Interview Feargus Urquhart talks about Obsidian's plans, says next Kickstarter delayed to early fall

[Morality Games]

Yeah, but I had to make things fit the Mass Effect 3 ending template. It's like a "knock-knock" joke.

Well your joke is just as well thought out as Mass Effect 3. Zing!

Neh, it was a desperate plea for attention.

In seriousness though, Obsidian wants to establish some kind of working relationship with EA/Bioware and EA wants them to go away.

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

Morality Games

Obsidian isn't a publicly held company. EA would literally have to buy out Feargus, Avellone, et all. If EA did that, I'm pretty sure these guys would just use the money to found another RPG studio.

Doubtful, any buyout would invariably come with a non-compete clause. Otherwise what would be the point?

 

[deuxhero]

Make note OE people: The clusterfuck known as "real time with pause" is the sole reason I didn't back P(o)E.

I'd instantly back something by OE with proper turnbased. Hell, I'd back (good) real time if it's a spiritual successor to a game I liked that used it (like Bloodlines) that used it. I'll never backi anything with that terrible system though.

 

[aratuk]

Morality Games

Obsidian isn't a publicly held company. EA would literally have to buy out Feargus, Avellone, et all. If EA did that, I'm pretty sure these guys would just use the money to found another RPG studio.

Doubtful, any buyout would invariably come with a non-compete clause. Otherwise what would be the point?

Only reason to do a buyout would be to obtain IP and workforce. I don't think Obsidian has any IP to speak of, in terms of marketable franchises or internal development tools. Only the good name, Obsidian. And the bigger companies would have the means to poach most any employee if they really wanted to, without the headache of buying the company. Non-competes expire after about two years, usually, and probably wouldn't be enforceable if you tried to write them longer.

I asked "Who owns Obsidian?" on the official forum, once: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63571-who-owns-obsidian/?p=1319801

 

[dukeofwhales]

Morality Games

Obsidian isn't a publicly held company. EA would literally have to buy out Feargus, Avellone, et all. If EA did that, I'm pretty sure these guys would just use the money to found another RPG studio.

Typically that kind of aquisition requires important people at the company to stick around for a set term (normally 2 years I think). Not a distasterous amountof time, but still shit.

Not that I think EA would be even remotely interested in Obsidian at the moment.

 

[deuxhero]

Legality of non-competes vary by state but they either

1: Prohibit them outright now
2: Make them so narrow and for such limited reasons (trade secrets) and prohibit ones that outlaw ANY jobs, not just a subset, relevant to an employees training/experience.

No idea which California falls under, but I doubt it's possible.

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

Morality Games

Obsidian isn't a publicly held company. EA would literally have to buy out Feargus, Avellone, et all. If EA did that, I'm pretty sure these guys would just use the money to found another RPG studio.

Doubtful, any buyout would invariably come with a non-compete clause. Otherwise what would be the point?

Only reason to do a buyout would be to obtain IP and workforce. I don't think Obsidian has any IP to speak of, in terms of marketable franchises or internal development tools. Only the good name, Obsidian. And the bigger companies would have the means to poach most any employee if they really wanted to, without the headache of buying the company. Non-competes expire after about two years, usually, and probably wouldn't be enforceable if you tried to write them longer.

True enough, though it can vary depending on the state(IIRC here in FL some judges will allow for 3 years). Anyway I should have been more specific/detailed, if the owners(Ferg and Co) sell out they are most likely -> sidelined for ~2 years, lost all their employees, lost their Obisidian brand(and it's recognition) and aren't exactly spring chickens. Only point being, it would be difficult to reconstitute what they had before selling out so cashing out should only be a prelude to retirement/career shift(IMO).

 

[Decado]

I'm sure in EA's ideal universe Obsidian would have gone the way of Troika years ago. They were useful for LucasArts when it needed an alternative RPG developer to Bioware, but to EA they're a competitor from the same tradition of late 90s role-playing games as their internal RPG studio. It's a cramped market hampered by disagreements over RPG lite streamliners and 'hardcore' RPG fans over which method makes for a more desirable game, and Pillars of Eternity may cramp it up some more.

