(mini?) Update tomorrow / PE E3 stuff

[Mor]

PCworld had one of the two in depth interviews that I positively recall, I hope they follow with the same passion.

[nipsen]

Your "us vs. them" attitude is quite fascinating.

 

Mhm. Have you tried to sell an editor on the idea that your personal "conviction" about, I don't know.. quality craftmanship will dictate whether or not the writing would generate interest with the readership?

 

Or, if that failed, tried to argue that at least that is how it should be, and that the magazine would nevertheless gain a reputation for fronting solidly built titles. Which would be valuable. Since doing that would demonstrate how the magazine has some sort of grounding other than the next sponsorship deal, or the next heavily marketed titles in an attempt to create the biggest ditto-headlines.

 

If you have, and succeeded, or haven't and are convinced you can find an editor who will buy this -- go ahead and send me the details, and I'll send them my resume.

 

If not -- then I'm not really that interested in hearing about thoroughly benign salesmen who are simply interested in "making the best of what we have", to "sell the product as easily as possible", while "being absolutely clear on who has creative vision", and so on, Bryy.

 

Because if your business is to generate public interest. And you have no avenues in the mainstream press where your product can actually achieve that. Then -- if you still attempt to go that way, you're either incompetent, or you are deliberately trying to fail.

 

I mean, that's why Paradox uses youtube a lot. That's why they're practically invisible to the mainstream press, but still get sales.

 

But no. Let's pretend that writers engaged with the big sites are going to actually describe the game without prefacing it with: "An outdated concept that none of you will like - but hey, let me give you this pity pitch for your amusement anyway!". "Here's how your grandfather's games looked like!".

 

I'll tell you what's fascinating: that the idea that e3 is where you go to show off your creative vision, to enthrall and fascinate people looking for such things, is still alive. After 15 Call of Duty games. That's amazing to me.

[Bryy]

 

Your "us vs. them" attitude is quite fascinating.

 

Mhm. Have you tried to sell an editor on the idea that your personal "conviction" about, I don't know.. quality craftmanship will dictate whether or not the writing would generate interest with the readership?

 

Or, if that failed, tried to argue that at least that is how it should be, and that the magazine would nevertheless gain a reputation for fronting solidly built titles. Which would be valuable. Since doing that would demonstrate how the magazine has some sort of grounding other than the next sponsorship deal, or the next heavily marketed titles in an attempt to create the biggest ditto-headlines.

 

If you have, and succeeded, or haven't and are convinced you can find an editor who will buy this -- go ahead and send me the details, and I'll send them my resume.

 

If not -- then I'm not really that interested in hearing about thoroughly benign salesmen who are simply interested in "making the best of what we have", to "sell the product as easily as possible", while "being absolutely clear on who has creative vision", and so on, Bryy.

 

Because if your business is to generate public interest. And you have no avenues in the mainstream press where your product can actually achieve that. Then -- if you still attempt to go that way, you're either incompetent, or you are deliberately trying to fail.

 

I mean, that's why Paradox uses youtube a lot. That's why they're practically invisible to the mainstream press, but still get sales.

 

But no. Let's pretend that writers engaged with the big sites are going to actually describe the game without prefacing it with: "An outdated concept that none of you will like - but hey, let me give you this pity pitch for your amusement anyway!". "Here's how your grandfather's games looked like!".

 

I'll tell you what's fascinating: that the idea that e3 is where you go to show off your creative vision, to enthrall and fascinate people looking for such things, is still alive. After 15 Call of Duty games. That's amazing to me.

 

....

 

You do know that kind of proved my point of my last post, right?

[nipsen]

 

 

You do know that kind of proved my point of my last post, right?

 

Well, then prove me wrong, and send me the details for just one editor like what I'm asking for. Shut me up. Prove to me that media-outlets can be used to successfully promote something other than blockbuster AAA pitches. Prove to me that I'm having a comical persecution complex about evil industry media editors coming after me with the imagination and tenacity of very small hamsters.

 

It shouldn't be hard, Bryy. Just one example. I'm creating a fully falsifiable hypothesis about how the games-media works. And I'm not unreasonable - I'll admit the theory is faulty if you can show me that example.

