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Reload this Page Curt Schiling and the 38 Studios - $75m taxpayer money wasted
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Validuz
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1 - 06-21-2014, 15:57
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He put some millions into the company from his own pocket, but after failing to get investors, he got some retard governor from Rhode Island to foot the bill. It was approved by RI legislature almost unanimously.

Quote:
Rhode Island state police are seeking interviews with legislators as part of their expanding investigation into former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s failed video game company, 38 Studios.

Back in 2013 Reason TV looked into 38 Studio's $75 million state-backed loan scandal.

"38 Studios: Curt Schilling's Crony Capitalism Debacle" was originally released on Jan. 3, 2013 and the original text is below.

The 2012 bankruptcy of Rhode Island-based video-game developer 38 Studios isn't just a sad tale of a start-up tech company falling victim to the vagaries of a rough economy. It is a completely predictable story of crony capitalism, featuring star-struck legislators and the hubris of a larger-than-life athlete completely unprepared to compete in business.

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, an iconic figure in New England after anchoring a historic playoff comeback which ended a legendary 86-year title drought, founded 38 Studios near the end of his baseball career in the hopes of becoming a big shot in the intensely competitive multi-player gaming world.

Since 2006, Schilling invested millions of his own fortune into 38 Studios, and with the self-assured bravado he exhibited as a major league baseball player, set out to find investors to infuse his company with the roughly $50 million needed to complete 38 Studios' first game. Although Schilling is the kind of local legend who could get a meeting with every venture capitalist in New England, Massachussets VCs passed on 38 Studios. WPRI-TV's Ted Nesi reported that one such potential investor said "it would have taken a lot of babysitting to do a deal with Schilling because he was inexperienced and the management was inexperienced."

Finding no success raising financing in the private sector, Schilling turned to Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.), but the Patrick administration declined to get involved when "they couldn't make the numbers work for us."

Enter Gov. Donald Carcieri (R-R.I.), term-limited and searching for a legacy after presiding over one of the worst state economies in the U.S., featuring long spells of double-digit unemployment andfrequent last-place finishes in rankings of business friendliness. In a classic spasm of "do something, anything" government desperation, Carcieri made it his mission to lure 38 Studios from its headquarters in Maynard, Massachusetts to Rhode Island.

Using his bully pulpit as both governor and chairman of the Rhode Island Economic Devlopment Corporation (RIEDC), a quasi-public agency whose mission is to promote business in the state, Carcieri pushed hard for 38 Studios to receive a $75 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan.

Each loan guarantee must be approved by the Rhode Island legislature, and when the votes were cast in 2010, only one lawmaker voted against it. Rep. Bob Watson (R-Greenwich) noted "a lot of red flags" in a "very risky" deal that was "too fast, too loose, and frankly, a scandal waiting to happen." Watson added "more often than not, politicians are very poor when it comes to making business decisions."

Watson is clearly on to something, at least in the Ocean State. Some legislators later admitted that they did not realize that the loan guarantee meant to stimulate Rhode Island business, was in fact, only going to stimulate one business, 38 Studios.

In 2011, 38 Studios moved from Massachusetts. After little more than a year in Rhode Island, with monthly expenses approaching $5 million and their big game release more than a year away, 38 Studios began to unravel with stunning swiftness. In May 2012, 38 Studios defaulted on a $1.1 million loan payment to the RIEDC, then tried to deliver a bad check. Unable to meet payroll, the company laid off its employees in a mass email, with one employee learning of his new unemployment only after his pregnant wife was told at a doctor's visit that their health insurance had been terminated.

Schilling has been an outspoken "small government Republican" activist, who campaigned with President George W. Bush in 2004, but with his business in dire straits, he once again turned to the state for a bailout.

Unfortunately for him, Donald Carcieri had been succeeded as governor by Lincoln Chaffee, a Republican-turned- Independent and vocal opponent of the 38 Studios loan from its inception. Gov. Chafee sharply declined to to use any more taxpayer dollars on the foundering company, which Schilling described as a politically motivated "$100 million I-told-you-so."

After the company filed for bankruptcy, Gov. Chafee appointed the non-partisan Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) to produce a study that included an analysis of the collapse of 38 Studios and why the state's development agency, completely failed to monitor the taxpayer's investment. RIPEC's Executive Director John Simmons told Reason TV that the RIEDC lacked any meaningful "guidelines and principles" to effectively monitor the progress of the loan and report to the governor and the RIEDC's board.

Schilling, who claims to have invested $50 million of his own fortune in the company, now says that he is broke, and may have to sell some of the prized memorabelia from his baseball career, including the famed "bloody sock" from the 2004 American League Championship Series. 38 Studios' assests are being liquidated and the already economically depressed state of Rhode Island, thanks to the interest on the 38 Studios loan, is now on the hook for more than $100 million.

In November 2012, Rhode Island filed suit against Schilling and several former EDC board members alleging fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy. The lawsuit claims that Schilling and former EDC Executive Chairman Keith Stokes (who now works for the legislative lobbyist firm The Mayforth Group) knew the company would run out of money by 2012, but concealed that from the EDC before the loan guarantee was finalized.

Former Gov. Carcieri hoped 38 Studios would be the cornerstone of a new video game tech hub in Rhode Island. Instead, the fallout from the collapse and squandered taxpayer dollars will make the state unlikely to cut any more of what WPRI's Ted Nesi describes as "special, one-off deals with individual companies...picked by a certain group of people in state government."

