Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Immortal]

This Tim Cain's quote was related to the question (22:53): "What is the thing you (Cain) miss the most from the old days?".
His answer was alarming: " I suppose I miss being able to make a game without so much advanced planning and of constant oversight. "It weird and I hope I don't depress anyone who want to get in the game industry, but even now, after 41 years, I have people second-guessing everything I do, "are you sure you want to put that in?", "are you sure that make sense for this setting", "are you sure it's a good feature to put that in?, and I'm like, we can talk about that again, and it's weird because some of the thing people have told me are just so strange, I had somebody tell me that our factories in outer world shouldn't have smoke stacks on them, because smoke stacks are not sci-fi, and I was like, have you seen the beignnig of Blade Runner movie?, have you seen city of lost children?."

There is an indication of self scrutiny and censorship that deriaves from key creative postions and from lower postion creative employees in Obsidian and probably in other studios. This kind of behavior has a destructive outcome on the final product, I think it's one's of the driving forces of decline that we witnessing in entertainment in general across the 10's.

Sounds like Cain should join his old pals Anderson and Moore at Fargo's Playhouse if he wants to get away from Urquhart and Parker-style micromanagement.

>make your own studio and invite your old palls
>ship a game
>start leaving one by one due to "bad working environment" and "stifled creativity"
>make your own studio and invite your old palls
The Black Isle shuffle.

Cain grabbing a bunch of friends and going off on their own?

What could possibly go wro-

 

[Roguey]

Cain grabbing a bunch of friends and going off on their own?

What could possibly go wro-

Cain's problem with Interplay was that middle managers/marketing were telling him what to do. Doesn't seem to be the case at inXile. His problem at Troika was that none of them liked running the company. Fargo's running inXile.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Choplifter HD: New Vegas.

 

[agris]

Cain grabbing a bunch of friends and going off on their own?

What could possibly go wro-

Cain's problem with Interplay was that middle managers/marketing Feargus Urquhart were telling him what to do. Doesn't seem to be the case at inXile. His problem at Troika was that none of them liked running the company. Fargo's running inXile.

There ya go, buddy

 

[Dishonoredbr]

"[...] It's weird [...] Even now, after 41 years, I have people second-guessing everything I do"

This Tim Cain's quote was related to the question (22:53): "What is the thing you (Cain) miss the most from the old days?".
His answer was alarming: " I suppose I miss being able to make a game without so much advanced planning and of constant oversight. "It weird and I hope I don't depress anyone who want to get in the game industry, but even now, after 41 years, I have people second-guessing everything I do, "are you sure you want to put that in?", "are you sure that make sense for this setting", "are you sure it's a good feature to put that in?, and I'm like, we can talk about that again, and it's weird because some of the thing people have told me are just so strange, I had somebody tell me that our factories in outer world shouldn't have smoke stacks on them, because smoke stacks are not sci-fi, and I was like, have you seen the beignnig of Blade Runner movie?, have you seen city of lost children?."

There is an indication of self scrutiny and censorship that deriaves from key creative postions and from lower postion creative employees in Obsidian and probably in other studios. This kind of behavior has a destructive outcome on the final product, I think it's one's of the driving forces of decline that we witnessing in entertainment in general across the 10's.

The triple A gaming industry is being like this since late 2000s. It's sad but only Indie or smaller studios have full control over their work, otherwise a bunch of Who's that doesn't know shit about the craft with stupid suggestion but Hey they control the money..

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

So what is the current state of Obsidian? Is really over?

Ye of little faith. It has barely begun.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

"[...] It's weird [...] Even now, after 41 years, I have people second-guessing everything I do"

This Tim Cain's quote was related to the question (22:53): "What is the thing you (Cain) miss the most from the old days?".
His answer was alarming: " I suppose I miss being able to make a game without so much advanced planning and of constant oversight. "It weird and I hope I don't depress anyone who want to get in the game industry, but even now, after 41 years, I have people second-guessing everything I do, "are you sure you want to put that in?", "are you sure that make sense for this setting", "are you sure it's a good feature to put that in?, and I'm like, we can talk about that again, and it's weird because some of the thing people have told me are just so strange, I had somebody tell me that our factories in outer world shouldn't have smoke stacks on them, because smoke stacks are not sci-fi, and I was like, have you seen the beignnig of Blade Runner movie?, have you seen city of lost children?."

