38 Studios is Working on a Game, Apparently, Afterall (Kingdoms of Amular)

[HaemishM]

You don't think it's egregious they were planning on paying an author almost $2 million on top of what they already paid him for an IP? I do. You don't think it's a shit contract that saw them produce a million-selling game for EA and yet STILL left them owing money? I do. I'm raging that they seem to have pissed away giant wodges of cash, been in hock to every bank that would loan them money, got loan guarantees from a state that appear to have been made on personal charm and fucking fairy dust, and now the state of Rhode Island is going to take it directly up the ass for it - and there's nothing to show for it. No game. A shitton of game industry people left with no health insurance, no paychecks and no job after having moved their lives to join this company and it all happened to them without warning?

It ticks all the bad parts of my normal distrust of large corporations and influence politics, and it pinpoints a lot of what's wrong with the game industry, our brand of capitalism and our methods for economic development at the state level. And some of it might actually have been illegal. Through all the stories I keep hearing, it sounds to me like the fact that it was a famous baseball player in charge of this thing is the reason a lot of slack (and money) was given to the company, slack that isn't given to smaller indie shops or guys who are actually managing to produce good, successful games.

Why aren't you raging MORE?

[Rendakor]

Your constant raging on Salvatore's paycheck has gotten old, and just seems like jealousy.

[Abagadro]

People get paid 2 million for 100 page movie scripts that never even go into production. The world is a crazy place.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm in the wrong business.

[WayAbvPar]

People get paid 2 million for 100 page movie scripts that never even go into production. The world is a crazy place.

To be fair, very few of these are from authors and thoroughly reviled as RA Salvatore. If someone competent had gotten paid as much, I don't think I would be QUITE as thunderstruck. Still a lot of cash.

[Abagadro]

I think Joe Eszterhas is probably the cinematic equivalent and he has been paid at least that for scripts six times, only three of which were made.

[WayAbvPar]

Ha- I knew you would find at least one I couldn't refute. 

[Ingmar]

We can thoroughly revile him all we want - I don't care for his work either - but his books are basically a license to print money. There is a significant chunk of people out there who value having his name attached to something. The 1.7 million earmarked for him is probably some of the *least* wasted money on the project from a marketing standpoint (and it does sound like he was actually doing active work on the projects, not just lending his name.)

[Ironwood]

Ha- I knew you would find at least one I couldn't refute. 

It's what he does for a living.   

[Merusk]

We can thoroughly revile him all we want - I don't care for his work either - but his books are basically a license to print money. There is a significant chunk of people out there who value having his name attached to something. The 1.7 million earmarked for him is probably some of the *least* wasted money on the project from a marketing standpoint (and it does sound like he was actually doing active work on the projects, not just lending his name.)

Some people say there's no accounting for taste.
  <image of salvatore.jpg>
I point them at my financial ledger.

[lamaros]

We can thoroughly revile him all we want - I don't care for his work either - but his books are basically a license to print money. There is a significant chunk of people out there who value having his name attached to something. The 1.7 million earmarked for him is probably some of the *least* wasted money on the project from a marketing standpoint (and it does sound like he was actually doing active work on the projects, not just lending his name.)

I don't get why people hate so much. He's got something that a lot of other people have enjoyed. Rage on all you like but the drizzit fanboys don't grow from irony.

Would be much more of a financial waste if they paid that much money to a literary author who had no appeal at all to a large number of RPG players.

[HaemishM]

I think Joe Eszterhas is probably the cinematic equivalent and he has been paid at least that for scripts six times, only three of which were made.

Movies are on a whole different plane of crazy. When you look at a movie like Desperado getting made for $7 million and people going apeshit because of how cheap it was, then you throw out Waterworld getting made for over $200 million and you start to realize that those numbers are going to be super-inflated. Book authors though? They don't get that kind of money except for movies, because the movie industry is FUCKING CRAZY. Literally crazy. That's why you see authors trying to get movie deals, or taking the shittiest movie deals possible just because it pays so much better than selling books.

And yes, my raging on Salvatore is abso-fucking-lutely jealousy. You are goddamn right. I'll admit that freely. Which is why I said I'd take a fraction of the money to do the same job, as would just about any author out there who doesn't already have movie deals. Ask GRR Martin if he'd have taken that before he signed Game of Thrones and he'd probably have choked a cracked-out hooker for the opportunity. I'm not blaming Salvatore for taking it - I'd skullfuck your mother for the opportunity. I'm raging at how absolutely retarded the money people involved in this deal were.

