Rhode Island owns 38 Studios IP if insolvency causes closure

Curt Schilling asked the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation and the state's governor Lincoln Chafee in an emergency meeting today for additional help to save 38 Studios.

After the meeting convened, governor Chafee wouldn't comment to the Associated Press what was discussed, only to say the meeting was held in order to figure how to "avoid throwing good money after bad."

Concerns over the financial state of the studio arose when it failed make its $1.1 million payment to the Economic Development Corporation by May 1.

So far, no action has been taken, but another meeting is scheduled for Monday.

"We have a lot of work to do between now and then," said Chafee, adding the state will do "everything possible" to assist 38 Studios, while also keeping the state's tax payers from saddling the debt , something he said will be "very, very complicated.

"The difficulty that we face is protecting the taxpayers and looking ahead to the future [to determine] whether there's viability that's worth further investment."

If 38 Studios defaults on the loan and goes into administration, the state will own the rights to the Kingdoms of Amalur and Project Copernicus IPs, according to Joystiq, due to the firm using all "present and future IP by the company" as loan collateral to the RIEDC.

The information was obtained by Joystiq through Uniform Commercial Code documentation on the loan, which states that all "proceeds made from the sale of the collateral would go back to the bondholders," including "all rights, title and interest in any projects, including video game projects."

Thanks, ffronw.