Entire 38 Studios Staff Laid Off, Effective Immediately

[0p3rati0n]

Wow that's sad. I felt my heart sink when I read this. I can only imagine what I was like in those offices when every employee read that notice. Hopefully they can all find good work.

 

[justnotcricket]

Oh, that's a shame. I think KoA showed promise for the studio. I'm glad that some other industry bods are coming out in support of the ex-38studios employees - KoA might not have set the world on fire, but it seems like colossal financial mismanagement has gotten in the way of us finding out if they can make an even better game next time.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

The industry really needs to get shaken up. Time for a change, starting from the top.

 

[Hungry Donner]

According to the hearsay that reached my ear; it started out as a single player action RPG being developed by Big Huge Games. 38 Studios bought them and connected the game to their IP for an MMO project that 38 Studios had been working on; "Project Copernicus".

This resulted in Kingdoms of Amalur, which it seems they wanted to establish the IP and help their MMO hit the ground running. MMO's are really big projects, so I think it's likely that a lot of the financial pressures came from supporting Project Copernicus. Even Bioware were probably hoping for their Dragon Age and Mass Effect sequels to help fund SW:TOR.

That's not hearsay. Work began on the game in 2007, two years before THQ sold Big Huge Games to 38 Studios. The project was sufficient to get Ken Rolston out of retirement, and I doubt he and the rest of the team spent those first two years twiddling their thumbs.

If I remember correctly their game actually had a 2009 or 2010 target for release, but after 38 Studios acquired them the game was redone with the Kings of Amalur setting. I don't know how much of the original game was kept, although I suspect most of the world building was scrapped.

 

[lomifeh]

Read today over at The Verge that they were starting work on a sequel already aiming to fix common player complaints among other things. Also the report quoted someone from Big Huge stating that 38 studios had done no actual work on Amalur. It's a shame because the game was fun and showed some promise. I loved how you could easily respec at any moment and be equally badass.