38 Studios Possibly in Financial Trouble

man, Rich Gallup whores budget must be pretty big

So much Rhode Island in such a small article, feels good to be a rhody right now!

Rich Gallup to Giant Bomb?

Does this mean that Reckoning flopped?

@ZombiePie said:

The article should mention how the state loan of $75-million (60% of the state's high tech loan budget at the time) to 38 Studios came with the promise that 38 Studios would bring 450 jobs to the state by the end of 2012. The promise was nonbinding but probably set expectations for the state. Now that it is 2012 my guess is that 38 Studios is far from that promise and the state is re-examing their loan, which the studio is reliant on to keep it active. Hence the rumors of financial trouble.

Very observant. Thanks for posting that info. Makes me wish there was some kind of rated comment system in place so that comments like this wouldn't get buried.

@LooseChange said:

I think after Skyrim there was fantasy open world fatigue. Thats what my friend told me anyways, he'd buy this game but after playing the hell out of Skyrim he was burned out on that type of game.

Your friend speaks the truth.

@jeffrud said:

@ZombiePie said:

The article should mention how the state loan of $75-million (60% of the state's high tech loan budget at the time) to 38 Studios came with the promise that 38 Studios would bring 450 jobs to the state by the end of 2012. The promise was nonbinding but probably set expectations for the state. Now that it is 2012 my guess is that 38 Studios is far from that promise and the state is re-examing their loan, which the studio is reliant on to keep it active. Hence the rumors of financial trouble.

I wish I could upvote this.

eww a Reddit user, kill it with fire.

Huh, I figured Reckoning had sold pretty well considering it's still hovering around $50 for a new copy. Maybe it didn't sell good enough?

@ZombiePie said:

The article should mention how the state loan of $75-million (60% of the state's high tech loan budget at the time) to 38 Studios came with the promise that 38 Studios would bring 450 jobs to the state by the end of 2012. The promise was nonbinding but probably set expectations for the state. Now that it is 2012 my guess is that 38 Studios is far from that promise and the state is re-examing their loan, which the studio is reliant on to keep it active. Hence the rumors of financial trouble.

useful information here from Zombie "Scoops" Pie.

KoA was pretty shit but it would be sad if they had to shut down.

@captain_clayman said:

Well, there's always money in the banana stand.

NO TOUCHING! NO TOUCHING!

Too bad. I really enjoyed Reckoning, and when you consider it's the first game they've relased, it's really quite good.

Ditch the MMO. Nobody cares. Make another, even better, game.

Hey governments, stop playing favorites with unknown business ventures. You are very likely to get hurt.

I am still interested in Amalur, but there was nothing about it that made me have to jump at a release date purchase. I'll get it eventually because the combat looks fun.

@criacow said:

Too bad. I really enjoyed Reckoning, and when you consider it's the first game they've relased, it's really quite good.

Ditch the MMO. Nobody cares. Make another, even better, game.

They've spent years and untold millions of dollars on said mmo.

To be honest, I don't think they'll be around to release another game.

Ouch Amalur wasn't a bad game... I hope they still will be financially sound enough that it doesn't throw the MMO under the bus... just remembering what happened to that Warhammer 40K MMO which become single player because they couldn't fund it.

I ordered Kingdoms of Amalur off of Amazon about a week ago and it came in the mail today. I'm gearing up to play the game now as I read this. I find it to be an amusing coincidence.

I didn't think reckoning was very good, so this news isn't all that surprising to me. Plus putting your future in the basket of a fantasy MMO doesn't seem very smart either.

Hmmm, thought the game sold well? Anyways, hope it will be ok for the company.

why are people bummed about this if they didn't like the game? it's all fine and good if you really enjoyed the game, but you shouldn't stay in business if you can't make a good game. with the pedigree of talent that studio had that game should have been AMAZING and you know what? It wasn't amazing. Not even close.

Enjoyed the Reckoning demo, but not enough to drop $60 on it. Skyrim's world may be superior, but I liked the look and charm that Reckoning's did. Shame it didn't come out before Skyrim so that it wouldn't have been so overshadowed by it' similar wrappings.

