This is a very annoying and tragic thing to read, I must say. It would appear that, at some point prior to its cancellation and the attendant shuttering of 38 Studios, Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley had the opportunity to check out Project Copernicus.

He evidently loved it.

And he even took to Twitter recently to defend it:

@posion00 @gehrig38 I had the good fortune of seeing the game. It looked great. If that idiot Governor Chafee hadn't trash talked

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

@posion00 @gehrig38 right at the time Curt was trying to get funding you would be playing the game now

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

When pressed for details, he offered a bit more:

@Klyka yes. Beautiful game made by people who cared about what they did.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

@Gregtito at various times we looked at it. Always impressed. But the economics were too tough to make work for us. This is a business where

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

@Gregtito risks are large. We had enough balls in the air. More risk was too much for us. I also felt that too much was spent

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

@Gregtito but the quality was undeniable. It was gorgeous. It had smart people working on it. It was just too expensive is all.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

He also defended Curt Schilling somewhat:

@posion00 @gehrig38 Curt's only crime was believing in his own ability to will things to be better. He busted ass trying to get funding

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

@posion00 @gehrig38 Curt is an honest guy with good intentions. Although public money should never have guaranteed a winner or loser

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

@Gregtito Curt put every dime he had into it. That's the part that people are missing. He put his own money where his mouth was.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

Public funds shouldn't be backing risky things like online games. If the fact that no other VCs were investing wasn't enough of a clue

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

Funny thing is even though he came to us many times for money and we didn't do a deal, I really wanted to play that game.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

@Nokterian not that the IP isn't awesome. It's just not strong without the people making it

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

And he evidently doesn’t think much of Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee:

The idea of suing someone when Chaffe's own comments were what poisoned the well at the end is beyond the pale.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

All he had to do was give Curt another week and we wouldn't be here today.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 10, 2014

Smedley also expresses no surprise that the IP wasn’t bought up in the recent auction, and his comment above about how the IP was strong because of the people making it is relevant to that observation as well. There’s a programmer’s adage to the effect of “hell is other peoples’ code”, and that would likely be nowhere more apparent — or more painfully true — than in the case of another team taking on the remains of Project Copernicus and attempting to pick up where 38 Studios left off.

Which, in turn, means that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will likely never have the sequel it so richly deserves. Alas.

There was a fair bit of speculation a while ago that Governor Chafee had it in for Copernicus and 38 Studios. Smedley’s comments lend a bit of credence to that speculation, although I suppose we ought to wonder just how direct Smedley’s knowledge of that was. Then again, if Schilling had been shopping the game to Sony and Smedley, it stands to reason that he might have had access to 38 Studios’ financial data…

At any rate, Smedley was evidently motivated to speak out because he heard about Curt Schilling’s recent cancer diagnosis and the surgery the former pitcher had to undergo resulting therefrom.

(Hat tip: Infinitron Dragon)