So the studio responsible for Kingdoms of Amalur has been shut down and, according 38 Studio’s founder Curt Schilling, comments made by Rhode Island’s governor may have been responsible for the company’s boning. The State of Rhode Island, which is where the company was located after a deal was made to relocate the company there from Massachusetts, apparently backed out on a deal to approve film tax credits and refused to allow the company to put off a $1.12 million payment that would have allowed the studio to pay its staff.
Schilling has also said that Governor Chafee’s comments that the State was attempting to keep the company’s head above water cost 38 Studios a publisher that was interesting in picking up a sequel to Kingdoms of Amalur. The unnamed publisher apparently pulled out of a $35 million deal for the sequel due to the governor’s comments.
Governor Chafee has denied that his comments hurt the company and also disputes that the State backed out on the deal to approve tax credits for the company. This might be a case of ‘he said, he said’ but we’re pretty sure which side gamers will take on this one. Hopefully a publisher will still pick up the Kingdoms of Amalur IP (and most of the now out-of-work staff) in the near future.
Source : GamesIndustry.biz
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This “he said, he said” stuff gets old nevermind the fact that a great company had to fire its staff… Hopefully someone will pick up the title for a sequel, it could be cool
The rabbit hole seems to be getting deeper. Although I can’t see a publisher that would say no to an IP due solely to what the governor said.
The tale of 38 Studios and Big Huge games will go down in the history books as one of the saddest and most interesting closures.
Such a great delopers, such shitty management.
So now politics are becoming more and more prevalent in the games business. This is really sad, especially because Kingdoms is actually a very good game. I wonder if the fact that it released so close to Skyrim had a lot do with the profits?