM]Lyneya: We have a full-time on-site computer engineer for the maintenance of the engines. We also have a full-time on-site IT guy for compliance, network, etc. We have me. We have Mario. We have Chris. We have a 2D artist for promos and marketing. We have a new CEO (who has been with the company for more than 20 years).

That's what we have today. What comes in the future is not known yet, transition time, yadda yadda, see above comments.

CEO Announced:

[1:31 PM]Lyneya: Skippy is taking the helm for us. Some of you may be aware that he started out as a DR GM in the ‘90s.

Galahad 3093 Info & Layoff Numbers:

[2:21 PM]Vanzok: This a big RIP Galahad, yeah?
[2:23 PM]Lyneya: I mean. It’s there on steam but yeah … no more dev for it.
[2:26 PM]Lyneya: Yeah. My stress right now is surrounding the people I’ve been working with for years who are looking for work today.
[2:28 PM]Lyneya: These changes are good for our IFE games. I’m in a better place professionally than I was last week, and last week my position was already very strong. But I feel crappy for the 30 people who aren’t in that spot.

[Alorn15]

Sad for those who were laid off... but this seems good for GSIV.

[horibu]

FYI, Chris in billing is safe. Long live Chris!

[Tgo01]

All those fire extinguisher inspections finally caught up with them.

[Taernath]

[2:21 PM]Vanzok: This a big RIP Galahad, yeah?
[2:23 PM]Lyneya: I mean. It’s there on steam but yeah … no more dev for it.

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oo

[Ramrod]

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oo

I can't believe they had 30 devs working years on a mech shooter. We coulda had Hero's Journey.

[Rjex]

So they finally trimmed the dead weight of galahad and other bullshit, something they should've done long ago. Sounds somewhat encouraging overall.

[Taernath]

Last week their CM said they were working toward full launch, but supposedly they were only hitting 40 concurrent players on Steam. I wonder if they'll push out what they have and call it the full release, or just let it languish like Dragons of Elanthia did.

[Tgo01]

I kind of feel bad for Whately, well as bad as you can feel for a millionaire.

All these years he has kept pumping out these games thinking they were going to be the next big thing, and yet the only reason I have heard of ANY of these games is because people on GS talk about them.

No one knows the Simutronics brand outside of people who play GS and DR.

[Tgo01]

Last week their CM said they were working toward full launch, but supposedly they were only hitting 40 concurrent players on Steam. I wonder if they'll push out what they have and call it the full release, or just let it languish like Dragons of Elanthia did.

Wait the game hasn't even been released yet? I thought the game was released and it just did poorly.

When are they going to realize you can't just keep promising features forever and expect people to stay excited about it when you're not delivering anything? That only works for their text based games.

[horibu]

It was released September 1, 2022. That said, it’s numbers are bad, real bad. Here’s a chart I grabbed from a steam stats site.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230114/048efea7a03a42cbfe73d6d3a8b5bfea.jpg

[Taernath]

Wait the game hasn't even been released yet? I thought the game was released and it just did poorly.

When are they going to realize you can't just keep promising features forever and expect people to stay excited about it when you're not delivering anything? That only works for their text based games.

According to the store page it's still in early access. At some point last year they decided to go f2p, and I imagine when they saw those low double digit numbers there was a come to Jesus moment in upper management.

[horibu]

Also, if you do some searching for Galahad 3093 you’ll see that unfortunately it looks like Whatley was definitively taking it down dead end path.

https://medium.com/@blad3mast3r1337/galahad-3093s-rocky-road-39838b5d0563

[horibu]

The one thing I feel bad for right now is the 30 staff that lost their job due to how the company and game was directed by leadership. Devs can only do so much if the captain is steering it in the wrong direction. Just sucks they lost their job for it.

[Taernath]

Also, if you do some searching for Galahad 3093 you’ll see that unfortunately it looks like Whatley was definitively taking it down dead end path.

https://medium.com/@blad3mast3r1337/galahad-3093s-rocky-road-39838b5d0563

There should be a Victims of Simutronics support group.

https://i.imgur.com/6XtNQq9.jpg

Pretend Cyberstrike is on there or something too

[Viekn]

Also, if you do some searching for Galahad 3093 you’ll see that unfortunately it looks like Whatley was definitively taking it down dead end path.

https://medium.com/@blad3mast3r1337/galahad-3093s-rocky-road-39838b5d0563

This bit from Whatley replying to some questions/criticism is cringey...

Look guys
This is what I'm building
It's cool and it's fun
You haven't even played with it

[horibu]

There should be a Victims of Simutronics support group.

