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Wanna buy an MMO? Copernicus assets for sale 'soon'
Remember Project Copernicus? Of course you do! 38 Studios may have imploded some 18 months ago, but the ongoing fallout has kept its fledgling MMO and its Kingdoms of Amalur IP in the news ever since. Now, Copernicus assets are about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder via an unnamed website that is currently under construction. "The process is taking longer than we anticipated for a variety of reasons including the complexity of the game itself," attorney and court-appointed receiver Richard Land told WPRI news yesterday. Land also told the news station that he has been working directly with "interested parties," though he declined to comment on a possible sale price.
Project Copernicus announcement trailer released [Updated]
For those interested in twisting the 38 Studios knife just a little bit more, Kotaku has posted what would have been Project Copernicus' official announcement trailer had Curt Schilling's development house not imploded dramatically earlier this year. The clip runs just over two minutes and features a series of stylized vignettes that morph into brief snippets of gameplay footage. All of this is set to a cryptic voiceover repeating something about a circle still turning. It's an interesting if slightly depressing look at what might have been. Head over to Kotaku for all the drama. [Update: Steve Danuser, formerly of 38 Studios fame, has published a context-driven explanation of what's shown in the video.]
The world (wide web) of Amalur grows as 38 Studios works on its MMO
With Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning just around the corner and Project Copernicus waiting in the wings, 38 Studios is fattening its golden website for the upcoming feast. The studio has expanded the site devoted to the world that both of these games inhabit, and those looking for hints and portents of the studio's upcoming MMO would do well to seek lore within its pages. Describing the website expansion as a "treasure trove" of new info, 38 Studios has added new landing pages, navigation features, and information about one of the game's races: the Gnomes. The Gnomes are described as "an enigmatic people. They bestow wondrous gifts of knowledge, medicine, and magic to befriend the other kingdoms, yet seldom reveal their plans or intentions to outsiders." It's interesting to note that the Gnomes are divided up into three casts, which does tempt the mind into thinking the word "classes." Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the single-player RPG that's meant to fill the role of a prologue -- in both real-world and in-game time -- to the much larger Copernicus MMO. [Thanks to Sketchit for the tip!]
GDC 2011: Curt Schilling talks about free-to-play, or not
Things are pretty quiet on the 38 Studios front. That's rarely stopped Curt Schilling from talking in the past, though, and he recently sat down with the lads at Joystiq during this year's GDC to give everyone an update on the big Rhode Island move. "The team is incredibly excited. It's our building! We have all six floors -- it's our studio and we're alone. It's our space," Schilling enthused. Joystiq also queried the former World Series MVP about whether or not 38 Studios' Copernicus MMO project might opt for a free-to-play business model in order to compete in what has become an extremely crowded game market. "We have an open mind about everything, except the game," Schilling said. "We look at what we're creating and we say, 'What is the best possible guest experience we can create with this product?' And that'll answer your business model questions and your goals and objectives for the game." Sooo, is that a yes-we're-considering-free-to-play or a not-in-a-million-years? It's anyone's guess at this point, but one thing's for sure: With Schilling at the controls, the trip is bound to be eventful (and full of juicy quotes).
Copernicus' Curt Schilling talks business models and target audiences
Curt Schilling, former World Series MVP and one of baseball's noted clutch performers, is now firing fastballs at the MMO industry. In addition to forming 38 Studios and spearheading work on the company's cryptic Copernicus MMORPG, Schilling clearly loves games. He also loves to talk about them (and occasionally talk smack) as a new interview at Ugo illustrates. "We're not making a game for everybody either because when you make a game for everybody, you end up making it for no one. I know what we love, I know what we want, and the game that I'm playing is growing into being what we set out to make," Schilling enthuses. When he says "we," he's talking about the all-star roster assembled at 38 studios, including everyone from R.A. Salvatore, to Todd McFarlane, to veteran developers that "have been on every major MMO from Ultima Online." All this talent doesn't come cheaply of course, but Schilling is adamant about making a traditional (albeit well-polished) MMORPG despite the current free-to-play craze sweeping the industry. "We won't launch free-to-play. That makes no sense. [...] Given the feedback that we've gotten and in a lot of focus testing that we've done, people will pay a subscription if they believe that they're getting their money's worth," he says, while also noting that the Copernicus budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million.
38 Studios relocation loan in jeopardy
Democratic Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate Frank Caprio has flip-flopped in his stance towards a $75 million loan from the state's Economic Development Corporation to fledgling game maker 38 Studios. The development house, founded in 2006 by former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling, is hard at work on the top-secret Copernicus MMORPG and was offered the lucrative deal in exchange for moving the company's headquarters from Massachusetts to Rhode Island (and bringing a proposed 450 high-paying jobs to the state's economy). Caprio, who currently serves as Rhode Island's general treasurer, is one of several political candidates condemning the deal, a marked change from his views in past weeks, notes the Boston Globe. "I am not going to stand by and watch us gamble taxpayer dollars on a bad deal when there are thousands of small businesses in need of more access to capital," Caprio said in a press release dated August 31st.
