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Rolf

Switched my Shares

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25 minutes ago, Batta said:

Because what I'm reading from the facts is that there is very little changing, and no indication of actual facts supporting a doomsday conclusion.

 

You must be new here. Any change = doomsday. No change = doomsday. Chance of change = doomsday. Doomsday = doomsday.

Edited by zethreal
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22 hours ago, LionIX said:

If this company tries to actively get involved. It could go either way. They could make it better or worse if they understand the niche want to keep the spirit of the game or try to radically mess with it to milk it for cash which would alienate the core group of players.

 

(note a recent buyout of another Nordic mmo where the shift triggered aggressive changes in the game and pissed off a huge portion of the veteran playerbase)

 

For now I'll just keep playing and see which way things go (hopefully for the better). 

which one? we can say names here without get banned

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Not even going to voice an opinion on what this means for the game because it doesn't matter. However, reading through the thread, an explanation of what this is could've been presented much better than it is here. The original post should've been written by Retrograde and had a PR statement about what this means moving forwards to settle the anxiety of the change. Instead, it fell to players like @Malenato give a better insight into the potential futures of where this could lead in the future. Regardless, everyone should form their own opinion as to what this means. To do so, you need an accurate picture of the events that unfold, so I'll try my best to organize the full picture and CodeClub can correct me wherever I'm wrong.

 

Switching Shares

 

Referencing the press release that @zethrealposted hereRolf sold his shares in CodeClub (representing "82.9 percent of the Code Club shares") for a "total of SEK 3,370,000" ($346,250 USD at current exchange rates). It goes on to say "of which SEK 1,000,000  (~$100,000 USD) was paid in cash on entry today, SEK 500,000  (~$50,000 USD) on October 31, 2019." The final piece is "SEK 1,870,000 (~$187,000 USD) through newly issued shares in Game Chest." To break it down:

  • CodeClub is still a company. It's now a subsidiary of Game Chest Group, since they hold the majority of shares in the company.
  • Rolf sold these shares for roughly $100,000 USD paid in July, then another roughly $50,000 USD that will be paid on October 31, 2019. This is paid in cash (or wire transfer maybe, specifics unknown).
  • The remaining ~$187,000 USD value was granted through new Game Chest Group shares that Rolf now holds.
    • Rolf is now a shareholder of Game Chest Group, not CodeClub.
    • CodeClub, now being a subsidiary of Game Chest Group, means that Rolf actually still has a vested interest in Wurm and CodeClub.
    • Half the payout was in shares, so it's still in Rolf's best interest to see success in CodeClub and Wurm. If Wurm improves and gains additional revenue, the new share values will increase in value and Rolf essentially makes money.
    • If Wurm does not recover and eventually needs to be shut down, CodeClub share value will be close to nothing. Game Chest Group will remain more stable since they have multiple investments.

So that's everything that actually transpired. Rolf's initial statement in this thread ("The reason I did this is basically risk management. With subscriber numbers and revenues going down I was happy that another company with more muscles was ready to step in and take over business.") matches the reasoning behind the last 2 lines, so you can use that as the justification for why this occurred.

 

Now, that's the Rolf perspective of this whole ordeal. So what does this mean for the game?

 

New Upper Management

 

It's too early to know what the new majority shareholders will do with the game, but from the bits and pieces laid out, there's no reason to be completely alarmed.

 

On 9/18/2019 at 2:22 AM, Retrograde said:

The move to AWS is being funded by them.

 

They're clearly willing to invest into the game directly. If that's the case, then they see an opportunity to get a return on investment. How they plan to do this is unknown. However, there's some possible scenarios:

