38 Studios Founder is “All Tapped Out”

Former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling says the fortune he earned playing baseball is “probably all gone.”

A lot of people have been hurt by the collapse of Kingdoms of Amalur developer 38 Studios, not least of whom is Curt Schilling, who founded the studio in 2006. Schilling had amassed considerable wealth over a long and very successful career in Major League Baseball, but told WEEI Radio that he had personally sunk more than $50 million into the company, and now he’s “all tapped out.”

“I put everything in my name in this company,” Schilling said, “I believed in it. I believed in what we built. I never took a penny in salary. I never took a penny for anything.”

He also acknowledged that 38 Studios employees were “blindsided,” despite promises that they’d be kept informed and aware of any problems. “They have every right to be upset. I always told everybody if something were going to happen, you’re going to have a month or two of lead time, and I bombed on that one in epic fashion,” he said.

And he continued to insist that the studio’s survival was sabotaged by Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who before being elected Governor was a vocal opponent of the $75 million loan guarantee that brought 38 Studios to the state in the first place. Schilling claimed that the studio was about to sign a $35 million deal with a major publisher for a sequel to its first and only game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but the publisher backed out when Chafee made a public statement about the studio’s precarious financial situation. Prior to that, there had been no indication of trouble.

Compounding Schilling’s problems is a lawsuit filed by Citizens Bank claiming that he personally guaranteed $2.4 million in loans and credit, and the possibility of other lawsuits on the horizon. That sounds like a relatively paltry sum for a guy who made over $100 million in his career, but Schilling said he told his family last month that the money he made from baseball “was probably all gone,” adding, “Life is going to be different.”

Source: Boston.com

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