For those just tuning in, 38 Studios is the game company founded by pro baseball player Curt Schilling. Their one product was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which sold well, but not well enough. It seems the company was banking on selling two million copies of a first release from a brand new studio, which probably redefines the term “hubris” in gaming. To their credit, they almost hit that mark, with 1.3-million copies pushed out the door. While most new studios would murder a saint for those numbers, all that cash went into the twin voids of Electronic Arts and an MMORPG project named Copernicus. Then payroll checks bounced, loans got called in, the screaming started, and everyone got fired. Game Politics has the story.
The lesson I think we can all take away from this is that baseball players aren’t paid for their business savvy. Also, any new studios out there who feel like challenging World of Warcraft with your second game? Might want to hold off on that.