New Obsidian Kickstarter (Update: Not really, dammit Duraframe) (Banned Duraframe - DU)

[Invictus]

The fact Fitty Cent is wearing a Knicks jersey makes it oh so much powerfull

 

[tuluse]

Obsidian is larger by far, ~110-120 employees vs inXile's ~20-30.

Of course, only a minority of those would work on a Kickstarter title.

Obsidian could conceivably transition into working on 5 PE sized games at a time.

 

[tuluse]

That's not what i said. But a lot of the praises received by the show, from the industry to political figures, conveniently leave out the social dimension. If you only acknowledge the entertainment side, you leave out the reason why the show had a soul and was relevant.

I don't know who you listen to, but most people do talk about the social aspect when explaining why it's good.

 

[tuluse]

You'll have to explain to me why a small project can share resources with a large project but not another small project.

 

[Duraframe300]

I was just scrolling through their articles. For me it shows the most recent article, about Moore's law, was published at 9 pm. The last two days their last article was published at 10 pm.

Those aren't my local times though.

Yeah, that 9PM article was published 2 hours ago.

Meh, maybe they got contacted by Obsidian and couldn't reveal the interview yet or they had technical problems. Will see tomorrow.

 

[Monad]

Last time rps said "tomorrow" it turned into 3 days.

 

[tuluse]

I disagree with a lot of what you're saying.

Look at all the systems work they've done for PE, that's all done. They could make another team just makes content for it.

 

[Infinitron]

The money they make from PE won't be enough to pay for even another project probably anyway

Eh? Why not? Have you done the math? It's really not a huge sum. Consider that a no-name Early Access title just made half a million dollars on Steam. HALF A MILLION: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-steam-early-access.78160/page-3#post-3001769

 

[Athelas]

RPS is probably busy playing the Wasteland 2 beta.

 

[tuluse]

Actually, I want to go into more detail.

They can share resources. But one of those(or several of those) small projects is going to have to pay for it. And it won't be as easy for those smaller projects to pay for things as it is for a large publisher backed project to pay for things.

If the small project is in budget, it's in budget. They could have another project "leech" off the work done. Like my previous example.

Also, when you make a game for a publisher, usually you are actually forbidden from sharing resources. Whatever they pay for, is for the game you're making for them and that's it.

On the other hand, if Obsidian was managing their own 5 projects, it wouldn't be 5 completely separate teams. They could do them all on the same engine for instance. That's a huge savings over being forced to use whatever engine the publisher wants. Look at DS3 when Obsidian was finally able to use their own engine they had experience with. Produced quickly and pretty bug free.

So I reject your entire idea of efficiencies and think it's the opposite actually.

Not that Obsidian would be able to pull off the three or so kickstarters a year to fund them anyway. People won't keep pledging lot's of money and putting in the energy spreading the word if they keep happening that regularly. The money they make from PE probably won't be enough to pay for another project anyway, not unless it is insanely successful and while I hope it is I'm realistic.

I bet PE sells 1 million copies on the name Obsidian alone. Assume $10 per copy for Obsidian after fees and sales and such, and that's 2 more project eternities.

The real way that Obsidian will make out like bandits is by using PE to make the PE franchise valuable and then being able to use that to get a good deal with publishers(since they are bringing the IP to the table) that allows them to get a good cut of the royalties from a larger size game in the PE franchise that is publisher funded.

I don't really care about them making out like bandits. I don't really want more AA and 1/2A games from them, I want smaller more personal games.

 

[Oesophagus]

The money they make from PE probably won't be enough to pay for another project anyway, not unless it is insanely successful and while I hope it is I'm realistic.

The real way that Obsidian will make out like bandits is by using PE to make the PE franchise valuable and then being able to use that as some leverage in negations to get a good deal with publishers(since Obsidian will be bringing the IP to the table) that allows them to get a good cut of the royalties from a larger size game in the PE franchise that is publisher funded.

Now you see, the problem is that if the franchise doesn't make them money, publishers won't even go near it. Publishers want cookie cutter slam dunks, not niche oriented games which may please a few neckbeards, but don't pay for blow and hookers.

