New Feargus interview on Obsidian

[pmp10]

 Obsidian Entertainment: Survival, success and independence 

 

Publisher independence doesn't sound so rosy.

I'm really surprised they could.make more money of Pillars than from contracting on AAA titles.

 

[IndiraLightfoot]

Indeed. It's a staring-down-the-barrel-of-a-gun situ, while leap-frogging between the projects, trying to be as effective as possible.

 

I love it when Feargus says frankly at the end - we're in it to make CRPGs we can be proud of. That's so frigging cool!

[kanisatha]

As a gamer who only plays RPGs, i'm really happy to see that in Obsidian there's at least one quality AAA-level developer dedicated to making RPGs they can be proud of. I hope Obsidian has a very long and successful life.

 

Note to Feargus: PLEEEEEEEASE make me a Pathfinder CRPG, pretty please.

[mindswayer]

Man Obsidian not getting royalties for Fallout New Vegas, arguably the RPG of its generation, is a serious crime. Extremely unfair.

Glad they're doing sort of what they want though. It's always a bit of extra motivation. Hope that extra motivation translates to quality.

 

"I would be okay if we got purchased"

 

oh-oh...

Edited July 20, 2016 by mindswayer

[Gizmo]

What awesome initials; it hadn't occurred to me before now.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Gizmo

[Suen]

It's a good mix of products, of different types and different scales, and maybe to a degree that Obsidian hasn't had in the past. Are you happier with the balance you have now?

FU: I think the only thing I'd want to do right now, and this is a hard thing, because when you have something really big and live like Armored Warfare, there are people that have been working on that for coming up four years, and most of the team between two-and-a-half and three. They want to start doing different stuff, so our one challenge right now is that we have a game that needs live support, and we have these other games where, some of them, like Tyranny, are coming up on being final. Sorry, getting towards final - that's not a date. I can't take Armored Warfare people and put them on Tyranny, and vice versa. Everybody's locked. We need to figure that out better, and I don't have the answer yet.

As a short term project, they could do something like those horrors games they played on twitch.

[Nonek]

You cannot fault the gentleman for his honesty, in a world of PR and spin this is refreshing.

[Elerond]

 Obsidian Entertainment: Survival, success and independence 

 

Publisher independence doesn't sound so rosy.

I'm really surprised they could.make more money of Pillars than from contracting on AAA titles.

 

That should not be so surprising. Because most profit from AAA games goes to the publisher. AAA games' budgets are much bigger than indie tittles like POE, but most of that money goes to making the game (paying salaries, development tool and middle ware licenses), so profit that indie studio see from AAA game order isn't high because they are only rental workforce that makes the game and then real profits come from selling the game.

 

I would say that making AAA games aren't that bad deal for indie studio, as they keep lights on and people in work. Making your own tittles can bring much bigger profits but they also come much higher risks and non-guaranteed income. Although crowd funding has lessen monetary risk that is involved for indie studios making their own tittles. But as we have learned in past four years there is still lots of monetary risk in making indie games even with crowd funding.

[Gromnir]

am knowing that this is hardly the ideal venue to be mentioning, but it is noteworthy that feargus is responsible for at lest two colossal business blunders that serious damaged obsidian.  when obsidian were developing kotor2, they got an okie dokie to expand the scope o' the game.  unfortunately, fergie never got the new agreement in writing.  so when lucasarts sudden tells obsidian that the old deadline and written agreement is being enforced, obsidian were caught with their pants down 'round their ankles. the metacritic fiasco for fo:nv were also an epic fail and had nothing to do with development. 

 

we like obsidian games.  we want more obsidian games.  that being said, feargus is deserving criticism for a few o' the monumental mistakes that has made it all the more difficult to be keeping the doors open and the lights on at obsidian.  cheer him on and hope he does more o' what is good, but don't ignore that feargus has contributed to obsidian's difficulties as well as its successes.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Sannom]

I'm really hoping that Armored Warfare won't be another big business blunder. Half of the company is on that game and it really feels Feargus mostly took the game to keep everyone employed and it doesn't feel right.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'd love to see Obsidian do a sci-fi game as well.  Hopefully they can find a publisher that'll give them the funds to do one that isn't just PoE in a sci-fi setting. 

[kirottu]

am knowing that this is hardly the ideal venue to be mentioning, but it is noteworthy that feargus is responsible for at lest two colossal business blunders that serious damaged obsidian.  when obsidian were developing kotor2, they got an okie dokie to expand the scope o' the game.  unfortunately, fergie never got the new agreement in writing.  so when lucasarts sudden tells obsidian that the old deadline and written agreement is being enforced, obsidian were caught with their pants down 'round their ankles. the metacritic fiasco for fo:nv were also an epic fail and had nothing to do with development. 

 

we like obsidian games.  we want more obsidian games.  that being said, feargus is deserving criticism for a few o' the monumental mistakes that has made it all the more difficult to be keeping the doors open and the lights on at obsidian.  cheer him on and hope he does more o' what is good, but don't ignore that feargus has contributed to obsidian's difficulties as well as its successes.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Feargus does indeed seem like he was bit too trusting and positive in past dealings.

 

I have formed this opinion by not knowing pretty much anything about the guy or his business.

[Nonek]

What I personally like about the article, as stated before, is the honesty: Mr Urquhart freely admits his mistakes and makes a case for learning from them. I like this, who after all among any of us has not made mistakes?

[apolloooo]

when do you think are they gonan show boyarsky/tim cain secret project?

[Flouride]

Maybe late next year or even later.