38 Studios: Project Copernicus

[Morreion]

38 Studios (Wikipedia)

38 Studios, formerly Green Monster Games, is an entertainment and IP development company founded by Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling and named for his jersey number.

The company is developing two products. The first is a single-player game called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning which was released in North America on February 7, 2012 and in Europe on February 10, 2012. Reckoning was introduced to the public at the game at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International convention. The second product is a Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) currently under development with the working title "Project Copernicus". A release date for Copernicus has not yet been announced. Best-selling author, R. A. Salvatore created over ten thousand years of lore for the Amalur IP and Todd McFarlane is providing art direction for both products

Amalur (official site)

Amalur is the world where Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Project Copernicus is set.

NBC 10 News: Inside 38 Studios with Curt Schilling (38 Gamers)

Glimpse inside 38 Studios new location in Provident and a interview with Curt Schilling. While the focus is still on Reckoning one can only hope that we will soon start to here news about the MMORPG that’s been in development since the company was founded in 2006.

Curt Schilling on 38 Studios' MMO and the move to Rhode Island (Joystiq)

As far as competition for the company's MMO, Schilling isn't targeting anyone in particular. And he's not afraid of the current MMO trend of going free-to-play, either. He told us, "That's the new buzzword in this industry. It's free-to-play' yadda yadda yadda -- all the things that go with that." And when we pushed him on the possibility of his company's MMO going the same route, he was equivocal.

"We have an open mind about everything, except the game," Schilling told us, adding, "We look at what we're creating and we say, 'What is the best possible guest experience we can create with this product?' And that'll answer your business model questions and your goals and objectives for the game."

The dark elf of Leominster (The Boston Globe)

An interview with R. A. Salvatore:

“I tried to think of the people that were the best in the world at what they did,’’ Curt Schilling wrote in an e-mail, explaining why his Providence-based video game company, 38 Studios, partnered with Salvatore. The former Red Sox ace needed a detailed fantasy setting for two projects: A World of Warcraft-like online game currently called Project Copernicus (still in development), and a single-player game, called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.



38 Studios opens a website portal to Project Copernicus' world (Massively)

While 38 Studios' top-secret Project Copernicus MMO lacks a proper title or most of its details, at least we can now visit the world that it and its single-player RPG brother, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, inhabits.

38 Studios announces the addition of more industry vets to the team (Massively)

Fresh off the launch of its single player game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, 38 Studios has announced the addition of two new members to their team. John Blakely, who has worked for SOE and Zynga, will become their senior vice president of development, while Mark Hansen has come from LEGO Systems Inc. to take on the role of senior vice president of business operations. They both took the time to speak with Massively about their experience in the industry as well as their upcoming roles with 38 Studios. Read on for highlights from the interview!

Todd McFarlane says Project Copernicus is coming this year (Massively)

In an interview with START, comic artist extraordinaire Todd McFarlane, who is providing art design for Copernicus, nonchalantly dropped news that the studio is aiming to release Project Copernicus "later in the year." He doesn't expound any further on when exactly we can expect to get our hands on the game, but with any luck we'll be getting some more details before long, so stay tuned folks.

What Copernicus will not be… (Keen & Graev's Gaming Blog)

Curt Schilling on the Fires of Heaven message board:

[Copernicus] will NOT be an ability based sand box game, it just won’t. So those of you that want that need not continue following this thread[on FoH]. Apologies if that was what you were hoping for.

It won’t reinvent the wheel in many ways, but I do believe it will introduce some things promised, yet never done, and some things thought un’doable’. It may not be your cup of tea, but I am betting, roughly 40mm of my own money, and crap ton of others, that we will change the MMO space forever.

It will not be a twitched based combat system, it will have classes, it will have things I think MMO players love, and it will do them as well as anyone ever has.
I do believe we will move the genre forward, how much we do will likely be on you, the players, to determine on your own if we did what you had hoped, or did not.

Fan sites:

38Watch

38 Gamers

[Morreion]

38 Studios Crashes and Burns - Rhode Island Taxpayers On The Hook For Millions

38 Studios’ finances under scrutiny; RI taxpayers’ $75M at risk (WPRI.com)

The situation at 38 Studios is raising alarm bells at the State House.