Rhode Island pitches a $75M loan offer to 38 Studios
States are always highly competitive when it comes to luring industries to their neck of the woods to bolster the local economy. From movie shoots to auto plants to hospitals, states tend to be shameless in offering incentives and tax breaks to benefit from an economic injection by these companies. It's interesting to see that MMO studios are being courted as well. Worlds in Motion is reporting that Rhode Island is enticing Curt Schillings' 38 Studios to relocate from Massachusetts in exchange for a $75,000,000 guaranteed loan under relief provisions for high-tech companies -- a provision that Massachusetts does not offer. The loan would represent a significant investment for the company, but Massachusetts is attempting to provide reasons for 38 Studios to stay put, including citing that it has better access to talent in the state. As the MMO genre expands and more studios pop up, will we see an increase in states fighting over these companies in an effort to help their economies? In any event, Copernicus' developer now has a difficult decision to make, especially for this ex-Boston Red Sox pitcher.
Schilling teases possible Copernicus concept art
Details have been sketchy regarding Copernicus, the code-name of the forthcoming MMORPG from Curt Schilling's 38 Studios. Other than the fact that the storyline is being written by noted fantasy author R. A. Salvatore, we haven't heard any concrete information on the game since GDC2010. Now, Schilling has unleashed a cryptic tweet challenging fans to find the Copernicus concept art among the images attached to a new interview with 38 Studios Senior Environment Artist Joe Mirabello. Schilling (under the Twitter handle of gehrig38) drops no hints as to which of the images might be the Copernicus art, but it's probably a safe assumption that it is one of the landscape pieces, given Mirabello's job title. Check out the interview as well as Schilling's tweet. [Thanks Karen!]
Big, huge interview: Big Huge Games head Tim Train
When 38 Studios isn't busy hiring former Nintendo execs, Curt Schilling's Massachusetts-based MMO developer is buying up close-to-death development studios -- take, for instance, Big Huge Games. Tim Train, the studio's president, illuminated the near-death experience that Big Huge had in a talk at PAX East earlier this year (slides from said speech can be found below). He explained how, with just a handful of days left and termination letters ready to send out, 38 Studios swept in and saved Big Huge and the vast majority of its staff. We found his story so interesting, we thought we'd follow up with Train and have him explain it once more, as well as speak about other topics. Will Big Huge ever produce another digital board game? Unfortunately, it looks like you could be waiting on that for quite some time. Hit the break for the whole thing. %Gallery-92043%
R.A. Salvatore talks Copernicus, building believable worlds
When it comes to stories of engaging fantasy worlds, one of the premier names that comes to the minds of many gamers is R.A. Salvatore. His Forgotten Realms books chronicling the adventures of Drizzt Do'Urden are fan favorites, and many are curious as to just what he's doing on 38 Studios' upcoming MMO, codenamed Copernicus. Thankfully, Salvatore took some time to sit down with Gamasutra and discuss plans for the MMO, as well as their lore-related single-player game, codenamed Mercury. In this interview, Salvatore talks both on his gaming past, and whether or not his varied experiences in gaming have affected his writing on this project. He also touches on how important he feels immersion is in terms of getting people engaged -- suspending their disbelief, and jumping into the fantastic worlds he weaves. Another interesting tidbit is how he feels that characters are most important in terms of telling a story -- a tenet that has served him extremely well, if sales of his books are any indication! If you're looking for more illumination into the mind of the man shaping the overall stories for 38 Studios, then you'll definitely want to pop over to Gamasutra and check out this latest interview. Of course, we also happen to have a pretty sweet interview of our own with Salvatore about Copernicus that you'll want to check out if you missed it the first time around.
GDC10: R.A. Salvatore talks Copernicus
One of the great joys of game journalism is the opportunity to talk with a large cross-section of creative minds, all of whom share a passion for the art form. It's even more fun when you get to talk to something of a living legend, as Massively did today when we had the chance to interview multi-million selling author R.A. Salvatore at GDC 2010. For the three of you who've been living under a rock since the late 1980s, Salvatore is the creative force behind 22 New York Times bestsellers, including the The DemonWars Saga, Star Wars: The New Jedi Order - Vector Prime, and the Dark Elf series, whose protagonist Drizzt Do'Urden is one of the more celebrated fantasy characters in the genre's history. We sat down to talk with Salvatore about his role at 38 Studios, and how he's bringing his unique storytelling abilities to their top secret Copernicus project, an MMORPG sharing the same universe as the Project Mercury single-player RPG announced yesterday at the Game Developer's Conference. Hit the jump below for the full interview.
38 Studios estimates it will take 50 to 100 million to finish Copernicus, Schilling looking for investors
Curt Schilling is out on the field again -- the investing field, that is. The former baseball star turned game developer is looking for more investors to back 38 Studios and their first game, the title codenamed Copernicus. The company's estimates for their game requires 50 to 100 million more in funding for the staff, all with their tentative December 2010 launch in mind.Keep in mind, of course, that 38 Studios has acquired Maryland developer Big Huge Games, the company known for Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends, and Xbox Arcade's version of Catan. That acquisition doubled the company's headcount and has possibly driven operating costs into the 15 to 20 million a year range, according to the Boston Globe.So far Schilling hasn't had any luck with potential investors. However, as he said to the Boston Globe, "I'm not going to complain about the economy. It's like pitching on a rainy day. The other guy has to pitch in it, too."[Via Cuppycake]
