RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

[J_C]

Since we're doing brutal honesty, Chris Avellone did you get sexually harassed by Obsidian's HRM? There's are rumours and some borderline-creepy public behaviour on record there.

Ok but riddle me this, What do you call it when you like getting sexually harassed by female coworkers?

Dreamjob?

 

[Mustawd]

Can someone ask MCA about de-ownership? He's obviously ignoring my questions.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Chris Avellone dream scenario:

1) Obsidian owners resign in shame
2) Tim Cain appointed acting CEO
3) During Project Indiana's development, Obsidian acquired by Take Two Interactive
4) Chris Avellone appointed as General Manager
5) The purge begins

Based on these steps, I wouldn’t do a purge – and I also wouldn’t want some of the owners to go, either – but they would need bosses. I'd even consider working with Feargus if he had someone watching him (production-wise and accounting-wise, I wouldn't let him near finances).

I also wouldn’t want to be a GM, I’d want Cain (and Boyarsky) to do whatever they’d like and support them because I believe based on their track record, that would pay off in the end – for everyone, including them.

But, before you think I’m being overly kind, the poorly-performing nepotism hires would, yes, all be let go. They are evident even to the folks still at Obsidian, and it causes problems to this day to see some underperformers getting special treatment for no other reason than, well, "the owner knows them and drinks beer with them."

How would my favorite tattooed Obsidian dev factor into that scenario?

 

[Infinitron]

I also wouldn’t want to be a GM, I’d want Cain (and Boyarsky) to do whatever they’d like and support them because I believe based on their track record, that would pay off in the end – for everyone, including them.

Which track record is that? Serious question.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Since we're doing brutal honesty, Chris Avellone did you get sexually harassed by Obsidian's HRM? There's rumours and some borderline-creepy public behaviour on record there.

Ask Infinitron, he was the one who said that - I never said anyone's name, and I've worked with a lot of companies where the wife was the HR manager and married to the owner. As I may have said, it's almost a cliche, and the relationship defends the company very well against lawsuits.

I will say after he said it, I got a lot of unsolicited stories from employees and ex-employees of Obsidian who mentioned Tina. But it's up to them to speak out if they want, it's not my place to do so.

 

[Blaine]

This just showed on my Twitter timeline.

Bonus: Kem0sabe being his usual lovable self

Wait a sec... I've retrieved an ancient memory of the SJG forums.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=441199&postcount=2

This is the second time in my life I've seen that name, both on game-related forums. Coincidence?

 

[Infinitron]

I'm being blamed for Roguey theories now smh

 

[Mustawd]

citation?

 

[Blaine]

I'm being blamed for Roguey theories now smh

You've already been blamed for for 9/11, I'm sure you're used to it by now.

 

[Haba]

I'm being blamed for Roguey theories now smh

Why do you have the same IP address then?

...and why does it point to Obsidian office VPN?

 

[Phanax]

Will this shitstorm ever end?

 

[Prime Junta]

Since we're doing brutal honesty, Chris Avellone did you get sexually harassed by Obsidian's HRM? There's rumours and some borderline-creepy public behaviour on record there.

Ask Infinitron, he was the one who said that - I never said anyone's name, and I've worked with a lot of companies where the wife was the HR manager and married to the owner. As I may have said, it's almost a cliche, and the relationship defends the company very well against lawsuits.

I will say after he said it, I got a lot of unsolicited stories from employees and ex-employees of Obsidian who mentioned Tina. But it's up to them to speak out if they want, it's not my place to do so.

That answer wasn't quite as direct as I had hoped, but... hoo boy, you do know how to pour gasoline on a fire.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Wait a sec... I've retrieved an ancient memory of the SJG forums.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=441199&postcount=2

This is the second time in my life I've seen that name, both on game-related forums. Coincidence?

It's a very common surname in Portugal, and especially common in the Azores, then again most of the Cunha's i end up knowing here are some distant cousin.

 

[Nano]

Chris Avellone, I have a question. Why did Travis Stout leave Obsidian? Was it because he really wanted to work on zombie games at Undead Labs, or was it because there was something turning him off from working at Obsidian (like John Gonzalez)?

 

[Quillon]

Chris Avellone dream scenario:

1) Obsidian owners resign in shame
2) Tim Cain appointed acting CEO
3) During Project Indiana's development, Obsidian acquired by Take Two Interactive
4) Chris Avellone appointed as General Manager
5) The purge begins

Based on these steps, I wouldn’t do a purge – and I also wouldn’t want some of the owners to go, either – but they would need bosses. I'd even consider working with Feargus if he had someone watching him (production-wise and accounting-wise, I wouldn't let him near finances).

