Stargate Worlds still on track, says dev

By Ellie Gibson Published 8 December, 2008

Even though staff aren't being paid.

The studio developing Stargate Worlds has confirmed the MMO is still in development - despite the fact staff aren't currently being paid.

According to days-since-cheyenne-mountain-employees-have-been-paid.com, staff have been without wages for 25 days at the time of writing.

In a statement issued to Gamespot the studio said, "At Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, we have always been upfront with the media and our fans that we are a start up. Like many start ups, we face the same cash-flow issues that all pre-revenue companies face.

"We have maintained a core of dedicated investors, but the new economic realities are forcing us to seek out additional sources of funding and that’s what we're doing."

Meanwhile, the statement went on, work on the MMO is still ongoing. "We continue to move forward on the Stargate Worlds project. We recently completed a successful phase of closed beta testing and we will start a second phase early in 2009."

You can still sign up for the beta over on StargateWorlds.com. For more info, visit the gamepage.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Retroid #1 3 years ago

    Erm.... good luck to the staff, I suppose!

    Stargate is a good idea for an MMO, or as good as any, but it's a tough market even when you've got cash to throw around.

  • Kingofnothin #2 3 years ago

    Hope this doesn't fall through, it's the only MMO I've ever been interested in and now it looks like it could be in danger of being delayed for a long time. It'll be interesting to see how much longer the staff are willing to go unpaid :(

  • levitate #3 3 years ago

    The MMO market is already saturated a 1000 times over. This game has to be extraordinary if it's not gonna face the same axe as other attempts.

  • actionfitz #4 3 years ago

    hate bastards that think they can treat game dev staff like this.
    Doubt anyone in the film / music industry would get treated this way or even stand for this sort of treatment.
    Hope the devs all have their CVs in order and wish them the best of luck.

    what sort of reprobate management team expects people to continue coming into work for no pay? essentially staff are paying for the privledge of working on that game themselves... /facepalm.
    probably the same fuckers that net the biggest salary in the company.

    frrom this weeks Gamesindustry.biz newsletter:

    "...This is, simply put, the problem of mismanagement. Smaller publishers are by no means cottage industry sized firms - they are large enterprises by anyone's standards - but for some reason, many of them have retained vestiges of the cottage industry management which they started out with.

    The result? Overspending, poor work practices, shoddy products, weak sales and utterly lacklustre treatment of valuable IP. There is a litany of failure spread across the past decade of the industry's history which can be laid right at the door of rubbish managers and executives who would defend their positions by saying that they've been "in the business for years", which gives no indication, of course, as to whether they've had their eyes open, their brains engaged or their creativity in gear during those years. "

  • MBar #5 3 years ago

    Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ... Please don't fall through ...

  • hulahoops #6 3 years ago

    "I'm afraid we often do, even on a commercial level. "

    Indeed. I can't think of a creativity driven industry which doesn't have at least some stories of shafted employees.

    Unfortunately for the moment career choices are to create you might be proud on something which you're passionate about and risk the shafting, or work at a bank.

    Also to some degree if you choose your employers carefully and make sure you continue to evaluate, chances of shafting become much lower. Of course you generally need a few years under your belt before you can become selective, but most of us get through those while we're footloose and mortgage free.

  • makeamazing #7 3 years ago

    IMHO If they are running into cash flow problems, i suspect a rush to release next year, even if its not complete/ready... it will probably end up another AOC release... could be excellent but ultimately broken.

  • spindaden #8 3 years ago

    25 days is less than 1 month. Greedy employees.

  • iokthemonkey #9 3 years ago

    25 days is less than 1 month. Greedy employees.

    ----

    I'm presuming that they're 25 days overdue on their pay (i.e. it's a month PLUS 25 days since they were paid...)

  • the_mtfr #10 3 years ago

    @iokthemonkey, it's "days since they have been paid", not "have not been paid". Anyway how often people in the US get their salaries for 25 days to be overdue? In Eastern Europe and Northern I see the money once a month.

    @levitate, it's definitely not saturated. For example I've never been into MMO-s though I briefly tried a couple, but I'm very very interested in Stargate Worlds, maybe gonna end up buying it unless it's not a complete screw-up.

  • iokthemonkey #11 3 years ago

    @iokthemonkey, it's "days since they have been paid", not "have not been paid". Anyway how often people in the US get their salaries for 25 days to be overdue? In Eastern Europe and Northern I see the money once a month.

    ----

    In the US, bi-monthly or even weekly salaries are still quite common. And technically my comment could still stand, but I haven't visited the site so I'll take your word on that.

  • the_mtfr #12 3 years ago

    Well that's my understanding of those words put together :) Visiting that page won't enlighten anyone a bit with regard to this though.

  • iokthemonkey #13 3 years ago

    Well that's my understanding of those words put together :) Visiting that page won't enlighten anyone a bit with regard to this though.

    ----

    :D