38 Studios

Denaut · Feb 13, 2013

I have little inside information about the downfall of 38, other than the foreknowledge to avoid that place like the plague.

Reading between the lines, what Moorgard posted sounds to me like the truth, but an extremely sanitized version of it. I am not saying it isn't what happened, just that things rarely (never?) work out that cleanly.

Utnayan · Feb 13, 2013

Moorgard_sl said:
You also don't know what Bob did or did not contribute. I do. Referring to him as a name drop shows disconnection from the facts.

Actually, I do know what he contributed. He was writing his new series of books while he was supposed to be outlying a world for your MMORPG. He was going to be what Tom Clancy was to Ubi-Soft. Aside from that, I would like your opinion on a few things.

1) What did you think of trying to distribute and deliver a multi-prong approach product and services set to an IP no one knew about? Nor if it would ever be successful anyway. My take: Instead of shooting for the stars and aiming for the moon, you folks managed to blow up the moon with debris and crash land in a desert. Jennifer McLean (As I had stated before in my wilder more cussing days - which are long passed now) was terrible for this position but gained favor with Curt Schilling because she was the only one that wanted to fund his projects when she was with Comcast. Brett Close saw the writing on the wall and left immediately when he saw it was going to fail - which was back in what? 2008? None of the pieces were in place. Rather than design a game, delusions of granduer kicked in while upper level management had dreams of selling Turnoch figures, card games, a comic book spin off, comic book tie ins with the game, Etc. This is all well and good if you have a popular game first. Maybe 38 Studios should haver concentrated on that. At any rate, most are going to be interested in the entire story of what went down, there is much more to the story than you will post here (And I can understand why) but I think you should know most readers here are smarter than that.

These are interesting asides to you, anecdotes to share on a message board.

I would say the same to you. Your anecdote being the Frogluk quest in EQ2. But, pot/kettle and all that. You did apologize however, and that is more than what anyone else did after 5 years of incomplete expansions, corrupt GM's led by George Scotto, and, in all actuality, stalling the genre at 430k by creating accessibility barriers of their own accord until two guys from tinsil town came into the mix and blew the doors off that stagnation.

It all looked like a clown show from the outside; I get that, and nothing I write here will really change that, or lessen the derision and dismissal that will forever be the public legacy of 38 Studios. But those who were a part of it know the truth of how special it was and could have been. And ultimately that's probably why I wanted to speak up now. I've moved on in my career, but I care enough about the people involved and the good work that we did to say my two bits.

I totally understand that much. I agree with you that there were good people there. Good people that lost their homes as 38 studios lied to them. As I (and to be fair, anyone with a pulse saw this coming) as Rhode Island was going to get foot with the bill of 38's failure. A state already in dire straits as it were. I know you are a good enough guy to feel the same in that regard and to not defend the people that had no care but for themselves while the workers you came to care about were expecting parents only to realize their health care just ran out as she was in pre-natal.

With that said, thanks for sticking around. It's a healthy debate.

Gaige · Feb 13, 2013

I feel bad that Moorgard is even here responding to Ut's drivel tbh. I mean it's been what four posts, and he is already on the pre-natal uninsured mother shit.

Cybsled · Feb 13, 2013

I never knew Moor was a monk ;o

OneofOne · Feb 13, 2013

slurp slurp slurp

Phazael · Feb 13, 2013

Airing this business out and discecting it will go a long way towards stopping this sort of short sighted failboat from happening again, as I see it. The MMO industry as a whole is completely tanked after this, unless you count those shitty gridfests the asians push out or the ever shrinking WoW playerbase. No one is going to want to take a chance on a new full MMO IP with any ambition thanks to the excesses that happened here and all the fallout from it. Doing a thorough post mortem might give someone a descent clue on how to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Like him or not, Ut is performing a valuable public service in this instance.

K13R · Feb 13, 2013

Gaige_sl said:
I feel bad that Moorgard is even here responding to Ut's drivel tbh. I mean it's been what four posts, and he is already on the pre-natal uninsured mother shit.

Moor a big boy he can take care of himself..

As far as health insurance which happens to be the industry I make a living in.

2 ways that happens both are dick moves.

One the company is fully insured collects premuims from there workers and covers any outstanding amount ie company pays 50% employee pays 50%. Monthy premuim payment is mailed to the insurance industry standard is around 60 days of no premuim payment claims are suspended 90 days group is canceled involuntary.

