Interview Feargus Urquhart and Fredrik Wester on the Pillars of Eternity distribution deal

[IDtenT]

Obsidian apologists is not something new to the Codex.

I should feel bad for buying vegetables in a supermarket. If I wasn't incompetent at budgeting, I would have enough money to grow them myself

IDtenT brofisted this

I enjoy a good straw man just as much as a post I agree with. This time I had the benefit of both; I agree with the post, but disagree with its use in this argument.

 

[Infinitron]

Summary of suejak's argument.

suejak: "Obsidian ran out of money!"
Infinitron: "But why would they even need to spend their own money on QA and marketing and distribution in the first place? Division of labor argument."
suejak: "Uh, it's not about the division of labor! It's about how Paradox now has leverage over Obsidian. Yeah."
Infintrion: "But they don't have leverage because Obsidian could easily replace them with another alternative in which the distributor gains no stake in the final product. See for example inXIle."
suejak: "But...but...you guys hate Double Fine!!!"

 

[bledcarrot]

I think suejak makes a pretty good point. If the deal was just for distribution for a percentage of profits, so be it, but the fact that it included QA (alarm bells) and kickstarter rewards says to me that they needed Paradox more than Paradox needed them. The whole QA thing doesn't gel as a division of labour issue when in this day and age you can leverage open beta and early access to iron out bugs before release. The danger is always that 'QA' leaks in to 'development duties.'

 

[Infinitron]

The whole QA thing doesn't gel as a division of labour issue when in this day and age you can leverage open beta and early access to iron out bugs before release.

And that's precisely what they could do, but have chosen not to. If you look at Wasteland 2's reception on the Codex, it's hard to blame them. Obsidian is interested in releasing a more polished beta than other Kickstarter projects have, but if push comes to shove, they don't have to.

You're presumably long gone, but I'm curious how you define alpha?

We tend to define it as feature complete (all features we want to be in the game exist in some capacity) but I think other places apply the term earlier than we do.

We have a similar definition of Alpha. Not only do we have all the features, but all of the content is in the game as well.

No other Kickstarter project has this level of completeness at pre-release. Certainly not Wasteland 2.

 

[Duraframe300]

I think suejak makes a pretty good point. If the deal was just for distribution for a percentage of profits, so be it, but the fact that it included QA (alarm bells) and kickstarter rewards says to me that they needed Paradox more than Paradox needed them. The whole QA thing doesn't gel as a division of labour issue when in this day and age you can leverage open beta and early access to iron out bugs before release. The danger is always that 'QA' leaks in to 'development duties.'

They do QA on their own as well. The only thing this means is that Obsidian wants a bigger QA pool.

I doubt they care all that about potential leaks as well.

 

[suejak]

Infinitron, I don't know where you got confused, but I'll put it into a sentence for you:

Obsidian, running low on Kickstarter funds, took on an "opinionated" publisher who needs the game to be profitable to gain a return on its large investment.

The Double Fine thing is just an ironic comment on fanboys, not part of the argument. You're blind and biased.

 

[bledcarrot]

The whole QA thing doesn't gel as a division of labour issue when in this day and age you can leverage open beta and early access to iron out bugs before release.

And that's precisely what they could do, but have chosen not to. If you look at Wasteland 2's reception on the Codex, it's hard to blame them. Obsidian is interested in releasing a more polished beta than other Kickstarter projects have, but if push comes to shove, they don't have to.

The question is why have they chosen not to? If the answer is simply that they want to release a more polished beta, then great. But the alternative is that they potentially needed Paradox, Paradox know it, and the polished beta might be polished with their spit....or something. OK that analogy kind of petered out. Anyway I don't necessarily think this is the case, I just think suejak raises a good point that the potential for that scenario is there.

 

[Infinitron]

Obsidian, running low on Kickstarter funds, took on an "opinionated" publisher who needs the game to be profitable to gain a return on its large investment.

Suejak: You are aware that Paradox hasn't actually given Obsidian any money, right? You can't pay your developer's salaries with QA and marketing services.

If Obsidian had a money crisis two weeks ago, they still have it now.

The question is why have they chosen not to? If the answer is simply that they want to release a more polished beta, then great.

What other reason could there be? It doesn't cost much to put your game up on Early Access and start swimming in cash. Obsidian's choice to use Paradox's services is a luxury, not a necessity.

 

[Roguey]

I'm not fanatically against them using a publisher, because publishers still do provide valid services along with all the other shit. But, Obsidian could just clear up make things a lot easier on themselves by releasing the terms of the agreement. I understand their reticence to do so, but I still think it would fix a lot of ill will if they came out and said Paradox is getting 17% of the profit. If Paradox is getting 60% of the profit than yeah, Obsidian should be pilloried, but face it in public and then move on.

