Kingdoms of Amalur Studio Struggling to Survive

[viranimus]

Yeah, I really hope they can work this out and come through it. Havent got to play the game yet, but I have been looking towards it (backlog is too extensive right now)

The studios foundation and concepts really excited me, and I have really wanted them to do something great, which I think they can. I think really that the problem is these rough terms coupled with the fact the economy is finally catching up to the game industry and is starting to drag its progress down to flagging like a lot of other industries.

Heres hoping that they can pull through, and go on to do something great, instead of being just another victim.

 

[Harker067]

next game an mmo.... *face palm*

 

[Hungry Donner]

I thought Big Huge Games did most of KoA's developement?

*the googles*

Ah, BHG was bought by 38 Studios to do lead up to their MMO. Damn, when I heard that BHG had enticed Ken Rolston out of retirement to work on a dream game I hadn't realized someone later converted it into an MMO prequel.

I still haven't gotten around to the demo, perhaps I should take a stab at it this week.

 

[Skratt]

Sweet, I smell a discount on the horizon.

Hey sometimes your only purpose is to serve as a warning to others. They had to know the risks going in. Looks like they gave it the old college try, released the game in SP mode to stay afloat and fell flat.

This is why everyone is turning to beganomics with games like farmville and that other game that tried to scam your kids by selling them smurf berries for $99 dollars! Seriously, a box of fucking smurf berries costs more than THE ENTIRE RETAIL COST OF SKYRIM?? If we paid money like that for all of our games, Skyrim would cost us, what, hundreds of thousands of dollars each?

MMOs are expensive and Blizzard is the exception, not the rule. They're dead unless James Cameron bails them out. I hear he has previous experience with expensive projects that nearly fail.

 

[Micalas]

If I recall correctly they mentioned before KoA even came out that it was a prequel to an MMO. Not surprised they aren't doing well when they already had their hearts set on making an MMO out of an unproven IP that turned out to be mediocre.

 

[RJ 17]

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.

And there's one made out of diamond with a giant frickin' lazer on it's head and every time he barks (yes, the shark barks) it shoots BEES at you! This is a shark that makes Jaws look like a guppy, and it's name is WoW.

 

[HobbesMkii]

As has been pointed out, 38 Studios is in this mess because they wanted an MMO first, then retooled it to be a single-player RPG, then decided to build the MMO off that.

That said, they'd already announced their intent of "Project Copernicus" before they came to the state and we gave them the loan. So that's kind of our bad for making a risky investment. But it's their bad for failing to follow through. If they do go into receivership, I hope RI gets their IP and all the work they've done for our trouble.

 

[MercurySteam]

I just didn't see Amalur a a mountain moving game, not when I've yet to start properly playing The Witcher 2 and Skyrim along with my current playthough of Dragon Age 2 (say what you will). It just didn't stick out as a decent game.

 

[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.

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

Ahh, okay. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[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.

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.

Errr, well I guess from what Andy is saying (and perhaps I missed in the article) the guaranteed loan, was gated based on certain performance criteria. A lot of what I was saying was based on the amount of money they received, compared to the promised money. When I saw that and the bit about the governor not having liked the idea... well, I never denied being fairly paranoid.

If I was on the right track, which I apparently am, the term "Nitwit" would apply, however it wouldn't have been the first time a politician did something like this for favor. In theory if the Governor choked a project he didn't like, he could say it proves what he thought to begin with and spin that into support for himself, and people following his lead. If he had held back the funds, he could paint that as having "saved the money from the wasteful company" as opposed to strangling the company, leading to the loss of the rest. In the end many politicians care less about the state and it's money as their own political power and being the guy in charge.

It doesn't matter though, because my line of thinking apparently does not hold up.

 

[Cry Wolf]

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.

It's pretty awful, as far as RPGs go. Think World of Warcraft if it was single player. Buy it when it's in a bargin bin for a couple of dollars.

OT: Really not sad to see these guys go. There was nothing new or interesting about Kingdoms of Amalur and the only good thing I could really say about it is it's gameplay was "okay". It's just a recycled lump of a lot of cocepts from other games and turned into a mediocore, uninspired RPG.

 

[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.

It's pretty awful, as far as RPGs go. Think World of Warcraft if it was single player. Buy it when it's in a bargin bin for a couple of dollars.

OT: Really not sad to see these guys go. There was nothing new or interesting about Kingdoms of Amalur and the only good thing I could really say about it is it's gameplay was "okay". It's just a recycled lump of a lot of cocepts from other games and turned into a mediocore, uninspired RPG.

I saw Angry Joe going on about the combat aspects of the RPG - he seems to enjoy it and me and him have pretty similar taste in games.

 

[Cry Wolf]

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.

It's pretty awful, as far as RPGs go. Think World of Warcraft if it was single player. Buy it when it's in a bargin bin for a couple of dollars.

OT: Really not sad to see these guys go. There was nothing new or interesting about Kingdoms of Amalur and the only good thing I could really say about it is it's gameplay was "okay". It's just a recycled lump of a lot of cocepts from other games and turned into a mediocore, uninspired RPG.

I saw Angry Joe going on about the combat aspects of the RPG - he seems to enjoy it and me and him have pretty similar taste in games.

You'll find it in just about any other RPG. It looks okay, but it's really not worth spending any significant amount of money on. I really wish I hadn't.

 

[endtherapture]

You'll find it in just about any other RPG. It looks okay, but it's really not worth spending any significant amount of money on. I really wish I hadn't.

I'll just wait til it's in a sale or I can get it really cheap then.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Consider me shocked. Unless I misread the reports, I thought Kingdoms did really well. Am I reading this right, that they sunk ALL of their profits into a proposed MMO?