Two a company is self insured which means they pay all claims and small admin fee to the insurance company. Company collects premuims from there employees based on yearly expected claim amounts as well a chip in the remaining amount needed. Insurance company process claims sends bill to company along with adim fees company pays back insurance company. Same rules apply as above.

Now if the company wasnt collecting premuims from the employees might lessen the amount of shaft given if they were collecting them and not paying full shaft given.

Either way employees are on the hook for full amount of the claim ehich the provider well try and collect.

Now lets talk about giving the shaft to 14 year olds

Gaige · Feb 13, 2013

K13R_sl said:
Now lets talk about giving the shaft to 14 year olds

Gross, too old.

Moorgard_sl · Feb 13, 2013

Utnayan_sl said:
Actually, I do know what he contributed. He was writing his new series of books while he was supposed to be outlying a world for your MMORPG. He was going to be what Tom Clancy was to Ubi-Soft. Aside from that, I would like your opinion on a few things.

1) What did you think of trying to distribute and deliver a multi-prong approach product and services set to an IP no one knew about? Nor if it would ever be successful anyway. My take: Instead of shooting for the stars and aiming for the moon, you folks managed to blow up the moon with debris and crash land in a desert. Jennifer McLean (As I had stated before in my wilder more cussing days - which are long passed now) was terrible for this position but gained favor with Curt Schilling because she was the only one that wanted to fund his projects when she was with Comcast. Brett Close saw the writing on the wall and left immediately when he saw it was going to fail - which was back in what? 2008? None of the pieces were in place. Rather than design a game, delusions of granduer kicked in while upper level management had dreams of selling Turnoch figures, card games, a comic book spin off, comic book tie ins with the game, Etc. This is all well and good if you have a popular game first. Maybe 38 Studios should haver concentrated on that. At any rate, most are going to be interested in the entire story of what went down, there is much more to the story than you will post here (And I can understand why) but I think you should know most readers here are smarter than that.

I would say the same to you. Your anecdote being the Frogluk quest in EQ2. But, pot/kettle and all that. You did apologize however, and that is more than what anyone else did after 5 years of incomplete expansions, corrupt GM's led by George Scotto, and, in all actuality, stalling the genre at 430k by creating accessibility barriers of their own accord until two guys from tinsil town came into the mix and blew the doors off that stagnation.

I totally understand that much. I agree with you that there were good people there. Good people that lost their homes as 38 studios lied to them. As I (and to be fair, anyone with a pulse saw this coming) as Rhode Island was going to get foot with the bill of 38's failure. A state already in dire straits as it were. I know you are a good enough guy to feel the same in that regard and to not defend the people that had no care but for themselves while the workers you came to care about were expecting parents only to realize their health care just ran out as she was in pre-natal.

With that said, thanks for sticking around. It's a healthy debate.

You're absolutely right that there was more--much more--going on behind the scenes at 38 Studios than what I've talked about. My posts weren't meant to try to sanitize what happened; I have no interest in a cover-up, or of deifying people who don't deserve it. I simply can't distill 5.5 years of stuff down into a post or two on a message board. Things were...complicated. Any project of this size and scope is.

As far as the criticism of building an IP before the game, keep in mind that while we brought up ideas like books/comics/toys/other games, the team was still 100% focused on the MMO until the notion of buying BHG was brought into the picture. Yes, we crafted the lore and cosmology such that it had thepotentialto support other products, but we weren't spending active cycles developing those things. At least, until after the BHG acquisition and we started ramping up a few things as the MMO was getting closer to launch. In other words, prior to buying BHG, the plan was to launch the MMO, with a prequel novel, some toys, and maybe a graphic novel at around the same time so they could benefit from the presence of each other (in other words, not much different than how most game IPs are launched these days).

Others have made the case that we shouldn't have acquired BHG, because doing so took our company's focus away from the MMO. There is some truth to the argument about focus; personally, I went from being creative director on the MMO and spending all my time thinking about how to make the world come alive in that product to being creative director over the IP as its own entity, working across teams to ensure they tied together as pillars of a shared universe. That's a lot harder work than it sounds, especially when geography separates your studios. Hell, it's hard enough to keep one team on the same page unless you're sharing one contiguous open space (which, not coincidentally, we had in our Maynard office but did not have in Providence).

