As of press time, it's been 22 days since staffers at
Stargate Worlds creator Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment should have been paid. At least, so says a
a rather stark, declarative insider website devoted solely to a running tally.
Cheyenne Mountain actually seemed to be having a strong year; in March, the company's Joel Ybarra told Gamasutra that it
has four teams at work on both the
Stargate MMO and a second, unspecified online title.
And in April, the company
formed its own publisher, FireSky, to handle
Stargate Worlds and Cheyenne's other unannounced online titles.
But the company's Kevin Balentine, when approached about the "Days Since Cheyenne Mountain Employees Have Been Paid" website, told Gamasutra that the company is indeed facing cash flow challenges as a start-up in the economic downturn.
"At Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, we have always been upfront with the media and our fans that we are a start-up," said Balentine. "Like many start ups, we face the same cash-flow issues that all pre-revenue companies face."
Balentine says the company's core investors are still dedicated to the company -- "but the new economic realities are forcing us to seek out additional sources of funding, and that’s what we’re doing."
Meanwhile, though, Balentine claims that
Stargate Worlds is still moving forward. "We recently completed a successful phase of closed beta testing and we will start a second phase early in 2009," he notes, calling the community thus far "fantastic."
The Phoenix, AZ-based Cheyenne Mountain formed independently in 2005, and in early 2006
announced it gained the Stargate Worlds license from MGM Interactive.
