Playnet files Bankruptcy?

[AKDejaVu]

Getting info on the internet is like being a historian.  You try combine bias, exagerations, lies and misconceptions in order to come up with something aproximating the truth.

Later in the thread:
 

Unfortunately, the reality of the bankrupcty filing appears to be true. Like Snake, I'm a WW2OL addict and want this to work in the worst way. This is the greatest online game I've every seen with truly incredible, untapped potential. I trulyl hope an arrangement can be made that keeps it and CRS, who have obviously put their hearts and souls into this, up and running strong.

I'm also an attorney (though not in bankruptcy practice) with access to LexisNexis. Just went on line to look for the Playnet filing and found it. According to LN, the Playnet filing was made on December 14 by attorney Dennis Olson (of the firm Olson, Nicoud, Birne and Gueck) in Dallas with a first meeting date set for January 30 in Ft. Worth.

Looks like the filing occured, so snake's chip-on-the-shoulder-CRS-can-do-no-wrong post should be taken for what its worth.

AKDejaVu

[Thrawn]

Again, for what it's worth.  Such a firm exists in Dallas, and they do deal with bankruptcy.

[AZKAISR]

Here is some more interesting info from the boards over there

Kaisr


 Re: Hoax

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by snake_eyes
First off, Playnet, Inc. does NOT own Cornered Rat Software. CRS is an AFFILIATE of Playnet, just like Intelgamer and the other affiliates out there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry snake, but that's not accurate. I'm not flaming you (hey I was the guy who suggested you be asked into AHC  )

CRS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Playnet, unless I'm very mistaken. I'm not sure to what extent CRS is protected if Playnet did indeed file for 11 (which would not suprise me in the least), but they are certainly far more tied to Playnet than Intelgamer, etc. CRS is the development arm of Playnet, much like Kesmai Studios was the development arm for Gamestorm.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strategy First is the publisher for WWIIOL, and the primary reason for the state of the game upon its release. CRS has gone above and beyond the call to complete the game to user expectations despite the faults of Strategy First's business decisions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, not accurate. I know from folks who were there. Strategy First was willing to give CRS/Playnet more time, but it was Playnet management that pushed it out the door, over the loud objections of the CRS development team. Strategy First became the big bad fall guy, and Playnet management was more than happy to allow folks to believe that.

Blaming Strategy First is simply throwing up a straw man to deflect from the real bad guy here: Poor management from the top of Playnet from the get-go, and a lack of understanding of a changing marketplace.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next, let's exame this so-called affiliate. First, I cannot help but notice the person who was in charge of this affiliate does not post the name of the affiliate. I know of all of the WWIIOL affiliates, and none have shown any signs of Playnet going bankrupt. Additionally, this same hoax was perpetrated 2 weeks ago to draw players away from Playnet and to rival services. This came after several affiliates were terminated for not following Playnet's Terms of Service.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not correct. Affiliates were indeed shown the door, except for a few wholly owned affiliates, like dogfighter, and it was because Playnet was getting out of the affiliate business for the most part. Dogfighter's own affiliates, like AGW and Furball, etc., WERE shown the door, and iEN picked them up, like they should have done years ago. Playnet for the most part dumped all its affiliates a few weeks back, which is the biggest sign that the Chapter 11 is true.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, let's cover WWIIOL. Yes, they did layoff some people. This was in response to the spike in hiring that was required due to Strategy First's push of the game out before it was ready.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blatantly not true. First, SF did not push the game out. Playnet management did, over the objections of the dev team. If you want the REAL skinny, there were people on the Playnet management team who were pushing to release WW2OL earlier - MUCH earlier.

Many folks were let go in an agreement with the major shareholders to secure a small amount of additional funding. This was a tiny amount, since no one wanted to dilute their holdings further. Only enough to get to the Euro and Mac release.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additionally, several members of the staff were found to not be producing work that was acceptable to CRS management, and thus their jobs were cut to avoid further problems in the future. Contrary to popular thought on the matter, the only CRS employees that were laid off were those who had either outlived their usefulness or had no further work assigned to them. All of the designers and coders for CRS that have made the game a revolutionary product (despite the disasterous release) are still there plugging away to give us more systems that we, as gamers, wish to see.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many laid off were core to the WW2OL dev team, like Hoof, Hoss. Others were core to the community, like Gryf. By suggesting they were shown the door for being poor employees, you insult them greatly.

Playnet is still top-heavy in management (the same people who made the poor decisions from start until today), while WW2OL's dev team was pared. This makes no sense to me, but alas.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I caution those who would take the original hoax message to heart to look closely at what is being posted before blindly believing it. I am a member of the Allied High Command for WWIIOL, one of the 50 or so players assigned the duty of attempting to lead the 5000 or so Allied players we currently have. I have played this game since its release, and it has improved greatly from its Beta release state. I encourage the would-be attackers of CRS to try the game out in its current state, and see how addicting it truly is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yup, I was AHC too. And a beta tester since the earliest beta stages (outed in early promo screen shots, not violating my NDA). And I have several friends who were, or still are, part of CRS. I've been privy to a lot of insder info, most of which I wouldn't share here. But suffice to say, the image you paint of SF, Playnet and CRS is not entirely true.

