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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 4 post(s) |
Florestan Bronstein
The Waterworks
112
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Posted - 2011.10.19 16:05:00 -
[1] - Quote
/tinfoilhat
I have the awful feeling that the main rationale for not putting WoD completely on ice might very well be to avoid depreciating the WoD-related code assets too fast.
When so much of your assets are just frozen man-hours (which hopefully exist in the form of code, art, ...) having to give up on a large project could result in some pretty devastating corrections to equity. |
Florestan Bronstein
The Waterworks
112
|
Posted - 2011.10.19 17:25:00 -
[2] - Quote
Shamefuldirty wrote:Sorry that people are losing jobs. I have been there and especially in this climate it will be hard to get employed. Ever so sorry.
Why CCP are reducing their Atlanta team (White Wolf is in Atlanta! No surprise there) and basically slowing production of WoD MMO, (CCP are good at MMO's) in favour of a PS3 only FPS (CCP have no experience in FPS's at all) is beyond me. Call me Mr Picky. This type of decision making seems bizare to me. As does the statement that to "concentrate better on Eve, we're gonna fire some staff" seems strange.
You realize that as a company you are spread thin. You either need to cut back on the number of projects or you need more money.
CCP had already raised extra equity in 2009 - probably to finance WoD & DUST.
Back then one investment fund bought basically all newly issued shares - all other significant investors did allow for their share of CCP to be diluted.
CCP's largest investor has been bankrupt ever since the financial crisis and had to pledge to use all dividends or proceeds from his CCP shares to repay his debts. So the guy who owns 30% of CCP is effectively controlled by a consortium of very conservative banks.
So now it is Summer 2011, about 1.5 years since the last batch of money from the 2009 equity sale has come in, and the CCP management asks for more.
It's a difficult situation - the economic prospects still look uncertain, the EVE subscriber-base is in turmoil, WoD is stuck in preproduction, ...
2010 profit was 5.4 - 5.5m of that 1.7m were an income tax refund (no taxable income in 2010) and 16.9m are due to capitalized salaries (55% of total salaries were capitalized).
Now you can either go in balls-deep, buy additional CCP shares and hope that you are not throwing good money after bad money.
Or you say "work with what you have" and accept that a large part of the capitalized salaries/R&D of the last years might become worthless.
You can safely assume that this was no easy decision for CCP's shareholders - but they decided to go with the more conservative option. |
Florestan Bronstein
The Waterworks
112
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Posted - 2011.10.19 19:40:00 -
[3] - Quote
Renan Ruivo wrote:
Last thing CCP needs right now is for the CEO to step down. If he does, CCP stock will plummet, and the company will die. Regardless if Jesus Christ himself fills the position of new CEO.
CCP stock is not publicly traded. |
Florestan Bronstein
The Waterworks
117
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Posted - 2011.10.20 07:33:00 -
[4] - Quote
Anyone who thinks the main function of a community team is to communicate with the players is an idiot.
The main function of a community team is to provide management with actionable information on the state of the community, forecasts about the development of trends within the community, ...
They are the only ones that can provide an educated answer to questions such as
"Will these protests go away or will people really leave the game?" or
"Will a statement of Zulu or Hilmar help to calm people down or will it just make the protests look like a bigger thing than they really are?"
By the time the accounting department reports a loss of subs the damage is already done. |
Florestan Bronstein
The Waterworks
118
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Posted - 2011.10.20 09:30:00 -
[5] - Quote
Shamefuldirty wrote:I'm sorry but the idea that a CCP will concentrate on dust 514 and exclude WoD MMO sounds so strange. CCP have experience with MMO's and a lot of people have played WoD. As many people have said before, Dust is a PS3 only game! It's going to go down the pan within months! Console gamers don't do the long term thing. They simply don't. You should of made it pc only if anything. YOUR GOING TO BANKRUPT YOURSELVES CCP! DO YOU HEAR ME? Seriously, it's the worst business decision on the face of the planet.
DUST is probably way past the point of no return. WoD is still in preproduction.
Why would you scrap a game that is almost ready to go into beta-testing in favor of a game that only exists on whiteboards?
DUST would have to fail spectacularly to bring in less than the remaining 6-8 months of development are going to cost.
If you want to kill off DUST you probably have to set your time machine to 2008/2009. |
Florestan Bronstein
The Waterworks
123
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Posted - 2011.10.22 15:01:00 -
[6] - Quote
reposting my comment from the "fire Hilmar naow" thread:
The Method Man wrote:How is that an answer? Guys I messed up and TWENTY PERCENT OF MY COMPANY HAD TO GO but I want to clean up my own mess. Seriously?
Guys I messed up and TWENTY PERCENT OF MY COMPANY HAD TO GO but don't worry, here is some ex-Cryptic/Sony/Turbine/... manager to replace me.
I am sure you would be delighted with that answer.
We have no idea how much of that layoff is really due to failure by CCP's executives and how much is due to external circumstances changing. All we know is that the shareholders are still happy enough with Hilmar to keep him as CEO.
Why don't you blame the investors/shareholders for being unwilling to inject additional cash to fund WoD development?
(if you threaten to fire a CEO every time he has to lay off people, you won't see any hiring sprees either -
keep in mind that during 2010 CCP's employee count increased by 155 heads (which is a crazy +38%);
if laying people off is unacceptable, you will either have to settle for much less dynamic growth or you have to increase out-sourcing/contracting during good times) |
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