While details remain sketchy, reports began emerging late Monday that the governor’s staff has been meeting for days with the video game company, founded by former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling. Sources told WPRI.com red flags have been raised about its finances but they declined to provide details on the record.

“We’re concerned and just doing everything possible to ensure that 38 Studios stays part of the Rhode Island community,” Governor Chafee told WPRI.com on Monday night. “We’re working on different issues with them.” Asked whether he thinks 38 Studios can be stabilized, Chafee paused and said: “We’re working on it.”

The R.I. Economic Development Corporation gave 38 Studios a $75 million taxpayer-backed loan in 2010 with the strong backing of EDC Executive Director Keith Stokes and then-Governor Carcieri. In exchange the company moved its headquarters from Massachusetts to Providence in April 2011 and pledged to employ 450 here.

Scenarios for 38 Studios going forward (Boston.com)

I've been talking to people this morning about the most likely scenarios for 38 Studios, the Providence-based game development shop that seems to be running out of money after receiving a $75 million loan guarantee from Rhode Island. As of today, the company's CEO and senior VP of product development have updated their LinkedIn profiles to indicate they're no longer with the company.

38 Studios misses payroll, struggles to pay off state debt (Gamasutra)

38 Studios misses payroll, struggles to pay off state debt
The grim news surrounding Kingdoms of Amalur developer 38 Studios continues to mount, as new reports indicate that the Rhode Island-based company was unable to pay its employees this week.

Over the past several days, the studio has been in talks with Rhode Island officials to discuss its serious financial woes, and today a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation confirmed that 38 Studios has missed its most recent payroll, reports local news group WPRI.

The publication reports that 38 Studios employed 379 full-time employees as of March 15, with some 288 employees located within Rhode Island state.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee said that 38 Studios is in the process of fulfilling the overdue $1.125 million loan payment it missed earlier this month.

Check out the comments section of this story- MMO dev Derek Smart weighs in.

This was a bad move through and through. Since 2006 the MMO landscape has changed and the era of $20M+ MMO games is dead and gone. Between Big Huge Games (whcih they bought and repurposed their game to Reckoning) and 38Studios staff, it is mind boggling why they'd need 300+ employees...

Here's the thing, aside from buying Big Huge Games and getting the game which later was repurposed to Reckoning, 38Studios proper has not completed a game. So taking $75M loan to make an MMO - in THIS current climate - was the dumbest thing to do.

Couple with the fact that nobody outside of them has set eyes on Copernicus (which investors and bankers were told was 6-8 months away!), you have to start asking where the money went. Since they already had Price Waterhouse in there doing an audit - and they indicated that they had doubts about 38Studios ability to continue as a going concern, you end up with a scenario whereby almost $63M (they didn't get all the $75M because about $12M was held back) was blown in such a short period of time.

Financial Timeline and Recent Default (Amalur Foundry)

It’s a little difficult to sort out the facts from sensationalist journalism, but as I attempt to distill more of what is actually happening I’ll update this post in order to keep things consolidated. Things look dire for the studio, and as members of the fan community we simply have to hope that the situation can be resolved. Nobody wins unless Project Copernicus is allowed to release, but with no publicity, no evidence of its approximate completion, and now the tarnished reputation of the studios recent financial trouble, the game is unlikely to be a panacea for both gamers and investors. My thoughts go out to 38 Studios employees, and I sincerely hope that these exceptional circumstances prove to be the only instance in which their own livelihoods are adversely impacted on behalf of the studio. I genuinely hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I fear the situation has evolved to a point that the original vision of the game must be compromised by necessity.

High-risk video game venture has R.I., Curt Schilling reeling (Boston.com)

The precise cause of 38 Studios’ current trouble is unclear; its latest negotiations with the economic development agency are confidential. But what is clear is that Schilling steered the company through a feverish hiring spree and into a high pay-off - but high-risk - realm of the gaming industry that requires enormous start-up money.

“It’s a vibrant market, but it’s a fairly risky market,’’ said Barry Gilbert, vice president of Strategy Analytics, a Newton consulting firm that advised the Rhode Island agency during its negotiations with 38 Studios. “To be successful in the space requires superb timing, superb management, superb talent, and a good dose of luck.’’

