38 Studios officially declares bankruptcy, investigation launched

If you've been following the news in the gaming industry at all over the past few weeks, you'll have heard something about theongoing demiseof 38 Studios. That story - hopefully - comes to a close today as it was announced that they have filed for bankruptcy.

The tale may not be completely over yet though. Though the Curt Schilling-backed company is now naught but smoldering rubble, the government is stepping in to see if there was anything illegal going on. Apparently, they're on the lookout for any criminal mismanagement of the company's funds given that a huge amount of it came from Rhode Island taxpayers.

The bankruptcy filing will no doubt come as a disappointment to those who were still hoping they might find a way to get Project Copernicus to see daylight. At this point, the most likely hope for that to miraculously happen would be if 38 liquidated its assets and sold off the IP. It's not exactly likely, but dead games can be resurrected. See True Crime: Hong Kong aka Sleeping Dogs for an example.

For now, let's just hope there was nothing shady going on at 38 Studios. It'd be a sad end to this story if all those employees lost theirs jobs due to foul play.