38 Studios tweets preview of game funded with RI-backed loan
May 18th, 2012 at 5:49 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Just a few hours after Governor Chafee said the release date of 38 Studios’ video game “Project Copernicus” has been pushed back to June 2013, the tight-lipped company offered the first look at the massively multiplayer online game it’s been developing with a $75 million loan guaranteed by state taxpayers.
“Here’s a first look at Amalur in Project Copernicus,” 38 Studios’ official account wrote on Twitter on Friday at 4:52 p.m., the company’s first tweet since May 10. “This is Amalur,” Schilling tweeted a short time later.
As a reminder, 38 Studios’ first game – “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning” – was developed by Big Huge Games, the Maryland subsidiary the company bought in 2009, not the parent studio here in New England. This second game, “Copernicus,” has been in development since Schilling founded the company in 2006.
Update: Shonda Schilling, Curt’s wife, posted the following message on her own Facebook page: “Know this. You will only keep an honest person quiet for so long and when I blow I’m taking them all down.”
Update #2: Turbine Inc., a Warner Bros. subsidiary that bills itself as New England’s largest creator and operator of video games, tells WPRI.com it will hold a job recruiting event at Aspire restaurant in the Hotel Providence on Tuesday at 5 p.m. The announcement didn’t mention that 38 Studios failed to pay its employees this week.
(hat tip: Joystiq)
• Related: Fears of 38 Studios insolvency mount; Chafee opposes RI aid (May 18)
An earlier version of this post incorrectly said Aspire was in a different hotel.
Tags: 38 studios
Nesi's Notes covers politics and the economy in and around Rhode Island for WPRI.com. (Twitter: 
To commemorate this scandal, I propose we add some new expressions to Rhode Island slang. Here are a few suggestions:
“Wave a bloody sock” — To insist that you deserve extra special treatment because you’re so full of wonderfulness. Example: “He waved a bloody sock and told the EDC to write him another fat check.”
“go paint a sock” — Peddle that bullcrap elsewhere. Example: “Curt asked the state for a few million more, but the governor told him to go paint a sock.”
“schillingesque” — An adjective used when someone suggests welfare mothers and Obama are to blame for all America’s problem … Example: “The Woonsocket mayor made the schillingesque claim that his city’s fiscal problems would be solved if he could tear down all the subsidized housing. Then he waved a bloody sock.”
I do hope 38 Studios comes out of this and makes money in RI. I must say, the game’s world does look beautiful, and I feel badly that all the imagination that went into it might go to waste. Hope it turns the corner for everyone’s sake.
So basically to “protect” the state, the governor has gone out of his own way, to help his dear friend Keith W. Stokes resign and so that the governor and his comrades can now be the head of the board.
So now he’s cutting off 38 Studios so the state ends up with another 350 jobs of unemployment if they don’t find private funding, which seems like less of a chance for them now that this “governor” went on the public stage to shame this company as much as he could in the public eye. Many companies have financial issues at times, particularly times like these. Many also go into default on payments for a month or two. Why did he have to turn this particular one into a high stakes debacle? Something smells fishy… but besides that point.
The game looks amazing, and if the taxpayers are that worried about the company going under and having to foot the bill they should go out and buy a copy of Reckoning for $60 they may just keep that studio alive long enough to finish their game and possibly never have to pay a damn penny for the place.
[...] failing to pay them last week. Turbine, a Boston-based developer and Warner Bros. subsidiary, is hosting a recruitment event this evening at the Renaissance Providence Hotel. Tags: 38 studios, avalanche studios, games, [...]
Ted:
Aspire is in the Hotel Providence, not the Renaissance.
Oh drat. Thanks.
[...] look at “Project Copernicus” the public has received within the last week. 38 Studios posted a YouTube video on Friday showing the game’s [...]