TITLE
Thrown for a Curve in Rhode Island
AUTHOR
Matt Bai
PUBLICATION
The New York Times
YEAR
2013
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
Within a few weeks, Mr. Schilling, a novice in the gaming field, was wowing other local politicians with his outsize presence and his grand ambitions to build a Microsoft-like behemoth. And soon Rhode Island’s lawmakers were rushing to approve a deal to make the state Mr. Schilling’s angel investor. The tiny, struggling state issued $75 million in bonds so that Mr. Schilling’s company, called 38 Studios, could relocate to Providence and unleash the world’s next killer fantasy game.Ideas that seem plausible in our darkest moments often seem plainly flawed in hindsight, and you can probably see where all this is going. A little more than two years after Mr. Carcieri first talked to Mr. Schilling about 38 Studios — so named for his baseball uniform number — the company went bankrupt, blowing a sizable hole in the state’s already strained finances. And now Mr. Schilling’s headquarters on Empire Street, the brick building just a few blocks from the Capitol that was supposed to prompt a high-tech urban renaissance, sits locked and abandoned, like some ugly monument to political folly.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
38 Studios
GAMES MENTIONED
Project Copernicus [Amalur MMO]
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Curt Schilling
TOPICS MENTIONED
Canceled Games