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[XANDER CAGE]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind. The dissolution of these studios is not the end of this saga; the Rhode Island government looked extensively into 38 Studios progress the past week and STILL decided to let them sink. I expect we'll being hearing a lot more about 38 Studios in the courthouses these coming years.

It's not the fault of the employees being laid off. I feel really sorry for those guys, considering how tough the game jobs market (hell, the jobs market in general) is at the moment.

Curt, on the other hand...

 

[ultron87]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind. The dissolution of these studios is not the end of this saga; the Rhode Island government looked extensively into 38 Studios progress the past week and STILL decided to let them sink. I expect we'll being hearing a lot more about 38 Studios in the courthouses these coming years.

I feel bad for all the employees and especially for Big Huge Games who put out a pretty solid game in Reckoning. No pity at all for whoever bungled the management of the company so badly that it came to this.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind.

The sympathy is toward the regular employees and not Schilling and his terrible business ideas.

 

[JordanKZ]

This really sucks for everyone involve... I was hoping this would get turned around some how.

And man, I can't believe Big Huge Games is dead. Now we'll never see another Rise of Nations :-/

 

[Banana Kid]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind. The dissolution of these studios is not the end of this saga; the Rhode Island government looked extensively into 38 Studios progress the past week and STILL decided to let them sink. I expect we'll being hearing a lot more about 38 Studios in the courthouses these coming years.

There are plenty of reasons for the studio to collapse like this, but people losing their jobs is never a good thing. A lot of good people worked there.

 

[WallJump]

but dear lord, no communication with employees about the health insurance? cmon son.

Yeah, gotta say that's some total bullshit right there. Obviously employees weren't exactly being put first here. Wonder if they can sue for their unpaid wages (and if they'll even get any money out of it?).

 

[Himynameischris]

Wow the news about the insurance thing is horrible poor people.

 

[gotee12]

TEDIT: Nevermind. If they've got ownership till November, start whoring that baby out to sales.

It's happened before on Steam where a Steam sale saved a floundering developer.

 

[Danielsan]

Terrible for all involved. Best of luck to all former employees!

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind. The dissolution of these studios is not the end of this saga; the Rhode Island government looked extensively into 38 Studios progress the past week and STILL decided to let them sink. I expect we'll being hearing a lot more about 38 Studios in the courthouses these coming years.

It sounds like a lot of mismanagement at the top and not really the fault of the 100s of employees who were working on what looks to be a very high quality game, or the employees over at Big Huge Games who developed and put out a very solid RPG earlier this year.

 

[Jezbollah]

1.2 million sales of their first game was good.. However following it up by trying to create a MMO? Bad decision that put them in this situation.

I can only imagine they looked at SWTOR and how that is doing (ie badly) and decided to cut their losses.

 

[massoluk]

This whole thing is just damn weird. The company set the deadline, the schedule, and everything. How exactly did they plan their business strategy?

 

[JumpingTheGun]

So does this mean Amalur's price will drop suddenly or what?

 

[Astra]

1.2 million sales of their first game was good.. However following it up by trying to create a MMO? Bad decision that put them in this situation.

I can only imagine they looked at SWTOR and how that is doing (ie badly) and decided to cut their losses.

The MMO was in development long before Reckoning was made, and indeed before 38 even aquired BHG.

 

[duckroll]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind. The dissolution of these studios is not the end of this saga; the Rhode Island government looked extensively into 38 Studios progress the past week and STILL decided to let them sink. I expect we'll being hearing a lot more about 38 Studios in the courthouses these coming years.

A studio is made up of people. Hundreds of people in this case. They are now unemployed people. That is every bit as tragic and upsetting as the fact that the state is also out of pocket because of a bad financing scheme. There are no winners here. It's just one big fucked up situation.

