One upon a time, 38 Studios took a 75 mil loan in Rhode Island (which was also backed by taxpayer money, a fact that no news site lets slide) then wasted them among rumours of mismanagement and lavish spending. Well, the studio was closed off and its assets are being sold in an auction. But not everybody's buying .

Kingdom of Amalur: The Reckoning was an... interesting little RPG game that garnered little fame, but was a fun romp anyways. Nobody wants to buy it, tho, so don't hold breath for a sequel. Project Copernicus was an MMO being developed by the studio – but nobody wants it either, what with the success rate of post-WoW MMOs. And Helios, the social media platform for the 38 Studios games is also shunned, because hey, we can always use Steam (or be forced to use Origin or uPlay).

So what did get sold? Well, somebody bought the rights to the long abandoned Rise of Nations series (with entirety of a game and expansion pack under its belt). An interesting decision: while RTS games aren't that popular now, Rise of Nations is a strong name, with many aged players who have fond memories and probably many young 'uns who probably heard good things about it. ...so a browser RTS, isn't it? We have no way of knowing – just like we have no idea why somebody wanted the Rise of Legends spinoff which, while interesting (clockpunk fantasy Europeans vs. Magical Arabs vs. Aliens?), wasn't such a good game. Besides that, people bough the subsidiary Big Huge Games.

In total, the auction raised 320.000. Sucks to be a Rhode Island taxpayer, I guess.