  • They trust the existing development team to do make good decisions and bring life back into the game. They're willing to fund whatever is necessary in order to make that work.
    • If this approach succeeds, the game will have significant improvements in a rapid timeframe, players will return/new players will begin playing, and profits will increase.
    • If this approach fails, the company may see this is a poor investment and will take an action to try and turn it around.
      • They may attempt to milk the rest of the remaining resources they can out of the company before shutting down. This would be the end of the game entirely. If this occurs, the best case scenario for the community would be that they attempt to sell off the assets of the game to another company after shutting down.
      • They may attempt to restructure the staff of the game in an attempt to make radical turn-around.
  • They want to instate a new way of doing things and make radical changes. This would often involve laying off existing staff and instating new developers or completely restructuring the team. Existing signs point to this not being their approach.
    • Rolf and the development team would not be able to prevent this anymore. If Game Chest Group makes the decision to remove existing staff they would be able to do so.
    • Previously staff were accountable up to Rolf. With Game Chest now being the parent company of Code Club, staff are now accountable up to Game Chest Group. Rolf no longer has final say in the positions that staff members have. If Game Chest decides that someone should be removed from GM or development team, they have all the power to do so.

As it stands, there is no "face" of Game Chest Group appearing. Most of the discussion seems to be internal, with Game Chest Group not providing a representative for their interests to the players. Rolf has stated they are hands off, so it shouldn't be expected that a Game Chest Group representative will be participating in the forums or providing any feedback or insight from their perspective. For all intents and purposes, Rolf may as well be the representative of Game Chest Group since he is now a shareholder. The only thing we have to work off are the two statements from the CEO and chairman:

 

Quote

“I really look forward to working with Rolf and his competent team. Wurm has a long history and it will be interesting how well our ideas about how we increase both experience and dissemination will fall out,” comments Game Chest CEO.        

Game Chest chairman Robin Stenman believes that the acquisition “in a very good way broadens the company's portfolio. There is great potential in launching Wurm on additional fronts and implementing new approaches to increase the game's popularity.”

 

If you want to spin conspiracy theories I guess you could take "launching Wurm on additional fronts" as a potential plan for console release. However, we can only wait and see what happens. I'd provide an opinion but I'd rather just leave this as an informative post instead of an opinion piece.

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1 hour ago, tamat said:

which one? we can say names here without get banned

Eve

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On 9/19/2019 at 1:25 AM, Retrograde said:
Frontier will also be a precursor for big changes that will come to Epic in the future, and feedback from how everything goes later in the year will inform us on how we implement the current plans that we have. These changes to Epic won’t be anytime in the next few months, but when they do come they will involve a large overhaul to the cluster in an attempt to bring it closer to the original design for Epic years ago. We will be addressing the larger complaints of the Epic community in that update - but some smaller changes will be heading to live in the coming months as well. For those changes see the recent feedback thread posted here. More info about the exact plans we have for later on will be shared after Frontier is live.

 

Can we please get at least the minimal info on the points highlighted in red? What does that "original design" mean? a temporary cluster/server like Jackal is?

 

Me, personally, would be extremely interested in 2 following points: Would epic home servers stay how they are, and would characters and their skills stay as they are. reason for the first one is i dont really want to keep building a huge profect for the next 4-5 months wasting my time and a lot of money just to realise in the end i have 2 weeks left to enjoy what iv done and reason for the second is would be very similar. i dont want to spend 5 months grinding skills in the cluster where all would be lost. I would move to freedom instead.

 

I dont want to know any spoilers of the full details, i just simply want to be reasured that my points raised will stay or a notification that they will change. Me and other Epic players really deserve this as a minimum.

 

Thank you

Edited by Skatyna
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1 hour ago, Sindusk said:

If you want to spin conspiracy theories I guess you could take "launching Wurm on additional fronts" as a potential plan for console release. 

 

 

I highly doubt "console release".  

 

Mobile / browser / facebook-style versions of Wurm are more likely what they meant, as those are the types of games they currently work in and have actual past experience (and quick profits)  with.

 

Heavy monetization of the game is the new modern face of gaming companies like this.

 

 

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28 minutes ago, Skatyna said:

Me and other Epic players really deserve this as a minimum.

 

Yeah, really if it's known where Epic is going, even broadly, there's a moral obligation to let the citizens of Epic know.

 

Like Skatnya said, we're not after spoilers or even the full details. We understand if these ideas are in flux and subject to change. But like I said previously, we're worried that our projects and the time invested will all come to nought. Sadly, this would not be the first time it's happened to me personally (Elevation 1 map reset), so I feel I have every reason to be worried.