 

But until that example turns up - you can't possibly disagree that trying to sell PoE to mainstream games-media is completely and totally futile. Like I described, it's probably going to work against you as well.

 

--

 

Seriously, though. I know it's not black and white. But the thing is that as things are, we really do have a serious difficulty in proving that logical construction up there wrong. That's kind of a real problem Obsidian should probably adjust to, yes?

[Lephys]

But no. Let's pretend that writers engaged with the big sites are going to actually describe the game without prefacing it with: "An outdated concept that none of you will like - but hey, let me give you this pity pitch for your amusement anyway!". "Here's how your grandfather's games looked like!".

I'm not sure a particular approach to interactive software design can really be "outdated." The game's actually visually quite stunning and modern. It's not even really 2D. And it's not like 2D games are dead or something.

 

And yeah... let's take bets on whether or not the articles'll all say "LOLZ! Check out THIS dinosaur!", and see who comes out better on that.

 

Considering friggin' Android games similar to Angry Birds are mainstream now, and they take like 3 months to program (some of them... they're much simpler games, no offense to them), I'm not really sure what's supposed to be unworthy of coverage in the modern gaming industry...

 

Also, regarding Bastion's success, you had this to say:

 

Because it had a known format, and they sold it on the colorful visual style and the unique narrative-driven approach. Next gen platformer in HD. It's something that looks like Braid. It's something that looks like something that has already been successful. It doesn't matter that the game itself was great in all kinds of ways that we would never know from the coverage. What matters is that the pitch they choose and the presentation they had at E3 will represent something thought to generate some appeal.

How did they know it had all that if got inherently ignored in favor of all the spiffy triple-A mainstream games?

 

Besides... why does it even matter whether or not we know the game's great from the coverage? We already know PoE is shaping up to be awesome. You're the one talking about how pointless it is for a game like this to have a presence at E3 because it won't even get coverage. According to you, whether or not it gets coverage has nothing to do with whether or not it's even good. AND how big it is (Bastion was a 9-person team, making their first-ever game.)

 

Appealing games generate appeal. The majority of gamers shift around. They get burnt out on things, and try other things. So long as they're pretty cool, they're pretty cool. Besides, even if only 200,000 people in the whole world learn of PoE from its E3 coverage, that's still a lot of people. Who will then talk about it to any of their friends/family who might also like it, whether or not it's because they're already hunting down that specific type of game.

 

Since isometric RPGs haven't been super huge in the past decade or so, there are plenty of people who haven't really been exposed to them. Are you gonna tell me that every single person who plays games today and maybe has never even seen an isometric RPG before is inherently averse to that entire concept of game?

 

No...

 

See, people go see cheap movies with explosions, and they still go see good quality movies. That's how people work. The people at E3 aren't going to go out of their way hunting down isometric RPGs, but that's what E3's for. They're interested in what they'll see at E3. If they see it and like it, then awesome.

 

Just because a bunch of people only care about the next Call of Duty game doesn't mean they are all the gamers in the world. It just means that fewer people will care about PoE than Call of Duty.

 

Publishers don't avoid backing these types of games because they're stupid and useless and no one wants them. They think "I could put up 20 million, and in 2 years make 100 million, OR I could put up 5 million and in two years make 10 million. I think I'll go with the first one."

 

It's relative. There are plenty of people who would find PoE interesting and enjoyable. Even if that's 5% of the "masses."

[Mr. Magniloquent]

This forum seems to be exhibiting a negative feedback loop where I care less and less about what's being discussed here. I'm hoping that it's merely with everything having been speculated to death and completion on the horizon, that there is nothing to do here but gnaw on the bones of whatever press release occurs, or even....hasn't occurred. I think I'll stick to checking in every couple of weeks and then just enjoy the game when it is released...whenever that might be.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I want to see game play as much as anybody, but I know darn well my natural tendency will be to recognize it's still pre alpha or alpha footage, but still critique it as something that in my mind should be more polished for as long as it's been in development. Therefore, I choose to remain patient and be grateful for anything that is shown, because regardless of when they show something, every day it's not shown is another day to make it better, and I'm ok waiting a few more weeks or months...

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I saw a quick mention of Pillars of Eternity tonight with good news....