The counter to that is, as Curt has stated before, the acquisition of BHG changed the conversation with publishers and investors, instantly making 38 more compelling as a company. I can tell you, having been a part of pitch meetings with everyone from famous athletes to major CEOs to Hollywood producers to game companies, it certainly did have value. Did that value outweigh the challenges it brought? Would 38 Studios have succeeded or even survived without the acquisition? I don't know. I won't argue with whatever conclusions you want to draw.

Anyway, I don't have a lot else to say about it. Well, I do, but this isn't really the forum to do so. When I was out of work, a good friend of mine in the industry suggested I write a book about the whole thing, and I could do it as a Kickstarter to raise money that could be distributed to the 38 Studios employees who were screwed over by the company's collapse. It was a compelling idea as a way to get myself and the other folks some much-needed funds, but ultimately I decided not to do it because I couldn't tell the whole truth without hurting people I care about. My view would certainly be different than Curt's or anyone else's--truth is a matter of perspective, after all. But I could certainly write it; I was there when the company was a half-dozen guys sitting around one table, I was there when we carved away at the myriad of ideas to form the core of what Copernicus would be, I was there when we worked directly with Bob to flesh out the framework of that IP, I was there in countless interviews and meetings and story presentations and investor pitches and executive bitch sessions and visits to publishers and plane rides to China and all the highs and lows in between. It was a hell of a ride, and apart from the ending, a very positive experience.

It's also been suggested that someone put together an honest 38 post-mortem for its value as a cautionary tale. Well, I say we've done that, though not in any formal way. Certainly those of us who have spread throughout the industry have learned lessons that we're sharing with our new colleagues, so those truths are helping the industry get better. They just don't happen to be collected into a single place that could also serve to delight those looking for juicy gossip.

Hell, before I go on at length about 38, I should explain the floglok thing that keeps getting dragged around from message board to message board. But even with that, what's the benefit at this point? People (the few who care, I mean) have made up their minds about what happened, and aren't likely to believe me anyway. It's ancient history, as 38 will be one day.

Tearofsoul · Feb 13, 2013

The way McFarlane described it, Project Copernicus was very nearly a finished thing. "It's only ten yards away from the goal line," he explained. "If I had the extra cash I'd do it myself, because it's that cool."

(Project Copernicus talk begins at about the 5:20 mark.)

Kedwyn · Feb 13, 2013

Really nice to see people like Moorgard posting here. I'd love to see more developers posting again and hopefully they don't get run off like on FOH as over the years things slowly degenerated into who can be the bigger ass hole.

Thank you, I for one appreciate the insider view point.

Gaige · Feb 13, 2013

Moorgard_sl said:
I should explain the floglok thing that keeps getting dragged around from message board to message board. But even with that, what's the benefit at this point? People (the few who care, I mean) have made up their minds about what happened, and aren't likely to believe me anyway. It's ancient history, as 38 will be one day.

You got railroaded by the Froglok thing

Denaut · Feb 13, 2013

Moorgard_sl said:
You're absolutely right that there was more--much more--going on behind the scenes at 38 Studios than what I've talked about. My posts weren't meant to try to sanitize what happened; I have no interest in a cover-up, or of deifying people who don't deserve it. I simply can't distill 5.5 years of stuff down into a post or two on a message board. Things were...complicated. Any project of this size and scope is...

I feel compelled to spill a bit for somewhat personal reasons, so here is what I heard.

Someone I trust interviewed at 38 several months after half of Sigil was parking lotted. I was living very close at the time and I asked him how it went. He told me to stay far away, as you guys were making all of the mistakes we made on Vanguard, except much worse, and with a few more of your own on top of it. The difference being that the only thing your visionary was high on was his own ego. Curt just rubs me the wrong way.

From our conversation I surmised that basically the core team at 38 ended up doing no meaningful work in pre-production. When that happens, and you start rolling into actual production, all your giant staff has to do is churn out busywork. That catastrophic mistake has been made by, just about, every company that worked on an MMORPG to date. So you guys are not unique at all in this except for your media exposure and the rather large amount of money wasted.

