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

[Harold]

Feargus prefers to bend over to publishers and russian mobsters, even though he keeps getting fucked over by them, chokes at having to fire people, but has to be yelled at by his most autistic subordinate to even consider undertaking something which he perceives as a risk. In the process he also loses MCA, his company's most valuable asset, most likely by making him write pitch after soul-draining pitch for said publishers/mobsters, instead of putting his creative talents to good use.

Feargus is no CEO, he's a CCO. Chief CUCK Officer.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm mostly just talking out of my ass anyway.

No shit. It's their only IP at the moment, I think they have to gamble on it. The alternative is that they created an Obsidian-owned universe and ruleset, the company's first, just to milk it to death, which seems short-sighted. I mean, we know that Interplay was in heavy debt in the late 90s (tens of millions of dollars), but they still gave BioWare what they needed to create BG2.

But anyway, it's not clear to me that "following the Baldur's Gate trajectory" would really be all that expensive in the first place.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

No shit. It's their only IP at the moment, I think they have to gamble on it. The alternative is that they created an Obsidian-owned universe and ruleset, the company's first, just to milk it to death, which seems short-sighted. I mean, we know that Interplay was in heavy debt in the late 90s (tens of millions of dollars), but they still gave BioWare what they needed to create BG2.

While it's technically an original IP, it seems a bit of stretch to say that the selling point of PoE is its originality, rather than its similarity to decades older IP's. That's why I'm not seeing your comparison with Baldur's Gate: gambling on a sequel to an original game (BG1) being a higher selling success is one thing, gambling on the sequel to a nostalgia project being more successful seems silly, especially when we're assuming that the kickstarter has already shown a decrease of enthusiasm.

But anyway, it's not clear to me that "following the Baldur's Gate trajectory" would really be all that expensive in the first place.

How much more did BG2 cost than 1? 50% at the least, right? So let's suppose it follows the Shadowrun setup, you're talking at least 1 mil less for the KS, then Feargus would have to dish out 3 mil to follow the trajectory.

 

[Infinitron]

While it's technically an original IP, it seems a bit of stretch to say that the selling point of PoE is its originality, rather than its similarity to decades older IP's.

It's their sole intellectual property nonetheless, they have to nurture it.

How much more did BG2 cost than 1? 50% at the least, right? So let's suppose it follows the Shadowrun setup, you're talking at least 1 mil less for the KS, then Feargus would have to dish out 3 mil to follow the trajectory.

Eh, it wouldn't surprise me if BG2 was cheaper, even a lot cheaper, than the first game. It certainly took far less time to develop.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

While it's technically an original IP, it seems a bit of stretch to say that the selling point of PoE is its originality, rather than its similarity to decades older IP's. That's why I'm not seeing your comparison with Baldur's Gate: gambling on a sequel to an original game (BG1) being a higher selling success is one thing, gambling on the sequel to a nostalgia project being more successful seems silly, especially when we're assuming that the kickstarter has already shown a decrease of enthusiasm.



How much more did BG2 cost than 1? 50% at the least, right? So let's suppose it follows the Shadowrun setup, you're talking at least 1 mil less for the KS, then Feargus would have to dish out 3 mil to follow the trajectory.

Eh it wouldn't surprise me if BG2 was cheaper, even a lot cheaper, than the first game. It certainly took far less time to develop.

Seriously? Pretty impressive if that's the case. Ok, I'm operating on the wrong assumptions then as usual .

 

[Cowboy Moment]

While it's technically an original IP, it seems a bit of stretch to say that the selling point of PoE is its originality, rather than its similarity to decades older IP's. That's why I'm not seeing your comparison with Baldur's Gate: gambling on a sequel to an original game (BG1) being a higher selling success is one thing, gambling on the sequel to a nostalgia project being more successful seems silly, especially when we're assuming that the kickstarter has already shown a decrease of enthusiasm.



How much more did BG2 cost than 1? 50% at the least, right? So let's suppose it follows the Shadowrun setup, you're talking at least 1 mil less for the KS, then Feargus would have to dish out 3 mil to follow the trajectory.

Eh it wouldn't surprise me if BG2 was cheaper, even a lot cheaper, than the first game. It certainly took far less time to develop.

Seriously? Pretty impressive if that's the case. Ok, I'm operating on the wrong assumptions then as usual .

