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

[schild]

http://www.boston.com/businessupdates/2012/05/24/curt-schilling-studios-lays-off-all-staff/Oz242vVpcy6FLRwegTtkOP/story.html

“I’m stunned, and I’m heartbroken,” said R.A. Salvatore, a Leominster fantasy author who was a consultant to 38 Studios and whose son worked at the company. “This is one of the best teams I’ve ever seen assembled. They were doing amazing work.”

Fuck him, he's bad and should feel bad. Go away, hack.

[Numtini]

For the record Schilling never moved to RI.

[Severian]

Also,

This will be a great thread to drop back in on in a few years:)

Well, not that particular thread, but certainly this one

But again, at the end of the day we have to deliver and that is the thing that makes me rest easy. We will deliver, we really don't have a choice. The financial and personal investment I've made allows only that as an outcome.

Not to mention the lengthy post in the MMO budgets and development times thread

I had no idea the massive undertaking 'making a cool game' was when I opened the doors last year. Scary? Hell ya. Daunting? Absolutely. Doable? You bet. But understanding the financial landscape was something that had I not done it BEFORE we signed off on this startup would have destroyed us.

One of the things I promised members of this family was total commitment. Our benefits package is total health coverage.

[Abagadro]

Jesus, was all that 5 years ago?  I'm getting old fast.

[Outlawedprod]

The internets is busy digging away at his posts now.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=799093&postcount=28

Oh there is a master plan, and when legal statutes force me to have to reveal them publicly then I guess that will happen. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because you haven't been told, somethings not being done. Making an MMO, any game, is a massive undertaking requiring tens of millions of dollars and tens of hundreds of people. Budgeting those dollars and taking care of those people is my #1 goal as President of this company. If our game is great, which we believe it will be, does giving you the information before we release it make it any greater?
The details that will be made public will be done so when they need to be on a schedule we deem to be the most beneficial to the game, the company, and the people. If getting the word out early is a requirement to your game being good, you've lost before you started. And as for partners, there are none. GMG, at the moment is owned 100% by me, R.A., and Todd, have both signed on to oversee their respective areas as leads for the flagship title.

Strangely I haven't seen any gems from Foh linked around yet.

[UnSub]

(and you give $5 million to a hack like Salvatore to write GODDAMN LORE any shithead fanfic author on the Internet could write), that's just not enough money.

I recognise the RA Salvatore hate, but for the record that US$5m was if Project Copernicus did well; as I understand it, he got US$1.4m for the launch of KoA:R.

I haven't seen any info about how much money Todd MacFarlane got.

[Margalis]

Were I an employee what would really piss me off would be seeing Curt on ESPN a week before all of this started going down.

I get that he's not managing the money directly, modeling monsters or programming shaders but it really does look awful when your company is sinking, your employees are getting fucked over, and you are at ESPN studios in Bristol talking about how a pitcher threw at a hitter.

In sports we often laud people who are first in the building in the morning and last to leave, this is like the exact opposite scenario. If you have nothing productive to do it's still worth it to show up, get coffee and provide moral support for the people doing the work.

[satael]

As much(?) blame as Curt Schilling bears on this I wonder what the hell was the actual management (http://38studios.com/people/management) of 38 Studios doing all this time. And if the hints that Curt actually lost alot of his own money in this and that someone actually profited from this (Moorgard's twitter) are true then there's some interesting drama still to come (if someone actually talks that is).

[Kageru]

Fairly inevitable, your magnum opus MMO as your companies first project just not that great an idea.

According to one account the RI money was used to guarantee a private bond (plus interest) which funded 38S... that's a good deal for whoever put up the money, risk free return and possibly they get to keep the IP and see if they can sell it as a nearly complete MMO.

[Lucas]

+"Farewell" post from Reckoning's Lead Designer, Ian Frazier:

http://forums.reckoning.amalur.com/showthread.php?10041-Thanks-Apologies-and-Farewell

Hey folks!

Today was a rough day at the studio. After a long stretch of difficult circumstances, things finally came to a head, and this afternoon, we on the Reckoning team down in Maryland began to pack up our offices and say our goodbyes.

