Update #96: The Road to Eternity

[BAdler]

 

 

We are shipping out game DVDs to tiers that get physical disc rewards very shorty. To ensure that your DVD will go to the correct location, please make sure your address is updated on our site. Next Tuesday, May 26th is the final cutoff to make sure that you have your address entered correctly.

 

 

By "very shortly" do you ACTUALLY mean very shortly, or the same lie you've been telling for over two months now where you claim they'll be going out "shortly" and then week after week goes by with no word on shipping, until the next lie about "Okay we're shipping them soon" happens?

 

As far as I know the discs are printed and we are just waiting on final address confirmations before they ship out.

[BAdler]

 

 

Edit-found my answer. Those books are going on my wish list on Amazon.

 

I wonder if obsidian has any plans for writing novels based on the game world of pillars of eternity by chance in the future?

Anything is possible. I am currently talking things over with folks about ways to expand the brand. One of the ideas that came up involved lots of short stories about PoE.

Hi Brandon，have you received the email about the asian translation problem in 1.05 patch，which Chris metioned of it with you？

 

 

I have. We are going to investigate, but Traditional Chinese is not an officially supported language. This means I have other things prioritized ahead of it for now.

 

Once we get some additional time we will look to the problems that people seeing with truncated lines, though.

[BAdler]

Will there be subtitle for the documentary? I guess I am not the only person with hearing impairment...

Currently no, but we are going to look into how much it would cost to get it subtitled.

[BAdler]

only for champion edition and above or bakers? Not for standard? 

Should be for all backers with Hero edition or above.

[tarasis]

Just to repeat what I said on the KS Update:

 

Just finished the documentary. I really enjoyed it, it was great to see some of your processes and thoughts throughout. I wish it was maybe 30-45 minutes longer, taking a look at more of the issues you had nearing release / after release. Maybe a bit of a post mortem of the game following its release, what _you_ felt was good & bad.

Regardless I think it was worth the wait, and 85 minutes well spent.

[BAdler]

 

Just to repeat what I said on the KS Update:

 

Just finished the documentary. I really enjoyed it, it was great to see some of your processes and thoughts throughout. I wish it was maybe 30-45 minutes longer, taking a look at more of the issues you had nearing release / after release. Maybe a bit of a post mortem of the game following its release, what _you_ felt was good & bad.

Regardless I think it was worth the wait, and 85 minutes well spent.

 

 

Unfortunately, the documentary was already running a bit long. There was so much to try to get across in a short amount of time. Maybe some day we can do an extended cut with additional footage. That would be cool.

[tarasis]

 

 

Just to repeat what I said on the KS Update:

 

Just finished the documentary. I really enjoyed it, it was great to see some of your processes and thoughts throughout. I wish it was maybe 30-45 minutes longer, taking a look at more of the issues you had nearing release / after release. Maybe a bit of a post mortem of the game following its release, what _you_ felt was good & bad.

Regardless I think it was worth the wait, and 85 minutes well spent.

 

 

Unfortunately, the documentary was already running a bit long. There was so much to try to get across in a short amount of time. Maybe some day we can do an extended cut with additional footage. That would be cool.

 

 

Thanks for the answer, I can well imagine that there was a lot of footage to cull through and pull together for a narrative. My fingers are crossed that you'll return to it one day, maybe as work begins / through the work on the expansion. (Looking at the expansion you'se had committed to during the KS, how you define what the story for it will be, what you decide you can do for it over the proposed sequel and so on)

[ImRhoven]

That was a great documentary. Besides it obviously being fun to get an inside glimpse of the working of the studio I found the editing and use of music make at very enjoyable viewing experience.

[Strange_Trees]

I never imagined that video game release parties were that sexy XD

[Blitz]

This was the best video game documentary I've ever seen, not because it's so rare to see one, but it told a story. A story of a great company, a great team, how they went from disaster to triumph. The story was full of hero's and I even teared up once, it's great to see a company that you believe in and love their products being able to keep doing what they do. It also added the human element and a rare look behind the scenes of how the games we love are created, which isn't magic. Most importantly, it put faces on the people who helped make the parts of the game we love so much, the heroes.

