38 Studios Collapse

Before I get into the main point of this post, I have to say one thing.  It is now May 2012.  The market crash was at the end of 2008, about three and a half years ago.  The stock market is still kinda funky, with hiccoughs here and there, but it's not really doing flip flops anymore.  Things are on the up, honestly, just take a look at any S&P graph from 2008 to today.  So, this being said, when I hear about a decent sized company going down now, and they blame it on the 'economic downturn', I want to call bullshit.  At least a little bit.

38 Studios, a moderately sized video game manufacturer, has just let over 400 employees go.  38 Studios is known for developing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Owned by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who is renowned for being a three time World Series Champion (so of course this story caught my eye right off), 38 Studios is based out of Rhode Island and Maryland.  Earlier in the month Schilling asked the state of Rhode Island for more money for his new video game company.

What this tells me isn't really that the company has been hurt by the 'economic downturn' but that it was a new company with bad management.  Granted, Schilling, being a very successful Major League Baseball player, had tons of his own money to throw at the project, it could have, no, should have been a good investment if only it had been managed better.  Video games are only going to get bigger from here as they become more accessible, not only being on consoles and computers like they have been for decades, but now mobile phones and other handheld devices.  The video game industry is also constantly breaking new ground when it comes to new technology.  But this is stuff us video game nerds already know.

Pretty much what I see here with the collapse of 38 Studios is bad management and an owner who does not know the industry.  The man was a pitcher for most of his life, and there's a reason most MLB veterans go on to be announcers or managers, is because baseball is a crazy specific sport.  I love baseball, more than any Canadian chick should, but if this guy wanted to buy in to the video game industry he should have invested in one of the sports games companies like EA or 2K.

I'm sad to see so many trained and experienced personnel lose their jobs.  These people worked on their craft for years, only to have this happen to them.  But this isn't a sign that video games are going down.  They're not.  The video game industry is pretty cemented and can only get better from here.  We're almost out of this economic depression the world has found itself in, we all just got to be patient.

Adapted from the original post in The Boston Globe