I am truly saddened...

[cosmo365]

I am saddened to see Nevrax go into recievership. For those of you in the US, that would be Chapter 11, which everyone has heard of in the news for many Airlines. It is the first stage of declaring bankruptcy. I mention Airlines because that is the example that I will be using.

From Wikipedia: "A Chapter 11 filing, on the other hand, is an attempt to stay in business while a bankruptcy court supervises the "reorganization" of the company's contractual and debt obligations. The court can grant complete or partial relief from most of the company's debts and its contracts, so that the company can make a fresh start. Often, if the company's debts exceed its assets, then at the completion of bankruptcy the company's owners (stockholders) all end up with nothing — all their rights and interests are terminated — and the company's creditors end up with ownership of the newly reorganized company, in the hopes that it will eventually succeed financially as compensation for their losses."

Now, the above is based on US bankruptcy laws...not French. But it will give the US reader a general idea of what is going on. Unless another company takes over Ryzom, it appears now that this game may be the end. The goo will have won. The Kami will die. The Karavan will scoop up all the homins they can, reeducate them and reintroduce them to human society.

If an Airline declares Chapter 11 protection, they are asking the court to tell their creditors to back off. During this time, non profitable flights will be trimmed, no new hiring, all the thing you do to cut costs of operating to a bare minimum, while typically raising prices go gain capital and time to negotiate with their creditors.

A game company doesn't, im my opinion, have as many options. They have servers and computers, some intellectual property (the game code), some international marketing data (which they may or may not sell), and the office furniture.

The saddest part for me was finding a game world where the grind wasn't the thing, no end game, and a wonderfully mature and polite community. I finally found a gaming home and now it's being foreclosed on. My twelve year old daughter thought the game was fun. I loaded it onto her PC just this past weekend when she came to visit me. She and I had a blast in the newbie island...

[zangan]

NOO!!!

If this game is closed... where am I to go? *sob sob*

Hope that this is avoided... Ryzom can't die!

[raynes]

Ok, this is getting redicilous. There is so much misinformation out there concerning receivership.

Receivership
A type of bankruptcy a company enters when a receiver is appointed by bankruptcy courts or creditors to run the company.

Notes:
The responsibility of the receiver is to recoup as much of the unpaid loans as possible.

Being in receivership is not an enviable situation for a company. Often receivers find that the best way to pay back loans is to liquidate the company's assets, which would effectively put it out of business.
http://financial-dictionary.thefreedict ... ceivership

In otherwords right the courts have decided that Nevrax can not actually make Ryzom profitable. The bills they have stacked up over the two years are far to many that they will never be able to pay it off. So the court has issued an order that the company is to be taken over by some other entity to pay the creditors what is due.

Now lets look at this in a realistic light instead of the doom and gloom that so many seem to put forth. Nevrax and Ryzom are owners of NEL software and they are owners of Ryzom intellectual properties. Nevrax does not own the servers which Ryzom is run on, it does not own the networking infrastructure it runs on either.

By Nevrax going into receivership the court will either seek someone to take over all of the assets belonging to Nevrax or appoint someone to do so. Right now there are parties they are talking with that are interested in buying the ideas of Ryzom (IP) as well as the NEL software. Now no entity is going to spend lots of money on an IP and software and never do anything with it. That just doesn't make sense. What is likely to happen is the someone is going to buy everything that makes Ryzom what it is, and they will try to do something with it to make money.

So just sit back, play Ryzom, and enjoy the game. Whoever is going to end up with the game is going to want to make money, not just kill it.

[jam2005]

They went through the Chapter 11 bit quite a while ago: http://ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13352

[raynes]

They went through the Chapter 11 bit quite a while ago: http://ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13352

Exactly. Chapter 11 did not work, so now they have to sell Ryzom to someone.

[zangan]

Oh...well... sure.

I like your explanation better Raynes. Much better!

Please disregard my previous comment....

[thurgond]

A game company doesn't, im my opinion, have as many options. They have servers and computers, some intellectual property (the game code), some international marketing data (which they may or may not sell), and the office furniture.

Nevrax has one other major asset - Ryzom's player base and the revenue they (we) generate. This means that, at least in the short run, someone will buy the company and keep Ryzom running. If the game is shut down, the revenue stops and all the creditors get is some used office furniture, the developer's workstations, and the now debased IP of the game code--effectively nothing.
If you shutdown and airline you have assets like planes and gate leases that have value even if they aren't being used.

If the creditors sell to a company who will keep the game running, they get a more of their investment back. The buyer gets the revenue stream, the rights to the code and assume the contracts for servers, bandwidth and support (probably, some buyers may break these contracts and run their own support/servers). The buyer will likely pay much less than the costs of development and so it will be cheaper keep Ryzom running. E.g. Nevrax is paying interest on development costs plus the ongoing costs of development, server leases, bandwidth and support; the buyer pays it's lenders a faction of the development costs plus ongoing costs. The buyer may skimp on new development and support, but more likely will have the resources to expand development.

If the buyer isn't part of an evil empire (Microsoft, Sony, Disney), the outlook for the players isn't too bad.

[myseren]

well said
To me, at the end of the day, everything everybody is saying (including me) is supposition. The only people who know exactly what is going on is nevrax and the Faceless Force they are in talks with.
1)In a way, to me this is progress, we were just continuing to stagnate, at least something is now being done and there is a chance we will get to carry on playing under a new, debt free company who may have spare funds to invest and develop the game.
2)Admittedly at worst, the game could be no more - but nobody knows!

I am just going to carry on playing in the hope its option one as the only thing we do know is that ryzom will be here at least another month

[arfindel]

Except for the objective arguments brought here... from all what we have seen in the past (a year past for me at least) Nevrax maintained a complete transparency towards the players base. They have never utterly lied to us like SOE did to their players, never gave false informations or hide massive changes in game that were to come to the last moment.

To everyone who doubts what's now in http://www.ryzom.com/news c'mon, after 2 years of telling us the truth give them a chance and accept that if they say there are some buyers, then really there are some buyers. Therefore worrying is not for now but some 3 to 6 months after the game is bought by someone.

Saddened indeeed we can be not about Ryzom but about Nevrax people themselves who certainly didn't deserve that after all the creativity and worked put in here.

[mugendo]

Saddened indeeed we can be not about Ryzom but about Nevrax people themselves who certainly didn't deserve that after all the creativity and worked put in here.

But the Nevrax folk are not left out in the cold...they are the only people who know how everything 'ticks'....so they change from stressed owners to paid employees


edit - running your own company allows you to work half days, which twelve hours would you prefer ?