[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

I never mentioned indie/artsy games. Paradox almost exclusively makes $30 PC games, none of them are indie/artsy and there's certainly nothing like them on iPad for $2. The most recent PC games similar to BG2 (DA:O, Drakensang, MotB/SoZ) were also neither indie nor artsy.

 

Glad to see more of my predictions coming true. And funny in retrospect how utterly wrong Nathaniel Chapman was in this thread.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Guess I really should not be surprised considering how much wallowing in "PC RPG's are dead and we'll NEVER, EVER have a game like BG/IWD/PST/FO/NWN2 again!" there's been from most people the past few years.

 

It would be really nice if people wouldn't be so quick to swallow the marketing crap from publishers about genre X or Y is outdated or how it has "moved on" or that gamers "demand" voice acting, or that the "rising costs of development" has forced them to streamline/dumb down sequels.

 

I can't remember how many times I tried to make these points but always someone would insisted that "no, no it's true, modern gamers only want RPG's like Mass Effect now!".

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Kickstarter is a funding platform, a way to raise money for projects that aren't interesting to publishers.

 

It's got nothing to do with actually believing that PC gamers aren't interested in old-school RPG's and that tablets are a much better fit for that type of game, since tablet customers have "lower expectations".

 

In this thread Chapman continued to insist that gamers didn't want old-school RPG's on the PC. He even said that he wouldn't be interested in a new Planescape:Torment type game on PC, 'cause he'd rather play Skyrim.

 

It's curious then, that Obsidian is pitching this as "the ultimate PC RPG made by legendary designers" and not "low-budget game that isn't remotely as good as Skyrim or Mass Effect but you might want to play it on your iPad if you have nothing better to do and don't mind reading a lot of text 'cause the budget wasn't enough for full voice acting and cinematics."

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

I guess Chapman's views weren't representative of the whole company seeing as Project Eternity is announced for PC and not iPad. Good thing, otherwise I'd be pledging $0 instead of $280.

[Obsidian's Secret Project]

I don't think you guys are realizing what kind of possibilities Kickstarter holds for a mid-sized developer, even a bigger one like Obsidian.

The initial funding pays for the game's budget just like a publisher would, but once the game is released, the developer will not only own the IP and all assets but get to keep all future profits.

 

One single successful game could generate millions of dollars and keep on generating money long after it's release. This is something most independent developers dream of, but with publisher funding it's hard to generate any excess profits once the budget of the game has been paid.

 

Given the high profile of Obsidian's talent (MCA, Tim Cain, Sawyer), they could potentially fund a more expensive game than Brian Fargo. It would only need to sell a few hundred thousand to generate enough money for Obsidian to be able to easily self-fund their future games.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

MotB as modestly profitable but by no means made the kind of money that would get a publisher excited.

Mask of the Betrayer exceeded sales projections; if Storm of Zehir is also well received, that would create a strong argument for a third expansion.

 

In 2008, Obsidian states that the RoI on MotB is good enough that they believe that a similar RoI for SoZ creates a strong case for another similar project.

In 2011, Obsidian states that the RoI on MotB wouldn't get any publisher interested. Should I conclude from this that RoI expectations has risen sharply during the past 3 years?

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

I would be very cautious about rejecting that notion. AAA production may not govern purchase. But it governs that top dollar release price. And that is worth aiming at. If you want to deliver storyline heavy content, my guess would be to aim at doing so in DLC subsequent to release. Risks are lower.

 

Again you are assuming I mean that the graphics should look like utter crap. Other niche games sell at full price (which in the case of digital-only releases is around 30$).

Using recent examples from other genres, I'm talking about games like Civilization V, Heroes VI, ARMA, DCS-A10C and most games published by Paradox. Clearly not AAA productions but neither are they budget releases.

 

The "won't pay full price for non-AAA"-argument only holds if the "AAA"-games offer nearly the same experience, not for unique niches. No one is going to say "I won't pay top dollars for ARMA because CoD has higher production values". "AAA" is required for mainstream games because visuals is the only way to market the game to non-fans. I respect that Obsidian isn't interested in going after a niche market, but there's nothing wrong with doing so and many other developers are successful at it.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

You seem to be reading here an awful lot into Nathaniels comments.

