Interview Feargus Urquhart talks about new crowdfunding platform Fig and Obsidian's future

[Irenaeus II]

What a mess.

 

[Morality Games]

What a mess.

... what specific reason makes you opposed to this new platform?

Whatever Schafer did or didn't do or was supposed to do, shitty people occupy positions of influence in politics and finance all the time. Ancient countries are stewarded by a huge douche bags.

 

[Irenaeus II]

You were not designed to learn. I'm done talking to you. Refer to my post on the other thread with tommy lee jones

 

[Morality Games]

You were not designed to learn. I'm done talking to you. Refer to my post on the other thread with tommy lee jones

... okay. All the forces of science and logic are arrayed against you, but I'll assume you enjoy a privileged insight of some sort.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I don't think it's a mess in principle, but I do fear this thing might be very hard to really take off the ground.

I also wonder if Obsidian's project that Feargus mentions is going to be Fig-exclusive (in which case they run the risk of losing KS' established user base) or if they're going to run a KS campaign and a Fig campaign in parallel. The latter would probably defeat the purpose of hyping up this new platform, though.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think it's a mess in principle, but I do fear this thing might be very hard to really take off the ground.

I also wonder if Obsidian's project that Feargus mentions is going to be Fig-exclusive (in which case they run the risk of losing KS' established user base) or if they're going to run a KS campaign and a Fig campaign in parallel. The latter would probably defeat the purpose of hyping up this new platform, though.

For our next games, absolutely [we won’t use Kickstarter].

Also, argumentum ad chris robertsam I guess

 

[Morality Games]

I don't think it's a mess in principle, but I do fear this thing might be very hard to really take off the ground.
I also wonder if Obsidian's project that Feargus mentions is going to be Fig-exclusive (in which case they run the risk of losing KS' established user base) or if they're going to run a KS campaign and a Fig campaign in parallel. The latter would probably defeat the purpose of hyping up this new platform, though.

I'm not convinced the risk is really all that big.

Bethesda is doing a design revolution with Fallout 4. It represents a much bigger departure for their overall approach to games than Skyrim was to Morrowind, something that puts them more in the realm of CDProjeckt. More action and cinemtics and less RPG. That's what they've decided the future is.

I'm sure you can find between 1-3 million players across all platforms that feel like the "balance" of RPG in previous Fallout and Elder Scrolls entries was perfect. 1-3 million players is all you need to command Dragon Age revenues.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Well, I'm just curious to see how it goes, then. Star Citizen is too much of a special case.

 

[Irenaeus II]

muh US$82 million!

 

[Crooked Bee]

For our next games, absolutely [we won’t use Kickstarter].

Hah, mea culpa for not reading the interview carefully.

GamesBeat: Does this mean that the companies involved. Will Obsidian, InXile, and Double Fine not use Kickstarter in the future?

Urquhart: For our next games, absolutely [we won’t use Kickstarter].

Oh my, InXile too?

 

[Cosmo]

Well, I'm just curious to see how it goes, then. Star Citizen is too much of a special case.

On the best of worlds, disgruntled mid-size companies would pool their ressources and get behind, well, an Obsidian project. But even then Urquhart & co would have some serious managerial changes to make.
I still see Obsidian staff as somewhat lax people, even with F:NV in the rearview and the fact that DS3/PoE were relatively bug-free.

 

[VladimirK]

"Equity" is the key word here.

Fig, which is backed by Spark (an investor in Oculus, Twitter, and Slack), allows crowdfunding backers the chance to purchase equity for the first time. Equity investment is open to accredited investors now and will be available to unaccredited investors at a later date.

If they do manage to sort out the legal issues with letting "unaccredited investors" (I.e. you and me) buy a piece of the game and receive a monetary benefit if it's successful, it's gonna be a really big deal for obvious reasons.

 

[Morality Games]

"Equity" is the key word here.


If they do manage to sort out the legal issues with letting "unaccredited investors" (I.e. you and me) buy a piece of the game and receive a monetary benefit if it's successful, it's gonna be a really big deal for obvious reasons.

Heh heh heh thanks Obama.

 

[Ash_Firelord]

I am cautious about anything involving Schafer. And by cautious, I mean hiding away on my panic room when I think about him having 0,01% of influence on the logistics of making muh RPGs.

I kinda like most of his games, but the man is a train-wreck as far as management and planning go.

 

[karnak]

I am cautious about anything involving Schafer. And by cautious, I mean hiding away on my panic room when I think about him having 0,01% of influence on the logistics of making muh RPGs.

I kinda like most of his games, but the man is a train-wreck as far as management and planning go.

They can always hire another expert, to help keep things stable.

 

[Turok]

For god sake jajaja

 

[selkin]

It's interesting how you present a lot of guesses as facts.

