Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Game News Obsidian can't deliver, so Aliens RPG goes elsewhere?

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
Tags: Obsidian Entertainment

It looks like we may still get an Aliens RPG, just not being made by Obsidian <a href="http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2009/02/segas-aliens-games-are-not-cancelled-may-get-new-developers.html">if this latest rumour is true</a>:
<br>
<blockquote>However, I've just spoken to a source in a very good position to know what's up with both games who told me that they're definitely not canceled. Production is expected to continue and the games, both of which are well into development, will come out. But quite possibly not with the developers they're at. It's looking like it could be a "Splatterhouse" situation (if you don't know what that means, <a href="http://kotaku.com/5149892/namco-confirms-ditching-splatterhouse-developers">find out here</a>).
<br>
<br>
My source described the situation at both Obsidian and Gearbox as "fluid," having to do mainly with the quality of the work. Sega, apparently, is not seeing what it wants on the schedule it wants to see it. Which is probably why, as Joystiq reported, it has pulled funding and those developers are hurting.</blockquote>
<br>
I wish I had secret sources. Also if true, it means Obsidian clearly have some internal management issues they desperately need to resolve. They must not <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCRUM">scrum</a>.
<br>
<br>
Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">GameBanshee</a>
 

OSK

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
8,003
Codex 2012 Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Both Obsidan and Gearbox? That leads me to believe it's probably a failure on Sega's part.
 

Fat Dragon

Arbiter
Joined
May 24, 2007
Messages
3,499
Location
local brothel
They've released so little information on the Aliens RPG that I really just can't give a shit about it being canned or given to another developer.
 

Seboss

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
947
Maybe that's the whole point.
We've known about this game for maybe two years, and we've yet to see a concept art, an interview, let alone a screenshot.
It seem Feargus and co still slip up on schedules pretty bad.
 

Forest Dweller

Smoking Dicks
Joined
Oct 29, 2008
Messages
12,196
Seboss said:
Maybe that's the whole point.
We've known about this game for maybe two years, and we've yet to see a concept art, an interview, let alone a screenshot.
It seem Feargus and co still slip up on schedules pretty bad.
I was always under the impression that Obsidian were following the "only hype one game at a time" routine that a lot of other studios have done. I suspected that we wouldn't get any info on it until after Alpha Protocol had shipped.

But what you said could also be possible.
 

Lurkar

Scholar
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
791
Sorry, I'm still far more inclined to believe Sega fucked up then Obsidian. Sega simply has a much higher record of fucking up.
 

Major_Blackhart

Codexia Lord Sodom
Patron
Joined
Dec 5, 2002
Messages
18,300
Location
Jersey for now
I hate to say this, especially about devs because my instant reaction is to blame the publisher, but this might actually be a management issue within Obsidian Entertainment more than anything else.
It's very possible they bit off more than they could chew with the Aliens RPG, and while promising the moon and delivering a rock may work with politicians, it doesn't pan out in the real world where results is expected.
As to what 'management issues' means, I'm not entirely sure myself, but most likely simply in terms of poor leadership and improper usage of time i.e. no good internal schedule or even simply nothing really supportive from the upper echelons as to how they wanted development to proceed.
However, I doubt we'll really know. With Troika, it was a combination of unrealistic goals and shoddy negotiation on Troika's part and publishers behaving poorly (to a degree). I can only assume something of a similar notion here. However, at the same, even with funding for Bloodlines pulled by Activision, Troika still managed to release it, though it might have been Troika requesting even more cash and Activision not wanting to shell it out. Can't remember.
At the same time, there doesn't seem to be that type of situation here developing (yet), so I think all we can do is speculate.
 

POOPERSCOOPER

Prophet
Joined
Mar 6, 2003
Messages
2,724
Location
California
I feel like its unlikely that this story is true but just a twist on the "on hold, so we can reevaluate our options" type of corporate phrase. I think it would take longer for another team to even pick up where they left of which would likely be a completely new game.

Either way it's probably a big smack on Uncle Furgus's baby cheeks.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
This rumour is pretty 'old' as well (i.e. surfaced soon after the initial rumours), so who knows.

Even without knowing wtf Obsid was doing with it, tho, would you really want some random outsource dev (or, uh, Sega's internal team) instead of Sawyer?
 

Brother None

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2004
Messages
5,673
Lurkar said:
Sorry, I'm still far more inclined to believe Sega fucked up then Obsidian. Sega simply has a much higher record of fucking up.

Really? Because, from the technical state of their games on release, you'd conclude Obsidian has generally been really good at sticking to budgets and deadlines?