The dirty little secret about lore is that most of it is utterly useless for actually MAKING a game. I am not saying there shouldn't be ANY lore, but it doesn't need to be detailed, just general outlines to inform game design decisions. And, frankly, docubating is a really easy job not worthy of all that much respect. It is something you do along side the real pre-production work like building tech, creating tools, designing systems, and so on. The only lore that matters is the content that ends up in the game, the stuff the grunts put in the database and the players experience, the rest is ego porn.

Given infinite time and money I don't doubt that 38 would have put out a solidly mediocre product, at many times the cost of other solidly mediocre products.

Pasteton · Feb 13, 2013

Confirmed utnayan alt?

OneofOne · Feb 13, 2013

How come what people say against 38 Studios usually sounds more plausible than what people say for it? Am I the only one thinking that?

Moorgard would come away far more authentic if he just said "You know, we did some things right, we did some things wrong, but I really don't feel comfortable talking about private stuff in a public forum. You guys like the direction VG is going now?" Instead of "We rocked, the world conspired against us, I can't tell you the details, but trust me, we had an awesome game that RI shit on."

etchazz · Feb 13, 2013

i find it ironic that the game was codenamed after one of the greatest minds that ever lived. seriously, after almost 7 years the game still wasn't even close to being completed. what the fuck were you guys doing? the only company that i've seen take longer to complete a project and spend as much money is PennDOT.

Utnayan · Feb 13, 2013

Moorgard_sl said:
It was a compelling idea as a way to get myself and the other folks some much-needed funds, but ultimately I decided not to do it because I couldn't tell the whole truth without hurting people I care about.

That is definitely your call, and a tough situation to be in. For me, it would have been pretty easy to take care of the people I cared about that got burned to help them out, rather than spare the feelings of those responsible I cared about who, really, didn't give a shit about the former.

With that said, everyone here I am sure appreciates what you can say about it, and it does take some guts to post here anyway. So giving you credit where credit is due.

I should explain the floglok thing that keeps getting dragged around from message board to message board. But even with that, what's the benefit at this point? People (the few who care, I mean) have made up their minds about what happened, and aren't likely to believe me anyway. It's ancient history, as 38 will be one day.

It's pretty simple, and you did get thrown under the bus. You were a community manager being told what to say, or not given the correct information. This was par for the course for SOE at the time, and ranged back into the earliest of the Fiery Avenger quest debacle. If I had to guess you didn't take any pleasure in it once you found out, which would be the polar opposite of "Ester the Tester", who would cherish making shit up and twisting the truth. One of her favorite lines, "Working as intended" when it all actuality, really was a warped sense of truth. Warders dropping cloth caps, working as intended. Which it was. Mobs without loot tables defaulted to this drop, as most now know. Large naked humans, the default (even though size needless to say would remain in tact) when the art asset design for that particular NPC wasn't finished. Correct in her again saying it was working as intended because the system displayed naked humans upon incomplete art. Yet this was another lie when McQuaid said they were busy revamping the current model of Kerafyrm. The sleeping portion was a Trakanon placeholder, but the art for the live version once the 4 warders were defeated was never complete. The plane of Mischief debacle, but worse, all the artificial bugs placed in the game to make sure people didn't get to unfinished expansion content. From my view is what all these time sinks were not placed into the game to give a player a sense of advancement and earning, but rather an easy way to make sure one part of a key quest drop to key into a zone that wasn't complete would never drop (Maiden's Eye key piece for Vex Thal in the SoL expansion for example, and countless other barriers(The Plane of Water graphical hitch created was creative)) Made the way the game was run from the middle, very shitty. The creme of the top didn't know (Smedley) and the folks like McQuaid, Butler, Waters, Fisher... they all knew a lot of what they were telling people were in the game was bullshit. When all that transferred into EQ2 as well, you can't fault a CM for that. You wanted to keep your job and advance, but I know you know it was wrong to do to a loyal customer base who just wanted to have fun and play through what they were paying for.

