38 Studios in Hot Water

Category: Gaming
Posted: May 18, 2012 06:12PM
Author: CheeseMan42

38 Studios is the game developer behind Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and was started by former Major League pitcher Curt Schilling. The game has enjoyed a reasonable amount of success, selling nearly 1 million copies. However, not everything is looking up for the company or the state of Rhode Island which provided a $75 million guaranteed loan to help lure the company to the state from Massachusetts. The deal that looked promising from the start with the star power of Schilling and the down economy of Providence hasn't panned out. The company has reportedly missed a $1.1 million interest payment due at the first of this month and claims it doesn't have enough money to pay its employees. 38 Studios is scheduled to pay $12.7 million to the state per year until 2020, but at this rate it looks like the taxpayers of Rhode Island might be on the hook for the money.

Since when can a company get a $75m loan from the government? Isn't this what banks and investors are for? I'd be pretty cheesed off if someone was playing dragons den with my tax revenue.