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Your disrespectful attitude towards Cain, Boyarsky, Avellone has to stop

Wyatt_Derp

Arcane
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Messages
3,062
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Okie Land
Bester
A noble effort, by creatives who once made good shit, but are now churning-out crap are universally shat on by everyone despite their previous achievements. It's not just the Codex, its the law of nature, you can't change it. Just look at what happened to George Lucas. He made the movies that are hundred times more significant than the collective effort of everyone who ever worked for Black Isle, yet he became a joke after prequels came out.

The fall of creative greatness should have been dubbed The Lucas Law years ago, to join its siblings along with Murphy and Occam.

Actually, scratch that. Lucas law sounds like something Congress would pass to ban something 'cause some retarded kid poked his eye out playing with it. I'll keep sleuthing for a better title.
 

Pink Eye

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I'm very into cock and ball torture
He tried once and in the end had to close the studio and lay off people, which had to be a very painful experience. You can't blame him for not wanting to go through this experience again. While we all applaud Ziets for leaving and co-starting his own studio, it's a gamble (and the more people they get on aboard, the bigger the gamble).
Times changed. For instance, he didn’t have steam back then. Besides, it is one thing to adopt modern gaming measures to pay rent, it is another to advise other people to do the same as good design. That's the kind of talk and bad influence we don't need in the medium.
Steam's Early Access program, Patreon, Kickstarter, the list goes on. I mean for Pete's sake, we live in a period where a game like Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a success. I'm sure this current environment is far more friendly to indie developers, than say when Troika was started.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
He tried once and in the end had to close the studio and lay off people, which had to be a very painful experience. You can't blame him for not wanting to go through this experience again. While we all applaud Ziets for leaving and co-starting his own studio, it's a gamble (and the more people they get on aboard, the bigger the gamble).
Times changed. For instance, he didn’t have steam back then. Besides, it is one thing to adopt modern gaming measures to pay rent, it is another to advise other people to do the same as good design. That's the kind of talk and bad influence we don't need in the medium.
Steam's Early Access program, Patreon, Kickstarter, the list goes on. I mean for Pete's sake, we live in a period where a game like Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a success. I'm sure this current environment is far more friendly to indie developers, than say when Troika was started.
It's not that simple. To get to Early Access you need 2-3 years of work. Patreon won't keep an indie studio afloat. Kickstarter? They can probably get a million bucks (in comparison PoE cost 8 mil to make), which won't get them far. While digital distribution is definitely a game changer, bigger teams still need proper fundings.
 

Pink Eye

Monk
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I'm very into cock and ball torture
He tried once and in the end had to close the studio and lay off people, which had to be a very painful experience. You can't blame him for not wanting to go through this experience again. While we all applaud Ziets for leaving and co-starting his own studio, it's a gamble (and the more people they get on aboard, the bigger the gamble).
Times changed. For instance, he didn’t have steam back then. Besides, it is one thing to adopt modern gaming measures to pay rent, it is another to advise other people to do the same as good design. That's the kind of talk and bad influence we don't need in the medium.
Steam's Early Access program, Patreon, Kickstarter, the list goes on. I mean for Pete's sake, we live in a period where a game like Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a success. I'm sure this current environment is far more friendly to indie developers, than say when Troika was started.
It's not that simple. To get to Early Access you need 2-3 years of work. Patreon won't keep an indie studio afloat. Kickstarter? They can probably get a million bucks (in comparison PoE cost 8 mil to make), which won't get them far. While digital distribution is definitely a game changer, bigger teams still need proper fundings.
So then limit the team size? Have a smaller team?
 

*-*/\--/\~

Cipher
Joined
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0e5f01db54695e28cdc8e9090f465033--adorable-animals-funny-animals.jpg
 

S.torch

Arbiter
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Messages
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They can probably get a million bucks (in comparison PoE cost 8 mil to make), which won't get them far.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker cost less than a million bucks, and was financed in kickstarter. Ironically Pillars of Eternity cost 4 million bucks and was financed in Kickstarter too.
Yet people loved Kingmaker much much more. It seems like some people just don't know how to use their money and resources.
 

Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,164
...In the end I decided to go with a girl who writes crossover slash fanfiction about hockey players. She puts them into all kinds of settings, and they always fall in love with each other....
Gives a whole new meaning to "Slapshot".
 