I will pick up Kingdoms of Amalur when it gets cheaper. Frickin' game came out MONTHS ago and it's still $52 bucks. It should be $30 or AT LEAST $40 by now. Especially since the game has DLC. Games are supposed to depreciate in value unless they continue to sell; who do you think you are, Kingdoms of Amalur? Mario Kart?

EA is asleep at the wheel. They could keep moving units if they knocked the damn MSRP down every few weeks like they're supposed to. EA is a frustrating company; they really only support mainstream shit like Mass Effect and Dead Space and Medal of Honor. Even though they release more interesting titles like Brutal Legend, Mirror's Edge, Shadows of the Damned and Kingdom of Amalur, they just don't get the same promotion and support. And then studios suffer. You're probably getting pretty worried now Funcom; between The Secret World and Old Republic, which game do you think is a priority for EA? Secret World is going to get tossed under the bus like Warhammer.

Good luck 38 Studios. Make more single player games; screw the MMO. Sorry Curt Schilling; I know you dig 'em.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning sold at least a million copies, but MMO's...them things will eat you alive. Here we are so many years afterwards and what have we seen of this project? How can it compete against all the other fantasy MMO's already around plus Guild Wars 2 and The Elder Scrolls Online? Hell, THQ scraped the MMO part of their announced Warhammer 40k game. They've got other troubles but it doesn't change the fact that MMO's are expensive and risky.

@patrickklepek Do we have sales stats on KOAR yet?

I didn't like KoA but Rich is a good guy and I assume there are a bunch of equally good and talented people at 38 studios so I hope they make it through this.

Overall I enjoyed Reckoning but the narrative and back story were so dull/generic that my interest for the mmo or anything else in that universe has diminished greatly. Although it would suck if they were to close down, I think if their mmo would eventually come out it would fail unless it was revolutionary in some way.

@k4el: 330k copies estimated sold. Which isn't enough for a game with a bloated AAA budget lol videogame industry.

@artgarcrunkle said:

@k4el: 330k copies estimated sold. Which isn't enough for a game with a bloated AAA budget lol videogame industry.

That was the first month in the US only.

@ZombiePie said:

The article should mention how the state loan of $75-million (60% of the state's high tech loan budget at the time) to 38 Studios came with the promise that 38 Studios would bring 450 jobs to the state by the end of 2012. The promise was nonbinding but probably set expectations for the state. Now that it is 2012 my guess is that 38 Studios is far from that promise and the state is re-examing their loan, which the studio is reliant on to keep it active. Hence the rumors of financial trouble.

Well put.

Also, I think some people in this comment section need to understand a few things about KoA in general before trying to drive nails in the coffins.

1. KoA sold 330k in its first month, which is pretty big for any new IP in its first month. If those sales numbers would follow typical projections, then it would mean the two to three month sales numbers should be close to 1m...plus any revenues off the two DLC packs they've released. If they have sold 1m copies, it would mean that they've more than made back the budget on the game...

2. ...unless part of acquiring Big Huge Games was including paying on whatever they had already developed of what became Reckoning, as it was being "refurbished" from previous content they had created somewhere else to become this new game through 38 Studios. If that's the case, then 1m copies would not result in the game being a profitable success.

3. Anyone screaming about EA needs to realize that this was an EA Partners deal, which does not apply the same type of rules that a pure EA title carries with it.

4. If the problem is what ZombiePie has stated in this post, that does not mean that the studio is in a possible state of closure, but instead a state where they have to realign some money and make sure they are either paying off that loan or holding up to the promise.

____________________

tl;dr version of all that: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is still selling, the studio is still open, and this is about something we're not sure of....so stop saying your R.I.P. pieces.

first clue. coming out with an mmo.

This is what happens when you work on an MMO for like 6 years and don't even tell people what it's called.

How totally expected. Maybe you should talk about your game and build some hype before it vaporizes.

