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I mentioned elsewhere, Grounded being Obsidians most successful game to date... Not sure why, but I seem to remember it started out as a "small thing" with a limited team and then sort of exploded in scope with growing popularity. If not already, I hope some day we get a post mortem on the game with its history These are Steam numbers only, not including GamePass/XBox https://vginsights.com/game/962130 4,381 active players (42 min ago) 7,841 active players (24h peak) 88.9% positive reviews $55.8m gross revenue 2.2m units sold 49 hours avg play time 22.5 hours median play time While they (Obsidian) usually know how to make crpgs, survival games and base building is not what they're known for. Edit: Scratch that part about XBox... no idea if Steam also sells XBox games Edit2: Adding GamePass players, it had 10 million players in 2022 https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/02/10/grounded-reaches-10-million-players/

Hey Everyone! I was trading emails with Azdeus and he said I should come see you guys. It has been a while hasn't it. The beginning of last year I think. I didn't even realize how long until I signed in and couldn't remember my password. I really hope all you fine folks and your families are doing well! 2022 and the first half of 2023 were a pretty rough time for me. I was dealing with lymphoma but with the help of early detection, some really great doctors and medical folks I'm almost as good as ever. Please don't ignore symptoms. If you feel off please see a doctor. After that experience I decided to retire. Much earlier than I was planning but life is beautiful, and short. It's meant to be enjoyed. Gwen (her real name) and I are still together and doing well. I don't know why I didn't want to use her real name online. It probably made sense to me at the time. I am so lucky to have met her. She is semi-retired as well and we are currently wrapping up a road trip to visit all the national parks in New Mexico. Eventually we will visit all the US & Canada national parks. 21 down, 90 to go. And forever to do it. Bri is graduating from college next week and we will be there to cheer for her. She is an amazing young lady with a bright future. So proud of her. I made peace with my brother I'm happy to say. I never really understood what the resentment was about but dealing with a serious illness changes your perspective on things. That's pretty much it. I do miss talking to you guys. After a career in tech I'm doing retirement decidedly low tech. I barely even use the internet anymore. I hope all of you are happy and healthy.