38 Studio lays off its entire staff (WPRI.com)

38 Studios laid off all its employees in Providence and Maryland this afternoon, several sources tell WPRI 12...

The company had 379 full-time employees at its two studios as of March 15. More details as they become available.

38 Studios: A Cautionary Tale of Blind Visionaries (Wolfshead Online)

We now have the spectacle of thousands of news stories which makes both 38 Studios, the government of Rhode Island and even MMO industry itself look suspect and incompetent. For a company that only a few years ago bragged about “world domination through gaming” and made such a big deal about their AAA talent — this very embarrassing.


You can find my thoughts about this mess here.

[Morreion]

Curt Schilling shutters his game studios, lays off entire staff (Los Angeles Times)

Just three months after shipping his first game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has reportedly laid off the entire staff of his two development studios, Big Huge Games and 38 Studios, and shut down the operations.

They had roughly 400 employees combined. Messages left for Schilling's spokesman, Adam Kahn, were not immediately returned.

Analyst estimates Amalur IP worth $20 million, 38 Studios employees head to job fair (Joystiq)

With reports out of Providence delivering an uncertain near future for the studio, it wouldn't be surprising if publishers tried to pick up the Amalur IP for pennies on the dollar. However, with documents showing that 38 Studios put up the IP as collateral against the $75 million loan, anybody trying to pick up the IP will be negotiating with the state of Rhode Island for control of Amalur.

Former MLB star Schilling's 38 Studios again in violation (North County Times)

Gov. Lincoln Chafee on Friday said former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's video gaming company is again in violation of a loan guarantee agreement with Rhode Island after it failed to notify state officials of mass layoffs, and that he'll seek an audit of the company's finances.

38 Studios Speaks Out Against Rhode Island Governor's Public Comments (GamePolitics)

A number of stories have popped up over the holiday weekend relating to 38 Studios and its continuing struggle to stay alive. Among them is news that an update to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will not see the light of day, that a sequel to the game was already in pre-production and fresh comments from several high profile 38 Studios executives taking Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee (I) to task for throwing the company under the bus in the name of what they see as demagoguery.

'Czar of Amalur' puts blame on RI governor (NECN.com)

Someone put a sign on the door saying "We love Curt" to show their support for Schilling.

The "Czar of Amalur" says he has a few questions for the governor.

"Why did you do it? Why didn't you help us?" asked Danuser. "He (the governor) said a lot of things, he's broken confidentiality. He's done a lot of things to materially hurt us and I don't understand it."

38 Studios: Broke Rhode Island now owns a video game company (CNNMoney)

Taxpayers in the small, financially stricken New England state are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars loaned out to the video game company 38 Studios. Founded by former Boston Red Sox star pitcher Curt Schilling, the company was supposed to bring jobs for skilled professionals to a state struggling to expand its workforce. But on Thursday, 38 Studios laid off its entire staff of roughly 400 employees with no pay. It also cancelled their health insurance.

For a lack of a better description, 38 Studios went out of business. Now Rhode Island is stuck with the tab of roughly $112 million in loan principal, interest and fees. There's little chance taxpayers will make up even a quarter of their potential losses, according to industry experts.

R.A. Salvatore discusses 38 Studio's demise at Daily Kos.

Say what you want about the rest of it - I'm not going to comment - but I have to tell you that this was an amazing team of designers, engineers, artists, animators, writers, audio team and all the rest, all chasing a common dream - all pushing the envelope in their respective fields. And this game is much further along than is being reported - I wish I could show you some if it! - and the environments, the animations and the game-play would blow you away.

The MMO market is very different now than it was 6 years ago. Star Wars is aching, by all reports, and it's a solid game with groundbreaking voice-over work. EA bought Mythic, and Warhammer crashed. Bioware's MMO is hurting (they just laid off a bunch of people in their Austin Studio).

38 Studios passes second mortgages onto some former employees (The Verge)

Some of the hundreds of 38 Studios employees laid off yesterday were hit with a second round of bad news this week when they were told that homes they thought the company had sold for them hadn't been, and that they may be stuck with a second mortgage, Polygon has learned.