How much profit Obsidian is getting out of this seems completely irrelevant to the enduser imo.

Infinitron, I don't know where you got confused, but I'll put it into a sentence for you:

Obsidian, running low on Kickstarter funds, took on an "opinionated" publisher who needs the game to be profitable to gain a return on its large investment.

The Double Fine thing is just an ironic comment on fanboys, not part of the argument. You're blind and biased.

the bigger issue is euro physical distribution and backer fulfillment. paradox is way, way better suited for that than OEI.
...
Yeah Paradox isn't funding or directing our development in any way. They're handling things that would be very hard/time consuming for us: physical fulfillment and general distribution. Over half of our backers are in Europe. I'm not sure why anyone would want us to spend their money and our time personally handling fulfillment. It was heartwarming to see Stoic figuring out how to get thousands of Banner Saga posters out of their house and shipped out to people but that's not really what developers are built to do.

Josh is a pretty straight-forward person and has never been deceptive. Your armchair accountancy is wrong.

 

[bledcarrot]

Suejak: You are aware that Paradox hasn't actually given Obsidian any money, right? You can't pay your developer's salaries with QA and marketing services.

The question is why have they chosen not to? If the answer is simply that they want to release a more polished beta, then great.

What other reason could there be? It doesn't cost much to put your game up on Early Access and start swimming in cash. Obsidian's choice to use Paradox's services is a luxury, not a necessity.

But maybe you're right and they wanted a polished beta all along. Maybe they had kickstarter funds allocated to QA and distribution all along, with this in mind, and they've now come up short on dev, and instead of going early access with a turd, they've sought to free up those funds by bringing in Paradox to polish it. So yes, you can pay your developer's salaries with QA and marketing services by freeing up previously allocated money. Look, I have no idea if this is the case. But in my opinion the potential for complications arises when 'middle men' have creative influence, and QA is one potential way in which they can. They should be distributors and that's it, as far as I'm concerned, to avoid these kinds of potential problems.

 

[Duraframe300]

Suejak: You are aware that Paradox hasn't actually given Obsidian any money, right? You can't pay your developer's salaries with QA and marketing services.

The question is why have they chosen not to? If the answer is simply that they want to release a more polished beta, then great.

What other reason could there be? It doesn't cost much to put your game up on Early Access and start swimming in cash. Obsidian's choice to use Paradox's services is a luxury, not a necessity.

But maybe you're right and they wanted a polished beta all along. Maybe they had kickstarter funds allocated to QA and distribution all along, with this in mind, and they've now come up short on dev, and instead of going early access with a turd, they've sought to free up those funds by bringing in Paradox to polish it. So yes, you can pay your developer's salaries with QA and marketing services by freeing up previously allocated money. Look, I have no idea if this is the case. But in my opinion the potential for complications arises when 'middle men' have creative influence, and QA is one potential way in which they can. They should be distributors and that's it, as far as I'm concerned, to avoid these kinds of potential problems.

As mentioned before:

Obsidian can tell Paradox to go fuck off. Immedialty. They don't have to listen to ANY QA design input. Paradox design influence is actually less than the backers. THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED

If Obsidian force-changes something they believe to be good and it goes negative into the game than that is OBSIDIANS OWN FAULT. Then they suck at their jobs, because they can just as well say NO.

 

[Infinitron]

bledcarrot That's fair. I'm not so worried about Paradox's QA guys though. Heck, Paradox is a less mass market/less popamole company than Obsidian. I'm not worried about them asking for anything to be dumbed down. That's more likely to come from Obsidian's own QA guys.

 

[Roguey]

Josh has written down "Working as designed" in response to QA feedback on more than one occasion.

Plus as a I wrote down on the last page "The main changes are that Paradox will handle the QA for things like localization and compatibility testing - things that Obsidian would have to outsource anyways."

 

[bledcarrot]

bledcarrot That's fair. I'm not so worried about Paradox's QA guys though. Heck, Paradox is a less mass market/less popamole company than Obsidian. I'm not worried about them asking for anything to be dumbed down. That's more likely to come from Obsidian's own QA guys.

Yeah I've gotta say, the fact that it's Paradox who are the other party in this deal offsets most of my concerns. I think it'll work out fine.

 

[kris]

The partnership raises the possibility of boxed versions and special editions of the game, although "nothing is set in stone yet", Wester said.
​

I already paid for a boxed version when I finded the kickstarter. I sure hope that it is more than a "possibility"

 

[suejak]

Suejak: You are aware that Paradox hasn't actually given Obsidian any money, right? You can't pay your developer's salaries with QA and marketing services.

Yeah Paradox isn't funding or directing our development in any way. They're handling things that would be very hard/time consuming for us: physical fulfillment and general distribution.

