@GalwaySmitty Not only does none of that have anything to do with the subject under discussion, it doesn't even have anything to do with the PERSON under discussion.
@MVan86 When the citizens of Rhode Island loaned the company $75 million dollars the governor has the same rights as any other investor. Rhode Island had no role in the collapse of 38 Studios; it collapsed because it overspent and mismanaged and was apparently even lying to its own employees about its financial solvency. The only role Rhode Island had was to delay the collapse.
If a game doesn't break even, let alone make a profit, for the company that made it, it's not a success. The governor was not reviewing the game; he was speaking as an investor. He (nor I) made any comments on how good the game was from a player's perspective.
@tedsini From a loan-holder's point of view, "failure" is based on profit. If the game has sold less than what it needed to break even, then it is a financial failure. There was no indication that 38 Studios was going to turn a profit - if they couldn't make money on the original, why would they do so on the sequel? The Old Republic's drop in players has many industry people questioning the economic viability of MMOs right now, so that also was in no way an indication of future profit.
Keeping quiet about a company's financial difficulties and lack of any clear path to profit does not make the situation worse. 38 Studios had shown an inability to make a profit with a $75 million loan and an inability to control expenses given their need to sell 3 million copies of Amalur to break even. Handing them more money would just result in more of the same. A company that was lying to at least one employee about having sold their home was not financially viable and was covering up its mismanagement and difficulties for some time. Your suggestion is that things would have been better if the mystery investor hadn't known the truth are unsupportable. If things really could have gotten better (and profitable) with that money, then there would be no reason to hide the truth from the investor and they would have invested regardless. The investor by simple logic would have bailed out only if they saw much lower chance of return on investment with these additional facts. In short, these were bad things and it was right of the Governor not to lie about them. Governor Chaffee is admired by people of both parties (which is how he won a three-race race as an independent) and there's no way he will be penalized on election day ***for telling the truth to the citizens of the state and not making a bad situation worse***.
@SpikeJones767 Governor Chafee is an honorable person (the only Republican in the Senate to oppose Bush on invading Iraq. Chafee eventually left the Republican party and successfully ran for governor as an independent. He's taken lots of other principled stands on issues like the separation of church and state (despite being a believer) during his term in office. He is, as NYC Mayor Bloomberg called him, an "honorable man" and would never "keep a lid on it" and deceive another company into investing in 38 Studios.
@ziproy Actually, the last time I checked the state of Rhode Island was still solvent while 38 Studios was defunct. Does that mean that corporations should stay out of economics? :-)
Seriously, Rhode Island didn't screw up 38 Studios and the Ron Paul fans just have to let that idea go. :-)
@RealFabioSooner Sigh. It's called economic development - Rhode Island attempted to bring something called "jobs" to the state and to increase its tax base. Unfortunately the company was shady and mismanaged and hid that from its own employees (as we see with the false home sale) let alone the state. It's not an epic conspiracy or a demonstration of some fantastical corruption. It's just a loan to a mismanaged firm. Happens all the time in the private sector as well as public.
@TomJimJack They "pulled their political strings" to make 38S mismanage itself, run out of money to pay its employees and lie to them about having sold their homes? Maybe you should be writing game plots....
@TheRez So... 38 Studios borrows money it can't pay back, mismanages costs to the point where they'd need to sell 3 million games to break even, doesn't pay employees and now we learn they lied to employees about selling their homes and this is all somehow the EDC's fault?? Seriously?
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