 

[MikeE21286]

Wow...that all happened quickly

 

[Shard]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind. The dissolution of these studios is not the end of this saga; the Rhode Island government looked extensively into 38 Studios progress the past week and STILL decided to let them sink. I expect we'll being hearing a lot more about 38 Studios in the courthouses these coming years.

It is all about Bug Huge Games, they made some really good games in the past ten years.

 

[JABEE]

1.2 is no longer "good" with the current "next gen" development cost.

It sounds more like management screwed up.

 

[Patryn]

1.2 million sales of their first game was good.. However following it up by trying to create a MMO? Bad decision that put them in this situation.

I can only imagine they looked at SWTOR and how that is doing (ie badly) and decided to cut their losses.

Other way around. They were developing the MMO first. Then they bought Big Huge and changed the game BHG were already working on to fit the Amalur world and to help supplement the MMO.

Copernicus was always the priority.

 

[border]

Our medical insurance runs out tonight at midnight.

We found this out when an employee's pregnant wife was told by her doctor, this was on Tuesday 22nd May this week.

If you found out that your insurance was going to run out in a week and your wife was 8-9 months along, could you demand that the doctors perform a C-section while you are still under coverage?

 

[Minion101]

Everyone wants WoWs money.

 

[ironcreed]

This whole thing is just damn weird. The company set the deadline, the schedule, and everything. How exactly did they plan their business strategy?

Indeed it is weird. There has to be something rotten in the wood pile somewhere.

 

[Kifimbo]

So does this mean Amalur's price will drop suddenly or what?

EA is still alive, so no. Maybe the Steam version.

 

[canedaddy]

That sucks. I had a lot of fun with Amalur and the DLC, and the people at Big Huge seem like good folks (met them at the launch event in Cockeysville). If any of them are here, thanks for creating a great game and best of luck. Also, thanks for the Raven Guard armor... best Easter egg ever.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Did Schilling refuse to give up any equity in his company or was it impossible for him to get financing? How can a studio crumble like this?

The report was that Schilling was very uh, "un-generous" in how much equity he was willing to give when dealing with outside financing. But the amount of money he needed now was probably so titanic that it would be hard to find somebody anyway.

Normally a studio might do this to "go slim" and look for funding without burning additional staff funds. But in this case, with RI holding a ransom on the IP, it's hard to say what 38 can do apart from letting the time run down. I guess maybe this is just the hail mary play to look for funding, put pressure on the government, and hope not too much of the original team gets cherry-picked inbetween?

 

[doubleplusgood]

Well best of luck to the employees, I hope they land on their feet.

Never tried KoA beyond the demo. Had plans to pick it up at some point, just not right away since the demo didn't really do it for me.

 

[eznark]

A studio is made up of people. Hundreds of people in this case. They are now unemployed people. That is every bit as tragic and upsetting as the fact that the state is also out of pocket because of a bad financing scheme. There are no winners here. It's just one big fucked up situation.

I disagree, only in that the people working there knew what they were getting into and chose to join an MMO start up. (Folks at BHG who were there prior to getting bought excluded, of course). The taxpayers had no real choice in the matter.

 

[Anth0ny]

Terrible news.

 

[iamvin22]

Who's working on Project Copernicus?

Curt Schilling.

 

[Patryn]

The report was that Schilling was very uh, "un-generous" in how much equity he was willing to give when dealing with outside financing. But the amount of money he needed now was probably so titanic that it would be hard to find somebody anyway.

Normally a studio might do this to "go slim" and look for funding without burning additional staff funds. But in this case, with RI holding a ransom on the IP, it's hard to say what 38 can do apart from letting the time run down. I guess maybe this is just the hail mary play to look for funding, put pressure on the government, and hope not too much of the original team gets cherry-picked inbetween?

Yeah, I think they have until November before their next payment to RI is due. However, part of the agreement included minimum employee levels with a base average salary, so they may still be in violation at this point.

 

[Lazy Man's Wallpaper]

Amalur was a fun game, but I ran out of steam on it when I read it was a setup for an MMO sequel. Really sad news here.

