Hi, fellow game dev here (not at Obsidian). I have no insider knowledge, so I'm guessing on all of this, but there are a lot of parallels between game companies.
The amount of money Obsidian made from the kickstarter was not enough to develop this game. If it was, it would have been a smaller scoped game (ie: no voiceover, less content).
The publishing deal with Paradox was to cover the rest of the development cost, distribution and marketing costs.
Development costs are pretty self explainatory, and probably require an extra $1 to 1.5 million.
Distribution costs include boxes, translations and customer service. $500k - $1 million. You don't have to have all of this up front because stores pay $$ for the inventory of the boxes ahead of time.
Marketing costs $1 to $2 million. Not really sure, though, some AAA games go up to $10 - $100 million marketing budgets.
Obsidian is 'filthy rich' as in they are over the hurdle. Every development studio has the same problem, which is, they aren't able to fund their own IP. So they make games for IP that someone else owns. If you look at Obsidian, you are talking about 7 titles that belonged to someone else. All those titles and they STILL couldn't fund their own game. Kickstarter changed that.
Also they are rich in value, not in $$. The deal with Paradox certainly entitles Paradox some of the $$ from the sales of PoE. However, the IP still belongs to Obsidian. This is the hurtle that I was talking about, owning the IP. Obisidian will get a majority of the money from the sales and Paradox will get a minority. Before Kickstarter the opposite was true. IP is most important because it means future $$.
For a showcase about just HOW HARD it is to make your own IP. Here's a list of games by Obsidian.
https://www.obsidian.net/games
Kotor2 launched in 2004.....
Grats to Obsidian and all their hard work!