There is an indication of self scrutiny and censorship that deriaves from key creative postions and from lower postion creative employees in Obsidian and probably in other studios. This kind of behavior has a destructive outcome on the final product, I think it's one's of the driving forces of decline that we witnessing in entertainment in general across the 10's.

The triple A gaming industry is being like this since late 2000s. It's sad but only Indie or smaller studios have full control over their work, otherwise a bunch of Who's that doesn't know shit about the craft with stupid suggestion but Hey they control the money..

I get what you mean; but Obsidian isn’t a AAA developer, and The Outer Worlds wasn’t a AAA game. Hell, The Outer Worlds was explicitly a lower budget title published under Take-Two’s indie games label.

 

[Late Bloomer]

The Outer Worlds was explicitly a lower budget title published under Take-Two’s indie games label.

60 dollar game from a studio with 200 employess.

Edit - Might as well throw this bit of news in here.

https://www.pcgamer.com/obsidian-just-had-one-of-its-best-years-ever-without-releasing-a-single-rpg/

 

[Roguey]

60 dollar game from a studio with 200 employess.

Price of a game has no bearing on its budget, Obsidian didn't become 200 until after MS bought them and even then they didn't have the entire studio working on it (TOW was made by a core team of about 80).

ALG is correct in that size of the studio has no bearing on how much control any dev will have. Feargus was this way at Interplay and he was this when he started Obsidian, and he'll always be this way no matter what the circumstances are.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I was referring to it being under Take Two's "Indie Game Label". It's not an indie game no matter what label it was published under.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I was referring to it being under Take Two's "Indie Game Label". It's not an indie game no matter what label it was published under.

I didn’t say it was an indie game. I said it was a lower budget game that was released on a label Take-Two created to do indie games. The point was, the way Take-Two looked at it, it was something that should be released under that branding instead of being published by them like a normal title. It wasn’t a AAA game. And it costing $60 has nothing to do with whether or not it’s a AAA game.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I was referring to it being under Take Two's "Indie Game Label". It's not an indie game no matter what label it was published under.

I didn’t say it was an indie game. I said it was a lower budget game that was released on a label Take-Two created to do indie games. The point was, the way Take-Two looked at it, it was something that should be released under that branding instead of being published by them like a normal title. It wasn’t a AAA game. And it costing $60 has nothing to do with whether or not it’s a AAA game.

Then what exactly is your personal criteria for a AAA game?

 

[just]

I was referring to it being under Take Two's "Indie Game Label". It's not an indie game no matter what label it was published under.

I didn’t say it was an indie game. I said it was a lower budget game that was released on a label Take-Two created to do indie games. The point was, the way Take-Two looked at it, it was something that should be released under that branding instead of being published by them like a normal title. It wasn’t a AAA game. And it costing $60 has nothing to do with whether or not it’s a AAA game.

Then what exactly is your personal criteria for a AAA game?

it needs to have sliding down the hill animation and at least 5 sections where you're slowly moving through a narrow space

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I was referring to it being under Take Two's "Indie Game Label". It's not an indie game no matter what label it was published under.

I didn’t say it was an indie game. I said it was a lower budget game that was released on a label Take-Two created to do indie games. The point was, the way Take-Two looked at it, it was something that should be released under that branding instead of being published by them like a normal title. It wasn’t a AAA game. And it costing $60 has nothing to do with whether or not it’s a AAA game.

Then what exactly is your personal criteria for a AAA game?

Being a big budget game. Which The Outer Worlds is not, nor are any of the games Obsidian have made for that matter. The phrase gets used like blockbuster does with movies; although it doesn’t even really have the interchangeable uses of box office like Blockbuster Movies do. Being sold at a full retail price has Jack shit to do with if a game cost a million dollars, or fifth million dollars, or a hundred million dollars to make.

Take for example the Japanese studio Atlus. Their games release as full price retail games. They’re also a fairly small studio that have exclusively made low budget titles up to this point. Up until pretty recently FromSoftware also basically only did smaller budget games.

 

[turkishronin]

I wish Tyranny was appreciated more.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I agree that TOW is a AA game and not an indie game, reglardless of publisher label.

 

[BlackheartXIII]

Back in May 19 2022 I have noted that writing jobs for a game studio is desirable to YA writers and lit major academics because of the steady wages and the corporate benefits. also worth mentioning that the publishing industry is highly unstable (financially) and basically running on the fumes of prestige (therefore it's has a socioeconomic gatekeep biased toward wealthy people).

in the same note i would like to remined that a writing position in a gaming studio is a steady writing job which is very rare in the publishing industry, maybe thats the main reason that in the last 10 years we are witnessing a migration of failing YA novelists into to the field of video games writing.

