Interview Matt Chat 182: Chris Taylor on the Fall of Gas Powered Games

[Excidium]

What's the story between you two? There seems to be an awful lot of butthurt.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Are you being intentionally dense? Is Obsidian using your engine and developers for their game? Does inXile host their forum on ITS domain?

You feel that it gives me the right to tell Brian what to do and offer him unsolicited advice every week? I don't.

I feel you bitch too much about things you know nothing about. That's why you're on the Codex, right? Not so easy being a whiny fag when there is money on the table, is it?

When it comes to being a whiny bitch, you are an expert, so I'll take your word for it.

It wasn't your place to tell them they are doing it wrong and yet it's somehow your place to bitch about integrity of Kickstarter NOW, when you did nothing to change and improve the shady practices in your backyard, while you had the chance? Bitch, please. Could you be any more hypocritical?

Jesus...

First, look up the definition of hypocrisy. Second, DS isn't my backyard. Third, there were no shady practices there, nor were they in other KS campaigns I think you mistook the nature of my criticism and jumped the gun, being too eager to attack me (which is something you do often). Fourth, there is a huge difference between making 'what I don't like about KS' posts on forums and telling someone who's running a campaign 'look, because I don't like some things about KS, we're gonna do yours differently!" It's the dumbest fucking thing, I hope you understand that.

Wow.

Everyone is out to get you, bro? I can't tell if you're delusional or plain stupid.

How did "you are too eager to attack me" translate into "everyone's out to get me" again? There are people who take things way too personally and they bitch about me and/or AoD quite often. You and mbopo, mostly. Not a long list to remember.

 

[Marsal]

When it comes to being a whiny bitch, you are an expert, so I'll take your word for it.

Not easy hearing the truth, is it?

How did "you are too eager to attack me" translate into "everyone's out to get me" again? There are people who take things way too personally and they bitch about me and/or AoD quite often. You and mbopo, mostly. Not a long list to remember.

Why didn't you quote "wow" separately? I feel you're not even trying anymore...

Delusional. Look it up, bro!

 

[Excidium]

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Congratulations on hitting 18,000 posts VD.

 

[thesheeep]

I loved SupCom, and yeah, I also liked SupCom 2 (though not as much).
Dungeon Siege 1 + 2 were okay. Seriously, I could name a dozen reasons why Diablo 2 and other hack&slay games are simply better, but still, they were okay.
Also, I have to say I really like Age Of Empires Online. It just captures all the AoE spirit and is fun to play. Still not as good as the good of AoE 2 and 3 combined, but hey, surely the best RTS MMO out there. If they just hadn't fucked up the social aspect so much...

And then there were Space Siege (lol, seriously, what were they thinking?), Demigod - a really bad DotA ripoff and Dungeon Siege 3, which was not actually from GPG, so I'll ignore it.

So, you have that background of 2 - 3 failures but a larger number of good games.
Your company is failing and needs money.


And the great plan you come up with is a game with a crazy genre mixture that has never worked out and a prehistoric barbarian setting. Because prehistoric settings always lure the masses in RTS games. In the campaign site, it is introduced as an ARPG. Alright. Then the description goes on about leading an army. Huh? ARPGRTS?


I'm pretty sure with a Total Annihilation / SupCom 3 they would have gathered more.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Delusional.

Are you saying that you are not even aware of it? That you keep bringing me/aod/dead state up every chance you get subconsciously? Well, let me help you, since the search seems to be working.

To be fair, modeling all those ships for shits and giggles is up there with AoD and Amalur in wasting resources on stupid shit.

^ An Endless space thread

Dead State will most likely be complete garbage (if it even gets finished). AoD is meh and will probably stay meh.

^ A General discussion thread - good job bringing the RPG talk to GD!

Styg, you are our new Messiah, may God have mercy on your soul if you fuck it up like VD did with AoD.

^ An Underrail thread.

Poor VD.