 

We're talking about "big changes" and "an attempt to bring it closer to the original design for Epic", which together imply that there is some idea of where Epic is heading. Please let us know.

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I love how for people "the company wants to make money out of the game" means also that "the company wish to invest in the game", and that the latter is the only consequence of the first.

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2 hours ago, Sindusk said:
  • Rolf is now a shareholder of Game Chest Group, not CodeClub.
  • CodeClub, now being a subsidiary of Game Chest Group, means that Rolf actually still has a vested interest in Wurm and CodeClub.
  • Half the payout was in shares, so it's still in Rolf's best interest to see success in CodeClub and Wurm.

Anyone who owns shares in a company wants to see the shares value increase but they have no obligation to do anything to contribute to that unless they are an employee of the company. This is a passive investment. I have seen no statement within this all that Rolf will now be a paid employee to oversee Wurm Online. It is thought that since he now owns shares of the parent company GCG AB he should continue to work in his previous capacity for free? A pretty advantageous deal for GCG AB if they can convince him to donate his time this way just because he now owns some shares of their company. People who take this position as making sense I think should take a deeper look into what they are in effect implying.

 

Rolf sold the company Code Club AB (Wurm Online) and if the parent company GCG AB fails it was a bad deal to take that percentage of payment in shares. If everything turns out well and the share values increase then the risk was worthwhile. To assess the risk one needs to know a fair bit about to the company you are investing in by reducing over one half of your cash payment in shares. Although there is not much public information available about this company GCG AB there is enough available to determine their profit/loss for the 2 years thus far. Simply put, the continued existence and profitability of Wurm Online now lies within their control. Best to at least face what facts there are and not come up with fanciful dreams of what may or may not happen.

 

Ultimately the risk was Rolf's decision to make and he most likely knows more about the situation than we all do here. Basically this post was just to announce to us Wurmanites that the company Code Club AB (Wurm Online) had been sold to this investor and not go into all the details about it other than that. All we who love/enjoy Wurm Online can do is hope for the best, as we have always done all these years...

 

=Ayes=

 

p.s. One thing I am curious about is who owns the other 17.1% of the shares. I vaguely recall they were distributed to a few individuals early on. This is the great mystery to uncover!

Edited by Ayes
p.s.
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Wow...  the more I read, the more I keep thinking I need to reevaluate what I understand about this whole share thing.  @AyesBasically, passive investment means that they're trying to go for a more stability, it won't really have the same highs and lows that active investment has where things are going to be fluctuating and dictated heavily by the market, but hoping that overall positive returns will come their way.  Damn, I'm trying to wrap my head around it, and I feel like I need something dumbed down for me to get it.  Even went into Investopedia to look it up. 

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All these rumours Maybe the new mob  will ban the selling of coins , only purchase them through their terms.

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1 hour ago, Toecutter said:

All these rumours Maybe the new mob  will ban the selling of coins , only purchase them through their terms.

no, more like premium will be basic premium and you wouldnt get anything from uniques, so you will need pay for full premium and maybe unques spawn every week and x4 on xana (?)

Edited by tamat

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5 hours ago, Sindusk said:

Switching Shares

 

Referencing the press release that @zethrealposted here

 

The link was posted by Pallas & I just used google translate on it :) Also, I don't know how to link profiles or I'd have done it in my initial post.

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13 hours ago, Sindusk said:

Not even going to voice an opinion on what this means for the game because it doesn't matter. However, reading through the thread, an explanation of what this is could've been presented much better than it is here. The original post should've been written by Retrograde and had a PR statement about what this means moving forwards to settle the anxiety of the change. Instead, it fell to players like @Malenato give a better insight into the potential futures of where this could lead in the future. Regardless, everyone should form their own opinion as to what this means. To do so, you need an accurate picture of the events that unfold, so I'll try my best to organize the full picture and CodeClub can correct me wherever I'm wrong.