Several sources directly impacted by the mortgage issue confirmed the news today and a 38 Studios official, who asked to not be named, said the company is working to try and get to the bottom of the notifications and find a resolution.

Editorial: 38 Studios and the Dunkin delusions (Joystiq)

I've covered a lot of companies in distress; I've gotten the hate mail that comes with it. It doesn't matter if the truth comes out a week later, I can accept the rage. What I've never been able to witness before is the denial.

38 Studios – The Legend, The Myth, The End (The Ancient Gaming Noob)

Copernicus is pristine, a blurry mirage doomed to ever been in the distance, on which some will overlay their hopes and dreams for the future of MMO gaming. I’ve seen it already, with some bloggers mourning not just the fact that we will now never see this game come into full bloom, but that it somehow represented our last, best hope to return greatness to the genre. Some future games will find themselves compared to Copernicus that might have been. It was to be the holy grail game that brought joy back to fantasy MMOs.

Which is a tune I have heard before.

[Morreion]

Curt Schilling tells WEEI radio show that he invested more than $50m in his video-game firm (Boston.com)

...Schilling said an investor “at the end” promised to write a check for $15 million to $20 million to salvage 38 Studios if the state of Rhode Island agreed to give the company $6 million in tax credits and renegotiate the loan guarantee so the investor was first in line to be repaid. “If that happened, he would come in and save the company,” Schilling said. But the state refused.

Schilling 'tapped out' after loss of 38 Studios (Massively)

[Regolyth]

This makes me sad. I just can't imagine what the heck happened to sink that whole studio. It must have been a gross miss-management of... just about everything.

[Morreion]

.38 Special (Throwing the Game)

390 people (which was the last reported headcount at 38 Studios + Big Huge Games) at $15k a head (which is expensive, but they are paying premium health insurance, second mortgages for some of the employees), that’s $5,850,000 a month in overhead for just insurance and salaries. That’s without adding in equipment, location and so on. Now they’ve been running on this loan since November of 2010, so that’s 20 months to now. Even rounded down to $5m a month (being generous), times 20, works out at $100m, which is $25m greater than the loan in the first place, and also factor in that they hadn’t actually gotten all the loan yet – so where is all the rest of the money coming from? How many other people outside of Rhode Island got screwed in this? And where did they expect the money to come from to continue development AND pay back this loan? How blind of an ‘executive’ do you have to be to realize that at best this is unsustainable development and at worst, fraudulent representation?

The fact is that if even a stupid blog like this can do basic math and realize that this is unsustainable, why couldn’t the executive team at 38 Studios? Are they _that_ incompetent?

38 Studios' Downfall: The Gamasutra Report

"While the average company salary has been quoted around $86,000, many many individuals were making far less than that, and living paycheck to paycheck," says a 38 Studios employee. "When we didn't get paid, it immediately became very difficult for a number of people, but they continued coming in and working anyway. As it seemed like things were not being resolved, people started bringing in extra food and leaving it in the kitchen for anyone who needed it to grab."

"I have worked on a number of projects in my career, and I can say without reservation that Copernicus [had] incredible potential to be a blockbuster MMO," he says. "It wasn't completely revolutionary in terms of gameplay, but it took existing conventions and refined or improved them across the board, not unlike Blizzard's approach with WoW. The idea that this imminently playable, triple-A, beautiful MMO that had millions of dollars and man-hours poured into it is heartbreaking."

Acceptance (Mobhunter)

I’m still angry about lots of things (did I mention being screwed out of thousands of dollars?), and I still get so very sad when I think of all that could have been. But mostly I’ve reached acceptance. Not an acceptance of being at peace–I don’t think I can ever be at peace with what happened–but more an acceptance of resignation, the realization that things are so utterly fucked up as to be completely beyond my control. There’s simply nothing I can do to save the company, to save the story of Amalur, to recover anything that I’ve lost. All I can do at this point is to look out for my brothers and sisters, the comrades I’ve been in the trenches with for all these years. I can try to help them however I can, even as I scramble to find my own landing place. Because if there’s one truth I’ve learned over all my years of work, across the many careers I’ve undertaken, it’s that the connections you make with good people end up being the greatest treasure.

