If Obsidian Kickstarts a project, what manner of game will it be?

[Stinger]

Anyway, am I the only one here who thinks all this fantasizing will simply end in Sawyer's Luck? (read: gets cancelled, or in this case: will never start)

Why? It's Obsidian with some actual creative control. Yeah it'll probably have some dumbshit flaws cause this is still Obsidz we're talking about but that's still better than the garbage that gets churned out these days.

That has nothing to do with what you quoted. Why is that?

Ah shit, I misread that as "hopes this will end in Sawyer's Luck" when you wrote "thinks this will end in Sawyer's Luck".

Carry on.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Anyway, am I the only one here who thinks all this fantasizing will simply end in Sawyer's Luck? (read: gets cancelled, or in this case: will never start)

Why? It's Obsidian with some actual creative control. Yeah it'll probably have some dumbshit flaws cause this is still Obsidz we're talking about but that's still better than the garbage that gets churned out these days.

That has nothing to do with what you quoted. Why is that?

I am getting the feeling that you don't really understand this whole kickstarter thingie. With all the buzz and talk and hints so far, they are sure to start a kickstarter project. The only reason it wouldn't take of is if no one is interested in the kind of game they want to do, which is a possibility, but the kickstarter thing will happen. I GUARANTEE IT!!!!!!1

 

[Oriental European]

There is so much wrong with that post.

Let's start with

When you make a poll which involves view perspectives, don't forget to include all of them. That's it. Except don't include this weird "action" camera, there is no such thing.
It's technically easy to change camera's position, this is why I've mentioned DN3D, which means that you don't need any extra special experience, just understand 3D space.
And i'll just pretend i didn't read part of your post below... well...

There is so much wrong with that post.

Don't use drugs, mang.

 

[villain of the story]

There is so much wrong with that post.

Let's start with

When you make a poll which involves view perspectives, don't forget to include all of them.

FFS, why the fuck am I even responding to you? Should I include options such as "they will make a racing game" as well? Stupid piece of shit even claims "no such thing as action camera".

Anyway, well done. Hopefully, this is the last time we're interacting.

 

[Johannes]

Topdown camera maybe, but not isometric. Pretty sure they'll use a 3D engine no matter what kind of game it'll be.

 

[Infinitron]

By "text-only", does MCA mean an ASCII game, or just a game with no voice acting?

 

[Menckenstein]

By "text-only", does MCA mean an ASCII game, or just a game with no voice acting?

No VAs.

 

[Shannow]

I am getting the feeling that you don't really understand this whole kickstarter thingie. With all the buzz and talk and hints so far, they are sure to start a kickstarter project. The only reason it wouldn't take of is if no one is interested in the kind of game they want to do, which is a possibility, but the kickstarter thing will happen. I GUARANTEE IT!!!!!!1

So what am I not understanding and what are you prepared to do if it doesn't happen, even after your guarantees?
And just to spare a future post, why I don't consider this as guaranteed:
A few questions and considerations a serious dev studio might ask itself,
Will the proposed project generate enough donations to actually be funded?
What if it doesn't? Do we try to pitch it to a publisher then, with all "concessions" that might entail?
If the game isn't made due to lack of funding, what happens to the donations already made? How will fans react to the whole thing.
If funding is sufficient and the game is made, will it fuflill fan-expectations? What if it doesn't?
How are future publisher relations affected by this attempt to bypass them?

Now I'm not guaranteeing that it'll not happen or that it'll bomb/be detrimental if it does happen. Hell, it'd be great if publishers could be removed as much as possible from the picture. While I don't think that'd mean a reversal to better days, I do think that'd mean less shitty modern games.
But adventure-game gurus succeeding (and the reception of the final product is of course still some time in the future) big-time doesn't mean that anybody could succeed. It'd be like claiming "WoW makes millions, everybody who makes an mmo will be equally successful!".
*shrug*

 

[J_C]

Will the proposed project generate enough donations to actually be funded?

That is not guaranteed of course.

What if it doesn't? Do we try to pitch it to a publisher then, with all "concessions" that might entail?

If it doesn't, the studio won't even start the project. Not enough cash, no game. They won't go to a publisher, I think this would be a consumer funded project only.

If the game isn't made due to lack of funding, what happens to the donations already made? How will fans react to the whole thing.

