Elder Scrolls Did Bethesda fuck Obsidian or not?

[Cassidy]

The game was rigged from the start for Obsidian. Both in the compromises that made it just

In any case, if you're truly angry about this, I hope you didn't buy Skyrimjob later like hypocritical consumerist cattle and popamole supporters of decline and underhanded business deals.

If you did, fuck you and return to your precious RPGWatch.

[/edgy]

 

[Morality Games]

Even without publisers, i don't think is a huge stretch to imagine Obsidian gather 6-7 millions from kickstarter ( remember, Chris Roberts is at 16 millions) for an AAA openworld game from the creators of New Vegas,
puting 10-15 themselves if they have them, and find an investor or a publiser to throw another 5-10.

I wonder if people would pledge that much knowing it wouldn't fund the whole game.

In any case Bethesda games are immensely profitable. They don't take an insane amount of money to make and sell millions upon millions of copies. So I don't think Obsidian would have a hard time finding a publisher and decent budget if they wanted to make another game of that type. They're probably making one now and just haven't announced it.

More or less. I said i beleve they will try their own some point in the future because they would take the majority of the profits and keep the IP. As darkpatriot was so kind to teach us, working with publisers is just contracted labor, and just passes the time for Obsidian without earning them something. PE will be the most profitable game Obsidian ever made, despite it will propably sell half the copies F:NV did.

Half of Fallout: New Vegas is kind of optimistic. NV shipped five million at launch and has sold upwards seven million over its lifetime. Project Eternity will be lucky if it sells a million copies.

Even so the point stands.

Hm, without a doubt. Its previous titles weren't really profitable.

 

[Volourn]

NWN2 and KOTOR2 were both profitable. Nowhere near as much as NV but they certainly made money. FFS NWN2 had 2 official expansions plus a fake one. Atari don\t do that if it didn't make money. And, KOTOR just copied KOTOR1 with no expansion plus while it made money it didn't send the billion copies that LA wanted so they got pissy and banned Obsidian from touching KOTOR series again even though Obsidian continued to beg for crumbs to this day. L0L

 

[dnf]

Yes, but not all games are 2D isometric RPGs.

Only the good ones .

 

[Volourn]

Why post a pic of Drizzt Do'Urden?

 

[Rake]

NWN2 and KOTOR2 were both profitable. Nowhere near as much as NV but they certainly made money. FFS NWN2 had 2 official expansions plus a fake one. Atari don\t do that if it didn't make money. And, KOTOR just copied KOTOR1 with no expansion plus while it made money it didn't send the billion copies that LA wanted so they got pissy and banned Obsidian from touching KOTOR series again even though Obsidian continued to beg for crumbs to this day. L0L

Proffitable for the publisers. We talk about Obsidian.

 

[subotaiy]

Stop being blind fanboys, if anything maybe they helped them avoid bankrupcy.

Why post a pic of Drizzt Do'Urden?

Thats Anomandaris Rake, from Malazan series.

 

[cherry blossom]

Bethesda hiring Obsidian for FNV certainly helped with Obsidian's prestige and survival but that doesn't absolve Bethesda of business scumbaggery and doesn't make it okay to screw Obsidian.

 

[theSavant]

I will report the harsh tone in here to the internet police.

 

[Rake]

Stop being blind fanboys, if anything maybe they helped them avoid bankrupcy.

Sure, Obsidian is still here thanks to publisers. But it still postpones the bankrupcy, not avoids it completely. If a company simply exists and barely manages to cover their overhead costs, without earning good profit, at some point it will collapse. Maybe they will be unlucky and 2 projects will be cancelled at the same time, maybe they couldn't find a publiser in time to save the company ala Troika.
Alan(Bioware employee) in the Obsidian forums said that DA:O almost bankrupted Bioware and was the reason that the merge and Bioware sold to EA. And Bioware games always sold more than Obsidian's. Still didn't helped them.
It stands to reason that some point in the future, Obsidian would have suffered a similar fate. Having a backlog of games that you own to genarate profit, and having the option of going into kickstarter to employ a part of your company until a publiser job comes along is vital.