I also wouldn’t want to be a GM, I’d want Cain (and Boyarsky) to do whatever they’d like and support them because I believe based on their track record, that would pay off in the end – for everyone, including them.

But, before you think I’m being overly kind, the poorly-performing nepotism hires would, yes, all be let go. They are evident even to the folks still at Obsidian, and it causes problems to this day to see some underperformers getting special treatment for no other reason than, well, "the owner knows them and drinks beer with them."

How would my favorite tattooed Obsidian dev factor into that scenario?

That guy is like Grieving Mother, Avellone doesn't know if he exists or not at this point.

edit: Ooooh, better yet: That guy and Avellone is like Grieving Mother and Durance, they've done so much shit to each other now one of them can't see the other, I think it was something like this.

 

[Chris Avellone]

I'm being blamed for Roguey theories now smh

I’m not sure what you did will protect you from libel, and unfortunately, your blast was much wider than Roguey’s when you spread the news you believed was true to a wider audience - so I would accept it and hope for no consequences. My only bit of advice: Always check your sources before you add what you believe to be facts. On my end, what you did only helped – I got a lot of stories I never would have gotten had you not did the Obsidian blast.

That said, I mean no ill will toward you, Infinitron, and I apologize for critiques I gave in the manner I did. But at the same time I thank you for stepping forward and inadvertently helping reveal more truths.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Okay, so what the hell is this about now? I think I need a Quest Compass.

 

[Sensuki]

Okay, so what the hell is this about now? I think I need a Quest Compass.

The answer to the puzzle (for the most part) lies in the questions Chris replies to vs. the ones he does not

 

[Rivmusique]

Okay, so what the hell is this about now? I think I need a Quest Compass.

The ring, damn it.

 

[Infinitron]

Anyway Chris, I think even the people reading this thread who take your claims about Obsidian as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, would probably agree you've got a bit of a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side complex.

I mean, are you telling me that the Chris Avellone that we see before us today, the ideologue of correct management practices, wouldn't find Troika Games to be a mismanaged clusterfuck?

Have you watched Leonard Boyarsky's interview on Matt Chat? There's some real despair porn in there: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10827

And he's not all that proud of what he did afterwards at Blizzard either.

And then there's your friend Ken Levine, whose troubled stewardship of Bioshock: Infinite was the topic of many a Kotaku and Polygon longform expose.

It's a troubled industry full of broken processes, but somehow at the end it all evens out, mostly.

 

[Blaine]

I’m not sure what you did will protect you from libel....

Being in Israel will probably do the trick.

 

[ga♥]

You take humans who have nothing in common, and force them to stay 9 hours a day together in a small space for a long amount of time and this is the result.
I don't think we were meant to live like this.

 

[TT1]

Chris Avellone theres a lot of unanswered questions.

Can you please answer them before you get a C&D?

 

[Iskramor]

Avellone is just a white male and he hasn't even been sexually harassed.

That's where you're wrong, kiddo.

It's slowing down though. We need Josh here to explain what's what.

theyre responding to avellones posts by calling rope kid a cuck with polluted impure mixed germanic blood

tfw your great-grandma was hungarian

That's the best you're gonna get. Incidentally, it figures that goons and badgamers focus almost solely on Chaotic Heretic's post, a guy who was obnoxious enough to get marked by a Dumbfuck! tag. By the way and for the record for lurking goons and ex-goons, he's an Indian from India.

Chaotic heretic is indian lololoollololo

 

[Mustawd]

Anyway Chris, I think even the people reading this thread who take your claims about Obsidian as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, would probably agree you've got a bit of a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side complex.

I mean, are you telling me that the Chris Avellone that we see before us today, the ideologue of correct management practices, wouldn't find Troika Games to be a mismanaged clusterfuck?

Have you watched Leonard Boyarsky's interview on Matt Chat? There's some real despair porn in there: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10827

And he's not all that proud of what he did afterwards at Blizzard either.

And then there's your friend Ken Levine, whose troubled stewardship of Bioshock: Infinite was the topic of many a Kotaku and Polygon longform expose.

It's a troubled industry full of broken processes, but somehow at the end it all evens out, mostly.

Honestly, I don't think he's really advocating for what you're saying. It seems to me that he feels like an insane person yelling and pointing at stuff and going "this is nuts. Don't you see this is nuts?"

Look, at the end of the day private companies are sometimes managed no better than the public ones commies like to rail against. It is what it is,