stargate-worlds posts

Several months ago, word got out that Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment was running out of money and failing to pay its team members for working on their long-in-development MMO Stargate Worlds. Now comes word that some kind of funding has in fact come in that might help the title finally get launched.

According to MMORPG.com, Cheyenne Mountain's Shane Hensley seems to confirm the new funding arrangement (specifics like numbers and where the money is coming from was not revealed). He did say that the money would " . . .allow us to move forward with development and start catching up on our past due financial obligations, including some back payroll that we paid last week."

We've been following for several months the financial issues that have hit developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's efforts to complete their long awaited MMO Stargate Worlds. Now a new story from MMORPG.com claims that the company has days to secure new funding before Stargate's owners MGM will pull their game license.

The story, which uses an unnamed former dev team member as its source, claims that Cheyenne is still trying to get an $8 million investment deal completed. The story also has quotes from Cheyenne's Shane Hensley who confirms that the company is still trying to make investment deals to complete the game. However he added, "MGM certainly isn't thrilled with our current situation, but neither do we have any specific indication they're pulling the license on any particular date."

The financially troubled MMO developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment is still working on their long-in-development game Stargate Worlds. However the studio is now working on the game without its original studio head. TenTonHammer.com reports that the company's studio head Dan Elggrens has left for a new position at another MMO developer Gazillion Entertainment.

The info was found on a family blog of Elggrens (which has since been locked out) where it was revealed that he has decided to leave after basically not being paid for his work. The post stated that Stargate Worlds "was within several months of being ready to ship" before he left. Cheyanne Mountain Entertainment has since posted a statement saying, "Dan's guidance has been crucial to getting Stargate Worlds to this point, but we believe fresh eyes may find ways to improve the game moving forward." Rod Nakamoto, the company's senior VP of product development, will take over Elggrens's work on the game.

[Via Massively]

Last weekend we reported on comments first posted on the Stargate fan site Gateworld.net in which the TV show franchise's head man Brad Wright expressed disappointment in the progress made by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment in the making of Stargate Worlds. Today the dev team fired back, saying basically that the team is still hard at work on the long-in-development MMO.

In a statement from the company's Senior Marketing Manager Kevin Balentine he says, "Our official response is that the lights here are still on and the development team is working hard every day to get this game built. Team members are in the office seven days a week to deliver Stargate Worlds. Brad Wright is the Stargate expert and a creative consultant on Stargate Worlds who advises us on the story; unfortunately we had not recently updated him on our progress or the impact from the current global economic crisis, and he was not fully aware of the continuing progress on our game."

The statement adds that funding for the game from angel investors is still keeping the development team working but they are still negotiating a number of deals that if successful will allow the team to finish development of the game. There's still no word yet on how far Stargate Worlds is from completion.

A few months ago we reported that the developer of Stargate Worlds, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, was experiencing financial problems. While the company has continued to develop the long awaited MMO title during their financial crisis and released a handful of new screenshots, there's been no real news on its current status, much less a release date.

In a chat over at Gateworld.net it's clear Brad Wright, who has been the head producer of MGM's Stargate franchise since the launch of the Stargate SG-1 TV series, is not happy with Cheyenne Mountain's issues with finishing the game. He states, "They had an opportunity and they got our support, and they obviously had significant funding, and it didn't happen. It's kind of a drag for the fans and the time that we invested - what little of it there really was, in comparison to what they did - was still a shame that it was wasted, because it should have happened."

This isnt the first time a Stargate-based game has hit development troubles. A Stargate SG-1 FPS was canceled midway in its production in 2005 by its publisher JoWood. It had issues with how its developer handled the game. Wright feels that the sci-fi franchise has not been served well by all of these problems. He states, "Now MGM is back in a position where they don't have a product in that marketplace that they should. There should be a shiny Stargate game on the shelves right now and there isn't, and it's wrong."

Gallery: Stargate Worlds

Late last year rumors hit the Internet that Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, the developer of the TV-based MMO Stargate Worlds was in financial trouble, with claims that employees at the studio had not been paid in some time. Representatives from the company would only admit they were seeking new financial sources to complete the game.

This week the game's official web site posted up two new screenshots from the title, showing off one of the characters in the title. The description states that it is a "Soldier wearing Tier 4 Ablative Armor armed with the never before seen in public Tier 5 PVK Advanced Sub-Machine Gun". Which is nice and all but there is still no real status update on the game's development at this stage. Has the company found that new source of money or are they still looking? Stay tuned.

While Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment continues to work on their long-in-development MMO Stargate Worlds, the company has scored a major coup in having an entire racing team show their logo on their car and (as you can see in the picture) the transport trailer.

Even odder, the racing team has former actor Frankie Muniz as one of the drivers. The star of the late Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle (still running endlessly in syndication) left the acting business to race cars full time about three years ago. For the 2009 season of the Cooper Tires Atlantic Championship Series, Muniz and his racing partner Simona De Silvestro will have the Stagate Worlds logo displayed and shown to the racing fans that attend the events. The note on the Stargate Worlds' web site says Cheyenne paid no up front money for the sponsorship which is good considering the company's recent financial issues.

The folks at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment have been working on their TV show based MMO Stargate Worlds for some time but late in 2008 rumors began to fly that the developer had run out of money to pay their development team. It was a situation that the developer didn't confirm but didn't deny either, saying at the time they were looking into new ways to fund the game before its release.

However the game's official web site is still being updated and today they posted a new screenshot from Stargate Worlds, showing off an NPC team that will look familiar to the fans of the franchise.There's still no word yet from Cheyenne on the status of their fund raising for the game but they seem determined to continue to develop the title, pay or no pay.

The poor economic climate is hitting everywhere, even well established game developers like Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment. The Arizona based developer has been working for a few years now on Stargate Worlds, the Unreal Engine 3 powered MMO based on the long running sci-fi movie-TV franchise.

However, a web site posted up by an anonymous person claims that it has been three weeks since anyone at Cheyanne has been paid. Ten Ton Hammer has posted up a comment from a Cheyenne spokesperson who, while not admitting to the payroll problems, does say, "...the new economic realities are forcing us to seek out additional sources of funding and that's what we're doing." The spokesperson added that they are continuing to develop Stargate Worlds and plan to launch a new round of closed beta testing in early 2009. Ten Ton Hammer's story also mentioned word from anonymous sources that a number of Cheyenne team members have left the company but specific numbers were not mentioned.

[Via Blue's News]

The iris is about to open on the closed beta test of Stargate Worlds. The upcoming sci-fi MMO based on the long running movie and TV franchise will start inviting its first beta testers to try out the game on Oct. 15. You can still sign up to be a part of the beta at the game's official web site.

Developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and publisher Firesky also sent over some new acreenshots from the game showing off the Unreal Engine 3 powered graphics of the title. The game is scheduled to officially launch sometime in 2009. In the meantime more beta testers will be invited into the game in the months before the launch.