Gamers at Work (Feargus and Tim Cain Interview)

[C2B]

I recently rememberd that the book "Gamer's at Work" came out in February. It's available here:

 

http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/B0075QT5Q2

 

I then searched for previews and found this

 

http://my.safaribook...zAyMzM1MTAvODU=

 

(They block out the bottom-half of the pages. The Feargus Interview starts at page 80.)

 

 

It seems to go very in depth about Obsidian's beginnings and the challenges they faced both internally and externally.

Edited March 1, 2012 by C2B

[Tigranes]

Interesting. Purchase'd.

[C2B]

Interesting. Purchase'd.

 

I'm in the middle of reading it too. It's incredible so far and sheds light on a lot of things. 100% buy for every Obsidian/Troika fan or people interested in game developers/development in general.

Edited March 1, 2012 by C2B

[WorstUsernameEver]

Purchased, but will have to wait a bit for my copy to get here in the mail. Thanks for linking to it here

[Tigranes]

I've read most of it now on the bus to/fro NYC, and it's worth it if you're similarly looking for a light read. Some of the entrepreneurs aren't as interesting, but it has Tim Cain, Feargus, Bushnell, Trip Hawkins and one of the Ensemble cofounders, which hits most of the right buttons for me.

 

It perpetuates some of the myths about the industry and contradicts others (though I guess I'm not in a position to say which myths are actually true, as well). I do find it interesting that these guys are mostly people who wanted to succeed at entrepreneurship and making money / a company / a mark on the world / etc, so we get narratives divested of the lot of 'creative vision' stuff. Exception is the Oddworld guy who's pretty interesting all round.

[Pop]

Tim Cain certainly comes off as very much invested in his unadulterated creative vision

[WorstUsernameEver]

My copy arrived. You can certainly tell Feargus is mostly interested in the entrepreneurship aspect, while Tim Cain.. the poor guy just sounds kinda tired after all the **** he had to go through at Troika Can't really blame him for that.

[C2B]

My copy arrived. You can certainly tell Feargus is mostly interested in the entrepreneurship aspect, while Tim Cain.. the poor guy just sounds kinda tired after all the **** he had to go through at Troika Can't really blame him for that.

 

and Black Isle. Thats some serious communication issues displayed there. Fargo seems like a person that has good intentions but isn't actually great at managing people/keeping a close overview over the divisions/employees.

 

But I guess, we knew that somewhat already.

[Tigranes]

Hard to make judgments based on one story, though. I mean, Tim Cain's own retelling of his story sort of sets himself up for failure, as well - i.e. he constantly stresses how he didn't want to run a company, he had no idea how to run a company, and Troika was never run like a company. In fact, it reads as if even if Bloodlines was released in a professional manner (something we all know already was a massive what-the-hell) and they got another contract for some game, Troika would never have lasted. They would have needed to change in some way, somehow, or at least have begun the company 5-10 years earlier. We have to remember that the initial sales figures for Arcanum were pretty damn low, unfortunately.

 

That's in stark contrast to how Feargus tells his story. From the beginning, and we've seen this quite transparently in the deals Obsidian have made over the years, he's quite aware of and always looking at what is required to make the company last and to grow. As someone who likes their products and doesn't want them to go bankrupt, it has always reassured me because it always looked like they had some sort of coherent and realistic business plan (though the book is good at showing us how anything can always go wrong). Arguably, Alpha Protocol+Aliens might have been fatal for other companies, whereas for Obs, it's merely set them back a couple of project cycles; and now the big short-term priority is to really get Onyx out before it becomes outdated.

[Sannom]

and now the big short-term priority is to really get Onyx out before it becomes outdated.

Was that something from the book? I can't remember Onyx ever being mentioned...

[Tigranes]

No. It's my conjecture. But I'm pretty certain of it. You don't want a BG3/Van Buren situation where you get two messed up projects on a home-grown engine, then it's too old so all the work goes to waste. And in my eyes one of the key goals of DS3 was to use a proven franchise, publisher funding and a relatively conservative design remit to ensure a solid and timely debut for Onyx - Obsidian devs have spoken about how this now lets them say to publishers, "look at DS3 and how well its engine, at least, was received". We've also heard numerous times about how Obsidian is very keen on Onyx, thinks it's good, and that a in-house engine can only help for development. (And, Onyx was designed from the start to support different variations of RPG mechanics.)