From what they are saying, I'm not worried. As long as the publisher has no rights to the IP and/or game development schedule, then as Obsidian are keeping their promise of using the KS (& Paypal] funds to keeping the detrimental effeects publishers can have on games (ie being pushed out early, ffull of bugs, unfinished, etc... see KOTOR 2 for classic example].
It looks to be a fairly standard deal wherein Paradox doesn't input any money into the whole project until it comes time to start marketing and sitributing the game, at which point they do what a publisher would do (ie market & then distribute], and make their money back via a cut of sales - and the cut is likely a lot lower than what a publisher would normally get, but Paradox is taking little risk and putting little money into the game itself.
I do get the feeling from reading the comments made that Obsidian did approach most/all major publisher's regarding doing a deal like this, but the major answer was along the lines of something they didn't want. As in most of the publisher's probably asked for the rights to the IP to be sold to them and/or rights to future games to made via them, or have input into the actual game development and.or time-schedule.
From what they are saying, I'm not worried. As long as the publisher has no rights to the IP and/or game development schedule, then as Obsidian are keeping their promise of using the KS (& Paypal] funds to keeping the detrimental effeects publishers can have on games (ie being pushed out early, ffull of bugs, unfinished, etc... see KOTOR 2 for classic example]. It looks to be a fairly standard deal wherein Paradox doesn't input any money into the whole project until it comes time to start marketing and sitributing the game, at which point they do what a publisher would do (ie market & then distribute], and make their money back via a cut of sales - and the cut is likely a lot lower than what a publisher would normally get, but Paradox is taking little risk and putting little money into the game itself. I do get the feeling from reading the comments made that Obsidian did approach most/all major publisher's regarding doing a deal like this, but the major answer was along the lines of something they didn't want. As in most of the publisher's probably asked for the rights to the IP to be sold to them and/or rights to future games to made via them, or have input into the actual game development and.or time-schedule.