What I guessed so far is this:
Guess #1 Schafer made kicksarter videos that brought a lot of money to Double Fines's KS project. He has a video-friendly charisma.
Guess #2 Brian Fargo's biggest deed was that he ruined Interplay, and didn't give too much crap about his best employees leaving his company (Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, etc.) He pulled off Wasteland 2 which is great though.
Guess #3 Feargus Urquhart also also just happened to be able to put his name on the Fallout 1 intro screen as he was in charge at Interplay. This is really just a guess.

The game was not made by Fargo or Urquhart, but the people who stayed in after hours and lived on pizza and soft drinks for months and they made a game out of passion. This is not news to anyone as well I think.

Guess #4 The people who founded Fig are not good game developers. But that's OK, Fig just needs to give out the order to make a game and pour money on people who are passionate and creative and are willing to sacrifice months or even years of their life. That's how Fallout 1 been created. By an accident. And that's why PoE is not good enough. It's just not spontaneous enough and it aims to please too many people and their desires.

But if Fig is just a little better then Kickstarter, it might pull off some great games.

I think the idea is good.

 

[ZoddGuts]

Say what you want about Larian, but their not stupid enough to launch any of their fund raising games on that site. Even indieagogo would be a better alternative than working with those assholes.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

1-3 million players is all you need to command Dragon Age revenues.

I like how you said "revenue" instead of "profit".

 

[himmy]

Let's face it, while Kickstarter was a big surprise to everyone in the last 4 years and has provided immense boosts to areas as divers as CRPGs, 3D Printing, indie films and whatever OUYA was supposed to be, the "Kickstarter revolution" in video games was by far the biggest in terms of how much it changed the medium it was dealing with.

Somebody trying to branch out towards a video game-centric crowdfunding platform was really just a matter of time. The part about the pledger being a sort of share-holder is just icing on the cake. It all boils down on gathering enough media attention for their first few projects to make it a viable alternative to Kickstarter or Indiegog, but with big names on board (and Fargo's media-savvy ways) this is much easier.

Also, people in this thread who vow never to invest in future Fig pitches because Schafer or Feargus or whomever are on the advisory board are the kind of people who pretend they never had a girlfriend because they couldn't find somebody good enough for them, when you know its because they spend all their time playing Guilty Gear X and smell like Fritos.

 

[Infinitron]

Say what you want about Larian, but their not stupid enough to launch any of their fund raising games on that site. Even indieagogo would be a better alternative than working with those assholes.

I don't know why people are jumping to this conclusion. The opinion of Larian and Swen Vincke on Fig is as yet unknown.

Guess #2 Brian Fargo's biggest deed was that he ruined Interplay, and didn't give too much crap about his best employees leaving his company (Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, etc.) He pulled off Wasteland 2 which is great though.
Guess #3 Feargus Urquhart also also just happened to be able to put his name on the Fallout 1 intro screen as he was in charge at Interplay. This is really just a guess.

The game was not made by Fargo or Urquhart, but the people who stayed in after hours and lived on pizza and soft drinks for months and they made a game out of passion. This is not news to anyone as well I think.

Guess #4 The people who founded Fig are not good game developers. But that's OK, Fig just needs to give out the order to make a game and pour money on people who are passionate and creative and are willing to sacrifice months or even years of their life. That's how Fallout 1 been created.

Some top tier Saint Proverbius-era posting right here

 

[Sensuki]

Also, people in this thread who vow never to invest in future Fig pitches because Schafer or Feargus or whomever are on the advisory board are the kind of people who pretend they never had a girlfriend because they couldn't find somebody good enough for them, when you know its because they spend all their time playing Guilty Gear X and smell like Fritos.

That's a really bad analogy. The former has a long recent history of mismanaging his own products into ruin, and the latter admittedly just wants to make mediocre games aimed at a more casual audience to make money. A wannabe AAA developer. Why the fuck would you throw cash at them if you already know their products are going to be shit?

 

[Black]

You fools were so eager to see the age of incline, "ooh ooh, obsidian, inxile and larian are self-publishing now, everything will be great!" you didn't see the trap of... THE AGE OF DECADENCE

 

[Zetor]

Looks to me they're trying to snag whales KS high-roller millionaires/billionaires like Notch and Dracogen to create their own 'publishing platform'... and for all we know, it may even work out for them in the end.

 

[The Bishop]

I don't know if mixing kickstarter with a serious investment platform is such a good idea. You're likelier to get people do things for you for free than for little money. The thing is, when you just asking somebody to help you out, you appeal to his social sensibilities. A helpful person will (within reason) help another person in need. But when you offering money you offering a deal, a contract and appeal to person's financial sensibilities. And if deal is bad that very same person that was inclined to help you as a fellow human will refuse, because financially speaking your deal is bad. Simply put asking a person to help you carry a box is much likelier to succeed than asking the same person do this for 50 cents.

I don't see how this new platform is going to make particularly enticing investment deal for most kickstarter tier pledgers. It will however make those same pledgers no longer consider their pledge as a token of good will.