Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[vortex]

How come this team is not distributed to other projects ?

 

[Sentinel]

Sad!

 

[Sentinel]

How come this team is not distributed to other projects ?

And who pays their labour?

 

[pippin]

I like this narrative of saying New Vegas is the best Obsidian game. Because it is.

 

[Zed]

Maybe he has made a deal to make a The Witcher: New Vizima spin-off with CDP as the publisher.


No, I know it's not possible, but it would be pretty cool to have the two companies that produced some of the best AAA rpgs in the last years to work together on something.

he hasn't even played TW3

 

[Flou]

How come this team is not distributed to other projects ?

Because quite many of them were hired to work on AW specifically. Do you have use for statistic analyst on PoE2 who mainly analyzes how people play the game and what outcomes come out of it? Or programmers that are there for mostly multiplayer code....
And then there's issue of who will pay them? Feargus can't create money out of air and apparently there just isn't enough work to keep them all within the company. Though didn't Badler say that the layoffs weren't drastic, still sucks for those who got laid off. Russians sure had a great timing for it.

 

[Sentinel]

Maybe he has made a deal to make a The Witcher: New Vizima spin-off with CDP as the publisher.


No, I know it's not possible, but it would be pretty cool to have the two companies that produced some of the best AAA rpgs in the last years to work together on something.

he hasn't even played TW3

He's played a couple of hours but never got that far into it.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Do you have use for statistic analyst on PoE2 who mainly analyzes how people play the game and what outcomes come out of it?

Exactly, they've already got Sawyer for that

 

[undecaf]

Maybe he has made a deal to make a The Witcher: New Vizima spin-off with CDP as the publisher.

I'd rather - if that was a possibility to begin with - have that be Tim and Leonard making a CP2020 computer adaptation whilst CDPR's inevitable "GTA2077" shooter gets pushed further in the future.

 

[Infinitron]

All the best to Anthony Davis (assuming he's one of the unlucky ones) and any other Obsidian devs reading this.

Anthony Davis was not laid off.

 

[Excidium II]

All the best to Anthony Davis (assuming he's one of the unlucky ones) and any other Obsidian devs reading this.

Anthony Davis was not laid off.

How close are you to antagonizing him like you did Zyklon Beekers with your insider tidbits?

 

[Anthony Davis]

It's official now: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...d_Warfare_devs_as_project_moves_to_Moscow.php

Obsidian lays off some Armored Warfare devs as project moves to Moscow

Fallout: New Vegas and Tyranny developer Obsidian Entertainment has laid off an undisclosed number of developers working on the free-to-play game, Armored Warfare.

The cuts, scheduled to take effect early next year, are the result of a decision made by Armored Warfare publisher My.com to partially move development of the project to the company’s headquarters in Moscow.

Despite the shift, Obsidian will continue to work on Armored Warfare, which entered open beta last year, in partnership with IllFonic and My.com.

A representative from Obsidian confirmed the layoffs to Gamasutra and offered the following statement from Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart:

"This week we let some of our developers on Armored Warfare know that they are being laid off early next year. The publisher of Armored Warfare decided to move a portion of the development of the product to their headquarters in Moscow. We remain extremely proud of Armored Warfare and all the work we have and will continue to put into it. None of the other products at Obsidian were affected by this. We wish our people the best, and are working with them to find homes with other developers."

If you or someone you know was affected by these layoffs, you can email Gamasutra to tell your story confidentially.

All the best to Anthony Davis (assuming he's one of the unlucky ones) and any other Obsidian devs reading this.

Thanks, I appreciate it, and I'm actually fine. Please keep the QA, map developers, and vehicle team developers who got their notice in your thoughts and prayers.

That synopsis is actually accurate - we always knew that we would ramp down AW to a support role while the MRG team in Moscow ramped up to live development - with the intention of shifting people over to our other projects - which we have done. For those we couldn't make room for, there was advance notice and severance. There was also a ramping down some of our QA as more and more QA responsibilities were taken on by Bytex.

Regarding my feelings for AW, I love the game. I think Global Operations and Balance 2.0 are going to change the game for the better in enormous ways. This project has been an unexpected and wild ride, as well as a great opportunity for me to remember and relive some glorious memories as a tanker. WHEN or IF the final day comes on this project, I will miss it, truly.

This kind of thing always sucks, even when you know it's coming, and even when the company is in a strong place, which we are. We still have ~200 employees after the layoffs, and multiple signed projects - it's just our role in AW is now a support role.

No surprises, no drama. Sure there is sadness, these people are really talented and awesome to work with.





For the response about why I didn't say anything sooner - One, I don't speak for Obsidian and Two, the internet is a horrible buzzfeed-clickbaity hell hole. There are organizations who are hungry for any sort of story that they can use to stoke page views and I don't want to be a part of that.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Maybe he has made a deal to make a The Witcher: New Vizima spin-off with CDP as the publisher.


No, I know it's not possible, but it would be pretty cool to have the two companies that produced some of the best AAA rpgs in the last years to work together on something.

he hasn't even played TW3

Says who?

I ask because I gave him his copy of the game and we've talked about it on multiple occasions.

 

[Excidium II]

overcompensating.jpg

 

[Roguey]

Josh only played a couple of hours of Witcher 1 and 2 so I doubt he got very far.

More Josh trivia: he already owns D:OS 2 and Dungeon Rats (but not AoD) but hasn't put any time into either yet.

 

[vortex]

Would Obsidian be interested in making Witcher game in some future collaboration with CdProjekt?

 

[Anthony Davis]

overcompensating.jpg

More like... under...compensating. Yeah.

I have a huge tank gun.

 

[Excidium II]

Josh only played a couple of hours of Witcher 1 and 2 so I doubt he got very far.

Why not? All three twitcher games are p. different.

 

[vortex]

If you can tell, what is the current status of Backspace project ? Does it have some future?

 

[Immortal]

I love Anthony Davis - Very down to earth and just likeable guy.

No Homo

 

[Rev]

Josh only played a couple of hours of Witcher 1 and 2 so I doubt he got very far.

More Josh trivia: he already owns D:OS 2 and Dungeon Rats (but not AoD) but hasn't put any time into either yet.

He was questioned about Witcher 3 a lot of times, he said he played the game but only for a few hours because he had no time. He thought what he saw of it was great, though.

I love Anthony Davis - Very down to earth and just likeable guy.

No Homo

And he regularly posts here on top of that.

 

[Roguey]

Why not? All three twitcher games are p. different.

3 is a slightly different version of 2, I doubt it was enough to grip him.

He was questioned about Witcher 3 a lot of times, he said he played the game but only for a few hours because he had no time. He thought what he saw of it was great, though.

He said the same thing about the first two.

They're just not as engaging as Bethesda-style RPGs.

 

[Sentinel]

Why not? All three twitcher games are p. different.

3 is a slightly different version of 2, I doubt it was enough to grip him.

He was questioned about Witcher 3 a lot of times, he said he played the game but only for a few hours because he had no time. He thought what he saw of it was great, though.

He said the same thing about the first two.

They're just not as engaging as Bethesda-style RPGs.

Now there's an adjective I've never seen applied to Bethesda RPGs.

 

[serch]

Hope Anthony Davis is ok

 

[Excidium II]

I acknowledge MCA's agenda.