Another MMORPG Bites the Dust Before Its Finished

[Woodsman]

I liked Kingdoms of Amalur - liked the community, liked the sand box feel of it. It sold 410,000 copies pretty quickly, but $25 million is not enough to help them out.

Was hoping to see what they would do with the MMORPG they were working on. Probably won't get that chance. Sucks if you're a Rhode Island taxpayer.

Rhode Island gov working hard at 'keeping 38 Studios solvent' | Joystiq

The Providence Journal reports Gov. Chafee, who was against the loan during his election, spent a "weekend of work on this subject," but wouldn't go into specifics. "We're doing everything possible, like I would for any Rhode Island company," he said this afternoon. The Journal reports he added the work was about "keeping 38 Studios solvent."

"We're concerned and just doing everything possible to ensure that 38 Studios stays part of the Rhode Island community," Governor Chafee told WPRI.com. "We're working on different issues with them." Asked if 38 Studios' issues could be resolved, Chafee said, "We're working on it."

If 38 Studios collapses, Rhode Island taxpayers owe $112.6 million | Joystiq

 

[Zosimus]

Bloody stupid for taxpayers to pay for a company failure.

Maybe to cure future issues of these types of failures would be to make the money actually be paid back into these bonds by the politicians out of their salaries.

 

[Woodsman]

There is some hope. They made a payment, and they are saying June 13, 2013.

Kingdoms of Amalur developer makes loan payment, Copernicus MMO due in 2013 | PC Gamer


The only problem is they still need many 10s of millions of dollars just to keep their payroll up between now and next year.

They are also going to be competing with Blizzard's next MMORPG. They have bad timing.

 

[Woodsman]

I would view it in 720p in full-screen - it's very nice looking.

 

[Zosimus]

There are a couple of articles floating out on the internets that they are not paying their employees.

 

[Cirno]

There are a couple of articles floating out on the internets that they are not paying their employees.

Same thing happened with Firesky, with Stargate Worlds.
In the end, they dropped all their resources into a third-person shooter, then vanished.

On Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, I have a question.
When I first played it, I was deeply unimpressed with it.
When I played it again recently, I managed to push through my initial impressions, and found my way to "not bad".
However, it's received glowing reviews from, like, everywhere, and it doesn't seem like I can mention it to anyone without hearing something like "It's awesome" or "I've heard it's awesome".
So, the question is; what is it that I'm clearly missing that makes it awesome?

 

[Zosimus]

Never tried it Cirno so I couldn't answer it for you I apologize on that.

Things are going to well for some MMO's this week period.

BioWare Lays Off Staff At The SWTOR Studio

Layoffs confirmed for 38 Studios, Rhode Island takes no action | Massively

This link below has a podcast so you may want to listen to it if you have time.

Massively Speaking Episode 202: Rubbernecking at the scene of an MMO accident | Massively

Blizzard denies Diablo III authenticator hacking claims | Massively

Fallen Earth team dwindles further, but game still lives | Massively

 

[Woodsman]

Cirno, I don't know how to answer that question. It's one of those personal preferences things..

Zosimus, I know somebody that got a pink slip. They had a job lined up already and had figured it would probably happen. Actually they thought they'd be laid off sooner, not long after it shipped. It happens with large projects. Not a lot of companies willing to keep the full production team on after something is finished unless they launch straight into a sequel.

Going back to Amalur/38 Studios. Looks like they are about finished.

RI Gov. Chafee working to prevent 38 Studios shutdown, unaware of any new cash for company | Joystiq

A shame. I'm not a big Todd McFarlane fan thanks to the stuff he did for UO, but I really wanted Schilling to succeed.

 

[Zosimus]

Well Turbine has thier gig today and seems alot from 38 studios was there.

Their is a small contradiction when it comes to SWTOR imo. Back in Dec they stated they would keep the full team on board. On another post I posted about EA and their digital distrubution profits. Then they layoff some of their team on SWTOR.

Have we seen the "SAME" pattern as before? UO and War comes to mind. So whats the next big project they are going to sink money into and follow the same path? I'd rather see EA actually work and continue growth in the games they have instead of raking in as much cash before they just let it flatline.

 

[Zosimus]

Looks like the show is done !

Rumor: 38 Studios lays off entire staff, sells Big Huge Games [Updated] | Massively

Rumor: 38 Studios lays off entire staff, sells Big Huge Games [Updated]

by Justin Olivetti on May 24th 2012 5:00PM
MMO industry, Legal, Miscellaneous
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The 38 Studios disaster continues to unfold today, as the troubled studio laid off its entire staff and may be selling off its Big Huge Games division in Boston. The Verge reports that the layoffs did indeed happen, quoting an unnamed source from within 38 Studios. Boston's Fox 25 News speculates that the studio may close by this weekend.

38 Studios CM Charles Dane confirmed being laid off on Twitter: "Now on the market. I had an awesome run with 38 Studios, but this dream is now ending."

Word is that the company is also selling its subsidiary, Big Huge Games. Big Huge Games is the maker of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, 38 Studios' single-player prequel to its Copernicus MMO. This would not be the first time that Big Huge Games was sold by its parent company, as the studio experienced the same event back in 2009.

Oh his Facebook page, Curt Schilling stressed that Reckoning did quite well in sales. "I wanted to clear up some misinformation around 38 Studios' first product, Reckoning. Sales of Reckoning outperformed EA's expectations and sold more than 1.2 million units in the game's first 90 days in the market."

[Updates]: Kotaku has updated its story to report that both Providence and BHG are being shut down. Developer Ryan Shwayder has also confirmed the layoffs via his personal blog.

 

[hungry4knowhow]

Personally, I find the whole 38 Studios story extremely interesting from start-soon to be finish. It should have been a reality TV series.

 

[hungry4knowhow]

Best quote from the Massively article, Learning from the 38 Studios Disaster Right Here:
Too many chefs in the kitchen is a recipe for disaster. I want to see a show of hands for those of you who winced when you heard about all the impressive talent being hired by 38 Studios to create Reckoning and Project Copernicus. R.A Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, Travis McGeathy and many other top talent were brought on to make one of the most highly anticipated games of the last five years. But that's not a sustainable plan. Sure, it builds positive hype, but you can't maintain that type of payroll with a management team that has no experience launching games.