Interview Feargus Urquhart talks about working with publishers at GamesIndustry Live

[Infinitron]

Tags: Feargus Urquhart; Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian studio head Feargus Urquhart appeared in a prerecorded interview yesterday at GamesIndustry Live, a business-oriented event running concurrently with EGX in London this year. The topic of the interview was developer-publish relationships, something Feargus has had a lot of experience with. He spoke about the Microsoft acquisition and about his experience working with publishers when Obsidian was still an independent company. While mainly positive, Feargus points at QA support as something that many publishers struggle with. For example, for Neverwinter Nights 2 Obsidian ended up having to recruit their own full-sized QA team. Publishers were also not always good at marketing the studio's smaller titles, such as Square Enix with Dungeon Siege III. Later on in the interview, Feargus also reveals that Obsidian once lost access to a particular license because of a small change to a contract that he missed.

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I believe this is Feargus' first major public appearance since The Outer Worlds was in development. I wonder if that means anything.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Obsidian's marketing really needs to control their youtube thumbnails. No way is that the best thumbnail to use for this video.

 

[Duraframe300]

Obsidian's marketing really needs to control their youtube thumbnails. No way is that the best thumbnail to use for this video.

That's not their channel.

 

[Rean]

Obsidian's marketing really needs to control their youtube thumbnails. No way is that the best thumbnail to use for this video.

Nah, that thumbnail's perfect.

 

[Tihskael]

MC Urquhart

Different persona. Different class.

 

[Grotesque]

so, anybody asked him if he finally succeeded in putting his kids on Obsidian's payroll?

 

[vortex]

I believe this is Feargus' first major public appearance since The Outer Worlds was in development. I wonder if that means anything.

What would that mean?

 

[Rean]

Do not disparage Uruk-hai, he's a good friend of the 'Dex.

 

[Volourn]

" While mainly positive, Feargus points at QA support as something that many publishers struggle with. For example, for Neverwinter Nights 2 Obsidian ended up having to recruit their own full-sized QA team. Publishers were also not always good at marketing the studio's smaller titles, such as Square Enix with Dungeon Siege III."

And? It seems he expects others to do the work. Bug test your own damn game. You probably know the code, and what the story/plot/wahetver is about than some rando the publisher hire. FFS As for marketing... outside of tv ads - which 99% of games don't get - just spam gaming websites. LMFAO

 

[baud]

" While mainly positive, Feargus points at QA support as something that many publishers struggle with. For example, for Neverwinter Nights 2 Obsidian ended up having to recruit their own full-sized QA team. Publishers were also not always good at marketing the studio's smaller titles, such as Square Enix with Dungeon Siege III."

And? It seems he expects others to do the work. Bug test your own damn game. You probably know the code, and what the story/plot/wahetver is about than some rando the publisher hire. FFS As for marketing... outside of tv ads - which 99% of games don't get - just spam gaming websites. LMFAO

for the QA comment, it's something that's often dealt by the publishers, a part of the publishing deal ; of course if Feargus missed in the contract that QA was Obsidian's job, it's on him

 

[Volourn]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

I dunno, he looks like an orc (or perhaps a well fed chipmunk), but has the high pitched voice of a mewling sycophant. Similar to Mike Tyson - except Orcheart is fat, white, nonthreatening and seemingly less intelligent too. He comes across as disingenuous to me, as though you wouldn't want to leave your candy or tip jar unattended while in his presence.

Oh and outside of his QA insight, his interview literally divulged nada, zip, zilch insofar as any valuable insight with respect to his dealings with Publishers, at least nothing that shouldn't already be completely obvious to even the untrained neophyte... Seriously, "read the contract" no shit, that is true of any profession/field. At best his appearance is a sign that something is on the horizon for Obsidian, for anything else this interview is a waste of time.

 

[flabbyjack]

Which license did they lose? Probably some dumb little tech like speedtree?

 

[Infinitron]

Which license did they lose? Probably some dumb little tech like speedtree?

My first thought was that he was referring to the Alien IP, since he was talking about a contract that he thought was for several games (Obsidian was making both Alpha Protocol and Aliens Crucible for SEGA). Just a theory though.

 

[gaussgunner]

Hi, this is Todd Howard from Obsidian Marketing. Do you have five minutes to hear about our amazing new life-changing role-playing game?

 

[gaussgunner]

Obsidian's marketing really needs to control their youtube thumbnails. No way is that the best thumbnail to use for this video.

That's not their channel.

I see. It's GamesIndustry.biz's channel with comments turned off on half of their videos and a whopping 2,000 subscribers. They don't get to choose their thumbnail.

 

[Nano]

Is it just me, or is Feargus getting fatter and fatter?

 

[vortex]

Could now Obsidian get Icewind Dale 3 licence or maybe Alien for an horror RPG?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Publishers were also not always good at marketing the studio's smaller titles, such as Square Enix with Dungeon Siege III.

maybe it was because the game is shit

 

[Flou]

My first thought was that he was referring to the Alien IP, since he was talking about a contract that he thought was for several games (Obsidian was making both Alpha Protocol and Aliens Crucible for SEGA). Just a theory though.

I think he was referring to the IPs they lost at Black Isle, since they managed to keep one, but lost few of them. Alien IP's rights did not revert from Sega to anyone, same goes to Alpha Protocol. Both remained at the time with Sega.

 

[grimace]

Brofist this post if you watched the video until the end.

 

[agris]

someone needs to talk to him about that hat. it looks like he ate the producer who used to wear those, and the producer is now nested inside his body, filling him out, while he adopts his outward appearance.

edit: unintended 'acquired by microsoft' analogy

 

[Thonius]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Obsidian always complained about ebul publishers, no? And they made MANY bad dealings and switched gazillion of publishers... and they got bought by microsoft that buys everything...So I guess my question is, can we trust his insights? No scratch that, can we trust him at all?

 

[selkin]

Could now Obsidian get Icewind Dale 3 licence or maybe Alien for an horror RPG?

They'll never be in the position to do something great as a truly good horror game ever.