Entire 38 Studios Staff Laid Off, Effective Immediately

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Epona

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Jun 24, 2011
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Blade_125 said:
Crono1973 said:
Well, this will sound mean but we didn't need another damn MMO and maybe this will be a lesson to other start ups trying to enter the market with an MMO. Maybe it will be a lesson to established companies too, most MMO's don't make it and the overhead is high. Hope all the employees find another, more stable company soon.

Also, why is KoA still at $60? This should be seeing a price cut soon and then I will buy it.
Look for sales. I bought my copy about a month ago for $40. Also Steam and gamespot had sales at $40 even before that (I got mine for the PS3).
Considering the game is not likely to get any more patches (which I have read that it needs one for balance issues), it is no longer worth $40.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Aug 22, 2010
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.....aw man, I loved Amalur, I'm doing another play right now and I just bought all that DLC :(

Sorry lads. If it makes you feel better, I bought it on pre-order, I thought the demo was that fun.
 

Hungry Donner

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Mar 19, 2009
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That really sucks. I wonder if BHG will be able to re-form from the ashes or if they'll just go their separate ways.
 

matrix3509

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Sep 24, 2008
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In before "They made a game that sucks therefore deserved to be fired" comments start drowning the thread.
 

Epona

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matrix3509 said:
In before "They made a game that sucks therefore deserved to be fired" comments start drowning the thread.
You are the only one, doesn't that make you feel stupid?
 

Taunta

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Dec 17, 2010
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This is of course terrible and no one ever deserves to have their job pulled out from under them, but I'm not really surprised. It's similar to Team Bondi's story.

KoA was good, but not great. It felt like an amalgamation of every western RPG rather than its own game. Still, 1.2 mil is nothing to sneeze at. It's a little disconcerting, considering companies have sold less and still stayed in business. I'm wondering if there's something else to this story that we don't know about.
 

matrix3509

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Crono1973 said:
matrix3509 said:
In before "They made a game that sucks therefore deserved to be fired" comments start drowning the thread.
You are the only one, doesn't that make you feel stupid?
I said "In before". Before you start throwing insults around, I suggest you learn how to read.
 

The Pinray

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Jul 21, 2011
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What a shame. :( Seems name dropping can only get you so far...

I enjoyed the game, they just banked too much on the Amalur franchise. The market doesn't need another fantasy-themed MMO.

Shame, shame, shame.
 

ThunderCavalier

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Nov 21, 2009
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I heard a lot of good things about Amalur, and it's on my list of games that I want to play. It sucks that an entire company went under due to the game, despite the fact that I heard that, all things considered, it was alright.

Hopefully, they can get some jobs in this rough economy. Good luck to all of those guys!
 

Jumplion

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Mar 10, 2008
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My condolences to the employees that are now laidoff and it's a damn shame that a company with potential had to wither away and die like this.

That said, what a bunch of dumbasses starting on an MMO project. They release one game and with barely any sort of fanbase they're already off and away with an MMO project, a genre that is completely saturated, has seen numerous failures/mediocre turnouts in the past year alone, and if the project ever went through I guarantee you it would just be a big, worthless flop. Bit off more than they can chew, methinks.

On top of that, if a game selling 1 million+ units in only a few months still results in the company completely and utterly falling apart, something is wrong with this industry and it needs to change now. One, developers/publishers need to stop making stupid decisions and two, they need to control this ridiculous budget fetish that this industry has, pumping everything with millions upon millions of dollars when it can be achieved on a lower, more efficient budget if they plan right.

I guess I'm just in a mix of disappointment, annoyance, and bewilderment. It's a bunch of ridiculous things wrapped into one; a brand new studio with a hugeass multimillion budget title that still doesn't sell enough and a studio tackling the MMO genre as if they have the resources to do so. Too often we have seen studios shut down due to this kind of crap. This needs to change.
 

matrix3509

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Meanwhile EA is still profiting. Oh yes people, continue to tell me how fine the industry is doing and I'll continue to tell you just how fucking wrong you are.
 

Epona

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matrix3509 said:
Crono1973 said:
matrix3509 said:
In before "They made a game that sucks therefore deserved to be fired" comments start drowning the thread.
You are the only one, doesn't that make you feel stupid?
I said "In before". Before you start throwing insults around, I suggest you learn how to read.
Must be my hatred for pointless "in before" posts talking.