It wouldn't surprise me, to be honest. I imagine that a lot of early Kickstarter teams spent a lot of time developing and getting used to new tools, processes and design sensibilities. We may look at Obsidian and see a bunch of former Black Isle/Interplay people, but to their average programmer, artist or designer, this is a completely new world. So it wouldn't be at all surprising if they could now develop higher quality content faster. Look at Dragonfall vs SRR as an example of this principle in action, especially given that we know for a fact that HBS' decision to go with the hand-drawn iso graphical style caused no end of development problems.

 

[Black]

kotaku news

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

But can it cross the road?

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

kotaku news

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

But can it cross the road?

How will it know if it can't see the road?

 

[abnaxus]

 

[Athelas]

the game they really wanted to make: a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate.

An XBone-exclusive "RPG"? Not a single tear.

 

[Black]

kotaku news

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

But can it cross the road?

How will it know if it can't see the road?

The road exists whether it can see it or not.




OR DOES IT?!

 

[m_s0]

the game they really wanted to make: a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate.

Yup. Then again, I don't doubt they'd be more into doing a BG clone than, say, a shitty tank mmo. Or going under, for that matter.

 

[Copper]

I think the 'saving' here is more of the spiritual kind than the purely financial, even if it came as too little, too late for Chris. It sounds like they were looking down the same barrel as Troika - business opportunities, but not ones to be passionate about.

 

[Seerix]

Obsidian was calling the game Stormlands, according to a source, and they’d designed it to be one of the Xbox One’s premiere RPGs, but Microsoft axed it during a final greenlight meeting.

Obsidian and their amazing deals with big corps, always at it's best when teaching as all 101 in "How To Get Fucked In Business" class.

I would think that a reasonable thing to do for them would be trying to make smaller games and make profit that way, but small games needs to be "fun" and that seems to be a problem at Obsidian.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

An XBone-exclusive "RPG"? Not a single tear.

KOTOR 2 was announced for PC too and came to PC shortly after the Xbox release.

 

[Athelas]

An XBone-exclusive "RPG"? Not a single tear.

KOTOR 2 was announced for PC too and came to PC shortly after the Xbox release.

In other words, it enjoyed a brief period of XBox exclusivity, like many exclusives nowadays. The game was obviously designed with consoles in mind.

 

[Excidium II]

I don't think it was designed with anything in mind considering it's more or less just KOTOR with new content

 

[Ismaul]

It took getting close to bankruptcy and Sawyer threatening to quit for them to consider doing something as safe as a BG2 clone? No wonder MCA left.

 

[Roguey]

I don't think it was designed with anything in mind considering it's more or less just KOTOR with new content

They did actually make the UI better for PCs. Bioware's was shamelessly phoned in.

 

[Invictus]

Fergus is a doodling idiot who I wouldnt put in charge of cleaning the toilets in my company, he sounds and acts exactly as what he is, a creative manager who can put a team togther but has no business knowhow or the personality to make mayor deals. In that sense Kickstater really saved the company since it was a pretty good showing that the company had the trust and money of almost 80k suckers (like me) to give them money up front for one of their projects. Hopefully this will translate into better deals with future publishers but we will see... If they get to do a Fallout expansion I will be more than pleased too

 

[Doma]

 

[Kz3r0]

Hopefully this will translate into better deals with future publishers

 

[roshan]

It took getting close to bankruptcy and Sawyer threatening to quit for them to consider doing something as safe as a BG2 clone? No wonder MCA left.

I'm guessing the next kickstarter was meant to be his baby, but after seeing the reviews and sales for Sawyer's Golden Turd, Feargus decided to just kickstart and keep pumping out Shitternity sequels.

 

[felipepepe]

So, when are we gonna interview Sawyer and/or Obsidian? We got PoE, PoE's expansion, Kickstarter, MCA and Stormlands to talk about, and they clearly are on a PR tour, trying to raise awareness...

 

[Infinitron]

Re: Obsidian management not believing in Kickstarter

It's tempting to pin it all on Feargus (and he is the boss, so the responsibility is ultimately his in any case), but do note that there's evidence that another co-founder of Obsidian, Chris Avellone, was also pretty skeptical of Kickstarter at one point. He was skeptical of it even after Wasteland 2 was funded - he's said a bunch of times in interviews that only when Torment was funded and Star Citizen started racking up really big bucks was he convinced of Kickstarter's long-term viability.