On its own, “Game Developer Fails to Wow, Folds” is hardly newsworthy. But add lies, possible criminal behavior and a $100 million bill to taxpayers, and you have a DeathWatch Candidate. Throw a controversial baseball icon into the mix, and you have a winner! 38 Studios collapsed under the weight of its own ego, and the shockwave took down hundreds of people along with it.
The Basics
In 2006, former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling launched Green Monster Games (renamed 38 Studios after his jersey number a year later). In 2009, the company acquired Rise of Nations developer Big Huge Games. Schilling, a vocal opponent of big government, then relocated to Rhode Island after negotiating $75 million of state-backed loans – claiming the company could create an estimated 450 jobs. 38 Studios found creative ways to spend that money, attracting top-tier talent, including Spawn creator Todd McFarlane and author R. A. Salvatore.
But in six years, 38 Studios released only one game, this February’s “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.” Reviews were mixed but generally positive, and the game found decent commercial success.
The studio’s crowning achievement was to be Copernicus, a much-hyped Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO) that, judging by the official fly-through video below, should have been at least visually stunning.
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