...and they are pointless. Do you think anyone thinks you're clever by predicting what others will post?
 

KeyMaster45

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Jun 16, 2008
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I think this is really the first studio going out of business that makes me sad. I really enjoyed KoA, and was looking forward to more games set in its world. Sadly they were just determined to make an MMO, that was what Reckoning was supposed to be after all. My best wishes to all those employees. Chalk another great game up to the unforgiving maw of the industry. I would hope someone picks up the IP and continues it on, but with that comes the risk they'd just turn it into some awful crap fest without the soul of the original.
 

SeatedSkeleton

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Sep 8, 2011
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Caffiene said:
Wha...?

Basically "To avoid the possibility of retrenchment, youre all fired."

Maybe this is a local language thing, but around here I wouldnt call that "avoiding" the possibility of retrenchment... more like "ensuring". Does "retrenched" not equal "fired" over there in USAland?
Nope, in Australia you would know it as being made redundant, which carries with it a lot of other entitlments and obligations. Being fired you just get paid your notice and that's it. By firing the staff they have saved a lot of extra money on entitlements that the would have otherwise have owed. So they are getting screwed twice.

That's how it would work here in Oz anyway. But then again we have a decent living minimum wage among other things so it could be different in the US
 

Caffiene

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SeatedSkeleton said:
Nope, in Australia you would know it as being made redundant, which carries with it a lot of other entitlments and obligations.
Ah. That makes sense.

Or the explanation does, at least. Doesnt make so much sense that you can screw people over like that.
 

gyroscopeboy

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Nov 27, 2010
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SeatedSkeleton said:
Caffiene said:
Wha...?

Basically "To avoid the possibility of retrenchment, youre all fired."

Maybe this is a local language thing, but around here I wouldnt call that "avoiding" the possibility of retrenchment... more like "ensuring". Does "retrenched" not equal "fired" over there in USAland?
Nope, in Australia you would know it as being made redundant, which carries with it a lot of other entitlments and obligations. Being fired you just get paid your notice and that's it. By firing the staff they have saved a lot of extra money on entitlements that the would have otherwise have owed. So they are getting screwed twice.

That's how it would work here in Oz anyway. But then again we have a decent living minimum wage among other things so it could be different in the US
Don't you have to have done something to be fired over here though? I always thought it was illegal to just fire people with no cause, i've had friends that have sued employers and won for that very thing.
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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kajinking said:
Well that went downhill fast, Still I guess it was kind of expected considering they were betting on a fantasy game not only being able to compete in a market with WOW and Skyrim but also being able to go full on MMO after only one game. It just seems like they were expecting way too much out of a new IP that didn't have all the much going for it in a very over-crowed market. May as well be trying to bank an entire company on a brand new Modern Military Shooter IP when you got the resident Godzilla and Kingkong Battlefield 3 and COD fighting in the background.
Uhhh...they DID compete. They sold above expectations. Nobody was expecting this to be a WoW or Skyrim killer.

Come on.
 

Xenominim

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Mygaffer said:
IamLEAM1983 said:
...

At the same time, I'm not really sure hubris is to blame. Hi-Rez Studios managed to stay afloat with Global Agenda and has recently launched Tribes: Ascend. Granted, it's free-to-play, but some developers have been able to dip their toe into the MMO market from Day One and to survive the experience.

My guess is part of the problem really was Amalur's base concept. Yet another Fantasy game in a market that's already saturated with elves and gnomes and goblins.
Some of the most profitable new games today are free to play. I call them free to pay b/c there are certainly a lot of ways to spend money in most F2P games.
Yeah but here's another thing, Global Agenda and Tribes are not MMOs. Both of them are just multiplayer shooters. Global Agenda has a hub area where you can fly around and chat to people while buying stuff, and it has a very small open area that functions mostly as tutorial which does work like an MMO. But that ceases to be useful after level 10 or so. After that you just do the same kind of shooter stuff you see in other games, 16 on 16 or less, and 4 player co-op.

Tribes doesn't even have the hub area or tutorial zone, it's just a multiplayer shooter. It's fun, but neither one is anymore an MMO than Call of Duty is, and so have a lot less costs associated I'm assuming.
 

chadachada123

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Jan 17, 2011
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My heart goes out to those workers. Hopefully they'll find employment in other studios or will have the resources to make their own studio.