 

Cheers to the hero's,

David

[BIOCHEM1STRY]

Great documentary i really enjoyed it! Now it's time for DLC and expansions... Damm i can't wait for the story to continue.

 

Any chance the Paradox webshop will be updated with some cool new PoE merchandise / art / figurines?

[advion]

I really enjoyed watching that and it shows how passionate and dedicated you are to your craft.

[Evange]

I pre-ordered PoE. Do I get the documentary too? Steam downloaded the documentary update for me but I couldn't find it in the game folder.

[samm]

Nicely done, except for the "hard" transition between scenes - if you'll revisit the documentary, maybe add a fade effect? Or at least play some sounds of the following scene at the end of the previous scene to make the transition seem softer?

 

As a software developer in comparatively smaller projects (we do not have an audience in the hundred thousands or even millions o_O ) I was somewhat shocked about the raw number of bugs that Tim Cain had on his fix list - and impressed by how fast he got that number down. Currently considering an offer for him to join our team to squash bugs

 

[edit]

@Evange: What edition did you pre-order? I think the documentary is not part of all editions.

Edited May 24, 2015 by samm

[Evange]

Nicely done, except for the "hard" transition between scenes - if you'll revisit the documentary, maybe add a fade effect? Or at least play some sounds of the following scene at the end of the previous scene to make the transition seem softer?

 

As a software developer in comparatively smaller projects (we do not have an audience in the hundred thousands or even millions o_O ) I was somewhat shocked about the raw number of bugs that Tim Cain had on his fix list - and impressed by how fast he got that number down. Currently considering an offer for him to join our team to squash bugs

 

[edit]

@Evange: What edition did you pre-order? I think the documentary is not part of all editions.

I preordered the Hero Edition...

[samm]

Then that may be the reason why you don't have the documentation. It is an extra that is part of the Champion's Edition.

[Evange]

Then that may be the reason why you don't have the documentation. It is an extra that is part of the Champion's Edition.

I see...I saw PoE updating in Steam so I thought I got the documentary.

[Bryy]

My favorite things:

 

Cork Board of Eternity. YUSSSSSSSSSSS.

I always love seeing the vertical slice/pre-alpha look of games. So fascinating.

Also, really love team games. Those are always great motivators. Avellone: "Why am I on a pile of silver?"

Level 17 Cosplayer. lolz

Josh's "Mad Max" face during the teaser trailer meeting. 

Recording music in the lobby.

Josh gesturing majestically as he announces the new daily jobs.

"It's about to get not fun."

The entire Bug section was extremely fascinating.

 

Although, it was really, really condensed. You guys wanted to get a lot of information into under two hours. Not sure it was the best move. Still, was very good. A lot more honest about the money and budget than, say, DFA. DFA, even though they showed money meetings and the fallout of losing all their funding not even halfway through, they still sugar-coated basically the entire process.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Bryy

[Falkon Swiftblade]

what confused me about the documentary was it looked like it was pretty much bare bones staffing the whole time, less than a dozen people or so working on it. Justin Bell implied for a big game it could cost a few hundred k $ for the orchestra. Naturally using an orchestra overseas is probably much cheaper. Plus the volunteers in house. His budget seemed uber tiny even though we specifically raised at least 100k for his stretch goal and the extra 500k+ we raised at the end. They only had 1 animator on the project... what exactly cost so much to make the game?? I remember seeing the production slide Brandon shared about how funding was going to be used, but something doesn't add up. Maybe they should close down their office and move away from CA cause the cost of living out there must be retarded, you could stretch the $ way further elsewhere. I'm just saying. Not that I didn't like the game, and I'm not devaluing the work that went into the game.

[Bryy]

Maybe they should close down their office and move away from CA cause the cost of living out there must be retarded, you could stretch the $ way further elsewhere. 

Was going to be snarky and jab at Double Fine again. Decided not to.

 

But honestly, you'd be asking every single employee to either quit or move with you. That's a reality of business, but also a **** move.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Bryy

[Falkon Swiftblade]

 

Maybe they should close down their office and move away from CA cause the cost of living out there must be retarded, you could stretch the $ way further elsewhere. 

Was going to be snarky and jab at Double Fine again. Decided not to.

 

But honestly, you'd be asking every single employee to either quit or move with you. That's a reality of business, but also a **** move.