Kickstarter works the following way: if the project doesn't reach the targeted funding, it will be scraped, the studio won't get any donations, the consumer's credit card won't be credited.

If funding is sufficient and the game is made, will it fuflill fan-expectations? What if it doesn't?

No guarentee here either. Consumer funded projects always build upon faith. It's just how it works.

How are future publisher relations affected by this attempt to bypass them?

I think the relationship between devs and publishers won't be affected much. The publishers know, that these consumer funded projects are games that they themselves would not fund. I don't think they care about what the devs are doing with "their" money.

 

[villain of the story]

Topdown camera maybe, but not isometric. Pretty sure they'll use a 3D engine no matter what kind of game it'll be.

Isometric has come to be an umbrella term for overview play style. 2D, 3D doesn't matter any more. Eg. AoD is "isometric".

I know, it's kind of ridiculous but that's just how people roll nowadays.

 

[Shannow]

If the game isn't made due to lack of funding, what happens to the donations already made? How will fans react to the whole thing.

Kickstarter works the following way: if the project doesn't reach the targeted funding, it will be scraped, the studio won't get any donations, the consumer's credit card won't be credited.

Good to know.
The rest,...well those are things devs might want to consider for themselves, and then decide what consequences to pull from them.

I as an at least AA studio, for example, would consider how much I want to make this game that'd otherwise get no funding, weigh it against the potential for failure/success (and the consequences such failure or success might entail) and also weigh it against the relative security of doing stuff the old-fashioned way.
To me, the concept of "slam dunks" says enough to make Obsidian's attempt at kickstarter less than guaranteed. *shrug*

How are future publisher relations affected by this attempt to bypass them?

I think the relationship between devs and publishers won't be affected much. The publishers know, that these consumer funded projects are games that they themselves would not fund. I don't think they care about what the devs are doing with "their" money.

Well, I consider publishers to be huge assholes, typical managers and execs. Slimeballs who put themselves into a position where they skim off the profits other people's work generate, like banksters. So this may be tinted by my opinion but I wouldn't put it above them to consider their position of profit and power to be threatened by such a type of funding. Especially if the game turns out to be at least semi-successful. Could make them even bigger dicks in future negotiations...

 

[villain of the story]

Ironic thing would be a publisher "pledging" a significant amount of money, say $500K or upwards, go out on a lunch or dinner with the developers and bring along a lawyer, saying "you sign here and here and all of your creative rights and profits will belong to us and we will have creative say in development or we take this to court after you release your game on your own and claim that you didn't fulfil all of your promises on the project page, which we all know you won't, and get our money back with interest and possibly bankrupt you".

I wonder if that would work. If I had the money, I would certainly like to do that on a few projects with potential but unlikely to realise it due to shitty design decisions.

 

[zeitgeist]

Ironic thing would be a publisher "pledging" a significant amount of money, say $500K or upwards, go out on a lunch or dinner with the developers and bring along a lawyer, saying "you sign here and here and all of your creative rights and profits will belong to us and we will have creative say in development or we take this to court after you release your game on your own and claim that you didn't fulfil all of your promises on the project page, which we all know you won't, and get our money back with interest and possibly bankrupt you".

How is that any different from the way things normally work?

 

[Shannow]

Ironic thing would be a publisher "pledging" a significant amount of money, say $500K or upwards, go out on a lunch or dinner with the developers and bring along a lawyer, saying "you sign here and here and all of your creative rights and profits will belong to us and we will have creative say in development or we take this to court after you release your game on your own and claim that you didn't fulfil all of your promises on the project page, which we all know you won't, and get our money back with interest and possibly bankrupt you".

How is that any different from the way things normally work?

That's the point.

 

[almondblight]

Obsidian currently has 135 employees. Considering indie success like Eschalon, AoD, KotC, etc, there shouldn't be a lot stopping them from working on a game like this now, especially since they have their own proprietary engine.

 

[villain of the story]

They sound a bit overgrown, don't they?

 

[J_C]

I think they are OK for a medium sized studio.

 

[Menckenstein]

Fire everyone between Feargus and MCA, then everyone between MCA and Sawyer on their corporate ladder. Probably like two people but whatever.