[Numtini]

RA Salvatore's emo dark elf $5m. Greg Stafford's Glorantha or MAR Barker's Tekumel $0? Yeah, I think there's a reason for some bitterness there.

[Margalis]

People get paid 2 million for 100 page movie scripts that never even go into production. The world is a crazy place.

But a movie script is the core of a movie.

The backstory lore of an MMO is nearly inconsequential. It's not like Salvatore was going to write all the text in the game, or that fiction writing even translates into MMO writing. It doesn't seem like he was even supervising the other writers. Comparing a movie script to an MMO is total apples to oranges.

If a guy is a talented writer and is going to be in the office every day for years heading up the writing team then sure, 1.7 million sounds ok. 1.7 million for consulting on a glorified plot outline is probably 1.5 million too much.

[Phred]

We can thoroughly revile him all we want - I don't care for his work either - but his books are basically a license to print money. There is a significant chunk of people out there who value having his name attached to something. The 1.7 million earmarked for him is probably some of the *least* wasted money on the project from a marketing standpoint (and it does sound like he was actually doing active work on the projects, not just lending his name.)

Plus if I read it right, Salvatore is on the list of unsecured creditors which means he won't see a dime.

[lamaros]

RA Salvatore's emo dark elf $5m. Greg Stafford's Glorantha or MAR Barker's Tekumel $0? Yeah, I think there's a reason for some bitterness there.

Who? ;)

Are you really trying to compare the commercial appeal of such names?

[Ironwood]

Actually, I have to say without any sarcasm or irony at all :

Who ?

There's the problem right there.

[Fordel]

Actually, I have to say without any sarcasm or irony at all :

Who ?

There's the problem right there.

Ironwood beat me to it. I don't actually know who those other people are either.

[Kageru]

I liked Runequest (Greg Stafford, it's the setting to a old and niche PnP RPG), it was a shame to watch Avalon-Hill kill it.

[Numtini]

Salvatore's total was going to be 5m. I'm not sure if the 1.7m is never paid for KoA or the remainder owed for the MMO.

Yeah, AH's RQ was terrible. Moon Dragon Designs is republishing expanded Glorantha materials for Heroquest now--the RPG not the boardgame. I don't like the system as much as BPR, but the publications are fantastic.

[Abagadro]

I wasn't equating the two necessarily, just pointing out that lots of people get paid ridiculous amounts of money for stupid shit so getting wee-weed up about it is kinda pointless.

[HaemishM]

I wasn't equating the two necessarily, just pointing out that lots of people get paid ridiculous amounts of money for stupid shit so getting wee-weed up about it is kinda pointless.

Why do you hate fun? 

Also:

Salvatore's total was going to be 5m.

[Chimpy]

Ars Technica just posted an article that is a decent summation of the whole thing.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/curt-schillings-demise-from-sports-savior-to-enemy-of-the-taxpayers/

[Azazel]

And yes, my raging on Salvatore is abso-fucking-lutely jealousy. You are goddamn right. I'll admit that freely. Which is why I said I'd take a fraction of the money to do the same job,

With all due respect, noone knows or cares who you are. If you're fortunate enough to have some (real, not ebooks) published that end up in real bookstores, you can start your path and be on your way to being as successful and well known as RA, if you're incredibly lucky. You might even end up able to quit your day job and be a fulltime writer. It's realistically never going to happen, but good luck with it anyway. Now please give it a fucking rest.

[Outlawedprod]

He's on leave from the world wide leader.
http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8061041/former-major-league-pitcher-curt-schilling-takes-leave-espn-analyst-duties

[Chimpy]

Gotta love being allowed to take a leave of absence less than a month after starting.

[HaemishM]

Allowed is probably not the right word.

[Tmon]

Allowed is probably not the right word.

Encouraged is probably closer.

[schild]

Curt Schilling is quite the bitch.

[Draegan]

I'm not sure cost controls are the core problem. Once they'd committed to doing "Epic MMO!" as their first project their fate was probably set in stone.

Well not really, Trion's first game was an MMO and they did pretty damn well for themselves.

[Soln]

I'm not sure cost controls are the core problem. Once they'd committed to doing "Epic MMO!" as their first project their fate was probably set in stone.

