How Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning Nearly Bankrupted An Entire State
Rhode Island gave Curt Schilling $75 million to make a game. It didn't end well.
For those of you who’ve not played it, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a single player action RPG made by 38 Studios and in short, it’s actually pretty great. What wasn't so great was its troubled development, which was not only filled with more issues than a Christmas re-run of Jim'll Fix It, but led to events that nearly put an entire local economy on the breadline.
That story, however, is amazing.
We begin with its conception. The game was the brainchild of Curt Schilling and his development company 38 Studios. Now if that name seems slightly familiar to some of you, that’s because that’s the same Curt Schilling that pitched for the Phillies, the Diamondbacks and the Red Sox. Keep this in mind as we continue our journey.
Schilling was a huge fan of gaming, both table top and video game, and would frequently attend conventions for both - even starting his own in some instances. However, one franchise that he became heavily involved with was World of Warcraft, to the extent that he even ended up being a regular guest on WoW-centric chat "The Instance".
His time with the game clearly had an influence on his next business decision, as in 2008 he announced that he would be working on his first video game title, one which went under many codenames - most notably Project Mercury. It'd eventually become known as Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
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