Incline Josh Sawyer appreciation station

[luj1]

Games are not supposed to be totally realistic, they're supposed to be fun.

He will never understand

 

[Major_Blackhart]

What if he's not an autistic retard but a lizard person? I mean does this shit start to make sense then?

 

[JarlFrank]

I read that more as an "If I Were the Evil Overlord" joke, i.e. if Sawyer designed a death trap dungeon in the real world he would get rid of the nonsensical stuff we see in games. Games are not supposed to be totally realistic, they're supposed to be fun.

If I were an evil overlord I'd give the heroes a chance because otherwise it'd be boring.

Seriously, if you're an immortal 300 year old wizard who unlocked the most powerful magicks in the world and oppresses several nations, what you need the most is entertainment. And what's more entertaining than watching heroes try to brave your cool deathtraps?

 

[Robert Erick]

I read that more as an "If I Were the Evil Overlord" joke, i.e. if Sawyer designed a death trap dungeon in the real world he would get rid of the nonsensical stuff we see in games. Games are not supposed to be totally realistic, they're supposed to be fun.

If I were an evil overlord I'd give the heroes a chance because otherwise it'd be boring.

Seriously, if you're an immortal 300 year old wizard who unlocked the most powerful magicks in the world and oppresses several nations, what you need the most is entertainment. And what's more entertaining than watching heroes try to brave your cool deathtraps?

The hallmark of aging, single Gen X men that work in "entertainment" like Sawyer is that they want to suck the fun out of everything they used to enjoy and to ruin it for you, too. Star Wars was cool? Sure, but making Luke lame and gay is MORE REALISTIC!!! D&D was fun? Yes it was, but it would be better if your sword of ogre decapitation +5 was balanced against ogres so you can't instakill them.

 

[luj1]

Rename this to "Josh Sawyer roasting station" Infinitron

 

[Atlantico]

Sawyer does not seem to be making games that he would enjoy playing, but he seems to be making games that the people he's trying to impress would enjoy talking about over a soy latté and avocado toast

 

[luj1]

Soyer in 2543: "I still don't know what players want"

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

Games are not supposed to be totally realistic, they're supposed to be fun.

He will never understand

I admit to not understanding your point here. Are you saying you think games should be totally realistic? That games should not be fun?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

There ought to be a law against guys like him. Modern germanophiles.

 

[Tyranicon]

Sawyer does not seem to be making games that he would enjoy playing, but he seems to be making games that the people he's trying to impress would enjoy talking about over a soy latté and avocado toast

Literally the only people who would be impressed by good cRPG systems is in this forum.

Nobody in the real world cares about that nerd shit.

 

[Atlantico]

Sawyer does not seem to be making games that he would enjoy playing, but he seems to be making games that the people he's trying to impress would enjoy talking about over a soy latté and avocado toast

Literally the only people who would be impressed by good cRPG systems is in this forum.

Nobody in the real world cares about that nerd shit.

True, though I had Pentiment in mind when I wrote that

 

[mediocrepoet]

Games are not supposed to be totally realistic, they're supposed to be fun.

He will never understand

I admit to not understanding your point here. Are you saying you think games should be totally realistic? That games should not be fun?

... Sawyer? Is that you?

If I was an evil overlord, I'd have the hobgoblins slowly lower Sawyer into a vat of bubbling acid.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Grounded and Penistent were both succesful and noticeably both were made without old guard involvement.

I don't think Pentiment did very well financially, it got some good reviews but almost no one else talked about it, sales must have been abysmal.

Grounded has 2-3 thousand concurrent people playing it on steam, I have no clue if that's sucesful or not

 

[Quillon]

Grounded has 2-3 thousand concurrent people playing it on steam, I have no clue if that's sucesful or not

that's 4 to 6x more than TOW

 

[Tyranicon]

Grounded and Penistent were both succesful and noticeably both were made without old guard involvement.

I don't think Pentiment did very well financially, it got some good reviews but almost no one else talked about it, sales must have been abysmal.

Grounded has 2-3 thousand concurrent people playing it on steam, I have no clue if that's sucesful or not

Grounded made bank just judging by steam review volume (50k).

Pentiment also apparently had a team of less than 20 people, so they might still turn a profit.

 

[Roguey]

I don't think Pentiment did very well financially, it got some good reviews but almost no one else talked about it, sales must have been abysmal.

~152.4 k by VG Insights
~152.7 k by PlayTracker
~243.0 k by Gamalytic
~260.0 k by SteamSpy

That's pretty good for what it is, especially since it's also on gamepass.

 

[Cross]

I don't think Pentiment did very well financially, it got some good reviews but almost no one else talked about it, sales must have been abysmal.

~152.4 k by VG Insights
~152.7 k by PlayTracker
~243.0 k by Gamalytic
~260.0 k by SteamSpy

That's pretty good for what it is, especially since it's also on gamepass.

A 150-200k sales is pretty bad for a game that was in development for 4+ years and had a decently sized team, even getting assistance from Microsoft after they acquired Obsidian. Indie games routinely sell more than that.

