Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Tom Selleck]

Dude loves shoving his Sinn in our faces. Get another watch, Josh!

(I'd have sex with that girl.)

(That I'd have sex with Josh goes without saying.)

 

[Mexi]

Imagine if Obsidian Entertainment was called Plunderers of Virginity Inc. (a reference to their 'Pillars of Eternity' toy line).

Imagine if Josh Sawyer and Katrina Garsten at October 14 2017 9:18 knocked on your door, absolutely destroyed your significant other, and then told you "You're a virgin".

You counter with "No, I'm not." Upon which they say "You have no idea how right you are..."

She looks like Veronica from New Vegas.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The impressive thing is, she is not looking even half as hot as she can be if she really tried.

 

[Cael]

Australia of course. :D

That is a lie. We are more worried about drop bears than jeans out this way.

It sounds more like a kiwi trying to pretend to be hip.


:D

 

[Latelistener]

Where on earth are you living where people point and laugh at inferior jeans on the street

 

[LESS T_T]

Schedule: http://www.rebootdevelop.hr/RebootDevelop2018_Schedule_prefinal.pdf

His talk is

:

Thursday, 19 of April - 16:00-17:00
Take Care (Industry)

Josh Sawyer, Obsidian Entertainment

The talk is going to be about ongoing negative trends in game industry (poor working conditions, poor developer turnover, poor visibility for independent developers, to name a few) and some movements / ideas that I hope both individual developers and studio-runners will consider.

Yup.

His talk is in livestream schedule: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...boot-develops-best-talks-on-gamesindustry-biz

Channel here: https://www.twitch.tv/rebootdevelop

 

[Quillon]

Schedule: http://www.rebootdevelop.hr/RebootDevelop2018_Schedule_prefinal.pdf

His talk is

:

Thursday, 19 of April - 16:00-17:00
Take Care (Industry)

Josh Sawyer, Obsidian Entertainment

The talk is going to be about ongoing negative trends in game industry (poor working conditions, poor developer turnover, poor visibility for independent developers, to name a few) and some movements / ideas that I hope both individual developers and studio-runners will consider.

Yup.

His talk is in livestream schedule: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...boot-develops-best-talks-on-gamesindustry-biz

Channel here: https://www.twitch.tv/rebootdevelop

That's in 2 hours?(prolly in 4 hours ) And there seems to be a panel tomorrow at 17:30 local time: PANEL: Evolving the Genre, Panelists: Jullian Gollop, Patrice Desilets, Charles Cecil, Josh Sawyer, Moderator: Dan Pearson. Donno if its gonna be livestreamed.

 

[LESS T_T]

Sawyer announces SawyerCare:

 

[Infinitron]

This has turned into a pro-unionization talk. You were wrong, Roguey!

 

[frajaq]

hahha that one guy with the New Vegas question

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

That was great question too, he completely nailed Sawyers balls.

 

[Infinitron]

Hah he initially said there was no crunch on FO:NV and then five minutes later changed his mind and said actually yes there was some.

 

[Cross]

I don't think I've ever seen a presentation that came across so transparently as a desperate cry for help. I knew the PoE franchise wasn't Sawyer's passion project, but I didn't think he hated working on it that much. Though it certainly explains this:

 

[Quillon]

I don't think I've ever seen a presentation that came across so transparently as a desperate cry for help. I knew the PoE franchise wasn't Sawyer's passion project, but I didn't think he hated working on it that much. Though it certainly explains this:

How did you figure that? I'm getting burned out playing a game for some time, can't he get burned out after 6 years of developing PoE?

 

[2house2fly]

I think he wouldn't spend so much effort on the mechanics and balance of the game if he didn't feel some passion for it. POE 3.0 mechanics work just fine and they could have just ported them over for 2 and saved themselves a lot of hassle. I'm fond of Pillars Of Eternity and like to imagine he won't look back on his time with it as a living hell like Avellone does with every project he worked on at the company.

Hah he initially said there was no crunch on FO:NV and then five minutes later changed his mind and said actually yes there was some.

I would be shocked if New Vegas had been made without crunch with an 18 month deadline

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't think I've ever seen a presentation that came across so transparently as a desperate cry for help. I knew the PoE franchise wasn't Sawyer's passion project, but I didn't think he hated working on it that much. Though it certainly explains this:

Some evil minded people would say he was already creatively exhausted some years prior to that, but let's not think such negative thoughts... :D

 

[Delterius]

A blast from the past.