Pretend Cyberstrike is on there or something too

Galahad 3093 is essentially Cyberstrike 3. So it’s on there [emoji1787]

[Tgo01]

Did they say WHY Whatley stepped down as CEO? Or was it not voluntary because he kept pushing one failure after another?

[BLZrizz]

I did a back of napkin calculation awhile back and figured that GS4 takes in around 50-70x revenue per user than the best AAA MMO. Sounds like they finally realized that they had the golden geese all along and neglecting them was not the best strategy.

[Tgo01]

Sounds like they finally realized that they had the golden geese all along and neglecting them was not the best strategy.

But let's be honest: what are they really going to change?

Maybe upgrade the server, change up the website a bit, do a few promotions, but the game itself will probably remain largely unchanged, other than the usual speed of which the GMs make changes to the game. Stillfront is just now going to pocket most of the money it makes from GS instead of "reinvesting" the money into other failed Simutronics projects.

[BLZrizz]

Don’t really need much. Kick a bit more money to the GMs to retain and keep ‘em happier. A new post cap hunting area every year. Put resources behind finishing ascension. And finally spending just a small amount on marketing to increase the player base. Still leaves plenty of room for profit there.

[Taernath]

Did they say WHY Whatley stepped down as CEO? Or was it not voluntary because he kept pushing one failure after another?

They are almost certainly related. Stillfront has not been having a great couple of years (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SF.ST/chart?p=SF.ST#eyJpbnRlcnZhbCI6IndlZWsiLCJwZXJpb2Rp Y2l0eSI6MSwidGltZVVuaXQiOm51bGwsImNhbmRsZVdpZHRoIj oxMC45MTM0NjE1Mzg0NjE1MzgsImZsaXBwZWQiOmZhbHNlLCJ2 b2x1bWVVbmRlcmxheSI6dHJ1ZSwiYWRqIjp0cnVlLCJjcm9zc2 hhaXIiOnRydWUsImNoYXJ0VHlwZSI6ImxpbmUiLCJleHRlbmRl ZCI6ZmFsc2UsIm1hcmtldFNlc3Npb25zIjp7fSwiYWdncmVnYX Rpb25UeXBlIjoib2hsYyIsImNoYXJ0U2NhbGUiOiJsaW5lYXIi LCJwYW5lbHMiOnsiY2hhcnQiOnsicGVyY2VudCI6MSwiZGlzcG xheSI6IlNGLlNUIiwiY2hhcnROYW1lIjoiY2hhcnQiLCJpbmRl eCI6MCwieUF4aXMiOnsibmFtZSI6ImNoYXJ0IiwicG9zaXRpb2 4iOm51bGx9LCJ5YXhpc0xIUyI6W10sInlheGlzUkhTIjpbImNo YXJ0Iiwi4oCMdm9sIHVuZHLigIwiXX19LCJzZXRTcGFuIjp7Im 11bHRpcGxpZXIiOjIsImJhc2UiOiJ5ZWFyIiwicGVyaW9kaWNp dHkiOnsicGVyaW9kIjoxLCJpbnRlcnZhbCI6IndlZWsifX0sIm xpbmVXaWR0aCI6Miwic3RyaXBlZEJhY2tncm91bmQiOnRydWUs ImV2ZW50cyI6dHJ1ZSwiY29sb3IiOiIjMDA4MWYyIiwic3RyaX BlZEJhY2tncm91ZCI6dHJ1ZSwiZXZlbnRNYXAiOnsiY29ycG9y YXRlIjp7ImRpdnMiOnRydWUsInNwbGl0cyI6dHJ1ZX0sInNpZ0 RldiI6e319LCJjdXN0b21SYW5nZSI6bnVsbCwic3ltYm9scyI6 W3sic3ltYm9sIjoiU0YuU1QiLCJzeW1ib2xPYmplY3QiOnsic3 ltYm9sIjoiU0YuU1QiLCJxdW90ZVR5cGUiOiJFUVVJVFkiLCJl eGNoYW5nZVRpbWVab25lIjoiRXVyb3BlL1N0b2NraG9sbSJ9LC JwZXJpb2RpY2l0eSI6MSwiaW50ZXJ2YWwiOiJ3ZWVrIiwidGlt ZVVuaXQiOm51bGwsInNldFNwYW4iOnsibXVsdGlwbGllciI6Mi wiYmFzZSI6InllYXIiLCJwZXJpb2RpY2l0eSI6eyJwZXJpb2Qi OjEsImludGVydmFsIjoid2VlayJ9fX1dLCJzdHVkaWVzIjp7Iu KAjHZvbCB1bmRy4oCMIjp7InR5cGUiOiJ2b2wgdW5kciIsImlu cHV0cyI6eyJpZCI6IuKAjHZvbCB1bmRy4oCMIiwiZGlzcGxheS I6IuKAjHZvbCB1bmRy4oCMIn0sIm91dHB1dHMiOnsiVXAgVm9s dW1lIjoiIzAwYjA2MSIsIkRvd24gVm9sdW1lIjoiI2ZmMzMzYS J9LCJwYW5lbCI6ImNoYXJ0IiwicGFyYW1ldGVycyI6eyJ3aWR0 aEZhY3RvciI6MC40NSwiY2hhcnROYW1lIjoiY2hhcnQiLCJwYW 5lbE5hbWUiOiJjaGFydCJ9fX19).