Since this is a "history" post, I'll start with the oldest stuff first and work my way towards the current time, here and now on the Obsidian boards I often deny having owned a gaming console and that is technically correct. But... long unrelated story, I grew up with relatives who were "junkies" (heroin addicts) and they would often rob stores and homes for things to sell for mere pittances at times to finance their addiction. One day, the oldest showed up at my parents place (my mother, for reasons, had become their legal guardian) with a Pong gaming console they had stolen somewhere and no fence would take it off their hands. The original Pong console was among my first video gaming experience in the mid 70's. It was my parents though, not mine. (I would have loved to put an image of the console here, but I honestly do not remember what it looked like 50 years ago) Other sources of video gaming at the time was the arcade machines a various convenience stores and grill bars. Some were electronic, some were part mechanical, part electronic. I particularly remember a "Duck Hunt" game, where several layers of glass were used to create the sense of depth and a single glass plate was used to reflect a flying duck from a TV screen hidden out of sight. The shotgun was mounted to a stick that was effectively a big joystick. No fancy electronics at all. Other places had more modern games like Galaxy Invaders... I spent a fortune in coins on those machines. Jump forwards almost a decade, 1983 I was convinced I was going to end up studying biology after high school... until my dad came home with three page advertising pamphlet for the Commodore 64. It was so colourful and impressive looking. It used an elephant to symbolize the humongous memory it had (even though only 38k turned out to be available to the user in the end). I managed to raise the money for my machine of dreams as well as the associated tape recorder and two games. A game on tape called "Beach Head" and a cartridge called "International Soccer". First two games I ever bought with my own money. Never mind that programming the C64 got me hooked on software development and an impromptu career change, the games changed my life too, spending much of my free time playing games on the old "Bread Box" (Danish nick name for the C64). US Gold was a major publisher int he 80's and the football game? It took almost 10 years before a better game of its kind came out. Another decade later I raised the money for a Commodore Amiga 4000 and a hard drive. Gaming now became almost an art form. Bear in mind, in the early 90's, the Amiga completely outperformed contemporary desktop PC's, with the latters CGA graphics and built in tweeter for sound. Never mind the operating system, where MS only caught up with Windows 8 or thereabouts. But the games... sooo many, soo good. On the C64, I developed a love for strategy games and role playing games. SSI gold games, the Ultimas etc. were not just nostalgia, they were state of the art as each individual title came out. So many strategy games too, it was like paradise for a gamer like me. The Amiga added better graphics and real music to many titles. And they just kept coming for the next decade. This is where I almost get to the point... (skipping a list featuring literally a decade and hundreds of Amiga games here) Some of the newer PC games in the late 1990’s looked interesting and I could run them on a PC Emulator. One title in particular stunned with its atmosphere (because I'm a child of the Cold War and the end of the worlds was always present), the demo for a game called "Fallout" had me completely hooked. I bought the full game and... it didn't want to run on my PC emulator (even though the official demo did). Life as a PC gamer Building myself a PC, my first gaming experiences on it was Interplay’s Fallout. More games followed and Fallout together with the first Tomb Raider were my standout memories from the late 90's. Then I ran into a game from the now established Black Isle Studio called Baldurs Gate 2 (yes, I missed the first one) and I spent the next 12 months, day and night playing the heck out of that game, to the detriment of the rest of my life pretty much. Fallout 2 happened, I ended up buying Baldurs Gate 1 too, completing it a few times, nothing like the time I invested in BG2 though. Still, I took note of the name Bioware as well as Black Isle. That thing called Obsidian I was active on the internet too at the time, but I had little interest in this thing called "Forums" (some newfangled sofware that was probably going to die out in a year or two, so why bother?). Usenet was where things happened and many discussion groups (especially the alt groups like alt.games.interplay) were completely unmoderated. Calling it the wild west is being nice to it. Usenet died the slow death of entropy and forums stayed. By the time I had convinced myself to join the Interplay forums, Interplay de facto folded. At least, it ceased to exist as the Interplay I knew. That's when I heard about this "successor company" called Obsidian Entertainment which had plans for opening up a forum. Still not the fastest tool in the shed, it took me a fortnight to sign up. Despite being somewhat of a troll at times and getting into fistfights at times, I ended up as a moderator. Much to my own surprise honestly. I suppose the thinking at the time was something along the lines of using a troll to catch a troll. The discussion subject at the time was "Project Delaware", resulting on all sorts of crazy speculations and wishful thinking (and doom saying). Knights of the Old Republic 2 arrived and... good game with awful ending is the best way I can summarize it. An understatement of course, as the ending was completely missing for various reason... Neverwinter Nights 2 followed and was slightly less buggy the Kotor2 had been, but not flawless. The DLC's however... Mask of the Betrayer in particular brings back fond memories of a game I might not otherwise remember. The Sequel Maker Obsidian was developing a reputation of making buggy sequels to Bioware games that were all 132% perfect... at least if you were to believe the most critical voices. Of course, there is a lot more to how such thing happen, but gamers are a weird bunch, often prone to tunnel vision and confirmation bias, congregating towards echo chambers. Especially when it comes to likes and dislikes of games. Fallout New Vegas managed the impossible, convince a lot of people that Obsidian could actually make great games, that weren't necessarily direct sequels to existing games. It is probably also the only Obsidian game I feel like coming back to again and again, despite it's age. I know Outer Worlds offers a lot corporate humour and a feeling of living in dystopia, but something about the post nuclear setting just strikes a nerve because of my age (growing up during the cold war, expecting the end of the world every day). Playing through scenarios where humanity survives said war feels good I suppose? Still here Obsidian is no longer known in the business as the "buggy sequel" maker, but as a world builder, story creator and the maker of interesting characters. Like Obsidian, I’m still here. Still enjoying video games 40+ years later, still having a preference for crpg's and turn based strategy games. There are many more Obsidian games I could mention (take a look at the forum!) and would have loved to spend time on, but those are the ones that stuck out for me... -Gorth

Yes thats all true It doesnt explain much but its not suppose to because they only had 30 seconds. Its not about the policies of the DA Its just another example of a sensationalized political advert but the point is really the overreaction to this advert from ANC which is also a political response Its been in the news the last 2-3 days and some people are literally " outraged " because they think its treasonous and racist Like I mentioned with the ANC grandstanding about taking legal steps because of the flag burning But a flag wasnt burned. Its just a political advert

Honestly? All I see is a political ad so typical it could almost be invisible because there is nothing distinguishing it from any other the last 50000 political ads. It's all about what they don't want, not a single word about what they can do, that would benefit the people of SA? I.e. the only change offered it's us instead of them? Disclaimer, I know nothing about the party, their ideology or otherwise, just going by the ad

This is a bit simplified. They only really "split" by the time Dishonored 2 and Prey were being developed in tandem. But even then, people switched places (I mean, Colantonio is from France himself). Also, even Redfall lists almost two dozen people from Lyon in the credits. Or, to let Raf Colantonio do the talking (note his huge follow-up post to this also). But in general, what happened in Austin is a good example of destroying studio culture. Arkane have been a very specialized company since their very inception. This naturally included what people they at all hired. And now they were tasked to do a multiplayer, open world CoOp shooter kind of game. It's akin to Hollywood encouraging Sofia Coppola to do the next Furious movie. Why? Becuz popular. In fairness, this started under ZeniMax. I personally didn't get much Arkane vibes upons Redfall's release. And had looked up the game's credits before it became public what happened. By watching the credits as well as checking people on Linkedln, it was apparent that a lot of people were brought in from all over the open world gaming action industry. This included Anthem's OW lead designer, and numerous other people who prior worked on Mafia, Destiny, Saint's Row et all. Some of those joined as late as a year prior to Redfall's release. So Arkane lost people that were hired specifically for the type of games they were specializing in, those people quit and left. To hire new ones just for Redfall. However, if it weren't for people working on a Marvel IP in Lyon, they may be in trouble now as well. Not sure if posted already. But 'd love if Arkane had gotten a chance at that announced Indiana Jones game rather than MachineGames. For a start, perfect fit for their type. See Thief's grave robbery missions, with fantastic in-universe maps for all your archeological needs. Secondly, Indy is still strong enough an IP, even if the last movie disappointed. Is it really the CORE of their very type of game that's not blockbuster worthy? Or is it rather their package? Until Baldur's Gate 3 came around, party-based tactical RPGs were seen as a niche as well. Turn-based ones even moreso. The notion was: No matter the rest of the game or what you're aiming for as an OVERALL EXPERIENCE: If you include THIS feature, you're going to go niche.

