Kingdoms of Amalur Studio Struggling to Survive

[Andy Chalk]

Kingdoms of Amalur Studio Struggling to Survive

Financial trouble at Curt Schilling's 38 Studios is bad news for Rhode Island.

Not everyone was went ahead [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102696-Rhode-Island-Politicians-Unhappy-With-38-Studios-Deal], the studio set up shop, the game went out the door and all was well - until yesterday, when reports began to emerge that the studio was decidedly unwell.

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee met with executives from 38 Studios on Monday night to check "on all the financials" and discuss the state of the company, which is apparently very shaky. Chafee was dead-set against the loan guarantee prior to his election in January 2011 but now says that since the deal is done, the priority is to ensure the company succeeds.

As of March 15, 38 Studios has received $49.8 million from the state, but that money has apparently been sunk into the "Project Copernicus" MMO, which hasn't even been officially unveiled to the public. Doubts about the game's future grew recently when 38 Studios pulled out of E3, which happens in June. But questions about the studio have been floating around for almost a year, beginning with a PricewaterhouseCoopers audit conducted in June 2011 that expressed "substantial doubt" about its ability to stay afloat.

A 38 Studios collapse could result in the loss of 379 full-time development jobs and would be very expensive for Rhode Island taxpayers, who are on the hook for all the money given to the studio. Fortunately for founder Curt Schilling, however, he's already covered; the studio established a revolving line of credit with the former Red Sox ace in July 2010 to borrow up to $4 million from him, but part of the loan was used to pay him back.

Source: WPRI [http://blogs.wpri.com/2012/05/14/38-studios-finances-under-scrutiny-ri-taxpayers-75m-at-risk/]


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[Something Amyss]

It's a shame. The game is a solid "first game," and I've enjoyed over 200 hours on it. I'd like to see more.

I'd like more details about what's going on besides the obvious. This sounds sorta like mismanagement.

 

[Therumancer]

Well I do notice that there was a promise of a 75 million dollar investment from the state and they only received 49.8 million. What's more the Governor who is investigating this and claims he wants to "keep the company afloat" apparently opposed this, and public face aside I can't help but wonder if he's strangling the company since they have only received 2/3rds of what they were promised, 25 million dollars being a lot.


Of course then again they did seem to make a run for the whole MMO goldmine, which seems to be what kills most companies, as opposed to sticking with making single player games, which they showed a talent for.

I do remember reading that they wanted to make a Kingdoms of Amalaur MMO, so that's probably what their project is. To be honest they probably shouldn't have sunk 50 million into developing a property like this until they knew if the game was going to be a success or not. Overall Amalaur WAS successful, but not a blockbuster, and truthfully I think more people found the lore annoying that something they really wanted to see built into a persistant world. I haven't seen much praising the lore or storyline to be entirely honest, and while I thought it was okay, I wouldn't give it more than an okay.


In short if it's not the state's fault, which it might be, it's probably another casualty caused by greed. Companies reaching for the biggest pie and the largest potential profits rather than remaining content to produce a good product for a fair profit. A relatively new company just starting shouldn't be drooling over launching an MMO right out of the gate, yet they all seem to be doing just that. Quite sad really, as I thought single player, open world RPGs were going to have a new champion given that Bethesda seems to be all hot and bothered to try and ruin Elder Scrolls with an MMO.

 

[Dastardly]

But hey, kudos to the governor for stepping up to fix his predecessor's mistakes. He's got quite a mess on his hands to fix before he can give the "I told you so" on this one.

You can't use public funds like Kickstarter. This was a large sum of money given to an unproven company, and it's not even really clear whether a video game company is in line with the intended purpose of this initiative (to draw high-tech jobs to the state, basically). In the current climate, it seems like game development is a lot more transient than it used to be -- team names may stay around, but team members get shuffled and downsized after every project, and that's for the big names, even.

Rhode Island's legislators may have just bought the state a dead mule. At the very least, a sick one.

 

[Worgen]

Why the hell do these new devs keep jumping into the mmo market? Don't they realize its a shark pit with people always jumping over it and the sharks are made of gold.

 

[ultrachicken]

Why the hell do these new devs keep jumping into the mmo market? Don't they realize its a shark pit with people always jumping over it and the sharks are made of gold.

That was my reaction. It's a cluttered market, it's ungodly expensive to create, and requires many resources to maintain. Why the fuck didn't they just make another offline RPG? They've shown they're pretty good at that.

 

[Aggieknight]

Why the hell do these new devs keep jumping into the mmo market? Don't they realize its a shark pit with people always jumping over it and the sharks are made of gold.