 

Nathaniel plainly said that he (and by extension PC gamers) wouldn't be interested in playing a game like PS:T if they had Skyrim readily available. Since Skyrim (based on Bethesda's track record), likely won't hold a candle to PS:T in terms of narrative, writing and C&C, I can only assume that Nathaniel thinks that the strongest selling point of any game, no matter it's audience, is "AAA" production values.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Nathaniel, I suppose you think that in 3-4 years, platforms like the iPad will also be resigned to mainstream games with "AAA" production values?

 

I beg to differ. Games that focus on strong narrative or offer unique gameplay aren't limited to existing in small windows of time on platforms with limited hardware capabilities. People read books even though they have access to movies and they watch serious dramas even in the presence of Hollywood blockbusters. And yes, people can appreciate and pay for strong and unique narratives and gameplay even if they have "Skyrim" installed on their hard drive.

 

Quite frankly, it's disappointing to see your lack of faith in gameplay and writing over visual spectacle. PS:T and Fallout 1&2 where niche titles for a niche audience and I'm sure that audience isn't any smaller today nor that it demands ultra high-res graphics. The fact that Obsidian and/or the publishers you approach aren't interested in making niche games that sells 100K copies doesn't mean there's something wrong with gamers who appreciate a PS:T more than Skyrim.

 

Your comments sound remarkably similar 2K's "Strategy games are not contemporary" and Starbreeze's "Time has moved on" comments, something I wouldn't have expected from an Obsidian dev.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

I'm not sure if we'll ever see a project like that again. Mitsoda (who is now working on Dead State) said he did think about working on a project like Bloodlines but that the AoD tech would have to mature to the point that it wouldn't cost a million dollars to make, or whatever. As a frame of reference the VA in Bloodlines costed more than their entire Dead State seems to be.

Mechanically, Bloodlines was a fairly straight-forward action-RPG with poorly implemented gunplay, backed by great writing and quest design. I'd imagine that with proper marketing, it could have been quite successful as a polished, multiplatform "AAA" title. In fact, Deus Ex:HR reminded me quite a bit of Bloodlines minus the good writing. I hope you're not so cynical to think that great writing would actually hurt sales

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

It seemed more like what he was saying was that the publishers would rather fund something with a potentially much higher return like Skyrim- and true, as a publisher why would you fund a game where 1 mill sales would be considered amazing

I provided lots of examples of other games that are successful in niches where 1 million sales would be considered amazing. And as for why you would fund something other than Skyrim, well...do you think that if 10 Skyrim's were released, they would all sell 5 million copies? As for higher returns, a 1 million selling game would have the same return as a 5 million selling game if it had 1/5th of the budget. Which explains why Paradox Interactive is profitable whereas EA is not.

 

And really wasn't the reason Troika died was because no publisher wanted to back their top down isometric crpg? So there's an example of publishers not being that interested in a genre like that in a mainstream market, hence the alternative ventures and mediums like ipad and appstore.

I'm pretty sure Troika couldn't get anyone interested because their last few games were buggy messes and because their big(ish)-budget action-RPG with full voice-acting and cool vampires sold abysmally.

 

Publishers would be more interested in something like that since the appstore is a potentially much larger market (Rovio sure seems to be making it rain) and turn based combat is easier to sell to a portable audience (just look at the success of turn based games on the DS) and as long as said game was also available on PC through whatever convenient digital distribution services there were then the "old school" gamers would be happy too.

It's pretty pointless to bring up Rovio, I hear Farmville and The Sims are pretty popular on the PC. I've seen nothing suggesting a game like BG2/NWN2 would sell well on the App Store. The tactical JRPG that are popular on the handhelds are nothing like BG2/DA:O/NWN2.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

All four of them?

The point is this: there is little to show that such games will sell.

The point is not relevant to this discussion. A CoD clone made by 4 people won't sell either, because most people would rather play an older game they missed.

In the case of Vogel's games, there are many older PC RPG's that I haven't played yet and would rather play than Avadon. Such as: Fallout, Arcanum, ToEE, Divine Divinity,

Divinity 2, Risen. All are more professional products and will likely be more satisfactory experiences.

 

You don't like the graphics/writing/combat in a single developer games? I get that.

You want it to be better? That takes resources and to pay for them you need more sales.

If you are willing to invest enough to make a game met the minimal expectations you simply better off not making it an rpg.

Small audience means that you cannot keep up with production values.

Especially when there are plenty of good quality browser games and MMOs available for free.

That's ridiculous. There are plenty of niche game that sell a couple of hundred thousand copies and have decent production values.

There's a market in-between Vogel's 4000 Avadon buyers and New Vegas' 5 million. For the moment, U.S. publisher seem to be ignoring that market, but many European games

successfully tap into it.

