RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

[AwesomeButton]

Feargus as CFO

I...I don't even....


Chris Avellone can you talk about HOW you were de-ownered specifically?

Also, didn't you guys get audited? How did this not come up?

I say his because having a non-accounting person as CFO is weird as hell. Even if you didn't suspect any wrongdoing, you'd wanna get audited just to make sure the financials were in order.

Yup. It really sounds like the place is being ran by Feargus like GoT's Craster's Keep. And this is weirdly corroborated by the glass door reports.

 

[AN4RCHID]

- Strangely, this particular point is likely one of the big triggers for the de-ownering: I asked why family members who didn’t work at the studio were doing on our payroll – notably, Feargus’s wife (other employees have spotted this as well and brought it up to me after I left since they saw her on spreadsheets, so either it didn’t get fixed or is still the norm). To be fair, I don’t know if she’s still on payroll or not as of today, but even for a while after my departure, she was still employed by the studio, and while she was, I had no idea what she was doing for us.

Jfc at this bit

Did none of the other owners get any say in how the company was run?

 

[Imoens pet]

K

This is no longer funny, I am no longer enjoying this drama anymore. This shit is legitimately awful, I might need a drink or something.

 

[Shilandra]

So this question of mine has nothing to do with anything said so far but I feel it has to be asked.

Why is everyone calling Chris, MCA? I've seen his posts and its only Chris avellon there. What does the M stand for? Mister? Master? Mother? Modern?

I feel like any discussion moving forward is null without this fundamental question being answered.

 

[J_C]

>Arriving to work in the morning
>Opening browser, checking this thread
>First thing I see is another long MCA post

So this question of mine has nothing to do with anything said so far but I feel it has to be asked.

Why is everyone calling Chris, MCA? I've seen his posts and its only Chris avellon there. What does the M stand for? Mister? Master? Mother? Modern?

I feel like any discussion moving forward is null without this fundamental question being answered.

Mister.

 

[Chris Avellone]

So ideally what would you like to see happen Chris?

I know you don't wish upper Obsidian management to see another dime but there is an awful lot of collateral damage to the Anthony Davis' of the company. The timing of this article and the dirty laundry in the aftermath seems obvious its meant to be destructive on some level.

I would occasionally read comments saying “you were upper management” and “he must have gotten a big payout” and “he signed an NDA, got severance, etc.” and it made me realize most people didn’t know how that all shook out, so I answered it. It wasn’t a great time in my life to deal with all that bullshit with everything else going on, so when I hear something to the contrary, I correct it.

I’m not management, I got nothing, but that was ultimately a good thing for the freedom it allowed, it just took a little time to get there.

As for collateral damage, I might have said this before, but I don’t think defending Obsidian’s upper management translates into helping Obsidian employees, either financially or job security wise. Even if an employee is kicking ass at their job, they can still be yelled at, blamed, or let go for something that’s not their fault – but is often more the responsibility of the upper management that caused the issue (fighting with publishers, money problems, etc.). Hell, an employee may not even been aware they’ve been earmarked for being let go months before it happens (that’s hardly something that happens solely in the games industry, though).

It is symptomatic of some of these issues that Obsidian rarely can work with the same publisher twice, even if they’d like to – a number of publishers don’t want to deal with Obsidian’s upper management twice in a row. I do think this means that Obsidian’s increasing efforts to work to publishing things on their own is a good thing – it’s one of the only ways their process is going to work in the long-term.

And I’ve said this before: I like the Obsidian devs (although I don’t know many of the new ones, obviously), I still see many and talk with them, I work and help the ones who are still there when I can and the ones who left (even working with them again), and I like the games. If Obsidian does well, however, that often doesn’t trickle down to the employees. If I support bad management practices, I don’t think that helps anyone there.

I do think that if the issues are raised, there is a hope that management will course correct in the hopes to prove to everyone they aren’t like that in an effort to defend themselves – and by doing so, would be good for the employees overall.

