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

[Orma]

Yeah Chris' stories remind me of my current position as a low level wage slave that managers slightly lower level wage slaves. My married department director screwed one of his employees, got her pregnant, and just did a quick divorce/remarry and noone batted an eye. We have a very productive department lead (adderall). Management loves her productivity. Her three/four day "vacations" to sleep it off are well hidden and unnoticed. We make a livable wage and have no prospects anywhere else (unless we move out of state) so noone ever complains.

Unionize

 

[Fenix]

We have a very productive department lead (adderall).

She just killing herself. Why to live like that?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Yeah Chris' stories remind me of my current position as a low level wage slave that managers slightly lower level wage slaves. My married department director screwed one of his employees, got her pregnant, and just did a quick divorce/remarry and noone batted an eye. We have a very productive department lead (adderall). Management loves her productivity. Her three/four day "vacations" to sleep it off are well hidden and unnoticed. We make a livable wage and have no prospects anywhere else (unless we move out of state) so noone ever complains.

Unionize

In Atlantic City? Hah! He doesn’t need a union, he needs to move to a town that isn’t dying. One hour north or south and there will be tons of work opportunities. I’m Mr. Organized Labor, but even the unionized casino workers in AC are fucked because they’re fighting for a share of a shrinking pie. Plus, unions in casino towns are easily coopted by organized crime.

There is power in a union, but sometimes there’s more power in a u-haul.

Edit: never thought I’d tell someone, “you should move to Philadelphia to find work,” but we live in strange times.

 

[Fenix]

In Atlantic City?

Everywhere - and this is impossible (more likele useless) with high mobility of workforce and with a habit to work year or two in one place only.

 

[thekdawg21]

Yeah Chris' stories remind me of my current position as a low level wage slave that managers slightly lower level wage slaves. My married department director screwed one of his employees, got her pregnant, and just did a quick divorce/remarry and noone batted an eye. We have a very productive department lead (adderall). Management loves her productivity. Her three/four day "vacations" to sleep it off are well hidden and unnoticed. We make a livable wage and have no prospects anywhere else (unless we move out of state) so noone ever complains.

Unionize

In Atlantic City? Hah! He doesn’t need a union, he needs to move to a town that isn’t dying. One hour north or south and there will be tons of work opportunities. I’m Mr. Organized Labor, but even the unionized casino workers in AC are fucked because they’re fighting for a share of a shrinking pie. Plus, unions in casino towns are easily coopted by organized crime.

There is power in a union, but sometimes there’s more power in a u-haul.

Edit: never thought I’d tell someone, “you should move to Philadelphia to find work,” but we live in strange times.

Well, you called that one right. Atlantic City Casino Worker here. I got kids though, and from what I hear Philly is just as corrupt as AC as far as their casino industry.

 

[Blaine]

In Atlantic City?

Everywhere - and this is impossible (more likele useless) with high mobility of workforce and with a habit to work year or two in one place only.

Look at this sad fuck cutting off 90% of the post of a native who actually knows what he's talking about in order to push his propaganda.

Agree komret, the peasants should be compelled, one way or another (extreme poverty is proven wery effectiv), to remain in one place performing their state-assigned work for minimum of two to three decades in order to ensure "stability." Besides, turnip and potato shop same everywhere, why need move to different frozen concrete shithole in glorious Soviet Russia?

 

[Wunderbar]

It's one of the reasons I wanted to work with Ken Levine, and I haven't been disappointed - I think he's a great writer.

Hi Chris!
Can you tell your thoughts on Bioshock Infinite ending?

 

[Goral]

I don't know who you are, No Name, but you made me laugh out loud.

View attachment 8859

That was me: https://twitter.com/wszczebrzeszyn/status/993335595119337473
Have to take credit for it since you've liked my tweet . I've had a different twitter account but I've been blocked from using it because I've been "politically incorrect" (as in I've called this man an idiot for calling whites idiots[/url. When nigger does it it's no problem).

 

[Fenix]

Agree komret, the peasants should be compelled, one way or another, to remain in once place performing their state-assigned work for a minimum of two or three decades in order to ensure "stability." Besides, turnip and potato shop same everywhere, why need move to different frozen concrete shithole in glorious Soviet Russia?

You have an (not) surprising ability, a gift I would say to understand everything in complete opposite manner.
Yes, high mobility is good - it allow to make more money!
Yet I see, not many here can boast of their high salary - somehow.
Laugh at your face with your anti-intellectualism.
No matter how high your mobility, you won't leave the system, and the system work like this - workforce make bare minimum for living and credit pay outs.
Also, as "side" effect people rarely work long in one place, so they can't form strong bonds for all these today useless unions.
Anyway, I threw dices and decided to be a lesser autist than you.

Sorry to all, who forced to read this shit again and again.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Chris Avellone I am not in game dev but your experiences remind me so much of my current workplace it's painful to read. Thank you for posting your story; because of you I am finally going to take the step of looking for a way out of this dump. No one deserves to be treated like this.

