38 Studios

38 Studios was an American entertainment and media company founded in 2006 by retired Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, the company was primarily focused on developing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) codenamed Project Copernicus, and a single-player role-playing game (RPG) titled Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

The company gained notoriety for receiving a substantial loan guarantee of $75 million from the state of Rhode Island as part of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation's job creation program. The loan aimed to incentivize the company to relocate to the state and create hundreds of jobs.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, released in February 2012, was met with generally positive reviews and respectable sales. However, these sales were insufficient to cover the company's significant development costs, which included the ongoing development of Project Copernicus.

In May 2012, 38 Studios defaulted on its loan payments to the state of Rhode Island. The company subsequently laid off its entire workforce and filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2012. The collapse of 38 Studios resulted in a significant financial loss for Rhode Island taxpayers and sparked extensive political and legal controversy.

The intellectual property of 38 Studios, including Kingdoms of Amalur and Project Copernicus, was later sold at auction. Kingdoms of Amalur was eventually acquired by THQ Nordic (now Embracer Group), who remastered and re-released the game in 2020 as Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning.