Stargate MMO Running Out of Money, Can’t Afford to Pay Employees

Sat, Dec 6, 2008

What would you do if you’ve been working for three weeks without pay? If you’re part of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, you make a webpage with a running counter until you get paid.

Even though the start-up seemed to be well-funded and going strong earlier this year when they announced they were forming their own publisher to handle Stargate Worlds, their Stargate-based MMO, money has apparently become extremely tight during the economic downturn.

Speaking to Gamasutra, the company’s Kevin Balentine explained why the employees haven’t been paid in nearly a month. "At Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, we have always been upfront with the media and our fans that we are a start-up," he said. "Like many start ups, we face the same cash-flow issues that all pre-revenue companies face."

According to Balentine, the core investors are still dedicated to the company, but in the economic crisis they’re being forced to find new sources of funding. Until then, money’s going to be tight.

That isn’t stopping the team, though, as the beta has progressed at the usual pace. I can’t help but wonder how this lack of paycheck is affecting some of the company’s employees, even if the developers seem to look at the whole thing rather tongue-in-cheek. Knowing people who work in QA and other low-level jobs in the gaming industry, that’s a paycheck-to-paycheck life. Three weeks or more without pay? During the Christmas season? Brutal.

Here’s hoping they can find new funding, or find a lot of money under the couch cushions. There are far too many failure stories in the MMO realm, and it would be extra sad to see the game canned before it even got a chance. We all sort of knew this would happen when they announced an MMO based on Stargate in the first place, but I was hoping for a chance to be proven wrong.