That was my reaction. It's a cluttered market, it's ungodly expensive to create, and requires many resources to maintain. Why the fuck didn't they just make another offline RPG? They've shown they're pretty good at that.

Agreed. KoA was a decent first shot, but omfg what moron decided to break into the MMO market?

I've got a feeling that the taxpayers will never recover their $75M given to this studio, regardless of whether they stay afloat.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Agreed to the previous posters. This should be a lesson that just because you *can* make an MMO from your IP, doesn't mean you *should*

 

[draythefingerless]

If you guys did not notice the AWFULLY TOO BIG world of Amalur, Amalur WAS gonna be the MMO. or did you not notice the fetch quests, the uninteresting world story, the scattered artificial NPCs and conversations, the huge(too huge) world map filled with pointless redundant space for an offline RPG(but rather useful for a mmo). but then sth happened that made them finish up Amalur as a SP. Maybe they were forced to show results. Dunno.

 

[endtherapture]

This makes me sad.

Tempted to buy Kingdoms of Amalur next time I have money, because it looks pretty cool and it'd be sad to see a studio go down.

 

[CUnk]

Maybe RI should have brought that 75 million to Foxwoods. They probably could have gotten better odds at a roulette table.

 

[UnderGlass]

Yeah it's been said. In the current market of "second-tier" MMOs how many of them are popular enough to recoup their enormous dev costs, maintain overhead fees/ongoing development and make a profit?

Perhaps they can turn it into a single-player game like THQ is doing with Warhammer 40k Online

Edit:

If you guys did not notice the AWFULLY TOO BIG world of Amalur, Amalur WAS gonna be the MMO. or did you not notice the fetch quests, the uninteresting world story, the scattered artificial NPCs and conversations, the huge(too huge) world map filled with pointless redundant space for an offline RPG(but rather useful for a mmo). but then sth happened that made them finish up Amalur as a SP. Maybe they were forced to show results. Dunno.

I remember hearing about this now. So perhaps this one will get the same treatment?

 

[Amnestic]

STOP. NO. GO BACK. DO NOT MAKE AN MMO.

From what I've seen, Kingdoms of Amalur is like Fable only BETTER IN EVERY WAY. Do more of this! For Haruhi's sake, you're a new development team, why would you jump into the MMO market without significant backing? I'm not saying never, but at least get a few more games and build up a bit more brand loyalty first.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Well I do notice that there was a promise of a 75 million dollar investment from the state and they only received 49.8 million.

Terms of the deal. 38 Studios is obligated to hit certain benchmarks over a three-year period in order to get all the money.

 

[Viruzzo]

From what I've seen, Kingdoms of Amalur is like Fable only BETTER IN EVERY WAY.

I strongly disagree. First and foremost, it lacked the sillyness of the first Fable; second, it was WAY too padded with useless space and mobs. I can definitely see the argument about it being a sort of single player MMO, and it certainly felt like one to me, in a way like SWToR is a MMO-WRPG.
In both cases I didn't like the result, and it certainly doesn't help to have gone against Skyrim (more or less).

 

[elilupe]

Nooooooo! I like these guys. Amalur may not have been the most original game, but it was fun and I had a good time with it. I hope they can get out of this without losses...

 

[Lunar Templar]

:/
bummer, i like Amalur

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Sucks to hear another game company is in hot water.
But hey, crisis... I'm suffering too and nobody ever loaned me millions of dollars.
Just one of the "working poor"... bought my house months before the crisis.
Now if I sell it (and I'll have too) I'm gonna be in debt ? 12,000.

Yeah, I'm really sad. Except I got Diablo 3, so whatever, it all evens out today

 

[evilneko]

Well I do notice that there was a promise of a 75 million dollar investment from the state and they only received 49.8 million. What's more the Governor who is investigating this and claims he wants to "keep the company afloat" apparently opposed this, and public face aside I can't help but wonder if he's strangling the company since they have only received 2/3rds of what they were promised, 25 million dollars being a lot.

Oh, no no no, you don't understand--can you imagine what a political boon it would be for the governor to be able to claim he saved this company? The only way he's purposely trying to kill it is if he's a nitwit the size of Texas.

Of course then again they did seem to make a run for the whole MMO goldmine, which seems to be what kills most companies, as opposed to sticking with making single player games, which they showed a talent for.

Yup. The MMO attempt is what's killing them IMO. They need to ditch it, pronto, and start on something less likely to bankrupt them. A full-blown Kingdoms of Amalur expansion pack might be a good idea: KoA had sold over 400k and that's only counting retail copies. An expansion pack would be a relatively quick and cheap way to inject a few million into the company. It won't pay back the loan by any means but it's better than throwing money at an MMO that probably won't work anyway.