The Project Eternity success impact

[japol]

Obviously,these questions are directed towards the developers and to everyone else who knows the video game industry.

 

Will this big success of over 3.6 million $ turn some heads over at the big publishers?

Will they try to take a slice from the pie?

Will Obsidian be at a better negotiating position?

Will they ''resurrect" other vanished video game genres?

 

Don't get me wrong,if i ever saw EA or Activision claiming they were making an "Old School RPG" for the fans,i would roll my eyes

and laugh.I am just curious to know whether this crowdfunding revolution has any real impact beyond just the games themselves.

[And]

Even if the kickstarter reaches 4 million dollars, it will still be a fairly low-budget title, so unless the game is a huge commercial success, i don't see it impacting the gaming business in any substantial way.

[Malkaven]

I hope other companies learn from this and start/continue to release games in this genre. I really hope Obsidian will continue to make them and keep pushing the limits. If you have to do a kickstarter then do it! Just keep going.

[ArchBeast]

Don't get me wrong,if i ever saw EA or Activision claiming they were making an "Old School RPG" for the fans,i would roll my eyes

and laugh.I am just curious to know whether this crowdfunding revolution has any real impact beyond just the games themselves.

 

Becouse of EA, Dragon Age orgin, dragon age 2 and mass efect 2 was unfinifhed or some kind of a joke (and they had big wased potential). I thing that crowdfunding is a big step for games. If it works and more companies like obsidian apply this idea ...

 

It will by 1 step coser to my dream ...... EA rotting in helll !!!!!!!

[Rabain]

Feargus already commented that it will all depend on sales numbers, not really on the success of a kickstarter. Think about if a publisher was funding this game instead of via KS, they would be putting up most if not all of the money. Only Sales would get it back for them.

 

If PE sells 1+ million copies in the 12 months after release then publishers might start to think about the effect on their profits.

[C2B]

Yup, sales are important here. Though they should be a fair bit higher than the number of backers. And gets lotta money to Obsidian.

Edited October 16, 2012 by C2B

[Zoma]

It will show Obsidian's popularity in the market, which at least I hope will persuade publishers to hire Obsidian again to make RPGs.

[mya79]

I hope now with this method kickstarter well will have more interesting game rpg old school for the gamers with good quality writing and more choice !

[The Mist Devil]

I'm following this saga with great interest. This is a new approach for a "big business entreprise". Having the clients pay before the work starts, creating yourself a safety net, relying less on big companies and more directly on the gamers themselves... I'm indeed curious if PE is a big success how it'll impact video game business, but maybe other leisure business too. We'll see.

[Malcador]

Well, I'm hesitant to think PE will be a big success in the eyes of publishers - wouldn't have needed donations to get it going. Does at least show there's some interest in under-served genres though, I guess that just means more kickstarters.

[Aeristal]

Wouldn't this be an internal return on investment? No money going to publishers.

 

As a middleman, wouldn't the publisher just get pushed out of the equation? Obsidian realizes profits earlier than in a normal product cycle by selling the game before developing it. Total potential future revenue would be decreased by those early profits...though technically the value of money decreases over time so early profit valued for inflation is technically worth more. ...and expenses would diminish as a result of cutting out the middleman.

 

If a large profit is realized, then it would increase Obsidian's independence from publishers which may or may not put Obsidian in a better negotiation position with publisher with regards to rates and game content.

 

If a reasonable sum of gross profit can be generated, there would be no substantial reason for Obsidian not generating more Classic content aside from leading members within Obsidian not wanting to.

 

...Not sure if these assurances are accurate but umm... trying to reason it out :D

Edited October 16, 2012 by Aeristal

[Amentep]

Part of the reason that (AFAIK) publisher use the current model is, like film, they'd rather pay $50 million for $200 million profit than $2 million for a $10 million profit. I don't really see that changing with the PE Kickstarter.

 

Unless PE becomes the video game equivalent of Friday the Thirteenth, Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity - low budget films that earned big budget profits. In which case I'd imagine the publishers would be thinking about how to tap that market (just like each of the above films generated copycats from other movie companies trying to cash in on their low-budget success).

[rjshae]

To me it also speaks to the importance of reputation in the gaming business. Having prior successful titles makes it easier to get kickstarter backing for new projects. Backers would know that their money is a relatively safe investment because (hopefully) the people involved will want to maintain their high reputation in the business. Having the reputation and resources of an experienced company like Obsidian behind it also helped.

Edited October 16, 2012 by rjshae

[Rahelron]

I don't think the big publishers will ever be interested in a 3.5 millions project. Not from the economic point of view.

 

Big MMORPGs nowadays cost around 100 million dollars to make.

Normal games cost around 30 millions, 10 times the PE's cost.

 

What I think the publishers should understand is that investing 3.5 millions on a "small" game like PE could get them a lot of good feedback from the community. This would revert in an increased brand value for their company. An example: Instead of keeping rouining franchises like Command & Conquer, Ultima and so on EA should launch community polls to see what sagas the gamers want to be revived. After that they should put some money on the line to make sequels worthy of the name. Not big sequels, just small project that would be useful to make a lot of people say good things about EA around the internet.

[cealicu_ca]

Don't get me wrong,if i ever saw EA or Activision claiming they were making an "Old School RPG" for the fans,i would roll my eyes

and laugh.I am just curious to know whether this crowdfunding revolution has any real impact beyond just the games themselves.