I am sorry to hear about your situation; I hope you find other options - even doing an interview at another company and getting an offer (whether you take it or not, it can remind you of your value) and having a plan B can sometimes make your current workplace more tolerable because you know it's not your only option.

Sometimes even interviewing at a company you don't think you want to work at can give you practice for tackling an interview at a job you want - but sometimes, the company you thought was your last choice may surprise you as being a place you do want to work (or at least give a try).

Another reason to try and leave for at least a while: Some of the biggest raises at Obsidian didn't come internally - it came from people who left, then came back and got a jump in pay (yes, Anthony is correct, some people did return - like Brandon, and I'm sure he got a substantial raise for returning - and he deserved it).

The problem with this is that this wasn't equalized among the people who had stayed with the company (this isn't uncommon in the game industry). If you pull up a chart, you can likely see the discrepancies in people who stayed vs. those who remained, and usually, the titles and responsibilities of the people who stayed are much lower, too. On the other hand, leaving and coming back does usually imply you've gotten more experience at another company, which should equate to some additional value for the perspective.

BTW, I did not interview at any other company when I left or before I left, although I did maintain close ties with other developers and publishers, who reached out after the departure, which helped. Still, for a while, there wasn't an immediate clear option beyond I don't want to work at Obsidian or work for upper management anymore (I liked working with a lot of the devs, though).

Also, one other bit of advice - taking a half-day to plan an exit strategy can also remove some stress. Once you have a plan for if things go south, a lot of the question marks fade away and it helps you focus - an exit strategy is definitely worth planning out.

Related to this, even Obsidian's owners have an exit strategy - the way they have it structured, they'll likely try to sell the core company, but keep Dark Rock Industries (their side company) to themselves, since Dark Rock is what actually owns the rights to Pillars of Eternity (and likely other new IPs they develop).

By keeping it this way, they can make a big sale for most of the core company but still hold on to the Eternity rights with Dark Rock and then charge the "new" Obsidian (or any other company) to use those rights without having to do anything except collect paychecks. It's not a dumb move, but it requires a buyer to know what they're getting into (it would be unlikely a publisher wouldn't notice this tactic, however, but some might not).

Keeping the existence of Dark Rock Industries on the downlow was needed, however, which often meant when publishers had production or other staff come to the studio (or work at the studio), Feargus would tell us (and all the Obsidian staff) not to bring up Dark Rock around the publisher crew, in case the publishers might decide to buy them (which wasn't a real option at the time). You can confirm this with a large part of the staff who were around during Armored Warfare - they were told not to bring up Dark Rock around the publisher when the Armored Warfare publisher had offices and employees working there.

Again, it's a good strategy, but not if Dark Rock's existence is already known (which I've seen posted, even here, I believe, and it's been revealed to the public).

We weren't really consulted on this arrangement, btw - it just happened. I wasn't even present for the initial shareholder meetings because I didn't know they existed (even though I was a shareholder of Dark Rock as well, apparently). You can condemn my ignorance of that, but it was under very odd circumstances (about a year or half-year before the departure).

 

[Chris Avellone]

Unionize

That has been brought up quite a bit, and with some of the working conditions in the industry, it definitely bears examination.

 

[Fenix]

what's wrong with the first one?

She has "lizard" face (don't know how to describe it in more clear manner), with a nasty grin, of a kind I wouldn't want to see on girl's face.

 

[Chris Avellone]

BTW, I was having a hard time jumping back to previous posts to check I wasn't repeating information, and other than the outline of topics on Reddit, it turned out Obsidian itself has a list of the links in the thread (even if the headers to the threads are sometimes wrong). So if you need to reference an old link like I do, they have a back-up Table of Contents there in the Computer and Console grouping thread, it's pretty convenient (even though Obsidian cut off my forum access, I can still view the forums even if I can't access my profile).

If anyone ever sets up one here, though, let me know - I can't believe this may need a table of contents, but I'm beginning to wish I'd set one up (my only goal was to see if the thread could really get to 3000 comments, but now we're well beyond that). I haven't checked the views yet.

 

[Prime Junta]

Related to this, even Obsidian's owners have an exit strategy - the way they have it structured, they'll likely try to sell the core company, but keep Dark Rock Industries (their side company) to themselves, since Dark Rock is what actually owns the rights to Pillars of Eternity (and likely other new IPs they develop).

The game industry is even more chaotic than I thought if a potential acquirer wouldn’t do the minimum due diligence to check what IPs they’re acquiring.

Dark Rock sounds like a pretty standard move. I’m not in games but my company does similar things to firewall separate parts of the business from each other. For example if somebody sues Obsidian to oblivion, this way the founders get to keep the IP and start over with a new firm.

I.e. this sounds like normal late capitalism bullshit, not particularly underhanded.

 

[Edmund Spenser]

Unionize

That has been brought up quite a bit, and with some of the working conditions in the industry, it definitely bears examination.

