K.O.A Copernicus, what would had been

[miguelcrespo85]

[Orange Joe]

Why is this a thread? What is this game? What happened? What are you trying to discuss here?

[Dald]

An MMO by the people that made Amalur. Their company/studio recently disbanded though so the game will never see the light of day.

[Brangh]

Game may never see production, but hopefully the huge lore behind it does, regardless of media format.

[Profyrion]

It may still get made. If 38 can't get their shyte back together they'll have to sell the IP as part of the bankruptcy. But there's a good chance at that point that either Activision or EA would pick it up, and we know what happens then...

[miguelcrespo85]

I do hope someone picks it up because i really want to play this game!

[Evilmaniac]

Man it really hurts to see those guys go under. I really loved their game. I'm sure they could have made a great mmo as well. To bad they started this project so early. They should have waited till they at least didn't need a co-publisher to fund and put out their games like EA. Even if the CEO was to get all the stuff together the possibility of him getting the same crew that was working on this is probably next to 0%.

[Deleted]

An MMO by the people that made Amalur. Their company/studio recently disbanded though so the game will never see the light of day.

No loss. The singleplayer game was very lacking and the world it was set in was nothing short of bland. Another MMO in a bland fantasy setting wouldn't have made anyone happier.

[Affixiation]

Heres some backstory into the whole 38 studios/rhode island mess.
Sucks that this happened to such a promising company.

[Evilmaniac]

Heres some backstory into the whole 38 studios/rhode island mess.
Sucks that this happened to such a promising company.

Wow something is seriously wrong with the government around there if they don't realize what kind of economic influence they are having by keeping that place down. I wish I had millions of dollars to send to them as a private investor. They all deserve a 1000 times better than this.

[Edge-]

Wow something is seriously wrong with the government around there if they don't realize what kind of economic influence they are having by keeping that place down. I wish I had millions of dollars to send to them as a private investor. They all deserve a 1000 times better than this.

The employees do, but the management deserves some kind of punishment. The state is damn right not to provide them with additional funding, based on their current finances it's a very risky venture and puts taxpayers in a very bad place. It's not the governments fault 38 is broke, it's 38's fault.

[Orange Joe]

Wow something is seriously wrong with the government around there if they don't realize what kind of economic influence they are having by keeping that place down. I wish I had millions of dollars to send to them as a private investor. They all deserve a 1000 times better than this.

Schilling, the founder and chairman, says state economic-development officials reneged on a deal to approve film tax credits to which 38 Studios is legally entitled, and to allow the company to defer a $1.12-million payment due to the state on May1so that 38 Studios could meet its May 15 payroll.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong. But if he couldn't pay his employees because he didn't get a tax break.....

What about their checks when the tax break money is gone?

[Sylv_]

Project Titan;

IP bought by Activision Blizzard.
They were just waiting for 38 to fall.


I said it first.

[obdigore]

The employees do, but the management deserves some kind of punishment. The state is damn right not to provide them with additional funding, based on their current finances it's a very risky venture and puts taxpayers in a very bad place. It's not the governments fault 38 is broke, it's 38's fault.

Aye. KoA was a good game. Great for a first game from a new studio. Copernicus looked pretty awesome.

What happened between the State and 38 I don't know for sure, but I agree with both of them. Schilling thought the state governor was screwing with his company, and he could have been. But then Chafee has a point that the Taxpayers are already on the hook for 100million, why would he throw more taxpayer money at the studio that can't stay solvent?

---------- Post added 2012-05-29 at 11:10 PM ----------

Maybe I'm reading this wrong. But if he couldn't pay his employees because he didn't get a tax break.....

What about their checks when the tax break money is gone?

He also claims that the Governors comments were the reason an investment firm backed out of a 35 million dollar deal to fund the sequel to KoA.

[Evilmaniac]

The employees do, but the management deserves some kind of punishment. The state is damn right not to provide them with additional funding, based on their current finances it's a very risky venture and puts taxpayers in a very bad place. It's not the governments fault 38 is broke, it's 38's fault.

Not when the governor is releasing company secrets and lies which totally annihilated pretty much any possibility of them getting private investors especially since they killed 2 almost sure to go investors right after he said that stuff. Not to mention that the government were breaking their own rules as said in the report.

[Orange Joe]

Not when the governor is releasing company secrets and lies which totally annihilated pretty much any possibility of them getting private investors especially since they killed 2 almost sure to go investors right after he said that stuff. Not to mention that the government were breaking their own rules as said in the report.

Got anything on that? Or just Schilling's word?

Further reading isn't really clear.

The governor said the Reckoning game released in February had been an “abject failure.” He also revealed the projected release date of Project Copernicus, June 2013, and 38 Studios’ “burn rate” ––that it was spending $4 million a month, the lion’s share on payroll.
The release date of a game is “the most costly piece of information we own,” says Schilling. And the burn rate is a closely guarded industry secret. “Those two nuggets were given out as if, ‘Here’s the weather and here’s the time.’

Where was this said and in what context. Was it at some investor meeting where he was asked his opinion?

And how is his spending suppose to be a secret? Wouldn't any smart investor want to know this info before investing?

[obdigore]

This is, to me, the most cutting remark

Within 72 hours of Chafee’s May 14 statement that the state was trying to keep 38 Studios “solvent,” Schilling says, a video-game publisher pulled out of a $35-million deal to finance a sequel to “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,” the fantasy game that 38 Studios released in February.

I wouldn't want anyone to know that my company was working with the government for tax breaks to keep me 'solvent'. That would easily scare off investors. We don't know that was the reason the publisher pulled out of the deal, however.

[Evilmaniac]

@Slozon Apparently you lack reading comprehension, but I'll go ahead and elaborate in business terms why that was a horrible horrible thing. First of all yes people looking to invest in a company should and will know the financial situation of a company, but as we all know public companies are enrolled in the stock market to add economic value to the business which stock price and value is controlled by the amount of stocks bought by people. This type of information is withheld from the general public so it doesn't cause stock market manipulation. It's true and intervals they have to release finance reports, but it's not a every point where it can cause such dramatic turnarounds. Plus there is also the fact that any business that starts out in the red from the lack of assets to carry a business in the green will suffer from anywhere from 2-5 years and probably longer from a gaming company prospective. And KoA wasn't a failure in the least, it's just that all the money went to EA. Nothing they did was wrong from a business standpoint and the governor is the one to be tar and feathered for this horrid event.

[Nirawen]

Not that I would wish for any game developer to go bankrupt but I really wasn't impressed with KoA, I've never heard the term 'polished' thrown about as much as I did for KoA and that would probably be the last word I would have used to describe it. It wasn't broken or anything but it wasn't exactly a finely crafted game, it just felt like a console RPG from around 2008 to me, I remember playing RPG's from around then that I would rate better when matched against KoA.

That said I hope 38 Studios does find a way out of their situation, there's certainly plenty of games that are worse on the market so they do deserve a chance to further improve on relatively good start and Copernicus did seem to be that improvement.

Apologies for being abit OT .

[Edge-]

And KoA wasn't a failure in the least, it's just that all the money went to EA.

And you know this for a fact how? Is it, "Because EA is evil!"?

I'm not arguing that KoA wasn't a success, because it apparently has sold over a million copies which is very good for a companies first title. The thing is, there were a number of analysts who estimated that it would have taken roughly 3 million sales for them to break even on the initial investment money.