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GOG.com - Polish company puts saran wrap over the toilet bowl, yells "PUNK'D"

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J

John

Member
Stop It said:
Now, I am just going to post this, and leave this to people who know finance more than me.

http://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/OPT...o-informacji-poufnych-2212111.html#pvy7zfso61 <--Translated into English shows that 4 shareholders with access to "confidential" information (Board members of Optimus) sold shares in the company last week.

The date are the key here, they started the process to sell them after the 15th of September, and finished the process on the 17th. On the 17th of September Optimus announced an EGM (Emergency General Meeting) with a view to create new shares, this would significantly lessen the value of existing shares.

Anyone who knows how financial markets work will understand this, and will know why I am NOT going to comment on it. The above is public information so it's OK, but to draw anything from it would be foolish of me (Not in public anyway).
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Fuck :eek:
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
SapientWolf said:
Isn't that insider trading? And isn't creating new shares a common strategy to prevent a hostile takeover?
Click to expand...

One could say that this is how it appears.
 
E

epmode

Member
Online backups are a huge reason I buy from DD sites. Sigh.

At least I won't have to worry about DLC headaches if the site is permanently taken offline. ..after I redownload everything, I mean.
 
R

RumblingRosco

Member
Wait, they had Master of Orion 2 and no one told me? GOD. DAMN. IT.

There has to be a way to still purchase it. Maybe I'll email them. Dammit whhhhhhhy.
 
E

epmode

Member
Master of Magic too! And the Tex Murphy games! And Outcast! And lots of other awesome stuff waaahhh

The only thing I regret is not buying Riven and Age of Wonders when I had the chance. I grabbed everything else.
 
S

Stop It

Perfectly able to grasp the inherent value of the fishing game.
SapientWolf said:
Isn't that insider trading? And isn't creating new shares a common strategy to prevent a hostile takeover?
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It's...well, close, but not enough to be strictly illegal. I think.

On the 15th they announced that they were selling these shares at 1.80z&#322;, but gave the reason that they were trying to cover their debts. On the 17th, as the transactions were completed, they announce this EGM to create even more shares.

Now, the key is, was the notice of disposal enough to allow them to say that the market had enough info, or does it mean that they should have announced the EGM and the intention of creating new shares before disposing of these shares? Basically, did these guys sell up thinking the pending announcement of the EGM would kill the shares value, thus gaining an advantage over the general market?

I honestly don't know, this is way beyond my limited knowledge of financial law and is frankly, a little bit scary. All I do know is, that with this information to hand, I would have thought the share price would have slumped, instead, they moved up 14% today.

The markets know, or think they know, more than meets the eye here. These board members have sold their shares at 1.80z&#322; only to see the price reach over 3z&#322; today which frankly, makes them look silly. Something has gone crazy here, and I want Wednesday to hurry up to get to the bottom of this.

Oh, and yes, that's the http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/poisonpill.asp <--poison pill strategy. This implies that the investor was known before this EGM (He would have to have a stake in the company for this to work, and be excluded from the sale), which I am not sure of, it is possible. Either way, that backfired too as the share value should go down, not up.
 
R

Radogol

Member
epmode said:
My big worry now is that CD Projekt is in trouble. If The Witcher 2 is canceled...
Click to expand...

It's enough of a miracle that Witcher 2 was even announced. These aren't new trouble, I'm afraid.
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
I'm just curious if the company will be bought out. They are pretty talented and it'd be ashame if they weren't given the opportunity to continue making games.
 
K

Kifimbo

Member
Stop It said:
stuff
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert either...but someone clearly bought these shares. What if that person/company is also buying (or trying to buy) shares from other shareholders. The price would rise, right ? There is a new and potentially serious buyer...and current shareholders don't want to sell because they think this person/company is solid. More demand and less supply ?
 
S

Stop It

Perfectly able to grasp the inherent value of the fishing game.
LovingSteam said:
I'm just curious if the company will be bought out. They are pretty talented and it'd be ashame if they weren't given the opportunity to continue making games.
Click to expand...
The current share price indicates that the market expects a takeover (As stated earlier, up 14% today). Who by, and for what reason is unknown. Frankly, it must be the reason behind this, because, weird share dealings aside,nothing I have found indicates that GoG needed to be shut like this.

All I can say is, if you still think this is a stunt, then it's the most elaborate one I have seen in years.

