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General: 38 Studios: Rhode Island Takes Possession
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The State of Rhode Island has taken possession of the physical assets formerly part of 38 Studios. The state will attempt to liquidate the assets to recoup losses to its investment due to bankruptcy.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath has granted the state and the Bank of New York Mellon Trust Co. possession of all 38 Studios assets, including the video game intellectual property from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and in-development MMORPG Copernicus. The state will now be looking to sell these assets to pay back as much of the loan as it can, reports Bloomberg.
Source: Gamasutra.
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Comments
It will have a better chance of one if the RI government can make a few million back from selling crap.
What happy ending? It's done! It's over! RIP 38 Studios...should have released the MMO first as it would have given you some subscription money right off the bat.
so if anyone want a nice IP and two games for a steal.. here is your chance. Take it and prove that YOU can make that MMO that every one seems to be unable to do.
Who knows... you might be the next WoW-Killer.. =P
On a more serious note, i hope the people involved will get out of this... A lifetime of dept and living on noting is not very fun after all.
This have been a good conversation
The funny part is, if the state opened up a studio, hired some developers, and finished the game, they could make even more money. Imagine that: The world's first government-run MMO.
This sucks I wonder if the game will remain playable on steam for those who have purchased it and I wonder if it will still be able to legally be sold what copies of it are around including digital copies or if this game will become nothing but trash on an underground torrent for people to pass around and no longer be sold.
Personally I would not have let my game, or my hard work go to the government, or anything I would have physically burned all the data that was used to make the game including backup's and or hide them backup's somewhere where they could not be found anywhere maybe even in a hard disk burried way under the ground for a year or two and no one but the original founder would know
. This way they get left with nothing, but that is only me... Now the State owns the rights to the game and what will become of it...
The game was never finished. I think it had a long way to go. Moreover, the trouble you would get in for hiding assets from the court is extreme. They will find out.
...or Carabine...
Do not forget that ANet is more an Eastern MMO developer in style, while Carabine looks more Western in style. And to me Amalur is more Western in style. On the other hand, ANet will have 'enough free time' soon to pick up a new project...
Not sure about STEAM players, but I bought it through Origin, and the key is held there. So I can still play it (well, last week I could). I only wonder where track of the achievements is done. If it's at 38Studios, no more achievemtns, if it's at Origin, then no problem there either
That is totally false. ANet is most definitely a Western MMO developer. They always have been.
Smile
I'm hoping for a happy ending for this IP.
Please re-read my comment... I said their style is more Eastern. I know they're located in the US...
The state of Rhode Island REALLY had money to lend to a game studio? Somethings wrong with this picture or maybe I'm being too logical.
Well, this is what a google search pulled up about RI in 2008, in 2012 still not so great. KOA: Reckoning should have been free for all residents of Rhode Island, this is just sad all around. Fail state lending money to a company, who in turn fails. In the end, the residents of RI are fitting the bill?
I must be missing something here, this is not making sense. Can anyone enlighten me?
It would be weird if someone won the state lottery, and then used that money to buy all the rights to Kingdoms of Amular and the MMO that was supposed to follow. Someone really could pick up a game on the cheap.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think the bigger thing is don't use projected estimated income as proof that you can pay for your loans.
Rhode Island offered them a ton of money to move there thinking based on false information. From what I've seen the whole thing is shady.. and having a politician anywhere near it isn't good for trying to skirt regulations.
I thought the moral of the story is don't loan someone millions of dollars for a business idea just because they won a World Series...
Let me, as a former Boston indy game company CEO, elaborate this just a little bit.
Boston, Austin, SF, Toronto, Seattle, and maybe Montreal these days are the big centers of the gaming industry in North America (not in that order). Rhode Island is the armpit of New England, and pretty much always has been. It's the smallest state, and doesn't really have a lot to sustain itself, and it's been suffering badly.
But one thing that Providence does have is the Rhode Island School of Design, which recently has been making a push to try to attract and develop a game program. RISD (pronounced Riz-dee) is a great school, really tops for design. If they could spin up a game design program, they'd be top of their field. Problem is, there are very few game companies in RI.
Well, here's Schiller, who is out on the128 beltway around Boston. He's not beholden to Warner, like Turbine, he's his own man. He's got this ambitious project, transmedia, big names, very hush hush so he can say anything he damn well wants. It's the e-ticket for local hires in the Boston area -- a lot of people want in. And RI comes to him and says, what will it take to get you to anchor our new constellation of game companies down in Providumps? To drag all these stars of Boston (and Baltimore -- don't forget he acquired another pretty happening little company from down there and brought a bunch of them up here too!) down to somewhere far from the hub of the universe to feed our state's ambitions to be the next Austin?
And Schiller dug deep in their pockets and handed them back enough change to get them home that night on the bus. And they bent over.
I was applying for a job there (the economy and entrepreneurial realities having eaten my little company at the time) when this all went down, and I was cursing a blue streak, because there was just no way I was moving to Rhode Island, and no way I was commuting three hours a day, minimum.
Now, I don't feel quite so bad...:)
And at the time, people were going to the governor of Masachusetts and saying, "How can you let RI do this? Why don't you outbid them? I mean, he's a Red Sox for f* sake!" and the gov just shook his head, and said, "I don't participate in this kind of bidding war." And I'm sure you can all feel the glow of his smile from here right now.
Why u ppl ask for happy ending this is THE END and its not happy cant u see?
This is BS. Part of it was not studio 38 fault becouse 1st of all state was the one wich asked studio 38 to go there and they would give em loan but befor KOA was ready they already started asking for their money wich was wierd for 38 coz they had not released the game even.
That just proves how F.ed up state is.
One of the reasons that I have no interest in GW2 is because the game looks far too anime/Eastern for my tastes (look at their version of Gnomes, whatever they are. Can you be more anime?). So while it may not be as Eastern as your genuine Korean grinder, it is far more East than West. As such, Reizla's statement is not only not "totally false", but in fact, "mostly true".
38 Studios was out of money, end of story. Whether or not they made or did not make the required fee payment on their loan was not the problem. They were bankrupt, and no investors were willing to throw their money in. The missed payment to RI was just the public straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
SWTOR's less-than-hoped for launch contributed to investor skittishness about sinking money into the MMO genre. The company was, sadly, poorly run and wasn't going to make it no matter what happened.