Company News Interplay to be homeless?

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Interplay

<A href="http://www.gamespot.com/">GameSpot</a> is <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/04/15/news_6093683.html">reporting a bit</a> about <a href="Http://www.interplay.com">Interplay</a> facing possible eviction from their offices due to kinda not paying the rent. Here's a brief clip:
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<blockquote>Besides highlighting the disparity between its cash balance of $1.2 million and working-capital deficit of $14.8 million, the notice also revealed interplay is facing eviction from its Irvine, CA headquarters. The filing states that "As of April 1, 2004, the Company [Interplay] was three months in arrears on the rent obligations for its corporate lease in Irvine, California." During the conference call, Caen revealed the rent for Interplay headquarters is around $150,000 a month, meaning the company currently owes its landlord approximately $450,000--nearly half its cash on hand. </blockquote>
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Sounds like someone needs to organize a bake sale.
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Thanks, <b>DIPThong</b>!

 

[Voss]

Or a party....

That should teach people to set up shop around L.A.

 

[Oyarsa]

They could set up shop in Kansas or Ohio, but its harder to attract talent.

 

[EEVIAC]

Shit, you could buy half of Tasmania for 450 grand.

That should teach people to set up shop around L.A.

If you're scrapping for cash (which most developers seem to) why would you want to pay $150 000 a month on rent? It seems to me that you're going to be flying press and business partners in anyway, does it really matter whether its LA or Bumfuck, Nowhere, USA?

 

[DIPthong]

<A href="http://www.gamespot.com/">GameSpot</a> is <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/04/15/news_6093683.html">reporting a bit</a> about <a href="Http://www.interplay.com">Interplay</a> facing possible eviction from their offices due to kinda not paying the rent. Here's a brief clip:

<blockquote>Besides highlighting the disparity between its cash balance of $1.2 million and working-capital deficit of $14.8 million, the notice also revealed interplay is facing eviction from its Irvine, CA headquarters. The filing states that "As of April 1, 2004, the Company [Interplay] was three months in arrears on the rent obligations for its corporate lease in Irvine, California." During the conference call, Caen revealed the rent for Interplay headquarters is around $150,000 a month, meaning the company currently owes its landlord approximately $450,000--nearly half its cash on hand. </blockquote>

Sounds like someone needs to organize a bake sale.

Thanks, <b>DIPThong</b>!

Ewww, a capital T in my name...gross. :D

 

[Azael]

I can understand the business reasons for setting up shop in areas like that, makes it a lot easier to attract talent for example, but the costs must be staggering. When it comes to something like game development it seems to me like you could do just as well in any highly populated area, not necessarily in sunny California. Hell, Microsoft started out in Seattle.

 

[Oyarsa]

Seattle, SoCal, SanFran, NYC, Chicago, Boston. These are places that people want to live in large part because they project an image of being cool, hip, happening, whatever. As people and businesses flock to an area space and other commodities become rare, driving up costs. Companies need to be able to attract talent, this is part of the location equation. Other parts could include logistical considerations, infrastructure, government support (tax breaks), etc. I read about a guy who took control of a mid-sized company and promptly moved the entire HQ operations nearer to where he lived because he did not want to uproot his family (it wasn't quite as arrogant as it sounds, but still pretty cheeky and pretty stupid).

As for any large population center sufficing it all depends on the skillsets and experience of your workforce. Detroit for example is an urban center, plenty of national and international HQ's in the surrounding suburbs, high tech infrastructure is one of the best in the US. The problem is the vast majority of the skilled workers are tied to heavy industry, particulary the auto industry. There may be a lot of high tech expertise to tap, but its mostly manufacturing related. Not necessarily the best pool for building world-class entertainment organizations. SoCal, otoh, is the entertainment mecca for the US. The relevant talent pool is enormous and always attracting more of the kinds of people who want to sing, act, produce, write, do FX, what have you.

 

[Seven]

I think a lot of people are forgetting that after their downsizing efforts they probably don't use a quarter of the space that they're paying for, and given that they're under a lease they can't renogiate for less space; the end result is that they have to get evicted or pay huge rents for useless space.

 

[Fireblade]

I can understand the business reasons for setting up shop in areas like that, makes it a lot easier to attract talent for example, but the costs must be staggering. When it comes to something like game development it seems to me like you could do just as well in any highly populated area, not necessarily in sunny California. Hell, Microsoft started out in Seattle.

Microsoft didn't start in Seattle, they started in New Mexico.

 

[Fireblade]

Seattle, SoCal, SanFran, NYC, Chicago, Boston. These are places that people want to live in large part because they project an image of being cool, hip, happening, whatever. As people and businesses flock to an area space and other commodities become rare, driving up costs. Companies need to be able to attract talent, this is part of the location equation. Other parts could include logistical considerations, infrastructure, government support (tax breaks), etc. I read about a guy who took control of a mid-sized company and promptly moved the entire HQ operations nearer to where he lived because he did not want to uproot his family (it wasn't quite as arrogant as it sounds, but still pretty cheeky and pretty stupid).

If you're talking about tech jobs, like making games would be, then delete Chicago, add Dallas and Austin.

 

[Seven]

Tryin' to get that post count up, eh?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

$150,000 US a month? Hell, gimme that and I could have a team of guys pushing a quality Fallout 3 out the door by the end of next year!

 

[Spazmo]

We might have to do that, because you and your team aren't doing a whole fucking lot for free.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

That's not true! We've done lots of work and our maps in progress have a lot of potential!

Just make sure all cheques are payable to the DarkUnderlord Retirement Fund.

 

[rhysling]

they deserve to be homeless for paying that muich in rent