Pink Eye

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They can probably get a million bucks (in comparison PoE cost 8 mil to make), which won't get them far.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker cost less than a million bucks, and was financed in kickstarter. Ironically Pillars of Eternity cost 4 million bucks and was financed in Kickstarter too.
Yet people loved Kingmaker much much more. It seems like some people just don't know how to use their money and resources.
Exactly. Bad management. Which Obsidian is known for. I mean, have we already forgotten Avellone's spiel on the company?
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
They can probably get a million bucks (in comparison PoE cost 8 mil to make), which won't get them far.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker cost less than a million bucks, and was financed in kickstarter. Ironically Pillars of Eternity cost 4 million bucks and was financed in Kickstarter too.
Yet people loved Kingmaker much much more. It seems like some people just don't know how to use their money and resources.
His point is that you can't calculate the factor cost of a full-fledged cRPG in these terms. You will have to make sacrifices in order to pay your team unless they are working on goodwill alone. Kingmaker probably cost a lot more. You need to find a team of talented people who enjoy their craft to the point they can make a bet and be underpaid for years. We still don't know whether an indie studio can do that for years in a sustainable manner. In a sense, studios like Iron Tower are breaking new ground because they are doing everything right in the most efficient manner possible (even if they don't have the most talented programmers and artists available). If they succeed in this, they will be proof that you can make decent full-fledged cRPGs in this day and age.
 

*-*/\--/\~

Cipher
Joined
Jul 10, 2014
Messages
909
They can probably get a million bucks (in comparison PoE cost 8 mil to make), which won't get them far.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker cost less than a million bucks, and was financed in kickstarter. Ironically Pillars of Eternity cost 4 million bucks and was financed in Kickstarter too.
Yet people loved Kingmaker much much more. It seems like some people just don't know how to use their money and resources.

Exactly. Owlcat succeeded with like twenty guys where the behemoths with 180 employees blunder. Price's law at it's best.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
Guys, you know there's a world of difference in how far a dollar goes in Southern California versus Moscow, right?

Payng American-full price for Kingmaker gives them the equivalent of 2,548 rubles. Russians only have to pay 699 rubles for it. They get far more out of it.
 

Pink Eye

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Exactly. Bad management. Which Obsidian is known for. I mean, have we already forgotten Avellone's spiel on the company?
Bad management? Maybe you mean a higher payroll and bad design?
No. I mean what I wrote. Bad management. Vault Dweller said that bigger teams still need proper fundings. You don't need 1000+ employees to make a good CRPG. Pathfinder had far less people, and a far less budget.
 

Pink Eye

Monk
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I'm very into cock and ball torture
Guys, you know there's a world of difference in how far a dollar goes in Southern California versus Moscow, right?

Payng American-full price for Kingmaker gives them the equivalent of 2,548 rubles. Russians only have to pay 699 rubles for it. They get far more out of it.
Then don't live in an area where living costs are expensive. There's this thing, called planning and budgeting.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
No. I mean what I wrote. Bad management. Vault Dweller said that bigger teams still need proper fundings. You don't need 1000+ employees to make a good CRPG. Pathfinder had far less people, and a far less budget.
Pathfinder is still ridden with bugs to this day, no? There is a reason for that. The game was released in an unfinished and unpolished state.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
Then don't live in an area where living costs are expensive. There's this thing, called planning and budgeting.
That's not planning and budgeting. That's living in the third world.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
Then don't live in an area where living costs are expensive. There's this thing, called planning and budgeting.
Feargus has only ever lived in SoCal. It's a drag, but he also receives some benefit from living close to other game developers. It's an even greater risk to be out in the middle of nowhere.

Additionally, no matter where he lives in the US, Russia still has the advantage (as long as they have competent employees; Owlcat's a notable exception to the usual Russian shovelware that gets churned out of their country).
 

Pink Eye

Monk
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I'm very into cock and ball torture
No. I mean what I wrote. Bad management. Vault Dweller said that bigger teams still need proper fundings. You don't need 1000+ employees to make a good CRPG. Pathfinder had far less people, and a far less budget.
Pathfinder is still ridden with bugs to this day, no? There is a reason for that. The game was released in an unfinished and unpolished state.
>Pathfinder is still ridden with bugs to this day, no?

Nope. The developers stuck with the game. The game is perfectly playable.
 

Atchodas

Augur
Joined
Apr 23, 2015
Messages
1,047
we live in a period where a game like Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a success

PFKM would be success in any Period since it improves directly from BG2 which is genre defining GOAT, actually it would be even more successful if it was released in the past and sadly I dont think we will see many such epic RTWP games in the future either unless its PFKM2-3
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
They can probably get a million bucks (in comparison PoE cost 8 mil to make), which won't get them far.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker cost less than a million bucks, and was financed in kickstarter. Ironically Pillars of Eternity cost 4 million bucks and was financed in Kickstarter too.
Yet people loved Kingmaker much much more. It seems like some people just don't know how to use their money and resources.
It wasn't financed by KS, the game was in development for over a year before KS (and I'm sure you know that the Pathfinder license isn't free either). KS merely raised extra money (cherry on the cake, plus free publicity); not to mention that at some point Deep Silver funded the game as well.
 

Will Zurmacht

Educated
Joined
Nov 5, 2019
Messages
59
So the secret is to have eastern yuropean production costs, talent hires instead of diversity or legacy (ahem) hires, and unlimited reserves of plutocratic petrodollars.
 

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