Company News IPLY.OB in free fall

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Interplay

It looks like shareholders are starting to figure out what losing the D&D distribution rights means for <A href="http://www.interplay.com">Interplay</a>, because <A href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=IPLY.OB">IPLY.OB</a> is down from <b>7.5 cents/share</b> to <b>5.2 cents/share</b> as of this posting. That's a <b>30.67% drop</b>. It hit <b>5 cents/share</b> earlier this morning, which is the lowest it's been in over a year. The volume of trade is <b>1,269,100</b>, so there's a lot of shares flying around.
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<div align="center"><a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=IPLY.OB&t=1d"><img src="http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/news/iplyfreefall.jpg" height="196" width="350"></a></div>
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I'd say that a few people will pick up shares, since it's getting cheaper for them to do it now. However, I doubt it will reach the <b>7.5 cents/share</b> it openned with today.
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<b>EDIT:</b> Closed at <b>6 cents/share</b>, down <b>20%</b>.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://finance.yahoo.com">Yahoo Finance</A>

 

[Major_Blackhart]

This is beautiful!

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

*Dresses up as a munchkin*

Ding dong the witch is dead......

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boar ... Y&read=865

Hey,

We should all try to get ahold of Luke Haase, Interplay's investor relations guy, to ask him what the deal is with no Dark Alliance or D & D games on Interplay's website anymore. I emailed Luke but haven't hear back from him. In an earlier post a few weeks ago, I posted Luke's email and phone number. We should all try to bug him and see if at least one of us can get through. It would be nice to know what is going on right now. If we can get some news, it might be a good time to buy, with everyone selling all their shares.

Just for the record, frymuchan has 600,000 shares of IPLY.OB. The stock is at 5.8 cents per share right now. frymuchan is lost over $10,000 since the market openned this morning.

He bought those shares at 12 cents. That means he's lost $37,200 so far.

 

[Country_Gravy]

How can these investors be so clueless? Are they just holding onto hope because they are in danger of losing everything? One of these guys doesn't even have a job. He is going to be screwed. Some guy also posted a link to a NMA thread aboiut IPLY, so these guys have to know that everybody else knows this company is going down the tubes. This is some sick drama unfolding in front of us. This is high quality entertainment, and I am loving it!!!

I am such a bastard.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, that orion guy should have got out this morning since he's unemployed. The stock is at 6 cents now, so he's lost 20% of what he had this morning in about three hours.

I have a sneaking feeling frymuchan is hoping people buy enough to where he can sell fast, say 10 or so cents. At 6 cents, he's lost half his investment, not counting capital gains tax.

 

[Country_Gravy]

How much capital gains tax do you pay if you LOSE money on an investment. I thought that it only applied to the profit from your sale.

Of course, I know absolutely zero about the stock market, so I could very likely be wrong.

That orion guy was also saying that he is sticking with it because he had a dream that Interplay stock was going to go up. And since everyone knows that all great invertors go by what their dreams tell them, he is probably right.

Maybe he doesn't have a job because he is clinically insane. You are right though, he probably would have had a better chance of making money by going out and applying for a job instead of spending his savings on a worthless stock investment.

The stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me.

 

[Voss]

None. Thats why its capital *gains*. So yeah, no profit= no tax. You can actually claim the loss in some circumstances.
Though I'd think gross stupidity wouldn't be one of those circumstances.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boar ... Y&read=874

You can't go by what it did last time is was down around this range.. Sure back then it went up to 16 cents, but back then they could pay their rent and most importantly it's employees.

They also didn't owe like a quarter million in back taxes.

The chart might look similar, but the situation is completely different..

I cashed out this morning myself, sold everything I had.. The fact BG games are no longer on the website was the last sign I needed.. I'll take what I got, which is better than $0 which is what I would have had probably the way things are going..

There's a guy that has some sense about him. The situation is completely different. Interplay had prospects back then, several new games on the horizon for both the PC and the consoles. Of course, since then, Lionheart has bombed as has Fallout Enforcer. Interplay looked bad back then, but they look like death right now. They still had most of BIS with them, including Chris Avellone, J.E. Sawyer, and a bunch of others. They still had enough money to contract developers.

Right now, they just don't have much of anything. Walls, some unhappy people, and lots of problems.

 

[Ortchel]

How sad.

 

[Seven]

How sad.