Before heading off to wherever I may land next, I first wanted to drop a quick word to you folks, the Reckoning community.

First, I just wanted to say thanks for all the well wishes today--this has been a pretty horrible time for those of us at both BHG and 38 Studios Providence--and we greatly appreciate the great display of compassion throughout the fanbase.

Second, on behalf of the Baltimore studio in particular, I just wanted to thank you all very much for your support over the past year, and for your enthusiasm for Reckoning. It has been truly humbling.

Third, I wanted to apologize for the lack of a patch for Reckoning. It's something we very much wanted to do, but various issues outside our control (which unfortunately I'm not at liberty to disclose) prevented us from doing so for a long time. Finally we received clearance to do a PC-only patch, which wasn't ideal (we wanted to do a patch on all platforms) but it was better than nothing. So we commenced working on that--working on everything from miscellaneous bug fixes to Joe Q's addition of new camera features to Dakota's addition of two new difficulty modes...but before we finished, the company collapsed. Now, barring some sort of miracle, it is highly unlikely that any patch for Reckoning will ever see the light of day.  I am deeply sorry that we were unable to get a patch out the door sooner, before this catastrophe struck--you supported us, and you deserve the support yourselves. While I consider Reckoning a very strong game and not especially buggy, that's not the same as saying that it's perfectly balanced or bug-free, and it kills me that I'll never get the chance to correct any of its issues.

Once more, on behalf of Big Huge Games and the Reckoning development team, thank you for everything, and take care!

[Merusk]

Strangely I haven't seen any gems from Foh linked around yet.

What parts of the internet are you looking at?  FoH is old and tired and haven't mattered in over 10 years now, have they?

Still, after finally finding them again I see their thread is almost 1k pages. So yeah, that is a little surprising it hasn't popped up elsewhere.

[Numtini]

I wonder what the hell was the actual management (http://38studios.com/people/management) of 38 Studios doing all this time.

Well the CEO has apparently been gone since March on maternity leave, which was backdated on her resume to be leaving the company in March so who knows. That could be anything from her pretending to work from home during leave and not doing so to her quitting and being told not to announce it because who knows what.

[koro]

Salvatore himself has commented:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1094587/46200390#c75

[HaemishM]

(and you give $5 million to a hack like Salvatore to write GODDAMN LORE any shithead fanfic author on the Internet could write), that's just not enough money.

I recognise the RA Salvatore hate, but for the record that US$5m was if Project Copernicus did well; as I understand it, he got US$1.4m for the launch of KoA:R.

Still too goddamn much money. I'm seriously, writing lore for an MMOG is a daunting, huge task, but it goddamn isn't one that requires that kind of expense. I'd gladly do it for $50k - open offer to anyone that developer that wants me to do it. It's INSANE to pay $1 million for fanfic lore that most players will ignore anyway. You can hire industry-experienced writers in the video game industry for less than $100k a year. You ONLY pay $1 million if you are licensing a HUGE franchise IP that has millions of fans. Salvatore's name, no matter how many hack genre books he's sold, is not worth that money on his name alone. Even Dri'zzt ain't worth that much as an IP. It's throwing money away.

EDIT: And since Salvatore says he would only get paid on the backend (an idiotic deal for him, if you ask me), it's still a bad deal for 38 Studios to make because you can get comparable work for far, far cheaper, whether you are paying on the front end or the back.

[schild]

Take a look at the success that is Austin, TX, or the huge game hub in Eastern Canada, heavily subsidized.

WHAT FUCKING SUCCESS?

[schild]

I'M TOO ANGRY TO POST COHERENT RESPONSES TO HIM I WANT TO PUT FIST TO FLESH AND REMOVE HIS BRAIN FROM THE UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS.

[Modern Angel]

Fuck you, Salvatore. I'm not mad about government backing business and sometimes losing out. I'm mad about a Tea Party, small government, BOOTSTRAPZ guy taking out a loan backed by the stimulus he was deriding, using it to pay himself before his employees, and then acting like a total shitheel after doing the standard conflation of his corporation with a family propaganda bullshit.

To boot, I'm sick of this happening over and fucking over again in the industry.