Conversely, if it does make money and they do get a publishing deal, any future games will have to be multi-platform and mouthbreather friendly, thus defeating the original intent entirely.

So it's either self funding or kickstarter for Obsidian, if you hope for anything noteworthy.

Or cosy up to CDProject

 

[tuluse]

Some math on things, if Obsidian switched to 5 PE sized games per year. Their burn rate is reportedly 1 million per month. Lets assume a product time of 3 years for each game to account for inevitable delays. They would need to make 36 million in revenue from 5 titles, or about 7.5 million per title. So each title would have to come close to selling a million copies on average. That might be unreasonable.

tuluse By resources I don't mean game assets. I mean things like physical facilities, development tools, content pipelines, as well as processes and procedures.

They already have all those things though.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Which is why they've managed to make so many of them the past 10 years, right?

 

[Spectacle]

The embargo is lifted! Interview with MCA about Obsidian's upcoming kickstarted RPG here. I just skimmed it so far. Not much real info, but he does say it won't be Fantasy, and hints that it may be hard sci-fi.

 

[Rake]

They will certainly make enough money for smaller scale projects, especially if they are sequels using already established resources as you point out. But I doubt they will make another 4.5+ mil from PE though. And it is certainly doubtful to say that money from PE will allow then to launch three or four similarly sized projects.

They will almost certainly try and get publishers to fund PE franchise games though if it i successful. Because that is he surest ay bring them a whole lot of money.

They will probably to continue to make smaller budget games like PE though. Not all of them will be hits that make them loads of money though.

Eeh, 4M$ would require less than 150000 copies. PE will propably sell 10 times as much. More than enough for PE2(significantly bigger than PE)
Plus nothing stops them to kickstart another game and work at it at the same time they work on PE2.
If PE2 and the NEW IP are succesfull, they can fund their sequels while Obsidian kickstarts yet another game. All that while working in AAA projects at the same time.

The difference is that an increasing Number of employees will work in self funded games and less and less on AAA crap. And if their AA games are succesfull, at some point Obsidian will have enough money to swich to full independent and self fund a AAA game by themselves.
The whole "five mid sized games at the same time" won't happen overnight.

 

[tuluse]

The whole "five mid sized games at the same time" won't happen overnight.

I did not mean to imply this if anything thinks I did.

I apologize for any potential confusion.

 

[tarasis]

The embargo is lifted! Interview with MCA about Obsidian's upcoming kickstarted RPG here. I just skimmed it so far. Not much real info, but he does say it won't be Fantasy, and hints that it may be hard sci-fi.

*grumble*

 

[cherry blossom]

Your apology will be taken into evaluation.

 

[SophosTheWise]

The embargo is lifted! Interview with MCA about Obsidian's upcoming kickstarted RPG here. I just skimmed it so far. Not much real info, but he does say it won't be Fantasy, and hints that it may be hard sci-fi.

 

[Oesophagus]

(or maybe I am mixing them up with inxile).

I'm pretty sure that was Brian talking about W2 post kickstarter.

 

[Roguey]

Over eight pages of Obsidian fanwank in a single day, incredible.

This is my superiority face:

I hope Feargus Urquhart called Grayson and was all "Whoa there, that was off-the-record! Don't give it away!"

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I bet PE sells 1 million copies on the name Obsidian alone. Assume $10 per copy for Obsidian after fees and sales and such, and that's 2 more project eternities.

You forgot that it will bring also a steady income way after the release. Having some free money every month will make things more stable and safe.

 

[Lhynn]

Is this gonna be a new "Roguey" thing?

 

[Roguey]

Nah, I already stole one of Lesi's faces, that's just one I'm borrowing for two very-appropriate occasions.

 

[Rake]

Is this gonna be a new "Roguey" thing?

Better than the old "Sawyer Sawyer Sawyer Sawyer Sawyer Sawyer Sawyer Sawyer Sawyer" thing.

 

[Zed]

One of you Codex staff have connections so you should prod someone from Obsidian on twitter for some info. So we at least know is it sci-fi, steampunk or something else...

Uh, yeah... I don't think they will tell anyone.

Duraframe should get a spanking for this thread.