^ An ExpeditionsL Conquistador thread.

Keep this up and you'll turn into VD, Tiago.

^ A strategy gaming thread. It is important to let every indie developer know what you think about me. A good way to strike a conversation too.

Seriously, don't fuck it up like VD did, bro.

It's not enough to mention something once. Repetition is the key to success.

This is what VD should have done with AoD.

A Tales of Illyria thread. Btw, no, thanks.

Are we talking about Dead State now?

A Wasteland 2 thread. God forbid you let me make a post without bringing up Dead State. "How can we bring up the first thing if we don't talk about the second thing?" Not sure if you're aware but you are the only one who does it, Marsal. It's not my game, bro. Sorry to disappoint you.

I am seeing posts bitching about Wasteland 2 being done in 18 months. Why don't you bitch about "Est. delivery: Dec 2013" for Dead State?

:nevah forget:

Oh, I'm sorry, I must have missed your posts warning us against backing Dead State on Kickstarter. Are you suggesting that Brian and a bunch of amateurs can deliver an awesome RPG by December 2013, but the other Brian and his experienced team can't? I guess they did have a 3 year head start in which they couldn't even produce a couple of minutes of uncut gameplay footage.

I'm not absolutely convinced that Fargo can deliver on time or that Wasteland 2 will be a great game. I am, however, convinced it will be out before and a vastly superior game to Dead State. While you avoid criticizing and even defend the game your friends (employees? co-workers? what is your relation to DoubleBear anyway?) are working on, you're being petty and a hypocrite by attacking Wasteland 2 for same things that Dead State does.

 

[EG]

So, Marshal has finally been driven insane.

I will survive you all at this rate.

 

[Jaesun]

Sometimes Marsal can do some amusing trolling, there there's the boring shit ones.

 

[CreamyBlood]

That was a great video, it's always nice to get insight on the industry from one who has worked it. He didn't say names but added more confirmation to what many of us here know about how this racket works. It's all hand-to-mouth survival and 'drying out the other guy'.

Taylor seems pretty sincere but it does look like he needs a break from all of this. I'm just glad I never got into games development as it seems next to impossible to stay independent.

 

[Metro]

The ability to stay independent seems inversely proportional to your size and then factor in the quality of games you make. The larger you are the bigger your projects have to be and to land those big projects you typically have to pump out licensed stuff from publishers. And while that may be appealing to the mass markets the relative quality of game you develop probably won't be anything special in the eyes of most of the people shelling out money on Kickstarter. Runic is a good example of a fairly small developer (only about 30-40ish employees) who puts out a good product and doesn't even need Kickstarter. Granted they got some money from Perfect World but their independence was never in jeopardy. You would think after the success of TL1 and 2 they would be looking to increase their size significantly but Max Schafer recently suggested that wouldn't be happening.

Taylor didn't plan very well. He argues AoE Online was taken away suddenly but I would think it's a good idea to have multiple projects in development sufficient enough to cover your own payroll. And, hey, if you need Kickstarter to help out... well... the time to have launched this thing was when you are a viable studio not when the rug was pulled out from under you and you're lying on the ground flat on your ass in a daze.

"I'm actually fearful of the last two days of this campaign," Taylor said, "I'm fearful that if it's at $980,000, that $120,000 is gonna come from people I love... I will call people up who pledged and tell them to get rid of that pledge... this thing should fail if it's destined to fail."

Seriously, who the fuck is going to cough over money now?

 

[tuluse]

I thought he said they had 3 projects cancelled all in a few months of each other.

 

[Moribund]

Wait, wait wait. So they had 980k and he called it quits? (I couldn't make it through the whole weepy video it was just too disturbing).

Even though in every kickstarter ever at least 1/3 of the money comes in the last couple days?

Not to kick a guy while he's down but while people make some dumb comments about mismanaged kickstarters, this one really was just fumbled completely in every way.

