http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2012/05/18/high_risk_video_game_venture_has_rhode_island_curt_schilling_reeling/
Quote"This is a risk worth taking,'' said Carcieri, a Republican, announcing the 2010 deal that lured Schilling's company, 38 Studios, to Providence, and put Rhode Island taxpayers on the hook for up to $75 million in guaranteed loans to an athlete who liked video games but had never developed one.
"I think the governor had stars in his eyes, the whole idea of playing ball with a baseball player intrigued him and others,'' said Republican state Representative Robert Watson, former Rhode Island House minority leader. "And I think they got blinded by that celebrity.''
What Carcieri and supporters saw as the seed of a glittering new business sector for Providence, which has struggled for decades to replace jobs lost with the decline of its jewelry industry, now seems to be crashing down.
After missing a $1.1 million payment May 1 and a personal plea from Schilling for more public assistance this week, 38 Studios has said it does not not have enough money to pay its employees. On Wednesday, the state economic development official who oversaw the loan guarantees resigned abruptly. In a bizarre twist, at one point Thursday, company representatives hand-delivered a check to the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, apparently to cover the late $1.1 million payment, but then later said the company had insufficient funds to cover it.
:nelson:
Fuck your state Tim.
Better 38 Studios than MMP.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 18, 2012, 08:16:41 PM
Better 38 Studios than MMP.
MMP doing video games would be a hoot.
Would make Duke Nukem Forever look timely.
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 18, 2012, 08:19:17 PM
Would make Duke Nukem Forever look timely.
Meh, MMP would just only sell patches; core programs wouldn't have been available for quite a few years.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 18, 2012, 08:23:12 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 18, 2012, 08:19:17 PM
Would make Duke Nukem Forever look timely.
Meh, MMP would just only sell patches; core programs wouldn't have been available for quite a few years.
Paradox has that market cornered. LOL
Ed, your avatar is both funny and yet somehow disconcertingly fitting. :mellow:
:)
QuoteSchilling's company released its first effort earlier this year, a role-playing video game called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. It was well-reviewed and has sold about 1 million copies at about $60 each, according to market research company VGChartz.
QuoteKingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
http://www.gamespot.com/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning/reviews/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-review-6349784/
The Good
Top-notch combat with a real punch
Fantastic, flexible character advancement
Some great-looking creatures
Extensive world with tons of stuff to do and lots of monsters to fight.
The Bad
Generic story and characters
Generic world
Generic quests.
Even the greatest role-playing games aren't necessarily known for their great combat. They're frequently praised for their ambitious worlds, their involving stories, and the element of choice. But when you talk about your favorite RPGs, it's not often that the action is what you talk about first.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is not like those games. In the future, when you talk about Kingdoms of Amalur, the first thing you will probably mention is how fun the battles were. Incredibly, this RPG's combat is so exciting, it could have been used in a pure action game and would have held up just fine. In fact, from a swordplay, loot, and leveling perspective, Kingdoms of Amalur is as good as any RPG in recent memory. This is the role-playing game you should be playing if excellent action and progression are your primary concern.
Of course, RPGs are about more than just swinging swords. The best of them aren't just games--they're worlds, in which unusual people mill about, inviting you into their homes and telling you of unimaginable treasures protected by unimaginable monsters. It's here that Kingdoms of Amalur falters. Amalur is nice enough to look at, and there are lots of things to do there. But each thing you do is pretty much like the last thing you did. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you stumble upon a coven of cannibals and have telepathic conversations with a dog. In Mass Effect 2, you explore the painful past of a troubled young woman and witness the ultimate conflict between mother and daughter. In Kingdoms of Amalur, you kill stuff and listen to a bunch of nondescript characters spout line after line of unexceptional fantasy lore. There's so much talking, so much effort put into all this dialogue. And yet Amalur never develops an identity in spite of it all. There's a lot of tell, but not a whole lot of show.
Sounds like 38 Studios should've hired more Humanities grads. :smarty:
Where's the 60 mil? :swiss:
It's a good game. It hasn't crashed to desktop in over 50 hours of play.
And it's pretty, with good music and voice acting.
Too bad they couldn't succeed with great reviews and a quality product.
QuoteThe sad saga of 38 Studios took an even more depressing turn Thursday afternoon.
The beleaguered game maker run by former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling abruptly laid off all of its employees, effective immediately. Insiders at the company say they also learned their health insurance will run out at midnight.
Employees learned of the layoffs through an internal email, which Gamasutra has obtained.
It reads:
"The Company is experiencing an economic downturn. To avoid further losses and possibility of retrenchment, the Company has decided that a company wide lay off is absolutely necessary.
