That may help them if they're going to do a similar project with similar team size. Rest of the studio has rough times ahead.
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Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian Entertainment (Kickstarter) [Up: Teaser]
- Thread starter duckroll
- Start date
That may help them if they're going to do a similar project with similar team size. Rest of the studio has rough times ahead.
It also depend if their South Park game will be bomba. If they will earn reasonable money on it things won't look that grim. Also we don't know anything about current project beside South Park.
Maybe they will do for SEGA next AP ? or maybe next Fallout nv2 ?
I thought SEGA fucked them over and that they pretty much burned bridges with Bethesda with their commentary about PS3 Skryrim?
Dreams are sweet.
I feel like Bethesda wants to have total control over the Fallout IP. Anyway, since Obsidian did the last one, it's Bethesda turn to do it.
Sir Garbageman
Member
I really hope this game lives up to a quarter of the hype going for it right now cause it sounds amazing.
I think they won't earn anything with South Park (as usual)
Sega is in a bad shape and focusing on only a few of their main IPs and small downloadable titles. Bethesda and Obsidian relationship after Fallout NV should preclude a concerted project like a Fallout NV sequel.
Don't mix emotions with business. Industry don't work that way.
Fallout:NV did nice numbers in therm of sales and earned a lot of money for zenimax. Few comments won't change much.
Also didn't heard anything about SEGA screwing Obsidian What is the story ? Link ?
Actually, as an independent developer, Obsidian will likely get absolutely no benefit from South Park selling well. They only thing they are usually promised is the funds to make the project, at which point they have to have a new project or not get any more funds, even if the game sells through the roof.
This is why they've been pitching like mad for months.
Behold the joy of the publishing agreement.
WorstUsernameEver
Member
LinkedIn gives them at roughly 90 employees, and as far as I'm aware they didn't have that many employees even before the layoffs.
They were 135 in 2008 according to their forum registration and Wikipedia.
I have to imagine they grew after that for at least a while, but I could be wrong.
Perhaps someone would like to ask their size on Twitter.
Bits of the studio may just not have a place in the company anymore. Their previous titles were all large budget, AAA games. Their company was designed for that and after South Park ships, they have nothing else announced to replace it. As mentioned from an interview earlier, getting the Alien RPG canceled hurt them a lot.
I see this Kickstarter in not just getting a chance to go back to their roots, but also a necessity for the company to survive. Project Eternity is going to be their make it or break it point(Its why I decided to support them myself, and I'm a bitch with my money). Outside of the injection of a few millions. Its also going to be an IP they own. One they will get all the profits for and one where they can set up sequels, expansions, and work off it. They mentioned earlier where they want to use the profits for this game to fund future titles and its telling about the direction they want to take the company. The days of 10million+ projects are probably over for them.
There is good and bad news to that. Bad news is that the company will have to downsize(If they haven't already) and we won't be getting anything like Alpha Protocol again. Good news is that they'll have control over everything they do. Instead of just a flat fee and a kick in the ass. They'll be able to profit off Eternity for years. Obsidian can always build back up again and thinking of the rainbow, maybe step into the ring again with a higher profile title as their own publisher(Or at least a developer with weight to not get fucked).
After Alpha Protocol was completed (Obsidian totally stopped working on it, they were done, Sega didn't want to pay for any additional development), Sega still delayed the game and sat on it for months while trying some "new" marketing drive which didn't really work well either.
Oh, and before that Sega cancelled the Aliens RPG after years of work.
Sega was also caught off the record iirc, commenting that they will never ever work with Obsidian again after the poor response from AP, and their experience with working with them on Aliens and Alpha Protocol.
It was kinda bad.
sounds about right
I think there will be one more kickstarter and another wave of layoffs. Or may be just layoffs.
They didn't get any royalties or a bonus from NV since they didn't get a Metacritic score of 85. I'm not sure if they'd like to go over that again. The explanation of why Skyrim on PS3 was such a trainwreck was just icing on the cake.
About SEGA, I see Duckroll's got me covered there.
yeah, Sega also insisted on making shooting stat-based which hurt the game a lot. Talking about publisher's interference...