This is the greatest day since man landed on the moon. Stupid people are loosing money (and will hopefully cease to be threat to the gene pool), and Iply is dying (yet again).

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yup, they are extra stupid.

http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boar ... Y&read=876

Vivendi still sporting BGDA2 on their website

Perhaps Interplay sold the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2 rights to Vivendi? Perhaps Interplay sold the Dark Alliance trademark to Vivendi? Either of these choices would definitely give Interplay a good cash injection to pay off all of their existing expenses. In any case, the money they received is enough to keep Interplay alive for another 2 months-- or so that is what the posts at NMA claim.

For the remaining investor's sake, I hope they only sold the rights to BGDA2 and not the Dark Alliance trademark.

Interplay said they could operate on two months before they lost the D&D rights. They were hoping to get a cash advance on the BG: DA2 distribution, which they can no longer distribute. I'm not sure what the deal is with Vivendi, Atari may only be going after Interplay since Interplay's the one with the royalty payment contract.

http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boar ... Y&read=877

Enjoy your real loss then...

because all I see is a paper loss at this point. But to each his own. Come back and check this out in a month and let me know how you feel about your trade.

Come back in a month or so when that forum won't exist because IPLY will be in liquidation! The only one losing money on IPLY are the ones keeping the stock.

Hell, when a company says they have two months left to operate if things are going well, I don't see too many smart people jumping in to buy shares. Take in to account that company just lost part of the revenue they were counting on to last those two months, and you have something pretty damned bad.

As for real loss, this guy just lost 20% of his investment today. I can't see IPLY bouncing back when they lost half their games they can bundle and sell either. They have no games ready to announce, let alone RELEASE in those two months.

Herve's got less than two months to:

A.) Find a buyer (hah hah hah)
B.) Sell a license, and thus lower the cost of the company further, and then still hope to find a buyer..
C.) File for bankrupcy

Because once IPLY runs out of money, Herve's going to start losing money. With no games coming out from Interplay any time soon, they're basically screwed as far as getting any significant amount of fresh revenue in.

http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boar ... Y&read=878

Does anyone know if Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II was always listed on Vivendi's website or if it was just recently moved there? It is no longer listed on Interplay's site, making me wonder if Interplay sold all rights to Vivendi for BGDAII or if they sold the trademark Dark Alliance to Atari.

Always the idiotic optimist here. Vivendi would owe Atari money if they bought the license. Atari doesn't need the license. So, the actual possibility here is because IPLY didn't pay Atari royalties for distributing D&D products, Atari ordered them to stop distribution of D&D products. Herve even said in his 10-K that Atari was getting pissy because Interplay didn't pay those royalties. How fucking hard is it to figure out what happened here? Seriously?

As for the Vivendi page, it's got a link to http://bgda2.blackisle.com - the official site, which was pulled last Saturday when they were ordered not to distribute D&D products anymore. Would Vivendi put up a brand new site linking to the official DEAD site? Yeah, like I said, they're not too bright.

The thing that amazes me is these people aren't smart enough to notice that no one has released a press release talking about how great the purchase of rights is for everyone involved. Companies, especially fucked ones like Interplay, are usually pretty good about getting positive press releases out, since that stimulates the buying of their stock. When people buy stock, they get more money, So, that's a good thing for them. However, there's no press release from Interplay, Atari, or Vivendi. All of these are public companies, who would LOVE to tell the world if something good happenned for their company. Notice the lack of it.

Yup, it's rather hard to feel sorry for these people. If they're that stupid, they really deserve what they get.

 

[Voss]

Here is another thing:

Even if they sell an IP to someone, are they going to get enough money out of the deal to clear all their debts? And the penalties they seem to be accruing with the SEC. And pay for rent, bills, staff, etc. And if they do manage that, will there be enough money to start AND finish a product that will be good enough to actually earn them money? Another Lionheart or FOBoS certainly won't net them much.

As for a sale, well- what IPs do they have that someone would actually shell out major money on? Fallout maybe. What else have they got?

 

[Anonymous]

RUN LIKE HELL

 

[Malraz Alizar]

Don't count: Giants, MDK.

What else have they got?

Descent: Freespace and Redneck Rampage.

 

[Voss]

So, what have they got thats worth something? Seriously, is there anything buried in their building (or possibly tossed out onto the street at this point) that someone would actually be willing to shell out cash for?

 

[Seven]

Too bad bad they can't sell used panties, I hear there's good money in that.

