Stargate MMO developer goes bankrupt

By Oli Welsh Published 29 March, 2010

Resistance spin-off sold to splinter group.

Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, the studio making the Stargate Worlds MMO, has succumbed to bankruptcy and called in the receivers, according to an open letter to shareholders on its website (thanks, Voodoo Extreme).

Stargate Worlds was recently sidelined in favour of a cut-down multiplayer shooter called Stargate Resistance. According to the statement, that game - which was launched last month - has been sold to a new company called Fresh Start Studios. Fresh Start Studios has been set up by Cheyenne shareholders "in an effort to preserve the game and prevent it from going offline because they felt there was no other alternative", says the statement.

This must be the final nail in the coffin of Stargate Worlds, however. "With regard to actual operations, game development has ceased. Not to be redundant, but there are no employees," says the statement bluntly.

Cheyenne Mountain has been suffering funding problems since late 2008, when a website appeared claiming employees hadn't been paid.

The saga had devolved to the extent that there was confusion over who was in control over the company, but as the statement concludes, this is "a moot point at this particular point in time because the Receiver has been placed in control".

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (18) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Climhazzard #1 2 years ago

    Im a big stargate fan so would have liked to see how this turned out, its a shame but tbh got too many mmo's on the way to be playing.

  • Stegofreak #2 2 years ago

    Isn't that the third or fourth time this has happened to a studio developing a Stargate game? Cursed IP?

  • Spekingur #3 2 years ago

    Should probably just hand it over to Cryptic... :o

  • Sunyavadin #4 2 years ago

    A shame, since if a Stargate MMO had come out in 2008, just after the TV series ended, and while the recognition and fanbase were still strong, it could have been a serious contender for the next big sci-fi MMO.

    Too bad about the massive legal battle waged to shut down the development of the Stargate game scheduled for release before this one was announced. At least that one was being developed by a real studio which paid its employees and has an actual back catalogue which proves they can make games, it's not some vapourware touting cash sink.

  • the_mtfr #5 2 years ago

    So sad, I was looking forward to that game as a big SG-1 and SG-A fan.

    RIP.

  • iokthemonkey #6 2 years ago

    I had the ''pleasure'' of working with some of the CME folks a couple of years ago, so it comes as no surprise that they've gone under, given that experience.

    They were so obsessed with big picture/high concept stuff that it was impossible to actually get any kind of decision from them about even the most fundamental design decisions. You'd have a phone call with them for an hour, 20 minutes of which was them trying to get organised/together, 30 minutes of which was back-patting and eulogising about how awesome the project was and how it's the Best Thing Ever and 10 minutes of actual design discussion, most of which was requests for more information on either the simplest of things (which had already been explained in far end of a fart level of detail) or on stuff that wasn't important at that time (such as what colour on-screen HUD elements would be, when we were still trying to get them to commit to the core design.)

    We spent two weeks trying to explain a Freemium model to them and re-drafted the same four page document about eight times trying to get them to understand the simple concept of buying your advancement with cash versus earning it through play and the ratio of content that players could buy or had to earn (i.e. ''raid gear'')

    In the end I had to draw a Word Art diagram using the exact same percentages and ratios and they then accepted that, stating that they thought these figures were much better than what we'd previously pitched.

  • FortysixterUK #7 2 years ago

    This took too long to develop and wasn't launched whilst the good stargate ( the original series ) was on air.
    Stargate atlantis and universe are simply poor in story . Production values and acting are always good, but the stories formulaic
    and dull. I can only say I'm sorry for the folks that have lost their jobs at the games company.

    ANYWAY.....
    What on earth happened to the original style of writing that had huge story arcs in TV shows? This is the ONLY way to make a successful TV series IMO. Shows that don't have big story arcs tend to fail or simply suck.

    Shows with good story arcs? Deep Space Nine. Battlestar Galactica. Lost. Enterprise ( after season 1 )
    Shows that didn't use story arcs much and suffered because of it? Voyager. Stargates Atlantis and Universe. Much of ST-TNG.

  • iokthemonkey #8 2 years ago

    Shows that didn't use story arcs much and suffered because of it? Voyager. Stargates Atlantis and Universe.

    ---------------------

    Lost didn't start Season One by going, ''hey, we're travelling through time and there's a battle between light and dark on this island.'' It planted the seeds and developed them over time. It's the same with Universe. They're sowing the seeds of what's to come. There are still many unanswered questions and they'll be explored, I'm sure, in the later seasons.

    Also, SG:U is more of a ''dramatic'' show rather than a revelations/plot-driven show. It's about character development and the relationships between those involved as much as it is about getting home or exploring alien planets. We've seen a lot of development on that front already even in this, the first half of the first season.

    What you have to keep in mind is that arcs are only ''in'' at the moment due to Lost. Babylon 5, was definitely a massive influence on that style of writing but was also not very popular with the networks, who felt viewers should be able to watch each episode in isolation. It's only with the success of Lost that networks have started to understand loyal fans will tune-in to watch every week.

  • telboy007 #9 2 years ago

    You're saying that Voyager didn't have a story arc? The whole point of that show was their journey back through the Delta quadrant, what more of a story arc do you want?

  • hiddenranbir #10 2 years ago

    That was launched last month? Haha, totally missed it.

  • sneetch #11 2 years ago

    @iokthemonkey
    What you have to keep in mind is that arcs are only ''in'' at the moment due to Lost.

    Not that I disagree with the points you're making but I would have thought 24 made story arcs popular before Lost, in so far as the entire 24 was a single story arc.

    Mind you, I haven't watched an entire season so maybe I'm talking out my butt. :)

  • ZuluHero #12 2 years ago

    @FortysixterUK

    What do you mean by 'suffered' - Voyager and ST:TNG both has 7 series which is the normal length of any good sci-fi series.

    DS9 aside, all what you consider to be "good" story arcs have all had relatively short series' length. Lost might be getting there, but what do you expect for a show that moves at a snails pace and seems to be making alot of it up as they go... :p

  • iokthemonkey #13 2 years ago

    Good point about 24, but I'd say Lost was the real eye-opener for the network-types, given that it's much more complex and deeper than 24 (not that I'm slating 24, but it's a pretty simplistic show compared to something like Lost.)

  • creepylizard #14 2 years ago

    The boat on a Stargate game has been well and truly missed now, surely? Especially with all the shark jumping of the recent dvd movies..

  • Nithron #15 2 years ago

    I would've cared about this game, but under the "shooting" mechanics was the slightly hidden timer based dice-rolling of the WoW series. Why do companies insist on reskinning WoW's design?

    It's successful, sure, but once it's so successful that it's become essentially a monopoly, you can't beat it by replicating it. If the game had come to market, it would've garnered some hardcore Stargate fans and then eventually just fizzled out.

  • tiredoldandy #16 2 years ago

    I might as well just kill myself now, I have nothing further to live for. Stargate Worlds was my last hope.

  • M_of_the_sys #17 2 years ago

    So did they finally shut down the Stargate project?

    ba-doom-tish!

  • Kostabi #18 2 years ago

    I find it bizarre that the studio was always struggling yet they found the money to sponsor an Indycar team.

    Solid use of resources there.