Company News 38 Studios Entire Staff Laid Off, Amalur Needed 3mil Sold To Break Even

[IronicNeurotic]

Sucks to be Rhode Island taxpayers. Hopefully they have an election coming up.

State got its money back. 38 Studios repaid the debt and then announced going under.

No they didn't, it was just a part they payed back. As with any loan.

Found this on Neogaf

Our medical insurance runs out tonight at midnight.

We found this out when an employee's pregnant wife was told by her doctor, this was on Tuesday 22nd May this week.

Curt Schilling can go fuck himself.

The company knew for months it would run out of cash and said nothing. Half of the people with relocation homes are fucked. The company said they would buy the house out and instead took over the mortgage and tried to sell it. Since for half the people that didn't work, they are stuck with mortgage that hasn't been paid and have been taking credit hits. Oh yeah and my friend got the phone call explaining all this Wed night.

I was just told I would lose my job and along with that, my house since they said they were going to cover that, in a fucking EMAIL.

 

[Commissar Draco]

I would pay more bribes adverts for gaming press... it never fails ask Beth and put something to Emotionally engage the perverts fans of Bio games.
Engine was solid it could be good new Morrowind with better writing, art direction and lesss MMOs mechanics.... Done with half budget a tighter 50 hours game it would pay for itself atleast So Big Huge would get a chance to make something more next time. Shame cause game was not worse than Skyrim or Ass Effect 3. But in modern market you either go full derp a head or do games on commision from fans on Kickstarter... Any attempts to mend the extremes feel lukewarm and are spited out.

 

[Alex]

Damned, my AI Mentor worked there..

Not trying to make light of the situation but...

(Note: This is a BR joke. If you don't get it, don't bother with it.)

 

[Infinitron]

Chris Avellone ‏@ChrisAvellone
Best measure of a game company's stability = Inversely proportional to the # of LinkedIn requests from their employees within a week's time.

 

[tiagocc0]

(Note: This is a BR joke. If you don't get it, don't bother with it.)

Haha, I hadn't thought about it, nice.

Spoiler

Sucks to be Rhode Island taxpayers. Hopefully they have an election coming up.

State got its money back. 38 Studios repaid the debt and then announced going under.

No they didn't, it was just a part they payed back. As with any loan.

Found this on Neogaf

Our medical insurance runs out tonight at midnight.

We found this out when an employee's pregnant wife was told by her doctor, this was on Tuesday 22nd May this week.

Curt Schilling can go fuck himself.

The company knew for months it would run out of cash and said nothing. Half of the people with relocation homes are fucked. The company said they would buy the house out and instead took over the mortgage and tried to sell it. Since for half the people that didn't work, they are stuck with mortgage that hasn't been paid and have been taking credit hits. Oh yeah and my friend got the phone call explaining all this Wed night.

I was just told I would lose my job and along with that, my house since they said they were going to cover that, in a fucking EMAIL.

Jesus!

 

[Kane]

Damned, my AI Mentor worked there..

Not trying to make light of the situation but...

(Note: This is a BR joke. If you don't get it, don't bother with it.)

HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE

GIBE JOKE PLOS OR I REPORT YU

 

[DraQ]

Shame cause game was not worse than Skyrim

I don't know, seemed much more banal and boring to me, from what I've seen.

As for Ass Defect 3 - it's part of an established series from established studio that has gathered much following. It might not deserve it, but at least it had some established reputation to ride on top of.

 

[Azalin]

Found this on Neogaf

Our medical insurance runs out tonight at midnight.

We found this out when an employee's pregnant wife was told by her doctor, this was on Tuesday 22nd May this week.

Curt Schilling can go fuck himself.

The company knew for months it would run out of cash and said nothing. Half of the people with relocation homes are fucked. The company said they would buy the house out and instead took over the mortgage and tried to sell it. Since for half the people that didn't work, they are stuck with mortgage that hasn't been paid and have been taking credit hits. Oh yeah and my friend got the phone call explaining all this Wed night.

I was just told I would lose my job and along with that, my house since they said they were going to cover that, in a fucking EMAIL.

Talk about getting fucked in the ass

 

[lmbarns]

Wow that Schilling guy is a huge twat. Sounds like he took the money and ran.

The game looks alright

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Chris Avellone ‏@ChrisAvellone
Best measure of a game company's stability = Inversely proportional to the # of LinkedIn requests from their employees within a week's time.

Ian Frazier Replied

@ChrisAvellone Truth.

 

[Infinitron]

Apparently Ian is denying that Reckoning needed to sell 3 million to break even - according to him, it was considered a minor success.

Source: http://www.horizonstavern.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=5269

 

[Metro]

So where's my 90% off sale?

 

[tiagocc0]

They should release the source code so even though the company failed the engine would live on!

 

[markec]

Shame cause game was not worse than Skyrim

I don't know, seemed much more banal and boring to me, from what I've seen.

As for Ass Defect 3 - it's part of an established series from established studio that has gathered much following. It might not deserve it, but at least it had some established reputation to ride on top of.

Not to mention that modding gives longtivity to Skyrim and can actually turn it in a decent game, while Reconing fans could only hope for more of the same with DLC.

