Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: 38 Studios

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

38 Studios

Why are there not stories six ways to Sunday about 38 Studios?

Formerly Green Monster Games, the smartly renamed game studio that had been unfairly simplified as "the house that Curt Schilling built". (If you don't know who Curt is, go away, become wise in the ways of history, and return.)

The Maynard, MA-headquartered game development studio is a machine of creativity and proven-ticket-producing industry folks.

There's Brett Close as President and CEO (probably so he doesn't get bored), who helped build the Midway Austin studio (and has done it at least a couple of other times, with EA-LA and VR1).

There's Todd McFarlane as the Creative Art Director and Concept Artist. Todd's a self-espoused "pop-culture machine", and I'll totally give him that.

There's R.A. "I killed Chewbacca and gave you Drizzt Do'Urden" Salvatore as Director of Creative Content / Storywriter (sorry about the Drizzt spoiler).

There are also super respected games industry folks like Scott Cuthbertson, Chaz Sutherland, Brian Jones, Steve Danuser, and on and on.

They're working on an MMORPG (yeah, so's my grandma).

But they're going to make it big. They're going to make it good. They say they're keeping the basic formula simple (Toddy actually said that; that's saying something for Toddy; wonder if he hates being called "Toddy").

They'll also be looking at media intersection with wireless and comic books and other media. I'm sure they'll be looking at licensing (pfft, it's McFarlane -- are you surprised? Dude just opened a McFarlane store in AZ).

I'm excited to see what they produce. I know of these guys, and know a few of them (a little).

They're in my family's stomping grounds back East. They know their stuff. Brett knows the importance of running a studio without burning out everyone in the studio.

Good times.

Check out their Website. Look at the handful of carefully timed news stories (IGN.com even has videos of 'em). Feed your cursor the green monster on the site (I'm thinking of turning it into a drinking game).

Labels: announcements, companies, media intersection, MMO, RPG