[Source] I am sure all of you, if not most, would have read about how game developer 38 Studios went bankrupt after launching Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the hit single player action RPG. According to the latest report, just before 38 Studios went down under, Nexon representatives visited the studio and “appeared interested in a deal”, along with an unnamed investor from China. Read the full article from the source.
Hopeless as things seemed, Schilling remained confident that yet another lifesaving deal was imminent. He still owned 82.9 percent of the company, and says he was willing to part with a healthy chunk of it to save the studio. In April, 38 Studios sent eight employees to China to meet with a potential partner. Then there was a South Korean video-game concern called Nexon, whose executives had recently visited the Providence office and appeared interested in a deal. And finally, Schilling felt that 38 Studios was close to a pact with the company Take-Two Interactive to publish a sequel to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
But when May 1 arrived, 38 Studios was unable to make its loan payment. That put it into default and set off a series of private meetings with Governor Lincoln Chafee’s office. Still, most staffers had no idea the company was in trouble until two weeks later, when, on May 14, Chafee told the Rhode Island media that he was working to keep 38 Studios solvent.
Schilling says the deal with Take-Two was ready for “final sign-off” the next day, May 15, but fell apart when the publisher got spooked by Chafee’s comments. Take-Two seems to have had a different impression, however. “I am not aware that there were any negotiations,” spokesman Alan Lewis says. “We do not comment on rumors and speculation.” You’d need a microscope to read between the lines of that statement, but it seems clear that nothing was imminent. Both the Chinese investor and Nexon disappeared, too. (Nexon declined comment.) Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, 38 Studios’ board of directors voted to authorize the company to go into bankruptcy, in case it became necessary.
