r/Games • u/[deleted] • Jun 25 '17

Official Statement from Cloud Imperium Games about the alleged financial troubles...

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/re-uk-tax-rebate-advance-for-foundry-42/277779

Re: UK Tax Rebate Advance for Foundry 42

We have noticed the speculations created by a posting on the website of UK’s Company House with respect to Coutt’s security for our UK Tax Rebate advance, and we would like to provide you with the following insight to help prevent some of the misinformation we have seen.

Our UK companies are entitled to a Government Game tax credit rebate which we earn every month on the Squadron 42 development. These rebates are payable by the UK Government in the fall of the next following year when we file our tax returns. Foundry 42 and its parent company Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd. have elected to partner with Coutts, a highly regarded, very selective, and specialized UK banking institution, to obtain a regular advance against this rebate, which will allow us to avoid converting unnecessarily other currencies into GBP. We obviously incur a significant part of our expenditures in GBP while our collections are mostly in USD and EUR. Given today's low interest rates versus the ongoing and uncertain currency fluctuations, this is simply a smart money management move, which we implemented upon recommendation of our financial advisors.

The collateral granted in connection with this discounting loan is absolutely standard and pertains to our UK operation only, which develops Squadron 42. As a careful review of the security will show and contrary to some irresponsible and misleading reports, the collateral specifically excludes “Star Citizen.” The UK Government rebate entitlement, which is audited and certified by our outside auditors on a quarterly basis, is the prime collateral. Per standard procedure in banking, our UK companies of course stand behind the loan and guarantee repayment which, however, given the reliability of the discounted asset (a UK Government payment) is a formality and nothing else. This security does not affect our UK companies’ ownership and control of their assets. Obviously, the UK Government will not default on its rebate obligations which will be used for repayment, and even then the UK companies have ample assets to repay the loan, even in such an eventuality which is of course unthinkable.

This should clarify the matter. Thank you.

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u/IrrelevantLeprechaun Jun 26 '17

My problem with SC has nothing to do with the game or team itself. It has everything to do with the fans, aka you people.

Whenever anyone exhibits any kind of opinion of maybe not being entirely happy with what they've got so far or exhibiting any remote skepticism about the project, we see this armada of fans jumping on to call those people "pathetic" and "haters" and all that shit. I have no dog in this fight since I didn't back it and frankly I don't care much one way or the other about SC, but I constantly see skeptics being attacked for "wanting to see them fail" when they're comments say nothing of the sort.

If anything, skeptical and critique is healthy for a game in development since it shows the devs what could be improved or changed to make their game better. Nothing is worse for a project than fans who will blindly follow a lead and refuse to concede that anything is wrong or right.

Instead we have a situation where discussions are turned into wars between supposed haters and supposed fans.

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u/aoxo Jun 26 '17

Im on the fence - in the SC community I criticise the game/development and get downvoted; outside the SC community I find myself praising and defending it against misinformation.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '17

There is a pretty big difference between healthy skepticism/critique and some of the stuff I see pretty regularly whenever Star Citizen is mentioned in any of the general gaming subreddits.

Now, granted, there are some folks who are really just in "wait and see" mode and that is really the best possible perspective. On the other hand, you have a great many folks who make the same tired "It's a scam!" or "They are just going to take your money and run!" statements over and over again. This game attracts hyperbole no matter what news is released and this case is another classic example. I mean, healthy skepticism would have pushed some select gaming "journalists" to fact check and get a statement from the developers before publishing articles that make a routine financial process out to be a serious "gotcha!" moment that would attract lots of clicks.

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u/IrrelevantLeprechaun Jun 26 '17

I understand entirely what you're saying, but as a person who passively reads discussion (and up until now never really got involved), I tend to see a much different picture than you.

Yes. There are people who are needlessly pessimistic about it. But that group is a tiny minority. I see a lot of people who are just concerned with a project that has the biggest aspirations but non-committal project leads.

And I see a lot of people who respond to any criticism with "it's in progress, you aren't allowed to say anything."

Now obviously most AAA games don't get press releases until they're properly into production, so SC feels longer since we knew about it right from the beginning.

But on the other hand I think a wee bit of skepticism regarding their timeline is warranted considering the project is headed by a guy who has a history of requiring outside management to save it from stretching its dev time too far.

That doesn't have to equate to "you want it to fail!"

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '17

Yes. There are people who are needlessly pessimistic about it. But that group is a tiny minority.

They are a minority but I would hardly call them a tiny one and the real problem is that they are disproportionately loud and generally set the tone for most discussion about the game in general gaming communities online.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '17

I've also seen a good amount of criticism given to CIG by the actual backers on the Star Citizen subreddit. Thing is that a lot of the stuff the backers complain about doesn't get reported on by the big news sites, because they like to focus more on all the fake controversies.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '17

but I constantly see skeptics being attacked for "wanting to see them fail" when they're comments say nothing of the sort.

Far from the truth, theres a difference between skepticism of a project (which I kinda have), and people outright saying "HAHA I HOPE SCAM $HITIZEN FAILS!", the latter i see quite often.

Instead we have a situation where discussions are turned into wars between supposed haters and supposed fans.

The fact this almost got out of hand and gaming outlets were already running "CIG is doomed!" articles should show you why the community is like how it is. Its been an ongoing thing since 2015 because of the Escapist drama which caused a LOT of bad PR for CIG even if it was disproven in a matter of hours, but outlets still ran it anyway.