38 Studios Auction Raises Just $320,000

[Andy Chalk]

38 Studios Auction Raises Just $320,000

The rights to 38 Studios' Copernicus MMO and Helios gaming platform both failed to sell at auction earlier this week.

Intellectual property rights formerly belonging to the defunct 38 Studios went on the auction block earlier this week, but the money raised will do little to ease the financial burden imposed on Rhode Island by the studio's failure. Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends, along with the Big Huge Games trademark, sold for a total of $320,000, but 38 Studios properties including the ambitious Copernicus MMO that ultimately brought the company down failed to move.

"The Receiver did not receive acceptable offers for the remaining lots, including Project Copernicus, 38 Studios' in development Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, and Helios, 38 Studios' integrated social media and gaming platform," attorney Richard Land said in a statement.

Land said he would continue to "engage in negotiations" with interested parties but as Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski told WPRI, if the auctioneer could only get $320,000 for the Rise properties, which are "complete products that can be sold on digital distribution networks with minimal effort," the odds of seeing a substantial return on an incomplete and notoriously troubled MMO are not good. And while 320 large is a hefty chunk of change for you and me, it's only about one-third of one percent of the roughly $100 million the state of Rhode Island owes because of the 38 Studios collapse.

Source: WPRI [http://www.wpri.com/web/wpri/target-12/tim-white/38-studios-auction-fails-to-sell-marquee-game]


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[CriticalMiss]

The Receiver did not receive acceptable offers for the remaining lots

So are they over estimating the value of the remaining stuff or are they just so bad that nobody seriously wants them? Seems like this soap opera is going to keep going if they can't even sell off their assets for one percent of what they owe. I wonder if 38 Studio's ex-lover will show up after recovering from amnesia and putting the whole debacle in to question by revealing that 38 Studios died in acar crash ten years ago and that the studio we know today is actually an evil twin brother...with cancer!

 

[Dreadman75]

So...does this mean no one wants the Kingdoms of Amalur IP? Because that would be a damn shame. The series has potential, and it's first outing was solid. All it needs is a good team behind it and it could very well be a fantasy RPG to rival The Elder Scrolls series.

I hope someone will save the IP from just sitting on a shelf, never to be seen or heard from again. I wonder who would be good at a project like this?

 

[MCerberus]

So...does this mean no one wants the Kingdoms of Amalur IP? Because that would be a damn shame. The series has potential, and it's first outing was solid. All it needs is a good team behind it and it could very well be a fantasy RPG to rival The Elder Scrolls series.

I hope someone will save the IP from just sitting on a shelf, never to be seen or heard from again. I wonder who would be good at a project like this?

I think the issue here is that nobody wants to make someone else's game. They don't want to go around and guess at the rules of how their world works based on one moderate-hit that came, went, as was largely forgotten.

I mean down that path lies a million of Bionic Commando: Rearmed's ilk

 

[1337mokro]

I'll give you 50 eurocent for the rest. With current exchange rates that's like 6 million dollars.

 

[Nielas]

So...does this mean no one wants the Kingdoms of Amalur IP? Because that would be a damn shame. The series has potential, and it's first outing was solid. All it needs is a good team behind it and it could very well be a fantasy RPG to rival The Elder Scrolls series.

I hope someone will save the IP from just sitting on a shelf, never to be seen or heard from again. I wonder who would be good at a project like this?

I think the issue here is that nobody wants to make someone else's game. They don't want to go around and guess at the rules of how their world works based on one moderate-hit that came, went, as was largely forgotten.

I mean down that path lies a million of Bionic Commando: Rearmed's ilk

The value of the IP is based on how big an existing fan base it already has and how much of additional revenue it will generate if the game is based on the IP rather than having an original one. Owning the IP will not save you any money on the development costs of a sequel. The code and art assets from the first game could be reused but there could be significant issues with another studio trying to adapt them to a new game so any savings on that are questionable. Most studios would probably prefer to create their own game based on their own ideas rather than pay money for a set of restrictions on what they can do.

 

[Hungry Donner]

Seems like this soap opera is going to keep going if they can't even sell off their assets for one percent of what they owe. I wonder if 38 Studio's ex-lover will show up after recovering from amnesia and putting the whole debacle in to question by revealing that 38 Studios died in acar crash ten years ago and that the studio we know today is actually an evil twin brother...with cancer!

I'm waiting for the Julie Taymor musical.


Wasn't this pushed back because of unexpected interest? If more people were interested than they expected, and they still didn't get any acceptable bids, it seems they're either over-estimating the value or they're bundling too much content together.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

For some reason, I'd buy Project Copernicus if I had the money, but instead of an MMO I'd turn it into a fantasy city-builder...

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I think the issue here is that nobody wants to make someone else's game. They don't want to go around and guess at the rules of how their world works based on one moderate-hit that came, went, as was largely forgotten.

I mean down that path lies a million of Bionic Commando: Rearmed's ilk

Wha? Rearmed was the best thing to come out of the whole BC remake/reboot thing. The AAA version they were using Rearmed to promote turned out to be crap but that doesn't take away from the craftsmanship of Rearmed.

But forgetting the game system and the story there is still a ton of assets that can be salvaged from a scrapped game. If RI wants to make lemons from the lemonade they should open source all of the code and the assets as CC Attribution with the credits listing State of Rhode Island for anyone who uses it.

They won't get any money from it, might as well get some goodwill.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm hoping that Rise of Nations Tactics game gets released on PC at some point. Nice to know it sold.

 

[RionP]

Is there any news about who bought the Rise series? I'm hoping for a sequel, no matter how unlikely it may be.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

So...does this mean no one wants the Kingdoms of Amalur IP? Because that would be a damn shame. The series has potential, and it's first outing was solid. All it needs is a good team behind it and it could very well be a fantasy RPG to rival The Elder Scrolls series.

I hope someone will save the IP from just sitting on a shelf, never to be seen or heard from again. I wonder who would be good at a project like this?

I don't know exactly why but I really did love Amalur's world and setting when I played Reckoning, though the Fae lacked much if any emotion (plus they played the "I can't do shit captain" part very well) and the general story kinda fell a bit flat, the world itself and some quests were nice to look at and I still prefer Amalur's combat over Skyrim's simply because I feel like I'm the one doing the damage rather than stale blocky combat that Skyrim offers up from time to time.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Is there any news about who bought the Rise series? I'm hoping for a sequel, no matter how unlikely it may be.

Nope, at this point the buyer remains unknown.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Man, I'm glad Rich Gallup managed to get out of there and on to other things.