Game News Feargus Urquhart Interview

[Jaesun]

Tags: Feargus Urquhart; Obsidian Entertainment

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<p>Gamespot has an <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/6343997.html">interview with CEO Feargus Urquhart</a> and explains how the Fallout: New Vegas developer stays afloat as an independent studio, why it isn't getting into social gaming, and how it keeps players from renting or selling its games.</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>GameSpot: Do you think it's getting easier or harder to make it as an independent studio these days?</p>
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<p>Feargus Urquhart: I think it depends on your perspective. I think originally you could be an indie developer and not really have to be a business man. And I wouldn't say that I'm a business man, but I have some of the traits that go along with that. And I have had to learn a lot of things about accounting, and taxes, and other things to a point. I think in the past, it was possible to be effective without being really focused on business because the teams were much smaller. If you were eight guys and you made a bunch of money on your previous product, you can go six months without signing a deal. Our burn rate is $1 million a month, so we have to have games all the time. I am not independently wealthy, so I think a lot of it is harder now if you don't understand that you really have to focus on the business side.</p>
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<p>GS: What do you think about the success stories in the indie scene like Notch with Minecraft? Is it a matter of the form you take as an independent developer that changes the viability of it now?</p>
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<p>FU: I think I would look at it as what is an anomaly and what isn't. For example, Angry Birds. Is that a model or is it an anomaly? Is Minecraft a model or an anomaly? PC Data was one of the original data tracking services that would put out information on the top five games of the previous year, and in trying to figure out all of the similarities between the releases, they couldn't come up with a correlation to why the hits were successful. As it relates to indie successes, it's important that people understand that there is opportunity, and people are going to have those kinds of hits. But on the flip side, the reason we don't do iPhones games is we have all this overhead in people and such, and we have to make a hit for it to be worthwhile.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>GS: You mentioned that the cost of developing AAA games is going up, but publishers are increasingly less likely to fund them externally. Is this causing you to lose sleep at night?</p>
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<p>FU: I would say that that is the way it's been for 15 years. Even when I was back at Interplay, they would fund $3 million internal projects, but they wouldn't go over $1.5 million externally. I think part of that comes down to when a publisher goes and signs a contract with an independent developer, the big price tag is all in one place, and someone has to sign that. When it comes to internal projects, that's just man-month rate that is being constantly spent. It's not that the budget isn't there, it's just that it's not like, "Oh crap, we are signing off on $25 million right here." I think that results in two different systems.</p>
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<p>GS: You mentioned that it's your job to keep your games from being rentals and re-sells. The market for used games has been around for years as well, but with the ways different people are trying to combat them now, a pretty vocal cross-section of gamers who are vehemently against this has sprung up. How have you dealt with trying to stay conscious of not upsetting your player base, while&hellip;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>FU: ...With a role-playing game, it is the same thing. We come up with things to make players want to keep on playing it. It was never developed this way, but it's funny how it has become a way to do this. By having a good and evil track, like Knights of the Old Republic II, I can play as a light or dark Jedi. I may play through as a light Jedi, but I know that I could play through as a dark Jedi. So I think, "I'm gonna do that some day." So I put it back on my shelf and I don't take it back to GameStop.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>GS: Is there anything that you would have changed about the way Obsidian has handled DLC?</p>
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<p>FU: I wish some of the stuff had come out faster, but there were lots of reasons for that. Overall, I've been happy. The $10 price point for DLC is hard because we see that the average Fallout player spends 30-50 hours with the game, or however many hours, so if we provide one-sixth of that game time in a DLC pack we are fine, and people won't feel negatively about it. If we don't provide eight-ish hours or more, then people feel like, "Why did I pay the $10?" Particularly if it's three-to-five hours. We always felt before that that was a good length since it's more content than your typical movie, and it also changes things in the main game, but that's not the case for many people. That's been the challenge. To make the money worth it, you have to sell a lot of them to make back the development budget at $10.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>You can <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/6343997.html">read the full interview here</a>.</p>
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[DragoFireheart]

...Their problem is how to attain attachment rate; ours is how to retain our attachment rate. So there are two sides to the coin, but when it comes to us, at least for the big role-playing games, there is a parallel to Hollywood. People still go see Transformers. You can still make money with a $200 million movie. So I still think there is still a place for that kind of entertainment, and there will continue to be.

Who here thinks non-online / non-service based gaming is dying?

 

[Morgoth]

...Their problem is how to attain attachment rate; ours is how to retain our attachment rate. So there are two sides to the coin, but when it comes to us, at least for the big role-playing games, there is a parallel to Hollywood. People still go see Transformers. You can still make money with a $200 million movie. So I still think there is still a place for that kind of entertainment, and there will continue to be.