[Dud]

They’ll keep GSIV around as long as it has a decent ROI. I’d be surprised if there is any significant investment. They are still carrying too much debt - i am more surprised it took this long to gut Simutronics.

[Archigeek]

To be honest, I was surprised Watley stuck around that long. I expected him to move on to other things as soon as his contract allowed.

[Methais]

I kind of feel bad for Whately, well as bad as you can feel for a millionaire.

All these years he has kept pumping out these games thinking they were going to be the next big thing, and yet the only reason I have heard of ANY of these games is because people on GS talk about them.

No one knows the Simutronics brand outside of people who play GS and DR.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/L4TYWQn8rALRu/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952kpcqzjofcddzsenkmmek1vinrrwia bzpawzsoszh&rid=200w.gif&ct=g

[Methais]

It was released September 1, 2022. That said, it’s numbers are bad, real bad. Here’s a chart I grabbed from a steam stats site.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230114/048efea7a03a42cbfe73d6d3a8b5bfea.jpg

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that they did zero marketing as well.

[drumpel]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that they did zero marketing as well.

That method works well for GSIV, too.

[Methais]

But let's be honest: what are they really going to change?

Maybe upgrade the server, change up the website a bit, do a few promotions, but the game itself will probably remain largely unchanged, other than the usual speed of which the GMs make changes to the game. Stillfront is just now going to pocket most of the money it makes from GS instead of "reinvesting" the money into other failed Simutronics projects.

Maybe a miracle will happen and Stillfront will be like "I wonder what having even just 1 full time dev could accomplish for this game..."





https://media.giphy.com/media/p0RDMJGgMXF96/giphy.gif

[Tolwynn]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that they did zero marketing as well.

I actually saw advertising for Galahad through multiple channels - YouTube video ads and standard banner-type ads on various MMO sites.

What does it say then when your game pulls a concurrent playerbase on par with Modus Operandi after that?

[Tgo01]

I was bored so decided to Google "Simutronics" to see what would come up. Their official Facebook page popped up and I learned a couple of interesting things.

They have been making a lot more games than I even realized. They helped create "Lara Croft: Relic Run" back in 2015. The game apparently is a free mobile game but I have no idea how well it did. It apparently got decent reviews.

But they also created "SIEGE: TITAN WARS" which was another mobile game. I couldn't find much information about it but it apparently lasted around 2 years before Simutronics apparently abruptly just closed all of the servers down.

I did find this post on Reddit though regarding the game:


Even though people have spent so much money on this. I feel like this should be illegal!!! I want my money back. The 1000 I spent the first year this was released!! Give us our money back if you all shut down!!

I also found this posted to the game's Facebook page back in 2020, when the servers were shut down:


The new game you guys came up with is garbage, and will fail faster than this one did, and this was an awesome game. Learn to price structure, come up with new stuff, not just cards. Then, advertise it.
I haven’t seen a single ad for this game.

I'm assuming they are referring to GALAHAD, and hey! They were right! Titan Wars lasted about 2 years and GALAHAD lasted about 2 months once it left early access. At this rate their next game will last about 2 days.

I would love to see just how much money Simutronics has pissed away on all of these failed games. Or heck, maybe we got it all wrong and these were some block buster games...that we never heard of...

I still love how Simutronics manages to convince GMs that paying a coder would be bad for them. "We can't hire a full time coder for this game! That would be fair to all of the GMs who mostly work for free! Instead we are going to hire about 30 people and pay them full time salaries to work on one failed game after another!"

[Tgo01]

They apparently also made "SIEGE: World War II" which was released about a year before they closed down the servers for "SIEGE: TITAN WARS." Maybe this is what people are referring to online about how Simutronics screwed them over when they shut down the Titan Wars servers; maybe Simutronics had already devoted most of their resources to their new SIEGE game and was just milking Titan Wars players for as long as they could before they pulled the plug. Hmm...that sounds familiar...

Also it looks like "SIEGE: World War II" is still around and people are still playing it. No idea how well it is doing though.

