Perhaps they scammed MA and now leaving it on to scam the next company? who knows? For us there is really no way of knowing what's what here we have so little information and what info we have is at mercy of these companies who could sugar coat it however they want. Having said that I was also looking at the SEE website before and was also surprised it's not been updated. The planetmichael website has also not been updated. Maybe they can't update them before resolving whatever dispute they are entangled in... Perhaps SEE were scammed by MA? Perhaps it's just a misunderstanding between the two? perhaps...perhaps...so many perhaps :) Some people have mentioned some scenarios or possibilities but without any facts we can make no conclusions. If they go to court we'll probably hear both sides of the story then or if they resolve the situation by themselves...
I did mention on PCF about looking for SEE's financials that I believe they are required to submit, but it got buried in arguments, and I couldn't find anything myself, but then I am not in the finance game. I did think it was strange, because it seems there is a lot of interest in MA's financials, and if the same people got hold of SEE's financials, then the "They could not afford to pay" argument can be supported or refuted quite quickly I'd have thought.
Well, it seems they managed to take MA off the partners list, so I guess there is some activity going on there. Oh, and for those of you that were worried, Planet Michael is still there :D
Hard to say what's going on. SEE's web site still mentions MindArk. I wonder if they canned their webdevs and now nobody knows how to manage the site content?
Interesting theory. Wouldn't be surprising. It is commonplace to hire out of office coders to work on project, because it is often far cheaper than retaining a staff. This is not speculated, this is fact, because I happen to be in that line of work myself on the side of what I do. Having been a corporate director on a board, I can also tell you guys that just from the info that I have been able to dig up, it looks more like would not rather than could not. SEE appears to be a very snobish company. It looks as if they don't feel they were treated right, they simply don't pay, and they have one hell of a legal team to cover their tracks. It hasn't really got them into too much trouble until now it looks like. My corp. didn't pay for my entire hotel stay one time simply because when I got their, they had given my conference suite (reserved for months) out to some minor celebrity, and I was forced to take a compact room, on a major event convention weekend where I had scheduled many different clients to come and conviene with me about our business and what we had to offer. So I had to pack about 2 dozen people or more into a compact size single bed room that allowed little breathing room. Then there was the fiasco with the catering and many other things went wrong, but in the end, they still sent us the bill, and my boss basically said F. U. and take me to court over it if you really think you provided us with what we reserved. Anyway, if SEE went through that with MA, I can imagine that it was similar to that situation. SEE has money, any index you look in doesnt seem to have bad hits financially on it. There will definitely be a legal battle, I would stake my avatar on it. Whether or not it affects EU, well... I dunno. Most corporate legal battles are not fought like criminal cases, nor even close to how you see it on TV. They are done very privately, usually closed to the public, and rarely ever make it to trial, and usually neither side ceo's actually show up. It is all done by constituants and lawyers that represent the sides, usually people of my rank and caliber that specialize in just negotiation and persuasion for the representitives. One side settles with the other before it goes public, as bad publicity is generally bad for both entities. The biggest problem here isn't the lack of information about what will happen, it's about what DID happen. The cause is often far more important than the effect in failed corporate transactions like this. If I were asked to assess it based on the information I know and have available, I would say that MA promised certain returns from Calypso, and showed these returns. But what they showed was false because they because they had it on full suck for a year prior. Personally in 2008 I took a serious break because my return rate fell by 85% overall no matter what I did. Pretty sure it did with a lot of other investors too, and there are were a lot of people that I know that did the same at or around that time. So when SEE got a hold of it, they realized that their amount of deposits were dropping like old people in a heat wave, and they were advised to adjust the payout ratio to encourage more deposits. Of course, by doing this, it altered the time table to recoup the total investment. I am sure there were lots of other little things they discovered that MA didnt bother to tell them because they didn't ask. The other side to this is that MA is probably sweating bullets because they just developed a new expansion and is responsible for making it all work with the other platforms and are up to their ears in that. Having to deal with this, along with not having the scheduled income to pay for the development of the expansion, plus features to come puts them in a mighty hurting position, both financially and reputation wise for future platform investors. It wouldn't surprise me if SEE did this intentionally around the time MA is busy with the space release and integration. This also leads me to believe that it was done to hurt MA as much as possible, because MA scammed them into believing that being on the receiving end of Calypso is extremely profitable. Kinda like being taken advantage of for the day with MU prices. Something could be 240% MU one day, and the week shows 175%, but no one will sell it to you for 175 or less, they all want the 220% + MU. I believe essentially MA did the same thing to SEE, and SEE wants out because it is not possible and it will take them 10 years just to break even with the current player decline rate and lack of depositing