Who here thinks non-online / non-service based gaming is dying?

Every fucking big-budget AAA title nowadays has to have multiplayer and in-game browser nonsense even if nobody plays it.

Like Bioshock 2, or Mass Effect 3. What the fuck are they thinking?

 

[Jaesun]

Because the Marketing Exec's at EA says it "sells games". That's why.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Because the Marketing Exec's at EA says it "sells games". That's why.

Is there any data to suggest that they are even partially correct?

 

[deuxhero]

CoD and WoW.

 

[Christopher V. Brady]

Why the fuck wont these interviewers ask their interviewees the really important questions, such as what games are you working on next, and give us some details please, etc etc. What the fuck man.

The Wheel of Time series sold 44 million copies at the least. There are 13 books in the series thus far. Divide 4 by 13 and you get around 3.3 million customers.

If even 1 million of these custom ers purchase the WOT video game , it could be the hit that would send Obsidian into the stratoshpere. Heck, we could see a WOT MMO materialize with Obsidian at the helm.

 

[Jaesun]

That is why you live in a 3rd world shithole Andhaira.

 

[Volourn]

"it could be the hit that would send Obsidian into the stratoshpere"

Doubt it. Obsidian isn't developing the game. They're 'helping' and 'assisting'.

 

[DragoFireheart]

CoD and WoW.

And what about the dozens of shit MMO that fail?

 

[Excidium]

I guess you're independent when you're the bitch of several publishers instead of only one.

 

[Morkar Left]

What makes me wonder is how marketing dictates what products are getting produced. I think that's a pretty unique trait of the gaming industry. Someone somewhere really fucked up here.

Why the fuck wont these interviewers ask their interviewees the really important questions, such as what games are you working on next, and give us some details please, etc etc. What the fuck man.

Islam has all the answers!

 

[Roguey]

@Andhaira - His answer would be "I can't talk about it." Publishers control the information drip.

 

[Volourn]

"And what about the dozens of shit MMO that fail?"

You don't need WOW numbers to be a success. The fail rate amongst MMOs is probably not much if at all different than SP games.

"Publishers control the information drip."

Only if the contract says so. This isn't true neccessarily all the time. Obsidian is just a weak company that needs to kiss ass to survive.

 

[MuscleSpark]

Obsidian is just a weak company that needs to kiss ass to survive.

Sad, but true.

 

[curry]

Don't they have a ton of money? Why are they still dependant on big publishers?

 

[Mangoose]

I just realized last night that Feargy founded Black Isle Studios...

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

...Their problem is how to attain attachment rate; ours is how to retain our attachment rate. So there are two sides to the coin, but when it comes to us, at least for the big role-playing games, there is a parallel to Hollywood. People still go see Transformers. You can still make money with a $200 million movie. So I still think there is still a place for that kind of entertainment, and there will continue to be.

Who here thinks non-online / non-service based gaming is dying?

Only if by "gaming" you mean "mainstream shit".

 

[Volourn]

"I just realized last night that Feargy founded Black Isle Studios..."

Not exactly. He was a big Interplay boss when BIS was created. he had a hand in doing so; but he didn't 'create' it per se. Interplay did which he was an employee of.


"Don't they have a ton of money? Why are they still dependant on big publishers?"

Poor negotiating is my guess. With the big successes they have had sales wise (NWN2, KOTOR2, FO:LV), they should be a lot moree comfortable but they still seem to be surviving month to month. Their 'failures' (DS3 and AP0 shouldn't be enough to weaken them so.

BIO took 1 hit (BG1) to get on solid footing and by the time BG2 was out they were well on their way to being masters of their domain (including having the BALLZ to sue Interplay over NWN drama).

Why don't Obsidian have big ballz?

 

[Stinger]

DS3 isn't a failure. 820K sales (not including PC sales) isn't a failure. Especially considering it was a low budget title with none of the developmental dramas of AP.

 

[Volourn]

DS3 was not low budget, and it was absolutely a failure. Don't make up sale snumbers. It's embarrassing.

It costs Obsidian a mil a month to keep in business. DS took what? 2-3 years? Yup, failure.

Take your bullshit elses. Only truthz allowed here.

 

[Stinger]

Um, it was built on their own engine therefore no licensing issues. The game had minimal dialogue animation (characters have their backs turned to the camera) so not much money is spent on being 'Cinematic'. Generally minimal dialogue= not as much money spent on Voice Acting.

The game wasn't in development for as long as AP and didn't have the numerous reiterations. There were clear cost cutting measures taken in the game and its scope was generally limited compared to any other game they've made.

