Companies House threatens to dissolve OOVEE Ltd by April

[mendel]

I also posted this on reddit.
As previously reported here, OOVEE is overdue filing its accounts for the period from March 2014 to February 2015, which (as we all know) includes the successful Spintires launch. It is so much overdue, in fact, that Companies House has sent them notice that unless they get their act together within 2 months, they're going to dissolve the company, and any remaining assets will go to the crown.

However, all Oovee stock, which had previously been held by Zane Saxton (99%) and Tony Fellas (1%) has been transferred to Saxton & Co Ltd on the 8th of July 2015. Saxton & Co is a holding company created in September 2014, and not surprisingly, it is owned by Zane Saxton (99%) and Tony Fellas (1%). Its accounts aren't due for a while yet.

You can see all this at Companies House itself, the documents are free of charge: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06771895 (Oovee) https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09227413 (Saxton & Co)

The legislation referred to in the gazette is this: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/1000

[mendel]

What does it mean? I had some suspicions when we saw Saxton & Co created back in September 2014, and in fact shares have been shuffled. Now either Zane Saxton just wants to use the deadline to hide his accounts for two more months and still file them extra late, or he's transferred all assets in Oovee to Saxton Ltd and intends to let it crash and burn (and anyone whom they still may be liable to). Their financial reputation is definitely damaged now. If I was imgn.pro or Pavel or anyone else whom they might still own money to (Kickstarter T-shirts, anyone?), I'd be worried now.

[Bobby]

They have been 'worried' fpr a long time. Things like this don't happen overnight.

Spintires biggest problem from the beginning was releasing an expensive 'demo' (which this was for all intents and purposes) A lightbulb moment appeared from above someones head and they went; 'Let's sell this as a game! We'll add this.... we'll ad that.....we'll be millionaires! Then of course the bulb dimmed and they realised they needed colateral. How much? who knows but i think we can get this up and running with blah,blah. Then of course the cash runs out and it aint 'up and running' to the extent that was told to the investors. Then lighbulb becomes obsolete....

As is often the case with crowdfunding, kickstarters you only ever hear the success stories.

This is imo the best driving simulation i've ever played. The biggest problem for me (at the very very beginning) was it *never* sold it's self to me. I played the demo and it smacked of just that, a tech demo. It had NO purpose in the demo, no logs, not even a single mission! Then of course it was a knightmare to negotiate the tracks without hitting trees (remember this is the VERY VERY begiining of ever playing Spintires) It was frustrating and cumbersome. Yeah it looked terrific, but what else was there to do??? Then posts arrived about no in-cab cameras or a front bumber cam etc. and it went off the radar. Jump forward and it is in a Humble Bundle sale and i get it, primarily for other games in the bundle. I then play it as almost a 'freebie' and enjoy it incredibly! I then realisehow miss managed this game is and it's potential wasted beyond belief.

I still play it in 3D as it's amazing the detail that you see, but if this idea had come from someone with a business mind or had sought professional help, w would be looking at a franchise that would have expanded into every petrol heads DREAM!!

Instead we are frustrated like we had just walked past the bucket list rockstar that we had followed as kids and will never get that chance again....

Yes it's depressing.
The problem you could have is that it's bought-up and made into an arcade console mass release. It's just too niche for it's own good guys. We love it, but it hasn't got nothing 'catchy' going for it like ETS2.

I's like taking your TONKA trucks out into the garden and fuilling them with mud! It's all in our heads

https://youtu.be/XBsGe79aPsE

[mendel]

I don't know where you're getting your version of the backstory from, but my version is that Pavel has been working on this game for a long time (6-7 years before publication), wining an Intel award in 2009, and releasing demos, one of which had mod capabilities and attracted a modding community. There was a first attempt to publish which fell through, and then Pavel paired up with the Brits from Yarmouth who up to then had a small business selling train sim addons. They ran a successful Kickstarter (since the community was already there, that was easy to do), and released the game a year later through Steam and imgn.pro. The release version did have logs and missions, just like the game does now, and it was moddable but modding was not "built in". multi-player needed some patches, wheel support was added later, but the original June 2014 release was well playable in single-player and also well playable in multi-player if you had good connections all around. That's why it sold a quarter million copies.

However, since the polishing of the game and the rollout had been financed almost entirely with Kickstarter capital (judging by the last accounts report filed with Companies House), this meant a lack of funds come June and a stop to all development work until the accounting was done and the Steam money started flowing in. In September 2014, work on the game continued in preparation for the first flash sale and, ultimately, the Christmas business.

Had Oovee been managing better, then a) development would not have ceased (they could've secured a loan anywhere based on the sales figures), b) the development team would have been enlarged (AFAIK hasn't been done yet, it's still the lone dev whose past focus was graphics), c) features would have been controlled to push most new features into a sequel or an expansion to keep the modding interface stable, d) official map tools would have been released much sooner, and e) Kickstarter commitments (DLC, T-shirts) would have been honored (it took them long enough to ship the physical copies).

As it stands, the Brits seem to have been in for a quick buck with little investment. Having your developer complain publicly about not getting paid on time (and thus delaying delivery of new versions) speaks volumes.