I have lost something that I deeply loved. I’m constantly surrounded by reminders of that loss, both in the abstract sense, in stories online and in the media, and by the literal presence of boxes surrounding the desk where I write this post, boxes filled with the books, toys, and bric-a-brac that used to decorate my office at One Empire Plaza. The body doesn’t feel cold yet, but I have to bury it and move on.

The Hamlet of Game Development (Mobhunter)

38 Studios didn’t die on May 14 or May 24. It was dead when we were down to our final millions some weeks earlier. It was at that point that our company officers and board members should have ended things in a responsible way–laying off most or all of the employees, extending our health benefits for a reasonable time, and giving everyone the chance to bow out gracefully. But that Shakespearean flaw of Curt’s wouldn’t let him see this. I think that, to him, closing down with money in the bank was quitting. He believed that something good would happen at the last minute to make it all work out, as had happened on other occasions in the past. Well, this time it didn’t, and now all of us are paying the price.

Let me clarify something else: it’s not all Curt’s fault. Despite his insistence on sticking it out, the company officers and board members should have overruled him and given employees the humane closure they deserved. I have no idea why this didn’t happen, and I think that’s the biggest piece of the puzzle I’d still like to understand.

38 Studios: Requiem for a Lost Virtual World (Wolfshead Online)

There are so many ways to fail at making a MMO and precious few ways to succeed. 38 Studios seemed to have the bases of failure loaded.

Many have theorized that “feature creep” killed Copernicus MMO. Feature creep (when you keep adding new features to a video game without accounting for how you will produce them and how much time it takes to integrate them) has killed many video games and is a common newbie game designer mistake.

Andrew Dobbs replying to Steve Danuser’s recent article on 38 Studios said it best:

If we had played to get on base instead of swinging for the fences, we wouldn’t have struck out.

Well said. Too bad that 38 Studios didn’t have the kind of open culture where somebody like Andrew could speak up and have the management listen. How many times have we heard of similar stories where the workers in the trenches knew what the problems are but the insular people at the top refused to listen?

Off Topic: 38 Studios Shuts Down, Copernicus MMO Cancelled (Torwars)

I reported in 2007 about a truly bad press conference/panel discussion at San Diego Comic Con that was sponsored by 38 Studios. It was supposed to be the first public announcement about Copernicus, the grade AAA MMO that 38 Studios was developing. It turned into a debacle during which Todd McFarlane talked only about his upcoming line of action figures and, to a greater degree, himself. There were several 38 Studios developers present, but they didn’t even speak. Instead, they sat at a table with microphones and said nothing. The heavily promoted Q&A segment of the presentation? Yeah, that consisted of exactly zero questions and zero answers. I left there thinking, “This is a professional company? These guys can’t even run a panel discussion, and they’re going to put together a top notch MMO?” It still rings in my memory as the most amateurish public event by a game company I’ve ever attended.

'38 Studios Spouse' speaks out (Gamasutra)

So, on the 15th of May I sat down to pay bills and upon checking our bank account noticed we had not had our direct deposit made by 38 Studios. I called my husband and asked him to check on it when he got to work. When he came home that night he told me that he had to stay for a 5 o'clock meeting to find out they didn't make payroll. He was unhappy, but said that he was promised they were working on the problem and sure they would have it worked out by the next day.

Subpoenas sent out to loan providers in 38 Studios downfall aftermath (Gamasutra)

The Boston Globe also reports that Rhode Island-based Citizens Bank filed a lawsuit against 38 Studios founder and chairman Curt Schilling last week, seeking to recover $2.4 million in loans it provided to the company. It's suing Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, too, where the bank believes Schilling has financial accounts.

Schilling owns up to his many mistakes at 38 Studios, blindsiding employees (Gamasutra)

"I'm not asking for sympathy," said Schilling during his interview with Dennis and Callahan. "That was my choice. I chose to do this. I wanted to build this. I wanted to create the jobs and create something that had a very longstanding world-changing effect. We were close. We were close to getting there. It just fell apart."

[Regolyth]

That's so heartbreaking.

[Morreion]

End Game (Boston Magazine)

Curt Schilling set out to build the greatest video-game company the world had ever seen, and to get rich — Bill Gates rich — doing it. Instead, the whole thing exploded in his face. Drawing on exclusive interviews with the Red Sox legend and his former employees, Jason Schwartz takes us inside the chaos, arrogance, and mistakes that led to the destruction of 38 Studios and the loss of $75 million in taxpayer money.

