Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
38 Studios and Copernicus done?
Rottstein
Member UncommonPosts: 66
Apparently they are too deep in debt and their source of income (which is the state of Rhode Island) doesn't look like they will be bailing them out.
I was looking forward to this one too.
Comments
Is this the first domino falling from the EA series of nice domino path?
Diablow 3, it sucks ...
More coverage here:
http://blogs.wpri.com/author/tednesi/
A shame really.
I have been looking on buying a new RPG and was about to buy the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. But I better skip it now. Guess it didnt sell as good as the company wish it did.
Oh well at least The Witcher Enchanted version is out now.
Really, you should go get the game, it really is a good game
Art is great, story is well done...They really had heavy hitting talent on it.
There's a demo on steam - but TBH I haven't got it to work yet - just appears as a letterbox on my 1080p monitor.
They really shouldn't have tried to make a big profit from KoA. If they were smart, they wouldn't have tried to directly compete with Skyrim being that they are a new, unproven company. They should have followed the Runic model and sold their game for like $30 to not only sell more copies, but to build a bigger fanbase for their upcoming MMO. 60 bucks is hard to swallow these days especially when there is so much proven quality games out there already and many are free or cheap.
Feel sorry for Curt and his employees but anytime a WoW clone goes belly up is more vindication that companies need to grow a pair and strike on their own instead of copying everything that made Blizzard successful.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
+ 1 Makes sense
This statement is sort of a non-sequituir. Sure the graphic style is definitely WoW influenced, but the game is literally NOTHING like WoW. KoA is more of an amalgamation of many different RPGs... some may like the result others won't but it is NOT a clone of any game.
What I want to know is, why is tax payer money being used to fund a private company.
If you want tax payer dollars, then you should be a publicly traded and taxpayers should get the right to chose to invest in your company.
While I'm a huge fan of Tod Mcfarlane himself, and while I hate to see taxpayer money lost like that, I can't say that I'm not glad to see the company go under. Seems like an awful thing to say, but I personally feel that tax payer money being used to fund a start up company isn't just a huge waste, it should also be illegal.
That 76 million in no way helped the residence of RI, and should have been used to fund public works that could have created real jobs for the people already living in the state. As it is, all that money just got flushed out into the Atlantic, and the the real losers are the taxpayers; not the people at 38 studios that will be able to find new jobs, or already increadibly wealthy guys who started the company.
Oh well. Next time you wanna start a private company Kurt, secure private investment and stay out of tax payers pockets.
Didn't know enough about the MMO to have looked forward to it.
Well, while this deal in particular is unusual (and a bit overboard) in that it was for a comp game / mmo company, similar deals go through all the time for companies of different types.
Usually the incentives are waving/forgiving taxes for a given period of time or through offering rebates to offset the expenses of setting up a new company or a factory or something in that State. Or waiving certain permitting requirements and helping with the "red tape."
What we have here, however, is the State essentially offering a loan guarantee against a line of credit to fund operations and the development of one or more products. THAT is very unusual. I have heard of a state, on a rare occasion, help facilitate the financing for a given piece of property as part of such activities, but never co-signing for a line of credit.
So, a state helping out a company to get them to move in is nothing new, but in this specific case, what the RI State government specifically did to benefit 38 Studios is very unusual.
And to be honest, smells a little funny.
Exactly. My state used to be the banking and CC capital of the country, because we gave tax incentives to banks to get them to base here. We were, and may still be, the the state to incoroporate for the same reason.
Our governors and senators never gave direct taxpayer money to the companies to get them to open shop here though. At least not that I'm aware. However, the vice president (there's a hint were I'm from) did manage to kill the software industry here with his taxes.
And you can bet that most of the people working for 38 studios all come from other states. While that helps get tax payers in and shopping, it doesn't get people in the state who need work, jobs they can do. Came across to me like RI has a governor who's apt to do something based on personal interest, and not so much the will or benefit of his constituants. I can't imagine that the residence of RI actually voted on a bill that would give 76 million of thier dollars to 38 studios.
But hey, it really wouldn't be America if our politicians weren't doing stupid things like this, now would it?
Yep, $60 is what kept me from buying KoA.
I played the demo. It was cute, but it wasn't immersive enough for me to drop that kind of cash down on it.
As of the weekend, all bank payments are up to date and Curt released a fly-through trailer of Copernicus over the weekend, so for now 38 Studios seem to still be moving forward as planned.
Yeah, I heard that as well.
But this really smells of the same thing that happened to Realtime Worlds and APB.
I have a feeling that they are finished i susspect. Always sad to see a company go down the pan but thats business.