 

[Jasede]

Obsidian currently has 135 employees. Considering indie success like Eschalon, AoD, KotC, etc, there shouldn't be a lot stopping them from working on a game like this now, especially since they have their own proprietary engine.

That's naive to think. It's extremely expensive to pay 135 employees. A game would have to guarantee returns > 20.000.000 (or less depending on how much they are spending on wages, tools, rent, etc) or so to be viable. If you try by publisher, no publisher would ever fund anything old-school because the so-called indie-successes are successes only in their niche- they are not example of great sales or huge returns, unless you want to count Minecraft. (Fuck Minecraft)

The only way they could work on such a project is if their funding is guaranteed in advance, hence Kickstarter. There is no other way to make an older style RPG right now, and in the foreseeable future.

 

[Infinitron]

Obsidian currently has 135 employees. Considering indie success like Eschalon, AoD, KotC, etc, there shouldn't be a lot stopping them from working on a game like this now, especially since they have their own proprietary engine.

That's naive to think. It's extremely expensive to pay 135 employees. A game would have to guarantee returns > 20.000.000 (or less depending on how much they are spending on wages, tools, rent, etc) or so to be viable. If you try by publisher, no publisher would ever fund anything old-school because the so-called indie-successes are successes only in their niche- they are not example of great sales or huge returns, unless you want to count Minecraft. (Fuck Minecraft)

The only way they could work on such a project is if their funding is guaranteed in advance, hence Kickstarter. There is no other way to make an older style RPG right now, and in the foreseeable future.

Unless you make a whole bunch of older-style RPGs simultaneously, and all they all sell pretty well. That's how Sierra's adventure game line used to work. A whole bunch of new games every year.

Which, come to think of it, makes it weird that we oldschoolers complain about annual release schedules as a popamole influence. NON-annual releases have really always been more the exception than the rule.

 

[almondblight]

That's naive to think. It's extremely expensive to pay 135 employees.

My point was, if they are able to afford 135 employees, what stops them from taking 3-4 and letting them use the proprietary engine to make something, when these other teams are mostly one man operations (for AoD, 4-5?) doing this in their spare time with zero funding?

 

[Jasede]

They could do that, but you're already bringing up why they aren't:

"spare time"
"zero funding"

Yes, they could take man-power off their main-projects... but that would piss off publishers tremendously or they'd be missing deadlines. Plus, the games would probably end up buggier.

Other than that, I don't know. Maybe it's just not worth the effort/cost (however small) for the tiny niche fanbase.

 

[Morkar Left]

That's naive to think. It's extremely expensive to pay 135 employees.

My point was, if they are able to afford 135 employees, what stops them from taking 3-4 and letting them use the proprietary engine to make something, when these other teams are mostly one man operations (for AoD, 4-5?) doing this in their spare time with zero funding?

But they only have 2 programmers.

No, seriously, the people are specialist and already planned out in the projects. And since Obsidian just recently laid off employees I don't think they have overcapacities left. This means they need new money available for planning people into sideprojects.

 

[Jaesun]

Thinking more about this, IF they could be allowed to use the D&D setting from HASBRO/WotC AND they would not make any requirements of the game (demands) I would LOVE to see The Black Hound, provided it was in an exactly similar engine like the IE one. I'd rather it be turn-based, but that's not going to happen.

 

[Shannow]

They could do that, but you're already bringing up why they aren't:

"spare time"
"zero funding"

That part makes no sense.

Yes, they could take man-power off their main-projects... but that would piss off publishers tremendously

Who is asking them to? The point is: Obsidian already has 100+ employees working on several projects. It "seems" perfectly possible to have a small team working on some small project.

or they'd be missing deadlines.

Again, nobody is saying they should prune other projects. The point is that it "seems" as if a small team on a small project can fit in. (If that is too difficult for you to grasp: Either re-allocate people after another project runs out or hire some new guys. Bei 135 Mitarbeitern würden die paar mehr den Kohl auch nicht fett machen...)

Plus, the games would probably end up buggier.

Even buggier than their standard... *g*
Anyway, only makes sense if you also claim that indies are buggier than mainstrem games.

Other than that, I don't know. Maybe it's just not worth the effort/cost (however small) for the tiny niche fanbase.

Probably...but perhaps nobody wants to make a non-AAA game at Obsidian...