Well not really, Trion's first game was an MMO and they did pretty damn well for themselves.

I think I read they kept it to $50M?   And they published themselves, which helped.

[shiznitz]

There is so much gnashing of teeth in this thread about what is normal in the the real business world that I wonder how most of the people here manage to make it through life.

1) Curt Schilling would have to be CRAZY to invest a significant portion of his personal fortune in a video game start-up.  Once you accumulate wealth, the number one rule is Don't Lose It.  We laugh at other athletes who piss their money away.  Yes, the way this company treated its employees is horrific, but failing companies tend to keep their failure a secret because it becomes self-fulfilling if it gets out. 

2) So many people trash on Salvatore, but the guy is a mega-successful author.  Most of us would voluntarily sell marginally useful body parts to achieve his level of success.  Don't hate the man because he knows how to cash in on his own success.

3) When you are an employee of a start-up company in an industry with hundreds of examples of spectacular flame-outs, it is your personal responsibility to understand the financial situation of your employer.  If you choose to be a blind fool, don't cry when you step into traffic.   

4) The guy who moved his family to Rhode Island clearly did a horrible job at due diligence and/or negotiating the terms of his employment.  Learn from him.  Maybe he was sitting around unemployed for a year a jumped at the first offer he got.  If so, he is probably better off today than he was a year ago despite all this.

Everyone here should be learning from this.  For example, maybe Haemish should dabble in dark elf porn if it means sellling 10 bajillion copies.  Don't hate success.  Maybe Schilling was completely inept at a running a business (not the first time and certainly not the last) or maybe he just hired bad people to run it form him (again, this happens all the time to well-intentioned investors).  The bottom line is he pulled out all reasonable stops to save the company with the RI loan, duping some politicians (again, this has happened many times and will continue to happen) in the hope of keeping the house from collapsing.  It didn't work.   

Did anyone expect him to just shut down the firm the first time the payroll got tight?  Businesses don't behave that way because it is irrational.

I am not trying to gloss over the hardship this failure is causing lots of people and it is a message board sport to metaphorically shoot those people who fail in gaming, but let's stop calling this what it isn't: a fraudulent or criminal action.  The business failed. It sucks.  It happens.

[kildorn]

Businesses don't shut down the first time they stop paying bills because they're fucking stupid, usually. There's a reason it's against the law, and you're supposed to shut the fuck down if you have a $0 bank balance and owe your employees money and benefits.

I don't whine much about the company flaming out. I bitch that they did so in a deliberate manner to completely fuck the employees over when it wasn't at all advantageous (telling them after the fact would only make sense if they had some way out of the crunch. "Yeah, we missed an insurance payment but made it two days later with angel funds" not "we stopped paying this three months ago and oh by the way you didn't get paid yesterday and oh by the way we're like $20M in debt and have no possible way to get an income stream at this point to fix the issue"

The failure of the company is mildly interesting. The failure of the entire management team to do anything but stand around in shocked silence while the entire place was on fire however, it worth pointing out and prosecuting as possible.

[satael]

There is so much gnashing of teeth in this thread about what is normal in the the real business world that I wonder how most of the people here manage to make it through life.

1) I doubt you can get a video game startup running and lots of investors as an athelete unless you are willing to show that you yourself are willing to put a stake in it.

3)If you are in a position to to have all the relevant information in a 400 employee video game company about the firm's financial situation you probably aren't there to work on the game itself;)

4)You can negotiate all kinds of deals but when the other side just goes out of business they aren't worth that much (and I applaud anyone who takes due diligence to read all the pages in every contract to find each and every loophole. I  also wonder if 38 Studios would have "paid" for another moving company once you declined the first one based on some clause in the contract)

[shiznitz]

The failure of the company is mildly interesting. The failure of the entire management team to do anything but stand around in shocked silence while the entire place was on fire however, it worth pointing out and prosecuting as possible.

But there is no evidence that this is what happened. All we know is that management scrambled for a bailout from the government of Rhode Island.  That isn't a "failure...to do anything".   What we do know is management did not reveal the dire financial situation to its employees.   That is normal, sadly.

And I don't know what law you are citing to say it is unlawful to continue operating when your cash runs out.  This country has clearly delineated rules and laws for governing business failures, but it is the job of those financing the company to watch where the money goes.  It should surprise no one that a political loan had lax supervision.