 

I also find it strange that Nathaniel thinks that a medium budget turn-based strategy is unique enough to have no "AAA" competition from other strategy games like Starcraft 2, Shogun 2 or Civilization V, but a party based CRPG with tactical combat would face competition from a 1st person open-world hack n' slash RPG.

A few other examples of lower-budget games that are successful:

Death to Spies series? Apparently possible due to low-competition from 3rd person stealth games.

King Arthur? No competition from Total War I guess.

Men of War series? No other RTS games out there I guess....

STALKER? I guess FPS isn't a crowded market.

Red Orchestra 2? Online-centric WW2 FPS really has no "AAA" competition. Oh wait....

Divinity 2 or Risen? Action-RPGs with no dialogue wheel, no competition at all there I guess.

I could go on forever.

 

I guess what annoys me is the response to the question: "Is there a market for a deeper, more tactical BG2/NWN2-type RPG with a medium-sized budget?"

Instead of "Yes, such a game could sell enough to be considered profitable by a smaller developer/publisher but Obsidian isn't interested", the response I get from Nathaniel is: "No, I think those gamers would rather play Skyrim".

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's been tried before.

You can buy your old-school rpg games like Avadon or Eschalon on Steam.

Few people are interested.

I'll correct you. I've played all the IE games and NWN2/MotB/SoZ, DA:O, Drakensang. I'm not remotely interested in Avadon or Eschalon. Avadon looks far worse than even BG1 and seems simplistic and boring combatwise. The writing seems of much lower quality than anything Black Isle ever did. Eschalon seems to barely have any story and there's no party to control. And it also looks worse than BG1.

 

Though, FYI, both games are considered successes by their developers, so I'm not sure what your point is. They aren't even attempting the market which I'm talking about here. The closest thing would be the unreleased "Dead State".

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Well, I'm not really hearing any compelling arguments why a reasonably modern looking, medium budget, party-based RPG with tactical combat that is done in the style of BG2 or MotB wouldn't be successful on Steam.

I don't think "PC RPG fans would rather play Skyrim" is very convincing since they are incredibly different type of games. Skyrim has more in common with GTA IV than BG2 or MotB.

 

You are obviously convinced the iPad is a better fit, but there really isn't any hard evidence one way or the other. There's never been anything like BG2 on the iPad and there's never been a new, party-based RPG with tactical combat on Steam for $10.

If you include other genres, I'm convinced that Steam has been a far more profitable marketplace for deeper and more complex $10-$20 games, while the iPad is really dominated by simple, addictive games (like Plants vs. Zombies).

 

Regarding the low RoI of NWN2, you needlessly (IMO) spent a lot of money on rewriting the renderer and I doubt the buggy state of the game and the fact that it was an enormous resource hog while not looking the part did anything to help sales or review scores. The camera controls and the upfront complexity probably could have been handled a lot better aswell. Also, I'd say Steam is a far better marketplace for such a game than PC retail was in 2006, not to mention for DLC and expansions.

So I think it's a bit unfair to say, "NWN2 had poor RoI, therefore any similar game will too". Unless you're a publisher of course.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Also, just to be clear - I think it's a fine idea to release a BG2/IWD2-style game on multiple platforms, including the iPad. I just think that Steam is where the bulk of the sales would be - as long as the PC version doesn't feel like a poorly-ported iPad game. There's never been anything similar available for that price so it's hard to say. I guess "Dead State" will serve as a good measure when it's released.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Nathaniel, I think you are underestimating Steam and overestimating the iPad App Store when it comes to sales potential for a niche RPG title.

 

Consider that Steam has 30 million active users, all of which are gamers. Meanwhile there are around 30 million iPad's total in existence, of which only a very small percentage are actually interested in using it for serious gaming.

I personally know 10 people who own iPads (including myself) and none of them use it for playing anything other than "Cut the Rope", "Fruit Ninja" or "Angry Birds"-type games.

 

A $10 game is considered extremely expensive on the App Store, while it's regarded as a great offer on Steam. Many Steam users would buy such a game just to try it out, iPad users would never buy a $10 game just to see if it was any good. In fact, just during the past year, several $10 games have topped the Steam charts (which is by revenue). Magicka and Terraria held 1st place for weeks. These are not great looking games, yet they outsold many "AAA" games by revenue.

