The fact that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning studio 38 Studios is no more is nothing new. What could be fresh news is that the studio allegedly burned through an astounding $133 million before it filed for bankruptcy.
According to a report from the WPRI (via Gamasutra), this amount falls in line with how much a studio would need to spend to pay for a big team of developers working on an online game for six years.
However, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee has accused the company of "living high on the taxpayer's dollars." In addition, Saul Kaplan, head of the Rhode Island group who loaned the $75 million in taxpayer money to 38 Studios, states, "38 Studios was hemorrhaging cash — our cash…The thing that is most amazing to me is their burn rate was about $5 million a month all through 2011, heading into 2012, and it didn't slow down even when they knew they were running out of cash."
$5 million a month? It might just be me, but shouldn't 38 Studios have abandoned the project a year after it realized it was bleeding money with no way to recuperate?
While it's no use crying over spilled milk, let's just hope future developers can learn a thing or two from this and avoid their mistakes.