Whatever the dysfunction at the executive level, most employees at 38 Studios were unaware of it, and remained happy at the beginning of 2012. There was great excitement in February when the company released Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a single-player title produced by Big Huge Games. It did well, selling 1.3 million copies.

Schilling, meanwhile, kept up his free-spending ways. This past Christmas, he personally bought every staffer a computer tote bag with the 38 Studios logo. Add in the company’s high staffing levels, frequent gratis lunches and dinners, and big travel budget, and it was easy to forget the whole thing was a startup. “We never had that sense of urgency or panic,” Schilling tells me. “I think there was a sense of invulnerability — I don’t want to say invulnerability, but I think we were comfortable.”

Deadlines were frequently missed, something for which staffers say Schilling rarely held anyone accountable. The ex-pitcher had a bigger concern. “The game wasn’t fun,” he says, unprompted, beside the softball field. “It was my biggest gripe for probably the past eight to 12 months.” Visually, Copernicus was stunning, but the actual things you could do in the game weren’t engaging enough. The combat aspects especially lagged. Schilling — who never wavered in his belief that the game would be great — says the MMO was improving, but after six years, it still wasn’t there. When Schilling walked around during lunch hour, he says, nobody was playing Copernicus’s internal demos. They were all on some other game.

By mid-March, a year and a half after moving to Rhode Island, 38 Studios had received $50 million from the state and had burned through nearly all of it. Because of the way the deal was structured, that would be all they ever got. So Schilling put up $5 million worth of gold coins as collateral for another loan, this one from Bank Rhode Island. Despite the money crunch, however, he brought in two new executives in March, one of whom moved from Texas. That same month, 38 Studios stopped paying vendors like Blue Cross Blue Shield. It had already been ignoring bills from Atlas Van Lines for some time.

Adding to March’s chaos, CEO Jen MacLean, who’d been feuding with Schilling, suddenly went on leave. Her colleagues — and the press — were led to believe it was because of her pregnancy (she was roughly six months in), but according to a company source, MacLean’s departure was not for medical reasons.

38 Studios was at its most desperate juncture yet. On May 1, a $1.125 million fee payment on the loan from Rhode Island was set to come due. And both the company and Schilling were all but tapped.

Curt Schilling sock could be for sale (ESPN New York)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling might have to sell or give up the famed blood-stained sock he wore on the team's way to the 2004 World Series championship to cover millions of dollars in loans he guaranteed to his failed video game company.

Schilling, whose Providence-based 38 Studios filed for bankruptcy in June, listed the sock as collateral to Bank Rhode Island in a September filing with the Massachusetts secretary of state's office. The sock is on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

From computers to swords, assets of Curt Schilling’s failed video game company being sold off (Yahoo Games)

The second of two auctions of 38 Studios' assets began Tuesday morning at the company's old office building downtown, where Schilling and nearly 300 employees used to work. About 2,100 lots are slated to be sold off during an auction expected to run at least a full day.

Hundreds of potential bidders showed up for the start of the auction and some snatched up items including lamps, a wheelchair and swords used to create sound effects for video games.

The auctioneer joked that he hoped the event would raise $75 million — the amount of a state loan guarantee given to the company by Rhode Island in 2010 — but the actual amount is likely to be far less.

38 Studios auction in Providence brings in $650K (Boston.com)

A sell-off of items from the former headquarters of Curt Schilling’s failed video game company in Providence brought in about $650,000.

Over 1,000 people registered to bid Tuesday on what was left of 38 Studios, including sophisticated animation equipment, office furniture and figurines of Schilling.

...The EDC said earlier that about 95 percent of the items were sold.

RI House Speaker faces 38 Studios fallout (Boston.com)

Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox is facing his toughest election challenge in years — from an independent political newcomer — as the fallout from Rhode Island’s failed investment in former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s defunct video game company continues to roil state politics.