Surely even if the original game they wanted to make would cost more than 1.1 million they could scale back and make some kind of fun game for that amount. You can't tell me you really need 4 million to make a barebones RTS/ARPG game with good gameplay, you just need that to be all next gen awesome button and have 5 million cutscenes! Which are usually annoying garbage. Just make an intro cutscene and an end game cutscene, 20k each. Get the people in the office to do the voice acting and story no one gives a shit about for that kind of game, and get a whole buch of mountain dew and doritos for the programmers. You'll have to fire the extra 40 dorks who work there who make shit to impress publishers but you'll probably make a game people like more than if you spent all that money anyway.

 

[tuluse]

Please learn to read Moribund.

 

[Marsal]

Holy shit! And we wonder why it takes so long to finish AoD? Don't you have better things to do than to go through my posting history? Oh, right. No job. Fair enough. Why not do a thorough job of it, though? This is very shoddy work, VD.

Did you conveniently skip the posts where I gave constructive criticism of AoD, defended you against baseless criticism (IMO, of course) and even encouraged you to finish the game/demo despite the critics? Why didn't you list those? Oh, that would be too much like the whole truth. Why don't you pull up quotes about some other games I spoke less than fondly about? Or some games I praised? Quoting out of context is your specialty, as always.

Bro, you have been working on that stupid game since forever. You're soon going to be more famous than Cleve. I use you as the butt of my jokes, because you have become a joke. And a cautionary tale to other developers. You still don't get it, as evidenced by 18k post mark you just eclipsed. Congratulations, btw, Kingcomrade is just around the corner. Another year and who knows? Long time till Thursday.

The time to "help" and "encourage" you by being constructive is over. The demo is out, we know what the full game will look like. I find your game to be banal, shit, boring, as a wise man once said.Now is the time for me to make fun of you and your game. Just like you're fond of doing to other developers who don't meet your "high" standards of game development. You can laugh at them, now learn to laugh at yourself and stop being butthurt. You got on Steam, you'll cover the production costs and even make some money. Maybe you'll make a new career out of game development. Maybe you'll even make a good game some day. For now, welcome to the club of shitty developers whose games earn money. Enjoy it, you've earned it!

As for Dead State, I thought that game was a trainwreck from the beginning and I have always expressed my utter contempt for it. Maybe it was unfair to them not to wait for the demo, but it is mostly their fault, with that weak-ass Kickstarter pitch video and 5 seconds of "gameplay". Should they produce something good and playable, I'm open to changing my opinion.

I'm not crazy motivated enough to go through your 18k posts and dig up stupid shit you say every once in a while. Let me just mention some of your more notorious endeavorsof the top of my head. The endless bitching about Oblivion and the shit you talked about Todd and Pete. Constant whining and bitching. Fallout 3? Same thing. You practically drove all the developers away by your "witty" news and forum posts, bro. They couldn't take the heat, so fuck those losers, right? What about Mass Effect and the "body bags"? Remember that? It was funny. Biodrones got butthurt. I laughed. With you. Now you're butthurt and I'm laughing at you and your shitty game.

Your problem (well other than being a poor game designer) is that you can dish it, but can't take it, VD. We all remember what happened last time you got butthurt, don't we Ubersturmfuhrer? It was quality drama, I'll give you that!

If you want to hear only from cocksuckers keep to the ITS forums. You're safe in your little delusional bubble there. I won't breach your sanctum. Promise. Otherwise, either learn to deal with it or go get some lube.

 

[Moribund]

My name is moribund, of course I can read moribund.

 

[Kane]

Holy shit! And we wonder why it takes so long to finish AoD? Don't you have better things to do than to go through my posting history? Oh, right. No job. Fair enough. Why not do a thorough job of it, though? This is very shoddy work, VD.

Did you conveniently skip the posts where I gave constructive criticism of AoD, defended you against baseless criticism (IMO, of course) and even encouraged you to finish the game/demo despite the critics? Why didn't you list those? Oh, that would be too much like the whole truth. Why don't you pull up quotes about some other games I spoke less than fondly about? Or some games I praised? Quoting out of context is your specialty, as always.