POOPERSCOOPER said:
I feel like its unlikely that this story is true but just a twist on the "on hold, so we can reevaluate our options" type of corporate phrase. I think it would take longer for another team to even pick up where they left of which would likely be a completely new game.

Very true. With the complexity of an RPG project coupled with the fact that this is on a new, inhouse engine, there's no cost-beneficial way for another team to take it over. Of all the rumours, this one seems most unlikely.
 

Arcanoix

Scholar
Joined
Dec 12, 2008
Messages
574
Tigranes said:
Even without knowing wtf Obsid was doing with it, tho, would you really want some random outsource dev (or, uh, Sega's internal team) instead of Sawyer?

My own sources confirm whats been discussed in this article, and yes, I'd trust a disgruntled programmer over Sawyer any day. Sawyer accepted a good chunk of change to go to the AGDS 2006 expo in Singapore. Fucking Singapore? Singapore has nothing to do with gaming!! From what my sources say, Sega started watching closely just how many "trips" and "vacations" developers from Obsidian took. You don't spend publisher funding on bullshit, you spend it on your developers payroll.
 

Andhaira

Arcane
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,868,965
Honestly, I blame Torn for all this. They should never have gone for it. Nor should thye have made Lionhert.

Just stick to Icewindale series and the dark alliance series.
 

MLMarkland

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Dec 12, 2006
Messages
1,663
Location
Malibu, CA
Arcanoix said:
My own sources confirm whats been discussed in this article, and yes, I'd trust a disgruntled programmer over Sawyer any day. Sawyer accepted a good chunk of change to go to the AGDS 2006 expo in Singapore. Fucking Singapore? Singapore has nothing to do with gaming!! From what my sources say, Sega started watching closely just how many "trips" and "vacations" developers from Obsidian took. You don't spend publisher funding on bullshit, you spend it on your developers payroll.

The information contained in this post is complete nonsense and has nothing to do with reality. Regardless of what is actually happening with the Aliens project (which I won't make any comment on because that is not my job) I will say that it definitively has absolutely nothing to do with "trips" and "vacations." It's just absurd. Sawyer is one of the hardest working guys in the game business and most of the developers at Obsidian follow his lead and work as hard as they possibly can.

Let me give you a case example of the kind of developer Sawyer is:

When Alexander Brandon departed for a new gig in Texas it temporarily left Aliens without anyone working on Audio (for a very brief time while Audio folks finished up some work on Alpha Protocol before one of them moved over to Aliens).

Sawyer took it upon himself to learn the audio pipeline, clean up a bunch of VO files and get them through the pipeline and into the game. He's the project director and he's doing some guerilla cover work when necessary, learning whatever he has to do to get it done. That's the kind of guy you want in charge of your game. That's the kind of leader that gets in the trenches with his troops, rather than sitting back in the executive chair and calling the shots.

Take your libel (or slander, I'm not up on Internet forum defamation case law) elsewhere.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
Monolith said:
DarkUnderlord said:
Also if true, it means Obsidian clearly have some internal management issues they desperately need to resolve.>
Yeah, making quality games.

Yeah when it comes to making quality games Obsidian has issues.



Knowing how Obsidian developers handle 'already finished' engines and also considering the very weak components of X360 which require giantic optimization SEGA probably just looked at their terrible very own buggy shit and went "wtf is this guys?"

If only everyone from the low-level devs was like Sawyer Obsidian would never deliver their games in the state they usually come in.
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
MLMarkland said:
Sawyer took it upon himself to learn the audio pipeline, clean up a bunch of VO files and get them through the pipeline and into the game. He's the project director and he's doing some guerilla cover work when necessary, learning whatever he has to do to get it done.
So you're saying Obsidian left the Aliens RPG understaffed and lacking in trained and qualified personnel? :D
 

janjetina

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Messages
14,231
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
Torment: Tides of Numenera
This section should be renamed to "RPG Codex news and rumors comments", as this a piece of "news" is just a rumor written by a nobody on an irrelevant blog.
 

Helton

Arcane
Joined
Jan 29, 2007
Messages
6,789
Location
Starbase Delta
Dear Mr. Sawyer, You don't know who I am but I know who you are and I know what you done. You had sex with my mother and then you stole my dad's money all away. So he got angry and he killed my mother and then he killed himself, too. All I know is your name. But one of these days I'm going to find you and I'm going to give you this letter so you'll remember what you done to me. You killed my parents, Mr. Sawyer.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom