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#202 May 18 2012 at 7:58 AM Rating: Good
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
They definitely chose a poor time to release it, just between Skyrim and ME3.
This. I was going to buy this game, but when I was about ready for a short break from Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 was released.
#203 May 18 2012 at 8:29 AM Rating: Good
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Aww, that's too bad really about the studio. :( Game had it's high points and low points. Once you fixed the camera distance it really became much more enjoyable.

I think it could be fun to revisit it again at some point when I am in between games. But I got my monies worth out of it in terms of hours spent playing.
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#204 May 18 2012 at 11:43 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Studio 38, developers of KoA, has been mired in debt and unable to make loan payments or meet payroll. The state of Rhode Island, which has a $75 million loan guarantee with them, may be on the hook to cover the failing studio should it fold.
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#205 May 18 2012 at 12:09 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Did it simply suffer the unfortunate timing of being released during Skyrim-mania and too close in genre to be the $60 game people picked?

no. bad timing does not kill a company that sells a million games in 4 months.

everyone's a conservative until a public bailout is the only way to save their company (re: curt's appearance on glenn beck.)
#206 May 18 2012 at 12:34 PM Rating: Good
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axhed wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Did it simply suffer the unfortunate timing of being released during Skyrim-mania and too close in genre to be the $60 game people picked?

no. bad timing does not kill a company that sells a million games in 4 months.

everyone's a conservative until a public bailout is the only way to save their company (re: curt's appearance on glenn beck.)


I thought they only managed to sell 400,000 copies of the game, and that's why they are having money trouble.

Edited, May 18th 2012 2:37pm by Shaowstrike
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#207 May 18 2012 at 12:37 PM Rating: Good
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Projected about 330,000 physical sales in the US as of March 2012.
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#208 May 18 2012 at 1:33 PM Rating: Good
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Joystiq reports that 38 Studios was finally able to pay back the 1.25 million monthly payment it had missed.

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38 Studios's $1.125 million check to the state of Rhode Island has cleared, governor Lincoln Chafee announced during a press conference this afternoon, thus fulfilling the first required payment on the studio's loan from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.

Rhode Island is changing its legislation on tax breaks, closing loopholes pertaining to state funds being used for motion-picture endeavors, Chafee said. The state's interest lies in protecting the taxpayers, balanced with keeping 38 Studios solvent, since "taxpayers have had a very generous deal for 38 studios," Chafee said.

"It's time for them to go out and get private capital funding," Chafee said. "That's the deal. It's a generous deal, but stick to it."

Rhode Island officials believe that the total of the $49 million loaned to 38 has been spent. Chafee said that until late April, meetings with 38 suggested that they would make their May payment. "I want to make sure we're doing everything possible to make sure 38 doesn't fail," Chafee said. "We're in deep." Everything possible except giving them more money."There's not going to be any money from the state. They're not coming here for easy money."

According to Chafee, "Basically, the access to private capital hasn't materialized."

38 Studios' next payment is a debt service payment due November 1 of $2.6 million, and Rhode Island officials believe the studio will have the capital to cover it.

38 Studios will then owe $12.6 million in full annual debt service in 2013, and "that's on their dime," officials said.

Chafee said he recognized the risk involved in starting a new gaming studio, but the state would have benefited greatly from the studio's "huge success" had it done well.

"I said from the beginning that it was a risky enterprise," Chafee said. Regarding how 38 Studios will function if it doesn't have the funds to pay its employees, Chafee reiterated, "Again, these are the ramifications of being in a risky business."

Chafee doesn't plan on taking a gamble of this nature again: "Never, never ever. Not under my watch," he said.



And 38 Studios kills any chance for a gaming studio to get Government funding ever again (at least in R.I.).
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#209 May 18 2012 at 3:07 PM Rating: Good
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And apparently in a damage control move, 38 released footage from Project Copernicus (the planned MMO set in the Amalur universe) today.