 

 

I didn't mean to sound rude, but I'm sure a large part of the reason they had to let go of so many people who were really good at their job was just the cost associated to be where they are. I was looking to move just a bit north of there about a yr ago and rent was over 3k a month. Not even considering commute time. Justin mentioned months ago he drives quite far each day to work, and the fact that he had to be at the office at 4AM to do music for the game on top of that must have been horrible for his family. The building also seemed to have power shortages during the making of the documentary and they implied that the building has issues like this often. Not saying they need to up and move to Florida, but if they did, I'm sure it would save everyone a ton of money, and the pay cut they'd receive would balance out because of the cost of living would be way less. 

[Suen]

what exactly cost so much to make the game??

Around $10k/month for developer (salary, equipment, taxes...).

You must also count the kickstarter/amazon/paypal fees, taxes, and backers rewards fulfilling.

[Nakia]

I am late to the discussion but a 10K monthly figure is low.  The average programmer in the USA makes roughly 6,000 a month.  That is one employee and not the top ranking one either.   Even if we go for low figures and have only 10 employees the monthly figure would probably be at least 40,000 monthly just for salaries.  That does not include taxes, health benefits or other employee costs.  Add in rent and other expenses  of doing business and my guess would be a monthly cost of over 50,000 and probably higher.

 

Maybe Fergus, Josh etc were willing and able to forgo salary but I am sure they had to pay some of the staff they had left.

 

 

 

what exactly cost so much to make the game??

Around $10k/month for developer (salary, equipment, taxes...).

You must also count the kickstarter/amazon/paypal fees, taxes, and backers rewards fulfilling.

 

Highlite mine.  I know that Amazon took 5% of my pledge.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Nakia

[Falkon Swiftblade]

 

what exactly cost so much to make the game??

Around $10k/month for developer (salary, equipment, taxes...).

You must also count the kickstarter/amazon/paypal fees, taxes, and backers rewards fulfilling.

 

 

I don't think so, I used to work with some game developers and I was pretty shocked that most of them didn't have bleeding edge computers at work. Most machines had 8gb of ram or less, they had kind of average video cards with only a couple high end machines for the whole office. 

 

Even if you were generous with the taxes of the whole kickstarter at 10% across the board that's about $450k, they still had $4M left over. Fergus mentioned at one point with paypal and slacker backers they were at $4.5M, not sure what the final was. The original bunch of developers were about a baker's dozen for about a yr and a half. It looked like they added some extra body's onto the project after South park went gold ~ march last yr or later. So for about a yr and a half there were only a small handful of people on the project. All said and total probably about 50 people, but not all at once for like a yr + I'm sure there were legit costs along the way, but most of the time they were stretching their budget as min manned as possible. I know the salary range for naughty dog lead producers and programmers and no disrespect for obsidian, but they're not quite on their level and I doubt they're making as much as them. They make a good living, but not as much as you would think.

 

Also, I'm not saying we got screwed over or anything, it was a legitimate question because I'm also going to be creating a kickstarter game this year and I need to know how to budget my funds. They initially asked for just over a million $ and projected with that budget the game would come out April 2014. I'm assuming they expected to keep the same 12-15 man team the whole time. So that tells me they're not on a $10K+/ man budget, in fact it would be half that.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Falkon Swiftblade

[Nakia]

10K = 10,000 USD per month how are you going to pay a team of 10 to 15 experienced technicians on that amour?  Weekly maybe but not monthly.  I was in accounting and also handled payroll for years.  We aren't talking about clerical staff but people with years of experience and with degrees.  Then there are all the odds and ends of running a business which add up.  Taxes would be payroll taxes,  SS and insurance.

 

As I understand it they made no profit off the Kickstarter, all money went to developing the game and they actually went over budget so had to come up with money else where.

 

I also know for a fact that Amazon took 5% of my pledge as a fee for handling the transfer.  During the Kickstarter I kept an eye on the number of pledges.  I doubt that Josh was buying mink for his wife.  

 

Why do people insist on saying or implying that Obsidian somehow ripped us off?  They made a great game on a very low budget.  Check the amounts that the AAA companies are spending on games that I do not think are half as good.