 

[M0RBUS]

What is your alternative to the publisher model for AAA games?

I'll tell you what the publishers preference is. In house development studios. Cheaper, more efficient, and less drama.

If you don't want someone else telling you what to do you have to go indie, provide your own money, and take on the risk that if your game fails you lose money(as most games do).

Most developers prefer the safety of having a publisher pay for it so they are protected against the possible financial failure of their games. Of course kickstarter is now a semi-viable way for a developer to get his hands on money that isn't coming from their own pockets to fund their projects. They are only able to get small amounts though.

What you are basically saying is "no, Bethesda didn't fuck Obsidian because it's the publisher's duty to fuck the studios they are working with."

Well, guess what: that just proves the point that Bethesda fucked Obsidian. Don't you agree?

The problem is we aren't arguing whether Bethesda was in their right or out of line in fucking Obsidian. I'm guessing they probably were, but then again, I don't like Obsidian all that much so I'm probably biased. Bethesda is way worse anyway, but hey! Obsidian! That's what you get for dealing with the fucking devil! You get burned! Well deserved, I say.

Alan(Bioware employee) in the Obsidian forums said that DA:O almost bankrupted Bioware and was the reason that the merge and Bioware sold to EA. And Bioware games always sold more than Obsidian's. Still didn't helped them.

That's weirdly great to hear Fuck you Bioware, fuck you!

 

[Volourn]

' It is one where both sides are fairly compensated for their efforts and the risks they take.'

The definition of fairly compensated is what at is issue here. I don't think most developers are fairly compensated at all. Nice try, though.

 

[Volourn]

"So millions of dollars(sometimes tens of millions) isn't fair compensation? Hundreds of thousands of dollars a month?"

They don't get that much. That millions of dolalrs is suaully for the product. Not profit. Meanwhile, the publishers make 10s if not 100s of millions of dollars of it for the ahrd wsork of the developer.

You are an idiot. I tend to be pro publisher but you are being asanine.

Nor do I think devs should 'call all the shots' but you take it tot he extreme on the other side.

NV is an example of how devs are not fairly compensated, treated like trash, and abused. A game as successful as NV should make everyone a lot of money yet the only the one to truly benefit money wise was Betehsda. That isn't fair compensation. To think it is is stupid and ignorant.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

THE HORROR! A creator having to make sure their product isn't broken! LMFAO

I applaud darkpatriot for being above making this obvious and misinformed remark.

Oh wait. I opened with a question again. Onholyservicebound will attempt to psychoanalyze me again and discover my true motivation.

Might as well, generally when people anticipate a response with a comment like that it's because they aren't very confident in what they've written, and want to pre-emptively respond to the criticism in hopes that it will dissuade the detractors from posting it. Anyway, don't be such a baby, I only said that in the other thread because you were derailing like a faggot when there were already other threads on the subject. Now look, you've got your very own pulpit, enjoy.

 

[Volourn]

'And as to the success of NV, how much do you think that had to do with Obsidian and how much did that have to do with Bethesda? I think everyone here agrees that for all the things people criticize Bethesda for they are masters at marketing their games. And Fallout 3 was a smash hit that built off of the fanbase of the elder scrolls games. Most of the success of New Vegas had to do with the marketing for it and the previous fanbase achieved for the franchise with Fallout 3. Even if Obsidian had produced a game of much lower quality than they did New Vegas would have sold well just due to the fans of Fallout 3 buying it, with a gentle nudge from Bethesda marketing. It wouldn't have done as well as it did but it still would have had multi-million sales. And that brings us back to metacritic scores being used as a criteria for bonuses. If they had gone with units shipped instead, It is entirely possible that most of that would have been due to the efforts of Bethesda, not Obsidian. So perhaps Bethesda used metacritic as a metric since it is more aligned(although still skewed) with the games perceived quality(which is more influenced by the developer) instead of just sales(which was definitely in this case more influenced by the publisher).
'

Agreed that marketing/Bethesda\s rep was the biggest reason for its success. Nobody is disputing that. Nor is anyone I know of claiming that Obsidian should be making more money off the game than Betehsda is.