Edited, May 18th 2012 5:07pm by Spoonless
#210 May 18 2012 at 9:56 PM Rating: Good
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That DOES look nifty. If they don't skimp out and fall into MMO tropes, it might be awesome. Of course, they'll need to rethink the quest system, since KoA is pretty much just doing typical MMO-type quests anyway. But that combat with an MMO would be fun.
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#211 May 18 2012 at 11:46 PM Rating: Good
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
That DOES look nifty. If they don't skimp out and fall into MMO tropes, it might be awesome. Of course, they'll need to rethink the quest system, since KoA is pretty much just doing typical MMO-type quests anyway. But that combat with an MMO would be fun.


It is and it's called Tera. (except it becomes much more challenging)


Edited, May 18th 2012 11:42pm by Shojindo
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#212 May 20 2012 at 2:14 PM Rating: Decent
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Shaowstrike the Shady wrote:
I thought they only managed to sell 400,000 copies of the game, and that's why they are having money trouble.


that was boxed copies. steam and origin have not released numbers.

i also heard that the gubner declared that the mmo will release in june 2013. period.
#213 May 20 2012 at 7:54 PM Rating: Decent
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Spoonless wrote:
And apparently in a damage control move, 38 released footage from Project Copernicus (the planned MMO set in the Amalur universe) today.

[youtube=m9nvnrP0j8U]


idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
That DOES look nifty. If they don't skimp out and fall into MMO tropes, it might be awesome. Of course, they'll need to rethink the quest system, since KoA is pretty much just doing typical MMO-type quests anyway. But that combat with an MMO would be fun.


Honestly, that video is pretty sad if they really do intend to release the game in a year. Flybys of 3, maybe 4 distinct areas and... nothing else.

Considering how many years they've supposedly been working on it...probably won't even live up to Vanguard standards, especially considering the other studio issues.
#214 May 21 2012 at 10:16 AM Rating: Good
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Just because the video only shows a few zones doesn't mean the game only has a few zones worthy of being shown off. If the video was actually a damage control move, which we have every reason to believe it was, then it was probably thrown together quite quickly. I'm sure they have had people working on the real debut trailer for quite a while, but it just wasn't ready to be pushed forward.

Zones are easy to show. Hard to do a flyby that captures a bad angle, if you've developed them properly. It's much harder to show off characters, because you need to control the rate at which you reveal information. Plus, they are much more likely to change over the course of an alpha/beta than a zone is, the gear in particular.

And combat DEFINITELY won't be shown in a cobbled-together video. MMO combat is a hard sell, because it's far more interesting while playing than when watching (primarily due to CDs between abilities).
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#215 May 21 2012 at 7:14 PM Rating: Decent
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for cripe's sake, reckoning was the character/combat demo dammit. does anyone think a game by the same company in the same universe which was billed as a sort of single player version is going to significantly differ from the mmo in those regards?

if they had shown that stuff, all the boourns would be crowing about how similar it is.
#216 May 24 2012 at 9:48 PM Rating: Decent
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damn, they done laid everyone off.
#217 May 25 2012 at 9:03 AM Rating: Good
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Something about the story doesn't really make sense to me, but admittedly I'm not very financially-minded.

Apparently the game sold 1.2 million copies. But it needed to sell a staggering 3 million copies to be considered profitable.

What gives? 1.2 mil is a great number for a new IP, and EA seems to consider the game to have been a success. Seems like somebody erred greatly during budgeting. How was this game so expensive? Where did all the money go?

As a silver lining, it's been nice watching developers from other studios reach out to the 38 guys via twitter to try to get them hired. #38jobs is the hashtag.

Edited, May 25th 2012 11:05am by Eske
#218 May 25 2012 at 12:34 PM Rating: Good
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I think it was expensive because it started off as a MMO, if I remember right, and was budgeted for that.
#219 May 25 2012 at 5:51 PM Rating: Decent
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they started out with the mmo, then bought the other developer and moved their game into the mmo universe, then they packed up and moved the operations. that's a lot of switching gears and changing direction for a company with zero revenue.
#220 May 25 2012 at 7:23 PM Rating: Good
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I really don't get it, tbh.

