(Reuters) - The troubled video gaming company run by former Red Sox baseball great Curt Schilling seemed on the verge of collapse on Thursday and had laid off its entire staff, according to several gaming industry websites and other media.

The apparent firings by 38 Studios came days after the company, based in Providence, Rhode Island, barely made a debt repayment to the state, weeks after the money was due.

The Verge.com said 38 Studios had closed its Rhode Island office and its Maryland-based subsidiary, Big Huge Games.

WPRI, a Providence television station, said 38 Studios told its employees that they were laid off effective immediately, as the company experienced "an economic downturn."

38 Studios, formed in 2006 as the brainchild of avid gamer Schilling, had 379 full-time employees as of March 15.

The company received a $75 million taxpayer-backed loan guarantee from Rhode Island in 2010 as an incentive to move its headquarters from Massachusetts. It has received almost $50 million of those funds, according to the state.

Last week, when the company struggled to make a $1.1 million payment, it failed to meet payroll. Two top executives, including Chief Executive Officer Jen MacLean, quit this week and removed 38 Studios from their LinkedIn profiles, according to the Boston Globe.

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who opposed the 38 Studios deal when he ran for office in 2010, and other state officials have had a serious of emergency meetings with Schilling over the past week.

During that time other video game companies have held job fairs in Providence to attract some of the company's embattled - and now available - workers.

Schilling, a New England sports hero who helped bring a World Series back to Boston in 2004 and has also been a prominent backer of conservative politicians, has avoided talking to the media in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, Schilling said on Facebook that his team "has shown breathtaking resilience through these incredibly challenging times."

Pledged as collateral to Rhode Island against the loan are the present and future rights to "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning," the video game launched in February, and those to an elaborate, multi-player game code-named "Project Copernicus," which is still in development.

Necroshea wrote:Ouch, that really sucks. I though Amalur had a solid launch too. It wasn't a great game, but it wasn't terrible.

Sasori wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Ouch, that really sucks. I though Amalur had a solid launch too. It wasn't a great game, but it wasn't terrible.

It did. It was all the money they were pouring on their MMO that broke them.

Necroshea wrote:

Sasori wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Ouch, that really sucks. I though Amalur had a solid launch too. It wasn't a great game, but it wasn't terrible.

It did. It was all the money they were pouring on their MMO that broke them.

Sigh. This is why I'd like a single MMO to just dominate the scene, so it might discourage other companies from making more of that crap.

iproxtaco wrote:

Necroshea wrote:

Sasori wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Ouch, that really sucks. I though Amalur had a solid launch too. It wasn't a great game, but it wasn't terrible.

It did. It was all the money they were pouring on their MMO that broke them.

Sigh. This is why I'd like a single MMO to just dominate the scene, so it might discourage other companies from making more of that crap.

That is supposed to be a joke, right?

Amalur’s Developers Saved, Now an Epic Studio

Baltimore-based Big Huge Games, the subsidiary of 38 Studios responsible for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, was caught up in the company's complete meltdown and suddenly shuttered at the end of May.

However, for the Big Huge employees, the sordid tale may have a happy ending. They found themselves in need of work at exactly the same time that Epic Games (Gears of War, Unreal) found themselves looking for more talent. On the Epic Games website, studio president Michael Capps explains the solution to both companies' problems: Epic Baltimore.



" On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us. They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they'd have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out.

In one of life's coincidences, Epic's directors had spent the morning discussing how we'd love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but that we'd need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so. Which, we all knew, was impossible.

So now we're planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore. "



The details are still all in progress, but certain employees will be beginning work as contractors in Epic's Cary, NC headquarters as soon as it can be arranged.