These layoffs are non-voluntary and non-disciplinary.
This is your official notice of lay off, effective today, Thursday, May 24th, 2012."
Meanwhile, a person claiming to be a now-former employee of the company told Kotaku that no one has been paid since April 30 -- and company officials have not communicated the status of things to workers throughout the process.
Rhode Island news outlet WPRI reports the company had 379 employees as of March 15, 288 of which were located within the state, with the remaining located at the offices of Big Huge Games in Maryland. That subsidiary studio, too, was reportedly shut down today.
38 Studios, which earlier this year shipped the role-playing game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, is in the throes of a severe financial crisis that's been impacting the entire state of Rhode Island. The developer, which obtained a $75 million loan from the state, failed to make a $1.125 million payment last week, eventually scraping together the funds at the expense of payroll.
While Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was a mid-level hit, it was unable to help the company stay afloat. 38 Studios has been working on a massively multiplayer online game, codenamed "Copernicus," though that likely has been shelved now with the development team dismissed.
Where was Bain Capital to save it? :mad:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FKc757.gif&hash=3d9d3e195b3d58b5773b34d3e2ddbe6bd993ddee)
Wait their first game as an unknown studio sold 1 million copies and that was not enough to remain solvent? What sort of horrible business plan is that? What exactly where they expecting? Skyrim type sales on their first attempt?
Quote from: Valmy on May 25, 2012, 07:34:02 AM
Wait their first game as an unknown studio sold 1 million copies and that was not enough to remain solvent? What sort of horrible business plan is that? What exactly where they expecting? Skyrim type sales on their first attempt?
They took a 70 million dollar loan.
It doesn't cost 70 million to make a AAA title. Something tells me that they just the money and ran.
Quote from: Razgovory on May 25, 2012, 07:37:20 AM
They took a 70 million dollar loan.
Well Rhode Island is insane for two reasons:
1. loaning that much money to a game developement start up
2. not restructuring the loan after the first game was a success to try to recoup the loan.
They basically are begging to be out 70 million dollars. I mean with that set up their chances of the studio being able to pay them back would require a nearly miraculous rookie hit almost unprecedented in the history of the industry. Total fail Rhode Island. What the hell were you thinking? I mean it would have been insane for Texas to loan Bioware that kind of money to open that studio they opened in Austin for SWTOR and that is an established industry juggernaut.
Quote from: Neil on May 25, 2012, 07:39:10 AM
It doesn't cost 70 million to make a AAA title. Something tells me that they just the money and ran.
It can be costly. Modern Warfare 2 cost something like 40-50 million do make. Still there's a big gap there.
Quote from: Razgovory on May 25, 2012, 07:50:30 AM
Quote from: Neil on May 25, 2012, 07:39:10 AM
It doesn't cost 70 million to make a AAA title. Something tells me that they just the money and ran.
It can be costly. Modern Warfare 2 cost something like 40-50 million do make. Still there's a big gap there.
20-30 million will usually get it done, unless you blow your wad on marketing.
Rhode Island is basically run by the Mafia, so don't expect the state to make wise use of taxpayer money. :sleep:
I was reading about this. My basic impression is two bad things happened:
1. Schilling invested $30m to grow his business too large too fast. He was inexperienced in the game industry and just thought by coming in as a big swinging dick he could avoid the normal way that game companies grow. Normally they start small on a very small budget, release a cool but simple game, and grow from there.
2. Schilling took this massive loan that as part of its stipulations required he hire 450 people in Rhode Island, that made him essentially legally bound to hire even more people and expand even faster.
Basically he didn't grow his company organically, but just tried to throw a ton of money at the problem. Worse, the money was all either his own personal fortune or money from the State of Rhode Island, instead of what normal game companies do in their infancy (get by on a shoestring budget then get money from a group of VCs or angel investors when they start showing promise.) You can grow a company really fast if you throw tons of money at it, but Schilling didn't have that kind of money.
Quote from: Neil on May 25, 2012, 07:52:25 AM
20-30 million will usually get it done, unless you blow your wad on marketing.
Depends on the size and scope of the game, of course. I'd think you could get a shitload of game developed for 20 million, unless you are incompetent with your game development management. The Witcher 2 apparently cost on the order of $14 million, and Skyrim on the order of $25 million. Plus marketing, of course, which can cost more than the game itself.
If 38 Studios had on the order of 300 employees, you have to wonder what the fuck they all did. That's a payroll (including benefits) on the order of $30 million a year, right there.
Quote from: grumbler on May 25, 2012, 08:29:17 AM
If 38 Studios had on the order of 300 employees, you have to wonder what the fuck they all did.