You talk about learning from mistakes, but the people that created those decisions have not learned from those mistakes. They continue making them. Worse, they just don't care. From Vogel, Butler, McQuaid (Hopefully he is just back designing and has no say in business decisions) and now Firor and with Jacob's even trying to make a comeback, these folks don't learn their lessons. Which, unfortunately, we continue to see today - but has turned the genre really into what it is. A series of PR hyped failures to cover up for production issues that have never been tackled accordingly because these same people lead the charge in the unethical. You would hope that one day this would change right? But it doesn't, and all it takes is looking at final product. Vogel with SWG's NGE, completely mismanaging SWTOR, and now, somehow, hired to lead another studio after sinking over a $300 million dollar blank check from EA. Hickman and one of the most bastardizations of a free to play system in SWTOR that has ever been seen, because he is a yes man and lacks the balls to ever do anything that makes sense. We all saw what happened to Vanguard. Although, publically here on the forums, when I was duking it out with McQuaid in 2005, he pulled gigantic liesout of his ass which then he admitted he lied about, along with showing humility in his drug issues. But this shit happens all the time, you know it. I know it. And it won't change because the same people are never held accountable and keep getting the slate passed because they "Shipped" (Insert title here) regardless of how it was received. Firor right now and his PR meddling Paul are sitting around pulling the same PR dodge game that most of the genre has always done. (Learning this from James Ohlen) Needless to say, another game that was stop started 3 times and has really only been in development for 15 months at this point, TES Online. Really shitty design decisions aside (Single server, all instanced over a 2k cap, access to content blocked by faction, outright lying/misleading about their engine - Hero Engine, heavily modified with padded parts from various other tools, etc.) it's another "Let's deflect all these questions because it will put us in a negative light, when all people want these days given what this entire genre has been through, is transparancy. Trade secrets account for 10% of holding information back. Promised exclusives to PR content providers, 15%. It may shock most that 75% of the time information is held back because they just don't know what the fuck they are doing, or what will ever make it into the game. I guess you could say that's a good thing so they do not overpromise and under deliver, but Jesus... The mistakes have been made right? Have they learned yet? No. Why? Because they aren't held accountableto need to change and learn.

It's really too bad and sucks for fans of the genre. To be fair, we both know this ineptitude and unethical behavior is industry wide at this point. Hell, look at Randy Pitchford's latest scam with Aliens Colonial Marines.

If you can do anything for the fans, me included obviously, is start bucking that good ol boy system and get real with the player base. Right about now, because of these relics that continue to hold down the genre, there isn't a publisher within the galaxy that would take a look at a new risk MMORPG which could break it back open again and create another subset market. Whic is why I will always point to what happens when you have new blood in the game that * Love * the games and the genre and can think outside of the box. The last time it happened was Afraisiabi and Kaplan who proved to the entire industry the market was most definitely not capped at 500k. Now all these publishers call it an ananoly because they can't copy the success. Why? Because they aren't busy trying to change the way the games are played, they are too busy hiring relics from yesteryear who mismanage titles into oblivion who are stuck in the past and cannot move their cheese, while at the same time telling them they need to be like WoW.

What a mess these guys created.

Gusgus_sl · Feb 14, 2013

etchazz_sl said:
i find it ironic that the game was codenamed after one of the greatest minds that ever lived. seriously, after almost 7 years the game still wasn't even close to being completed. what the fuck were you guys doing? the only company that i've seen take longer to complete a project and spend as much money is PennDOT.

I have been asking this question since the melt down. What the hell were you guys doing? That level of mismanagement seems almost criminal.

Dashiva_sl · Feb 14, 2013

Denaut_sl said:
The dirty little secret about lore is that most of it is utterly useless for actually MAKING a game. I am not saying there shouldn't be ANY lore, but it doesn't need to be detailed, just general outlines to inform game design decisions. And, frankly, docubating is a really easy job not worthy of all that much respect. It is something you do along side the real pre-production work like building tech, creating tools, designing systems, and so on. The only lore that matters is the content that ends up in the game, the stuff the grunts put in the database and the players experience, the rest is ego porn.

.

Got to agree here, I mean seriously who really gives a shit about the lore? I keep hearing how so much time was spent mapping out the history and lore over hundreds of years, and I can't help but think 'who the hell gives a shit'.

I would be far more interested learning who was the moron in charge of promoting the game, and where did you find them? I mean seriously to not show anything after four+ years of development screams incompetence.

Agenor · Feb 14, 2013

As far as lore goes, if done right it's a great tool for the game. In the age of GPS maps etc, lore has taken a back seat. Hints for quests, mob weakness and a host of other things use to be a way you could figure out something. Think there is still a place for lore in game.

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