Interview "How Kickstarter Saved Obsidian" - Kotaku interview reveals cancelled Obsidian RPG Stormlands

[MicoSelva]

No details about that project except the Stormlands title? My curiosity was supposed to be satisified, not teased!

EDIT: Anyway, JES being the only person wanting to kickstart this type of game is no surprise. Lack of passion for the project is clearly visible in the final product (and in the documentary too).

 

[Duraframe300]

Duraframe300 What did we know about this Stormlands project before now? Is this Project North Carolina?

Yes (AFAIK)

 

[Infinitron]

Duraframe300 What did we know about this Stormlands project before now? Is this Project North Carolina?

Yes

Interesting, it looks like the name "Stormlands" was already out there before this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comm...eternity_documentary_by_obsidian_road/cpaoyqu

jschreier himself may have revealed that: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=155365054&postcount=1757

 

[Volrath]

I don't care about the shit that got cancelled, I care about the shit they should be making. Of which there is ZERO news.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

What's been the return on kickstarted sequels of kickstarter games so far? You'd think that without the tabula rasa of an open appeal to nostalgia ("remember all those things you - yes you - loved about the IE games? Well we're bringing them all back!") you'd never get the amount of enthusiasm and cash you got for the original, whether you ended up liking the game or not. Would be a nice test of VD's argument that Kickstarters are all about selling dreams: once there's a clear template, do you still have Blaine fanatics poneying up 10 grand a pop?

 

[Infinitron]

What's been the return on kickstarted sequels of kickstarter games so far? You'd think that without the tabula rasa of an open appeal to nostalgia ("remember all those things you - yes you - loved about the IE games? Well we're bringing them all back!") you'd never get the amount of enthusiasm and cash you got for the original, whether you ended up liking the game or not. Would be a nice test of VD's argument that Kickstarters are all about selling dreams: once there's a clear template, do you still have Blaine fanatics poneying up 10 grand a pop?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/shadowrun-returns
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/shadowrun-hong-kong

Diminishing returns - although the latter was a very low effort Kickstarter campaign.

It's pretty much the only major example we've got.

 

[himmy]

Obsidian saved.

Nothing can save them.

"That's SAVED Obsidian?"

 

[Roguey]

With Project Eternity, they wouldn’t have to worry about a publisher...setting unreasonable expectations.

Nope, just themselves.

We hear—and report—a lot about Kickstarters that over-promise and under-deliver

Like Pillars of Eternity.

Confirmation that Feargus was really skeptical/reluctant about Kickstarter isn't surprising in the slightest.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Diminishing returns

Wouldn't seem to bode well for your hope that PoE will follow the Baldur's Gate trajectory.

Probably the only thing that could've blown the PoE kickstarter out of the water would be a Fallout spiritual successor. When they still had MCA, they could've fielded pretty much the entire dev teams of FO 1 and 2 (PoE would probably have done even better if it had Gaider as lead instead of Sawyer ).

 

[Infinitron]

Diminishing returns

Wouldn't seem to bode well for your hope that PoE will follow the Baldur's Gate trajectory.

Not really? They have PoE1 profits now. SR:HK isn't being made with $1.2M either, and they could even choose not to use Kickstarter at all.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Diminishing returns

Wouldn't seem to bode well for your hope that PoE will follow the Baldur's Gate trajectory.

Not really? They have PoE1 profits now. SR:HK isn't being made with $1.2M either.

I was under the impression that those profits were plugging-holes-in-sinking-ship money.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Surely a successor doesn't need to raise as much as the original though, and still can improve on the first game? With SR for example, the first campaign is all about trying to get the game built from scratch, "this game won't exist without your backing". They had to build up a team, tools and the base game.

With SR:HK they have revenue from the first game as well as foundations in place and a more experienced team. So it seems reasonable that they could make decent improvements even with just a "top up" KS. And I'd guess there will always be more excitement on KS for something new than iteration on the same project, which is probably as it should be.

 

[Infinitron]

I was under the impression that those profits were plugging-holes-in-sinking-ship money.

I don't think so. Feargus seems like the type of guy who lays people off before the ship starts taking on water.

 

[Roguey]

When he laid those people off he did reveal that the Obsidian founders had gone without paychecks for months to keep the company afloat.

 

[Kem0sabe]

 

[Infinitron]

Kem0sabe Where do you find these quotes?

 

[naossano]

HBS almost said they didn't want more money at some point of the HK campaign.

Anyway, the whole point of the kickstarter is to kick the start. If you need the KS to keep going after that start, there is a problem...

 

[Kem0sabe]

Kem0sabe Where do you find these quotes?

Channeling the great Rust Cohle

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I was under the impression that those profits were plugging-holes-in-sinking-ship money.

I don't think so. Feargus seems like the type of guy who lays people off before the ship starts taking on water.

Maybe I'm getting you wrong, but he doesn't strike me as the type of guy who sets aside PoE profits for a sequel when it could've been used to save a dozen jobs in his company. Obsidian seems to be part development studio, part welfare program for his old dev buddies rotting away in mobile games purgatory.

I'm guessing if they do a sequel, they follow Roger Corman's Carnosaur sequel approach: expect consistently diminishing returns, and aim appropriately lower with each new kickstarter.

 

[Infinitron]

Maybe I'm getting you wrong, but he doesn't strike me as the type of guy who sets aside PoE profits for a sequel when it could've been used to save a dozen jobs in his company.

Including the jobs of the people working on the sequel?

Obsidian seems to be part development studio, part welfare program for his old dev buddies rotting away in mobile games purgatory.

O_o

All I know is that in the documentary, Adam Brennecke says "we were running out of money". That implies they had some kind of emergency fund of money to run out of. And they sure had enough cash to put together a fairly fancy Kickstarter campaign.

 

[Black]

RPG Codex, bringing you kotaku news.

 

[Duraframe300]

When he laid those people off he did reveal that the Obsidian founders had gone without paychecks for months to keep the company afloat.

Exactly. The founders including Avellone and Feargus got by without paying themselves for months in the hopes of keeping the people on.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

kotaku news

From time to time even a blind chicken will find a seed.

 

[GuiltyofBeingTrite]

Maybe I'm naive, I just don't get why they aren't going the InXile route: as one game moves to a certain development stage the next Kickstarter launches.

It just seems like a pretty guaranteed way to have a somewhat regular stream of funding,for a "proven" developer with a fan base.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Maybe I'm getting you wrong, but he doesn't strike me as the type of guy who sets aside PoE profits for a sequel when it could've been used to save a dozen jobs in his company.

Including the jobs of the people working on the sequel?

People he has to let those go after the sequel sales disappoint . Feargus'd have to be convinced that topping off the kickstarter budget with millions of company money would result in commensurably higher sales, which'd essentially come down to gambling on PoE-kickstarter-fatigue being offset by enthusiasm after release instead of everyone going "look, an IE nostalgia project, we haven't seen that in a whole year."

Unless you're saying that they'd have no russian mmo's/whatever for those people to work on anyway, in which case I guess it might make sense. I'm mostly just talking out of my ass anyway.