Perlman remains OnLive CEO; Company debts had reached $30-40m

Serving OnLive CEO Steve Perlman will hold onto his position at the company despite its recent collapse and rebirth.

The recent transition was the hardest thing we at OnLive ever had to go through in our careers,” a statement issued to fansite OnLive Fans reads. It’s unprecedented to do what OnLive has done in even a major corporation, let alone a startup. Big companies can absorb the uncertainty of an R&D project this big.

For startups, sometimes you are left with no choice but to do a ‘reboot’ if you are going to keep the vision alive, so it can once again grow and evolve.

Steve continues as CEO and is currently concentrating on the transition; once this is complete, he’ll be very focused on our next product releases and the vision. There will be changes to the organization both with old and new OnLive staff that will be bringing new features and games to the service. There will be more announcements – both large and small.

Gary invested in OnLive because he sees OnLive as the future of gaming, computing and media delivery, he recognizes just how big an idea it is, and is standing firmly behind it. With OnLive on solid financial footing, we see great things ahead. Instead of ‘game over’, we will take this to a higher level.”

However, the extent of OnLive’s financial woes has also been revealed, painting a worrying picture for the potential future of the company.

At the time of its closure OnLive’s debts had reached between $30-40 million, MercuryNews reports.

"It was a company that was in dire straits. It only had days to live in terms of cash flow and the like," Joel Weinberg, CEO of Insolvency Services Group – which oversaw the sale of OnLive’s assets to Gary Lauder’s Lauder Partners – admitted.

"Something had to be done immediately or there would have been a hard shutdown, which would have been a disaster."

The amount Lauder paid for OnLive’s assets remains unknown. Nor is it known whether there were any rival offers on the table. The news for OnLive investors is even worse – Weinberg estimates that it will be paying out only five to ten cents on each dollar OnLive owed.