That said, the performance and reception of a good game will help employees (esp. reputation and resume building), but that’s not the issue here – my issue is the management. I think they are disorganized and cause a lot of problems, and they are not responsible for what makes the company’s games good - in fact, they arguably do a number of things to damage the process (while I'm skeptical of Glassdoor reviews, I am less skeptical about the common points among all of them).

(Myself included, I’m not blameless – I’ve never claimed to be a good manager, and I wasn’t even a manager at Obsidian unless I took on a specific design role.)

 

[Phanax]

This is how Chris plans to crush Obsidian. By gently slipping some major accusations of tax fraud.

Oh God... what if it works?

 

[Mustawd]

So this question of mine has nothing to do with anything said so far but I feel it has to be asked.

Why is everyone calling Chris, MCA? I've seen his posts and its only Chris avellon there. What does the M stand for? Mister? Master? Mother? Modern?

I feel like any discussion moving forward is null without this fundamental question being answered.

No one knows. But it's provocative. And it gets the people going.

 

[Glaucon]

This shit is ruining my sleep schedule but I don't care at this point.

 

[Blaine]

- Strangely, this particular point is likely one of the big triggers for the de-ownering: I asked why family members who didn’t work at the studio were doing on our payroll – notably, Feargus’s wife (other employees have spotted this as well and brought it up to me after I left since they saw her on spreadsheets, so either it didn’t get fixed or is still the norm). To be fair, I don’t know if she’s still on payroll or not as of today, but even for a while after my departure, she was still employed by the studio, and while she was, I had no idea what she was doing for us.

Jfc at this bit

Did none of the other owners get any say in how the company was run?

Classic case of the GM's girlfriend.

 

[Alienman]

Please don't tank the company with imprisonment of the upper management before Deadfire is out! Obsidian might be the worst ever, but I still want to continue the tale of my dwarf

 

[Glaucon]

Please don't tank the company with imprisonment of the upper management before Deadfire is out! Obsidian might be the worst ever, but I still want to continue the tale of my dwarf

On the plus side, when Paradox buys out the company, you'll be able to play Pillars 2 with the $20 Dwarf subraces DLC.

 

[Blaine]

Please don't tank the company with imprisonment of the upper management before Deadfire is out! Obsidian might be the worst ever, but I still want to continue the tale of my dwarf

*Obsidian HQ is ablaze*

Alienman: "SOMEBODY SAVE THE RELEASE CANDIDATE!"

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Please don't tank the company with imprisonment of the upper management before Deadfire is out! Obsidian might be the worst ever, but I still want to continue the tale of my dwarf

On the plus side, when Paradox buys out the company, you can play Pillars 2 with the $20 Dwarf subraces DLC.

Maybe Take-Two will snap them up if they like Leonard & Tim’s Excellent Adventure. Honestly, as much as they’re a big AAA firm that talks about games as a service, I’d rather have Take-Two in charge of the Obsidian pipeline than have the Paradox DLC factory running things.

 

[Prime Junta]

I might have said this before I don’t think defending Obsidian’s upper management translates into helping Obsidian employees, either financially or job security wise.

This, friends, is the crux of the matter. One of the most pernicious things in capitalist culture is the fiction that what is good for the corporation is good for the worker.

Companies can be more or less fair, the management can think in the long term or not, they can value their workers to a greater or lesser extent -- and especially in knowledge- and creativity-intensive industries valuing your workers more than the next guy does often translate to success in the marketplace -- but when the rubber meets the road, the interests of the owners and the workers are irreconcilably opposed. The owners want to extract value out of the workers, and the workers want -- or should want! -- to retain as much of the value of their work as they can. The most effective way to keep the workers docile is to hoodwink them into believing that they are the corporation. They're not. All they are is a means of production.

Or, as Bill Haywood put it, "if one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get."

Unionise now. Alone, you beg. United, you bargain.

