The latest twist in the downfall of Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios has seen the US State of Rhode Island take control of the game developer’s remaining assets. Rhode Island’s economic development agency and the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (the trustee for a $75 million USD loan to 38 Studios) were granted possession of the assets by Judge Mary Walrath at a Delaware bankruptcy hearing yesterday.
Both parties will now attempt to sell the assets, the bulk of which will surely be intellectual property, in an effort to offset the losses taken in investing in the studio.
In court papers, the economic agency stated that they stepped in to secure the assets in order to prevent the intellectual property becoming “irretrievably lost” if computer equipment previously owned by 38 Studios was simply abandoned (or splintered by being sold off to multiple parties).
The next step will presumably be an effort to find a publisher willing to pick up a second-hand (albeit unreleased) MMO. Any sales pitch may be hampered slightly by former 38 Studio head Curt Schilling’s recent statements that Project Copernicus “wasn’t fun” to play.
Source: Bloomberg
