Incline Josh Sawyer appreciation station

[scytheavatar]

Sawyer also claims the budget was so low that MS didn't care if it made money or not https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1706353632952848531

"I don't have any numbers" and "relatively low budget" speaks volumes already. Sawyer is a creative and people like him usually leave all the money stuff to Feargus. So whether or not MS is happy about the game's performance is something he probably has no insight into.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Sawyer also claims the budget was so low that MS didn't care if it made money or not https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1706353632952848531

"I don't have any numbers" and "relatively low budget" speaks volumes already. Sawyer is a creative and people like him usually leave all the money stuff to Feargus. So whether or not MS is happy about the game's performance is something he probably has no insight into.

So it was a vanity project to shut up Sawyer, his bosses couldn't care less if it made money or not as long as it kept Sawyer happy...

My question is why? What does Sawyer bring to the company to justify the trouble and expense to keep him around?

 

[Roguey]

My question is why? What does Sawyer bring to the company to justify the trouble and expense to keep him around?

The success of Fallout New Vegas gave him a lot of clout. Pillars of Eternity (the first one) kept up that rep. Deadfire's long tail eventually vindicated his choices. Pentiment's critical success justifies its existence.

Also Feargus likes him and he rewards his friends.

 

[flushfire]

To be fair to Pentiment, basing off reviews and player count on Steam alone, it seems to have done decently compared to other narrative RPGs that came after Disco Elysium. It's got nothing on Disco's stats sure, but compare it to something like Sovereign Syndicate which apparently had a $1M budget and has just 158 peak players. Pentiment has similar stats to Sir Brante & Citizen Sleeper, and better than Gamedec, Roadwarden & Beautiful Desolation. Disco looks like a miracle compared to these games, nothing seems to have come close since.

 

[scytheavatar]

Sawyer also claims the budget was so low that MS didn't care if it made money or not https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1706353632952848531

"I don't have any numbers" and "relatively low budget" speaks volumes already. Sawyer is a creative and people like him usually leave all the money stuff to Feargus. So whether or not MS is happy about the game's performance is something he probably has no insight into.

So it was a vanity project to shut up Sawyer, his bosses couldn't care less if it made money or not as long as it kept Sawyer happy...

My question is why? What does Sawyer bring to the company to justify the trouble and expense to keep him around?

Sawyer cut back his involvement in Avowed and you can see the end result.

 

[Lacrymas]

Josh likes working on stuff he likes, so I don't see him being all that much involved in Avowed.

 

[Viata]

Josh likes working on stuff he likes

Time to go indie then. Maybe he should become another stretch goal in kickstarter projects.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Josh likes working on stuff he likes

Time to go indie then. Maybe he should become another stretch goal in kickstarter projects.

Yeah like if we don't make another $100k, we're bringing Sawyer in to write this thing.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Josh likes working on stuff he likes

Time to go indie then. Maybe he should become another stretch goal in kickstarter projects.

It's a carrot and stick question. If I know Paramo and Patel are leads, and Josh gets announced as a KS goal, I'm pulling out the wallet.

On the other hand I would back a KS goal that excludes Paramo and Patel from a project. See, there is value in them as well.

 

[thesecret1]

$1M stretch goal: Sawyer joins the project
$2M stretch goal: Sawyer is booted from the project

 

[Gargaune]

Josh likes working on stuff he likes

Ain't met a lot of people who like working on stuff they don't like.

Time to go indie then.

Arguably, he has over the past couple of years, he got his own little indie project with Pentiment. If Feargus was happy to keep paying him the big bucks all the while, you can't blame the man for rolling with it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Arguably, he has over the past couple of years, he got his own little indie project with Pentiment.

And before that - the Pillars PnP ruleset.

 

[Roguey]

Time to go indie then. Maybe he should become another stretch goal in kickstarter projects.

That would not give him a $210k/year salary. If he ever leaves Obsidian, he'll take the Avellone career path of being a high priced contractor/consultant (until cancellation).

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

If he ever leaves Obsidian, he'll take the Avellone career path of being a high priced contractor/consultant (until cancellation).

Just imagine, Sawyer travelling from studio to studio, balancing everything and sucking the fun out of every video game within 1000 mile radius.

 

[Viata]

high priced contractor/consultant

And to think people will pay him for that

 

[Lacrymas]

Josh doesn't have the clout Avellone has. Sawyer is only known on niche RPG forums for weirdos, so who is going to be excited if he's a kickstarter goal?

 

[Rhobar121]

To be a consultant, you need to represent something and have some success.

 

[Roguey]

Josh doesn't have the clout Avellone has. Sawyer is only known on niche RPG forums for weirdos, so who is going to be excited if he's a kickstarter goal?

What clout did Avellone have outside of niche RPG forums? Far more people have played New Vegas than Torment. Sawyer has twice as many followers on twitter than Avellone now.

 

[Cross]

Deadfire's long tail eventually vindicated his choices.

Deadfire didn't have a long tail. It flopped so hard that more people are playing the first Pillars right now.

 

[Drakortha]

Just imagine, Sawyer travelling from studio to studio, balancing everything and sucking the fun out of every video game within 1000 mile radius.

Name 3 upcoming games which look fun to you?

 

[Viata]

More people played NV because it was a game that easily pleased normies just like how FO3 did. People who played FO3 and liked it also bought NV and probably thought it was a Bethesda game (as we all know, most normies only remember who published the game, if they even care about it). So playing NV doesn't at all means people know about Sawyer. Which is not the same for Torment, a game that hardly pleased normies since it was a computer only game and only RPG fans give it a try which implies that most crpg fans know about Avellone (and funny enough, they also know about Sawyer since if they care about crpgs they end up wanting to know about the people that makes them too). So we can't just assume "X was played more than Y so people know W more than they know Z". As for twitter followers, what proof you have that Avellone didn't lose a lot of followers during all that trial bullshit that happened to him? And besides, Sawyer is well know among SJW fags so obviously they also waste more time on twitter than anything else.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Just imagine, Sawyer travelling from studio to studio, balancing everything and sucking the fun out of every video game within 1000 mile radius.

Name 3 upcoming games which look fun to you?

Sawyer works fast. He's an unstoppable force of decline!

 

[Drakortha]

More people played NV because it was a game that easily pleased normies just like how FO3 did. People who played FO3 and liked it also bought NV and probably thought it was a Bethesda game (as we all know, most normies only remember who published the game, if they even care about it).

People who liked Fallout 3 didn't like NV exactly because NV was not a game that easily pleased normies, which they soon realized shortly after starting the game.

They wandered North and got fucked by Deathclaws, or West and got fucked by Cazadores. They didn't understand how a game couldn't have level scaling and would challenge them out of the gate. You actually had to pay attention to dialogue where characters explicitly warned you about the dangers in the area and what to avoid, which is too much for a normie to comprehend. They were used to NPC's unlocking their next compass quest marker and sending them on their way.

 

[Viata]

I said bought, I didn't say they like it. A lot of people buy games they never played (see anyone that has a steam account) or ended up not liking it.

 

[Viata]

By trailer only, you can't tell me FO3 and NV are very different games. It uses the same engine, it looks the same, it was enough for anyone that liked FO3 to give NV a try.