They had two projects in development, one of which was retooled from a project BHG already had when in development. All the initial design stuff was covered for both projects due to Copernicus' development, from the history to the art style. That should have shaved a decent amount off the cost of the projects. The MMO was set to launch next year, and it looks good. The fact that EA was publishing only reduces their cost (though also reducing their profit--though they clearly judged it to be advantageous).

It might be that they weren't actually receiving royalties for the game, since EA was publisher, but actually had to sell 3 Million copies to get their full payment. PC games are also vastly more profitable for the company, because they don't need to pay royalties to the console maker. Problem is that those royalties are paid upon printing, not sale--every physical console copy means money paid to Sony and Microsoft, so unsold copies are an even worse loss.

What boggles my mind is the timing. Last year's final quarter was absurdly loaded with big name titles. I worry that they launched KoA at a poor time simply because they couldn't afford to really wait. Which honestly sucks, because if they had launched it in late April/early May, I think it would have done really well.
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#221 May 25 2012 at 7:50 PM Rating: Good
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Yeah, they launched it while everyone was still playing Skyrim, and ME3 was right around the corner.

At the very least, they could have done an advertising campaign for it in April/May.
#222 May 25 2012 at 8:41 PM Rating: Good
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Not to mention Skyward Sword, Dues Ex, Portal 2, Dark Souls, Uncharted 3, and AC:R. They weren't close to the release, no, but it led to a pretty massive build-up of RPG titles in the last quarter of 2011. Pretty much everyone's to-play stack had gotten pretty scary, which made anything but a major release (like ME3, in particular), pretty uninteresting. Particularly since Skyrim alone could absorb hundreds of hours.

And we might as well mention Modern Warfare 3, for the part of the player-base that also likes shooters.

Ideally, the game would have launched one month ago, or one month from now (to avoid the D3 competition in the PC sector). A more aggressive ad campaign would have been nice, but they clearly didn't have the money for it.
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#223 May 26 2012 at 12:19 AM Rating: Good
Curt Schilling: Better Baseball player than businessman/politician.

True story.
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#224 May 26 2012 at 6:16 AM Rating: Excellent
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Yeah, I've heard this described as what happens when one of those MMORPG fan boys who says "Dude, I have the best idea for a game ever" actually has the millions of dollars to get started. Usually they just post to web forums asking for someone to create free art assets and does anyone know how to program...?
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#225 May 26 2012 at 7:19 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Yeah, I've heard this described as what happens when one of those MMORPG fan boys who says "Dude, I have the best idea for a game ever" actually has the millions of dollars to get started. Usually they just post to web forums asking for someone to create free art assets and does anyone know how to program...?
The thing is, it isn't a bad game. I think that they probably spent too much money bringing in all the top-level people they brought in. Supposedly their operating costs are around $4M/month. As for the state, they shouldn't have touched it unless Schilling could bring more investors in, IMO.

Prior to the layoffs, 38Studios had to make their May payment of $1.2M in order to qualify for some amount of tax credits. Apparently, a loophole was found where the tax credits did not have to be paid out if the company isn't registered in RI, and they're registered in DE. I think the layoffs came after they weren't going to be getting the ~$8.7M in credits. If they don't make a $12.5M payment next May, it's likely to fall on the taxpayers to cover it.

Edited, May 26th 2012 9:20am by Spoonless
#226 May 26 2012 at 7:23 AM Rating: Good
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I just find it so odd, because KoA was a legit game. Also, you know, there's the ridiculous hypocrisy of a small-government, free market advocate accepting a $75M loan from the state to make a video game.

Apparently, if 38 Studios closes (which it seems like it has, really), Rhode Island is left with the bill and gets the KoA IP in return. They very well might try to auction that off to recoop some of their loss. If that includes the development done on Copernicus already, and if the game is attractive, someone else might be willing to purchase it at a vastly reduced cost.
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