38 studios Auction Nov 14th and 15th.

Cantatus

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Smedley's remark about the auction is interesting (and the way I felt about it too , not as a gaming industry person though so had no idea what an IP like that was worth , just seemed to me not worth buying )

" anyone with a brain could have told them no one would buy it. They contacted us and I told them so."
There's a part of me that can't help but wonder if that hasn't been the intent right along. If Rhode Island sells Amalur off and that company takes it, polishes it up, and releases what becomes an extremely successful game, doesn't that lend some credence to Curt's claims? By asking such a ridiculous price for it, Rhode Island can make it look like they made a good effort at selling if off, but can go back to voters and say, "See? All that money was poured into that game and no one even wants it! We were right to pull the plug when we did." Which, if this is the case, makes it a little ironic that Curt reinforces the amount they are trying to auction it off for.
 

Flight

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John Smedley ?@j_smedley Feb 10
@posion00 @gehrig38 I had the good fortune of seeing the game. It looked great. If that idiot Governor Chafee hadn't trash talked

John Smedley ?@j_smedley Feb 10
All he had to do was give Curt another week and we wouldn't be here today.


Always said this. Curt and 38S made many mistakes but they could have got the game out of the door if Chafee hadn't used the situation and closed the company down before he should have.
 

Soygen

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Assume Smed meant that Ngruk needed one more week to obtain additional funding. (Schilling said he has investors right up to the last minute and needed 1 week more)
I can't imagine those investors couldn't have still saved the company, had they truly believed in the product/investment.
 

Kirun

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Not always that easy. People can have assets tied up and need time. Not everyone is sitting on a liquid pile of cash.
Which I can buy, if they needed a fewmonthstime. They needed one week and couldn't get it? Bullshit. With that short of a time-frame, there's no way Curt couldn't have leveragedsomethingto buy them the week needed.
 

Eomer

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Which I can buy, if they needed a fewmonthstime. They needed one week and couldn't get it? Bullshit. With that short of a time-frame, there's no way Curt couldn't have leveragedsomethingto buy them the week needed.
What Smedley apparently meant, and what Curt has always claimed, was that Chaffey scared off the investors with his public comments. It wasn't about finding dollars to keep it going for another week, it was needing another week to seal the deal with investors. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea.
 

Aeiouy_sl

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Which I can buy, if they needed a fewmonthstime. They needed one week and couldn't get it? Bullshit. With that short of a time-frame, there's no way Curt couldn't have leveragedsomethingto buy them the week needed.
Again sometimes it just doesn't happen in time. It is likely any deadlines had already been stretched to be drop dead.

There is no magic way to make money appear nor is there a way to sometimes get one more extension after the previous nine.

I have been on both sides of this before with businesses. You are taking this particular moment out of the context of the entire circumstance.

Plus giving what is being said the governor's comments sabotaged the final week. Once that happened time was up, so there was no chance to expedite it anyways. I doubt the governor said "I am about to blow your shit up!" The way this reads to me is they needed a week to extend things and they got sideswiped by the governor. Once that happened it was over.

I don't know what happened or pretend to know. As someone who has owned many businesses I find what went on with that company to be absolutely absurd. I am just saying that sometimes time runs out.

It is a bit disingenuous for schilling or smedley to say they needed one more week. They had months and months and then some. So scapegoating the governor seems misplaced. That doesn't change that they might have been able to completed things with another week. Given the track record that seems unlikely. I am not defending their position I am just saying it is entirely possible for business deals to fall apart that close to completion. I have seen more viable projects and deals fall short by only a small amount of time.
 

spronk

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curt was talking to asian investors about possibly investing in the company, and they backed out. In his mind it was the gov's statements that did it, but that is his constant delusion popping in again. No investor, after carefully looking at this company, would put a dime into it after doing the calculus of "how much more money would it take, how much money will I make".

So after that extra magic week they, and anyone else, would also walk away after realizing how badly managed it was. Plus asian "investors" tend to not really be investors, but instead use it as an opportunity to look at your shit, figure out what they can copy, and cooly walk away.

Shit, didn't that Wakandan see Batman: The Dark Knight? Thats what Bruce Wayne and Morgan Freeman did to the asian!!
 

TrollfaceDeux

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curt was talking to asian investors about possibly investing in the company, and they backed out. In his mind it was the gov's statements that did it, but that is his constant delusion popping in again. No investor, after carefully looking at this company, would put a dime into it after doing the calculus of "how much more money would it take, how much money will I make".

So after that extra magic week they, and anyone else, would also walk away after realizing how badly managed it was. Plus asian "investors" tend to not really be investors, but instead use it as an opportunity to look at your shit, figure out what they can copy, and cooly walk away.

Shit, didn't that Wakandan see Batman: The Dark Knight? Thats what Bruce Wayne and Morgan Freeman did to the asian!!
this is true. asians do same stuff to asian on smaller scale too.
 

Soygen

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Asians are good at math. It probably took them 4 seconds to calculate the risk.

"You spent how much on chairs?!"
 

Denaut

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Smells like feces to me.

Out of curiosity I looked up Chafee's comments. Found this bit from aNew York Timesarticle:
As Mr. Schilling scrambled for backing and failed to make his payroll for three consecutive weeks, Mr. Chafee publicly called the console game a ?flop? and said 38 Studios was ?just the worst investment that?s ever been made, I think, in the history of Rhode Island.? He also accused 38 Studios of trying to pass the state a bad check. By the time 38 Studios closed its doors for good in June, dismissing hundreds of employees in an e-mail, the company listed $150 million in debt, $22 million in assets and $320 in petty cash.
I don't see how his rather truthful comments sunk his "1 week away deal." I suppose it is possible was that the potential investors were somehow deceived and Chafee's public just comment let them know the truth, which caused them to pull out. It sounds ridiculously implausible to me, especially considering all the other evidence we have.
 

Siddar

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I would say that the above statement effectively ended any chance of 38s getting any new investors regardless of it being true are not.
 

Ambiturner

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Sounds completely plausible to me. If he was trying to get other investors, there's no way he'd tell them what a train wreck it was. You pitch things in a perfect world full of best case scenarios. Another investor, who has everything to lose by sinking his own investment, saying how stupid of a move the investment was will kill your chances of getting any more investors.

I'm not saying that there definitely were investors or that the week would have made any difference, but those comments really are a self fulfilling prophecy