A closer look
Former baseball star Curt Schilling convinced the state of Rhode Island to hand his video game company a seventy-five million dollar taxpayer-funded loan in 2010, promising to create hundreds of high-paying tech jobs in a massive economic development boost. The company managed to release exactly one moderately received fantasy role-playing game before going completely bankrupt just two years later, leaving the citizens of Rhode Island on the hook for millions in debt. It is a brilliant example of what happens when desperate local politicians try to play venture capitalist with public funds, assuming a guy who was good at throwing a baseball would naturally be a financial genius in software development. You really have to applaud the sheer audacity of funding a virtual fantasy world by taking a very real, very catastrophic gamble with an entire state's economic stability!