Why not consider being a founding influence for a Game Dev union? It's probably very far from what you'd actually like to do, but you'd make a good spokesman.

 

[Glaucon]

Ninja'd by a Commie. Maybe we really should socialize posting.

 

[Chris Avellone]

He did call Bethesda "petty" for the Metacritic thing, which is very amusing considering the stuff MCA has revealed.

Where did he say that again? (I can't find a reference, but Feargus said a lot over the years.)

If it's in a video, just let me know (I don't need the time stamp, I can just listen to it).

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

He did call Bethesda "petty" for the Metacritic thing, which is very amusing considering the stuff MCA has revealed.

Where did he say that again? (I can't find a reference, but Feargus said a lot over the years.)

If it's in a video, just let me know (I don't need the time stamp, I can just listen to it).

Allegedly the petty comment is somewhere in here, but, man, you must be a real glutton for punishment. It's a Sunday night, even Westworld would be more fun to watch than video of your abusive former boss getting an hour long blowjob from IGN.

 

[Monkey Baron]

Chris, does this dialogue mean anything to you?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Table of contents? Sure, I can help.

1: Naturalistic symbolism in paintings of XIX-century Belgian communists.
2. Beard care advice by Karl Marx
3. How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Guards In My Gulag
4. Kidnapping Your Banker - A Field Manual
5. Digitial Guerilla Warfare - A Memoir by Prime Junta.
6. The Enemy Within - How to Identify Traitors To The Cause and Castrate Them With Wooden Spoons.
7. Jesus - The First Socialist.
8. Ten Easy Steps To Indoctrinating Your Newborn
9. The Art of Woe - Feel Despair Gracefully When The Revolution Ultimately Fails.
10. Some boring video game stuff.

Hope that helps all the comrades in this thread!

 

[Glaucon]

I'd buy Prime Junta's memoir.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Kinda makes sense, considering a bunch of the budget and focus had to go to the development of the Onyx engine.

Question: you were the lead writer on Aliens for about a year (I think) before leaving to become the lead designer on Alpha Protocol due to its mismanagement. Was it hard for you to leave your work like that?

Actually, one of the only good things about the Aliens cancellation (obviously, the layoffs sucked all around, and we lost even more people after that) was that we still had the engine we were working on.

However, trying to work on that engine caused a lot of level designers to leave during Aliens because the tech was still rough (some LDs left within a year of being hired).

Still sorry we didn't use it for more. One of the most appealing things to a publisher is a studio that has its own engine, because it (usually) means the cost of licensing Unity or Unreal can be taken off the table, provided the internal engine is a good fit for the game.

Lead Writer: Well, this is the shitty thing about doing the job: AP needed a lead designer, and I was chosen by default just as Chris Parker was chosen as Project Director b/c we were the two best options at the time. While I didn't think I was a good fit, it couldn't be ignored we were having an impossible time hiring someone willing to take the role (designers who saw the game and the state it was in often didn't follow up), and we couldn't wait any longer. I'm still surprised SEGA kept it going, but they'd already spent a lot of money on it and probably imagined it was closer to being done than Aliens at the time of the decision.

I tried to make the most of the situation, but it wasn't fun, no, although I'm proud of what we did. It was an experimental title for the studio, and it showed.

Unfortunately, being assigned to Alpha Protocol also hurt chances of having a shot at doing Project Director work on New Vegas, so that was an added disappointment (although to be fair, Feargus never asked me or brought it up with discussion with the owners, instead, Josh came to him and asked for it first and Ferg agreed - this isn't a negative, as I think Josh did a good job, but I would have loved to work on it, especially after all the Van Buren work. I should have camped out outside of Ferg's office.)

Ferg was actually surprised later on when he heard I would have been interested ("You wanted to work on it?"), but it didn't matter by that point since the decision had been made. I was still happy to be able to head up most of the DLCs, although Feargus had to check with Josh first to make sure he was okay with that (Josh was, although he wanted do one of them himself - Honest Hearts, so we made sure he was given Project Director on that).

 

[Ninjerk]

That was me: https://twitter.com/wszczebrzeszyn/status/993335595119337473
Have to take credit for it since you've liked my tweet . I've had a different twitter account but I've been blocked from using it because I've been "politically incorrect" (as in I've called this man an idiot for calling whites idiots[/url. When nigger does it it's no problem).

RPGCodex alt-right LITERAL Nazis confirmed

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

Hi Chris, thanks for sharing your story. Where I currently work we are frequently asked to make a decision regarding a project only later to be told that the decision was already made by management! It’s really only the illusion of participation that is being offered. It sucks you had to go through the same thing, but it sounds like things are looking up.


Keep fighting the good fight!

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Allegedly the petty comment is somewhere in here

Can't be this interview. I listened to the entire thing when it came out, Feargus is so careful not to burn any bridges, at some point the IGN guy gets pissed off that he doesn't get any saucy soundbites.

If he does actually refer to anybody as petty, you're taking it entirely out of context.