 

Your own NWN2 has topped the Steam charts every single time is has been discounted to $10, even though the game is 5 years old. In fact, NWN2 has consistently been among the top 100 games played on Steam, even though it's only been available on that platform since December 2010. You probably can't get any numbers from Atari on the Steam sales, but I would be surprised if they aren't happy with the additional money they are making from a 5 year old game.

PC RPG's have tremendous legs, and I know the current gaming market doesn't pass on that money to the developers who can't self-publish, but it's still a strength that only that platform has. Can you imagine any iPad game still selling 5 years from now?

 

All these factors make it difficult for me to believe that a $10 iPad RPG in the style of BG2 or NWN2 would be more profitable than the same game on Steam. However, given the lack of interest in the PC market by most major U.S. publishers, I can totally believe that it's easier to get funding for an iPad game. I'd imagine that if you approach a publisher and say you want to make a PC RPG, they'd want you to make it multiplatform. And if it's going to be multiplatform well then you have to make it an action-RPG. Maybe if we can get a few more flops like "Daggerdale" and "Demon's Forge" they'll also consider other approaches.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Thanks for the candid answers Nathaniel. Also, I apologize if I came off as a bit hostile.

 

There are a lot of great PC games from Europe and Russia, agreed. There are also successful PC games that don't rely on high production values. However, I think that the large market of iPad users and the lack of competition and market pressure from huge AAA PC games makes it an even better platform for certain genres of games.

I think we have a difference in opinion in that I think a game like MotB would stand out as radically different to the current "AAA" RPG's, much like the niche games from Paradox, while you think that it would compete for gamers looking to play something like Skyrim/Mass Effect 3.

 

Also, the European PC games which are not low-budget indie games generally don't have as hardcore or old-school mechanics as newer games. The Witcher 2, for instance, has awesome presentation values but also clearly does not have old-school combat mechanics.

Most European games are neither indies nor have The Witcher 2's production values. Those are two extremes. I was refering to games like Risen, King Arthur, King's Bounty, Men of War, Death to Spies, Disciples III.

 

MotB as modestly profitable but by no means made the kind of money that would get a publisher excited. It was also not a medium budget game, it was an expansion pack. When we were working on MotB we already had a complete core game to build on top of.

Did Atari have lower RoI expectations in 2008, or how else was MotB considered exceeding sales projections? Why would they want to make something with a poor projected RoI?

I don't have financial information on King's Bounty - I assume they made money from it because they are making sequels - but they are also competing in a genre (turn-based strategy) with next to no AAA huge budget games they need to compete against. RPGs, even RPGs with turn-based combat, still have to compete with the AAA, cinematic, multiplatform RPGs out there and it's much harder to stand out in that environment.

I don't really see how an RPG with turn-based combat would be more similar to Skyrim than King's Bounty. Unless it's just the genre label that is the problem, in that case, why not call it a tactical squad based strategy games with RPG elements?

 

Occasionally you have a standout success there (Torchlight) but more often than not, you don't.

According to Wikipedia, 90% of all games are commercial failures. I really have trouble seeing that a new IWD-type game on PC would have any competition from similar games, considering there's literally nothing like it on the platform right now. Unless it's just the "RPG" label that differentiates games and and not the actual gameplay.

 

No publisher or developer is going to be excited to develop the kind of game that has an expected return on investment of a NWN2 or MotB. It's not a lack of interest in the games, it's a lack of interest in the relatively low sales given the cost of development.

No publisher or no publicly traded U.S. publisher?

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

This sentence makes no sense whatsoever to me. Why are you comparing a general gameplay system to an actual for PC developed game? Thats not the same thing. Not, at all.

I have no problem believing that any gameplay system can be ported to the iPad. After all, I own one and have played everything from RTS games to shooters on it. I just don't agree that it would be the best platform for a game like BG2/NWN2. I'd have nothing against ports existing, but I'd rather play such a game on the PC.

 

So, doesn't your last. There are plenty of indie/artsy games on the Ipad. Why would it have to appeal to everyone that owns an IPAD? Hidden Apple policy?

I never mentioned indie/artsy games. Paradox almost exclusively makes $30 PC games, none of them are indie/artsy and there's certainly nothing like them on iPad for $2. The most recent PC games similar to BG2 (DA:O, Drakensang, MotB/SoZ) were also neither indie nor artsy.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Josh said that Dragonheart proves that you can successfully execute BG2 or IWD2's combat on an iPad, not that Dragonheart > BG2 or MotB.

