NeoGAF

Baconsammy · (08-21-2012, 04:25 AM)

His first project was an MMO. And Chafee is the dunce? Good game, Curt. Good game.

ProfessorMoran · (08-21-2012, 04:28 AM)

Originally Posted by AnEternalEnigma:

Curt Schilling calls Rhode Island governor a "dunce of epic proportions"

Curt should have just held onto his money instead of wasting it all in the games industry.

Patryn · (08-21-2012, 12:45 PM)

Originally Posted by AnEternalEnigma:

Curt Schilling calls Rhode Island governor a "dunce of epic proportions"

Is Curt still that deluded? I bet he's still convinced that Take Two was on the verge of signing that deal, when all indications are that they barely knew about 38 and any talks between the two were really preliminary.

mnannola · (01-17-2013, 08:56 PM)

Bump for news, looks like the sock is being sold. Guess he lost a good chunk of change after all.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/schilli...5269--mlb.html

malfcn · (01-18-2013, 08:58 AM)

Polygon reporting the sock story too.
http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/18/388...ned-from-feb-4

Anyone want to let them know GameSpot isn't GameStop? - LOL

Laughing Banana · (01-18-2013, 09:03 AM)

Man... to think that my only interaction with this man was that one time I posted a complaint at Kingdom of Amalur's OT and he responded quickly and politely too.

Seems like such a very distant memory right now.

Mr. Enigma · (01-18-2013, 09:05 AM)

It should be clarified that he's only selling the sock he wore in the 2004 World Series. He's keeping the sock from the ALCS against the Yankees.

Ninja Scooter · (01-19-2013, 02:05 AM)

Originally Posted by Mr. Enigma:

It should be clarified that he's only selling the sock he wore in the 2004 World Series. He's keeping the sock from the ALCS against the Yankees.

Wouldn't want people to find out it was red food coloring.

grosvenor_92 · (01-19-2013, 02:30 AM)

Came into this thread wondering what new info had come out and wow he has really taken a huge hit from 38 closing.

shaowebb · (01-19-2013, 03:12 AM)

He was always very polite and he genuinely seemed to believe in his dream and love games. I even emailed him during the early days asking if they offered internships while I was still in college. He emailed back and was polite and told me some stuff. The man is a pretty nice person. Sad to see his dream die so horribly and all those people go through all they did in its demise.

Bombadil · (01-19-2013, 03:15 AM)

Originally Posted by shaowebb:

He was always very polite and he genuinely seemed to believe in his dream and love games. I even emailed him during the early days asking if they offered internships while I was still in college. He emailed back and was polite and told me some stuff. The man is a pretty nice person. Sad to see his dream die so horribly and all those people go through all they did in its demise.

If he had any modicum of intelligence he wouldn't have tried to develop an MMO on his first go. Developers with decades of industry experience are usually unable to make a successful MMO. What the hell was this guy thinking?

ElectricBlue187 · (01-19-2013, 03:16 AM)

Originally Posted by shaowebb:

He was always very polite and he genuinely seemed to believe in his dream and love games. I even emailed him during the early days asking if they offered internships while I was still in college. He emailed back and was polite and told me some stuff. The man is a pretty nice person. Sad to see his dream die so horribly and all those people go through all they did in its demise.

He was way out of his depth and made some really poor decisions.

bounchfx · (01-19-2013, 03:21 AM)

Originally Posted by Bombadil:

If he had any modicum of intelligence he wouldn't have tried to develop an MMO on his first go. Developers with decades of industry experience are usually unable to make a successful MMO. What the hell was this guy thinking?

Everyone there had decades of experience. The team was great. Some leadership fucked up.

It failed because of a really unfortunate string of circumstances, and governer Chafee was one of the biggest offenders in that.

The Gipper · (01-19-2013, 03:24 AM)

They should have just stuck to Amalur instead of trying to do an MMO.

Damn shame they had to take BHG with them though, Rise of Nations was the shit.

ACES11 · (01-19-2013, 03:24 AM)

Originally Posted by Bombadil:

If he had any modicum of intelligence he wouldn't have tried to develop an MMO on his first go. Developers with decades of industry experience are usually unable to make a successful MMO. What the hell was this guy thinking?

Originally Posted by ElectricBlue187:

He was way out of his depth and made some really poor decisions.

These two should be side by side. He was a good baseball player. Not a good invester or wise business man.

The truth is, someone needed to stop him and say something of this sort. It was a terrible decision to get into the games industry, invest all of his money, and choose a difficult genre to succeed in. I feel bad. But its 50 million loss in a boneheaded investment. All of his eggs in a basket.