'And again, if the game hadn't done as well as projected Bethesda was the one who was going to have to eat that loss. Obsidian made their money regardless of how well the game sold. And that's how developers prefer it. They don't want to be in a situation where if their game doesn't sell enough they don't make money. OF course the opposite isn't true. They would love to be in a position where if their game does well they make more money. They just don't like taking on the risk of the one for the chance at the other.'

I ain't claiming otherwise and again nowhere am I saying obsidian should get more profitz than Bethesda.


All I'm saying is dev companies do not get compensated as fairly as they should. This is something that has been proven consistently true throughout history. And, if you don't think publishing companies don't abuse their power and higher standing to exploit lesser you are wrong. This has been the case of any employer-employee relationship and it is why unions were formed the more civilized a civilization has become to - to balance out the relationship a little. Even the rich Hollywood types benefit from having a union.

 

[Infinitron]

darkpatriot Developers do take some risk even in publisher-funded projects - their reputation is hurt if the game is bad.

That's what Brian Fargo keeps saying - Obsidian's rep got trashed due to Bethesda's crappy QA, which was probably just not sufficient for the complexity of their game.

But IMO the main culprits in "New Vegas-Gate" are the shitty games journalists who didn't recognize it was a better game than FO3, bugs or no bugs.

 

[Volourn]

" And unions definitely don't help. For what it's worth I work in a unionized workplace and fuck the unions. Unions greatly hinder a businesses abilities to change adapt and grow and the people they mostly hurt is the non regular/unionized workers. It's not a coincidence that unions have always been tightly linked with corruption and organized crime. "

You are right. They don't help businesses. Nor are they designed to. Nor should they. They are designed to help employees which they do. As for mob ties, busiensses aren't known to always be above board either. Big busiensses will flat out break the alw if/when they can and they most certainly abuse it and intimidate/threaten/bully policy makers too.

Don't get me wrong. Unions aren't perfect but anyone who thinks workers are better off without unions are ignorant.

 

[Infinitron]

And as far as Obsidians reputation being trashed due to NV, was it?

They were called Bugsidian long before that. Every game they had produced prior to that had a reputation of being buggy. NV certainly didn't give them that reputation.

Well, it certainly didn't help. And Bethesda also has a reputation for bugginess, but it hurts them less somehow because Doritos and Mountain Dew, I guess.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. I believe publishers have an obligation to their customers to do as much QA as is necessary to release bug free games.

Stop white knighting for publishers, stop white knighting for developers, start white knighting for gamers. We're what counts here.

And while I'm looking forward to W2 and the new Torment game I take what Brian Fargo says with a grain of salt. As had been said in the thread that this thread was pruned out of. He was a publisher before and did the same things that current publishers do. He is also a savvy business man and salesperson. So when he sees that people are responding to "Those damn evil publishers are screwing developers and messing up games," He says what he can to help you feel sympathetic and supportive of him, and thus give him your money.

Brian Fargo when he was at Interplay had a history of giving external developers extra time to polish their games. I think he was actually more strict with his in-house team than he was with the likes of BioWare, Blizzard, etc.

People here seem to be blind to the publishers side of things and why they do what they do. I found these links very revealing about that issue. They are from a horrible site though, kotaku.

So, which publisher do you work for, Mr. Patriot?

 

[Vault Dweller]

So millions of dollars(sometimes tens of millions) isn't fair compensation? Hundreds of thousands of dollars a month?

It might be a fair pay for work done and services rendered, but fair pay is one thing and profit-sharing is another. Royalties are a standard way to reward developers for a game that sells well and Bethesda did fuck Obsidian there by forcing them to tie the royalties to such an arbitrary and idiotic standard as the metacritic score.