I'm not sure what the Chapter 11, if true, will mean. But it wouldn't suprise me. Playnet has been holding on to the portal dream for years now, when it should have been apparent to them 12 months ago that this was not a valid business plan. Playnet rushed the game out the door early, and Playnet continued to push resources, time and energy at the portal dream long after it should have been shelved/put on hold in favor of getting WW2OL to the promised state.

The best chance for Playnet/CRS to survive was a solid product in WW2OL, period. Without that as the core to build off of, everything else was just so much vapor. So maybe the Chap 11 would mean they finally understand that, and are recouping in an effort to throw all remaining funds at WW2OL, like I've been suggestions for over a year now.

Edit: For the record, I'm a player and fan of the game. But it's not fair to the folks let go, or to SF, to be placing blame where it doesn't belong. A lot of bad and/or stupid decisions were made by Playnet/CRS along the path to where we are now. The game has much potential - but it's still a ways from where it needs to be.

Spitboy -SW-


Last edited by Spitboy on 12-27-2001 at 10:51 PM

[Kieran]

Call the Texas Bankruptcy Court's voice info system: (800) 886-9008.

Select search by name.

Type in using your touch tone phone: PLAYNETINC

Hit #.

Wait.

Then you will hear that a Chapter 11 claim was filed on December 14, 2001, by Playnet Incorporated, in Texas. The initial debtor hearing is January 30, 2002. All claims must be filed by April 30, 2002.

 

Called. It's true. Posted by Spitboy on the WWIIO boards.

[Wotan]

is chapter 11 where the company seeks protection from dedt while attempting to rebuild/restructure in such a way as to earn a profit.?


if so once the company declares chapter 11 does the court "oversee" the restructure?

Would a company be prevented from operating until a court decides or would it be buisness as usual till then?

[Spitboy]

Well to be fair, I got it from AGW, where DingerX posted it.

But yep, looks true enough. Chap 11 doesn't mean the end - just means they want protection from creditors while they try to restructure the business into a profitable entity. If they finally woke up and saw that the whole gaming portal plan is a non-starter, and dedicate all their resources and energy into finishing WW2OL, they might be able to pull it off.

Should been done about 12 months ago, though. Woulda had a lot better chance back then.

[Kieran]

Well, the silver lining here might be this knocked some sense into them. I don't know the inner mechanations like you do; I know how I perceive the company as a result of my experience with them. Whoever IS making the decisions should be cut loose ASAP.

If all this turmoil winds up making WWIIO a good game, I'll be the first to admit I was wrong. Here's a bit of a disturbing thought for ya, though. If memory serves, wasn't Microsoft nibbling at iEN just a while back? Wouldn't the WWIIO project be exactly the kind of thing they would go for? Granted I'm ignorant of such things, but it seems to me (and I take no credit for this line of thought, originated at AGW I believe) but it does seem that MS might be shopping, and CRS might be had cheaply.

Thoughts?

[Spitboy]

Hmm, I believe they came out and said it was Sony that was sniffing around at iEN. Sony makes a lot more sense to me, since Microsoft already has the Fighter Ace/Flight Simulator engine. Sony doesn't have a comparable product, and WW2 sims are definetely popular these days given all the new titles and mods.

Speculation follows. I doubt anyone would want to pick up WW2OL as a whole right now - the company has a lotta debt and a lotta shareholders, and I suspect the codebase isn't in too great a shape at present given the time it takes for updates to appear and the number of bugs left unfixed, and the rush they were in. The game has come a long way, and is fun, but it's still got a ways to go before winning back many of those who tossed it on the shelf 6 months ago.

Portions of the technology might be useful piecemeal. My suspicion is, the engine and network code would do VERY well in a sim that is dumbed down without all the underlying strat, and the huge world. Think Tribes 4 - a lot less physics, a lot less going on behind the scenes, and a lot more graphical detail. I know performance was WAY better in some early beta builds  before all the strat and larger terrain was added. Also some seriously sweet graphics were tried, then scaled back. So I suspect you could make a pretty nice MMP out of the engine; a shoot-em-up MOH-style game with tanks, infantry, and maybe AI air, etc.

Now, I know folks here will quibble over the specs, but I was able to fly fine on an Athlon 800 with 640 RAM and a Geforce 2 MX, and with a XP1600/GF3 I have all details maxed, 1280 res, 4xFSAA with 35+ FPS all the time in the air. It's definetely playable if your box is average with lotsa RAM.

Alas. Killer is playing it down, saying it's a reorg, and they plan to have positive cash flow in 90 days. I hope so - I'd much rather see WW2OL become the sim we all (well, I) want it to be, than to see it go under.

[Mighty1]

Well I always liked the game and was TOLD by many people that it was going to make it but YOU never know who to believe. SO let's just wait and see!

[Swoop]

Damn guys, this is better coverage than CNN.  

 

[Dinger]

Hi Spitboy. Dinger and DingerX are the same person, and for once AKDJV is right.  