I don't know how many times I need to explain the economics here. Maybe this is why the PR is so effective -- people, especially fanboys, just don't understand the math. Infinitron responded to my last post on this topic with an irrelevant opportunity-cost analogy that got brofisted to all shit, so I must not be a good educator.

Taking on another studio's costs is a form of investment. Paradox is losing money from this, in the present. Obsidian is reducing costs on this project, and hence its remaining cash will last longer. This is fundamentally the same as writing a cheque to Obsidian (in exchange for a cut of future profits).

Let's assume you pay rent every month. $400/mo = 12*$400 = $4800/yr. Now if somebody offered you $4800 in cash, that's one thing. In this case, Paradox offered to make your rent $0/mo. Because they are paying the rent for you. You have $4800 more in your pocket, and they are -$4800 in the hole.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Duraframe300]

The partnership raises the possibility of boxed versions and special editions of the game, although "nothing is set in stone yet", Wester said.
​

I already paid for a boxed version when I finded the kickstarter. I sure hope that it is more than a "possibility"

I think he means an actual retail version.

 

[kris]

The partnership raises the possibility of boxed versions and special editions of the game, although "nothing is set in stone yet", Wester said.
​

I already paid for a boxed version when I finded the kickstarter. I sure hope that it is more than a "possibility"

I think he means an actual retail version.

I know he means that, but I am saying a boxed version was always planned. which mean its design and production will happen.

 

[Arkeus]

The whole QA thing doesn't gel as a division of labour issue when in this day and age you can leverage open beta and early access to iron out bugs before release.

And that's precisely what they could do, but have chosen not to. If you look at Wasteland 2's reception on the Codex, it's hard to blame them. Obsidian is interested in releasing a more polished beta than other Kickstarter projects have, but if push comes to shove, they don't have to.

That's actually wrong- Obsidian has decided to do its own Q&A in-house and with the Beta for PoE, the Q&A done by Paradox is almost solely when it comes to localizations.

 

[tuluse]

How much profit Obsidian is getting out of this seems completely irrelevant to the enduser imo.

I disagree. A consumer should do his or her part to avoid products made from an inequitable agreements.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Look, if it hurts your feelings that I'm implying Obsidian is bankrupt with nowhere to turn, you're misunderstanding. Your Steam Early Access thing is exactly what Double Fine did and everybody still says they "ran out of money." I can literally quote Double Fine fanboys from their forum who said they chose the route they did, with exactly the same italics.

No, Double Fine got attacked because they split the game and because they were obviously making an AAA game far exceeding their original budget, not because they put it on Early Access. Wait, they actually didn't put it on Early Access so I don't even know what you're saying. And nice job completely ignoring the more obvious analogy, inXile inXile inXile inXile inXile.

Are you really going to let the Codex's reception of Broken Age motivate everything you do here now? Get over it, sheesh.

Actually Double Fine got attacked because they ran the incredibly halfassed massive chalice kickstarter then waited for it to be over before telling anyone they ran out of money.

 

[suejak]

It has less to do with why they were attacked and more to do with the phrase "ran out of money."

This phrase implies incompetence that sends fanboys screaming. But Double Fine and Obsidian both "ran out of money" in the exact same sense.

Double Fine self-publishes but releases "early access" to fund the entire vision. Obsidian gets publisher funding to fund the entire vision.

 

[Xor]

The partnership raises the possibility of boxed versions and special editions of the game, although "nothing is set in stone yet", Wester said.
​

I already paid for a boxed version when I finded the kickstarter. I sure hope that it is more than a "possibility"

I think he means an actual retail version.

I know he means that, but I am saying a boxed version was always planned. which mean its design and production will happen.

They were always going to produce a certain number of boxed copies to satisfy backer demands. There's 0 risk in those copies because they've already been paid for. Extra copies of the game for actual retail does constitute a risk because they might not sell, though, and it makes sense that it would be up to Paradox since they'd be the ones paying for the extra copies. We'll get our boxed copies whether they produce extras or not.

Infinitron, I don't know where you got confused, but I'll put it into a sentence for you:

Obsidian, running low on Kickstarter funds, took on an "opinionated" publisher who needs the game to be profitable to gain a return on its large investment.

The Double Fine thing is just an ironic comment on fanboys, not part of the argument. You're blind and biased.

Just because Obsidian has formed this partnership doesn't mean that they've run out of money, and it doesn't mean it will impact the quality of the game in a negative way. There is no reason to just assume that it's the end of the world and the game will suck now

 

[Volrath]

It has less to do with why they were attacked and more to do with the phrase "ran out of money."

This phrase implies incompetence that sends fanboys screaming. But Double Fine and Obsidian both "ran out of money" in the exact same sense.

Double Fine self-publishes but releases "early access" to fund the entire vision. Obsidian gets publisher funding to fund the entire vision.

Your paranoia is amusing.