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Curt Schilling's "38 Studios" in trouble, skips payroll, bounces check to RI
- Thread starter jbug617
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Nihilistic Monk
Member
CosmicQueso
Member
If they needed a million units or so to be profitable, well, they'd be in big trouble no matter how successful it was relative to the overall market.
DiscoJer
Member
A lot of people think Kickstarter is shady, but at least in that case, people volunteer to give up their money.
In this case, it's worse than tax breaks, they are literally giving away money taken from taxpayers.
Welcome to this gen.
OK, this made me laugh more than it should have!that's a lot of studios
So what's your solution? Hold back technology even further?
It's certainly possible to make great looking games on a reasonable budget this gen.
bigtroyjon
Member
I have no issues with his passion but staffing up a studio with hundreds of people in it in the current industry climate is a great way to give that studio zero chance of succeeding.
It takes a hell of a lot more than simple passion to be able to properly run a business, especially if you are getting terrible advice like whoever told Curt that running up a huge staff would be a good idea.
CosmicQueso
Member
There will be the huge AAAAAAAAA games built on established/existing franchises, the once in a blue moon new IP and the rest will be digital games on iOS, tablets and connected consoles. Publishers will continue to consolidate and studios will either do the same or dissolve. As any market matures, it's kinda what you see.
Deified Data
Banned
Shame Amalur sequel has the potential to be one of the best games every made. Hope they keep their head above water.
It was $50 on Steam launch day, no clue what you're talking about.
Umm what? I was just pointing out that this gen has seen a large rise in typical development costs that makes it difficult for anything that doesn't break at least 1 million units at full price to turn a profit. And it's like that all gen. Hence "welcome to this gen" for the guy just discovering that a game can flop at 410K units.
No it was $50 on Origin launch day. Steam was $60.
http://www.steamprices.com/us/app/102500/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning
Edit: It's also $60 on Steam right now.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/102500/
reggieandTFE
Member
This was my exact question. Fuck Curt Schilling.
Can someone confirm this? Would love to see someone eat shit instead of playing burnout or something
I dislike them, but I am going to go on record saying that perhaps you are overstating it.
Hyperbole much?
SolidSnakex
Member
I think this has less to do with the Amalur and a lot more to do with the MMO that they're developing. Making a MMO is probably the biggest risk that you can make in this industry. You've got to sink a ridiculous amount of money into them just to get them out the door.
He's taking advantage of a program offered to attract companies to the state? I'm sure his company wasn't the first, nor will it be the last to get state funding in exchange for providing jobs.
Whether it was a sound investment of taxpayer money however remains to be seen.
Raptomex
Member
I like Amalur. But I don't find the world immersive or anything. Also, I was a little deceived on the "open world" thing. Yes, it's open world but it's only a bunch of paths that lead to open areas. I was a little disappointed with that, and the fact you can't jump (mind boggling). Other than that I think it's a great game. Great combat.
there are websites on the internet that cater to your interests
sparky2112
Member
I bought his game at full price (and gladly), but FUCK YES to this post. Game would have been better if Ayn Rand was one of the bosses you could gut. A guy can dream, right?
Jive Turkey
Unconfirmed Member
So now the thread title reads like Schilling owns 38 studios and they're all in trouble!
Hey he doesn't need big government's help. He just needs his own old fashioned American hard work and ingenuity and $75,000,000 from the state of Rhode Island to be not very successful.
Hey he doesn't need big government's help. He just needs his own old fashioned American hard work and ingenuity and $75,000,000 from the state of Rhode Island to be not very successful.
these sales are good for even a typical million budget games if it sells good in other territories too.here it seems more like case of sinking money making mmorpg which need a huge huge investment.why would a no name studio start with mmorpg ?
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
That's what Curt played. I agree it was a horrible decision. The fact that it wasn't planned as F2P either was a horrible decision.
He can just do a youtube search for "septic 5" to get him started.
Interficium
Banned
fixed it for ya chief.
Bodes well for Respawn's hot new jam, whatever it may be.
Take it from a Red Sox fan, Schilling is as phony a human being as can possibly exist. As soon as he has no use for you, he'll move on.
Baconsammy
Banned
I'm betting the problem wasn't Amalur. It's the MMO. I'll echo what some other people said - looks like no patch, which means I'll never get the game again. I hate a great 20 hours with it and then a lackluster 20 more, but the chakrams are better than any weapon I've used in an open world RPG.
LiquidSolid
Member
Wow. You have issues.
Yet another successful EA Partners release I guess. The idea was pretty good, offering a developer friendly publishing line to attract high quality developers, but the execution, specifically on the marketing side, has been pretty piss poor. If I were working at Insomniac or Funcom, I'd be worried.
Hopefully 38 Studios get out of this alive. I've no real interest in the MMO (or any MMOs for that matter) but I'd love to see another singleplayer Amalur game with the problems I had fixed (better story, better "world", better characters and more variety).
I think Schilling has too much ambition. He spent countless hours building up characters in Everquest and WoW, and he certainly knows the ins and outs of MMOs from the player side, but he just dove straight into making an MMO of his own. He got R.A. Salvatore. He staffed up, big time. The theme of the whole process seems to have been 'reckless abandon'. $75 million in taxpayer money for a startup video game studio? I'd be furious if I were a RI taxpayer.
Sentenza
Member
That really depends from what they spent to make the game.
I can't say i know the details but the whole thing, for what we read around, always struck me as a bunch of amateurs trying to go BIG. They hired expensive names who didn't add that much to the game, they marketed the whole thing pretty hard, and so on.
There's a chance they overspent cause of their inexperience. And the game wasn't even that good.
Raptomex
Member
This. Word for word.
Just for comparaison's sake, Ubisoft Toronto got $263 million from the provincial government.
At least Ubisoft is a real company. 38 Studios is a baseball player's welfare funded vanity project.
funkystudent
Member
I dont even know why they would make a MMO in the current market.
KoA seemed like a solid game. Was gonna pick it up eventually but I was RPG'ed out after skyrim.
No matter what they make its gonna bomb thanks to EA partners unique way of support games at release.
KoA seemed like a solid game. Was gonna pick it up eventually but I was RPG'ed out after skyrim.
No matter what they make its gonna bomb thanks to EA partners unique way of support games at release.
On the other hand, Ubisoft is a multinational company, a public company with shareholders, that shouldn't need public money. Unlike maybe some startups (still debatable).
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
Just imagine next gen where you sell 2.2 million and your still in deep shit...
I'll hold you to that if we ever happen to meet by chance.
Edit - Maybe we can get Curt in here to say something. Idk about legal stuff, though. Maybe he can't say anything yet.
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