It's sad to see this happen, since it involves the well being of so many cool members of the community, but it's no surprise really to anybody.  In the business plan, Playnet.com was to be the real money maker, acting as a sort of "shopping mall" for online games and information.  WW2OL was to be an "Anchor Store".  The business model depended on ad revenue and a screaming success in WW2OL.  The only shot they have is to restructure around WW2OL and firewall the sonofasqueak.

Dinger.
Heck, I'm an historian by trade.

[Fury]

It's funny to see people who think they know what they are talking about spew useless and misleading information.  I don't necessarily mean people in this thread, I mean a lot of the quotes in this thread from other Internet sites.

A local company, Quality Farm and Fleet (who owns 300+ retail stores) filed chapter 11 sometime this past fall.  They are still open and doing business.  Chapter 11 is not the best thing to happen to a company, but it surely is not an automatic failure of a company.  It's safer to adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

[Mickey1992]

"Killer: Simply put we must adjust operational costs to meet our income, and we are quite confident that we can do that. It's really not that big of a deal.

Killer: The servers have been moved to a carrier nuetral facility in downtown Dallas with low cost access to 21 internet backbones. It's part of the reorganization plan. That's network maintenance. We have to restructure, were doing it, the game will go on.
More: Guys, we just pulled a move of 70+ servers in less than 24 hours. They aren't all back up yet and they won't be moving again. This forum alone gets served by several web servers all of which aren't back up and operating yet, only one or two. Things should be cleared up by tomorrow. This is a good thing, as we have access now to every big internet backbone about 30 feet from the server racks."

Sounds like a plan.  I can understand people being freaked out when the scheduled maintenance for the morning of the 24th turns into a two-day downtime and the servers get physically moved to a new locale.  I think that all of the rumor mongering could have been avoided with a little heads up from CRS.  Of course, maybe CRS were told not to say anything.

I wish the Rats luck.  I mean, if Amazon.com can run a business for five years, never turn a profit, and burn through a couple of billion in cash, we shouldn't be freaked out when a company files for Chapter 11 protection while the suits try and get their toejam together.

[Curval]

Chapter 11 is really not that big of a deal...BUT CRS needs to re-examine its market if they have any hope of being sucessful.  Currently the game caters TOTALLY to a small clique of WW2 fanatics who are also computer geeks...if you have any technical problems the only help you will find is on the message boards, which most casual players ignore.  Technical support for WW2 online is simply non-existant.  Also - I have played the game from day 1...I went through the old "head shaking bug" thing with a friend's computer and trying to figure that out was a nightmare!  In fact it was never figured out - a patch fixed it! Would you believe that I only just found out how the mission system actually works!  This sounds stupid, I know, but it is true.  The interface is user UNfriendly to the point that new players have no idea what to do, or how to find some fighting.

Having said all of this I should point out that I have not played since 1.50 was released.  I have heard some good things about it, but the problem for CRS is gonna be attracting the players who left in frustration as well as newbies.  They don't advertise - there is simply no money.  I cannot see it lasting too much longer...although I hope I'm wrong.

[Kieran]

Mickey-

I followed the "it's no big deal" explanation on their bbs, read about their move to the new servers, and it all sounded wonderful, except... why was this not done in the first place if it was such a wonderful idea? The common sense side of me tells me there is more to the story than what Killer has stated. The first thought that pops to mind is of connect quality. Paying less for better service? I doubt it.

As far as being up front... well, they never are. Not that I blame them in this case- admitting being in Chapter 11 is nothing to be proud of, despite all the spin the zealots are placing on it. But being up front with the users is something the Rats are known NOT to be. Doesn't matter why that is, it is.

I think Spitboy has the most lucid description of the situation and problems facing CRS. Fundamental flaws have crippled the development path from the beginning, and the train is going to be hard to stop (if that is possible now) and place on a new track. Now more than ever time and resources are against them.

You don't have to be for or against CRS to see this clearly; the company has struggled from the beginning, and there just doesn't seem to be a clear indication things are getting any better for them. Some will point to the latest patch and say it made things much better; I find as many posts saying it made things worse. It is still just as difficult as ever for a neophyte to get into the game. It is still just as overly demanding on the system requirements as it was (and let's remember, those boxes that are still available have blatant lies about the minimum and recommended specs).

Killer just suggested they need a 1,000 new players a month for the next few months to stay afloat. That isn't exactly true; they need to KEEP a 1,000 new players a month the next few months to break even. Someone suggested advertising; Killer commented he was afraid to do anything at the moment as there were many reports the boxes are not on shelves anymore. So, if you don't advertise and you don't have boxes on the shelves, how do you bring and keep 1,000 new players a month for the next few months?

You can only allow so many things to pile up against you before you realize the inevitable. CRS is in dire straits, no matter how anyone wants to spin it. Hatch's "Call to the community" thread should be a pretty good harbinger. He knew at the time of the post of the Dec. 14 bankruptcy filing. He knew the game was on the rocks. Maybe it will work out, but I can't see how...