Obsidian's Secret Project

[pmp10]

Quite surprising that it would be Microsoft - Obsidian should be aware what their track record with developers is.

Stranger still - no kickstarter announced.

You'd think this the perfect time to cash-in on internet sympathy as well as gamer nostalgia.

[Flouride]

Quite surprising that it would be Microsoft - Obsidian should be aware what their track record with developers is.

Stranger still - no kickstarter announced.

You'd think this the perfect time to cash-in on internet sympathy as well as gamer nostalgia.

 

What is their track record?

 

It takes some time to come up with the documents, make the pitch, rewards and not to mention handling the stuff with Kickstarter. Didn't it take Fargo a week or two to get things sorted out with them, even though InXile was ready to go?

[ShadowScythe]

Not to mention I don't think Obsidian will want to be competing with Wasteland 2 for Donations.

[pmp10]

What is their track record?

For one thing they singlehandedly brought down FASA which was huge back in the day.

Apparently it has something to do with Microsoft corporate culture - it was heavily criticized by former FASA director as hostile to development of any entertainment.

The lessons of that debacle apparently resulted in Bungie running away rather than suffering similar fate.

It takes some time to come up with the documents, make the pitch, rewards and not to mention handling the stuff with Kickstarter. Didn't it take Fargo a week or two to get things sorted out with them, even though InXile was ready to go?

It's been considered for weeks now so I imagine Obsidian knows what would be their choice for such a project.

The inxile kickstarter didn't even include a single piece of concept art so the only barrier I can see is in the realms of finance.

[Zoraptor]

MS is wildly variable in its reputation. On one hand Bungie was all Halo, all the time which a lot of people there did not like much at all, on the other they were able to buy themselves out of ownership by MS, something you wouldn't see from pretty muich any other publisher.

 

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.

There are practicality aspects though. A standard Obsidian project would have a budget significantly larger than Double Fine raised. At a million dollars a month overall having even a third of Obsidian's previous staff level and you'd be looking at ~8 million needed for a 2 year project. Obsidian ought to get more than DF (depending on how kickstarter holds up and if fatigue sets in) but you'd still be looking at a lot of people losing their jobs.

 

I'm pretty happy with kickstarter as a model- just about anything is an improvement over the current video game business model, and kickstarter is far from the worst replacement- but it cannot fix all ills.

[HoonDing]

More importantly, it's been outright stated that Josh's project is an original IP, possibly the "Like Tolkien if Sauron won" universe Feargus talked up once a year or two back.

Mistborn RPG?

Well, that dream was shattered: http://www.mistborngame.com/

[funcroc]

OT: Andy Gardner, Obsidian's new programmer

 

Current

Programmer at Obsidian Entertainment

 

Past

Programmer at Rockstar San Diego

 

He worked as game programmer on Red Dead Redemption.

[Pop]

Gonna get some of that sweet

action

[funcroc]

OT: Adam Brennecke's LI profile updated

[funcroc]

http://www.rockpaper...on-wasteland-2/

RPS: Recently, Obsidian had to lay off a large number of people, which was absolutely devastating to hear about. Can you discuss, at all, the circumstances behind that? How many projects is Obsidian working on at this point?

 

Chris Avellone: A project was suddenly canceled. It happens in the industry

[funcroc]

OT: from Feargus Urquhart's twitter

 

just bought 10 games on GOG.com - 1000 hours of Might and Magic, here I come.

[Jaesun]

That's certainly....... interesting.....

[Sannom]

The RPS interview is somewhat worrying, no? Only one project in full-gear, backed by an editor in dire shape, and one project which is still being pitched.

[Flouride]

The RPS interview is somewhat worrying, no? Only one project in full-gear, backed by an editor in dire shape, and one project which is still being pitched.

 

It's not really news though. They've been doing this 2 projects thingie for a while now, so when one gets cancelled it's only natural that they have to start their pitching again to get a contract.

[WorstUsernameEver]

The RPS interview is somewhat worrying, no? Only one project in full-gear, backed by an editor in dire shape, and one project which is still being pitched.

 

Editor in dire shape? If you're talking about THQ, they're not funding the project, they're just doing distributing duties.

[Flouride]

 

Editor in dire shape? If you're talking about THQ, they're not funding the project, they're just doing distributing duties.

 

And if they are only distributing the game there's a good chance Obsidian will actually see some of the profits from the game.