Meeehhhhhhh. . .

It doesn't make much sense to talk about "competitors" when it comes to media like video games. Buying a game is not like buying a toaster or a car. Even if you only have money for one game this month, if there are two shit-hot RPGs coming out, you buy one and then the other. In a field like RPGs, which is a pretty thin nowadays anyway, you're essentially appealing to a niche market. And consumers of niche market media will consume as much of it as they can, provided it appeals to them. There just isn't "brand loyalty" in video games to the point where people will only exclusively buy one studio's games to the exclusion of others, like they would if they only bought Chevys or Toyotas. The only place this kind of "competition" exists is for those big, dumb blockbuster games like CoD and Battlefield, or Madden and Gameday.

Also, the RPG field is nowhere near cramped, in my opinion.

 

[Tigranes]

I'm sure nobody at EA cares about Obsidian.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I am so fucking tired of hearing about Star Wars. Let that boring piece of shit franchise fucking die already. Who cares. WHO THE FUCK CARES. Goddamn it I want to travel back in time and murder Luke Skywalker and all of his fucking worthless superfriends. Fuck Star Wars. FUCK it.

Nah. Fuck you.

 

[Morality Games]

I'm sure in EA's ideal universe Obsidian would have gone the way of Troika years ago. They were useful for LucasArts when it needed an alternative RPG developer to Bioware, but to EA they're a competitor from the same tradition of late 90s role-playing games as their internal RPG studio. It's a cramped market hampered by disagreements over RPG lite streamliners and 'hardcore' RPG fans over which method makes for a more desirable game, and Pillars of Eternity may cramp it up some more.

Meeehhhhhhh. . .

It doesn't make much sense to talk about "competitors" when it comes to media like video games. Buying a game is not like buying a toaster or a car. Even if you only have money for one game this month, if there are two shit-hot RPGs coming out, you buy one and then the other. In a field like RPGs, which is a pretty thin nowadays anyway, you're essentially appealing to a niche market. And consumers of niche market media will consume as much of it as they can, provided it appeals to them. There just isn't "brand loyalty" in video games to the point where people will only exclusively buy one studio's games to the exclusion of others, like they would if they only bought Chevys or Toyotas. The only place this kind of "competition" exists is for those big, dumb blockbuster games like CoD and Battlefield, or Madden and Gameday.

Also, the RPG field is nowhere near cramped, in my opinion.

Well, that's one way to look at it. However, EA made a business out of buying out studios for their franchises and then dismantling them back in the day. They're sitting on top of a graveyard of IPs.

Also, their RPG studio doesn't do what they want. While they've never said anything, its obvious from their marketing strategy that they think Bioware releases should sell as well as Elder Scrolls/Fallout 3 used to sell, which was 5,000,000+. My understanding is they don't do that well.

When I look at RPGs today, I see a developing market glut and a customer base divided between stingy, fussy people with very tailored tastes in what the genre should be like and less picky casuals who are only slightly less stingy and who don't really need the genre very much. When I look at Bioware, I see a company whose past two releases under performed commercially (Dragon Age II severely, Mass Effect 3 significantly) and whose reputation has been strained even among diehard fans.

I don't know what EA sees, but unless Dragon Age: Inquisition is everything and a pot of gold I would start being concerned that the company I had bought to make RPGs isn't going to become as successful as I wanted to be.

I'm sure nobody at EA cares about Obsidian.

Maybe. Obsidian seems to think that someone pays attention to what they say and do.

 

[Korron]

*kschhhhh* Luke... I want to make F2P online tank simulators *kschhhh*

 

[Forest Dweller]

"Ultimately what we really want to do is be a studio that is making those big role-playing games. We want to make the Fallout: New Vegas's, we want to make the Skyrims, we want to make the KOTORs,

So they're not content with making games like Project Eternity. I guess we knew that but this is the first instance of them blatantly admitting it that I'm aware of.