Bro, you have been working on that stupid game since forever. You're soon going to be more famous than Cleve. I use you as the butt of my jokes, because you have become a joke. And a cautionary tale to other developers. You still don't get it, as evidenced by 18k post mark you just eclipsed. Congratulations, btw, Kingcomrade is just around the corner. Another year and who knows? Long time till Thursday.

The time to "help" and "encourage" you by being constructive is over. The demo is out, we know what the full game will look like. I find your game to be banal, shit, boring, as a wise man once said.Now is the time for me to make fun of you and your game. Just like you're fond of doing to other developers who don't meet your "high" standards of game development. You can laugh at them, now learn to laugh at yourself and stop being butthurt. You got on Steam, you'll cover the production costs and even make some money. Maybe you'll make a new career out of game development. Maybe you'll even make a good game some day. For now, welcome to the club of shitty developers whose games earn money. Enjoy it, you've earned it!

As for Dead State, I thought that game was a trainwreck from the beginning and I have always expressed my utter contempt for it. Maybe it was unfair to them not to wait for the demo, but it is mostly their fault, with that weak-ass Kickstarter pitch video and 5 seconds of "gameplay". Should they produce something good and playable, I'm open to changing my opinion.

I'm not crazy motivated enough to go through your 18k posts and dig up stupid shit you say every once in a while. Let me just mention some of your more notorious endeavorsof the top of my head. The endless bitching about Oblivion and the shit you talked about Todd and Pete. Constant whining and bitching. Fallout 3? Same thing. You practically drove all the developers away by your "witty" news and forum posts, bro. They couldn't take the heat, so fuck those losers, right? What about Mass Effect and the "body bags"? Remember that? It was funny. Biodrones got butthurt. I laughed. With you. Now you're butthurt and I'm laughing at you and your shitty game.

Your problem (well other than being a poor game designer) is that you can dish it, but can't take it, VD. We all remember what happened last time you got butthurt, don't we Ubersturmfuhrer? It was quality drama, I'll give you that!

If you want to hear only from cocksuckers keep to the ITS forums. You're safe in your little delusional bubble there. I won't breach your sanctum. Promise. Otherwise, either learn to deal with it or go get some lube.

http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=uBdszT5myn0&p=n#/22;49

 

[Infinitron]

Would you two like your own thread?

 

[Metro]

The quote I posted was him thinking out loud as to what would happen if that's where they were at with two days to go. Of course, at this rate they probably won't even make that which is why he should cancel it. The addition of the $10 tier for beta access only is laughable.

 

[Moribund]

Quite the extreme rant. I agree about DS but to be fair to VD it's none of his fucking business how they run their KS. You can't put strings on an offer like he gave, or sabotage someone by saying they are an idiot to think they can be done in the same deadline that WL 2 will be done, with way less manpower and no real programmer of their own. I guess it's a lie by omission but also in his eyes I'm sure most the work is done, or done to the extent it's done in AoD. Which it may be except where's the demo or even video of someone simply shooting a zombie? I'm sure there's a lot of work to make a roman alchemist game into a zombie shootan game.

And VD is the ultimate punching bag but mostly can't dish it out so hot, you have it backwards there. Never got the guys who think the Best Thread Ever is so funny, though, they seem to think he's quit the wit so maybe it's a matter of taste.

 

[Marsal]

Would you two like your own thread?

 

[Kane]

Would you two like your own thread?

A nutless monkey could do your job.

 

[Marsal]

A nutless monkey could do your job.

He must have taught you everything you know.

At least have some class and use MI insults, bro. We're not on Kotaku.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Marsal]

I know where it's from, bro. Maybe I should have outsourced digging through VD's history to you, Infinitron? You seem to like doing the grunt work. Useful little robot, you.