alone. Then there is also the fact that MA is advertising other planets and space and everything to take players off of Calypso... ya I would be pissed too. Like buying a restaurant from the owner, and he sets up another restaurant across the street with a big sign that says "We have better food, and bigger breasted waitresses than the place across the street." Can't say that I blame them for doing what they did either. Ever since MA sold Calypso, MA has been a bunch of greedy little self-righteous gremlins. Setting up platforms left and right, taking huge investments from avatar players with promising high returns and lucrativness that will probably never come, with not putting much functionality back into the platforms. They are getting 5-8K USD for a m. ship right now, and all they are doing is issuing some code for it, and all aspects of world interaction with the M.ship don't even work yet. I have a feeling that what ended the relationship finally is that although SEE may have owned Calypso, MA was still doing stuff on their planet to line it's own pockets by promoting Motherships, contests, Arkadia and space previews, etc. SEE just finally had enough of their BS and said, you know what? You can have it back. I personally think MindArk should just sell the whole thing and get out of it if they need to rip people off to profit. That's not business, that's running a con. Some of the avatars in game are so fed up with the drama with MindArk over the years and unfullfilled promises that they are chippin out as well from what I see in auction on Calypso. Can't say I haven't thought about the same. If I am not going to be afforded the opportunity to profit from my investment, due to internal error, or internal drama, what is the point in leaving my moohlah with someplace like that. MA just has no idea how lucky it is that it's investors ARE acting like sheep for the most part, and not doing something about it. If everyone chipped out and sold off everything lickity split, those that remain soon wouldn't be sheep to them anymore. Finally, I will close with this... MA is already registered as a scam site and entity with some countries and reporting web sites. I bet some of you reading this didn't know that. They have been for a while. In some countries you can't even deposit to MA because it is financially blocked on a WHOLE country. That takes effort, so there must be a reason behind it. Given the way that MA has been responding to certain things, or the lack thereof, only leads me to believe that they have a bunch of inexperienced lucky programmers running it that have no idea how to compete in the multi-national conglomerate market. Or they are all a bunch of talented programmers and on-line scammer hacks that got lucky and now are out of their depth in the field and have no idea what to do now that things are starting to fall apart. Only thing I ask is that you people think with your brain and not your eyes people. "Albert Einstein was a freaking idiot" how many of you believe that just cause I wrote it? How many believe that is a false statement....? You're wrong too. The only "right" answer is a question... In what context? Think people think, logic arguements, process of elimination, all can be done without having all the pieces, just some. It's called due diligence, and no one seems to "due" it anymore until after the fact of getting taken. Go buy a book of logic puzzles if you need to practice. I think MA is scamming all of us, and SEE found out how bad they got ripped off, and is looking for some payback in whatever way they can because they know their payments are gone too. Probably all because no one bothered to read the fine print in the contract or something silly like that.
Sure, How much ped are you paying me to do your research for you? Shall we say 100 ped per link I deliver through private message? I would of assumed you knew how to use Google and other search engines. The fact that you dont want to search through the thousands of hits you get when you put in search combos including Mindark, Entropia, Universe, deposit, and scam isn't my problem. What was I saying about due diligence in my post above...? I am more than happy to do it, but looking back through my history is time consuming, and time is money, so no, I won't do it because you don't want to take an hour for research to protect yourself from getting scammed. Thanks for the inquiry though. I do have a L blueprint for sale, only 10K ped, but that is a special price for you. It's really rare and the MU on the item is really high. (What info are you missing out of this?... cmon now think) But it does prove my point that no one does their due diligence any longer before throwing money into something. EVERY depositor should be aware that site listings and restrictions from depositing to MA exist PRIOR to putting money in it, and why they do so if they list the reasons. (Maybe I should start something like this, everyone would just throw money at me.) But here's one all Americans should know... Thanks to George "dubbleya". Jr. it is illegal for Americans to engage in depository activities for online gambling activity in the United States. (that is summarized and extremely boiled down, go look up the actual federal law on the U.S. Govt site, I am not a link monkey.) Because of the terms only including the US in the law, wording, and a bunch of other not too well thought out decrees, most companies moved off-shore to continue their businesses as a loop hole. It is still unclear as to whether or not Americans could be prosecuted if caught depositing, but I believe there was a federal court case that determined it wasn't, unsure on that. Back more to topic... We live in the age of information technology. There is an unmatched wealth of information on anything and everything you could want to know about, you just need to ask the right questions, and search in the right places. Someone saying they can't find something on the internet is like saying you can't find your car keys in an empty room. I wish you all the best of luck in wondering about this, and what to do with your avatars, I know what I am going to do already. I hope none of the rest of you are caught unprepared.
