Assets belonging to defunct Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning developer 38 Studios have brought in around US$180,000 in the first of three auctions held near Baltimore. The sale, held on October 16th, auctioned off around 950 items, including office furniture, computers, gaming consoles, TVs and other bits and pieces that formerly belonged to 38 subsidiary Big Huge Games.
The item with the highest price tag? A "video animation suit" that went for US$9,500.
Why do game studios keep imploding?
Dysfunction is baked into the video game production process, as it currently exists. The big-budget games industry is dominated by a few large companies, the publishers. Like book publishers, they are responsible for distributing and marketing games (much but not all of this is entirely digital now, but most of the publishers established themselves when game distribution meant getting physical discs and cartridges on retail store shelves). Games are actually made by studios, which are generally either owned directly by the publishers or independent. Making big-budget video games takes an enormous amount of highly specialized labor. It is possible for one person to make a game, and even for that game to be a hit, but the biggest, most profitable games released each year are nearly always made by enormous teams of people, working directly or indirectly for those publishers.
Create their own studio ala Activision but never forget where they came from ala Activision
Unions breed garbage product no matter what’s being made. Passion and drive to make awesome stuff goes out the window and it’s replaced by laziness, seniority over skill, office politics and all around horseshit. As a welder of 23 years, I’ve seen it first hand, over and over again.
I’d say there’s a time and a place for unions. If work conditions have gotten so bad because the company is run by tyrants, unions will help.
But, on the contrary, I work for one of those rare companies that is better for the employee than a union is. Family owned, we purchased a new facility in Jersey and the workers voted the union out based on the offer (pay, hours, benefits, etc). Now we have UNION scabs, hired by the union, to protest against us at various locations.
DomiNations, and Rise of Nations developer Big Huge Games has been the victim of a cyber attack. It's the latest in a string of similar attacks.
The 4-year investigation of video game developer 38 Studios comes to an anti-climatic conclusion.
Thats terrible...
don't u ever get loan from US gov
So who bought the Kingdoms of Amalur IP?
Tragic ending to a tragic story. Just how the hell did 38 studios manage to blow, what was it, 120 million?