Way to miss the fucking point.

edit: Also, the Montreal hub does things differently. They don't loan, they give subsidies to comp income. Something to the tune of 33%. That's a completely different thing than fucking 75mil loans.

[Stormwaltz]

I recognise the RA Salvatore hate, but for the record that US$5m was if Project Copernicus did well; as I understand it, he got US$1.4m for the launch of KoA:R.

Which is $1.4 million more than I got for cheerfully doing the same job on Mass Effect 1 and Asheron's Call.

As a professional game writer, I find his excessive compensation... irritating.




CYA: To be clear, I am speaking solely for myself, not for my current or former employers, coworkers, industry peers, or imaginary friends.

[schild]

No no, anyone who is deriding him for taking in the value of 10-13 mid-level programmers is in fact speaking for everyone.

He's a shitheel of the highest order and I hope he falls in an open manhole for maximum comedic effect.

PS I was right for every ounce of shit I gave Schilling prior to even the RI thing happening. Back when they were Green Monster Games and they were still dumber than all the dirt ever in dirttown.

[Rokal]

Still too goddamn much money. I'm seriously, writing lore for an MMOG is a daunting, huge task, but it goddamn isn't one that requires that kind of expense. I'd gladly do it for $50k - open offer to anyone that developer that wants me to do it. It's INSANE to pay $1 million for fanfic lore that most players will ignore anyway. You can hire industry-experienced writers in the video game industry for less than $100k a year. You ONLY pay $1 million if you are licensing a HUGE franchise IP that has millions of fans. Salvatore's name, no matter how many hack genre books he's sold, is not worth that money on his name alone. Even Dri'zzt ain't worth that much as an IP. It's throwing money away.

Paying $1.4m for a (mediocre) backstory is crazy, but companies spend way more than that on advertising trying to get people to care about their product. Getting Salvatore and Mcfarlane onboard did get them an awful lot of press coverage, even if you aren't a fan of either. Of course, if they don't actually finish their game, that doesn't amount to much. But it doesn't strike me as a completely brainless deal. Going with a cheaper writer/artist would not have come close to saving this project if it needed another year of development at 4 million in operating costs a month.

[schild]

I want to meet the person and see the presentation where they can prove the cost of getting those two chumphacks from the 90s offsets any amount of advertising and that they could bring X value to the table resulting in Y amount of sales.

Because they can't. There's no such presentation. There's no MAGIC that can be done with real or FAKE numbers that results in Salvatore's fanbase crossing over that much into MMOGs or video games. I'm sorry, that's just not how it works.

McFarlane's only current relevance in gaming is that Atomic Comics carries hentai and some gamers like that shit.

Rokal, no one is saying not having Salvatore would've saved the project. He's just a hack that got paid too much and a great person for focusing ire.

[Lantyssa]

WHAT FUCKING SUCCESS?

Bioware Austin.  NC Soft.  Hundreds of start-ups.

(Green because you're too angry to detect sarcasm.)

[Outlawedprod]

This whole thing makes Sigil and Flagship look like a joke.  This is going to be a monster when it all comes out.  We have all the ingredients for a huge mainstream media scandal.  Famous personality running company. Taxpayers fucked.  Employees fucked. Nothing to show for years of work.

Someone probably made good bank on this with 0 risk.  In the "99%" media coverage days this will only help this story go farther.

[HaemishM]

All that press GMG/38 Studios got for signing Salvatore and McFarlane? That happened in what, 2008, 2009? Even if the game had come out this year, that's 3 fucking years too early for the press to matter for anything other than convincing some investor sucker  to toss their money down your glory hole. You either have to keep plugging on the hype that entire time (thus taking the chance of hype fatigue) or you do what they did, which was not talk about the game at fucking all and only get press when your studio goes down the shitter.

And even if those two assholes were worth $1.4 million combined (hint: they weren't), that money could have been better spent on someone else. Like programmers, or artists, or guys who, you know, do actual work that creates an actual deliverable that people can see. Lore and concept art? While necessary for development, they don't pay the bills.