Very similar situation there to Arkane I would have thought, they made games that review well, generally, but didn't sell well. Hi Fi Rush had great word of mouth, but it still took 5 years to develop and didn't sell (or 'sell', for gamepass) as well as its reviews or word of mouth implied. The main difference seems to be that Tango got chopped off earlier in the process, before making a Redfall but after the founder left.

Let's be honest, Arkane's last commercially successfully was the first Dishonored. Everything they've made for more than the last decade has flopped. Not sure why everyone's surprised.

Just an update: I installed something called Emu Deck on my Steam Deck and oh my god.. it's so good I actually played through the entire Dragon's Quest 8: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2) again. That's a 200 hour game.. I let my cousin try it too. He was a huge Halo fan back in the original Xbox days and he was in awe when he got to try it on the Steam Deck. It's just so accurate. Best emulation device I've ever owned, it feels like it was made for it.

Thank you. I'M BACK, BITCHES!!

Only Alpha Prololol 2 can save Obsidian now

Great story Gorthfuscious. Such an interesting journey and you have been around since the early days so you have seen things progress and advance to the level of gaming from where we are now

Heh, kind of an interesting theory to think that if Obsidian struggles to make it with their own IP's, they will just end up churning out Fallout side games. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'd feel bad for Obsidian, but I would love to have more of their Fallouts too. Problem is they would probably lose their writing talent that separates them from the chuff. Tim Cain already seems to be semi-retired as he develops his youtube following.

Great blog @Gorth! My start in gaming was my (at the time) new step-dad's Nintendo Entertainment System with Super Mario Bros. 3 getting me into consoles. Not long after, my blood-related dad got me into PC games with DOOM and Wolfenstein share ware via the old hard floppy disks people shared (got ours from my uncle). I wasn't aware of Interplay or Black Isle, but I did play KotOR 1 for the first time on my friend's Xbox and immediately fell in love. Ended up getting it on PC and when I saw the sequel nearly died until I saw that it was made by some company named Obsidian instead of Bioware. At the time I was like, "Oh man, it's not Bioware? This game is probably going to suck..." To my surprise I enjoyed it even more. Being able to corrupt my companions, especially taking the time to corrupt Mira just felt epic compared to only seeing Bastilla corrupt in the previous title. Years later, I end up seeing South Park and the Stick of Truth and seeing Obsidian and saying, "Oh yea, I forgot about them." I played that game and looooved it, especially Butters as Professor Chaos. It wasn't until my old co-worker from Best Buy reached out to me to play a new game he was a part of developing called Pillars of Eternity that I would forever remember the name Obsidian. He is the one who ultimately helped get me into the gaming industry within Obsidian and I am forever grateful as it's allowed me to work with amazing, creative people both in the studio and within the community. After almost 8 years, I still can't believe the things I get to do and the people I get to do it with. Another thing that your blog resonated with me was your experience playing Fallout, as I started playing it a week ago and only JUST beat that game technically this morning around 1AM and continued to start up Fallout 2. I can't wait to continue the adventure tonight

Just noticed I seem to be missing "male_human_e" watercolor from my Deadfire portrait folder. Anyone happen to have them to hand? Watercolors of everyone's favourite blond fighter companion from PoE1. Calisca! I've really enjoyed making them! It's a good excuse to noodle around with some filters and settings in Photopea that I never used before. Though I'm a bit frustrated to realise that pale elves, by default, can't have black hair... Which is a pain, since I was pretty happy with how that looked after floundering to change that portrait's hair color to white. As for the Aloth PoE1 portrait, your right he does look a little sunburnt in hindsight! I tried to match his face to his ears and hand in the vanilla PoE1 portrait. Which are likely that way due to the light passing through his skin. Anyway it's a simple enough to change that sunburn into a subtle tan! I didn't make any changes to the watercolors version from my previous post, but figured I'd including them in this post as well to save people having to scroll. Ooh that is a cool one! Through together an edit of the original portrait's watercolor to match.

I didn't know this, but it makes play dead more useful as it gives great buffs to your ranger without giving bonded grief penalties. Even after 2400+ hours I can still learn new stuff! https://pasteboard.co/ZIW7FU7rt9tb.png https://pasteboard.co/ysa3AQjDdwOI.png

Look, our very own @Gorth is famous