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

[Brayko]

mid-budget AAA

What the fuck does AAA even mean today?

Bloated budgets.

 

[CMcC]

Tablet adaptions, guys. But see, Fargo is one step ahead of them...

T:TN The Tablet Game: Race against the clock to outrun The Angel of Entropy's fevered pursuit to consume you whole! In this ground-breaking side-scrolling platformer, numerous exciting obstacles and barriers will assail your quest to find The Changing God, your sire and your salvation. Power-up with the amazing relics left from thousands of bygone civilizations across a billion years of time and explore their strange vistas and mysterious temples, while eluding the imminent threat of The Angel and his dread minions. Find other Castoffs in your quest who will grant permanent benefits - if you can discover them in time! Use The Meres, special ancient devices, to switch into their minds and bodies temporarily, having entirely new powers to slay minions and beat back the horrible force that nags your every step. But pray your fingers are fast enough - Torment is the price of failure!

Choose one of five colors, or 'Tides', each with their own special attack, and begin your death-defying journey NOW!!!

DOWNLOAD 1.99$

I would totally play this game.

 

[dunno lah]

Tablet adaptions, guys. But see, Fargo is one step ahead of them...

T:TN The Tablet Game: Race against the clock to outrun The Angel of Entropy's fevered pursuit to consume you whole! In this ground-breaking side-scrolling platformer, numerous exciting obstacles and barriers will assail your quest to find The Changing God, your sire and your salvation. Power-up with the amazing relics left from thousands of bygone civilizations across a billion years of time and explore their strange vistas and mysterious temples, while eluding the imminent threat of The Angel and his dread minions. Find other Castoffs in your quest who will grant permanent benefits - if you can discover them in time! Use The Meres, special ancient devices, to switch into their minds and bodies temporarily, having entirely new powers to slay minions and beat back the horrible force that nags your every step. But pray your fingers are fast enough - Torment is the price of failure!

Choose one of five colors, or 'Tides', each with their own special attack, and begin your death-defying journey NOW!!!

DOWNLOAD 1.99$

I would totally play this game.

I would play this if it was made like a 16-bit console game. I am dead serious.

 

[Kthan75]

Not sure how many people here follow mobile/tablet gaming, but it's been a while since it's not all about bejeweled and angry birds anymore.
Sure, those are still there, but there is an increasingly growing "hardcore" audience.
Some examples:

Dungeon Hunter 4 (ARPG, Diablo clone but "good for what it is")

Shadowgun (Unity shooter)

Order & Chaos Online (a 2y old MMO)

And there are many more.

Personally, i would love to see a well made hardcore RPG on a tablet.

 

[Roguey]

You're overlooking ~Jeff Vogel~. Avadon 2: The Corruption out this fall.

 

[Disgruntled]

I had the misfortune to get sucked into Allods for a couple of years. It started off as a decent wow clone, filling that mmo itch.
Then Mail.ru took over and concentrated all their efforts on p2w features.

At the time i left, it had to be up there with the most ruthless cash-shop mmos on the market. You had no chance at end-game without grinding for a year and spending over $300 on items, not to mention anyone who spent more (talking about folks with over $2000 invested) would flatten you in pvp.
Unfortunate to see Obsidian mixing with these rats.

 

[Maiandros]

I like to torture amuse myself by checking how news is portrayed at both sides of the spectrum..do please go have a look at this:

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.c...idians-Future-Become-Brighter-or-Darker-.html

mind you, this is their 'seriouszz' column.. and yes, their audience is as you are probably imagining it..sadly however, their audience is rather large..even more sadly, it is the audience that helps define the future of MMO business..all in all, a fucking horrid educating site for one not overly familiar with the MMO genre. Mind you, not in terms of tech or finances, but in terms of target audiences, mentalities and market demand.

So in regards to the bright new future of Obsidian..far as i'm concerned? Worried. And quite frankly, since when, and why, need we give a shit about tablets? They are still Obsidian, but tablets are also tablets, sorry..or should i say tablets are the new-new future, after the new future of xbawks? I wish them well, i wish them successful and independent. Fully. I still feel this is shit however. My sympathies for a financial plight causing this. My fears for where it may lead to.

 

[Rake]

I like to torture amuse myself by checking how news is portrayed at both sides of the spectrum..do please go have a look at this:

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.c...idians-Future-Become-Brighter-or-Darker-.html

mind you, this is their 'seriouszz' column.. and yes, their audience is as you are probably imagining it..sadly however, their audience is rather large..even more sadly, it is the audience that helps define the future of MMO business..all in all, a fucking horrid educating site for one not overly familiar with the MMO genre. Mind you, not in terms of tech or finances, but in terms of target audiences, mentalities and market demand.

So in regards to the bright new future of Obsidian..far as i'm concerned? Worried. And quite frankly, since when, and why, need we give a shit about tablets? They are still Obsidian, but tablets are also tablets, sorry..or should i say tablets are the new-new future, after the new future of xbawks? I wish them well, i wish them successful and independent. Fully. I still feel this is shit however. My sympathies for a financial plight causing this. My fears for where it may lead to.

I don't think Obsidian will be affected by this. Mail.ru has no reason to offer them sare of the microtransactions or anything. Propably is just work for hire. Obsidian has 1 next gen project and P:E. They propably had around 30 persons sitting on their asses. So in order to avoid layoffs they jumped in the opportunuty it have these persons work on this MMO. They will do their tasks, get paid their salary and that's that. If anything there is even less risk for Obsidian as they won't built the game but are just a partner and the other party worked on this game for 2 years now, so it's their game way more than Obsidian's.