Stormwaltz, I'm not sure how you don't fly into a homicidal rage and go tearing through the Bioware/EA offices with a shotgun knowing that you got paid game dev writer salary to come up with pieces of the Mass Effect universe only to see EA get millions and billions for whoring that game out. That's probably one of the reasons I'm so resistant to work for hire creative ventures for myself. I'm too attached to my original creations (and to the money that can be made from them). Writing someone else's creations for hire? That I could do.

[Chimpy]

The fact that they used the loan to pay back Schilling's investment before they had actual external cash flow is pretty galling. If he was so big on making "his dream game" and doing the gaming thing he should have waited until they actually had income to do so. But I never expected much more from him as he was obviously a selfish dick from the get go. The whole thing was about stroking his ego and possibly giving him some "business credentials" for a run at political office.

[Rokal]

All that press GMG/38 Studios got for signing Salvatore and McFarlane? That happened in what, 2008, 2009? Even if the game had come out this year, that's 3 fucking years too early for the press to matter for anything other than convincing some investor sucker  to toss their money down your glory hole.

Their names were also attached to and used to promote Reckoning.

[Outlawedprod]

Also the fact that Amalur sold so well and they tanked is shocking.  I thought that game would do 600k across all platforms at best.  This pretty much means the company's fiduciary duty was worse than the behaviors on display in a cash money rap video.

[HaemishM]

All that press GMG/38 Studios got for signing Salvatore and McFarlane? That happened in what, 2008, 2009? Even if the game had come out this year, that's 3 fucking years too early for the press to matter for anything other than convincing some investor sucker  to toss their money down your glory hole.

Their names were also attached to and used to promote Reckoning.

Sure, but that wasn't the plan when the contracts were signed. They didn't decide to do Reckoning until Big Huge Games was made available. Either way, their names weren't worth what they were paid for them.

[satael]

Paying seven figures to Salvatore might have made sense if he had written a (real) fantasy book set in Amalur in exchange. While his writing might not be great in everyone's opinion, he's still a bestseller and any fantasy he would have written would've gotten readers (and people aware of Amalur).

[Outlawedprod]

Agree it was way too soon for marketing buzz.  When they were brought in I can only see their names being used to in attempts to secure additional VC funding for the mmo.

[Numtini]

Paying seven figures to Salvatore might have made sense if he had written a (real) fantasy book set in Amalur in exchange. While his writing might not be great in everyone's opinion, he's still a bestseller and any fantasy he would have written would've gotten readers (and people aware of Amalur).

It'll be interesting to see if there were any such things in the works and if so, who was going to profit. And we will know because the state is going to drag out all of this into the public.

[naum]

McFarlane's only current relevance in gaming is that Atomic Comics carries hentai and some gamers like that shit.

I thought Atomic Comics went kaput last year. Or maybe that was just their Arizona presence only that dimmed the lights…

[Soln]

I'm not trying to be snarky here, but RI was trying to create a game hub in Providence - Hasbro is there (and is the state's largest employer). Take a look at the success that is Austin, TX, or the huge game hub in Eastern Canada, heavily subsidized.

As someone from Eastern CDN, I can tell you there is no game industry there.  He probably is talking about Montreal with EA and Ubi, which is subsidized like anything else there or in New England for oh... biotech, software, telecomm etc.  Same thing exactly.

I can't get over the CurtRepublican hypocrisy of this or the Salvatore garbage of getting $3M for backstory. 

And let's be clear:  1) they all got their initial investments back AND  2) got paid in the process.  So they MADE money (profit) on the whole thing. 

I wish the Interwebs would rise up and bury these guys, because you just know they will be back doing the EXACT SAME THING with a cover story that makes them the hero&victim in just a few years.  Curt, after all, is a "job creator".

[Abelian75]

Take a look at the success that is Austin, TX, or the huge game hub in Eastern Canada, heavily subsidized.

WHAT FUCKING SUCCESS?

lol.  Yeah, I had the same thought.

[WayAbvPar]

Paying seven figures to Salvatore might have made sense if he had written a (real) fantasy book set in Amalur in exchange. While his writing might not be great in everyone's opinion, he's still a bestseller and any fantasy he would have written would've gotten readers (and people aware of Amalur).

I thought for sure this was how they would do it. Not like banging out yet another terrible book would have put him out any. Pretty sure Skeletor in Reamde was based on RAS