The first Sacred?
I don't think I had any problems with performance though I did buy it at the time the expansion was released.
I would be ticked too if the guys that didn't own the IP wrote a better game.
That said, feelings get pushed aside when money is on the table. Though Im not hopeful, its not off the table that Bethesda contacts Obsidian to help out on other projects.
They have nothing to sell beyond the employees and the name. And really, EA doesn't need Bioware and Obsidian.
Just throwing this out there since I'm not really sure about the situation.
But didn't Bethesda get them since they were working on Skyrim? They have no use for them now that they are off working on Fallout 4.
like Bioware?
on the other hand Feargus and Avellone will become rich and can start crafting beer with Greg.
edit:
it's never late for a Facebook game
What exactly happened with Bethesda and Obsidian? I remember reading Bethesda saying Obsidian will never work on Fallout again, but what happened between the two companies? It's a shame, cause NV was better than 3
*dies*
Yes, the performance issues are on Windows 7, though.
You should like it since EA won't allow any single player games.
yeah, I agree with this.
I think they will find some pub to work with. They should try CD PROJEKT.
They'd have to be desperate as fuck to do this.
Which they kinda are, but yeah I can't see it happening. I totally would pitch in mind you.
Do they still publish games?
I can't remember if they totally dropped that part of the company after their first implosion.
I would say "I called it" but let's be honest, lots of people did.
Unity does seem to be becoming the de-facto low budget dev engine. Heck, *I'm* tempted to look into it for tinkering, and I've not done games dev in several years now!
An interesting choice. I *was* going to ask if CD Projekt had the money to fund a US-based developer, but for a project of similar scale to Eternity I'd imagine they would.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Well one thing is clear, we all have to buy the South Park game.
While a good plan to save THQ, I really don't think that Obsidian gets bonus money from that.
I can find a lot of articles on how independent developers are paid in five hours when I'm off work.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Probably not bonus money but at least a bit of reputation perhaps. I was half joking, and have been planning to buy it anyway.
Its one of the big up-and-comers, especially among the indie scene. Really powerful, flexible environment.
Here is the one about New Vegas
"[Fallout: New Vegas] was a straight payment, no royalties, only a bonus if we got an 85+ on Metacritic, which we didn't,"
It's primarily used by mobile and browser games, but it's mostly known for having really great realtime development and productivity features.
The graphics weren't so hot for most of its life (and not astonishing now either, but they're improving quite quickly).
For a game you have most likely heard of, Wasteland 2 is using it.
The biggest technical showcase would probably be Dead Trigger.
Thanks.
Which sucks, seeing as NV was way beyond anything Bethesda themselves did with Fallout 3.
of course they do, more than ever.
Which ones (that aren't made by them) by the way?
Not that I doubt you, I'm just legitimately curious.
Endless Space and Rochard are 2 recent noteworthy releases.
I have no idea why Bethesda gets a pass when they make games equally as buggy as Obsidian did.
Yeah CD Project is mainly Publisher and rather big for central europe. CD Project Red is their division for making games. There was some fud about CDP and some shareholding crazyness but this hadn't take its tool on publishing side of things nor gaming.
But pitching it for CD Project is bad idea. They could sponsor kickstarter like game but anything above that they simply don't have money.
I will repeat it for you Witcher2 PC and X360 game was made for less than $10mln. I don't think they would want polish wages.
Interesting times for Obsidian. From one hand they have chance for independence and making it's way to be profitable and in near future there will be problems if things don't change.
BTW has anyone know any 2D unity game ?
But they don't fully fund those right?
I think Obsidian needs full funding, not a distribution deal.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Thanks.
10000000 (that's the actual title of the game).
Unity is kind of unideal to work with in 2D though like a lot of modern engines, but it is doable.
Agreed because it looks awesome.
But I don't care what happens to THQ. Maybe at best SP being great and selling well could restore Obsidian's reputation with many big publishers and get them more work, but they're not going to make much money off of SP.
yes, but they could do a kickstarter-sized project. They have two major RPGs in the pipeline though...