Your posts are thought-provoking, but one "off-topic" question if you would indulge me ... Why did you choose to share your most private thoughts and stuff at EntropiaPlanets when the larger part of the collective community posts at PCF? Would you not have captured far greater attention? Just curious! :)
Logically what I can concur from your post is you are bitter about your experience with EU. This may be due to a number of reasons most likely you perceive yourself to be unsuccesful in this game.This can be true for a number of people including myself as it did not work as I expected or wanted it to work. This bitterness and hatred has clouded your judgement and your reading into the SEE & MA split what you want to read rather than looking at anything factual or logical. For example when SEE looked into buying FPC their legal team may have noticed a loophole they could exploit. SEE decided to go ahead with the purchase and take advantage of this loophole which resulted in the situation that we have now. We simply have no evidence to counter a theory such as this or many other theories. This is not a far fetched theory as you may think because if you recall MA first made the announcement about FPC being purchased by SEE months in advance of when it actually happened. This shows to me they were both about to sign then something happened. Maybe SEE didn't want to go ahead due to the financials shown to them by MA and MA had to sweeten the deal and inso doing created the loophole where SEE could exploit MA. So many maybe's and if's here that we really cannot conclude anything. Note I'm not stating that's what happened just posing an alternative plausible possibility.
@Mindstar... I actually never have cared for PCF or whatever they are called now through all the changes. I like independant MANAGED sites (emphasis on that because I like to know a forum is not messy), where people actually discuss stuff, and usually holds more information and discussion. But you do have a point, more people do go to that, perhaps I ought to promote myself and Blast's events there too in my bio or a thread somewhere.... I was mostly just creating an account and making an entrance... paying back some free advertising for all the credits I have won in those events...I tend to do that haha. @Skywalker You are correct, I am awarding both entities a great deal of competentcy and good faith that I cannot accually verify exists. They very well could of been playing each other. Good Point. I didnt recall about that little fact of the misannouncement until you mentioned it, but ya there was a big to do over it. You are quite correct that we could all sit here and speculate all night and day about wtf the two are doing, but what I know for definite is, I am taking precautions against the situation backlashing into EU worlds. I do know it is never good when a negation or broken contract is done on a large purchase like that, and everything points to something being seriously wrong. Someone earlier said that the sites have not been updated maybe because of a legal restriction or something, and that I know is our policy if we ever look as though we will be in a nasty legal battle. All updates and changes are put on hold to everything. Would make sense that my corporation is not the only one that has that policy. I recommend others do the same for preparation. It's no different than selling off shares when you see something going on in the company your invested in to protect your money because the share price is about to fall because of the situation going on. Probably not going to completely pull out unless something catastrophic comes into play, but I like to err on the side of caution and be prepared. I don't like instability. Also, I am actually quite sucessful in EU over all, not really bitter about anything. I play in a fairly low investment bracket, I am not a big gambler. I actually am in a higher bracket than I ever intended to be in due to the fact that I had a Very Large HOF as a faux nublet (literally 4th unamped bomb I dropped on my remade character, it waaay sucked running back and forth to storage as a noob but it was funny). Then I made the mistake of buying paladin, and should of bought ghost...had to put in a little more for that, but no, not bitter about any of it. I hang around in the couple hundred bracket for hits, but I am not an all day amp crafter hehe. Just occasionally. The only thing I may be "bitter" about, is I am tired of being jerked around as to the future of EU, which any depositor should be. It seems like there is always a decent amount of instability going on behind the scenes, and delays, and all sorts of things. It makes MA look kind of cheap and shady, more like a fly by night, than a growing entity. Truth be told I would like to invest way more in MA, but in order for me to do that, they need to prove they will be around and popular for at least 5 years more, and right now I can't envision that at all. I need to have someone left around to sell all my skills and stuff off to when I am ready to be done. If I can't see my exit strategy for that large of an investment, I really can't say I am overly compelled to invest. It's very sad too that this happened because a lot of my small funds and paper investments are going to mature soon, plus I have been doing really well on the open market lately. I know there is a good future in digital investing, but if EU will always be this unstable, I don't know if it will ever take off, and may not be something I want to diversify to include in my PF.
Sounds like bs to me, because I have never heard about anyone haveing problem doing deposits to the game, we should surly have heard about such problems more in the forums in that case.
Some problems can have been now and then, but I have never heard about any major problems. In the case of Romania I think it's the contry itself that was a problem, because they had some problems with scams from there I think, false credit card and stuff.
an interesting post with some seemingly informed insight at the beginning. what do you mean by this? you have access to some sort of business index that shows up SEE as good? others have apparently not found any substantial corporate info on them. anyone can see from the recent accounts what the income is for MA and work out from that best/worst/other scenarios. its pretty clear you wouldnt get $6m back instantly as thats about what MA was making and the partner could only expect a proportion of that. if the deposits where dropping for SEE, that because they were failing in their responsibility to attract new customers, expecting/hoping to just draw revenue off the exisiting (and known to be declining) player base and activity. actually after this, i note you put forward alot of personal opinion and supposition based on nothing (which is ok, we all do that, but you start by givein the impression that it informed). then you've made an accusation that you wont back up, with some not very community spiritied reactions. not sure what to make of this over all.
The comment about SEE having money is interesting and somewhat amusing in light of the debacle that was the Trek Exhibition at the Queen Mary.