 

[Mother Russia]

Guys, I think 75M was only PART of the funding. They probably had other sources of funding. The total cost was most likely 150M +. And that is not shocking for a modern AAA+ game. Taking all platforms into account, you can be sure 3 Million sales is not an unrealistic figure at all...though 3 Million sales just to BREAK EVEN is a big fucking neon sign that something, somewhere, went very wrong during the planning, budgeting and development phase. You can be sure someone got paid though, got paid big time.

Also, why hasn't anyone blamed piracy yet?

 

[tiagocc0]

Because.. the world is changing?

 

[Roguey]

I imagine by "breakeven" they were counting on Reckoning to help pay for the MMO moneypit, not just for itself and the cost of acquiring Big Huge Games. A horrible plan of course.

 

[villain of the story]

Sucks to be Rhode Island taxpayers. Hopefully they have an election coming up.

State got its money back. 38 Studios repaid the debt and then announced going under.

No they didn't, it was just a part they payed back. As with any loan.

Just relaying what I read at RPS:

The Curt Schilling-owned enterprise was in a noticeably shaky state earlier this month when it was unable to make a repayment for a massive $75m loan it had taken from Rhode Island state in 2010, despite decent sales of Kingdoms Of Amular, and great promises of an MMO to come. Having just managed to make this repayment, staff began to notice that something was still up as paychecks failed to arrive in bank accounts, and health insurances were running out. And now, in a rather unpleasantly brisk email, they’ve learned that all 379 of them are immediately out of a job.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...big-huge-games-lay-off-all-staff/#more-109241

Found this on Neogaf

Our medical insurance runs out tonight at midnight.

We found this out when an employee's pregnant wife was told by her doctor, this was on Tuesday 22nd May this week.

Curt Schilling can go fuck himself.

The company knew for months it would run out of cash and said nothing. Half of the people with relocation homes are fucked. The company said they would buy the house out and instead took over the mortgage and tried to sell it. Since for half the people that didn't work, they are stuck with mortgage that hasn't been paid and have been taking credit hits. Oh yeah and my friend got the phone call explaining all this Wed night.

I was just told I would lose my job and along with that, my house since they said they were going to cover that, in a fucking EMAIL.

That's fucking insane. This exact scenario happens in the opening of the first episode of Don't Trust The Bitch in Apartment 23 ; girl from country moves to big city on a new job, house provided by her company. Company folds on her first day and she loses the house. I would have never thought that this kind of thing could be real.

 

[SCO]

wage slavery in the kwa, techniques and applications

 

[Whisper]

Not only they pay R.A.Salvatore for pretty average story - 5 million dollars, but Kurt himself took 4 million dollars to "pay back" his money he invested previously.

http://www.golocalprov.com/politics/donna-perry-taxpayers-are-owed-transparent-answers-by-the-edc/

"Finally, it’s worth noting there are also reports this week that despite the financial problems, Schilling apparently tapped the loan to pay back himself some $ 4 million he personally invested in the company, and that high-priced creative talent, like writer R.A. Salvatore, is slated to receive over $ 5 million in royalties from the sale of the initial game, “Kingdoms of Amalur” from a revolving line of credit that was created out of the original loan."

 

[Metro]

The hilarious part is the lore is shit.

 

[commie]

Oh Im sorry everyone, he didn't get 5mil. It was only promised when the MMO launch.
When KoA launched, he only got 1.3 mil. It's no wonder he's upset. Poor, poor RA Salvatore.

The poor blighter will have to pay tax on that too...be lucky if he scrapes by with $7-800,000...

I don't really have any hate for KoA(it's no worse than the usual AAA shit), but I'm glad this happened. It's about time that companies that try to ape the same old Bioware MMO game style model with a huge budget and staff get punished for trying to cram more of the same shit into the market. Particularly nice when this was just meant to be some 'filler' before their 'proper' game later on. Fuck them and I hope EA got a bit burned as well.


Poor Ian...at least now he has spare time to remake U4...


EDIT: Fuck, Infinitron beat me to it!

So apparently Big Huge Games is for sale. Maybe we should do another codex fundraiser and collect the cash to buy them? Having our own game development studio would be a great opportunity to get some old-school RPGs on the market.

I'd back them if they make another Rise of Nations RTS. Criminally underrated games.

Until 5 minutes ago I didn't even know that 38 Studios exist.

They don't.

 

[Angthoron]

The game looks alright

Generic as shit, alright. Graphics may be decent-ish but that's about all that can be said, and since this isn't the early 2000s, that's not exactly a major feat.

The hilarious part is the lore is shit.

What a surprise, considering Salvatore wrote it.

 

[Elwro]

I guess the big studios will learn the obvious lesson: you shouldn't pay anyone to do writing in your games.

(And piracy is killing PC gaming.)

 

[markec]

I guess the big studios will learn the obvious lesson: you shouldn't pay anyone to do writing in your games.

(And piracy is killing PC gaming.)

Well you should pay a competent writer but not hacks like Salvatore and for such big fee.


And didnt you get the memo, PC gaming is dead since 2001.