38 Studios Going After World of Warcraft
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Even with a household name, it's a major challenge to find backers to buy into his dreams. Right now, he is trying to raise enough money to build a blockbuster game that he hopes will compete head-to-head with the online fantasy gaming industry's top offering. The company estimates it will take $50 million to more than $100 million to complete the game.I think that's the first release date we've seen, though I wouldn't bank on it this early in development.
Raising money is (a challenge,'' Schilling says, (but that's part of the attraction for me.''
38 Studios' goal - the company's name comes from Schilling's old uniform number - is as ambitious as Schilling was when he vowed to lead the Red Sox to a championship upon joining the team, even though the team hadn't won the World Series in more than 80 years. The company has set its sights on building a credible rival to World of Warcraft, the online fantasy game owned by the media conglomerate Vivendi SA. WoW, as it is commonly called, is a massively multiplayer online role playing game with 12 million players, who each pay a monthly fee; those subscription fees generate more than $1 billion in revenue each year.
Schilling's company has targeted a tentative release date of December 2010 for its game.