Obsidian's Almost Baldur's Gate III

[Hormalakh]

What was Atari exactly looking at in the studio that made them say no? Were they just trying to steal some ideas and pitch as their own or were they really just jerking around?

As for BG3, I don't really think I'd like to have played it anyway. I felt that the BG story ended with ToB. Were they just trying to build off the BG name?

 

[Stabwound]

There are a bunch of "Baldur's Gate" games on the Playstation 2 that play almost exactly like Obsidian's Dungeon Siege 3. I bet that's what they were going for.

 

[J_C]

There are a bunch of "Baldur's Gate" games on the Playstation 2 that play almost exactly like Obsidian's Dungeon Siege 3. I bet that's what they were going for.

Probably not. Why would they? If they really wanted to make a worthy sequel to BGII, they would make it in the same genre. A cRPG.

 

[Roguey]

It would have looked and played more like Baldur's Age: Origins probably.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So.. Obsidian got greedy. they demanded Atari just hand them 25mil+ just for shits and giggles. LMFAO

Shut up! They didn't demanded, they told them that that would be the cost of a good sequel to BG2. And not just for shits and giggles. You are stupid as alwys. Why do you always turn up when somebody mentions Baldur's Gate anyway.? You are creepy.

One can't help but wonder why a pricetag for a "good sequel" to BG2 was 25mil when a pricetag for a totally awesome spiritual successor to BG2 with a mix of PST is 3,986,929. And when one starts wondering, it's easy to wonder what would have happened had Obsidian asked Atari for 3 mil or so...

 

[Stabwound]

$3,986,929 doesn't get you Captain Picard to voice one of the characters. How could they possibly make an AAAAA game without him?

 

[Tigranes]

Would Atari have been happy with whatever BG3 Obsidian made with 4 million?

 

[Jaesun]

The thing is Atari would want a NEXT GEN FEAR IN THE ORCS EYE™ 3D BGIII (because that's what sells!™).

I wonder if they pitched a BGIII LIKE BGI/II and then Atari laughed them out of the office. Regardless of the price.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Tigranes:

Well, they clearly weren't happy with paying 25 mil, that's for sure. And Obsidian seems to be implying that PE will be a very decent game. So, given a choice between a 25 mil game that may or may not sell 50 mil and a 4 mil game that can probably easily sell 10 mil, who knows what Atari would have picked?

 

[Vault Dweller]

What I'm trying to say is, I didn't read this story as 'teh publishers did it'. The way Feargus is telling it, it was Obsidian who pushed the price and made it a key issue.

"We were talking to Atari, and we started talking... They asked in 2007 if we wanted to do Baldur's Gate 3, and I'm like 'Yes, if you guys are serious about it.' They were like, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'If you'll put a real budget behind it: it can't be $10 million, it needs to be $20 million, $25 million. If you really want to do this, then you need to put a real budget behind it. You need to give a budget that BioWare would have to do a Mass Effect or whatever. It has to be a real budget.'

I mean, why not see first what Atari was willing to commit, money-wise, and then explain that for $250 they can get a BG-inspired doodle drawn by Avellone himself, for 4-5 mil they can get a BG-like game, and if they want top of the line Bioware knock-off, it's gonna cost them 25 mil, maybe more.

 

[ColCol]

And yet I'm pretty sure it sold well, which is what matters most in a business.

 

[mindx2]

Eh, whatever... I feel like I'm getting a BGIII by pledging for Project Eternity so this news doesn't get my "cRPG disappointment meter" going.

 

[Surf Solar]

I enjoyed BG:Dark Alliance immensly.

 

[suejak]

Is this really a mystery to anyone? Obsidian was demanding a lot of money to make a globally marketable, multiplatform, main-stream AAA game in the mold of Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins.

Yet Obsidian, especially in that time period, had never produced a solid AAA game. All of their games got cautious reviews and the studio was famous for buggy, incomplete releases.

Why would a publisher give a massive, world-class budget to a company that has never made a polished AAA title?

 

[Lord Andre]

My theory is that Obsidian tried desperately to get in on the Dragon Age/Mass Effect piece of shit game of the year action. After they failed to do this a couple of times they painfully resigned to making a good game for the old fags on pc. Their loss, my gain.

 

[Pope Amole II]

When I clicked on the thread, I though it was about project eternity.
And it's not.
Strange.

 

[Jaesun]

I mean, why not see first what Atari was willing to commit, money-wise, and then explain that for $250 they can get a BG-inspired doodle drawn by Avellone himself, for 4-5 mil they can get a BG-like game, and if they want top of the line Bioware knock-off, it's gonna cost them 25 mil, maybe more.

I kind of get your point but you do understand approaching Atari with OMG! Let's do a BG/BGII LIKE game with BGIII! They would have been laughed out of the office (at that time). IIRC they tried before to do a classic cRPG like game and was always told LOL! No and the door slammed in their face. I don't see a problem with Fergus approaching BGIII to Atari as basically Baldurs Gate III: like DA but better a problem?

That was the world they were living in at the time.

 

[Mastermind]

There are a bunch of "Baldur's Gate" games on the Playstation 2 that play almost exactly like Obsidian's Dungeon Siege 3. I bet that's what they were going for.

I played and enjoyed both Dark Alliance games. They play nothing like Dungeon Siege 3, which was the most boring arpg I ever played.

 

[darkling]

Dark Alliance 2 was made by Black Isle, wasn't it?

 

[St. Toxic]

It's lucky that Obshittian is too incompetent to make mainstream games.

 

[Volourn]

"Pretty naieve to ask that much money after the NWN2 trainwreck."

Huh? NWN2 did pretty well. Don't smoke crack.. mmmkayyy?

 

[Wyrmlord]

Obsidian was being greedy. Just admit it.

They claim they can make a BG2 like game with 4mil dollars... yet they tried telling Atari they needed 25mil+ to do it.

So.. which is it? Did they lie to Atari or are they lying to their fans?

Atari had no problems with the budget. Initially, Atari believed they could provide the funding for it, and a year later, their only hesitation was about whether the game might actually be made. It was only after the sale of Atari and the departure (firing?) of the Atari person involved in the project that the project got nuked.

Besides, your comparison between Project Eternity and this proposed BG3 is irrelevant. A BioWare-production level, high profile version of BG3 is what was supposed to require $20-25 million. A relatively low budget, bare bones, niche fan focused game like Project Eternity requires $4 million. There are no lies being told here about either.

Look, I almost wrote, "Hey, am I the only who thinks Volourn has a point here?" Then I went back to the OP to click on the link to the article and check it fully, and I discovered you were totally off-base and off-topic about this. Man!

 

[waywardOne]

No one's ever going to make a good game again. News at 11.

 

[Modron]

Pretty naieve to ask that much money after the NWN2 trainwreck.

Likely they were desperate because Aliens RPG had just been canceled.

Luckily Bethesda saved their asses in the end.

Bethesda did another thing entirely to their assess; they paid them pennies on the dollar returns they made and then trololololed any thought of bonuses. I guess I can see the light of the caveat "in the end" part because it allowed them to stay afloat long enough to seek out other ventures.

 

[Wyrmlord]

No one's ever going to make a good game again. News at 11.

Well, this game almost happened now, didn't it? Just dumb bad luck struck it down.