 

 

Yes, this Kickstarter title made its first showing at E3 this year, and it is coming along quite nicely. When you look at it, the isometric view and art design has a distinctive feel of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, not surprising since many of the team have ties to the old RPGs in some way. But this is not a D&D game, so Obsidian has come up with its own rule set, its own world and bestiary, and its own classes and races. Unfortunately, what we saw at E3 is under embargo until later this week, but suffice it to say... Damn, I want to play this when it is ready.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e32014/11739-Johns-Five-Favorites-of-E3-2014

 

So I'm guessing we might hear something Wednesday, maybe?!

[Sensuki]

Thursday 6AM PDT was the quoted time from a games writer on twitter. There's gonna be a few articles...

Edited June 17, 2014 by Sensuki

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I saw a quick mention of Pillars of Eternity tonight with good news....

 

Yes, this Kickstarter title made its first showing at E3 this year, and it is coming along quite nicely. When you look at it, the isometric view and art design has a distinctive feel of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, not surprising since many of the team have ties to the old RPGs in some way. But this is not a D&D game, so Obsidian has come up with its own rule set, its own world and bestiary, and its own classes and races. Unfortunately, what we saw at E3 is under embargo until later this week, but suffice it to say... Damn, I want to play this when it is ready.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e32014/11739-Johns-Five-Favorites-of-E3-2014

 

So I'm guessing we might hear something Wednesday, maybe?!

 

 

On the forum, he goes onto say:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.852905-Johns-Five-Favorites-of-E3-2014

 

And believe me, I WANT to talk about it

[Darji]

Thursday 6AM PDT was the quoted time from a games writer on twitter. There's gonna be a few articles...

yeah and like 1k people will care about it without a video.  Again there is a reason why ign, gamespot, polygon and co are switching to more and more videos. Do quicklooks, do video previews etc. No one reads these article anymore except the hardcore fan. And even than it is the exception. 

[ShadySands]

"If you don't like to read, don't play this game" -Josh Sawyer

[Bryy]

 

Thursday 6AM PDT was the quoted time from a games writer on twitter. There's gonna be a few articles...

yeah and like 1k people will care about it without a video.  Again there is a reason why ign, gamespot, polygon and co are switching to more and more videos. Do quicklooks, do video previews etc. No one reads these article anymore except the hardcore fan. And even than it is the exception. 

 

The event is over. Complaining about it is not going to change whatever content is in the articles.

[Endrosz]

Because if your business is to generate public interest. And you have no avenues in the mainstream press where your product can actually achieve that. Then -- if you still attempt to go that way, you're either incompetent, or you are deliberately trying to fail.

 

I mean, that's why Paradox uses youtube a lot. That's why they're practically invisible to the mainstream press, but still get sales.

 

 

I get that you have strong, valid marketing-media experiences, and I learned a lot from what you wrote. Thank you, indeed.

 

1. But re: Obsi at E3, it has been mentioned by others that their presence there is more about networking, about making contacts, showing that they're alive and kicking and available for hire. Obsidian is one of the few mid-sized, 100+ but 200- employee independent studios left. Think about it: how many employees were fed by that 4 million dollars from the Eternity KS, and for how long? The team size never went above 30 AFAIK, and that's for full production. Eternity is a niche game, yeah, but if you want to land AAA contracts or sub-contracts (think F:NV), you need a solid industry presence for that. E3 is the perfect place to explore contract opportunities -- GDC is an academic meeting, and PAX is for gamers.

 

2. Also, I'm one of those people who reads/watches every interview and listens to every podcast. The arguably best Eternity article came from PC World, a mainstream gaming magazine, written by someone who fully appreciates and understands these "olde skoole" RPGs. Eurogamer's reports by Robert Purchese always generate a lot of responses, oftentimes more than straight AAA titles do! (Yes, I checked) As much as I value your insight, it seems to me that you're not entirely right. In this particular case, it's worth pursuing the mainstream media. You might be right for 95% of the niche titles, but this game does have mainstream appeal.

[Sensuki]

Yeah the PC World one from December was one of the best articles.

[nipsen]

You might be right for 95% of the niche titles, but this game does have mainstream appeal.

 

Mm. But what is that appeal really about?

