Interplay. Kickstarter? It is...a mystery!

[Veeno]

Damn. Well, back to my sarcasm chamber.

[Grimlorn]

@Grimlorn: yes, we got it 2 pages ago. That's sarcasm.

No you don't get it.

[Veeno]

No you don't get it.

 

Nobody ever gets it, my friend.

[DocDoomII]

@Grimlorn: yes, we got it 2 pages ago. That's sarcasm.

No you don't get it.

It's difficult to 'get' you, when you like so much to only post images.

Not that I particularly want to 'get' you or anything.

[Grimlorn]

@Grimlorn: yes, we got it 2 pages ago. That's sarcasm.

No you don't get it.

It's difficult to 'get' you, when you like so much to only post images.

Not that I particularly want to 'get' you or anything.

Yet you keep making asinine posts in response to mine.

[Veeno]

Ah, it's the wannabe-cool-totally-uninterested-semi-troll guy.

 

Yeah, Internet's full of them.

[syn2083]

@Grimlorn: yes, we got it 2 pages ago. That's sarcasm.

No you don't get it.

It's difficult to 'get' you, when you like so much to only post images.

Not that I particularly want to 'get' you or anything.

Yet you keep making asinine posts in response to mine.

 

But really, whats the price of cheese in chicago?

 

No seriously, I have no idea if its different there..

[AstralWanderer]

Remember this quote about a month back?

 

“We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter,” Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart revealed in a Q&A on the Project Eternity Kickstarter page. “I said to them ‘So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don’t get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits.’ They said, ‘Yes’.”

Getting back to the OP, for those disinclined to wade through 220 pages of Feargus' comments, the one in question can be found here.

 

Some nice analysis, and while it saddens me to see a publisher sinking so low (effectively panhandling), it doesn't surprise me either.

[syn2083]

Remember this quote about a month back?

 

“We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter,” Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart revealed in a Q&A on the Project Eternity Kickstarter page. “I said to them ‘So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don’t get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits.’ They said, ‘Yes’.”

Getting back to the OP, for those disinclined to wade through 220 pages of Feargus' comments, the one in question can be found here.

 

Some nice analysis, and while it saddens me to see a publisher sinking so low (effectively panhandling), it doesn't surprise me either.

 

I wouldnt be surprised, I wouldnt be surprised if they had actually approached them to do the battlechess franchise as it seems to be one of the few remaining with any 'nostalgic' feel for anyone. Would be a quick thing to do for an Obsidian and I would imagine could be leveraged smartly to get enough to limp to another project.

 

Actually I really loved battlechess back on our Tandy. My dad and I used to play that constantly. If they managed to release it, which seems absurdly unlikely, I would probably buy it for that reason alone.

 

So, simply, it seems very plausible to me.

[Ausir]

I believe the franchise the new Black Isle is working on is likely Dark Alliance 3, as it's one of the few RPG franchises Interplay has left.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Ausir

[Karkarov]

Wow this thread is so monumentally dumb I don't know what to say. Either way regardless of who the Publisher that made the offer was it is unlikely and known Developer would have accepted the deal.

 

What kind of nonsense did you just type?

The kind that implies the thread is sort of stupid. Someone made them a one sided deal, they said no, it happens.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Remember this quote about a month back?

 

“We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter,” Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart revealedin a Q&A on the Project Eternity Kickstarter page. “I said to them ‘So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don’t get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits.’ They said, ‘Yes’.”

 

So there was a lot of speculation on who this mysterious publisher was.

 

Everyone assumes its one publisher and is trying to figure out who this one publisher is. Everybody seems to be missing the fact it was 'some publishers'.

[syn2083]

I believe the franchise the new Black Isle is working on is likely Dark Alliance 3, as it's one of the few RPG franchises Interplay has left.

 

Thats probably true, while not terribly awesome, for some reason my friends any I could not put these down hah.

[Leferd]

Wow this thread is so monumentally dumb I don't know what to say. Either way regardless of who the Publisher that made the offer was it is unlikely and known Developer would have accepted the deal.

 

What kind of nonsense did you just type?

The kind that implies the thread is sort of stupid. Someone made them a one sided deal, they said no, it happens.

 

Thanks for the clarifying your contradictory post and I reject your original assertion. You're right, you should have just gone with your gut, and not said anything. Moving on.

[Giantevilhead]

It seems unlikely that Herve Caen would pull this crap. He has to know that Brian Fargo hates his guts.

[Leferd]

It seems unlikely that Herve Caen would pull this crap. He has to know that Brian Fargo hates his guts.

 

What does Brian Fargo have to do with it? He's with inXile, not Obsidian.

