Remains Of 38 Studios To Be Auctioned Off
38 Studios, the development company started by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, is about to have its last remnants auctioned off. If you recall, 38 Studios was the company that had made Kingdoms of Amalur earlier this year, but due to some bad investments the company was unable to make payments on its $70 million loan. After the failure to pay, the company went into bankruptcy and left the state of Rhode Island on the hook to pay off that loan, though it did gain possession of 38 Studios’ IPs and other physical assets.
There are plans for two auctions: one in Maryland on October 16th and the other in Rhode Island on October 23rd. The items listed for sale include high-end computers, servers, audio recording equipment, and motion capture suits. In other words, if you’re wanting to start up your own video game development company you might want to come on down and make a few bids!
There’s also something else being put up on the auction block, but it’s drawing some controversy: Xbox 360 Development kits. According to Microsoft, the Xbox 360 Development Kits (XDK) are the property of Microsoft and are only licensed to authorized studios and may not be assigned or sold to any third party without the written consent of Microsoft.” At this time, Microsoft is looking into contacting the “appropriate parties” to get the development kits removed from the auction listing.
All in all, this auction will help with the loan that 38 Studios left Rhode Island when it went under, but it’s not going to cover it all. After all, while the loan itself was for$70 million by the time you factor in interest the total cost is going to be closer to $112 million. In part because of studios demise, Rhode Island is planning on making some changes to their economic policy to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
