Now that he's retired, former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has had to cut back on his playing time. He's too busy trying to build a game company.
Schilling was one of the star attractions at yesterday's Business in Gaming conference at the MIT Sloan School of Management. It was the first conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's business school devoted to the commercial possibilities of the video game industry. That's a topic that Schilling's been thinking about since 2006, when he cofounded 38 Studios LLC, a start-up that's bidding to become a major player in the market for massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs. Schilling developed his passion for video games during long road trips with the Sox. "I'm not sure you can appreciate how many hours I had available to me," he said. "I had massively long gaming sessions. For about 10 years, I played everything out there."
Much as he enjoyed the games, Schilling believed he could do better. Three years ago, he cofounded 38 Studios with Leominster native and best-selling fantasy novelist R.A. Salvatore and toy designer Todd McFarlane, creator of the popular comic book character Spawn. The company is working on an original fantasy concept that will be turned into an online video game, as well as novels, comic books, and even an application for Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone.
Schilling refuses to provide any details about the contents of the game, which is supposed to be available by summer of 2011. It will enter a market which is already dominated by Blizzard Entertainment Inc.'s hugely popular World of Warcraft, also known as WoW, which has garnered 11 million subscribers worldwide since its debut in 2004. The popularity of WoW has generated many rival games, such as Lord of the Rings Online from Turbine Inc. of Westwood.
Schilling acknowledges that he's trying to break into a market already crowded with rivals. But he says it won't matter if his company's product is good enough. Schilling said that he has no worries about quality, with Salvatore and McFarlane on board. "R.A'.s still a New York Times bestseller," Schilling said. "Todd still has the most successful collectible toy lines. . . . These guys know what they're doing."
MMO games have attracted so much attention because of their vast profit potential. For instance, WoW charges its users $20 for the game software and an additional subscription fee to keep playing - $13 to $15 a month in the United States. As a result, WoW generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year, far more than most video games. But other MMO games, like the popular South Korean entry Maple Story, allow people to play for no charge. Such games often generate revenues by letting the players purchase additional items that would enhance the game-playing experience.
Schilling said that the upcoming 38 Studios game is being designed around a subscription model. But he added that the company would embrace other ways to make money from the project, like sales of additional gaming items. "If it doesn't sabotage the design of what we've already started, then we'll absolutely be open to whatever it is," he said.
But Schilling isn't worried about getting gamers to pay him. "It's not about the dollars," he said. "It's about the hours." Even Schilling doesn't play as much as he'd like to; he has less downtime as an entrepreneur than he enjoyed as a pitcher, he said. There are only 24 hours in a day, Schilling said, and people need a good enough reason to spend some of that time playing a game. "It's the one piece of math that will never, ever change," said Schilling.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. 
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