"Star Wars is one of those games that makes me just throw the reasons, throw my right brain or left brain - I don't know which one it is - and say, 'Oh this is totally stupid to do, but, whatever!' It would be that game, and I hope some day we get to make another Star Wars game.

This...is not heartening to read.

 

[Minttunator]

I didn't know World of Tanks was so popular that other companies were making clones - though after looking into it, I realize it is. I hope this isn't the next big thing in the MMO genre - we're just barely starting to get out of the endless shitty WoW clone era and I was hoping some MMO developers might make something more interesting in the next few years. It's really going to suck if the popularity of WoT means we'll be getting 8 years of tank MMOs now.

 

[Arkeus]

Wouldn't go that far. NWN2 and its expansions were contemporaneous with Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect. Obsidian represented some kind of threat to the value of their purchase, although that threat died out on its own.

NWN2 was released in 2006 with SoZ released in november 2008, and DA:O was released in november 2009.

That's not exactly contemporaneous, there is a good three years between the two main game releases.

 

[Decado]

I am so fucking tired of hearing about Star Wars. Let that boring piece of shit franchise fucking die already. Who cares. WHO THE FUCK CARES. Goddamn it I want to travel back in time and murder Luke Skywalker and all of his fucking worthless superfriends. Fuck Star Wars. FUCK it.

Nah. Fuck you.

Fuck you, sir.

 

[profreshinal]

I didn't know World of Tanks was so popular that other companies were making clones - though after looking into it, I realize it is. I hope this isn't the next big thing in the MMO genre - we're just barely starting to get out of the endless shitty WoW clone era and I was hoping some MMO developers might make something more interesting in the next few years. It's really going to suck if the popularity of WoT means we'll be getting 8 years of tank MMOs now.

Don't worry all those MMO devs aren't making WoT-clones, they're already deeply involved in making those DotA/LoL-clones.

 

[suejak]

I've never liked Star Wars. It was a flashy 70s space western that caught on when David Bowie hair was mandatory. I think it's time we all moved on...

 

[Rake]

I didn't know World of Tanks was so popular that other companies were making clones - though after looking into it, I realize it is. I hope this isn't the next big thing in the MMO genre - we're just barely starting to get out of the endless shitty WoW clone era and I was hoping some MMO developers might make something more interesting in the next few years. It's really going to suck if the popularity of WoT means we'll be getting 8 years of tank MMOs now.

Don't worry all those MMO devs aren't making WoT-clones, they're already deeply involved in making those DotA/LoL-clones.

Don't worry. It's Obsidian's final goal. To have Sawyer make his own MOBA, and balance it to his heart's content. If successful it will make them millions...

 

[imweasel]

we want to make the Skyrims

This is the work of that Skyrim-Fag, Sawyer. I know it. Brainwashing poor Feargies brain with LIES. LIEEES. AND MORE LIEEEEES. Now Feargie wants to make a clone of fucking shitty retard-RPGs like Skyrim.

 

[Athelas]

Nah, that's all Fergie.

 

[Outlander]

*kschhhhh* Luke... I want to make F2P online tank simulators *kschhhh*

 

[imweasel]

Nah, that's all Fergie.

Of course, because Feargie wants to make some big bucks. Sykrim truly is a shitty game, but it sold well.

I just like to blame Sawyer.

Spoiler

Sawyer really is a Skyrim fag though.

 

[Decado]

Now a Star Trek RPG, done right by Obsidian or some other company? I'd sell a kidney to play that.

 

[Xeon]

I kinda don't like how everything is split to light and dark in Star Wars, I think that's the only thing I don't like beside the Wookies voices.

Alpha Protocol 2 would probably be a much better game from the games made directly by Obsidian Entertainment outside of FNV.