 

Is it misplaced nostalgia and get off my lawn, and so on? A very large amount of people see it that way, with the exclusive entitlement issues that come along with it. It's "our game", that no one understands any more, etc.

 

Or is it maybe about presenting how narrative, design, and the interference between the two is still as important now as it was a bunch of years ago? Maybe the old games that required you to suspend disbelief by a thread can be enjoyed effortlessly now thanks to better graphics and smoother programming solutions? If so, what are the challenges for the game-designers now compared to earlier? How would they approach dialogue construction - do they actually write a script rather than a set of environment boards for the level-designers first. How does that process happen, and how does Obsidian want to be described as an elite team of craftsmen in a unique discipline, please. Etc., etc.

 

I mean, it's not undoable to make something like that interesting. But fat chance getting hold of someone with the opportunity to print it, never mind a person to write the piece.

[Darji]

 

 

Thursday 6AM PDT was the quoted time from a games writer on twitter. There's gonna be a few articles...

yeah and like 1k people will care about it without a video.  Again there is a reason why ign, gamespot, polygon and co are switching to more and more videos. Do quicklooks, do video previews etc. No one reads these article anymore except the hardcore fan. And even than it is the exception. 

 

The event is over. Complaining about it is not going to change whatever content is in the articles.

 

No out maybe prevent further mistakes down the line? I can not change what Obsidian did at E3. I only can try to prevent another incident like that. 

 

Also I can not believe that people actually think this game has mainstream appeal? No it has absolutely not. It is for RPG nerds like I am one. It is not for the Mass effect Bioware crowd. That kind of audience does not even want to read anything at all ac coring to Bioware. 

[Chilloutman]

No out maybe prevent further mistakes down the line? I can not change what Obsidian did at E3. I only can try to prevent another incident like that. 

 

Also I can not believe that people actually think this game has mainstream appeal? No it has absolutely not. It is for RPG nerds like I am one. It is not for the Mass effect Bioware crowd. That kind of audience does not even want to read anything at all ac coring to Bioware.

I kind of agree with you but dont throw everyone into one bag, I for once, enjoyed ME1 and I still am backer of PoE. Maybe we will be suprised by success they will make. I think that anything above lets say 0.5M sold copies would be quite big success

[Darji]

 

No out maybe prevent further mistakes down the line? I can not change what Obsidian did at E3. I only can try to prevent another incident like that. 

 

Also I can not believe that people actually think this game has mainstream appeal? No it has absolutely not. It is for RPG nerds like I am one. It is not for the Mass effect Bioware crowd. That kind of audience does not even want to read anything at all ac coring to Bioware.

I kind of agree with you but dont throw everyone into one bag, I for once, enjoyed ME1 and I still am backer of PoE. Maybe we will be suprised by success they will make. I think that anything above lets say 0.5M sold copies would be quite big success

 

I am not saying it. That was literally what Bioware said in their interviews when they introduced the Skip RPG function.  If you enjoy Mass Effect great more power to you. ME was decent ME2 was a nice shooter and ME3 was terrible but if you like it it is totally okay^^

[Chilloutman]

 

 

No out maybe prevent further mistakes down the line? I can not change what Obsidian did at E3. I only can try to prevent another incident like that. 

 

Also I can not believe that people actually think this game has mainstream appeal? No it has absolutely not. It is for RPG nerds like I am one. It is not for the Mass effect Bioware crowd. That kind of audience does not even want to read anything at all ac coring to Bioware.

I kind of agree with you but dont throw everyone into one bag, I for once, enjoyed ME1 and I still am backer of PoE. Maybe we will be suprised by success they will make. I think that anything above lets say 0.5M sold copies would be quite big success

 

I am not saying it. That was literally what Bioware said in their interviews when they introduced the Skip RPG function.  If you enjoy Mass Effect great more power to you. ME was decent ME2 was a nice shooter and ME3 was terrible but if you like it it is totally okay^^

 

You contradict yourself there:

 

'It is not for the Mass effect Bioware crowd'

 

'I am not saying it'

 

I played only ME1, dont have energy for game which is complete with 5+ DLCs. I will wait for some complete edition 1+2+3+ DLC1 +DLC2 + DLC3 + DLC4 + DLC5 + DLC6 + DLC7 + Exclusive content + Exlusive content2 + ....