Keep in mind that Obsidian isn't a couple of guys for whom "hundreds of thousands of dollars a month" would be a dream come true. They burn rate was one mil a month, so these hundreds of thousands you speak of aren't 'good business' but merely a way to keep paying people and not having to lay them off.

We'll have to disagree on that one. But I suppose that some people feel that publishers should pay for everything and then developers should be the ones calling all the shots, and then should get a portion of the profits to. As a rule of thumb if you aren't sharing in the risks, you don't get to share the profits.

You deserve a share of you did all the fucking work and created something that went on to sell a million plus copies.

So you think that the money that Obsidian was payed included no profit? That it only covered the cost incurred by Obsidian to develop the game?

Why would any publisher pay the costs and a hefty profit on top, before the game is even out? Coincidentally, this is why you're mistaken. You think that they were well paid and made some profit, so why pay them more and spoil them rotten. It's not the case. The profit - the reward for the work well done - was in the unpaid royalties.

I don't have access to Obsidians financial records but if Obsidian did agree to that it wasn't the smartest move.

Must be because they were swimming in offers.

And as to the success of NV, how much do you think that had to do with Obsidian and how much did that have to do with Bethesda? I think everyone here agrees that for all the things people criticize Bethesda for they are masters at marketing their games.

By masters of marketing you mean that they are an influential and powerful publisher whose mighty bosom feeds many a gaming site? Yes, they are indeed.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Might as well, generally when people anticipate a response with a comment like that it's because they aren't very confident in what they've written, and want to pre-emptively respond to the criticism in hopes that it will dissuade the detractors from posting it. Anyway, don't be such a baby, I only said that in the other thread because you were derailing like a faggot when there were already other threads on the subject. Now look, you've got your very own pulpit, enjoy.

Lol. So according to you the response to a thread being derailed is to derail it further by contributing to the derailment. The exchange in that thread was basically over until you continued it. I had no more to say about it and neither did the two people I responded to.

I think perhaps the nature of my repy went over your head. My comment wasn't related to your discussion, I was just telling you to stop feigning ignorance so you could draw out this same discussion. I'm not to blame if you thought that was an invitation to continue on .

 

[Infinitron]

"Business savvy" gamers like darkpatriot always miss the forest for the trees. They lecture us about "maturity", but they never stop to ask themselves this:

If Walmart decided one day to start selling toothbrushes that snapped after 50 uses and said that was okay because it was their "business model", would people accept that?
If Hollywood decided one day to completely stop producing romantic comedies and said "sorry, those are the market realities", would people accept that?

"Mature and responsible", lol. Don't you see? The video game industry is pathetic. It's not serving its customers well. Everything else is just background noise.

 

[J1M]

Considering one of the major gripes in FNV reviews were related to engine bugs present in Fallout 3, that certainly affected the review score.

My understanding is that Bethesda promised to fix many of these but did not, so pretending they are a lawful neutral entity is silly.

Finally, there was nothing preventing Bethesda from saying: "Hey Obsidian, you did some excellent work and made us a ton of money. I know the contract says we don't owe you any royalties, but we have decided to give you [50/75/100]% of what we would have to if your metacritic score was 1% higher because sales were so high. We look forward to working with you in the future."

 

[Crooked Bee]

Finally, there was nothing preventing Bethesda from saying: "Hey Obsidian, you did some excellent work and made us a ton of money. I know the contract says we don't owe you any royalties, but we have decided to give you [50/75/100]% of what we would have to if your metacritic score was 1% higher because sales were so high. We look forward to working with you in the future."

Brofisted for romanticism

 

[abnaxus]

Looking forward to "Did Ubisoft fuck Obsidian or not?" thread one year from now.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Looking forward to "Did Ubisoft fuck Obsidian or not?" thread one year from now.

You'd think that Obsidian would have learned to keep it's fucking legs closed by then.