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Company News Pillars of Eternity II SEC filing confirms Tyranny DLC on the way

Infinitron

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Tags: Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire; Tyranny

One of the advantages of Fig is that it forces developers that use it to publicly disclose financial details that are usually confidential in the interests of their investors. The always-resourceful Fairfax spotted the SEC filing for Pillars of Eternity II yesterday. In addition to the expected details and caveats related to the game's Fig investment scheme, the document contains juicy information about Obsidian's business history in the past five years, including budgets, revenues, profitability and cancelled projects. And yes, it confirms that there's DLC for Tyranny on the way, something that we've suspected since Paradox's 2016 year-end report last month. Here's the relevant chapter:

Dark Rock Industries Limited and Obsidian Entertainment, Inc.

Dark Rock Industries Limited is a privately held California corporation formed in 2014 (“DRIL”) and the owner of the intellectual property rights associated with Pillars of Eternity II. Obsidian Entertainment, Inc., a privately held California corporation, is a video game development studio based in Irvine, California (“Obsidian”) and an affiliate of DRIL. DRIL is the licensor of Pillars of Eternity II. Obsidian will develop Pillars of Eternity II on behalf of DRIL for delivery to Fig under the Pillars of Eternity II License Agreement.

Obsidian originally owned the intellectual property rights associated with Pillars of Eternity, including the technology used to develop Pillars of Eternity (collectively, the “Pillars IP”). In January 2015 transferred the Pillars IP to DRIL. DRIL has the same owners, with the same percentage ownership interests, as Obsidian, and Feargus Urquhart is the CEO of both companies. DRIL, as intellectual property owner, has previously relied on Obsidian to develop Pillars of Eternity: The White March Parts I and II. It is DRIL’s intention to continue to use Obsidian to develop Pillars IP products.

Obsidian was founded in 2003 by former members of Black Isle Studios. Since then, Obsidian has gained notoriety for a number of critically successful role-playing games developed with both licensed and proprietary intellectual property. Obsidian had its first game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords, published in 2004 by LucasArts. Over Obsidian’s history, it has shipped 16 games across 8 platforms. In September 2012, Obsidian launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Pillars of Eternity and raised almost 400% of its initial goal of $1,100,000, collecting $3,986,929 from 73,986 backers.

Obsidian has a history of developing games on multiple platforms, and many of its games have met with critical and commercial success. During the most recent five calendar years, and since then, the following games developed by Obsidian have been published:

15526.png


Among the seven Obsidian games that have been published and released since 2012, five games generated sales receipts to DRIL/Obsidian that exceeded Obsidian’s development costs, and two games generated sales receipts to DRIL/Obsidian that were less than Obsidian’s development costs. DRIL and Obsidian believe that one of these two games that have not covered their development costs will cover those costs within approximately the next 18 months. Pillars of Eternity, launched in March 2015, had as of December 31, 2016 sold approximately 954,000 units and generated approximately $16,500,000 in revenue for DRIL/Obsidian. The foregoing sales information is not a complete representation of the financial performance of the games cited, because it does not include all the expenses that would affect whether a game is profitable. Also, such information has not been prepared in accordance with GAAP, nor audited in accordance with GAAS.

Obsidian has developed games with development budgets across a wide range of sizes, from budgets of approximately $1.5 to $55 million. Fig believes, and DRIL and Obsidian have reported to Fig that they believe, that the funds from the Fig crowdfunding campaign and internal investment by DRIL and Obsidian will be sufficient to complete the development of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire to a commercially marketable level, consistent with the Pillars of Eternity II License Agreement.

Obsidian currently has four games in development: Pillars of Eternity II; Tyranny DLC; Pathfinder: Adventures; and an unannounced title with a major publisher. Fig, DRIL and Obsidian are of the view that Obsidian is sufficiently staffed to handle the development of all these games. Obsidian employs approximately 175 full-time employees, including development personnel specializing in design, animation, 3D art, audio engineering, production, writing, programming and concept art. From time to time, Obsidian works with contractors for specialized work relating to game development, such as quality assurance.