Kifimbo said:
I'm not an expert either...but someone clearly bought these shares. What if that person/company is also buying (or trying to buy) shares from other shareholders. The price would rise, right ? There is a new and potentially serious buyer...and current shareholders don't want to sell because they think this person/company is solid. More demand and less supply ?
Click to expand...
It would yes. The elephant in the room is this EGM on Wednesday. If the board wanted to defend themselves from a takeover, why didn't they just say so instead of announcing what they did, and why did they sell their shares at a discount before doing so (Unless if they were trying the poison pill strategy)? It doesn't make sense, none of this does. Something is missing, some key piece of information is missing.
 
S

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Stop It said:
It's...well, close, but not enough to be strictly illegal. I think.

On the 15th they announced that they were selling these shares at 1.80z&#322;, but gave the reason that they were trying to cover their debts. On the 17th, as the transactions were completed, they announce this EGM to create even more shares.

Now, the key is, was the notice of disposal enough to allow them to say that the market had enough info, or does it mean that they should have announced the EGM and the intention of creating new shares before disposing of these shares? Basically, did these guys sell up thinking the pending announcement of the EGM would kill the shares value, thus gaining an advantage over the general market?

I honestly don't know, this is way beyond my limited knowledge of financial law and is frankly, a little bit scary. All I do know is, that with this information to hand, I would have thought the share price would have slumped, instead, they moved up 14% today.

The markets know, or think they know, more than meets the eye here. These board members have sold their shares at 1.80z&#322; only to see the price reach over 3z&#322; today which frankly, makes them look silly. Something has gone crazy here, and I want Wednesday to hurry up to get to the bottom of this.

Oh, and yes, that's the http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/poisonpill.asp <--poison pill strategy. This implies that the investor was known before this EGM (He would have to have a stake in the company for this to work, and be excluded from the sale), which I am not sure of, it is possible. Either way, that backfired too as the share value should go down, not up.
Click to expand...
Well, they could also have done this in addition to creating discounted shares for shareholders:

The target adds to its charter a provision which gives the current shareholders the right to sell their shares to the acquirer at an increased price(usually 100% above recent average share price) , if the acquirer's share of the company reaches a critical limit (usually one third). This kind of poison pill cannot stop a determined acquirer, but ensures a high price for the company.
Click to expand...

If they know the ship is sinking then they might as well get as much gold off of it as they can.
 
cicero

cicero

Member
Monroeski said:
I don't see where I said or implied that you had a responsibility to do anything.

I just think it's funny how people come out of the woodwork claiming they wanted to buy a bunch of stuff from a given company when they never actually bought the things from said company during the months/years they were offering it before. Happens over and over.
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That is an unfounded assumption, that they hadn't actually bought anything. I am one of the people who posted about wanting to have bought a whole lot more than I had, and I had already bought at least 27 different games from GOG. I will list them if you want.

I have a list I made in June of the titles GOG had that I was interested in but waiting on that I would buy straight off if I could today. 13 different games, and that doesn't include the newer stuff since June that I would have bought or the titles I would probably buy if I went through their catalog one last time knowing I wouldn't have the chance again.

You are wrong.
 
T

Twig

Banned
Monroeski said:
I never said anything of the sort. I never even implied that they DIDN'T have things that I wanted to buy, and in fact said as much in my edit of the above post.

You can't make a post about anything around here without people jumping down your throat like you personally insulted their mother.
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And that's just what you did. :lol
 
F

Fox318

Member
I'm going to miss gog. I just hope that the CD Project guys do gangbusters with the Witcher 2. I can't wait for that to come out.
 
L

Lafazar

Member
Some more research into the financial side of things:
According to GoG.com’s twitter account, the DRM-free functionality of GOG is causing hassles with publishers. This is curious since last week, they secured the license to distribute the Age of Wonders series. So someone big must have kicked up a fuss about the DRM situation.

Now this is where things get interesting. Optimus S.A, the company that merged with CD Projekt in 2009 (the company that made The Witcher) and subsequently GOG.com, has scheduled an extraordinary general meeting for this coming Wednesday. This was after it was confirmed that approximately 5.5% of the company will be sold to a unnamed private investor. This naturally sparked concerns regarding a possible takeover, however that is very unlikely since 5.5% isn’t enough to secure control of the company on its own. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be verified since I could not find an accurate list of current shareholders. All the Polish websites produced conflicting information regarding who controlled what percentage of the company. Optimus S.A’s corporate website detailed the two co-founders of CD Projekt as the primary shareholders with an equal 20% each, while a Polish financial site listed another bloke as a holder of around 50%, which is ridiculously unlikely.

