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

[Johannes]

Aside from the obvious marketing double-speak, I don't really care. I expected something like that, and I would consider Paradox as one of the best choices around for a small developer who wants to stay halfway independent. Although, for a different take on this, look at Mount & Blade and how that went. But that's something for the lawyers to sort out.

What happened to Mount & Blade? I think I only played it in the Beta stage.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Mount & Blade was published by Paradox when it was finally at 1.0. But Taleworlds wasn't happy with Pdox, in the long run, so they severed the deal after Warband, and will self-publish Bannerlord.

 

[Turjan]

Aside from the obvious marketing double-speak, I don't really care. I expected something like that, and I would consider Paradox as one of the best choices around for a small developer who wants to stay halfway independent. Although, for a different take on this, look at Mount & Blade and how that went. But that's something for the lawyers to sort out.

What happened to Mount & Blade? I think I only played it in the Beta stage.

That deal between TaleWorlds and Paradox went sour. You remember "War of the Roses"? Obviously, Paradox went to TaleWorlds and told them that the sequel to Mount & Blade would be produced by a different studio. Oh, and to add insult to injury: Bannerlord would have to wait a year as to not compete with War of the Roses. And TaleWorlds did a happy dance - not.

 

[Grell4]

Paradox used to be about making deep, niche, singleplayer grand strategy, now it pretty clear they are overwhelmingly, first and foremost all about the jewgold which has lead them down the path of multiplayer focused, steam only dlc whoring.

 

[suejak]

SoA is ridiculously shallow for a so-called depth expansion, the Paradox forums are also full of fucking apologist fanboys, the entire CK2 package is NOT on sale anywhere for $30-50 .. care to link this? Oh yeah you cant you pulled it out of your arse. Catholicsm has always been dull and shallow if not buggy, SoA didnt do much to raise it out of tedium.

Uh... heard of Steam?

$20 CK2 collection: http://store.steampowered.com/app/203770/
$3.75 Old Gods: http://store.steampowered.com/app/210908/
$10 Sons of Abraham: http://store.steampowered.com/app/226667/
$15 Rajas of India: http://store.steampowered.com/app/279600/

$48.75, including one newly released expansion. Throw in all the other recent song packs and "sprite packs" and you probably get something around $60, I don't know. Don't care. You're retarded.

SoA was the best expansion yet. Dynamic crusades, heresies overtaking orthodoxies, endogenous Pope, deeper antipope/antiking system, tons and tons of new events... And that's not even all it added.

 

[Grell4]

SoA is ridiculously shallow for a so-called depth expansion, the Paradox forums are also full of fucking apologist fanboys, the entire CK2 package is NOT on sale anywhere for $30-50 .. care to link this? Oh yeah you cant you pulled it out of your arse. Catholicsm has always been dull and shallow if not buggy, SoA didnt do much to raise it out of tedium.

Uh... heard of Steam?
$48.75, including one newly released expansion. Throw in all the other recent song packs and "sprite packs" and you probably get something around $60, I don't know. Don't care. You're retarded.

SoA was the best expansion yet. Dynamic crusades, heresies overtaking orthodoxies, endogenous Pope, deeper antipope/antiking system, tons and tons of new events... And that's not even all it added.

Thats pretty amusing, you went to the trouble of proving yourself wrong (well over $60 does not = $30-50), then lie about not knowing and not caring (then why are you posting?). Fanboys like you are so pathetic, the irony is that ultimately you dont even do the devs or company you are so slavishly defending any favors, since morons like you will lap up any overpriced dross they produce and irrationally react to criticism you contribute to the decline.

 

[suejak]

Ya, you got me. 6 gameplay expansions, 10-20 songs, 10-20 unique unit models, 5+ racial portrait packs, customization DLC, the EU4 converter, and the brand new stuff that came out two days ago -- that whole package is currently between $60-$70, which is way more like $200 than $30-50. Congrats, bud.

But fuck (this refers to you), unless you're playing CK2 like it's Pokemon or you have a stable income, I don't get why you'd buy all that. If you just want the gameplay stuff, it's under $50 (actually, most of it is released in free patches by Paradox). If you want everything -- EVERYTHING -- except the brand new stuff, it's between $30-$40. Maybe I'm being naive in thinking this is in your price range.

This could have been interesting if you were coherent, but everything factual I've pinned you down on has been immediately disproven. The obsessive rage stuff is boring, so I guess see ya later.