 

Becouse of EA, Dragon Age orgin, dragon age 2 and mass efect 2 was unfinifhed or some kind of a joke (and they had big wased potential). I thing that crowdfunding is a big step for games. If it works and more companies like obsidian apply this idea ...

 

It will by 1 step coser to my dream ...... EA rotting in helll !!!!!!!

 

after what they did with SWTOR... EA rotting in a rotting hell...

[Syraxis]

Will this big success of over 3.6 million $ turn some heads over at the big publishers?

 

It might be a talking point in some board meeting but I'd doubt more unless the sales are good.

 

Will they try to take a slice from the pie?

 

Taking would imply they had a stake in the so-called pie to begin with.

 

Will Obsidian be at a better negotiating position?

Since they have their own IP that they can invest directly into and take a larger share of the profits from, and take some of said profits to invest into other new IPs. Yes. They will be in an astronomically better negotiating position. That is, if PE is successful sales wise.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Syraxis

[kabaliero]

**** publishers!

**** Activision!

And especially, massively, immensely **** EA!

 

After all they've ruined. After all bull**** we've been through in the past decade.

 

Cheers.

[Brannart]

3.6 million is not much money to publishers these days. I suddenly get this image of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers WE SHALL DOMINATE THE INDUSTRY WITH *zoom* 3.6 MILLION DOLLARS.

 

Now if they sell 3.6 million units THEN that will attract lots of attention.

[cealicu_ca]

Part of the reason that (AFAIK) publisher use the current model is, like film, they'd rather pay $50 million for $200 million profit than $2 million for a $10 million profit. I don't really see that changing with the PE Kickstarter.

 

Unless PE becomes the video game equivalent of Friday the Thirteenth, Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity - low budget films that earned big budget profits. In which case I'd imagine the publishers would be thinking about how to tap that market (just like each of the above films generated copycats from other movie companies trying to cash in on their low-budget success).

 

the point is that if a trend starts then your comparison is not quite realistic.

 

you'd have a 50M investment with a 200M return vs. (20x)2M investment with a (20x)10M return.

 

i'm pretty sure that those 3 video games huge successes on KS (DFA, W2 and now PE) WILL generate a lot of analysis reports...

[Rasmudd]

The biggest change is **** PUBLISHERS. There are plenty of AAA game that benefit from publisher backing and huge marketing waves but it just feels good that there is a healthy alternative to selling your soul to a publisher for no profit or ownership of IP.

 

So publishers probably won't care super-much but developers who want to make niche games and actually earn real money might.

[Rahelron]

Part of the reason that (AFAIK) publisher use the current model is, like film, they'd rather pay $50 million for $200 million profit than $2 million for a $10 million profit. I don't really see that changing with the PE Kickstarter.

 

Unless PE becomes the video game equivalent of Friday the Thirteenth, Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity - low budget films that earned big budget profits. In which case I'd imagine the publishers would be thinking about how to tap that market (just like each of the above films generated copycats from other movie companies trying to cash in on their low-budget success).

 

the point is that if a trend starts then your comparison is not quite realistic.

 

you'd have a 50M investment with a 200M return vs. (20x)2M investment with a (20x)10M return.

 

i'm pretty sure that those 3 video games huge successes on KS (DFA, W2 and now PE) WILL generate a lot of analysis reports...

 

But gaining 200M dollars with 10 2M projects is much more difficoult than earning 200M with a single 20M project. To earn that money with 10 different games you need 10 different great ideas and 10 different teams able to turn those ideas into great finished games. Do you know how difficoult it is to get a single good business idea? Another thing: in 20 millions of budget you can squeeze in a great marketing campaign, in 2 millions you cannot.

[Rink]

Well I am sure that publishers will wait for the release of the games to see how sales will be and I myself also do not know how big the market is for such games and if all the fans already bought the game now or if there will be millions of copies sold after the release as well. I hope it is the case, but I just do not know.

I am not sure, but I think that publishers do also invest more in a game than just development costs and I imagine that this other costs usually are quite comparable between different games. So they have their own costs (people that work together with the developers, bring in their own ideas, make quality control of the game, make budget control, marketing (presentations, interviews, development of sales concept and documents, development of parts of the game that will just be early marketing for webpages and gametesters, production costs of boxed copies of the game, upholding who makes sales where in the world etc etc). And if those costs are 3 M for the project with development budget of 50 M they may still be 1.5 M for the game with 2 M investment. So the profit %age would be a lot higher with the game with 50 M development budget. Of course bigger may also be better than 10 small projects, but I think there would be small publishers that would also take a project with less potential if it also has less costs IF the predicted profit-% was high enough.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Rink

[Huinehtar]

Publishers will probably see that is 60k+ bakers (maybe 70k at the end of the day?). Since backers are not really investissors (due to the KS scheme) - they aren't shareholders - they will be considered as customers. So I think publishers will consider that 70k people have preordered the game. It is pretty far from Millions sales. They will pay attention at the game's release.

 

From another point of view, I have to notice that this success (and it IS a success) may have an impact for investissors to LINUX and MacOS games (with other successes which will be developped on these OS as WL2). I really hope it will encourage other developpers to develop their games in these OS (commercial games and opensource games).

Edited October 16, 2012 by Huinehtar