 

[Roguey]

A 150-200k sales is pretty bad for a game that was in development for 4+ years and had a decently sized team, even getting assistance from Microsoft after they acquired Obsidian. Indie games routinely sell more than that.

Pentiment's core team was 13 people (scaling up from an initial two). Sawyer compared it to Night in the Woods which was released in 2017.

~329.0 k by Gamalytic
~514.7 k by VG Insights
~846.9 k by PlayTracker
~1.17 M by SteamSpy

What do you think a narrative adventure made by up to a baker's dozen would have to sell to be successful? Here's what a pro said:

Whatever Schafer was communicating, fans adored it. Monkey Island sold “north of 100,000, far south of 1 million,” Grossman says. “Back in those days, a few hundred thousand was a giant smash hit.”

 

[Cross]

What do you think a narrative adventure made by up to a baker's dozen would have to sell to be successful? Here's what a pro said:

Whatever Schafer was communicating, fans adored it. Monkey Island sold “north of 100,000, far south of 1 million,” Grossman says. “Back in those days, a few hundred thousand was a giant smash hit.”

Emphasis on "back in those days." The Secret of Monkey Island came out 34 years ago. It took about a year to develop, not 4+ years like Pentiment. It was also more of an actual game than Pentiment, with an inventory and verb system, things which Pentiment lacks.

This pre-release interview with Sawyer specifically says it's been in development for 4 years. And Pentiment wouldn't release until half a year later.

https://www.ign.com/articles/what-is-obsidian-pentiment

Pentiment's core team was 13 people.

Not according to the credits. I noticed 3 different people are credited for "Particle Beam" for some reason, which suggests development wasn't terribly efficient.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/194426/pentiment/credits/windows/

 

[Roguey]

Not according to the credits. I noticed 3 different people are credited for "Particle Beam" for some reason, which suggests development wasn't terribly efficient.

Particle Beam were contractors obviously. Cost cutting.

Sawyer's adamant the core team at Obsidian ended up at 13, he wouldn't pull that number out of the air.

 

[Gargaune]

I don't think Pentiment did very well financially, it got some good reviews but almost no one else talked about it, sales must have been abysmal.

~152.4 k by VG Insights
~152.7 k by PlayTracker
~243.0 k by Gamalytic
~260.0 k by SteamSpy

That's pretty good for what it is, especially since it's also on gamepass.

A 150-200k sales is pretty bad for a game that was in development for 4+ years and had a decently sized team, even getting assistance from Microsoft after they acquired Obsidian. Indie games routinely sell more than that.

What do you think a narrative adventure made by up to a baker's dozen would have to sell to be successful? Here's what a pro said:

Well, let's math it... Started with Sawyer and Kennedy, Obsidian art director, then grew to 13 people during development [1], let's lowball it to an average 60K a head [2] over 4 years, round it down to a cool $3 million, plus studio overheads and marketing, could go upwards of $3.5 million. The game's RRP is apparently twenty bucks, take that most generous 260K units from SteamSpy, that's $5.2 million minus Gabe's 30% cut, you get $3.6 million revenue. This is all rough speculation but, yeah, it probably didn't do gangbusters.

 

[Roguey]

This is all rough speculation but, yeah, it probably didn't do gangbusters.

Would require more precise math since 4 years is an overstatement:

A game that shipped? 3 years (Pentiment): 9 months in pre-production and ~27 months in development

Sawyer also claims the budget was so low that MS didn't care if it made money or not https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1706353632952848531

I don't have any numbers but I'm going to assume that more people played it through Game Pass and since the game was relatively low budget, its financial performance wasn't really important, tbh.

By 'company-wise' I meant you and the devs who made the game: did you have an X number of copies purchased (Not GP) that made you think: "we don't have to reach this, but if we do, it would be neat"?

No.

 

[Butter]

The existence of GamePass lets them go full copium every time one of their projects shits the bed. "Hey, it probably got some people to try out GamePass. You can't easily quantify that revenue!"

 

[Tyranicon]

You guys are overthinking this. Pentiment was probably made on rev-share agreements and hiring contractors on Fiverr.

 

[Gargaune]

Would require more precise math since 4 years is an overstatement:

A game that shipped? 3 years (Pentiment): 9 months in pre-production and ~27 months in development

Sawyer also claims the budget was so low that MS didn't care if it made money or not https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1706353632952848531

Sawyer's full 200K plus as little as 50K for Kennedy (since she's presumably doing other things) for 3 years, plus the other 11 staff at a low average of 60K each for two years - that's $2m plus your overheads (studio, VO, marketing etc.), upwards of $2.5m versus that optimistic $3.6m take. I'm not saying the thing flopped, just that I doubt it made Feargus break for an early Christmas. That tracks with Microsoft not giving a shit, a couple hundred grand up or down won't even bleep their radar, not on an asset like Obsidian which has bigger fish to fry for 'em.