A shitload of memos.
I think Modern Warfare is a upper reaches of spending. I think Otto got the gist of the problem. Now 14-25 million is pretty damn expensive, you made games for like 1-2 million back in 2000, but 70 million is just crazy. The video game industry really isn't that profitable. It's hard to make a profit on a game. That's why developers drop like flies. Look at the last 15 years or so, and you'll see lots and lots of good developers and companies have been bought out or gone out of business. Even the big dogs like Interplay and Sierra are gone.
Quote from: grumbler on May 25, 2012, 08:29:17 AM
Quote from: Neil on May 25, 2012, 07:52:25 AM
20-30 million will usually get it done, unless you blow your wad on marketing.
Depends on the size and scope of the game, of course. I'd think you could get a shitload of game developed for 20 million, unless you are incompetent with your game development management. The Witcher 2 apparently cost on the order of $14 million, and Skyrim on the order of $25 million. Plus marketing, of course, which can cost more than the game itself.
If 38 Studios had on the order of 300 employees, you have to wonder what the fuck they all did. That's a payroll (including benefits) on the order of $30 million a year, right there.
TPS Reports, and the Vice Assistant Director of Being Related to the Junior State Senator From Providence.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 25, 2012, 08:36:14 AM
Quote from: grumbler on May 25, 2012, 08:29:17 AM
If 38 Studios had on the order of 300 employees, you have to wonder what the fuck they all did.
A shitload of memos.
Heh, Remember Ion Storm?
Quote from: Razgovory on May 25, 2012, 08:39:56 AM
I think Modern Warfare is a upper reaches of spending. I think Otto got the gist of the problem. Now 14-25 million is pretty damn expensive, you made games for like 1-2 million back in 2000, but 70 million is just crazy. The video game industry really isn't that profitable. It's hard to make a profit on a game. That's why developers drop like flies. Look at the last 15 years or so, and you'll see lots and lots of good developers and companies have been bought out or gone out of business. Even the big dogs like Interplay and Sierra are gone.
Being bought out isn't the same as going under. It's pretty hard for the businessmen who founded these little developers to say no when EA or Activision dumps seven or eight figures into your bank account.
Quote from: grumbler on May 25, 2012, 08:29:17 AM
If 38 Studios had on the order of 300 employees, you have to wonder what the fuck they all did. That's a payroll (including benefits) on the order of $30 million a year, right there.
They were working on an MMO. Not sure if 300 employees is justified for this.
At any rate, considering the production time of a top shelf MMO this company was doomed to fail: built with borrowed money, and with one game under their wings that was probably not cheap to make (considering they hired the likes of Todd McFarlane and R.A. Salvatore) and didn't make enough to pay back their hefty loans.
Quote from: Neil on May 25, 2012, 11:48:00 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on May 25, 2012, 08:39:56 AM
I think Modern Warfare is a upper reaches of spending. I think Otto got the gist of the problem. Now 14-25 million is pretty damn expensive, you made games for like 1-2 million back in 2000, but 70 million is just crazy. The video game industry really isn't that profitable. It's hard to make a profit on a game. That's why developers drop like flies. Look at the last 15 years or so, and you'll see lots and lots of good developers and companies have been bought out or gone out of business. Even the big dogs like Interplay and Sierra are gone.
Being bought out isn't the same as going under. It's pretty hard for the businessmen who founded these little developers to say no when EA or Activision dumps seven or eight figures into your bank account.
EA and Activision often buy up struggling companies. They often shut them down some time after they buy them. SSI was acquired by Ubisoft. When's the last time you saw an SSI game?
Perry went through and deleted a shitload of "No, really how can we be sure?" posts tonight in the MMP folder at CSW from panicky wargamers. :lol:
Donald Lazov is a giant tool.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 12:18:52 AM
Perry went through and deleted a shitload of "No, really how can we be sure?" posts tonight in the MMP folder at CSW from panicky wargamers. :lol:
:lol:
Quote from: Habbaku on May 28, 2012, 12:30:04 AM
Donald Lazov is a giant tool.
A substantial portion of CSW ASLers are giant tools. Not even Berkut would be willing to tangle with most of them. And that's saying something.
Quote from: Valmy on May 25, 2012, 07:48:31 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on May 25, 2012, 07:37:20 AM
They took a 70 million dollar loan.
Well Rhode Island is insane for two reasons:
1. loaning that much money to a game developement start up
2. not restructuring the loan after the first game was a success to try to recoup the loan.
