Jobs : Position openings at BW licensee - 38 Studios

from the Work in the USA dept.

38 Studios

• Project Art Director. Timonium, MD. (USA)
• Senior PS3 Programmer. Timonium, MD. (USA)
• Graphics Engineer. Timonium, MD. (USA)

38 Studios remarks on Storytelling at AGDC

from the Skip to the End dept

Gamasutra has some AGDC coverage of Steve Danuser from 38 Studios, one of the writers for Curt Schilling's upcoming BigWorld powered title, talks about some of the difficulties in writing for online :

"No one wants to read in MMOs. As much as writers want to think their quest prose is for the ages, reading is not a popular activity in online gaming. The genre is a bad fit for classic storytelling. The strength of the MMO genre is that it is a social medium, a communal experience with a shared narrative.

Giving players the tools to create their own story experiences within that narrative is what keeps them coming back to a game. Both directors firmly believe that MMO writers should be leveraging the strengths of both the medium and the playerbase far more than they do right now." - Gamasutra

More over at the article

38 Studios' Curt Schilling interviewed by Boston Globe

from the Older post but interesting dept.



38 Studios' famous founder and recently departed CEO Brett Close talk to the Boston Globe about the labor and challenges involved in raising capital for a massive online IP and gaming studio.

"Creating a massively multiplayer game can take several years and is akin to designing an alternate universe. It involves lots of artwork, animation, and software programming. While a feature film might have two or three hours of music written for it, for instance, a team of composers at 38 Studios is writing 80 hours of music to accompany every possible game scenario. Additionally, the environments and characters are sketched first, then built in the computer as 3-D digital objects. Then, there must be testing. WoW was in development for five years."

Link to The Boston Globe

38 Studios hires Jennifer MacLean from Comcast as BDM

from the World Domination through Gaming dept.

BigWorld licensee 38 Studios, helmed by famed baseball celebrity Curt Schilling, has announced its appointment of Jennifer MacLean, former VP at Comcast as their Business Development Manager. With such cultural luminaries as Todd McFarlane and R.A Salvatore pumping their peculiar brand of story-line and artwork into the studio, MacLean will have plenty of content to work with on their upcoming BigWorld powered online game.

"MacLean’s responsibilities at Comcast included interactive entertainment strategy, business development,and product management. She spearheaded products including Chill, Comcast’s multi-platform casual games product line, and GameInvasion.net, the company’s video game news and content aggregator site and Video on Demand offering. MacLean also negotiated, implemented, and managed major partnerships for Comcast including Electronic Arts, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Fox Sports, Real Networks, Oberon Media, and Microsoft. Products under MacLean’s watch delivered more than three million client installations and 30 million downloads."

Full text here, and other references here, here and here.

38 Studios selects BigWorld

from the Let's put the band back together dept :

"MAYNARD, MA, February 26, 2007 – 38 Studios (www.38studios.com), a pioneering entertainment force delivering a broad spectrum of immersive products, today announced the company has entered into an agreement with BigWorld to license its BigWorld Technology Suite. The licensed engine will provide 38 Studios with the tools and technologies to support an unparalleled OEE™, (Online Entertainment Experience), for its upcoming massively multiplayer online game.

“BigWorld provides the most proven, robust and technically solid game engine and toolset available, while still allowing us to be flexible and tailor the technology specifically to our game,” said Jon Laff, 38 Studios’ Chief Technology Officer.

Led by the artistic vision of Todd McFarlane and the enthralling storytelling of R. A. Salvatore, 38 Studios is developing an original IP – a world made up of fantastical elements, settings, characters, creatures, rules, and experiences. The IP will encompass multiple media forms including the online game experience that is currently scheduled for release in late 2010."

R.A Salvatore. McFarlane. Curt Schilling. Laff. Close. These guys may be serious. Says it all really - although if that isn't enough for you, President Brett Close had some other choice comments to offer over at Ten Ton Hammer.