Nesi adds, "You're always going to hear, 'Is this another 38 Studios?'"
Police Interviewing Legislators About $75 Million State-Backed Loan to Curt Schilling's Failed Game Company - Hit & Run : Reason.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBphK_v8H0I
 
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WarBuddha
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2 - 06-21-2014, 16:00
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Unable to meet payroll, the company laid off its employees in a mass email, with one employee learning of his new unemployment only after his pregnant wife was told at a doctor's visit that their health insurance had been terminated.
That's some **** right there
 
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brick
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3 - 06-21-2014, 16:00
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that company really went downhill
 
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Kismet
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4 - 06-21-2014, 16:01
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darpa gets 36 million 1/8 of obama's brain initiative money for technology that can help soldiers with brain injuries and ptsd and this guy gets 75 million for a pew pew fag game gj america
 
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kwolf
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5 - 06-21-2014, 16:02
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Curt Schilling the dragon-slayer..... by DocHolliday - TribalWar Forums
 
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buize
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6 - 06-21-2014, 16:04
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cur schilling worse buisnessman than juggernaut
 
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cogzinofa
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7 - 06-21-2014, 16:21
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didn't we already have this thread?
 
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Bughead
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8 - 06-21-2014, 16:22
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No Happy post yet? WTF?

 
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Odio
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9 - 06-21-2014, 16:27
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NB4HaPpY
 
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WarBuddha
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10 - 06-21-2014, 16:28
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Quote:
gherig38
Quote:
Originally Posted by DacTheHork View Post
Board Member:



ROFL

Another quote from a team profile
He's a board member, not a designer, and he's a board member because he was smart enough to be good at what he did and 'retire' at about age 35. Oh, he invented Mrs Pac Man too.




Quote:
Originally Posted by DacTheHork View Post
Seriously this project will fail so ****ing hard it isn't funny. **** the company is named after the guys baseball uniform number...
Ya, about as stupid as naming your company after a snowstorm. Like that's even relevant to this whole thing anyway? I love people like you. 2-2.5 years from now it's always nice to look back and wonder about the stable of people thinking, no wishing, you'd fail miserably.

It's always easier to root against people because so many people are in the 'misery loves company' camp. If they can't succeed and be great at something, no one else should either.

Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DacTheHork View Post
Two years ago he posted how they played warhammer table top at work. It's basically him throwing money away and eager beavers taking it willingly.
Really? Where was that post? Can you reference that for me? What I stated was I was a HUGE GW fan and that at lunch we had some awesome WH tabletop battles. Not sure how that came to be what you state above.

Oh and ya, 60 some odd people picked up their families, many leaving jobs with salaries in the six figures, just so I 'could throw money at them". Please.
Took me 1-2 lines in to your post to realize that while you may be labeled a 'veteran' poster, you don't know **** about making games or the people that do it. But you won't hesitate to blabber on and try to piss on peoples parades, because that's what makes people like you feel good.

Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DacTheHork View Post
sorry but tsetse I think you fail to realize how technical a project like this is. Even the very experienced people at mythic are overloaded with bugs and weird technical ****. Complete noobs with no great technical people are going to flop so hard trying to make a "world domination through gaming" mmo.
And you do? What is your background and expertise to make these observations? Or is 'how technical a project like this is" as deep as you can get? The guys at mythic aren't 'overoaded', their dealing with exactly what Mark expected when you make a behemoth like that, and their dealing with it just fine.
Complete noobs? Did you read anything on the site beyond Doug's profile? If you did then you are dumber than your post makes you appear. There isn't a noob on the development team. In fact there's about 75% of the team that has been part of a prior MMO that's been published, with many actually working together on a project.

Actually, if you look at them, the dev team for this IP is as accomplished and published as any team has ever been at this stage of their companies life, and even though it's going to sound biased, imo they are more talented than any group I've seen.

Time will tell, proof will be in the pudding, all that jazz applies here, but I'm comfortable in saying you made this post with zero experience in publishing a computer game of any kind, and after reading 1-2 bios in a company of 60+ people.
 
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Shiloh
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11 - 06-21-2014, 16:31
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tax payer money should never be invested in entertainment endeavors.
 
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Kismet
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12 - 06-21-2014, 16:33
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this and stuff like it are good indicators that american imperialism is about to completely die
 
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uno
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13 - 06-21-2014, 16:35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiloh View Post
tax payer money should never be invested in entertainment endeavors.
Olympics? World cups?
 
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Pagy
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14 - 06-21-2014, 16:35
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u kno who else has zero experience in publishing computer games?

curt schilling lols
 
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Kismet
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15 - 06-21-2014, 16:36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uno View Post
Olympics? World cups?
ya those things are great at improving society and deserve so much money totally
 
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uno
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16 - 06-21-2014, 16:47
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kismet View Post
ya those things are great at improving society and deserve so much money totally
Who said anything about improving society? He was talking about entertainment endeavors. Whose obsessed again dare?
 
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MaLicE
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17 - 06-21-2014, 16:59
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This is really, really OFN.
 
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Kerosene31
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18 - 06-21-2014, 16:59
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Didn't Shill even post here at one time?
 
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uno
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19 - 06-21-2014, 17:01
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There quotes from his posts on tw in this thread...
 
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Benzer
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20 - 06-21-2014, 17:03
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerosene31 View Post
Didn't Shill even post here at one time?
he is gherig38
 
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