They basically are begging to be out 70 million dollars. I mean with that set up their chances of the studio being able to pay them back would require a nearly miraculous rookie hit almost unprecedented in the history of the industry. Total fail Rhode Island. What the hell were you thinking? I mean it would have been insane for Texas to loan Bioware that kind of money to open that studio they opened in Austin for SWTOR and that is an established industry juggernaut.
Yup, it's pretty obvious that there was incompetence and or corruption involved in the decision. The fact that they actually made a good game that sold really well only makes the thing more tragic, because the company could obviously have survived if sensible decisions had been made.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 07:17:45 AM
Quote from: Habbaku on May 28, 2012, 12:30:04 AM
Donald Lazov is a giant tool.
A substantial portion of CSW ASLers are giant tools. Not even Berkut would be willing to tangle with most of them. And that's saying something.
King Pitcavage of the Tools.
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 28, 2012, 07:26:21 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 07:17:45 AM
Quote from: Habbaku on May 28, 2012, 12:30:04 AM
Donald Lazov is a giant tool.
A substantial portion of CSW ASLers are giant tools. Not even Berkut would be willing to tangle with most of them. And that's saying something.
King Pitcavage of the Tools.
I think he's the only wargamer I would ever get up and slug from the other side of the table. Honestly.
:lol:
The one dude from Australia with the Flanders avatar is the one I'd like to beat in a parking lot.
It seems anybody that uses a Flanders avatar on any forum is usually a douche.
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 28, 2012, 07:34:40 AM
:lol:
The one dude from Australia with the Flanders avatar is the one I'd like to beat in a parking lot.
It seems anybody that uses a Flanders avatar on any forum is usually a douche.
:lol:
Quote from: Neil on May 25, 2012, 07:39:10 AM
It doesn't cost 70 million to make a AAA title. Something tells me that they just the money and ran.
Plenty of AAA titles cost that much, especially if you include marketing.
Though I guess my time at Rockstar has skewed my perception.
Quote from: Jacob on May 28, 2012, 03:29:42 PM
Though I guess my time at Rockstar has skewed my perception.
Yes, I can see how rolling around naked in piles of money every day can do that.
Quote from: grumbler on May 28, 2012, 02:33:08 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 28, 2012, 07:34:40 AM
:lol:
The one dude from Australia with the Flanders avatar is the one I'd like to beat in a parking lot.
It seems anybody that uses a Flanders avatar on any forum is usually a douche.
:lol:
*looks*
Or a Principal Skinner avatar.
"Would you like a bit of insult with your injury, sir?"
http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/5/25/3043282/38-studios-downfall-leads-to-second-mortgages-for-some-employees/in/2791803
Quote38 Studios passes second mortgages onto some former employees
Some of the hundreds of 38 Studios employees laid off yesterday were hit with a second round of bad news this week when they were told that homes they thought the company had sold for them hadn't been, and that they may be stuck with a second mortgage, Polygon has learned.
Several sources directly impacted by the mortgage issue confirmed the news today and a 38 Studios official, who asked to not be named, said the company is working to try and get to the bottom of the notifications and find a resolution.
One former employee said they discovered this week that their Massachusetts home, which they had been told was sold last year, actually hadn't been. The bank contacted them this week to ask why they mortgage wasn't being paid.
It is unclear how many of 38 Studio's 288 Rhode Island employees may be impacted, but it will likely only affect some of those who were part of the company's relocation program. The program, we were told, was used to help employees moving from Massachusetts to Rhode Island when the company relocated.
The bank notifications raise the specter of how the financing for the relocations was handled. If the company used state-backed money to finance homes or pay mortgages while the homes were being sold, it could mean that 38 Studios violated the terms of the agreement with the state.
Reached for comment this afternoon, state officials told Polygon they had no independent knowledge of the mortgage issue.
During an afternoon press conference today, Gov. Lincoln Chafee told a gathering of press that because 38 Studios didn't alert the state ahead of time about the layoffs the company is once more in default on the agreement.
Chafee spent much of the conference answering increasingly hostile questions and reminding the gathering that he opposed the deal, which was made under another governor.
He also said that celebrity may have played a factor in the state making the agreement, but that it never impacted his opinion on the deal.
"When I looked at him I saw a business man, not a baseball player," he said.
38 Studios laid off all 379 employees, 288 of them in Rhode Island, yesterday afternoon in a terse email. Sources tell Polygon that the company had not been communicating with employees, or paying them, for nearly a month prior to the mass layoffs.
Schilling's only public response to the financial turmoil that has embroiled both his company and the state of Rhode Island had been a tweet thanking people for sending "prayers and well wishes" to the team and families of 38 Studios.
A similar post on his Facebook account was met with a tide of well wishers including a number of former employees and John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment who wrote, "Curt – the game you are building is amazing. Find a way. I'm sorry you're having a tough time right now."