 

Switching Shares

 

Referencing the press release that @zethrealposted hereRolf sold his shares in CodeClub (representing "82.9 percent of the Code Club shares") for a "total of SEK 3,370,000" ($346,250 USD at current exchange rates). It goes on to say "of which SEK 1,000,000  (~$100,000 USD) was paid in cash on entry today, SEK 500,000  (~$50,000 USD) on October 31, 2019." The final piece is "SEK 1,870,000 (~$187,000 USD) through newly issued shares in Game Chest." To break it down:

  • CodeClub is still a company. It's now a subsidiary of Game Chest Group, since they hold the majority of shares in the company.
  • Rolf sold these shares for roughly $100,000 USD paid in July, then another roughly $50,000 USD that will be paid on October 31, 2019. This is paid in cash (or wire transfer maybe, specifics unknown).
  • The remaining ~$187,000 USD value was granted through new Game Chest Group shares that Rolf now holds.
    • Rolf is now a shareholder of Game Chest Group, not CodeClub.
    • CodeClub, now being a subsidiary of Game Chest Group, means that Rolf actually still has a vested interest in Wurm and CodeClub.
    • Half the payout was in shares, so it's still in Rolf's best interest to see success in CodeClub and Wurm. If Wurm improves and gains additional revenue, the new share values will increase in value and Rolf essentially makes money.
    • If Wurm does not recover and eventually needs to be shut down, CodeClub share value will be close to nothing. Game Chest Group will remain more stable since they have multiple investments.

So that's everything that actually transpired. Rolf's initial statement in this thread ("The reason I did this is basically risk management. With subscriber numbers and revenues going down I was happy that another company with more muscles was ready to step in and take over business.") matches the reasoning behind the last 2 lines, so you can use that as the justification for why this occurred.

 

Now, that's the Rolf perspective of this whole ordeal. So what does this mean for the game?

 

New Upper Management

 

It's too early to know what the new majority shareholders will do with the game, but from the bits and pieces laid out, there's no reason to be completely alarmed.

 

 

They're clearly willing to invest into the game directly. If that's the case, then they see an opportunity to get a return on investment. How they plan to do this is unknown. However, there's some possible scenarios:

  • They trust the existing development team to do make good decisions and bring life back into the game. They're willing to fund whatever is necessary in order to make that work.
    • If this approach succeeds, the game will have significant improvements in a rapid timeframe, players will return/new players will begin playing, and profits will increase.
    • If this approach fails, the company may see this is a poor investment and will take an action to try and turn it around.
      • They may attempt to milk the rest of the remaining resources they can out of the company before shutting down. This would be the end of the game entirely. If this occurs, the best case scenario for the community would be that they attempt to sell off the assets of the game to another company after shutting down.
      • They may attempt to restructure the staff of the game in an attempt to make radical turn-around.
  • They want to instate a new way of doing things and make radical changes. This would often involve laying off existing staff and instating new developers or completely restructuring the team. Existing signs point to this not being their approach.
    • Rolf and the development team would not be able to prevent this anymore. If Game Chest Group makes the decision to remove existing staff they would be able to do so.
    • Previously staff were accountable up to Rolf. With Game Chest now being the parent company of Code Club, staff are now accountable up to Game Chest Group. Rolf no longer has final say in the positions that staff members have. If Game Chest decides that someone should be removed from GM or development team, they have all the power to do so.

As it stands, there is no "face" of Game Chest Group appearing. Most of the discussion seems to be internal, with Game Chest Group not providing a representative for their interests to the players. Rolf has stated they are hands off, so it shouldn't be expected that a Game Chest Group representative will be participating in the forums or providing any feedback or insight from their perspective. For all intents and purposes, Rolf may as well be the representative of Game Chest Group since he is now a shareholder. The only thing we have to work off are the two statements from the CEO and chairman:

 

 

If you want to spin conspiracy theories I guess you could take "launching Wurm on additional fronts" as a potential plan for console release. However, we can only wait and see what happens. I'd provide an opinion but I'd rather just leave this as an informative post instead of an opinion piece.

 

I have read through this whole thread and was going to write pretty much exactly what @Sindusksaid.

 

For me, Rolf is a great coder and has always been a good Wurm steward but he was never going to be able to take Wurm to the next level without outside investment and on that front I am happy with what has happened. It is also a good sign that Rolf retains some level of influence, this makes sense to me. The big unknown is which direction the new ownership will take us, but I am always positive about such things until I see direct evidence to the contrary. 

