@mrboone01 LOL. LOOOOL. How was your comment funny? It still makes no sense. Whether KoA was amazing or not, I fail to see how the mere act of releasing it somehow "screws it up for the rest." It doesn't. Lol.

@sasabig Really? TOO honest? Yeah, sounds like your life is hell. Honestly, thank you SO MUCH for providing me with this site, it's sure to fill the lonely void in my miserable life. P.S. Shut up.

@strawberry9 I don't think it was any worse than Skyrim. That game was damn unplayable, and I'll never understand what people see in it. Terrible voice acting, close to no story, outdated combat. What IS cool is that you're free to explore at your leisure, but it fails in almost every other conceivable way. But hey, everyone seemed to love it, so I'll go ahead and assume I'm crazy on this one. Perhaps it's because I don't mod games; I can see how that would make it much more interesting.

@demonhellcat Unless I'm mistaken, they had to take that many employees to qualify for some of the subsidies they were getting from RI, in the name of providing employment. I think it was, at some point, was mentioned somewhere on their forums.

@Nodashi It certainly wasn't that "bold," except in the sheer size of the game. I agree much of it, combat aside, had a very vanilla flavor to it. At the same time, it was incredibly polished, and I think pretty fun for at least the first half of the game. It was a first effort, and had a lot of room to grow. I thought even the expansions, which were completed shortly after the game, were already taking steps in the right direction, and were more interesting than the basic game.

Also, let's be fair, Fable 1-3 got quite a lot of talk, and decent acclaim, and I thought that game was garbage. Basically an inferior version of Amalur in every way, with an even more generic story and even less challenging than Amalur. Again, Amalur wasn't the be-all-end-all, but it was a decent start.

@Feyd87 While I agree, there was some indication that the figure 3 million+ was gross speculation, and not in actual accord with what the company needed to be profitable.

There's a lot of speculation flying around now, but consider page 3 of this thread off of the Amalur forums, the last post by Falkon. http://forums.reckoning.amalur.com/showthread.php?10103-To-Those-Pissed-at-38S-amp-Curt-Schilling/page3

It sounds a lot like what happened to Washington Mutual bank, but even worse. In that case, the feds swooped in prematurely and dismantled a bank that still had substantial holdings in assets, and essentially took control of the bank, then sold it to Chase for dirt cheap, screwing over everyone who was an employee of WM and turning their shares into s#$% overnight.

In this case, the worthless R.I. governor starts running his mouth about how 38 is belly-up, when an examination of the facts suggest that while they possibly shouldn't have jumped into the risky venture of MMO development so soon, their existing loans (mostly from private investors) and the stream of revenue that would soon come in from royalties and online sales meant that there was no reason this company had to go down so soon.

As I do not have all the facts, I'll refrain from getting overly speculative, but at a bare minimum, it seems like RI (governor) employed some unsound business tactics. It just smells foul. The governor essentially sabotages 38 by scaring away any investors at a critical juncture, then it seizes the Amalur IP, and probably sells it off for pennies on the dollar to some "lucky" company. Hmmm...

@dubplanet I tend to agree with Manveer Heir and your post. It seems like something was foul here. If what I'm hearing was true, and they needed 3.some million sales just to BREAK EVEN on this game, then that's absurd. Most good games don't sell anywhere near that. Assuming a brand new IP is going to pull that out of a hat...what were they smoking? I don't know who's to blame, but I hope the right people are held accountable, because it seems like some reckless disregard for common sense was to blame for at least some of the company's problems.

@Salt_AU I agree with your statement "when it releases, will be huge." I'm actually not so positive that it will have the staying power WoW did. It might, IF they're innovative enough to recognize the need for change. Despite what the haters say, Blizzard is a fantastic developer, and their products, as you say, win me over because they're polished like none other.

The one problem I see is that their subsequent attempts in a genre: StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, while amazing in their own right, don't really push the bounds of innovation. Combine that with the fact that gamers seem increasingly fickle and the market is crowded with titles, giving gamers increasingly more options to choose from. The result I see is that even Titan, which is guaranteed to be an initial success, will wane after a year or two if there isn't something really genre-redefining about it. I loved MMOs at one point, but I think most people are sick of the standard MMO. Heck, I love Diablo (as a universe, much more than WoW), and I'm very doubtful that many people are going to be playing D3 10, or even 5 years from now like its predecessor. The gaming scene has changed.

@shadowmage101 Bethesda couldn't even handle keeping a console game stable, I have serious doubts as to whether they can handle an MMO. Beyond that, it appears like it will be another generic entry into the genre. I could be wrong, it might somehow draw fans, but the reaction I've seen from most ES fans suggests nobody wants an MMO; instead they'd like an ES 6 with more substantial improvements (especially to combat) than Skyrim offered.