 

[Maiandros]

perhaps someone aware of the inner workings of Obsidian would be able to correct me (if he could speak about them), but when i see evangelising of a bright future combined with a reality of a studio gone way overboard with the number of employees it currently cuts paychecks to..dunno
more so when the new saviour is a front for some very proper gents, solid humanitarian a nature and all that. But it is just a scenario, yours seems indeed more likely, true. But still worried Sometimes all it takes to mingle with shit is swimming near it..

 

[Rake]

a studio gone way overboard with the number of employees it currently cuts paychecks to..

Well, Obsidian is rolling this way for years now. They couldn't land a second AAA contract in time so they accepted this. So far seems to me buisness as usual for them. True, it's the first time they do a MMO, but as Feargus said AAA becomes more difficult by the day. Also for the first time Obsidian has an opening with kickstarter to make their own games that genarate income for them. So there is no way they will sell the company now if they didn't have until now. At the worst case they will downsize

 

[Duraframe300]

a studio gone way overboard with the number of employees it currently cuts paychecks to..

Well, Obsidian is rolling this way for years now. They couldn't land a second AAA contract in time so they accepted this.

So, how's it rolling in opposite world? Or "how I make up shit world*?

I hear its a nice place.

To everyone: If you have to believe mail.ru found Feargus somewhere in a ditch to make sense of this in your shitty worldview, so be it. Just don't fucking post it as a fact.



And just to get this out of the way

 

[Infinitron]

Some people (ahem DU ahem) thought Project Eternity was a last ditch attempt before bankruptcy. They were wrong. And the same is true now.

It's pretty clear by now that Obsidian's management doesn't do things out of desperation. When they're desperate, they just fire people.

 

[Duraframe300]

It's pretty clear by now that Obsidian's management doesn't do things out of desperation. When they're desperate, they just fire people.

With this they also have 4 projects running. Which is a pretty nice situation for them. Not to mention, if everything goes according to plan and P:E ends up successful, their attractivity will only rise.

Ofc, cancellations can always hurt.

 

[Duraframe300]

You're overlooking ~Jeff Vogel~. Avadon 2: The Corruption out this fall.

I'm currently playing Avernum on my Nexus and it actually works pretty well. Still prefer PC though.

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[Duraframe300]

Feargus praises Skyrim.

Rougey material right there.

 

[BobtheTree]

I like the idea of an Obsidian that is making mid level games because, to be honest, I never felt like the studio did a great job at handling the level of polish most people expect from a AAA product. Hopefully, with a smaller scale, QA would be easier to maintain. But what do I know?

 

[Monty]

Russia is good at producing furry hats and prostitutes. Games? Not so much.

But if this contract work keeps Obsidian going without layoffs then surely that's a good thing.

 

[Azarkon]

The switch to tablet space irks me the wrong way, but after thinking about it, I think it's a solid choice. The touch screen control mechanism of tablet devices fit with party RPGs pretty well, and the old school IE games don't make use of the keyboard all that well. It's all about the mouse, and that works just fine with a touch screen. Dialogue options and exploration, same thing. Doesn't need a keyboard. Getting away from the development cost of AAA cinematic graphics and over the head/FPS style of games puts Obsidian back where they cut their teeth, and that's great.

What didn't excite me was the idea that they're working on a MMO, and that they're going to make segments of other games.

 

[Semper]

It's all about the mouse, and that works just fine with a touch screen

tell that all those whiney bitches who complain about the crappy controls of bg:ee on a tablet. none touchscreen can compete with the precision of even the cheapest mouse... and precise control of the gameplay is the most important thing in an isometric party based crpg with tons of things to click on. if you can't get that right your game will be doomed right from the start.

 

[Infinitron]

Why are you guys assuming Obsidian's games will be PC/tablet multiplatform

 

[Roguey]

To everyone: If you have to believe mail.ru found Feargus somewhere in a ditch to make sense of this in your shitty worldview, so be it. Just don't fucking post it as a fact.

I doubt it was Obsidian's dream to work on parts of a Russian MMO. Sounds like something they'd agree to only because there's nothing else available at the moment.

 

[Cosmic Misogynerd]

To everyone: If you have to believe mail.ru found Feargus somewhere in a ditch to make sense of this in your shitty worldview, so be it. Just don't fucking post it as a fact.

I doubt it was Obsidian's dream to work on parts of a Russian MMO. Sounds like something they'd agree to only because there's nothing else available at the moment.

 

[Duraframe300]

To everyone: If you have to believe mail.ru found Feargus somewhere in a ditch to make sense of this in your shitty worldview, so be it. Just don't fucking post it as a fact.

I doubt it was Obsidian's dream to work on parts of a Russian MMO. Sounds like something they'd agree to only because there's nothing else available at the moment.

Nope.

Why should it be Obsidian's dream? This is more than likely just a "why not?" situation. Why not make this game? It helps them working with F2P. It helps them working on online elements of games. Things they want to check out.

Obsidian was already working on enough projects before they took this (three, two publisher projects). Obsidian hasn't had any layoffs for a year (actually rehired several people) and has grown by around/less than 20 people. In recent years, this number was on a slope downwards constantly (with some stops) since around 2009. This is FACT.

Yeah, there sure is no worse situation for a company than growing and having a full workland. No, sir.

 

[Grunker]

^ Not having cutbacks and having company growth might be exactly why Feargus felt they had to take on some shitty MMO consultation job.

I find it amazing that people go to such extends to defend Obsidian, they will actually argue that hey took on a god damn russian MMO because they wanted to.