[Osvir]

Bungie really did kind of set a new standard there didn't they Chilloutman?

@nipsen: These are all the google results from page 1 I got from writing "Best PC RPG of all time" in google.se (my region). It's kind of inconsistent. No "Search Tools" used, I don't know dates of this stuff (saw one saying "1 year ago" or something like that).

 

I'll counter your question with: Why do we like old stuff? Links lead to the "top stuff".

1. IGN not PC specific
2. Metacritic (By Metascore) Metacritic (By User Score)

3. N4G which leads to Gameranx

4. Videogamer Does not look like they care much for the Infinity games whatsoever: this
5. whatculture It's "The last 10 years", WoW was in there as well as Final Fantasy XII. So not purely PC either.
6. PCGamesN list in no particular order
7. ComplexGaming "Best 50 PC Games of all time" not specifically RPGs.
8. Giantbomb discussion thread

9. Giantbomb user "best of list" a console RPG fan
10. PCGamer best of PC

EDIT: It's a great question, "what is the appeal all about?". For myself it's about the culture, the history of it, big impacts in the video game industry and so on. It's also from reading and hearing how many companies started (Blizzard for instance) and how it was in the beginning.

Some of the best games in history aren't graphical wonders, and they rely purely on narrative wonder. The Harry Potter books are great in my opinion, the movies are good. The games are horrible. Why? The games aren't genuine nor are they authentic.

I checked the Spoony Experiment and his Ultima 9 review (which goes through all Ultima games). Why is Ultima 9 primarily "bad"? Because it's not authentic or genuine to the rest of the series.

I find older games more genuine and authentic to themselves*, and you can feel and notice that they are works of passion. Whilst in a big studio with 1000's of employees I think that passion of the top designers dissipates into some sort of void. Or big studios become so dependant on stockholders that they become more like a news company I don't know... stockholders are demanding and want more winnings each year so you got to make more money than you did the last year or they're going to leave you.

*Not all of them. And there are certainly new games that are well developed and genuine and authentic to themselves as well. I'm just painting a broad picture and trying to figure out my own answer to "what is the appeal all about?"

Edited June 17, 2014 by Osvir

[NWN_babaYaga]

I need my daily video footage otherwise i go mad and boycott the whole world... F**** you world for not givin me my daily video explosions and fancy awesome moving pixels. I dont even need food anymore because i can feed my body trough the youtube connector.... but it must move and have many comments i can dislike because i am the ruler of the video footage analyzer guild!

[Darji]

A bit off topic but I just saw 20 minutes of a closed E3 Presentation of Dragon Age 3 which was leaked. And I can not believe they did not show this to the public. It looked fantastic, there were no spoilers at all  just some marketing buzzwords and feature explanation so the press can write about it but otherwise it was fantastic and by far the best Thing I have seen from this game media wise. 

 

When I imagine  Obsidian also did such a presentation with their Demo.... It would have been the perfect marketing of you Game... It is really a shame Publishers and developers still not understand that you should show your stuff to fans for real honest and concrete feedback regarding reputation and hit potential....

Edited June 17, 2014 by Darji

[Osvir]

edit: bah! why do I spend energy on this?

This will suffice:

Edited June 17, 2014 by Osvir

[Bryy]

 

 

 

Thursday 6AM PDT was the quoted time from a games writer on twitter. There's gonna be a few articles...

yeah and like 1k people will care about it without a video.  Again there is a reason why ign, gamespot, polygon and co are switching to more and more videos. Do quicklooks, do video previews etc. No one reads these article anymore except the hardcore fan. And even than it is the exception. 

 

The event is over. Complaining about it is not going to change whatever content is in the articles.

 

No out maybe prevent further mistakes down the line? I can not change what Obsidian did at E3. I only can try to prevent another incident like that. 

 

Also I can not believe that people actually think this game has mainstream appeal? No it has absolutely not. It is for RPG nerds like I am one. It is not for the Mass effect Bioware crowd. That kind of audience does not even want to read anything at all ac coring to Bioware. 

 

This is the last I'm going to respond to you, because I'm going in circles now, but I don't think it's up to you to decide what is best for Obsidian.