As for the sales. Here's my source which cites several credible sources so it's hardly on the same level of bullshitz as your "dragun age too sold ovar 2 millon moran dis iz factz Roofles!"

 

[Azrael the cat]

"I just realized last night that Feargy founded Black Isle Studios..."

Not exactly. He was a big Interplay boss when BIS was created. he had a hand in doing so; but he didn't 'create' it per se. Interplay did which he was an employee of.


"Don't they have a ton of money? Why are they still dependant on big publishers?"

Poor negotiating is my guess. With the big successes they have had sales wise (NWN2, KOTOR2, FO:LV), they should be a lot moree comfortable but they still seem to be surviving month to month. Their 'failures' (DS3 and AP0 shouldn't be enough to weaken them so.

BIO took 1 hit (BG1) to get on solid footing and by the time BG2 was out they were well on their way to being masters of their domain (including having the BALLZ to sue Interplay over NWN drama).

Why don't Obsidian have big ballz?

The reason why Obsidian doesn't have much money is actually the converse of why Troika went broke.

Starting with Troika: ALL of Troika's games made a healthy profit in the end. ALL of them. BUT they were largely long-sellers. VtM:B sold FUCKLOADS as did Arcanum - but very little in the first few months (or even the first year) of release, which is what publihsers look at.

Troika owned all their licences. In the end that backfired - by taking new and risky licences, they made 3 perfectly profitable games, and yet went bankrupt because they couldn't get a publisher to fund their next project. That's the fucked position that developers are in, and why you can't rely on any developer to stick to making good crpgs at present. People talk about 'why can't they just make a mid-cost hardcore crpg and sell to the small but profitable group of people who still like those'. If they had their own money they could. But they are reliant on a publisher backing them, and that means the risk of ending up in Troika's position - a run of profitable games that comes to an end because they can't find a backer for their next game. Which means the lights go out.

Obsidian seem to have learnt a lot from that on the business end. By going for 'safe licences', and trying to make interesting versions of action-mainstream games, rather than hardcore crpgs, they've kept the publishers onside so far. That means MUCH more than whether the game is profitable - it is publisher backing that pays for them to keep developing, NOT the profitability of their last game.

The downside is that Obsidian don't actually own the licences for most of the games that they've made. Some of them - FO:NV in particular - don't give Obsidian a single cent from sales. They got a flat fee for FO:NV (and, I think, KoTOR2 as well - maybe even NWN2), so the fact that FO:NV and NWN2 were commercial hits means fuckall. They got paid a fee, and that's all they get. The only difference if the game had flopped would be that they might have had even less publisher leverage.

Conversely, the combination of publication and development roles was part of the reason why Interplay was able to make so many great crpgs. They didn't have to come, cap in hand, and try to convince a publisher that the new crpg they want money for is really a FPS. For the same reason, Bethesda gets to make the exact kind of game that they want to make - as shitty as their games are, there's never any doubt that it is the game that Todd wants to be making.

For everyone else, including Obsidian, it's a matter of trying to make something that you can 'sell' to the publisher as a FPS-action game with lots of 'press a button and something awesome happens', and then trying to sneak some interesting gameplay into the product without the publisher noticing and pulling the project (ala Aliens).

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Um, it was built on their own engine therefore no licensing issues. The game had minimal dialogue animation (characters have their backs turned to the camera) so not much money is spent on being 'Cinematic'. Generally minimal dialogue= not as much money spent on Voice Acting.

The game wasn't in development for as long as AP and didn't have the numerous reiterations. There were clear cost cutting measures taken in the game and its scope was generally limited compared to any other game they've made.

As for the sales. Here's my source which cites several credible sources so it's hardly on the same level of bullshitz as your "dragun age too sold ovar 2 millon moran dis iz factz Roofles!"

Also how much Obsidian needs to stay in business is nearly completly unrelated to this and Square can give a fuck about it. Compared to other production cost numbers in the industry DSIII probably didn't cost more than 15-20 Mil. max and for that its enough to return profit. For comparison Deus Ex is a resounding sucess at 2.18 Mil. and that was much, much more expensive.

 

[Davaris]

Obsidian seem to have learnt a lot from that on the business end. By going for 'safe licences', and trying to make interesting versions of action-mainstream games, rather than hardcore crpgs, they've kept the publishers onside so far. That means MUCH more than whether the game is profitable - it is publisher backing that pays for them to keep developing, NOT the profitability of their last game.

They also seem to have learned you must have multiple projects going at all times.


As for $1M per month burn rate, I didn't realize they were so big. Anyone know how many people work there?