[mendel]

What happened between tech demo and release? For the 60.935 £ Kickstarter, the game got a website, 5 maps, more trucks, winching, logging, Steam achievements and multiplayer. When the sale was such a big success, we all thought they'd implement the rest of the ideas they'd presented for the Kickstarter, but it hasn't been happening.

[Bobby]

The demo had NO logs and just a couple vehicles to wander around in, hardly promotes what you want the public to engage with with the game, does it? There was no intuition and it was just 'chucked' out , hoping (god knows how) people were going to swoon at just the physics or mud?!?!? It was just a mismanaged pipe dream. Shows you without a big company behind you, it's just a generic quagmire in the software industry.
Relying on kickstarter cash isn't how you do it. The game sales are what makes a good company with good investors (that are games players or in tune with the industry -does help) The kitty is for bad slow days, but not to rely on. With very little engaging with his paying audience or future plans posted it just was doomed without keeping your data base up to speed. You don't just sit on your laurels if you want to succede in the games industry. Sure he probably got a new car out of it but now it's back to working for another company as an employee.
No news - in this case -is bad news

Thing is would you trust a kickstarter for Spintires 2? You would be mad too!

[mendel]

zoo の投稿を引用：

The demo had NO logs and just a couple vehicles to wander around in, hardly promotes what you want the public to engage with with the game, does it?

The demo is what the state of the game was pre-Kickstarter. It helped sell the Kickstarter and ensured a big launch. I wouldn't criticize the pre-launch PR, because that was part of the Oovee campaign that actually worked well.

I think Pavel never managed to get a big company interested, I suspect mostly because he's not a game designer and there never was a viable game design for it (still isn't).

I've seen pictures of Oovee's (Zane Saxton, Reece Bolton) big cars, and I've seen a picture of Pavel's cheap flat in St. Petersburg (Russia). His idea of a birthday party is spending a day offroad in a UAZ (I've seen the pictures on vk.com). It's not the *developer* with the big new car.

[Bobby]

As always though we are putting words in their mouths. There's never been proper engagement and we can all surmise what we want to. I can put up pictures of me living in a tent and a bicycle , yet i have a home and a car and mod cons. I'm not really bothered how a dev lives it up -or not. He can do what he wants. I (we) just want more of this game to play in a proper developed manner with our requests taken into account.

The demo didn't sell it ot me though, that was one less input of cash at the beginning. I've played tons of tech demos that shipped with graphic cards etc long before kickstarters etc. It didn't help at all, unless you are happy to chuck cash at something that *might* happen -i don't. Or you, at the cheapness of the demo, are easily pleased.

It's like GeForce 4 days of watching rain hitting water in Morrowind and being amazed. Yes we were -back then- but you need a LOT more to please the majority today and where he missed the boat was the complete lack of structure in the demo. This would be unacceptable as a demo at E3 for eg. That's what you aim for.

[Moggz]

Does this mean the Queen would own the Spintires physics engine? Does she dev?

[svlla]

tldr

[PvtStash]

She owns a range-rover, that counts doesn't it? :)

[mendel]

Moggz の投稿を引用：

Does this mean the Queen would own the Spintires physics engine? Does she dev?

Spintires uses Havok as middleware. Pavel owns the game engine. Any assets that are worth anything are likely to not belong to Oovee, but to Saxton & Co Ltd.

[mendel]

John E. Coolpepper の投稿を引用：

can someone clarify me something... if pavel is the only dev, wtf is oovee? why are they even there? cant just pavel create its own forum and distribute the game via steam?

Back in 2013 when they ran the Kickstarter, it was impossible for Russians to make their own Kickstarter. Pavel needed the funds to spend a year full-time finishing the game, and I believe some people were paid for 3D modeling as well. After running the Kickstarter, Oovee brokered the deal with imgn.pro for DVD publishing (and I think imgn.pro did a very nice job on that). I suspect the problem is that the contract Oovee made with Pavel gave Oovee too many rights in comparison to the work they did.

[mendel]

John E. Coolpepper の投稿を引用：

but oovee doesnt have any other games or bussiness, right? oovee just exists to leech spintires? then someone created oovee just for that kickstarter?

Oovee used to sell train simulator addons. http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_239_4__12&term=oovee I heard that stuff is generally good quality, although Hatchet Hill is a bit broken apparently and the game publisher removed tgheir class 156 for not being up to par. All of these addons are older, and none have been updated for the latest version of the train simulator. But of course they didn't make much money off these (this is clear from their old account statements on Companies House), so I believe all they invested in Spintires came from the Kickstarter.

[Leikon]

Just fix the camera fgs.

Joking aside, I don't understand why Oovee and Pavel don't make a pure (multiplayer) crawler/trail simulator as a spin-off (pun!). The logging element is just a nuisance, the real attraction is the driving in a great physics engine. Create some nice real world terrain and some great 4x4 crawlers and you'd have a sure hit! People would love going off in small groups on trail runs.

[mendel]

Thank you for staying on topic. (I don't understand what's preventing you from doing precisely that in Spintires - in fact I know some players already do.)