38-studios posts

The late US Senator Ted Kennedy was laid to rest this past weekend but speculation has already begun on who will be taking his place as one of the two US senators from the state of Massachusetts. As it turns out, one of the people who might be interested is Curt Schilling, the founder of MMO game developer 38 Studios.

Schilling's official blog site has him directly addressing these rumors. He states, "While my family is obviously the priority, and 38 Studios is a priority, I do have some interest in the possibility." He added, however that " . . many many things would have to align themselves for that to truly happen." The former Boston Red Sox pitcher and major MMO game fan founded 38 Studios a few years ago but so far they have not yet revealed any details on their upcoming title.

[Via Game Politics]

Curt Shilling's MMO game development company 38 Studios has a new CEO. Late on Friday the company sent out a press release announcing that Brett Close, who held the position since 2007, is leaving "to pursue other opportunities".

However the company has quickly promoted from within to fill the CEO slot by putting in their now former senior vice
president of business development Jennifer MacLean into the position. Unlike previous CEO departures from other game companies this one seems to be amicable with Close even offering a quote in the press release saying, "I leave with confidence in the future success of the company and have no doubt its products will excite gamers worldwide."

[via email press release]

It's been some time since now former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling announced that he was forming 38 Studios, a game development company that is working on a fantasy MMO game with the code name "Copernicus". Since then the game itself has stayed mysterious while 38 Studios made a major acquisition this year when they bought the development studio Big Huge Games from publisher THQ.

The Boston Globe web site has an update on what's going on with the company. The article has an actual target day for the release of 'Copernicus" saying that 38 Studios is targeting December 2010 for its tentative release. However the article also points out that any AAA MMO game needs a ton of money to develop it to completion. So far Schilling has been the company's biggest investor but has failed to attract any other outside investors to help out.

Update: Our sister site Joystiq has received official word from 38 Studios that the release date mentioned in the Boston Globe story is incorrect and there is no set release date. However, 28 Studios is planning to finally release details about the game sometime in 2010.

While there were a few rumors that hinted this might happen, today developer 38 Studios made it officially, saying they have acquired the Maryland-based dev studio Big Huge Games. The studio, best known for their Rise of Nations RTS series, was acquired by THQ in early 2008 but was one of the dev teams that THQ decided to cut or sell off in its quest to stay financially solvent earlier this year.

Although (as usual) specific financial numbers were not disclosed, 38 Studios has acquired "all of the company's proprietary IP, tools, technology, assets, and works-in-progress" from THQ. That apparently includes their upcoming RPG that had some screenshots and a trailer leaked on the Internet some weeks ago. The Big Huge Games teams will remain in their Maryland studio while 38 Studios stays in Boston to work on their upcoming mysterious MMO game.

It's been expected for a few years now but this week Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling made it official. He's retiring from baseball after a career spanning 23 years and three World Series wins (technically he's been retired for longer than than; he sat out last season due to an injury).

While Schilling didn't mention it in his retirement blog post on Monday it's likely that he will now devote much of his professional life to 38 Studios, the game development company he founded back in late 2006. The company has been working on a fantasy MMO code-named "Copernicus" but so far little concrete info on the game has been revealed.

While not as big as the San Diego Comic Con the New York Comic Con has grown by leaps and bounds in its short history; it was launched in 2006 with about 20,000 people but by last year's edition attendance had grown to 64,000 people. The 2009 show is being held on Feb. 6-8 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City and the show will have a surprising amount of game-related panels.

Panels at the show will spotlight, among other games, Prototype, Warhammer Online, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online, X-Men Origins Wolverine, Wanted, and the still mysterious 38 Studios. The Penny Arcade team will also be making appearances at the show. In addition Activision, Atari, Codemasters, Konami, Mythic Entertainment, Southpeak Games, Square Enix, Ubisoft and others will have exhibits on the show floor. All in all it's not a bad line-up of companies and activities if you are a gamer in the NYC area.

Game Politics has been doing an excellent job covering which game developers and game industry executives have been contributing money to the various US Presidential campaigns. It shouldn't come as a shock that most of them are Democrats who have given money to that political party's nominee Barack Obama.

So far nine game industry members including Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, Take Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick, Rockstar Games co-founder Sam Houser and Sony Online CEO John Smedley have all given money to Obama's campaign. Only three gaming reps have given money to the Republican candidate John McCain; Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling and, in what might be a surprise to some, Maxis founder Will Wright.

In the PC game industry there are really only two types of games; those that are announced and those that are being developed currently in secret. These titles are what we are calling "black ops games". These are the titles that we know are in development but at the moment there's very little info on what these titles are even like, much less any word on a release date.

We have seen an example of this type of game earlier this week when it was revealed that Ensemble Studios was working on a planned MMO based on the Halo franchise. That game was canceled before the title was even announced and history is full of similar games that were being worked on but were canceled before they were officially revealed (of course there's also been a ton of games that were fully revealed but then canceled before their planned release...but that's another feature story)

So are there such black ops titles currently being made right now? You betcha. They are being created by the top developers in the business and range from first person shooter titles to RTS games to MMO projects. In this feature article, Big Download will take a look at a number of these games, some of which you may note even be aware of. However this is only the tip of the iceberg as many other PC games that we know nothing about are currently being developed as we speak...unannounced and still in the dark.

38 Studios, developer of an as-yet-unannounced MMO, has announced that it will use NaturalMotion's morpheme animation engine, reports Develop.

"When selecting middleware we are very careful to find solutions that enable us to focus our attention on our game," said Jon Laff, chief technology officer for 38 Studios. "Morpheme allows us to create very high-quality character animations quickly, cutting down on a lot of intensive animation design and implementation time."

Formed by baseball legend Curt Schilling, 38 Studios' mysterious MMO has talents such as author R.A. Salvatore and artist Todd McFarlane contributing their considerable skills to the work.

38 Studios -- a new development house working on an MMO codenamed Copernicus -- announced today that award-winning artist Thom Ang has joined the company as Director of Art. Previously, Ang worked for THQ and Electronic Arts. The Medal of Honor series is among his credits.

38 Studios was founded by professional baseball player Curt Schilling -- an all-too-rare combination of jock and geek. The company is in the pre-production stages of development on a mysterious massively multiplayer game. The game's staff includes famed comic book artist Todd McFarlane and fantasy author R.A. Salvatore. Not much else is known about the project at this point.