Over the fourteen years since its founding, Obsidian has had four projects in the process of development cancelled prior to their release. These projects were cancelled due to various reasons, including in one case the inability to secure completion funding; in another case concern by the publisher over marketability arising after the pre-production phase was completed; in another case concern that the product budget was going to grow to a level that was not justifiable in light of sales projections; and in another case the publisher’s decision that the product would not fit within its portfolio. Two of these cancellations resulted in Obsidian failing to cover its costs, while the other two cancellations did not. In connection with the two most recent of these cancellations, Obsidian responded in part by reducing its headcount, in December 2016 and in March 2012.
A look at the game's SteamDB page corroborates the fact that Obsidian are doing something DLC-related for Tyranny. Perhaps it will be revealed at PDXCON in May.
 

Daedalos

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Only exciting thing about that is PoE II and the unannounced project. Especially the last part. Hopeful it's gonna be something truly great.
 

MicoSelva

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In connection with the two most recent of these cancellations, Obsidian responded in part by reducing its headcount, in December 2016 and in March 2012.
Do we know what Obsidian game was cancelled in 2016, and how many people were laid off?
 

t

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Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Yes, this is interesting. Maybe a lot of people bought Pillars in some sort of bigger edition with expansion pass?
 

Gecos

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So they made over half a million dollars themselves from the Pathfinder mobile game and haven't even started on a proper cRPG? No wonder Obsidian is dying.

Even $18,5M is peanuts compared to the hundreds of millions made solely from certified turds, just wait and see how much money Must Erase Acumen will make. Huzzah for the mass dumbness of the Age of Decline where the casual console owner/player is king.
 

Flou

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and an unannounced title with a major publisher
kuRXSBe.jpg
Actually, it could be their dream project that was cancelled. Interview with Boyarsky was published in september 2016, cancellation was in december 2016. Hope I'm wrong on this. Do we actually know which game was cancelled?

Armored Warfare was cancelled, or well their contract on it was cancelled. Them Russians just made it seem like it Obsidian would still continue working on it, that they just ate some of the workload... when instead it seems like they cancelled the contract completely on December and finally informed about it on February.
There were talks about layoffs in December, though some of those jobs lasted until January and February. So, even though it was decided that they would cancel the contract at least some people kept working on the game. No wonder that 2.0 patch was in limbo... must have been real joy to work on a game you knew you would have to hand over to others.
 
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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
and an unannounced title with a major publisher
kuRXSBe.jpg
Actually, it could be their dream project that was cancelled. Interview with Boyarsky was published in september 2016, cancellation was in december 2016. Hope I'm wrong on this. Do we actually know which game was cancelled?

Nah. Feargus couldn't stop talking about about Cain and Boyarsky's "super secret project that I can't talk about" in the comments section of PoE2's figstarter page.
 

SausageInYourFace

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
I'd appreciate to see the Tyranny story continued but I don't think I can bring myself to slog through that shitty combat again anytime in the nearer future.
 

Infinitron

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Assuming $17.5 per copy due to Valve/GOG's cut, $2M means at least ~115,000 copies of the expansion. In reality significantly more due to discounts and Paradox's cut, maybe as much as 200,000 if it behaved like the base game did.
 

MRY

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It seems like there are some expansions that work because they build off of the end of the game (like MOTB), and some that work less well because they fill in some midpoint of the game. I've always assumed that few players replay narrative-heavy RPGs -- given that few even finish them! -- and midpoint expansions only work for people willing to replay since they tend to come out well after players have already won.
 

Roguey

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Saunders once said that sales for expansions were pretty predictable and that you could expect only roughly 1 in 4 players to buy one. :M
 

MRY

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There is an interesting dynamic (which has been discussed in the context of sequels by VD and others, esp. re: Banner Saga 2) involved there. On the one hand, players will almost always say they'd be happy with more of the same, they love the engine, etc., etc. Yet there seem to be major diminishing returns, and that seems to have gotten worse lately. Players played a lot of very similar Gold Box and Infinity Engine games, but now there seems more pressure for changing the framework after each title (more like what the Ultimas did, I guess). I generally think I'd be happy seeing the same engine refined and expanded (like HBS did with Shadowrun) rather than new engines, but that seems like a not great business strategy.
 

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