 

[Decado]

Why not just take the announcement at face value for once:

• Obsidian wants the partnership because they think that with Paradox marketing and distribution help they can sell significantly more copies of the game, more than enough to make up for the percentage paid to Paradox.
  
• Paradox wants the partnership because they think the game will sell enough that their percentage will cover their marketing and distribution costs, and then some.
• Extra QA resources helps everyone since the game will be better and sell more. This is important for an Obsidian game, since even a single bug will make the gaming press call it "the buggiest game since SimAnt".

There, perfectly plausible motivations for all parties involved that do not involve anyone running out of money, lying to backers, dumbing down or any other kind of shady business.

No kidding. There appear to be a whole bunch of dumb motherfuckers on the codex who don't know anything about business. Also, so much of the conversation has been pulled directly from posters' asses. Nobody in this thread has the slightest actual fucking idea of what is going on. Nobody has seen Obsidian's bank account. Nobody knows shit, really. It is all speculation, grounded in absolutely nothing. I mean, I'd be willing to buy some of these theories if someone could provide a single shred of decent evidence that Obsidian is broke, or whatever other dumb suppositions are floating around.

The bottom line is, the reason they gave makes plenty of sense. Physical distribution -- especially on the other side of the planet -- is a fucking chore. Getting help with it makes sound business sense. I don't want the devs stuffing DVDs into envelopes, I want them making the goddamn game.

 

[Grell4]

Back on OT:

When PoE was first announced the whole kickstarter creative freedom from a publisher was a heavily emphasized and there was much rejoicing. Now we have douchbag Wester trying to swing his dick around with: "If we don't think Pillars of Eternity is up to standard, we're going to tell these guys."

About the only positive point apologists and fanboys can come up with is "European box sales" ... yeah that makes sense to outsource this to a Steam only publisher who have fazed/fazing out box sales.

Another is Paradox's awesome QA... I can admit EU4 and and CK2 at release were solid and relatively bug free games, I dont know for a fact but most likely Paradox outsourced the QA because its pretty much a fact that every patch for both these games has introduces serious if not outright game breaking bugs. Game mechanics in EU4 have seasawed from one extreme back to another, Paradox's QA and Betas are manned by obsequious clueless hacks. Its a frigging mess and its a damn shame if not tragedy that these clowns are going to be involved in the QA for PoE.

Marketing? Meh

I am not really seeing any positives coming out of this.

 

[Xor]

It seems some people are determined to take this as bad news. There are a lot of reasons why this is a good thing.

-Offloading the cost of marketing, packaging, and shipping to Paradox gives Obsidian more capital to invest into the actual game. Now they can bring more developers on and create new content or just polish the existing content to a higher degree than they could have afforded to before.
-Obsidian is still doing QA, they're just doing so in conjunction with Paradox. We don't even know how patches will be distributed yet (through Obsidian or Paradox) so it's kind of pointless to worry about QA on those at this point.
-Marketing might not be a big concern for those of us who already invested in the project, but every copy of this game that sells through retail, digital distribution, or whatever is more money in Obsidian's pocket to put into their next kickstarter project. If PoE is really successful, other major developers might try doing kickstarter projects as well.
-Say Paradox tells Obsidian they don't like the game and it's not up to snuff. First of all, if the game really isn't very good, is that a bad thing? Just because it's a publisher saying that doesn't mean they have to be wrong. Second of all, Obsidian can always tell Paradox to go fuck themselves and just release the game on their own. I seriously doubt the contract doesn't include an escape clause for Obsidian. I also seriously doubt Obsidian would have given up any creative control when entering this deal.

So, again, Obsidian gets more money to spend on the game itself and Paradox gets a share of profits off of each copy sold at very little risk to themselves. Obsidian gets extra assistance with QA and doesn't have to pay for marketing, nor to send out backer rewards. Where was the downside?

 

[Infinitron]

When PoE was first announced the whole kickstarter creative freedom from a publisher was a heavily emphasized

citation needed

 

[agris]

It seems some people are determined to take this as bad news. There are a lot of reasons why this is a good thing.

-Offloading the cost of marketing, packaging, and shipping to Paradox gives Obsidian more capital to invest into the actual game. Now they can bring more developers on and create new content or just polish the existing content to a higher degree than they could have afforded to before.
-Obsidian is still doing QA, they're just doing so in conjunction with Paradox. We don't even know how patches will be distributed yet (through Obsidian or Paradox) so it's kind of pointless to worry about QA on those at this point.
-Marketing might not be a big concern for those of us who already invested in the project, but every copy of this game that sells through retail, digital distribution, or whatever is more money in Obsidian's pocket to put into their next kickstarter project. If PoE is really successful, other major developers might try doing kickstarter projects as well.
-Say Paradox tells Obsidian they don't like the game and it's not up to snuff. First of all, if the game really isn't very good, is that a bad thing? Just because it's a publisher saying that doesn't mean they have to be wrong. Second of all, Obsidian can always tell Paradox to go fuck themselves and just release the game on their own. I seriously doubt the contract doesn't include an escape clause for Obsidian. I also seriously doubt Obsidian would have given up any creative control when entering this deal.

