End Game: Curt Schilling and the Destruction of 38 Studios

[Chiefcrowe]

Just read this old story, never heard it before. It's a long read but fascinating...

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/07/38-studios-end-game

 

[you2]

RI really screwed up. I don't think Curt necessarily did anything wrong but RI made two mistakes; first they loaned the money on a risky venture (video gaming via a new studio is always risky) second they killed it publically when the money ran out; with video games it is all or nothing; either you let them finish and hope it is profitable or you kill it and get nothing. If anyone should be sued i think it was RI gov and not curt.

I'm not claiming curt knew what he was doing or was a good businessman; just that poor judgement is not the same as fraudulent and any investor should know there is risk and perform due diligence.

 

[HOOfan 1]

All things considered, I have heard Kingdoms of Amalur is actually a good game.

Curt Schilling wrote articles for PC Gamer and I always appreciated him for that.

 

[KMFJD]

All things considered, I have heard Kingdoms of Amalur is actually a good game.

Curt Schilling wrote articles for PC Gamer and I always appreciated him for that.

I thought it was a decent game, nothing great mind you but it wasn't bad at all.

 

[BoberFett]

I enjoyed KoA, felt I got my money's worth. It's unfortunate the scandal got more attention than the game did.

 

[Trell]

A friend of mine was a game developer with them, now he works on The Elder Scrolls Online. Based on what he was telling me while he was there they had a really amazing and deep history/storyline and there were going to be some amazing AI moments, battles, and raids... Too bad it is all 90% unlikely to ever see the light of day now.

 

[Mandres]

It's interesting just how much of a one-time phenomenon World of Warcraft turned out to be. Every MMO developer in the world thought they could make their own take on the same formula and make the same crazy $ that Blizzard was pulling in. But no other game even came within a order of magnitude of that success.

I can't believe they won a $75M investment loan from a state government. That's an unbelievably foolish investment - I hope the RI economic development people all got shit canned for that one. How stupid can you be with your tax payer's money?

 

[HOOfan 1]

I thought Everquest was the closest to World of Warcraft....of course preceding it and inspiring it. I thought Guild Wars was fairly popular too.

 

[Craig234]

I thought Everquest was the closest to World of Warcraft....of course preceding it and inspiring it. I thought Guild Wars was fairly popular too.

Yes, EQ is the game that really established the genre.

For a couple years, the talk was claims another MMO would be the EQ killer, but none was until WoW.

I think developers got too locked in to the EQ design - what was then called the 'holy trinity' of tank/healer/dps.

MMO's to this day don't seem to have much really grown from that design.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Curt Schilling to repay a fraction of $75 million game loan

https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/21/curt-schilling-to-repay-a-pittance-of-75-million-game-loan

 

[WhiteNoise]

Interesting and sad article. This guy was in over his head from the get go.

 

[nakedfrog]

I thought it was a decent game, nothing great mind you but it wasn't bad at all.

Yeah, I picked it up on PS3 when it was on sale pretty cheap earlier this year. Nothing wrong with it, tons of lore, but it didn't really compel me to keep playing. I imagine I had around 20-30 hours in when I moved on. Feels like I probably still had quite a while to go to get to the end.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I remember seeing previews of it and thinking it looked cool, but I played a demo and thought it was pretty boring.

 

[you2]

Interesting and sad article. This guy was in over his head from the get go.

I think that was the case; but when things were near the end game the stupid politicians did the exact opposite of what they should have done if they wanted a chance to recover any $$. Sadly in the gaming arena it is a lot of money up-front and all or nothing on the tail end (game sales). I'm not saying that they would have produced a game I would want to play or would have even been successful but it sounds like they were fairly close to the end game (perhaps I am mistaken). Conversely schilling was way over his head - he should never have allowed expenses to spiral out of control the way they did - though I've seen a lot of startup companies do similar shit. They just don't understand money flow for some reason. There is a huge injection of cash (esp after an IPO) and they spend like crazy.

 

[Aikouka]

I wonder if part of their problem has to do with the source of the money. I'm sure if anyone here has dealt with government funding, you know how much fun it is. Essentially, if they give you money, you better use all of it. Why? Because it isn't about efficiency, but rather the fact that you said you needed $x, but you didn't use that much. So, if you said you need $y now, they're going to think you need less. If Schilling was told that he had to take the $75 million and had to use it, then he had to. He also had to hire a specific number of people (300-ish?), which also lead to an overbloated team. Essentially, Schilling probably should've tried a mixed deal where he took a much smaller amount from Rhode Island that had far less strings attached (i.e. smaller hiring goals, etc.), and used outside funding that didn't try to push geographical/governmental agendas.

 

[Skel]

I wonder if part of their problem has to do with the source of the money. I'm sure if anyone here has dealt with government funding, you know how much fun it is. Essentially, if they give you money, you better use all of it. Why? Because it isn't about efficiency, but rather the fact that you said you needed $x, but you didn't use that much. So, if you said you need $y now, they're going to think you need less. If Schilling was told that he had to take the $75 million and had to use it, then he had to. He also had to hire a specific number of people (300-ish?), which also lead to an overbloated team. Essentially, Schilling probably should've tried a mixed deal where he took a much smaller amount from Rhode Island that had far less strings attached (i.e. smaller hiring goals, etc.), and used outside funding that didn't try to push geographical/governmental agendas.

I thought I read in there that the terms were in order to unlock and get the check he had to hire X amounts of people per tier. That makes a lot of sense on why he hired so many people in such a short time. It's sad as he really was over his head, but it also sounded like a lot of people were using the company for their own gains.

 

[zinfamous]

I enjoyed KoA, felt I got my money's worth. It's unfortunate the scandal got more attention than the game did.

yeah, it was solid. It existed as a proof-of-concept funding vehicle to get that MMO going and I believe they had planned a sequel for it. I enjoyed it--it was the closest thing to Fable but a bit more action-oriented.

 

[zinfamous]

Curt Schilling to repay a fraction of $75 million game loan

https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/21/curt-schilling-to-repay-a-pittance-of-75-million-game-loan

This article is very sad next to that image and article of a frickin arena packed for an LoL tournament. :|