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Curt Schilling Fires Entire Staff At 38 Studios

Posted by Soulskill on from the remembered-the-c-this-time dept.

redletterdave writes "On Thursday, former Boston Red Sox pitcher and tech entrepreneur Curt Schilling fired his entire staff at 38 Studios, his Rhode Island-based video game company, leaving more than 300 employees without jobs because the company couldn't repay its debt to the state. 38 Studios failed to pay Rhode Island's economic development agency $1.1 million, which was due last week, and also failed to meet payroll for its staff in both its Providence office and its Maryland subsidiary, Big Huge Games." The company's recent action RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, sold 1.2 million copies — which would have been great if they hadn't needed to sell 3 million to break even. An article at Massively goes through some of the lessons the video game industry needs to learn from this situation.

4 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Aww poop by Y2K+is+bogus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was hoping this would turn around, I'm tired of hearing stories of companies that take gov't money and fold right quick afterwards. That ugly monument to screwing the taxpayers, SolyndraBuilding, irks me every time I drive by it.

    1. Re:Aww poop by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're thinking of a fictional, idealist form of capitalism that doesn't really exist in the real world. It's just like people complaining about communism in the Soviet Union, and others saying, "but that's not real Communism!", when nothing coming close to their definition of "true communism" has never existed anywhere.

      The kind of capitalism practiced in the USA, frequently called "crony capitalism", absolutely IS all about government subsidy and bailouts.

  2. Re:Needed to sell 3M copies to break even? by medv4380 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It also didn't help to have single player quests behind a online pass. Fighting with the user-base when you're just beginning is never good.

  3. Chrono Trigger sold 2.65 million worldwide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And that was a damned good RPG. Needing 3 million sales to break even is insane ......