So, Chris Avellone has left Obsidian, leaving the company in what appears to be a state of turmoil. We'll learn more about that tomorrow. In the meantime, let us revisit May 26th, only two weeks past yet seemingly an eternity (heh) ago. On that date, Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart was due to give a talk at an IGDA event in Montreal, entitled "The Road to Eternity". He ended up missing his flight, but with the help of Skype, was able to give the talk anyway. The entire thing is about an hour and fifteen minutes long - 40 minutes during which Feargus shares various lessons he's learned over his career, another 20 where he shares Kickstarter experience and advice, and 15 minutes of Q&A.


It's mostly managerial-type stuff, but there are a few interesting takeaways here for the common gamer:

• The first Pillars of Eternity expansion has run into some trouble - it's not long enough. Obsidian want it to be 10 hours long, but originally planned only 10 areas, which Feargus estimates take only a half hour each to play through. Heart of Winter syndrome?
• Obsidian currently have four projects in development.
• Pillars of Eternity raised between 5 and 5.5 million dollars from around 110,000 backers before its release, including Kickstarter and subsequent pre-orders.
• There are currently 95 developers working on Armored Warfare at Obsidian, which constitutes a majority of the company. Organizationally, Obsidian is currently divided into "Armored Warfare" and "Everything Else".

The talk also includes a plethora of anecdotes from the Interplay days, which sound like they were rather unpleasant for those in middle management. Worth a listen if you have the time, but if you don't, I commented on some of the more notable bits here.