Kingdom of Amalur:Reckoning, Why did it fail?

It seems like every other week I am seeing news feeds about Kurt Schillings and Rhode Island with the failed company 36 studios. The game that pretty much caused 36 studios to go bankrupt was Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning. The flip side to all this, if Reckoning had sold 7 million copies in two months the issue of bankrupcy wouldn't have happened.

Why did it fail? Why didn't people run out in droves to buy this video game?

Well for one the game was pretty boring. It's also the stupidest idea ever to invest so much money in a new unknown IP.

Hell, most games never reach 3M let alone 7M, they were out of their minds. It's like when SquareEnix expected Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs to reach COD or GTA numbers, morons

It's generic, bland, and lacks identity. Nothing fresh about the gameplay, environments, characters, etc. You can't put zero effort into your game world and simply lean on popular RPG traditions to carry the project. It won't be awful, but it won't be a best seller either.

7 million copies in 2 months is insane. Especially for a new IP.

What brought upon this madness? It's a completely unfeasible goal. Even 2 million copies would be a completely unfeasible for them - that's how far off base they are. I don't see who in their right mind would have given the people the money to make this game.

It makes me wonder if Reckoning was part of a plot to defraud someone, namely Rhode Island taxpayers. This was an effort for Kurt Schillings to fatten up his wallet and gave false hope it would succeed. Remember Rhode Island could lose up to $100 million on 38 studios, the question is where exactly did that money go to?

Reckoning did have a very limited character designs, weapon and armor sets. It was the kind of game they could have funded $3 million a year for three years on 40 people to complete.

You have no clue of what happened. First of all, 38 studios went bankrupt because of their MMO game that was never completed, not because of KoA. Secondly, Curt Schilling lost a bunch of money because of this, no way his plan was to get in so much legal trouble with the state of Rhode Island.

I know what happened, I read the same news reports. I know Kurt Schillings had auctioned his bloody sock for $90,000 to help pay back some of the money lost. I also know Schillings put in something like $20 million of own money into it.

The governor says Reckoning had to sell 3 million copies to break even, that would mean the game had cost around $60 million to make. Of a game that could have cost $15 million to make, there is something wrong with the picture. It might not have been Kurt, but someone else who was using this to get rich.

No triple A game can only cost 15 millions to produce nowadays.

I couldn't agree more.

Over-investment in a brand new (read: high-risk) IP by a start-up studio with no brand recognition (like, say, Bioware, Blizzard or Valve), which ended up producing a decent, but not ground-breaking, game. I bought it myself and liked it, but I was under no illusions; I knew It was doomed from the start.

….and now the SEC is getting involved regarding the loan the state of R.I. made to the studio. It ain't over yet!

Schilling auctioned off most of his stuff not too long ago.

It failed because not enough people bought the game to justify the price it cost to develop.

You realize it was the only game 38 Studios developed?

They were developping a MMO too, thats the thing that made them go bankrupt. At least google the thing before gas bagging about it ffs.

@RevanBITW:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/38-studios-spent-133-million-before-bankruptcy/1100-6388664/

38 Studios spent $118 million in the period between its founding in August 2006 and the end of 2011, before it began to take in any appreciable revenue from the release of Reckoning. When the role-playing game finally hit shelves it sold 1.3 million copies. For the company to make back its $28.7 million advance from Reckoning publisher Electronic Arts and begin to receive royalties, sales would have had to surpass 2 million.

Less-than-anticipated revenue from Reckoning and drying investor interest left the company unable to cover massive expenses laid down for research and development on Project Copernicus--$104.5 million as of March. That figure did not surprise National Alliance Capital Markets analyst Michael Hickey, who said a typical high-end MMO game will take "north of $100 million" to bring to market. The studio's six years of work and a development team of 400 (some of its hiring was encouraged by state loan job creation stipulations) raised the stakes for the project's success.

Kingdoms of Amalur's performance is just as responsible as the MMO for their demise.

MMOs are the most expensive kind of games to produce. KoA simply underachieved, Copernicus was a disaster.

I doubt any game besides AAA title such as GTA or BF/CoD or another WoW game could sell any close to 7m copies

It underachieved financially is what I meant.

i never played it but from reviews, pretty much had it out as being fairly simple and generic. but one thing also was the name was impossible to remember or even know how to say. most successful games series have had very simple titles or names....

examples...

Halo, Mass Effect, GTA, Civilization, Simcity, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Ultima, Need For Speed, Street Fighter, Warcraft, Starcraft, Final Fantasy

Keep the names simple but meaningful... i had trouble saying Deus Ex for a long time, but its at least memorable. For a new game property, the name has to be able to be remembered and not sound super nerdy like their game did.

For those who have not played Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning. The game is currently priced at $30 on steam and from start to finish could take over 100 hours of playing time. Its not a horrible game, I actually enjoyed my time playing.

The game isn't the worst out there, it's ok.

What turned me off is that it plays like an "offline" WoW. If I wanted that, I would just play WoW.

I wondering where did they spend so much?

The game doesn't seem to be that huge to cost that much.

Maybe because it was initially intended as an MMO?

Such a shame, because I was really looking forward to the MMO (Copernicus)

The combat was interesting, but the world, characters, and quests were so bland and mundane. I got about 20-25 hours in, and just gave up.