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I know absolutely nothing about this development apart from what I read here, but I'll post something pompous anyway. As an expert in business, gaming, IT and the universe in general, I can see important clues which may have escaped some of you not-quite-so-intelligent people.

  • Game Chest Group is a Swedish company. This is significant. Sweden is also the home of legendary 70s pop group ABBA. With all the money they made from hits like "Dancing Queen", they would be well placed to take Wurm to the next level.
  • Game Chest Group is an anagram of Got Cheaper Mugs. Could this be a hint about the new owners' marketing strategy?
  • On the other hand, Game Chest is an anagram of Gem Cheats. Uh-oh.
  • Game Chest Group's initials GCG are also the initials of the Global Church of God. Has Wurm been bought by some sinister religious cult?
  • They are also the initials of the Grilled Cheese Grill. This may be significant, but I haven't thought of a reason why yet.

So there you have it. This development could indeed be a great opportunity for Wurm. On the other hand, it could be a disaster. Or it could make no difference at all. Remember, you read it here first.

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lul..

I liked that one..

Why can't we have more posts like that.. they just bring so much more useful insights about the situation as a whole, you get a view of the bigger picture..

 

Can I haZ a wurm meme mug now? Where's the nearest shop?

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55 minutes ago, Palgolak said:

Game Chest Group is a Swedish company. This is significant. Sweden is also the home of legendary 70s pop group ABBA. With all the money they made from hits like "Dancing Queen", they would be well placed to take Wurm to the next level

Top kek 

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16 hours ago, Ayes said:

Anyone who owns shares in a company wants to see the shares value increase but they have no obligation to do anything to contribute to that unless they are an employee of the company. This is a passive investment. I have seen no statement within this all that Rolf will now be a paid employee to oversee Wurm Online.

 

 

Rolf states in the OP:

 

On 9/17/2019 at 3:05 PM, Rolf said:

 I will be doing the same things as before in administration and being involved in various management decisions, while the team manages Wurm and runs the day-to-day business.

 

 

Sure, he doesn't state that he's getting paid for that, but that does clear up that he's still an employee and that it's thus not a passive investment for him.

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17 hours ago, tamat said:

no, more like premium will be basic premium and you wouldnt get anything from uniques, so you will need pay for full premium and maybe unques spawn every week and x4 on xana (?)

Remember when you started spouting off about fishing changes being a precursor to minigames for every skill? Yeah me too.

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50 minutes ago, Madnath said:

Remember when you started spouting off about fishing changes being a precursor to minigames for every skill? Yeah me too.

I'm uninstalling if all crafts are like fishing.. the micromanagement is too much as it is.. that would be ... to deal with

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When Rolf, the creator of the game says that revenue is down and things aren't going well, you know things are bad. I love how casual he is about it, it's clear he is beyond caring for this game at this point. I wonder how his real estate investements are going? Anyway, at least he is honest with us which i like. 

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12 hours ago, Ecrir said:

Sure, he doesn't state that he's getting paid for that, but that does clear up that he's still an employee and that it's thus not a passive investment for him.

No, the situation is not "cleared up" by your response. He does not state that he will be employed by GCG AB, only that he will be preforming his previous functions of oversight. There is no clarification here if this is done voluntarily in his spare time with as much time put towards this as he chooses. This could very well be the situation or he may be an employee which would entail some sore of payment compensation. Also, this needs to be considered within the context of the post where I stated this for a particular reason, not isolated as it was within your quote and response.

 

=Ayes=

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1 hour ago, Ayes said:

No, the situation is not "cleared up" by your response. He does not state that he will be employed by GCG AB, only that he will be preforming his previous functions of oversight. There is no clarification here if this is done voluntarily in his spare time with as much time put towards this as he chooses. This could very well be the situation or he may be an employee which would entail some sore of payment compensation. Also, this needs to be considered within the context of the post where I stated this for a particular reason, not isolated as it was within your quote and response.

 

=Ayes=

He is engaged as a consultant. 

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The official registry still has him as CEO of Code Club AB.

Will be intresting to see what names will be listed when that gets updated.

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