Peer Into The Collapse of 38 Studios

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Deadspin, one of the Gawker verticals, has put together a lengthy article of new information about the collapse of Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios, which also took down Big Huge Games and ended the excellent Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning franchise far too soon.

Documents from the lawsuit over Curt Schilling’s failed attempt to launch his own video game company—dubbed 38 Studios—have been released today in Rhode Island. If you don’t recall 38 Studios, it’s because the company laid off its entire staff and went bankrupt in 2012, despite getting a $75 million loan from the state’s development group. And that MMORPG video game it was supposed to produce in the vein of World of Warcraft? It never was released.

Formally known as Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation versus Well Fargo Securities, et al., hundreds of pages of previously sealed documents were released today by state’s judiciary. These are selections of those documents, like the report from IBM outlining all the problems 38 Studios had before getting all that state cash.

It makes for pretty heart-breaking reading; the writing was really on the wall for 38 Studios, and it makes sense now why its collapse came so suddenly and so…completely.

Also released as part of the document dump was a look at the particulars of the deal between Big Huge Games and EA via the EA Partners program:

…although there isn’t too much interesting stuff in there that we haven’t already heard, there are some fascinating details about the conditions Electronic Arts set when agreeing to co-publish 38 Studios’ first and only game,Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Turns out 38 Studios would have received a $1 million bonus if they’d hit an 85 on Metacritic, among other conditions. Gross. (The game got an 81.)

Metacritic rankings…are really a terrible, terrible way to assess a game’s performance. Not, I expect, that the extra million would have done much to turn things around; 38 Studios posted a $3.88 million loss in 2012, after all.