Either way, 5.5% is not enough to takeover the company unless one of the co-founders with 20% is trying to screw the other one. And if the claim of someone owning 50% is accurate, then 5.5% is a drop in the ocean.

So, a take over is unlikely. Also, reading through the draft agreement of the EGM didn’t show any mentions of a takeover or change in ownership or control.

Optimus S.A posted a profit for the first half of this year, in contrast to the loss they posted last year. GOG.com is a good, constant revenue source, so closing it down in the wake of a take over is an illogical business decision since its a valid revenue stream that has little or nothing to do with its parent company. I would say 99.9% of GOG users even know its owned by CD Projekt, let alone Optimus S.A.

The only way it would make sense is if a competitor tried to get GOG through a take over, but which publisher would try to take over a multi-million holding company to get hold of one of their smaller revenue streams? Considering the cost to buy of a company, deal with the additional administration, restructure/re-appropriate staff, etc, it would be crazy to go through all that for a part of the revenue stream that you could just purchase straight up from the holding company. It doesn’t quite make sense.

Furthermore, the stock price of Optimus S.A shot up 9.5% on Friday, so something is definitely afoot there.

The following quote comes for the Polish financial site Bankier, translated by Google, so please excuse the broken English:

“The aim of the negotiation and conclusion by Optimus investment agreement was to acquire funding for projects within the group Optimus in connection with the planned development, a significant reduction in debt of the company to shareholders, to improve the group’s balance sheet structure and the possession of Optimus among akcjonariuszy Optimus professional instytucji Financial – the report says the company."

That could be construed as a very cookie cutter response from the company, so I’m not sure how much truth is contained in it. The only way we will be sure whats happening at the parent company is when the report of the EGM this Wednesday is released.

Naturally, this could just be GOG.com ending the beta through a bizarre marketing stunt, and the full release pops up soon, but the fact that there is some much happening at the parent company surely cannot be a simple coincidence.

Stay tuned for updates on the fate of this truly brilliant platform.


Read more: http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/breaking-gog-com-shuts-down-we-investigate/#ixzz10797ME30
Click to expand...
Source: http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/breaking-gog-com-shuts-down-we-investigate/
 
F

Fredescu

Member
It's funny that everyone is mentioning Master of Orion II. I saw a retail copy in my local EB last week. I thought seeing such an old game new on the shelf next to Starcraft 2 and ads for Fallout New Vegas pre orders was interesting enough to take a photo of, but I don't have my phone cable with me to share.
 
D

disappeared

Banned
Somewhere, a man sits in his office chair. He's looking out his office window, and it is gray and raining outside. He is laughing maniacally.


GoG gone in only two years. That's just strange.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
HK-47 said:
Not really. The Witcher was a million seller.
Click to expand...
It seems like they've thrown so much of that money after bad investments though. Witcher console port, that canceled FPS, and now possibly GoG.
 
R

Radogol

Member
Fredescu said:
It seems like they've thrown so much of that money after bad investments though. Witcher console port, that canceled FPS, and now possibly GoG.
Click to expand...

They also canceled a full-blown expansion pack (think DA: Awakening) and an open world spin-off.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
Wow, I had no idea about either of those things. I'm getting a little worried about Witcher 2. I hope they've been sensible with the scope of the game.
 
R

Radogol

Member
Fredescu said:
Wow, I had no idea about either of those things. I'm getting a little worried about Witcher 2. I hope they've been sensible with the scope of the game.
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The spin-off thing has never been confirmed, but rumored in Polish press. And behind the scenes, of course.

As for the expansion pack, it was called Outcast. I just now noticed that it was being developed by roXidy, which is sort of scary, because Ossian was supposedly working on an expansion pack for The Witcher as well, as noted on their website.

All of these projects are gone now :(
 
F

Fredescu

Member
disappeared said:
The original was indeed a big-seller. I wouldn't put it past another publisher helping it get to shelves.
Click to expand...
My worry is they've gone into it with a "we're rich as fuck now, lets make this massive game" mentality, an attitude they appear to have approached everything else with, and the game has become too unwieldy to finish. If a publisher does help them get it out, it will be cut back from it's original vision and it will sort of feel like a mish mash of unfinished systems and story threads. I try to imagine a situation where they've been sensible about this one thing out of many, and I struggle to picture it.

