Rhode Island Receives $713K Kingdoms of Amalur Revenue
Rhode Island's lost out on quite a sum of cash in Kingdoms of Amalur's development.
Games development is a costly business to be a part of. It's a lesson that Curt Schilling, former MLB pitcher, had to learn the hard way.
Schilling had ambitious plans for a fantasy game. His vision was attractive enough to draw in respected fantasy author R. A. Salvatore and comic book creator Todd MacFarlane. Schilling even convinced the state of Rhode Island to give him a $75 million loan to develop the game with promises that he would create jobs.
When Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning finally launched in February last year, the bubble popped. Despite generally positive reviews, the game failed to gain traction in sales. Schilling was unable to repay the debts that 38 Studios (Amalur's developer) owed, and the studio eventually went under. Rhode Island seized up 38 Studio's assets, hoping to earn back some of the money lost.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Amalur is getting them too far down that route. The state has only received about $713,000 in sales from the game, a far shot from the millions it was owed. The only other funds that it has managed to raise has been from selling $430,000 in 38 Studio's remaining assets, which included office furniture.

Now $75mm, that's a much taller order.
KoA had a borrowed engine [i believe] and absolutely no marketing! i didnt even hear about until a week before it was released, and it was only because i worked at a gamestop!
the money was to set up a studio, which he did
a AAA game costs about 50 million to make, which is what i believe he was shooting for
he also was heavily in the development of a franchise, which was this game, and an mmo with a whole world behind it.
all in all, 75 million for it sounds about right.
KoA had a borrowed engine [i believe] and absolutely no marketing! i didnt even hear about until a week before it was released, and it was only because i worked at a gamestop!
than you dont go to game websites, because i knew about this game for about 2 years before it was launched, and there was more or less an every other week till it was launched for months of new stuff for it
this game was a new franchise
it had an ok concept...
the story, from what i remember, i rented it, was interesting, but wasn't carrying it
honestly, i want to buy it, but the price of the game on the pc never goes down to where i would jump at it.
loot games always have it a bit tough, this had an rpg and action which also don't do well unless you are an existing franchise.
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now if i remember right, the state decided to call the debt in a real douchebag way, royally screwing the company, this was an investment that they should have stuck it out till the mmo, as it was shaping up to be something good. im glad the state got screwed,
Your analogies are not quite correct: The Witcher 1 costed over $6mln to produce and The Witcher 2 costed over $9mln. Additional factor is that they were produced in Poland entirely so to produce them in the US you would need double/triple the amounts. Also you need to add marketing costs on top. Although I agree that $50mln is way too high for a single player, an MMO development can be a bottomless pit.
More than any other entity, a government excels at wasting large amounts of money. It's what happens when representatives lose their fear of the people they are supposed to represent and feel as though they have an unlimited amount of money to spend.
First, Kingdom of Amular sold over 1.3 million copies in its first 90 days of being on sale. Unfortunately for 38 Studios apparently it needed to sell over 3 million copies. That's not a failure.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/73968/kingdoms-of-amalur-needed-3-million-sales-to-break-even
Second, the State of Rhode Island actively courted 38 Studios and enticed them to move there. This was a bad business decision on the part of 38 Studios since they paid the moving fees for all of their employees.
For whatever reason 38 Studios was hiring like mad and as part of the 75 million was required to have 450 employees. Think about that for a moment, 450 employees in a high tech environment is a -lot- in salaries. If the average salary was $50,000 USD (this doesn't include insurance, benefits, or anything else) that means it would cost 38 Studios under 2 million a month in salaries alone.
As it was, they had 160 employees by April 12, 2011. That's just under 1 million a month in salaries alone. Plus moving expenses, plus benefits, plus operational costs, plus outfitting a new building, plus... the costs added up really fast. Oh, and loan payments on top of that.
RA Salvatore was reported to have been promised to be paid over 1 million dollars to create 10,000 years of backstory. He claims he didn't get paid the full amount (being owed, according to bankruptcy filings 1.7 million) he did receive money for "day to day" expenses and "traveling." So whatever that is.
450 employees at 50k / year is just under 2 million a month in salaries.
Only an idiot would believe that it was the place of government to be loaning money for start-ups, that's what banks are for . . . they're experts, government isn't qualified to pick what businesses receive loans--that's why we are seeing so many failures among the Obama Administrations favorite "green" companies.
If venture capitalists won't pony up the cash in a situation like this, then it's a good bet the project's a loser.
Wow! You joined this forum just to troll this topic? "Member since: June 9, 2013"