Company News Feargus Urquhart talks about the decline of AAA and the future of Obsidian at KRI 2013

[mindx2]

without trying to produce their own complete AAA popamole? Obsidian layoffs are coming.... I do feel bad for them

Who said anything about Kickstarter projects alone?

"Parts of games", people.

Even working on "parts of games" just doesn't seem like it would be enough to keep that many people around... just speculation but considering how hard it was for them to get paid for the full games they actually made.....

 

[Gurkog]

Bethesda will hire them to be a part every game so that Obsidian can be their whipping boy for all bugs.

 

[Infinitron]

without trying to produce their own complete AAA popamole? Obsidian layoffs are coming.... I do feel bad for them

Who said anything about Kickstarter projects alone?

"Parts of games", people.

Even working on "parts of games" just doesn't seem like it would be enough to keep that many people around... just speculation but considering how hard it was for them to get paid for the full games they actually made.....

Well, as an example, assisting with Bioshock 2 and other games kept Arkane Studios alive in the long years between Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Dishonored. AAA games these days can get really huge.

 

[mindx2]

AAA games these days can get really huge.

... and so little actual game-play to show for it...

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

AAA games' budget these days can get really huge.

Fixed.
And just 20 years ago 500k were too much for a single game. Growing fast, degrading faster, eh?

 

[Rake]

without trying to produce their own complete AAA popamole? Obsidian layoffs are coming.... I do feel bad for them

Who said anything about Kickstarter projects alone?

"Parts of games", people.

Even working on "parts of games" just doesn't seem like it would be enough to keep that many people around... just speculation but considering how hard it was for them to get paid for the full games they actually made.....

Well, sequels to existing AAA games with ready assets, part of games for others, the occasional f2p. In other words the same thing as of now with the addition of f2p and tablets so they aren't so dependent in AAA console games as it's getting to hard.
Also with kickstarter they can make their own games and take all the money from sales. With P:E and their next one or two kickstarters sales (assuming they are succeses), they could have enough money to make their own games. With 100 people they could make 3 P:E sized games and 2 tablet games at the same time.

 

[Bitcher1]

So, can we now forget about seeing more titles like New Vegas or MotB? You know, mainstream games, which despite retaining popamole mechanics of their predecessors managed to stand out thanks to the quality of writing/quest design/reactive plot/C&C, etc.? Because if their work on AAA titles will now be reduced to "parts of games" I can't imagine how they will be able to implement any of these qualities into them, seeing as it probably requires some degree of creative control over the title, which they can't have without being in charge of its core gameplay.
Unless "parts of games" can also refer to expansion packs/dlc, I guess, though even then their vision will have to be much more in accordance to what was established in the vanilla game.

 

[Menckenstein]

Obsidian Sequel Factory will bring us Angry Birds RPG and deliver us from the mole.

 

[villain of the story]

A possible exception to this rule is the development of same-engine spinoffs like Fallout: New Vegas, which Feargus says had a much lower budget than many people might assume. He implies that Bethesda-style sandbox games are relatively cheap to develop compared to the "cinematic cutscene corridor" model of most contemporary AAA titles.

Like Alpha Popamole?

LOL They you could have made a proper sandbox RPG with the time and resources it took to make Alpha Popamole, the B-movie wannabe shittymatic spy-pretend gamefail. But I guess they are hard learners!

R00FLES!

 

[villain of the story]

The biggest news from the presentation is the announcement that Obsidian's Onyx engine will be scrapped. Feargus says it's simply too costly to maintain compared to using existing third party engines like Unreal, CryEngine and especially Unity. However, the auxiliary tools that Obsidian has developed for use with Onyx, such as their dialogue editor, will be kept and adapted for use with other engines.

This should silence once and for all all the cocksuckers who were talking back and forth about Obsidian's decision to use Unity merely as a marketing ploy or the general viability of such engines in the fist place.

I think they went through a phase when they thought they would do well with a stream of fat rich commissions for AAA projects like KOTOR2, NWN2 & FNV so their own Onyx ended up as a bloatware filled with inflated licensed stuff that is too expensive to maintain while surviving on lower profile games. Otherwise, they surely have the programmer base to have developed their own low-cost in-house engine suite to take care of all of their needs without relying on expensive licenses had they practiced some fucking foresight, right?

 

[villain of the story]

Because of inXile they cannot do something torment-like, so their choices of what to pitch next as a kickstarter seems limited.

So CRPG means fantasy, post apoc and existential? There's nothing else Obsidian can pitch?

For example, how about a crime themed RPG where your attributes are criminal traits? Cunning = wisdom, intimidation = strength, street smarts = intelligence etc...

For fantasy, they'll have to do something thats not like torment, or eternity and doing a second succesive fantasy kickstarter seems stale..
Theres no point in doing a post apoc unless they can do one significantly different from wasteland and fallout.

The upcoming Torment is post apoc and significantly different than wasteland and fallout. So I guess it's perfectly doable.

Personally, I would welcome a futuristic post-apoc with a focus on survival based on 80s with open arms.

