For example, Dungeon Siege 3, love it or hate, was a technically rock solid game made on a very small budget. Thanks to the leadership of the owners, our goal was to prove that we could deliver a bug-free game experience and control scope. We succeeded. Now, I know it was not well received here, and that's fine - but I would hope even those who hated it for what it was are at least mature enough to recognize what our goal was and that we achieved it. Feargus and the owners, along with the team, deserve credit for that and it shows how the company has learned from the wild west days of NWN2 and AP.
The perfect example of the issues "the Codex" has with Feargus. He gave the decline of RPGs a name: Slamdunk.
He is not considered some great dev (considering the Codex' bromance with Avellone I wouldn't be surprized if they'd let him get away with "slamdunks"), he's the guy who went the slamdunk way. The whore. Making shit games (in many of our opinions) instead of putting himself out there like inXile is trying right now.
DS3 is the perfect example: You point out that it has a solid engine and few bugs. Well, some of the best games had shit engines (eg ToEE, though it wasn't a great game, its systems had the potential to be groundworks for an awesome game) or were riddled with bugs (FO1/2; in some people's opinion Arcanum, Bloodlines). So obviously engine and bugs (at least until a certain level is reached) do not make or break a game.
Now look at what else DS3 offered:
1. Sloppy seconds from GPG. 'Cause sloppy seconds sell better, right?
2. Sloppy seconds of Dungeon Siege, but instead of improving the DS-gameplay by taking hints from the tactical options in Dragon Age, Obsidian goes and makes a (bad) console brawler out of it. 'Cause action games and console games sell better, right?
3. Simple (boring) character systems. 'Cause complex systems don't sell, right?
4. No party of 6+ characters. 'Cause
consoles can't handle that too many characters on screen are too confusing
for a console brawler, right?
(5. Won't even mention that if you change everything about the originals anyway, you could just as well have changed it to TB tactical...)
We've always been clamoring for devs to diversify and cater to us, the niche crowd, too. Many of us were of the opinion that that's also what the devs would like to do (if they'd get the funding). Fargo shows that that's true at least for him (and so, perhaps also for others). Fargo also shows what many of us also believed, that it's possible to make oldschool TB cRPGs with midling sized teams. And quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprized if Wasteland2 turned out to be more successful than DS3 (but I don't know how well DS3 sold, what it cost or how high the profit was for Obsidian in the end, so that's just a gut feeling). So all those years of not catering to us, all those years of whoring (and let's be honest, if you really want to make an oldschool TB RPG, but make DS3 instead for the money, that's whoring), all for nothing. All based on the stupid notion of "slamdunks".
While I think it's unfair to only blame Feargus and not Obsidian as a whole, I also think that they (you?) made their decisions and probably have no trouble sleeping because of them. But don't whine about being criticised by the people whose interests were ignored because of those decisions. If those critics are so bothersome perhaps the decisions weren't so good in the first place? Just a thought.
(Don't let this little rant put you off. I still like you as a person and a source of inside knowledge
)
You make valid points, and I will try to address them.
Yes, ToEE was an amazing game, as was Arcanum, and VtM:B. Where is Troika now? As heartbreaking as it is, their demise can be pointed to several factors, some of which include buggy games and the inability to get a deal. I am not slamming Troika at all. This is a rough business where the average life span of an independent studio is less than 2 years.
On a personal note, and I am not alone in this, I think calling DS3, "Dungeon Siege 3", was a big mistake. Many of us wanted to call it something like Dungeon Siege Alliance or something that would better convey what the game was versus expectations, aka an interactive screen saver for DS1... and I don't know what you call DS2. Don't get me wrong, I bought and played both of the first two games and they were fine for what they were, but they weren't great games.
1. I'm not sure what you mean by sloppy seconds from GPG, this was a square enix project. It was created with Obsidian's own tech, the Onyx engine.
2. Take hints from Dragon Age... really? I mean I bought and played Dragon Age 1 - but that game was far from any sort of tactical masterpiece. I found the combat to be seriously lacking, and while some story elements and characters were great, the rest was... passable at best.
3. There are a lot of stats for the characters, at least for combat. We could have added more stuff outside of combat, but this is where losing control of scope starts. Adding more stuff, especially on a limited budget and with limited time is a sure fire path to releasing a buggy game which was COUNTER to our goal.
4. You know the reason for this... it was a multiple platform release. While there are somethings consoles do very well, having a need for a lot of controls, or complex controls is not one of them.
5. I love TB tactical games, so does almost everyone at Obsidian. You know who DOESN'T love TB games? Publishers.
Criticisms of DS3 are fair. I think there were things we could have done to improve the game without going out of scope, but we'll never know for sure. Just remember, our goal was to release the best and most solid bug free game we could do within our budget and time constraints, which I believe we accomplished.
Brian Fargo has to crowd source the game. His kickstarter (which I donated to) talks about how publishers as a whole want nothing to do with TB games. Kickstarter wasn't always around and wasn't proven as a viable method of getting funding until Tim Schaeffer cam along, at least for video games. You can call it whoring, but that's really not understanding the situation. Obsidian is an independent studio. Publishers are the ones who call the shots. To make the game you want Obsidian to make, someone has to pay for it.
Yeah, I think you have a right to be upset that no one is making the video games you and I want to play. It isn't Obsidian's fault however, if anything the fault lies with Publishers and the CoD/MW/Halo Brosefs who helped bring video gaming into the main stream. Before Halo, a video game that sold a million copies was ALMOST unheard of - and if it DID sell a million copies, it took a few months to do it. Now you have games like CoD and GTA that sell millions of copies in 24 hours. Publishers look at that and go nuts.
You can goto a publisher with a solid game design, a solid business plan, and a real market - and sometimes they won't talk to you if they don't think it will sell more than 1.5 million copies. That's not a joke or an exaggeration.
Yes, it was our decision to do DS3, but we want to make games, we NEED to get paid. Hookers and Blow ain't cheap my friend.
My suggestion to you and anyone else, put your money where your heart and your mouth are. Fund kickstarters for games YOU want made. I fund games all the time, the most recent two being Wasteland 2 and whatever beautiful creation Double Fine is going make.
Seriously, I want to see this pen 
- falls over.
