The collapse of 38 Studios — the game development company founded by all-star pitcher Curt Schilling — became one of the most colossal video game development flameouts ever. But, in a tweet this morning, the former Red Sox player says that the fantasy creation would still be innovative if someone ponied up the cash to put the dev team back together.
If someone were to buy Amalur, put team back on it, it’s a billion dollar franchise, 2 years later and still no ones done what we were doing
— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) November 26, 2013
The murderer’s row of creative folk, the move to Rhode Island and subsequent bankruptcy… the whole affair painted Schilling and his partners in the worst of lights. The one game that 38 Studios did release — the well-received Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning — supposedly needed to sell 3 million copies just to break even. Schilling himself said that the affiliated Amalur MMO wasn’t fun but someone working on the game refuted that. The rights to Amalur are still seemingly up for grabs but with such a hapless history behind it, it’d take brave souls to decide to pick up the fictional world’s crest.
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13 responses to “Curt Schilling Says Amalur Could Still Be A ‘Billion Dollar Franchise’”
Definitely. KoA is a very solid title and if someone is willing to pick it up it can be as good as Elder Scrolls
Yeah. If the MMO played like Kingdoms there’s some real potential in there. I’m not so into the fantasy setting but that’s just a matter of taste.
I liked the combat better in Amalur, but I think the IP is basically worthless. Why would anyone pay money for something so generic? They might as well just use the same fantasy tropes and change the names, which is pretty much all Amulur amounted to.
I think it had a lot to do with the writer. As a fan of fantasy I tried reading an R. A. Salvatore novel earlier this year and couldn’t get past the first few chapters, it was incredibly bland and I found his writing style very boring.
That said, I still enjoyed KoA.
Yeah – I should be clear that I liked the game, but I also don’t think the IP has any value. It would be like me releasing a not particularly successful game about a space marine who fights aliens. Unless the plot somehow extends on that in an interesting and unique way, the IP doesn’t have a lot of value.
I played Amulur for about 20 hours. I couldn’t name a single character or place in the whole game. I couldn’t even tell you the guild names!
just off the top of my head, Ballads, Warsworn, Travelers, Scholar Arcarnum :p
I think that the world they created has the potential for more stories to be told in it.
first game of a new IP that had a pretty troubled development, I was expecting it to be a bit rough.
but the best thing about KoA was that it had potential to spawn a few awesome sequels.
sorta like how Assassins Creed 2 vastly improved on AC1.
hope it does happen at some point…
Bingo! I like this sort of game/genre but writing and dialogue… Blah blah blah… “SKIP TO THE END!” “SKIP TO THE END!” “SKIP TO THE END!” “SKIP TO THE END!” “SKIP TO THE END!”
for the first title in a new IP, it was pretty good. had it’s flaws, of course.
I mean, you can tell it was originally designed to be an MMO, but whatever. Im enjoying it.
but there’s so much lore thats been build for the world it’d be a damn shame if someone doesnt pick up the IP & make a sequel.
I agree
Kingdom’s was awesome!
In fact, I redownloaded it from Steam last night to give it another crack
While not exactly “Revolutionary” as there was definitely some Elder Scrolls roots in there, I found the more action orientated combat and reaction timings to be a wonderful change up from Skyrim’s “Stand and Deliver” style
EDIT: Expanded a little on why I think its awesome
It was awesome for a while, but then I lost interest……needed a horsey.
Its currently on sale on amazon at the moment for approx $9 with all DLC (you’ll need a US address though on your account though). Great game 🙂
Man, you guys must have played a completely different game to me. I found KoA:R to be a terrible title.
The combat was clunky and consisted of nothing more than button-mashing spam, the plot made about as much sense as a chocolate combustion engine and the way conversation and dialogue was handled pile-drove the any attempt at pacing and flow into a septic tank.
Not worth it.
Umm a billion dollar franchise is grasping at straws to say the least – the game was good and had some fun combat AND would have been successful to begin with if they had someone who knew the game industry better at the helm.
Essentially they released a game that was too big for its own good, costs too much to produce and gave players TOO much value for their money – which is great for the gamer, but bad for business. They could have easily cut the game in half or thirds, still sold 1.2 million and possibly still be in business today.
Kurt Schilling needs to pay a few shillings to the Rhode Island government and all the unpaid workers first before attempting to resurrect the Amalur dev team.