On a related note, a cyberpunk or a cold war espionage rpg could be something inXile could pitch.

LOL no. We all know how their only venture into espionage ended up being anything BUT espionage. They have no fucking idea what espionage is.

Nor Aliens

 

[Infinitron]

villain of the story He said inXile.

 

[villain of the story]

Huh?

 

[Infinitron]

Huh?

Read that last quote you replied to again.

 

[villain of the story]

Ahh.

Well, any opportunity to shit on Obsidian for the shit they crapped on us, then.

 

[Israfael]

Personally, when i first saw this on one of russian newsfeeds, i thought it was a joke or overhyped ad with symbolic or token participation on Obsidian side. As far as i know, Allods MMO was considered russian WoW in terms of popularity and quality, before it went pay to win and all devepers subsequently leaving the company for greener pastures.

Its really astounding that a fairly established gamedev conference with decades-long history couldn't get a decent synchronous translation.. Listening to this is probably easier for non-russians, as i had to mentally switch from interpreter's bleating to fearguses clipped patter.

 

[Infinitron]

GAMEBANSHEE UPDATE - Feargus quote: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/111...of-the-industry-and-obsidian-at-kri-2013.html

I was talking in general about the large budget AAA games. I do see there being a reduction in the more mid-budget AAA games. I don't think that they (mid-budget AAA games) will disappear, but they will have to have a very specific focus or market. For instance, games like Dark Souls and XCOM have a specific group of players that they are making the games for. While they will not sell 20M units, publishers could feel that the can depend on sales of 2M, 3M or 5M units. Knowing that they can depend on those numbers (due to the dedicated audience) they are willing to invest in a more mid-range budget game.

As for Obsidian, I don't think we will stop making AAA games and even fairly large AAA games. But, I recognize that it has become more and more challenging for independent developers to create them due to the amount of people that need to be managed and the expectations of gamers, the press, and publishers. All of us need to look at ways to make our games better in order to make sure what we put on our name on is something we are proud of and makes our fans happy.

 

[Duraframe300]

What did I say?

 

[Gakkone]

mid-budget AAA

What the fuck does AAA even mean today?

 

[Tigranes]

Well nobody wants to say they make AA, A, B+ or B games. :p

The scary thing is the numbers - 2m, 3m, 5m. These are big numbers for CRPGs, and until the Skyrim / FNV / Mass Effect generation, on the very high side for the 'AAA' CRPG market. Expectations, as elsewhere, have risen even for the 'mid-AAA'.

 

[Jaesun]

What the fuck does AAA even mean today?

Graphics.

 

[Brother None]

mid-budget AAA

What the fuck does AAA even mean today?

Currently, about 25 million or so. Top-level AAA, like Assassin's Creed or GTA, goes in the 100+ million level. So yeah, there is a spectrum within the definition of "AAA", nothing odd about saying "mid-budget AAA".

It can vary a bit depending on engine and asset reusage, so I'm not sure how he quantifies his slam dunks in the AAA spectrum.

What did I say?

I don't know, what?

 

[Wizfall]

• Feargus feels that developing AAA games for the next generation of consoles will not be a feasible prospect for independent developers like Obsidian. Most if not all future AAA games, he says, will be developed by wholly owned subsidiary developers of large publishers.
• As such, Obsidian plans on transitioning into the PC and tablet space, as well as becoming a developer that develops "parts of games" for larger studios.

GAMEBANSHEE UPDATE - Feargus quote: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/111...of-the-industry-and-obsidian-at-kri-2013.html

As for Obsidian, I don't think we will stop making AAA games and even fairly large AAA games. But, I recognize that it has become more and more challenging for independent developers to create them due to the amount of people that need to be managed and the expectations of gamers, the press, and publishers. All of us need to look at ways to make our games better in order to make sure what we put on our name on is something we are proud of and makes our fans happy.

 

[Duraframe300]

What did I say?

I don't know, what?

Well, ever since the first people (Neogaf) somehow took this video to mean that Obsidian will transfer completly to Free to Play/Kickstarter/Parts of Games I argued against it. Instead proposing that Obsidian will continue making their current sized projects.
Mainly because the AAA transition wasn't mentioned in their actual plans and it would go against their current strategy (pitching and the next-gen deal from december).

Turns out I was right.

 

[Bluebottle]

mid-budget AAA

What the fuck does AAA even mean today?

As an aside, there was a similar word inflation that happened within the world of football (soccer, whatever).

It used to be, at one stage, that there were players and there were 'top players'. The term top players became so overused that the term 'top top players' had to be invented in order to describe anyone that was actually amongst the best players out there. Now the term is so ubiquitous, and used with such gushing abandon by so called journalists, that you can often hear pundits on television string as many as five tops together to describe some players. It isn't unheard of for Jamie 'shit gargling' Redknapp to use the term 'top top top top top player'. This is so preposterous for anyone with a hint of detachment that it makes the whole business laughable.

I can see the same thing happening to games. Each generation will probably add an extra A into the equation until, before we know it, people will be describing games as quintuple A without a hint of self awareness or irony.