 

[LCfiner]

This is awful news. My condolences to all the folks laid off. best of luck to all of them.

Reading about how shittily 38 studios handled communication of this news to its employees is maddening.

 

[Banana Kid]

Curt Schilling.

I'm imagining Curt Schilling sitting at a lone desk in the middle of a giant, empty office, frantically coding.

 

[ultron87]

Reading about how shittily 38 studios handled communication of this news to its employees is maddening.

I can't even imagine the atmosphere there over these last few weeks with everyone likely knowing that the writing was on the wall but getting absolutely nothing from management.

 

[Eternia]

Such a sad series of events. Considering the talent they assembled they could have had something really great on their hands.

 

[Acosta]

It's nice seeing twitter with plenty of studios offering links to their job application pages, it´s a good detail.

 

[daycru]

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.

A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

Oh Curt.

 

[Skiesofwonder]

This is about as depressing as you can get when it comes to gaming-news.

Just horrible.

 

[luxarific]

Awful news - I didn't care about the MMO, but I loved Amalur and the two expansion packs rank among the meatiest DLC I've ever purchased. It just needed a balancing tweak and it would have been perfect. Would have definitely purchased a sequel day one.

RIP BHG.

 

[LCfiner]

Oh Curt.

is that a real Curt Schilling quote?

if so, fuck that guy.

 

[Minion101]

Indeed it is weird. There has to be something rotten in the wood pile somewhere.

I got a feeling someone got very rich even if this project failed miserably. The way they double downed their bet with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. What if that game sucked? Where they going to tell people "Here is this great big version of that thing." Someone may not have given a shit.

 

[Lasthope106]

Did Amalur bomb that bad to take the whole studio down? Horrible news. It goes to show just how dangerous it is for new studios to attempt to become a AAA studio right off the bat. It's pretty much EA and Activision market.

 

[dark10x]

Despite the quality of Kingdoms of Amalur, I'm a bit surpirsed at the amount of sympathy being extended to 38 Studios. All evidence points to mismanagement of funds, extensive deceit or negligence, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money being thrown to the wind. The dissolution of these studios is not the end of this saga; the Rhode Island government looked extensively into 38 Studios progress the past week and STILL decided to let them sink. I expect we'll being hearing a lot more about 38 Studios in the courthouses these coming years.

I feel bad for the employees that were working on the game, not the shitty management that destroyed the company (allegedly).

 

[Jhriad]

Fuck.

Best wishes to everyone that is out of work. Here's hoping you all find amazing new positions elsewhere.

 

[Robobandit]

Did Amalur bomb that bad to take the whole studio down? Horrible news. It goes to show just how dangerous it is for new studios to attempt to become a AAA studio right off the bat. It's pretty much EA and Activision market.

It was the mmo they've been working on since 2006.. Reckoning came later.

 

[luxarific]

Did Amalur bomb that bad to take the whole studio down? Horrible news. It goes to show just how dangerous it is for new studios to attempt to become a AAA studio right off the bat. It's pretty much EA and Activision market.

Amalur sold well - it was the MMO that killed the company.

 

[see5harp]

I LOVED Rise of Nations. I hope some of those guys band together to make a new team. Turn based strategy on iPad would be awesome.

 

[Mr. Enigma]

I guess Schilling won't be posting on Gaf anymore.

 

[Patryn]

Did Amalur bomb that bad to take the whole studio down? Horrible news. It goes to show just how dangerous it is for new studios to attempt to become a AAA studio right off the bat. It's pretty much EA and Activision market.

Amalur did fine. It was the MMO that sank them. That, and taking a loan they shouldn't have from RI that forced them to expand far beyond what a brand new studio should be.

 

[Str0ngStyle]

This is sad news. I hope everyone affected lands on their feet as soon as humanly possible. And by Everyone affected, I mean the grunts in the trenches. I have NO sympathy for executives that mismanage a company to this extent.