Red Sox pitcher and 38 Pitches blogger Curt Schilling has launched a gaming company in Maynard, Massachusetts called 38 Studios. If you are not a baseball fan - 38 is Curt's uniform number.
The company was started last year and currently has 45 employees. Schilling has funded the company to this point with his own money but in January will announce a second round of funding from "strategic partners" (perhaps with some Red Sox teammates?)
He's brought in some big names from the animation and fantasy business - here's a piece from the 38 Studios website:
38 Studios' first products will feature the artistic vision of world-renowned comic book and toy creator Todd McFarlane (www.spawn.com ) and best-selling fantasy author R. A. Salvatore (www.rasalvatore.com ). To bring this epic world to life, 38 Studios employs skilled and dedicated artists, programmers, designers, writers, and others drawn from the world’s most successful game and entertainment companies, all of whom join 38 Studios with the common goal of creating a most unique entertainment company.
Yesterday, 38 Studios announced an interesting game challenge where teams of 2-3 students from New England area colleges will submit ready to play games they've developed. The development platform/game engine is at the discretion of the team and each submission must include the participant created game source code.
According to the 38 Studios contest website, teams will be judged on the following criteria: degree of overall finished product; originality; visual polish; stability; length of quality game play; and expanded market vision and product strategy.
New England Cable News has a great video interview of Curt describing 38 Studios and the contest linked here.
The first place team wins $3,000, second place $2,000 and third place $1,000.
An exciting opportunity for New England students, the deadline for submissions is February 18, 2008 and winners will be announced on or before April 21, 2008. If interested, be sure to go to the 38 Studios website and download the complete set of contest rules. Go Sox!