So, again, Obsidian gets more money to spend on the game itself and Paradox gets a share of profits off of each copy sold at very little risk to themselves. Obsidian gets extra assistance with QA and doesn't have to pay for marketing, nor to send out backer rewards. Where was the downside?

If you believed Obsidian and Paradox are lying to you, and you have a stake in this deal, and have therefore backed a company who you knew was capable of lying because they lied to you about the distribution deal...

 

[Grell4]

There is a relevant discussion on Paradox's forum about how woeful their QA is and pretty much no one is refuting how awful it is either (funny that there are more Paradox fanboys here than on their official site):

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?765848-What-s-going-on-Paradox
"It's apparent to me that Paradox doesn't use professional QA testers. Instead, the programmers test their own work. They say, "Yup, looks good to me!" and they ship it. The problem with this — and I say this as a programmer — is that programmers are very bad at testing their own work. Not to mention testing is laborious and tedious. Paradox needs to implement some industry-standard quality control."

I cbf finding a citation but most of the early interviews with Sawyer talk about how wonderful the creative freedom and no shackles of a publisher deadline... you would have to be very naive to think this new Paradox agreement is completely free of time constraints.

"only positives" "no downsides"? you guys really are delusional.

 

[suejak]

So, again, Obsidian gets more money to spend on the game itself and Paradox gets a share of profits off of each copy sold at very little risk to themselves.

Whoa whoa whoa -- very little risk? Paradox is dropping a fat wad of cash down on this deal. They are taking a big risk and they need a payoff.

Even the Paradox CEO says as much -- they are losing a lot of money on this in the short term.

 

[Rake]

So, again, Obsidian gets more money to spend on the game itself and Paradox gets a share of profits off of each copy sold at very little risk to themselves.

Whoa whoa whoa -- very little risk? Paradox is dropping a fat wad of cash down on this deal. They are taking a big risk and they need a payoff.

Even the Paradox CEO says as much -- they are losing a lot of money on this in the short term.

Yes but apparently it was a risk he was willing to accept with the belief that he would made a profit down the road. After all he said himself that Obsidian is the biggest dev they have worked with and a chance for Paradox to prove that it is able to help "celebrity" AAA devs. (That Obsidian is only semi-AAA is besides the point, they are still bigger than any dev Paradox works with or owns.)
Paradox hopes that this could become a permanent cooparation, and maybe a chance to make a deal with inXile down the road. It seems to me it's in their best interests to make the deal as favorable as they can and not sour it with unreasonal demands as there is the chance Obsidian will simply tell them to fuck off and won't deal with them any further.

 

[Roguey]

I cbf finding a citation but most of the early interviews with Sawyer talk about how wonderful the creative freedom and no shackles of a publisher deadline... you would have to be very naive to think this new Paradox agreement is completely free of time constraints.

Regarding the deadline, I don't believe you. Obsidian's deadline is their Kickstarter budget. They don't need to meet milestone requirements to receive additional funding from Paradox because that's not the deal they made.

 

[BrickManslab]

There would be some time constraint involved in the sense that the physical copies need to be made and shelf-space needs to be bought with retailers, though I confess I know sweet fuck-all about what all that entails and it's something they'd also be running into if they published themselves. I just remember Elemental getting pushed out half-baked in August because otherwise they wouldn't have a release window until the winter (not that that would have helped ahahaha game was shit)

 

[dukeofwhales]

Have we had confirmation that there are going to be actual physical copies on shelves? Paradox may just be handling kickstarter fulfilmnent and maybe online orders. It seems like a rather niche product to be buying shelf space, though I guess if you look at some of the garbage that gets into the PC section of my local EB Games.

 

[tuluse]

Have we had confirmation that there are going to be actual physical copies on shelves? Paradox may just be handling kickstarter fulfilmnent and maybe online orders. It seems like a rather niche product to be buying shelf space, though I guess if you look at some of the garbage that gets into the PC section of my local EB Games.

In the US? No way. In Germany? Probably.