 

[Rivmusique]

Chris Avellone , do you think that woman that colour their hair might possibly be responsible for some/all of the problems with Obsidian? In your experience, does the theory that either of those factors somehow leads to useless output but also manages to guarantee getting and maintaining a steady writing gig have any merit?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Guys, MCA is clearly out of his mind. He's ruining his own grade-A wage slave street cred for the next despicable employer who might've offered him a similar job in the future, on similar terms and with similar outcome. Nobody knows what exciting jobs MCA will miss out on because of it. What will MCA do now?
This is what I call REALLY bad form. I'm sure Feargus had good reasons to "employ" wife and friends who were never seen contributing anything to the Obshitian software development efforts. Using these methods to funnel company funds into private channels is well-established and accepted corporate policy, so mentioning it out loud clearly marks MCA as the villain here.

Shame on you Chris, I thought you were better than this.

 

[Haba]

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/how-do-you-report-suspected-tax-fraud-activity

 

[Mustawd]

One of the most pernicious things in capitalist culture is the fiction that what is good for the corporation is good for the worker.

Yah, you don't know what you're talking about but ok.

Companies can be more or less fair, the management can think in the long term or not, they can value their workers to a greater or lesser extent -- and especially in knowledge- and creativity-intensive industries valuing your workers does often translate to success in the marketplace -- but when the rubber meets the road, the interests of the owners and the workers are irreconcilably opposed.

Look, I don't know what kind of commie country you live in PJ. Truly. But in the US a public company's BOD is required, by law, to do what's best for the company. So if that means laying off workers to close a shitty division so be it.

The most effective way to keep the workers docile is to hoodwink them into believing that they are the corporation. They're not.

OK, I agree with this.

"if one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get."

Unionise now. Alone, you beg. United, you bargain.

 

[Mustawd]

Shame on you Chris, I thought you were better than this.

Get serious. He's exposing horrible management at a company that he used to work for. In my neck of the woods that's called "whistle blowing" and "being ethical"

FFS, some random dude is the CFO and his wife is on the payroll even tho she doesn't work there. Can't tell if ur serious VoD.

 

[Prime Junta]

Look, I don't know what kind of commie country you live in PJ. Truly. But in the US a public company's BOD is required, by law, to do what's best for the company. So if that means laying off workers to close a shitty division so be it.

This one has drunk deep of the Kool-Aid.

Get serious. He's exposing horrible management at a company that he used to work for. In my neck of the woods that's called "whistle blowing" and "being ethical"

I'm sure VOD was being 100% serious and not at all sarcastic in that post. Just check out all of the other posts where he's desperately trying to get Chris to shut up.

 

[Blaine]

Honestly, as much as they’re a big AAA firm that talks about games as a service, I’d rather have Take-Two in charge of the Obsidian pipeline than have the Paradox DLC factory running things.

It's become fairly clear over the course of the past handful of Paradox games that they design the base game with "open slots" into which the eventual DLC will fit. They didn't used to design their games that way, or at least not to nearly the same extent (Victoria II, for example).

Just thought I'd mention why I agree, not trying to start a tangent here.

One of the most pernicious things in capitalist culture is the fiction that what is good for the corporation is good for the worker.

Yah, you don't know what you're talking about but ok.

He's a communist (well, a "communist"). You don't even have to have a conversation with him to know that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

In any case, your status as an accountant is clearly null and void because you were trained by filthy capitalist pigs. Also, the opinions of people who actually lived under communist rule are null and void, because that wasn't REAL communism.

 

[Alienman]

One man union.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Can't tell if ur serious VoD.

if you cant detect the heavy stench of sarcasm especially considering what i posted itt so far, the problem lies with you

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I might have said this before I don’t think defending Obsidian’s upper management translates into helping Obsidian employees, either financially or job security wise.

Or, as Bill Haywood put it, "if one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get."

Unionise now. Alone, you beg. United, you bargain.

That’s Big Bill Haywood, pardner. An injury to one is an injury to all.