Rhode Island sues Curt Schilling over 38 Studios

Wow, so many questions and so many implicit answers.

Bet that's the last time someone tries to do something with Rhode Island

I know I sound stupid, but I hate the government, all governments. I don't know about the technicalities regarding the loan nor do I care; Curt is my friggin' hero and the same goes for Jen, Ken, Rob and Todd and everyone who worked at BHG and 38S. They've been through enough, heck the vast majority of them don't have jobs anymore (or maybe working some job they don't want to) apart from those who have gone on to work for Epic Baltimore; so just leave the poor sods alone, they have nothing and certainly not $75M. The thing is yeah Curt admitted his optimism played a part in his venture's downfall, but the RI government is guilty of the same thing; all the claims of fraudulent tactics and other alleged wrongdoings to me are BS; the RI government knew exactly what they were doing and what they were getting into, and if Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning were more of a financial success then the government would be all to happy to get back the loan and then some, but damn when it failed they friggin' swoop in like vultures.Also if the government - of all things - were to loan $75 Million, then they don't have the right to claim 'fraud' and other such non-sense because who would lend that much money and not do proper pre-deal investigations. No, like I said they knew exactly what they were getting into. Heck, the amount of checks they had to do regarding myself when I claimed disability pension, and later youth allowance (which they declined even though I literally only had $7.23 in my bank account; which was my whole life savings)  was downright excessive. Hence, I'd imagine for a $75M loan, to dole that much out and not do proper 'homework' well it's the government's fault as much as any.Anyway, to me Kingdoms of Amalur was a right mint game and one I thoroughly enjoyed and still do.As for tax (personal income tax), shouldn't even exist, there are countries in the world who do fine without PIT and they're some of the most affluent nations around; think UAE, Monaco and The Bahamas. So in the end if you want to do right by taxpayers - don't friggin' have tax in the first place.Flame me all you want, I'm an uneducated fool with thick skin. :)

why the heck would anyone get a loan from the gov.?.... lol especially ours

Big Huge Games = Big Huge Loan = Big Huge Failure = Big huge Pile of DooDoo to clean up.

Is the RI governor up for re-election? Sounds like he's trying to boost his ratings with the taxpayers a month before elections!

Looks like curt will have to pay a lot of shillings 

Hey, here is a company that lost millions, and lost everything they had in the process, lets SUE them to see what we can get out of nothing. Take your losses RI.

So if the state of Rhode Island sues and wins, can I do the same every time I gamble with money and lose?

I think this is a governor just trying to CYA, in order to make it look like he actually "did something" when the lost revenue comes up in whatever his next election is.

The fact of the matter is that game dev is a risky venture and there are no guarantees. He should have known this before 'investing'. The lawsuit is acting like 38 studios was making brake pads and just decided to shut down. The game industry is VERY different from any industry the governor has likely dealt with before. Only 7-11% (depending on who you read) of games are profitable. This is tantamount to taking the states budget to Vegas and suing the casino when you lose it all. Actually Vegas probably has better odds come to think of it.

game was poopy

Whether or not there is blame to be doled out to Schilling and friends, the state of Rhode Island should be held accountable first and foremost. It's not as though Schilling just kicked down the door and grabbed the $75M.

I really feel for the guy. He just didn't know what he was getting him and other people into. He's a very smart man, just not in the business sense. I just hope some day he can somehow get some sort of cash flow going again. He does work for ESPN, but the baseball season is over now, although I would assume he gets salary from them. I am pretty sure this is one of if not the lowest point in his life, so maybe the shit has hit the fan as hard as it could(after all this is settled).

It's funny how he comes out and says that the legal wranglings are a continuing part to protect taxpayer money, but what taxpayer in the state got to vote on them giving 38 Studios the money?  If you were going to protect the money in the first place, maybe you shouldn't have paid 75 million to have 38 Studios move to RI. They're all digging in their pockets right now for answers and to lay blame. Not a single one of those asses wants to say that "What I did was wrong" in the first place. You gave up taxpayer money to the tune of 75 million on a virgin company with absolutely NO experience whatsoever and you were hoping for what again? I call shennanigans on the whole political bunch up in RI. If you give someone 75 million and they have to follow certain guidelines and expectations for that money to continue to be spent, then you damn well better make sure someone is in place from the state to make sure that happens. They dropped the ball as much as 38 Studios. What's sad, is the politicians won't ever have to take the blame on this unless through some crazy strategy 38 Studios actually win the case against them. 

This is gonna get a whole bunch uglier (which considering how bad it is already, is gonna be pretty ugly).

Had a feeling this would happen. 

I love the whole "protecting the taxpayers" argument. I doubt it was the taxpayers who made the decision to gamble their money away, and yet apparently its the taxpayers who will pay the price if the money isn't recovered :P

Well, that's one way to help get your state economy back on track.  Well done.

i played KoA, twice.

Why did you have to use so much money, Schilling? Why????? KoA could've become so much more...

I can understand the lawsuit, but the fact that both 38 Studios and Curt are completely bankrupt, what funds are they going to get back from this? Curt Schilling was stupid to waste his money like that. 38 Studios was foolish to try and work on 2 games at the same time knowing full well that they wouldn't have the funding to complete the 2nd game and didn't have any further investors to back it. They even said themselves that they were waiting to hear from other investors to help fund their MMO and that they had to use much of their money to start paying back the loan. Why they had over 100 developers in their stable is beyond me. They should have had less then 1/2 that working on The Reckoning. They seriously mismanaged all that money.

Schilling and 38 studios knew taxpayer money was at stake.. If They knew that KoA would of left them in this big a hole financially maybe they should of budgeted their project better and ran their studio more efficiently so that they could release this game and not spend unnecessarily...that plus the game was a success..so theres a rat hiding somewhere in this story....

mismanagement,mismanagement,mismanagement....

So now the state of RI is going to spend $75M + via legal action to recover $75M. 

so when is Kingdom of Amalur 2 coming out?

Wow I was rooting for schilling when he started this company. It's like... This company only made one game lol it wasn't even that bad from what I've heard (never played it) but i guess it couldn't compete with this COD generation and better titles within its own genre like Skyrim and Dark Souls. Says a lot about the corporatization of the videogames industry. Plus, the " review in progress " is cursed so ot had that going against it too

I can't understand how you can lose $75 million dollars...maybe its because I can't expect to ever see $75 million in the future...I mean, wow...and when did states start investing in video game companies?  God, I want to see the grant or whatever on that one!

This is one of the worst gaming-related financial disaster ever.  Kurt Schilling has to be one of the worst CEO ever.