The studio's financial turmoil came to light earlier this month when it first missed and then later made a $1.125 million payment to the state of Rhode Island.
Founded in 2006 in Massachusetts as Green Monster Games, 38 Studios was lured to Rhode Island in 2010 by a $75-million loan guarantee from the state. At the time state officials argued that the studio would bring hundreds of jobs and millions in tax revenue to the state.
While 38 Studios made its first partial payment, it then missed a $1.125 million loan payment to the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation on May 1. During a series of meetings with the state, 38 Studios said it couldn't pay its employees and asked for more help from Rhode Island. The studio later delivered a payment to the state, but then said it couldn't cover the check. On May 18, it made good on the payment.
Schilling, and the state, both continue to hunt for private investors for the company.
If 38 Studios remains closed, the state says it has the money to make the first year of payments on the loan from a reserve they set aside from the loan amount. But after that the state would then have to start making the payments to the bank.
The developer was working on a massively multiplayer online game codenamed "Project Copernicus." It released Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning through publisher EA in February. The game reportedly sold 1.2 million copies in the first 90 days, according to Schilling, and was positively received by critics. Last month, 38 Studios released a downloadable expansion pack for the game titled "Teeth of Naros."
Gov. Chafee dismissed the possibility of the state taking over the studio during a press conference earlier this week, saying it would be too costly to create and maintain an MMO.
The director of the Economic Development Corporation resigned earlier this month, two other members of the board have asked not to be reappointed, and yet another resigned this week. The state is also discussing asking for the resignation of other board members who supported the decision to back 38 Studios.
A slew of developers from around the country have been Tweeting that they are hiring in hopes of finding the hundreds of displaced employees jobs.
Rhode Island screwing innocent people for their own stupid policies? Nice. But I guess innocent people were going to be screwed either way.
Meh, states get boned over from loan guarantees from time to time. This one is just more high-profile because of all the Schillingness.
Curt was much cooler before he got that Red Sox taint all over him.
Article stolen from CSW....
QuoteGaming debacle opens door for Cary's Epic Games
Cary company to hire ex-38 Studios workers
CARY - The story of a failing video-game studio vaulted into the national press last month: 38 Studios, the company founded by a major-league pitcher, was disintegrating. Within weeks, hundreds lost their jobs, and a bankruptcy revealed that the company owed the state of Rhode Island more than $100 million, according to national media outlets.
Now a Cary company will move into the void left by the implosion of Curt Schilling's ill-fated venture. Epic Games, a development powerhouse tucked away near the Crossroads mall, will hire some of the former major-league pitcher's laid-off employees to start a new venture in Baltimore.
So, why would a company take on the employees of a company that had failed so notoriously?
"The answer is that highly talented video game developers are always hard to come by," said Alexander Macris, publisher of The Escapist, a Durham-based gaming magazine.
"Epic has a specific strategy that they like to hire video game developers that have already gotten experience working at other studios, ... and that's part of what makes them successful."
Epic, which employs 160 at its Cary headquarters, will use the new manpower to start a new project, or perhaps a new iteration of an existing series, according to the company's president. The company plans first to bring ex-38 employees to its Cary location, then send them to a new studio in Baltimore, Epic president Michael Capps announced in a blog post.
"... We'd love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but ... we'd need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so," Capps wrote on June 3.
The Cary company will specifically be hiring employees from Big Huge Games, a 38 Studios subsidiary that produced 38's only completed product, a role-playing game. Epic hasn't disclosed how many employees it will take on, or when it will do so.
"We're really excited about getting that talent under our wing and helping them smoothly transition," said company spokeswoman Dana Cowley.
It's unlikely that Epic will hire all or most of the Big Huge programmers and artists. In total, the company employs about 250 people spread across five studios worldwide, compared to the hundred-plus people who Big Huge Games laid off, and hundreds more that 38 Studios as a whole employed.
But Epic wasn't the only company interested in salvaging 38 Studios. Companies such as Turbine and Zynga, the Facebook-based gaming company, even held job fairs near 38's Rhode Island headquarters.
"38 went under simply because it's very, very hard to launch a successful (role-playing game)in today's market," Macris said. "The game was not necessarily a failure – they just didn't sell well enough that they could fund the entirety of their next game's development. It's the most-common reason that a studio shuts down."
And that kind of financial woe is not much of a threat for Epic, the company behind the popular Gears of War series. The company is preparing a new release of its Unreal "engine," a digital backbone around which dozens of other companies build their games.
"They have a position in the industry that's really paralleled by only a small number of studios," Macris said. "You could count them on four fingers."