[Giantevilhead]

It seems unlikely that Herve Caen would pull this crap. He has to know that Brian Fargo hates his guts.

 

What does Brian Fargo have to do with it? He's with inXile, not Obsidian.

 

Oops, I meant Feargus Urquhart. In fact, all the former Black Isle people probably hate Herve Caen.

[Leferd]

Ok, right. But business is business. If they have a proposal, it makes sense to at least listen to the pitch, personal feelings aside.

[Giantevilhead]

But they have no reason to trust Caen due to his crap management of Interplay. All he's ever done is lose millions of dollars. Why would they listen to business proposals from someone who is clearly bad at making business decisions?

 

Companies like EA and Activision may be jerks but at least they know how to make money.

[Loki Ador]

Just for the sake of discussion, I would agree with OP, for the very reason that big studios like EA would simply not care about such a small franchise. EA's CEO stated that they had removed from their shelves low-audience games (cannot remember the exact quote, I found it while doing a short research on the video game industry current business model).

 

EA is looking for 2-million copies selling games, not for niche games as PE. Even if the latter may end up having a higher sales to profit margin, it simply lacks magnitude for EA, who yearns for a limited portfolio of broad selling products.

[chisled2bone]

wow that would make no sense though. Why do a kickstarter if a publisher is going to back it. You give up the franchise and just wow... makes no sense i cant even speak a proper sentence

[matthewfarmery]

at least the KS for Battle Chess was a flop

 

 

and yes, why do a KS when interplay was still going to publish it? unless they just wanted to use KS as a means of getting the game funded without spending a penny, but even if the game does make the light of day, I still wouldn't touch it with a ten foot bargepole,

[Hormalakh]

 

DRM will never manage, nor has it ever managed, to stop pirates from pirating a video game (unless the video game is multiplayer only with only official servers as an option). The only thing DRM does is encumber the people who purchased the game and actually legally own it, for pirates it does absolutely nothing.

 

And THAT is why Project Eternity, being DRM-free, will probably not lose nearly as much profit to piracy as DRMed games, because more pirates than you'd think pirate DRMed video games as a sort of a protest against DRM.

 

I also would be quite pissed if any of my friends ever pirated this game, nor would I ever condone pirating this game. Why? Simple: I backed it and I actually like Obsidian as a company. They haven't screwed me over and listen to their fans. Why would I do anything that could possibly harm them by taking money away from them? These are the actual developers of the games, not some middleman trash that does nothing but destroy the games I love to play.

[Veeno]

I also would be quite pissed if any of my friends ever pirated this game, nor would I ever condone pirating this game. Why? Simple: I backed it and I actually like Obsidian as a company. They haven't screwed me over and listen to their fans. Why would I do anything that could possibly harm them by taking money away from them? These are the actual developers of the games, not some middleman trash that does nothing but destroy the games I love to play.

 

Seriously though, I really can't understand the "logic" behind DRM. I'm pretty sure that's because there simply isn't one.

 

Pirates just bypass DRM. No matter what sort of DRM you implement, it's possible to crack it. So basically, DRM is a way of making pirates the privileged players of the game. It tries to say "piracy is bad" but instead all it says is "piracy pays off because you don't have to bother with this crap if you get the pirated version of the game", and on top of that it actually costs money to implement DRM.

 

There just is no logic behind it whatsoever.

[Hormalakh]

I also would be quite pissed if any of my friends ever pirated this game, nor would I ever condone pirating this game. Why? Simple: I backed it and I actually like Obsidian as a company. They haven't screwed me over and listen to their fans. Why would I do anything that could possibly harm them by taking money away from them? These are the actual developers of the games, not some middleman trash that does nothing but destroy the games I love to play.

 

Seriously though, I really can't understand the "logic" behind DRM. I'm pretty sure that's because there simply isn't one.

 

Pirates just bypass DRM. No matter what sort of DRM you implement, it's possible to crack it. So basically, DRM is a way of making pirates the privileged players of the game. It tries to say "piracy is bad" but instead all it says is "piracy pays off because you don't have to bother with this crap if you get the pirated version of the game", and on top of that it actually costs money to implement DRM.

 

There just is no logic behind it whatsoever.

 

My personal feeling is that companies that employ DRM aren't doing it to stop pirates. If pirates won't pay, then they'll charge their customers twice to recoup those losses. Those guys are paying money already, so they figure they'd pay again to play a game that they should technically own. Thus, when a game suddenly gets hacked or no longer works, they'll just have to buy the game again to play it. Suckers that they are, they probably do, thus paying once for the pirate and once for themselves.