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Chronicles of Elyria: Indie Developer Soulbound Studios closes shop, fails to deliver after $8 millions USD in crowdfunding

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60 comments, last by Baldouine 4 years, 1 month ago

dpadam450 said:

No one can answer when will the game finally launch?

Well, a quick google shows that Star Citizen is owned by a game designer and a film/game executive. Any companies not owned by software engineers seem to have issues. Remember Curt Shilling (baseball player) and his company 38 studios. You need disciplined people that understand software. Games are software.

Not wrong, I think you do need someone that has intimate understanding of software engineering, but they also need to be strong leaders and people's manager to effectively have a team going.

In the case in point here, clearly Jeromy Walsh's background was rather technical w/ some designer skillset (D&D experience?) but that didn't prevent them to hit a hard wall and fail producing anything.

With that in mind, I think some management skills are more important than technical ones as a leader, no matter the industry… althought that may be truer for larger/more complex businesses than indie/startups where your top guy necessarily need to wear a couple different hats concurrently in order to be efficient.

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You would think being a non profit company the accounting would be more transparent. Apparently his net worth keeps increasing by millions per year. The game is becoming more pay to win, which was a feature of what it wouldn't be. The idea everyone is at a level starting point. It sounds like its become another pay to win game.

If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.

Launcher111 said:

You would think being a non profit company the accounting would be more transparent. Apparently his net worth keeps increasing by millions per year. The game is becoming more pay to win, which was a feature of what it wouldn't be. The idea everyone is at a level starting point. It sounds like its become another pay to win game.

What company are we talking about? CIG or SBS?

@HolyAvengerOne Except Chris Roberts is also also a software engineer. he did made the SC physical grid which is so specific to SC. And eventually delivered several games in the past, all good not counting his brother Erin in games industry since two decades, also successful.

@Launcher111 The goal as NEVER been to make an EVE clone. IT was even stated by CR himself. What surprise always me is how some are surprised that features and content change when the whole project evolved from an enhance copy of Wing Commanders to 2 ambitious triple-A. So ambitious that even SC Alpha have more unique features packed together than any released games from multi-billionaire Publishers.

It is not most expensive game by far. When Publishers do deliver a game for 50 or 60M$ (+ 100M$ marketing) they spent over past decades hundreds millions $ to build their company, hire thousands and create up-to-date pipelines… Still they are now just copy/paste their own game, including “remastered” version.

Chris roberts and star citizen, his net worth went from 100k-1 million in 2018, in 2019 it went from 1 million-5 million. The 2020 numbers will show if he is taking a large amount for himself. He is charging people to play a game, who donated to build the game… I'm unable to come up with any words or phrases that are appropriate in public to describe this. They are very negative words, and will leave it at that.

Elyria im sure under legal pressure will restart, and follow the star citizen path.

If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.

@Launcher111 You have no idea of CR income. None, zero. This is opinion made out of gambling numbers just to prove something nobody can prove. At the end, nothing but pure speculation.

Also he is charging nobody. This is crowdfunding and all pledges are used to develop 2 Triple-A. Nothing but a starter package at 45$ is needed. Should a person decide to support the game further, he can pledge more or become a subscriber. Again, nothing more than 45$ is required to get a starter package (hence the all SC game and all future patch) and nothing extra, not a single cent is required to play it… Except the electricity used to power on your PC. Chocking!

Baldouine said:
You have no idea of CR income. None, zero.

Let's keep the discussion civil, please.

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

WGS_Stillwater said:

bruh I could deliver for a fraction of that inside of 2-3 years max.

Here in my country I could do something for just 1% of that in 2-3 years too.

If you look at non profit laws… maybe thats creating issues, with understanding my point of view…

Non profits are only required by law to spend 10-11% on the charity, the rest can be used on other aspects (executive compensation, retreats to Hawaii, Vegas and the bahamas, fundraisers which are more like multi million dollar exclusive parties… private jet travel, basically money laundering operations used to enrich themselves and their families when used by the corrupt)

This project has enough money to buy 2 apache helicopters, 10 m1a1 abrams tanks, and 100 million dollars to toss around for mercenaries… they could take over small countries, particularly small island nations. This isnt a trivial amount of money.

In theory as long as they meet the 10-11% threshold in legal terms they should be fine. I'm a more pragmatic person that's skeptical of others and their intentions. I read the star citizen page, they have the contribute money and we will work on more projects. All im saying is dont be shocked when 3 years later they have more promises and begging for more money.

If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.

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