Kingdom of Amalur Devs in Trouble?

Reports have been coming out of Rhode Island that the government is worried about its $75 million investment in 38 Studios, developers of Kingdoms of Amalur. The Providence Journal reports that RI Governor Chafee has been meeting with the studio quite a bit recently in a bid to “[keep] 38 Studios solvent.”

This comes almost a full year after PricewaterhouseCoopers had “substantial doubt” that the company could remain solvent and after a controversial decision by the previous governor, Don Carcieri, to give the funding to the studio founded by former Red Sox player Curt Schilling, who was also a friend of the governor, in a bid to draw them away from Massachusetts.

While Kingdoms of Amalur did reasonably well the concern is over the studio’s next game Project Copernicus, an MMORPG set to be released this fall, since that’s where most of the $75 million went. Things have not been looking good for 38 Studios recently, especially after they cancelled their E3 showings.

At this point, 38 Studios should be praying that their MMORPG becomes a huge hit before they become like other studios who release a decently performing single player title and then jump straight into the MMORPG market.