Kingdoms of Amalur IP to be Auctioned This Month

WPRI is reporting that Project Copernicus and the Kingdoms of Amalur IP are finally being auctioned off this month, although I wouldn’t expect it to generate a tremendous amount of interest, as Joystiq editor Alexander Sliwinski notes inside the article:

“We’ve had other interested parties that we have been working with directly,” Land, who declined to speculate how much the game would go for, said. Gov. Lincoln Chafee has said he hopes the sale could help defray some of the roughly $90 million taxpayers are on the hook for to repay the 38 Studios bondholders.

Gaming industry expert Alexander Sliwinski a news editor at Joystiq.com said Rhode Islanders shouldn’t be overly optimistic that the game will sell for millions of dollars.

“Given the video game industry’s risk aversion to massively multiplayer online role playing games, which is what Copernicus was supposed to be, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where any U.S.-based publisher spends the $100 million to complete it,” Sliwinski said.

He said the real value of the game walked out the door when 38 Studios let go of all its employees in May 2012.

“The value of the intellectual property would have been good if they put it up for sale a week after the collapse,” Sliwinski said. “Taking the work that has already been done by the studio in Rhode Island and turning that into a game would be incredibly difficult . and still cost a lot of money.”

Land defended the delay, saying he “inherited” that problem: “There is nothing I can do [about the fact] that the people that worked on the game dispersed.” He said he’s optimistic the game will be appealing anyway.

“The bulk of the game and intellectual property I don’t believe is stale because the artwork is current, the tech used to develop the artwork is current, the concept is a current concept,” Land said. “My understanding is the use of this intellectual property can be flexible.”

Sliwinski said there may be a market to use the art or characters elsewhere, but it would be a tough pitch for a video game.

“This industry isn’t lacking for fantastical ideas, for fantasy worlds with humans and orcs and dwarves and all of that,” Sliwinski said. “The video game industry is moving into its next generation.”

Thanks, Joystiq.