Yes, you *can*, just as you could play Deus Ex on the PS2. That doesn't mean it's the best platform for it. I have no thing against porting to more platforms, but I think it's strange to discount the PC when it has been home to so many similar games.

 

Why use the iPad for something like BG2? Among other things, 1) it is somewhat risky to develop an oldschool RPG these days, so it's a good idea to minimize risk by not spending as much on art as you would on a PC or console game

There are plenty of successful PC games that don't rely on high production values. All games published by Paradox Interactive for instance and many other games from Europe and Russia. They're not low-budget indie games either, they have pretty nice graphics.

 

2) people are more willing to buy niche games with less fancy 3D (or even *gasp* 2D) art on iPad than they are on PC, 3) people frequently already use their iPads for reading (either the internet or actual books) so I believe that gamers may be more accepting of a text and dialog heavy game than they would on other platforms.

Why is that exactly? Full voice-acting has been possible to do in games since the 90's, so how come people only started demanding it in PC games since 2008? Or could it be that publishers want multiplatform RPG's can be marketed as cinematic experiences and no one really has any idea how a well-done, medium budget game

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Who said anything like that? Hyperbole much?

Based on the examples given and the types of games successful on each platform. I've never seen anything like BG2/NWN2/DA:O/Drakensang on the iPad, nor do I see any reason to want to restrict myself to a 10" touchscreen for playing such a game.

On the other hand, all the above games were successful and well received on the PC, and with three of them being barely 3 years old, I fail to see how the actual markets for them disappeared so quickly. What I do see is that multiplatform "AAA"-focused U.S. publishers have no interest in funding them.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

If it controlled just as well? Sure.

Alright. I prefer playing simpler games on my iPad and more demanding/complex on my PC. I'd rather play a game that is pick-up-and play on the iPad since I mostly use it on the move, while I'd want to sit down and play a game like BG/DA:O/NWN2 for longer sessions with a bigger screen, better sound, hotkeys.. But that's just me.

 

I just find it very odd that we got BG2, IWD2, NWN2/MotB/SoZ, Drakensang, DA:O and now all we can hope for are $2 iPad games. It's more than a bit jarring to go from hearing Obsidian say in 2008 that MotB did well and exceeded sales projections to Josh saying in 2011 that we can totally look forward to $2 iPad games with cutesy characters and no dialogue for our party-based CRPG fix.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Like with any other "handheld" device. Mobility itself.

So you're saying you'd preferred to play BG2 on iPad had it existed at the time?

 

Furthermore it would be much easier to market handdrawn 2D graphics and in turn a more classic TB system.

It's possible to market gameplay instead of graphics. Plenty of games without "AAA" production values sell well on PC (any game from Paradox, King's Bounty, Minecraft, Amnesia, Super Meat Boy, etc.)

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

IWD on an iPad would be awesome.

I have an iPad and while I can see IWD working okay on it, I don't see how it would be more "awesome" than playing it on the PC.

I don't see why someone specifically looking for a somewhat more complex RPG with tactical combat would prefer to play it on a mobile device.

I think a properly marketed mid-budget game like Drakensang could do well as a PC downloadable title without going into "Look at this cute iPad game with lovable fuzzy characters, it's only 3$ so you can buy it even if you have no idea what kind of game it is!"-territory.

 

I realize of course, that the latter is an easier sell to most publishers, but some like, Paradox Interactive, seem to be doing fine selling full-priced games to niche audiences. Considering they're posting annual profits while EA makes losses in the order of hundreds of millions, you'd wonder which strategy makes more sense.

 

It sounds silly when a developers says that they'd "love to do a Fallout-style game" on iPad. You're saying that because a publisher is more likely to fund such a game disguised as 2$ shovelware, not because the actual audience for a deep RPG experience is likely to be looking for it in an iPad game.

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Turn based strategy games seem to be doing OK. Civilization 5 was quite successful. Heroes 6 and Sword of the Stars 2 are coming out soon.

 

I'm sure that there's some publisher out there who would be willing to do a turn based RPG.

 

I think the problem is that RPG's are expected to sell on cinematics and story instead of gameplay. Maybe it would be easier to pitch a IWD-type game as "squad based strategy with RPG elements"

[Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011]

Also, such a game would drown in a sea of similar-looking browser games whereas a reasonably priced and marketed downloadable title would be a fairly unique offering. I highly doubt that "IWD3 the Facebook-game" would be more profitable than IWD3 for $20 on Steam.

But instead we get atrocious offerings such as "D&D Daggerdale".