 

[Human Shield]

RUN LIKE HELL

RUN LIKE HELL 2: STOCK FALL

In Run Like Hell 2 from Interplay you take on the exciting role of a Interplay investor that must run to his computer to sell his shares, can you get there before our company fails? You better RUN LIKE HELL!!

 

[Spazmo]

Re: Don't count: Giants, MDK.

Descent: Freespace

If I had the money, I'd buy Freespace and make games with it just because I loved the two last titles so damn much.

But that's just me.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Cluemeter shows signs of some mental activities:
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boar ... Y&read=883

I think Interplay lost the rights to distribute BGDAII because they failed to pay the royalty that was due Atari. That must be why BGDAII is no longer on Interplay's website. Vivendi is still offring BGDAII though, so Vivendi must have profited from Interplay's misery somehow. Herve, what the heck are you doing? Are you purposefully trying to bankrupt Interplay? Surely you could have looked for financing at an earlier point than when Interplay is no longer able to pay their employees, rent, or Uncle Sam.

Better late then never

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, I was rather amazed to see that as well. The sad thing is, it took him a whole day to figure that out, costing him $9,000 if he decides to sell tomorrow. If he doesn't, who knows how much he'll lose. However, that bit Herve Caen said in the 10-K about the royalties had to be posted twice there before it sank in. Some other person on that forum posted that Saturday night, and he went off on how great it was that they may have sold those games to Atari and how it's WIN/WIN, even to the point of saying he was going to buy more shares if they announce that.

Tomorrow might be an interesting day if he dumps his shares. 600,000 shares going back to IPLY in one dump.

RUN LIKE HELL 2: STOCK FALL

In Run Like Hell 2 from Interplay you take on the exciting role of a Interplay investor that must run to his computer to sell his shares, can you get there before our company fails? You better RUN LIKE HELL!!

Bonus points will be gained by chugging as many cans of BAWLS as possible before the company goes bust.

 

[Malraz Alizar]

Die By The Sword: sucked.

If I had the money, I'd buy Freespace and make games with it just because I loved the two last titles so damn much.

I loved the games too, but not because of the it's-not-Wing-Commander-if-we-change-the-names setting or tenuous link to everyone's favorite cure for lack of nausea, Descent. Besides, if you take the name, you take all the obsessive and irrationally hostile Freespace fans that go along with it. Just try telling them how you liked the second game better because of all the OMG massive capital ships and kewl lax0r beam weapons.

 

[Talorc]

Where the hell is the SEC?

Dont you guys have "informed market" disclosure rules in the US?

Interplay has clearly been the subject of a "cease and desist" style court order or lawyers letter that prevents from selling the products that they derive most of their revenue from! I would think that is a fairly significant event the investors should be informed about damn quick... some of them seem to be working it out at least.

(I actually work in a firm closely related to the Australian Stock Exchange - it would be a serious breach of the Australian Stock Exchange rules not to announce something like that!)

If Interplay has been the subject of a court order to stop distribution - is that something we can find online somewhere? Depends where the licence agreement was formed - could be either of California, where Interplay is based, or maybe New York where Atari is based. Possibly we can find something at one of the Californian county courts - what county is Irvine in?

 

[Spazmo]

Besides, if you take the name, you take all the obsessive and irrationally hostile Freespace fans that go along with it. Just try telling them how you liked the second game better because of all the OMG massive capital ships and kewl lax0r beam weapons.

Hey, hey, now I'm a Fallout fan. I think I know something about how to deal with belligerent communities scorned by IPLY. Anyways, why didn't FS fans like FS2? Is it because of the unfinished story or did they feel that like our Fallout 2, there was lots of stuff that didn't fit?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: Where the hell is the SEC?

Dont you guys have "informed market" disclosure rules in the US?

Interplay has clearly been the subject of a "cease and desist" style court order or lawyers letter that prevents from selling the products that they derive most of their revenue from! I would think that is a fairly significant event the investors should be informed about damn quick... some of them seem to be working it out at least.

IPLY apparently still hasn't disclosed the deal about Galleon's sale, either. That was several months ago. I think it's a case of, "They're supposed to, but Herve owns 71% of the shares, so there's not much outcry."

Possibly we can find something at one of the Californian county courts - what county is Irvine in?

Orange County. I wasn't able to find anything in a quick search of the site, but then again, you might be able to find it where I couldn't.