@Gabriel said:

@jeffrud said:

@ZombiePie said:

The article should mention how the state loan of $75-million (60% of the state's high tech loan budget at the time) to 38 Studios came with the promise that 38 Studios would bring 450 jobs to the state by the end of 2012. The promise was nonbinding but probably set expectations for the state. Now that it is 2012 my guess is that 38 Studios is far from that promise and the state is re-examing their loan, which the studio is reliant on to keep it active. Hence the rumors of financial trouble.

I wish I could upvote this.

eww a Reddit user, kill it with fire.

We used to have upvoting before Dave and co. axed it from one of the redesigns for a basic flagging system, you hooligan. Kids these days.

1 million copies sold at $60 each. $75 million dollar loan.

:/

This totally blows. KoA:R was fun and I would've really liked to see some more stuff come out of this studio aside from another MMO that would've gone f2p in a couple months anyway.

No fucking shit. This is what happens when you barely release a game and act so damned coy about your product, the very thing keeping you in business.

This means you, Rich Gallup.

I enjoyed KoA and would like to see more sequels for the IP so here is hoping for 38 Studios to stay open.

The whole time the studio has been saying they were going to do an mmo before their first game was even out I was wondering why they would even consider doing that, it just seems like an extremely unsound business idea to try and do an mmo without any sort of interesting concept (I think their interesting concept was their world/lore stuff.... whoopity do you have elves and everything other games have).

I hope the studio finds it's proper way out of this mess, and I am hoping they say they are scrapping the mmo crap and going to make a real feasible game for a decent chunk of money that can actually be good, rather than promising something that can tear their studio apart for tens of millions of dollars with ZERO chance of profit.

@Cold_Wolven said:

I enjoyed KoA and would like to see more sequels for the IP so here is hoping for 38 Studios to stay open.

bring em to western washington! cheap living and they can join the other 100 or so studios here :D

Man, I really wanted them to do well. Now I kinda feel bad for waiting on a price drop for KoA.

@PatchMaster said:

Man, I really wanted them to do well. Now I kinda feel bad for waiting on a price drop for KoA.

Don't feel bad, you're not a charity. If you were facing financial trouble you'd receive far less assistance than 38 Games has so far.

@jakob187 said:

1. KoA sold 330k in its first month, which is pretty big for any new IP in its first month. If those sales numbers would follow typical projections, then it would mean the two to three month sales numbers should be close to 1m...plus any revenues off the two DLC packs they've released. If they have sold 1m copies, it would mean that they've more than made back the budget on the game...

Do you mean worldwide, or in North America? While we don't know PC sales obviously (which may be a large chunk idk) it's pretty safe to say based on what little NPD data we have that KoA is no where close to 1 million in North America. World wide it's more likely, but iirc it fell off the charts pretty darn fast in PAL land too.

As for everything else, who knows. The more devs that fall the more sad this generation gets, so hopefully they are fine.

Uh hoh. Time to come home Rich G.

@North6 said:

1 million copies sold at $60 each. $75 million dollar loan.

:/

Don't know exactly what you're trying to get at there?

I thought KOA was one of the most boring games I've played all generation, and probably the worst art.

That said I like Rich and never want people to lose jobs unless they are evil or something.

Shame I really enjoyed reckoning so much I bought a copy for my brother and dad and thay loved it as well shocked it did not sell well.

No, sir. I don't like it.

I think some of you are getting confused. KOA: Reckoning was made by Big Huge Games in Maryland, which was purchased by 38 studios; the game was well into development when they got bought and it was adjusted to the KOA universe towards the end of development. KOA:Reckoning was likely profitable on it's own.

However, the financial troubles for 38 studios most likely stem from the fact that it's taking them forever to launch their primary product, the KOA MMO. They've had hundreds of employees in New England working for years without a single product to show for it. Sadly, the MMO model they founded the studio on is dwindling as Free-to-play is the favored model now and this is likely impacting their forecasts, leading to this crises.

That's a shame. I hope they pull through. Would love to see a sequel to Reckoning!

Ambition never bodes well.