Bombadil · (01-19-2013, 03:33 AM)

Originally Posted by bounchfx:

Everyone there had decades of experience. The team was great. Some leadership fucked up.

It failed because of a really unfortunate string of circumstances, and governer Chafee was one of the biggest offenders in that.

As I said, developers with decades of experience usually fail at MMOs. The fact that studio was comprised of people with decades of experience means nothing. How old was the studio? How long had those people been working together? I'm guessing they were still relatively young.

But even if they were a lauded studio with people who had been working together for decades, they were going to fail. MMOs are a terrible bet, and the ones that are going F2P are occupying enough space in the market that newer MMOs won't be able to compete.

Even when the source material for the MMO is highly salient in the public consciousness, MMOs fail. SWTOR anyone? They had enough capital to make a slew of successful mini games for STEAM.

NateDrake · (01-19-2013, 03:34 AM)

Originally Posted by bounchfx:

Everyone there had decades of experience. The team was great. Some leadership fucked up.

It failed because of a really unfortunate string of circumstances, and governer Chafee was one of the biggest offenders in that.

That and the company was going thru over $4 million a month!

Zefah · (01-19-2013, 04:14 AM)

Originally Posted by Bombadil:

As I said, developers with decades of experience usually fail at MMOs. The fact that studio was comprised of people with decades of experience means nothing. How old was the studio? How long had those people been working together? I'm guessing they were still relatively young.

But even if they were a lauded studio with people who had been working together for decades, they were going to fail. MMOs are a terrible bet, and the ones that are going F2P are occupying enough space in the market that newer MMOs won't be able to compete.

Even when the source material for the MMO is highly salient in the public consciousness, MMOs fail. SWTOR anyone? They had enough capital to make a slew of successful mini games for STEAM.

You don't need decades of experience to make an MMORPG, and that's ignoring the fact that the individual members he hired had tons of experience.

Also, will people please stop bringing up SWTOR as some kind of sign that MMORPGs are doomed to fail? The game was fucking shit. It got a ton of sales because of the Star Wars license, so that part did its job. It's just that they made a very, very poor game.

There's plenty of room to succeed in the MMORPG genre. You just need not aim for the stars at the very beginning and you need to make a good game that isn't a shitty version of WoW. Be original, make compelling content, start out smaller and iterate quickly.

ironcreed · (01-19-2013, 04:20 AM)

Originally Posted by mnannola:

Bump for news, looks like the sock is being sold. Guess he lost a good chunk of change after all.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/schilli...5269--mlb.html

Jesus, imagine someone giving you $100,000.00 or so for one of your old socks.

Bombadil · (01-19-2013, 04:47 AM)

Originally Posted by Zefah:

You don't need decades of experience to make an MMORPG, and that's ignoring the fact that the individual members he hired had tons of experience.

Also, will people please stop bringing up SWTOR as some kind of sign that MMORPGs are doomed to fail? The game was fucking shit. It got a ton of sales because of the Star Wars license, so that part did its job. It's just that they made a very, very poor game.

There's plenty of room to succeed in the MMORPG genre. You just need not aim for the stars at the very beginning and you need to make a good game that isn't a shitty version of WoW. Be original, make compelling content, start out smaller and iterate quickly.

Okay. There are good MMOs that fail as well. The point is that the market for MMOs has a major barrier to entry, much greater than other genres of games. I don't bring up SWTOR often so I fail to see how someone else's overusage of SWTOR in arguments should restrict me from mentioning it.

Zefah · (01-19-2013, 04:50 AM)

Originally Posted by Bombadil:

Okay. There are good MMOs that fail as well. The point is that the market for MMOs has a major barrier to entry, much greater than other genres of games. I don't bring up SWTOR often so I fail to see how someone else's overusage of SWTOR in arguments should restrict me from mentioning it.

Like what? Most MMORPGs are mostly shit and only have one or two gimmicks with which to set them apart. Which have failed despite being good, well produced games?

gogojira · (01-19-2013, 04:50 AM)

I heard he'll be auctioning his dirty underwear next month, better start saving now.

ElectricBlue187 · (01-19-2013, 04:53 AM)

Originally Posted by Zefah:

Also, will people please stop bringing up SWTOR as some kind of sign that MMORPGs are doomed to fail? The game was fucking shit. It got a ton of sales because of the Star Wars license, so that part did its job. It's just that they made a very, very poor game.

mmmm no it's not shit. They made a very competent WoW clone that nobody was excited to play. The actual gameplay and mechanics are very good if more WoW happens to be what you're looking for.

