Curt Schilling: 38 Studios' MMO Project Copernicus "wasn't fun"

Curt Schilling admitted that his now defunct MMO at 38 Studios, Project Copernicus, "wasn't fun."

This information came about in an interview with Boston Magazine where the ex-baseball player and several of his employees dissected the fall of 38 Studios.

Schilling encountered numerous struggles in finding funding for the MMO, but he remained optimistic the entire time. "Curt sincerely believed that Copernicus was the best thing since sliced bread," a former employee said. He "could not imagine a scenario where other people would not see the same potential he did.

The money was only a secondary concern to Schilling. "The game wasn't fun... It was my biggest gripe for probably the past eight to 12 months." Evidently the combat lagged and no one seemed to be playing it around the office.

Despite being mismanaged, developed by a team with no MMO experience, and never coming to fruition, Schilling had some star power behind it with bestselling novelist R. A. Salvatore writing the lore and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane lending his hand towards the art direction.

Elsewhere in the rundown, Schilling claimed that publisher Take-Two Interactive was only a day away from signing on to publish a sequel to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, when Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chaffee went public with 38 Studios' financial woes after it had been late paying back a chunk of the $75 million loan Chaffee had invested into the fledgling studio with the State's money. Schilling insisted that Chaffee had a vendetta against him. "There was a concerted effort to make this not succeed," he said.

Take-Two refused to confirm this. "I am not aware that there were any negotiations," said spokesman Alan Lewis. "We do not comment on rumors and speculation."

Schilling also claimed that 38 Studios was close to signing a deal with Nexon and another unnamed Chinese partner, but both arrangements fell through.

As the studio collapsed, employees were left in the dark. Worse, their health insurance was shut off without notice - which one pregnant woman only discovered upon going to a doctor's appointment. The company that was supposed to handle relocation fees didn't finish the job, leaving several employees stuck with mortgages on their old homes as well, and bills that were supposed to have been handled through management hadn't been.

Last month Schilling finally admitted defeat and owned up to his mistakes. "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 lamented.