I do so enjoy concocting doomsday scenarios about the things I love the most though, so try to ignore me. Witcher 2 will probably be awesome.
 
F

fizzelopeguss

Banned
Fredescu said:
My worry is they've gone into it with a "we're rich as fuck now, lets make this massive game" mentality, an attitude they appear to have approached everything else with, and the game has become too unwieldy to finish. If a publisher does help them get it out, it will be cut back from it's original vision and it will sort of feel like a mish mash of unfinished systems and story threads. I try to imagine a situation where they've been sensible about this one thing out of many, and I struggle to picture it.

I do so enjoy concocting doomsday scenarios about the things I love the most though, so try to ignore me. Witcher 2 will probably be awesome.
Click to expand...

Witcher 1 was pretty massive, largest polish entertaintment investment?
 
R

Radogol

Member
disappeared said:
The original was indeed a big-seller.
Click to expand...

The game was announced in 2002. At one point, its development was restarted from scratch. Before it premiered, Kicinski openly admitted that it will probably not be profitable and the idea is to build a strong IP and train a competent team (most of which was fired after release).

Following its launch, the game did well enough to kind-of, sort-of break even, but at the same time the financial crisis hit and it all went to hell.

Allegedly, it recently became profitable, but the damage is already done.

disappeared said:
I wouldn't put it past another publisher helping it get to shelves.
Click to expand...

That makes a lot of sense, though. Publishers, make it so!

Fredescu said:
My worry is they've gone into it with a "we're rich as fuck now, lets make this massive game" mentality.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what happened with The Witcher 1 ;) They were one of the healthiest companies in Poland before they decided to try their hand at game development.

Look at it this way - before Techland made Bound in Blood with Ubi, they produced dozens of smaller scale, bargain-bin games, improving quality from title to title. CD-Projekt just threw money at their first game ever and hoped for the best. The plan kind of worked, because The Witcher is excellent, but it took five years and financial scarring.
 
IlludiumQ36

IlludiumQ36

Member
GOG.com just updated:

UPDATE 20.09.2010
First of all, we apologize everyone for the whole situation and closing GOG.com. We do understand the timing for taking down the site caused confusion and many users didn't manage to download all their games. Unfortunately we had to close the service due to business and technical reasons.

At the same time we guarantee that every user who bought any game on GOG.com will be able to download all their games with bonus materials, DRM-free and as many times as they need starting this Thursday.

The official statement from GOG.com's management concerning the ongoing events is planned on Wednesday. If you want to receive further information about GOG.com, please send an email to update_media@gog.com if you're a media representative or to update_users@gog.com if you're a user without a GOG account.
 
S

Servizio

I don't really need a tag, but I figured I'd get one to make people jealous. Is it working?
This is an outrage, and I for one am only going to seriously consider maybe only buying and/or downloading three or four of the games they put up for free/sale to launch the new service. Possibly only five or ten depending on how cheap or free they are. But I definitely won't enjoy it, and will be very reluctant to trust them in the future now that they're being bought by one of the most stable and reliable PC gaming companies in the world.

In closing, I have my credit card out but my pants are still very much on and I'm only thinking about the upcoming GOG backed Steam holiday sale a little. I hope you're happy with yourselves, Gog.
 
D

Draft

Member
This is where the lack of real games journalism hurts. There's probably a very interesting story behind the collapse of GOG, and it'll maybe get a few paragraphs on RPS.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Draft said:
This is where the lack of real games journalism hurts. There's probably a very interesting story behind the collapse of GOG, and it'll maybe get a few paragraphs on RPS.
Click to expand...

At least someone like PC Gamer exists and has the ability to reach out for an interview. I figure this is barely worth a mention on any other podcasts/sites.
 
K

Kifimbo

Member
Draft said:
This is where the lack of real games journalism hurts. There's probably a very interesting story behind the collapse of GOG, and it'll maybe get a few paragraphs on RPS.
Click to expand...

Well, it ain't easy since it's a Polish company. And there is an important language barrier.
 
D

Dennis

Banned
Kifimbo said:
Well, it ain't easy since it's a Polish company. And there is an important language barrier.
Click to expand...
I am just going to assume that polish guys working on games can speak english....at least good enough to answer an email from a journalist.
 
R

RustyO

Member
Oh dear, what a shame. Quite disappointing.

Thanks to GoG I got me Freespace 2 and Jagged Alliance amongst others.
 
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