[Methais]

They apparently also made "SIEGE: World War II" which was released about a year before they closed down the servers for "SIEGE: TITAN WARS." Maybe this is what people are referring to online about how Simutronics screwed them over when they shut down the Titan Wars servers; maybe Simutronics had already devoted most of their resources to their new SIEGE game and was just milking Titan Wars players for as long as they could before they pulled the plug. Hmm...that sounds familiar...

Also it looks like "SIEGE: World War II" is still around and people are still playing it. No idea how well it is doing though.

Dave Whatley is like Vince McMahon...for every 100 ideas he has, one will be pure genius, and the other 99 will be complete trash.

[Ramrod]

Dave Whatley is like Vince McMahon...for every 100 ideas he has, one will be pure genius, and the other 99 will be complete trash.

He basically had one good idea (Gemstone) that he developed with two other people using content licensed from ICE. DR was originally GS4 before being spun into its own game. Every other idea he's had has been total shit. I'm amazed Stillfront kept him around as long as they did.

Also, the reviews of working for Whatley are about what you'd expect:
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Simutronics-Corp./reviews?ftopic=mgmt

[Methais]

He basically had one good idea (Gemstone) that he developed with two other people using content licensed from ICE. DR was originally GS4 before being spun into its own game. Every other idea he's had has been total shit. I'm amazed Stillfront kept him around as long as they did.

Also, the reviews of working for Whatley are about what you'd expect:
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Simutronics-Corp./reviews?ftopic=mgmt

I wonder which GM this was:

https://i.imgur.com/euWfkVl.png

[Taernath]

I like the "ALAE member" who rated Simu 5 stars.

Dragons of Elanthia and Galahad actually had a tiny amount of buzz around them. They had booths at PAX and had a few articles written about them with modestly positive impressions. Then... nothing. I guess Whatley couldn't or wouldn't capitalize on it and they died in development.

I dl'ed Galahad this past weekend to see what their 'early access full release' looked like. There are 2-3 bots on each team of 10, and there are team mates and enemies with real seeming names that I suspect are really bots, too. This is past the tutorial, in matchmaking.

[Methais]

I like the "ALAE member" who rated Simu 5 stars.

I totally missed that but :rofl: at them thinking they work for Simutronics because they were ALAE.

I suspect whoever this person is lives on Discord 24/7 now.

[Taernath]

I totally missed that but :rofl: at them thinking they work for Simutronics because they were ALAE.

I suspect whoever this person is lives on Discord 24/7 now.

Pros: I can work as much or as little as I like.

Cons: I don't get paid.

Rating: 5 stars!

[Ramrod]

I wonder which GM this was:

https://i.imgur.com/euWfkVl.png

It was written in April, 2019. Know any GM's that left around that time frame?

Could also be a DR GM.

[Rinualdo]

GMs are not staff nor employees, other than Wyrom.

[Ramrod]

GMs are not staff nor employees, other than Wyrom.

Same with ALAE, but that didn't stop them from writing a review. :)

[Methais]

Same with ALAE, but that didn't stop them from writing a review. :)

I bet they tell their real life *friends who know nothing about GS that they work in "game design."

*Assuming they have any

[Ramrod]

I bet they tell their real life *friends who know nothing about GS that they work in "game design."

*Assuming they have any

I'm an architect at one of the oldest game studios around.

Knew a guy that was a waiter at Olive Garden and on his resume he put something like Sales Representative at Darden Restaurants, Inc.

[Methais]

I'm an architect at one of the oldest game studios around.

Knew a guy that was a waiter at Olive Garden and on his resume he put something like Sales Representative at Darden Restaurants, Inc.

Someone in GS was bragging on LNet one day about how they "work in education."

Turns out she was just the lunch lady at some school.

[Tgo01]

What is ALAE?

[Ramrod]

Someone in GS was bragging on LNet one day about how they "work in education."

Turns out she was just the lunch lady at some school.

ahahahaha.

Sure it wasn't Ariond? Probably where he meets his girlfriends.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Someone in GS was bragging on LNet one day about how they "work in education."

Turns out she was just the lunch lady at some school.

I mean... about everyone on this forum educates Seran on a daily basis. Do we all work in education now?

[Taernath]

What is ALAE?

Architectural and Landscaping Association of Elanthia

Players designed rooms, GMs tested/approved them. It was functionally dead a few years back, don't know if it's been restarted. There's a folder dedicated to it here.

[Tgo01]

Architectural and Landscaping Association of Elanthia

Players designed rooms, GMs tested/approved them. It was functionally dead a few years back, don't know if it's been restarted. There's a folder dedicated to it here.

The pay sounds great!

[gilchristr]

"Players designed rooms, GMs tested/approved them. It was functionally dead a few years back, don't know if it's been restarted. There's a folder dedicated to it here."

Two words: More waterslides.