 

[badler]

Is there a reason why Obsidian devs are ignoring Codex? I see one PR guy here and there, but other than that there isn't much.

For me, it's because I've been busy. This is the first time I've logged into the site in about a month. I usually pop on every few weeks to read about how I'm a piece of shit, but I have a ton going on at work right now.

Also, I just moved apartments this past month so I have been doing boring things like couch shopping on my time off.

 

[Prime Junta]

Josh is a comrade.

Organisation of labour at the employee level is, by definition, a union. It might not be called that, but that's what it is. And it is incredibly effective. The simple fact of the union being there and being present immediately changes the power dynamics. Once the bosses know the union is there and has the workers' back, they stop even trying to pull some of the shit they'd do otherwise. Unionise. And if your union is shit, change to a better one, or form your own.

 

[Delterius]

Josh is a comrade.

I agree. Its time we found a specialist on Josh's latest actions.

Burning Bridges

 

[frajaq]

Josh is a comrade.

Organisation of labour at the employee level is, by definition, a union. It might not be called that, but that's what it is. And it is incredibly effective. The simple fact of the union being there and being present immediately changes the power dynamics. Once the bosses know the union is there and has the workers' back, they stop even trying to pull some of the shit they'd do otherwise. Unionise. And if your union is shit, change to a better one, or form your own.

I liked that in his presentation he acknowledged that unions are not perfect and there are bad unions out there, but really there aren't many other choices for game developers it seems

 

[santino27]

Is there a reason why Obsidian devs are ignoring Codex? I see one PR guy here and there, but other than that there isn't much.

For me, it's because I've been busy. This is the first time I've logged into the site in about a month. I usually pop on every few weeks to read about how I'm a piece of shit, but I have a ton going on at work right now.

Codex needs to support email notifications whenever a user is mentioned, so you don't have to actually visit to read that someone is calling you a piece of shit.

(Also, I don't recall seeing any posts like that about you, specifically, instead of the GIGANTIC STEAMING TURD THAT IS OBSIDIAN AS A COMPANY (per some of our most enthusiastic posters ), but I'm admittedly drunk a lot. )

 

[Roguey]

This has turned into a pro-unionization talk. You were wrong, Roguey!

I used to be right. Guess he's gone senile with old age.

Most game companies do not have terrible working conditions. When employees at bad companies realize they have other options, sometimes they go to places that are not terrible.

I've seen some people suggest that game artists should unionize. I think this would end poorly for the simple reason that art asset development is already a global market that domestic (American) developers and publishers have no problem utilizing. Even art houses like Massive Black have Asian branches full of talented artists. We're not talking about physical goods; we're talking about data that can be transferred around the world in minutes. Even so, I don't think artists WILL unionize because there are enough good American companies out there that the crappy ones will simply lose talent to them.

Not all publishers are bad and not all developers have insane working environments. When a badly-run company implodes and a bunch of talented developers lose their jobs, I'm not really that sad. Being suddenly unemployed sucks. Looking for a new job sucks. But they just lost a job at a terrible company. Fly away, little birds. Work for developers that aren't terrible. Work with publishers that don't have their heads up their collective asses. Form new companies. You have platforms and avenues that many of us couldn't have imagined five years ago.

Do publishers really think top talent is that expendable? Not all publishers and not all of the people at those publishers, but clearly some, yes.

Game development is a competitive business that is done entirely with skilled (trained or otherwise) labor.
* Game developers are typically motivated more by a desire to make good games than to achieve a financial goal.
* Game developers may believe that unionization would make them less competitive in the global game market. This may be especially true with American developers, as our work force is typically very productive but inefficient.
* Game development is not physically hazardous (though some environments are arguably psychologically hazardous).
* Game developers make reasonably good money.

Again, these are just guesses.

Hah he initially said there was no crunch on FO:NV and then five minutes later changed his mind and said actually yes there was some.

Further proof of senility.

I usually work a 6 day week, though lately it has been bumped to 7.

I (like most developers) am on salary, so overtime doesn't really apply to me. During the week, it means starting between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. and going home somewhere between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. On the weekends, it's closer to a six or eight hour day.

During crunch I work between 10 and 13 hours a day.

Additionally, JR Vosovic speaking extremely negative about the working conditions during New Vegas http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...rior-to-any-rpg-dev.50834/page-4#post-1754257

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey Note that in his talk, Josh distinguishes between "overtime" and "crunch".

 

[Roguey]

Roguey In his talk, Josh distinguishes between "overtime" and "crunch".

10-13 hour days for seven days a week for several months sounds like crunch to me.