OnLive: It Was a Restructuring Thing

[exfileme]

It's another official announcement, this time in PR firm and directly from an OnLive rep.

OnLive: It Was a Restructuring Thing : Read more

 

[Guest]

You go capitalism!

 

[reviewer889]

Why can't EA restructure and lay everyone off and no longer make video games.

 

[Guest]

So nice to see them screw over their employees and investors, must give them a nice fuzzy feeling. Seriously though, if this is how they run their business, I don't know if it'll stick around long term. I'll be avoiding their services for sure, how long until they do the same to their customers?

 

[teh_chem]

[citation][nom]brightblade[/nom]So nice to see them screw over their employees and investors, must give them a nice fuzzy feeling. Seriously though, if this is how they run their business, I don't know if it'll stick around long term. I'll be avoiding their services for sure, how long until they do the same to their customers?[/citation]
It's how business works unfortunately. Would you rather companies not restructure, and continue to operate with heavier losses otherwise and just flat-out die? There's not really much you can do. It's one of the few options to actually keep the business and service going. OnLive has no loyalty to their customers, they have loyalty to their bottom-dollar. If their business isn't profitable, why would they continue operating just because they have customers? It's not like this was some irrational unwarranted decision.

Though the non-transfer, non-purchase of company stock does seem like a good way to circumvent a lot of costs. Where did the "newly formed company" come from, I wonder...?

OnLive is still ahead of its time.

 

[svdb]

Assets repurchasing is just a financial ploy which only benefits a small number of share holders. There are enough healthy companies out there who were saved without resorting to such extremes to show this is not the "only way" a company can be saved.

 

[chomlee]

I owned shares in a startup company and a similar thing happend. The Company was merely listed as the distributor and the guy who owned the actual intelectual properties was chairman of it. He simply dissolved the company and kept the patents for himself, formed a new company, and got away with it. He basically walked away with millions of dollars in his pockets that he had sent to the Caymens etc and nobody could do anything about it.

As for the comment earlier that the Onlive's loyalty. They are supposed to have loyalty to the shareholders. This business of companies just folding up filing for bankrupcy or selling a business leaving the stockholders high and dry is rediculous. What I also don't understand is if they "Sold" the business, where did the money go????? I wouldn't be surprized if the boardmembers formed their own company, sold the company to themselves for $.01, and wiped out any dept to investors. If that is the case, they should all go to jail.

 

[rantoc]

Aww the spineless suits can't make a statement of their own. They think they should be paid to take responsibility but in the end they take none!

 

[teh_chem]

I didn't quite understand from this article what happened. bit-tech had a slightly more detailed synopsis.

[citation]Speaking for both OnLive-1 and OnLive-2, the company's board has issued a statement explaining that OnLive-1's assets were transferred to a third-party who then sold them on to OnLive-2 - neatly bypassing rules on simply changing the name of your company to continue operations while avoiding debt repayment.

The stockholders, meanwhile, get bupkis: only assets were transferred to OnLive-2, meaning that investors in OnLive-1 have just seen their money disappear and their shares rendered worthless. Shares in OnLive-1 will not, in other words, be exchanged for shares in OnLive-2.[/citation]

I retract my previous statement--this isn't just business...I agree, things like this should be illegal. I'm not so much caught up in the fact that people lost their jobs because in a standard "restructuring" (or downsizing), people will lose jobs regardless. But man, exploiting a workaround so blatantly...THAT's what I missed at first, which tom's didn't showcase very well.

I'd be shocked if onlive receives anymore non-customer funding, showing perfectly well that they have no problem playing games and nullifying stock value. So they took the money fronted by investors for promise of a share of the company, and are essentially removing their share of the company but keeping the money. Genius. Despicable.

 

[bustapr]

must feel nice to cheat your way out of contracts

 

[theconsolegamer]

Y U NO GO UNDER ONLIVE! Your Cloud service is gonna ruin gaming as we know it! JUST DIE ONLIVE, DIE!!!

 

[teh_chem]

[citation][nom]theconsolegamer[/nom]Y U NO GO UNDER ONLIVE! Your Cloud service is gonna ruin gaming as we know it! JUST DIE ONLIVE, DIE!!![/citation]
Gaming as we know it will sadly be gone soon. Services like OnLive will be what PC gaming will become, though there's a lot of work to be done.