Kingdoms of Amalur dev's creative director blames RI governor

Yeah, it's the Govenor's fault you guys put out a bland game that didn't sell over 3 million copies that you needed because you put all your eggs in one basket...

*head desk*

Why couldn't the local government come to them when this issue first came up and say. "Look we know you didn't do well. If you want to continue working on another game come up with a game plan in way that you know for certain that will be profitable. If you can do that don't worry about this month's payment. Instead we'll take a 40% stake in your company."

If they had done that and they began turning out games that sell well. Over time the government could have made back their inital investment and possibly additional revenue that they could use while keeping people out of the unemployment line.

Sigh, just another reason why Government should stay out of the private sector. This reeks of Government ineptitude. Choosing to invest a large sum in a risky company with taxpayer money. The people of Rhode Island should be appalled their government is using their money like an investment bank.

Shame on Danuser too, saying: [They didn't give us more handouts, so we failed]!

Hiding her failure to budget by blaming the Government. This whole thing is messed up!

When your business plan for success relies on government aid, it is a bad business plan to begin with. Grow some common sense people, were short.

There's a lesson to be learned here, one everyone should already be familiar with: do not trust the government.

Dam too bad Kingdoms of Amaleur is a great game.

Soooo... When's the MMO?

That is one pretentious dev right their.  It is not the taxpayers responsibility to constantly take care of poorly managed people within the confines of a business model, that is solely the responsibility of those given responsibility within a company.  

Blaming politicians when your livelihood was basically already extend thanks to their clearly awful decision of support in the first place, see the relatively quick bankruptcy, is quite an ungrateful statement to be coming out with.

Steve really needs to think this through.  Pretentious devs, your entitlement issues are why you are unemployed.   Figure it out man.   Taxpayer moneys clearly should no longer go to this industry.  Ingrates!!!

@ Brendan Sinclair -

Legrieme put it well ;)

If "the studio eventually made the payment" why "Rhode Island taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $90 million as a result of the deal" doesn't make any sense at all.

That's a load of horsecrap. THE GAME HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE. 38 STUDIOS HAS NO OTHER SOURCE OF REVENUE. God, it sucks to be in Rhode Island right now. This place is falling apart.

I don't think he meant help as in more money but as in he probably thought that the government was at least  overseeing the project to prevent these type of tragedy since it was their investment also. He probably feels that the governor preaches about how he's watching out for the working class but this event suggest  otherwise. I believe Governor Chafee does shares some blame in this because even though he condemns this fiasco now but the fact he let a crook like Schilling run free with tax payers money while he falls asleep at his post does seem a bit incompetent. Bet you that if the company would of came out successful Chafee would of been taking credit instead even if didn't do anything.

But doesn't this conflict with what Schilling said? Schilling said that Amalur was a success. That would suggest they had the money to pay the loan but still failed to make the payment. So what did they do with the money they made?

I'm just not sure why Mr. Steve Danuser would expect any more monetary help from a Governer who thought the original loan was a bad idea to begin with.  What happens if Mr Danuser got his help, and it still wasn't enough for 38 Studios to continue?  Then RI would have been out even more money.  I think Mr. Dansuer needs to point the fault finger at his own company's management for the reasons of 38 Studio's demise.

Just get everybody over at the Drunken Clam to chip in, this should fix things :p

This is obviously the type of guy who blames everyone but himself for things. If he was drowning would he blame it on God for not giving him gills?

I don't think any one person was responsible...

- Why was the loan offered to a new company, when for 75 mil they could have probably started up a new business instead of moving everyone.

-Why did the studio take it if it meant moving + interest (how much would be left for actually making a game to make the money back.

-Why did they spend so much of the money that they needed to sell 3 million copys of a new ip in a short time to break even

-why after everyone knew it was sinking into the shit didn't they replan the loan to give a chance of gettin the money back and keeping some of the 400 people in jobs... They had 2 more games on the go, which had a chance at least to make back the money.

How can so many poor decisions be made without someone butting in and just telling they're making a friggin giant mistake.

If a bank wouldn't trust this company, why did the government think it had a clearer view?

"My game failed to the tune of 1.7 million units short of breaking even, so it's definitely a political office's fault and not mine."  -An Unemployed Creative Director.

Is this guy serious? The governor's political career is at jeopardy because RI residents are most likely unhappy with how this turned out. So why would the governor short change 38 and risk his own career at the same time? Makes no sense to me. Anyway, how about Danasur blame his little baseball idol? Schilling obviously has no business in... business.

Its got to be the Rhode Island governor's fault, right? It can't possibly be due to budget mismanagement, failure to communicate effectively and/or developing a mediocre fantasy action RPG... riiiiight? 

so now US govs will tell u which game is fail and which not?

We need more Breiviks for USA  to awake that guys from idiocy. 

Rhode Island has been pulling this crap for years, luring business away from Massachusetts with loans and tax breaks, it's good to see it finally bite its government in the ass. I don't really care who is responsible.

This is just disgusting. "We just needed a little more help, and we thought the state would have our backs on that." Danuser, maybe you could have, you know, convinced people to VOLUNTARILY invest in your little project, if your company had any idea what the hell it was doing. Now you're blaming a politician for not screwing the taxpayers out of enough money to keep you going. The most useful thing you can now do for the world is to serve as an example of why it's unethical and stupid for business to get involved with government.

The disgruntled employee has a serious case of the entitlement mentality that has become so prevalent in the past few years.

Let's see here, Rhode Island has a population of apx. 1 million, lets assume only half of them are taxpayers, so that's $180 per person, so it could definitely be worse, for the taxpayers that is. It's pretty much as bad as it can get for the people that worked at 38 Studios... Man, this whole think is one giant cluster**** that never should've happened, I don't know who's fault it is, but I don't like Chafee, and something about Schilling rubs me the wrong way too.

I'm not sure what Chafee was supposed to do, throw more money at a failing company?  Rhode Island is already gonna be stuck paying off the rest of this loan, which ended up being a complete disaster.  The last thing the state needs is more money lost from this debacle.  He should probably be blaming Curt and the other execs running the show, because 38 Studios, from a business standpoint, was horribly mismanaged.

The quotes from Governor Chafee that I've read on Gamespot lead me not to trust him, so I'm more inclined to believe 38 Studios at this point.  Lumping the blame entirely on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is entirely dishonest as the game did well and was most decidedly not a failure.

The majority of the $75 million loan was going towards the MMO that was in development.  The only sane reason that the state of Rhode Island, as the primary investor, would choose to withdraw is if the MMO itself was looking to be a failure.  By instead making a scapegoat of Reckoning, I can only assume that Governor Chafee is attempting to pull the wool over the peoples' eyes.