Zefah · (01-19-2013, 04:55 AM)

Originally Posted by ElectricBlue187:

mmmm no it's not shit. They made a very competent WoW clone that nobody was excited to play. The actual gameplay and mechanics are very good if more WoW happens to be what you're looking for.

No, they really didn't. It was a bad WoW clone. All of that ability lag? The lack of connectivity between zones? The pre-Burning Crusade style quests? The crap dungeons and boss encounters? Nothing about the game was good but its Mass Effect-style dialogue stuff.

A competent WoW clone (with a few twists) is Rift, and it's doing okay, but they actually budgeted that game properly to make money on 'just' a few hundred thousand subscriptions.

graywolf323 · (01-19-2013, 04:57 AM)

Originally Posted by ElectricBlue187:

mmmm no it's not shit. They made a very competent WoW clone that nobody was excited to play. The actual gameplay and mechanics are very good if more WoW happens to be what you're looking for.

I'm with you, I'm a big fan of SWTOR if only because I enjoyed the stories in the game and you don't have to group to experience it which is fine by me

Zefah · (01-19-2013, 04:57 AM)

Originally Posted by graywolf323:

I'm with you, I'm a big fan of SWTOR if only because I enjoyed the stories in the game and you don't have to group to experience it which is fine by me

Some fucking MMORPG... jesus.

Bombadil · (01-19-2013, 04:59 AM)

Originally Posted by Zefah:

Like what? Most MMORPGs are mostly shit and only have one or two gimmicks with which to set them apart. Which have failed despite being good, well produced games?

Tabula Rasa

Star Wars Galaxies

gogojira · (01-19-2013, 05:02 AM)

TOR sucks on a lot of levels (hotkey response time is atrocious, the first couple instances suck, AH was laughable), but one of the biggest issues I had was it felt devoid of life for something that's supposed to be massive. They created some large cities and allowed all of what felt like three other people in before slapping another instanced version on top. You're stuck roaming around lifeless cities and interacting with nobody in particular.

And sure, it didn't help that it stuck to rules created by a game 6 or 7-years-old (and did them worse).

Zefah · (01-19-2013, 05:03 AM)

Originally Posted by Bombadil:

Tabula Rasa

Star Wars Galaxies

I didn't play Tabula Rasa, so I'll refrain from commenting, but Star Wars Galaxies, despite being extremely janky in the technical department, actually had a relatively healthy user base until they went and destroyed the game in an attempt to dumb it down enough to gain the more casual audience.

Eusis · (01-19-2013, 05:05 AM)

Part of what makes MMOs so problematic I think is that you need to get back that money on a huge investment, and need to figure out how. Easiest way is proven and safe gameplay drawn to keep you around awhile for a subscription, but that model seems to be collapsing with F2P SEEMING to be the best alternative, but I question the future of that too.

graywolf323 · (01-19-2013, 05:09 AM)

Originally Posted by Zefah:

Some fucking MMORPG... jesus.

obviously I would have preferred if they had just made KOTOR III

Zefah · (01-19-2013, 05:09 AM)

Originally Posted by graywolf323:

obviously I would have preferred if they had just made KOTOR III

Yes... I think all of us would have!

jcm · (01-19-2013, 12:04 PM)

Originally Posted by bounchfx:

Everyone there had decades of experience. The team was great. Some leadership fucked up.

It failed because of a really unfortunate string of circumstances, and governer Chafee was one of the biggest offenders in that.

No, the failure was entirely foreseeable, and the governor had nothing to do with it. They had a bad business plan. That's it.

Captain Tuttle · (01-19-2013, 03:49 PM)

I feel bad for the guy, seems like he is a good person. I liked his game too. We all make mistakes, his was just very public and involved alot of people.

massoluk · (01-19-2013, 04:09 PM)

Originally Posted by Captain Tuttle:

I feel bad for the guy, seems like he is a good person. I liked his game too. We all make mistakes, his was just very public and involved alot of people.

He is also a compulsive liar and a hypocrite. He probably seems nice in appearance though.

DaBuddaDa · (01-19-2013, 04:11 PM)

Originally Posted by Captain Tuttle:

I feel bad for the guy, seems like he is a good person. I liked his game too. We all make mistakes, his was just very public and involved alot of people.

Most people seem like "nice guys" and "passionate" in general interactions. Read more and you'll learn he was hypocritical, nepotistic, and outside of the baseball/gaming world a crazy, born-again, hardcore fuck-you-got-mine republican.