The rights to 38 Studios’ Copernicus MMO and Helios gaming platform both failed to sell at auction earlier this week.
Intellectual property rights formerly belonging to the defunct 38 Studios went on the auction block earlier this week, but the money raised will do little to ease the financial burden imposed on Rhode Island by the studio’s failure. Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends, along with the Big Huge Games trademark, sold for a total of $320,000, but 38 Studios properties including the ambitious Copernicus MMO that ultimately brought the company down failed to move.
“The Receiver did not receive acceptable offers for the remaining lots, including Project Copernicus, 38 Studios’ in development Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, and Helios, 38 Studios’ integrated social media and gaming platform,” attorney Richard Land said in a statement.
Land said he would continue to “engage in negotiations” with interested parties but as Joystiq’s Alexander Sliwinski told WPRI, if the auctioneer could only get $320,000 for the Rise properties, which are “complete products that can be sold on digital distribution networks with minimal effort,” the odds of seeing a substantial return on an incomplete and notoriously troubled MMO are not good. And while 320 large is a hefty chunk of change for you and me, it’s only about one-third of one percent of the roughly $100 million the state of Rhode Island owes because of the 38 Studios collapse.
Source: WPRI