Ex-38 Studios creative lead now at Sony Online Entertainment (Gamasutra)

Steve Danuser, previously creative director at ill-fated 38 Studios, has now revealed his new role as creative director on Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

[Morreion]

[Copernicus talk starts at 5:20]

38 Studios debt to be partially repaid with bloody sock (Massively)

In 2004, Curt Schilling ignored his doctor's advice and hobbled to the pitcher's mound with a wounded right ankle to win Game Two of the World Series, clenching the second of four straight victories against the St. Louis Cardinals and proving that the Curse of the Bambino had run its course.

The blood-stained sock worn by Schilling on that day is now stuff of Boston legend and had become quite an icon during the series. It seemed to be a piece of memorabilia that Schilling wouldn't dare part with, but his recent business dealings have forced his hand. And foot.

If you find yourself in need of a used bloody sock to frame in your sports den, you can start the bidding on February 4th. Schilling hopes to raise at least $100,000 through the auction.

Todd McFarlane talks about Project Copernicus (Massively)

The way McFarlane described it, Project Copernicus was very nearly a finished thing. "It's only ten yards away from the goal line," he explained. "If I had the extra cash I'd do it myself, because it's that cool."

Curt Schilling asks judge to dismiss 38 Studios fraud lawsuit (Massively)

The crux of the lawsuit is the state's claim that Schilling and the 38 Studios board of directors willfully obfuscated the company's status from state lawmakers. Schilling has put forth that 38 Studios fully disclosed its status to the state investors on numerous occasion, providing them with an accurate picture of the company's financial situation. Due to this disclosure the allegations of fraud and obfuscation are simply not possible, hence the request for dismissal. Schilling goes on to claim that the entire suit is politically motivated and that the company's failure is chiefly due to Governor Lincoln Chafee not doing enough to save 38 Studios from bankruptcy.

38 Studios may have 'actively masked' its financial hardship (Massively)

Max Wistow, the lawyer for the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, filed documents on behalf of the state claiming that 38 Studios needed more than $75 million in loan guarantees before the company ever moved to Rhode Island. He argues that folks at 38 Studios knew that the funds they were receiving from the state would be insufficient. The company netted about $50 million from an EDC bond sale, and Wistow is claiming "crushing evidence" that 38 Studios actively masked its financial shortfall.

Rhode Island attempting to default on 38 Studios' debt (Massively)

The AP is reporting that Rhode Island is attempting to default on the debt it owes for 38 Studios' $75 million loan and subsequent bankruptcy. The state has a proposal before lawmakers that would keep it from having to make any payments to bond holders.

Does anyone think that politicians using tax money to invest in particular companies is a good idea? Picking a rookie MMO company to invest in is about as dumb as it gets.

Yep, it's more 38 Studios drama (Massively)

The latest drama from Curt Schilling's former studio comes courtesy of the New York Times, which reports on Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chaffee's latest attempt to distance himself from the fiasco surrounding 38's inability to pay back state loans.

Curt Schilling’s Delusions and Rhode Island’s Regret (Bloomberg)

Schilling filled his board with family members and, to the dismay of his president, promised employees half of 38 Studios’ (notional) profits. He also insisted on retaining majority control of the company -- which became something of a problem when he started his search for outside investors.

Rhode Island selling 38 Studios' game assets (Massively)

The state is looking to recoup some of it $130 million debt that it fell into once 38 Studios went belly-up. One of Rhode Island's lawyers says there "is interest" in the studio's assets, including concept art, design documents, and computer software. The sale of 38 Studios' IP includes the Amalur franchise, which encompassed the Project Copernicus MMO.

38 Studios vs. State of Rhode Island court case begins (Massively)

When 38 Studios folded, that left Rhode Island in the hole for a $75 million loan. The lawsuit is seeking restitution from Curt Schilling and 13 other individuals, including former members of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp that originally supported the loan. According to the EDC's lawyers, substantial evidence exists that this loan was based upon intentional misdirection on the part of upper management, although the defense claims these allegations are ridiculous. At this point, it's up to the courts who's in the right.

Rhode Island explores ditching 38 Studios debt (Massively)

Currently the state is planning to pay investors back over the course of 10 years, with a $2.5 million payment the first year and subsequent installments of $12.5 million thereafter.

[Regolyth]

I had high hopes for Project Copernicus. It's sad this happened. I wonder if anything will ever become of it?