Buyers not lining up for unfinished ‘Copernicus’ game

One can only imagine how much time gamers would have spent trying to conquer 38 Studios’ “Project Copernicus” massively multiplayer online video game had it ever been completed.
The project former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s company worked on more than a year included an elaborate, medieval-themed, digital fantasy world for thousands of players to interact and compete in over the Internet.
Now the complexity of the unfinished game, the most significant asset left behind by the defunct company, is proving at least as challenging, and time consuming, to sell as it would have been to play.
Richard J. Land, the state receiver charged with recovering as much of 38 Studios’ assets as possible for its creditors, acknowledged this month that a potential deal for the remaining 38 Studios assets he had hoped to finalize during the spring had not come together.
“To be honest, I was hoping to have it wrapped up by now,” Land said about the sale of “Copernicus.” “There is progress to a sale being made. … I am hoping it is not months away.”
Even before a potential sale bogged down this year, the process of marketing the unfinished remains of “Copernicus” was proving to be an adventure.
Months after the bankruptcy, Land had been working on cataloguing, preserving and packaging work from the various games 38 Studios had been working on, including digital animation, characters, story lines and computer programs.
After auctions of 38 Studios physical property at its former Providence headquarters and Baltimore office in October 2012, an intellectual property auction was first scheduled for last November.
But citing a “strong response” of more than “two dozen” bidders, Land and Heritage Global Partners auction house postponed the sale until Dec. 10 to provide more time to collect offers. At the December auction, Global Heritage sold two games developed by 38 Studios’ Big Huge Games subsidiary, plus Big Huge Games’ trademark, to Microsoft, but received no “acceptable bids” for a host of other assets, including “Copernicus.”
Of the five parties that actively participated in the December auction conference call, Land this month declined to say how many of them, if any, are still involved.
As it stands, the remaining 38 Studios assets now include the rights to the “Kingdom of Amalur” fantasy universe, including “Copernicus;” sequel rights to “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,” the lone 38 Studios game to be commercially released; the “Helios” social media and gaming platform; and a few 38 Studios computers and servers that weren’t auctioned.
Since Land first began trying to sell “Copernicus,” the market for massively multiplayer online games, already competitive, has become even more treacherous.
Todd Mitchell, a senior analyst at Brean Capital LLC in New York who follows the video game industry, said MMOs are struggling to generate subscription revenue with competition from “free-to-play” games (which generate revenue from add-ons).
“In general, subscription-based MMOs are getting squeezed by a free-to-play model, which allows consumers to pay as they go, if at all, but it is a tough model to maintain,” Mitchell said in an email.
On “Project Copernicus” specifically, Mitchell said its value hinges on the attractiveness of the “Amalur” brand as established by “Reckoning.”
“Copernicus” was set in the “Amalur” fantasy realm. Other successful MMOs, such as “Elder Scrolls,” have built upon the mythical worlds of successful single-player games. But unlike “Elder Scrolls,” “Reckoning” was no blockbuster.
“ ‘Kingdoms’ was a solid game, if not spectacular, in terms of sales,” Mitchell wrote. “However, I question whether it established enough of a brand to really springboard an MMO.
“A year later, I highly question how much value, if any, the 38 Studios assets would hold,” he added.
The proceeds of any sales made by the 38 Studios receivership will go towards paying off creditors, of which the state of Rhode Island is the largest as a result of its $75 million loan guarantee to the company.
Factoring in interest, funds held in reserve and the $2.4 million already appropriated to pay back the 38 Studios bonds, Rhode Island currently owes $86.8 million, according to a report from state consultant SJ Advisors.
So far, Land has recovered $430,000 from the two physical-property auctions (an additional $400,000 from the auction was for leased equipment), $374,085 from Microsoft for the “Rise of Nations” games and at least $713,000 from retail sales of “Reckoning.”
Land said he reached a settlement with Electronic Arts earlier this year over ongoing “Reckoning” sales and, while the terms of that settlement have not yet been made public, “not much has changed” in what will be recovered from the $713,000 already reported.
All told that would bring the total recovered by the receiver to $1.52 million.
Looking ahead, Land acknowledged that all the time elapsed and negative press since 38 Studios collapsed has not helped the sale process, though he didn’t see a few more weeks or months necessarily adding to the problem. •

No posts to display