This tweet by Lis Moberly (current Avowed's narrative designer) strengthened my aforementioned observation:

This Meghen Daum's aritcle provide an accurate obsoravation about the state of creative writing (throught a response to the highly controversial Alex Perez interview for Hobart magazine): https://meghandaum.substack.com/p/who-killed-creative-writing

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I’d imagine a lot of people got into YA thinking they’d have a hit book series and movie deal on their hands, only to find a whole fucking shit ton of other people you’ve never heard of had the same idea. There were so many YA books in the wake of Twilight being a huge it. I remember I’d be going to this girl’s place in the late 2000s, (and by the late 2000s it seems like every girl in her teens or 20s was into some YA series) and she had all these different YA series, and it’s like every one of those ended up becoming a movie in the 2010s. (I also knew someone that was thinking about being a librarian for a while, and she was taking classes for that, and they’d have them read all these YA books that I guess became nothing...one of them I remember her telling me about, she’s telling me about it and I’m like: That just sounds like Super Jail. The book I guess was YA Super Jail aimed at teen girls) But now? Now there’s even more of them than during that late 2000s period, and I’m not sure there’s as many hits, and I don’t think the hits there are are as big.

I wouldn’t say the book industry is running on fumes though. As much as the book industry isn’t a big as even ten years ago, it’s still a upper twenty-something billion dollar industry. It’s also been going up the last few years. But it’s not turning out names like it was before 2010.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

I suspect the problem is that the critical and publicity apparatus that turns sellable writers into 'big names' has been taken over by people who use it to push woke writers that can't attract a mass base. So you get critically lauded writers that most readers don't care about, and the writers popular with readers don't get public mindshare.

 

[turkishronin]

Back in May 19 2022 I have noted that writing jobs for a game studio is desirable to YA writers and lit major academics because the steady wages and cooperate benefits. also worth mentioning that the publishing industry is highly unstable (financially) and basically running on the fumes of prestige (therefore it's has a socioeconomic gatekeep biased toward wealthy people).

in the same note i would like to remined that a writing position in a gaming studio is a steady writing job which is very rare in the publishing industry, maybe thats the main reason that in the last 10 years we are witnessing a migration of failing YA novelists into to the field of video games writing.

This tweet by Lis Moberly (current Avowed's narrative designer) strengthened my aforementioned observation:

This Meghen Daum's aritcle provide an accurate obsoravation about the state of creative writing (throught a response to the highly controversial Alex Perez interview for Hobart magazine): https://meghandaum.substack.com/p/who-killed-creative-writing

It looks like people don't read anymore

 

[Hace El Oso]

It looks like people don'tcan’t read anymore

It’s true. Just some girls and women, mostly.

 

[whydoibother]

I suspect the problem is that the critical and publicity apparatus that turns sellable writers into 'big names' has been taken over by people who use it to push woke writers that can't attract a mass base. So you get critically lauded writers that most readers don't care about, and the writers popular with readers don't get public mindshare.

[In video games] The problem is the doomer-zoomer disagreement on what is cool, and what is acceptable pacing.
And that despite what everyone says, video games just sell much better if dialogues are voiced, at least on the NPC side. This is an issue for oldschool writers, who are used to constantly changing their dialogue trees all the way to the end, as with VA you need to have a planned and finished dialogue tree long before release, to send it for voicing.

It looks like people don'tcan’t read anymore

It’s true. Just some girls and women, mostly.

Last fiction book I read was Children of Hurin a few years ago. Before that, the Joe Abercrombie First Law setting stuff. Before that, the Scott Bakker Aspect Emperor stuff.
So really 1-2 books per year, if we only consider nerd fiction. Much like the post count on this forum, my attention shifted to history, anthropology, politics and philosophy. The games I play these days, Gloomhavean and Dwarf Fortress, have no story.

 

[Palomides]

Today someone actually turned to me in surprise when I mentioned I read actual books, because they only read, sorry, listen, to audio "books".

 

[whydoibother]

Today someone actually turned to me in surprise when I mentioned I read actual books, because they only read, sorry, listen, to audio "books".

My mind wanders too much and I daydream about concepts from the book too often to listen to audio books. I would if I could, its more convenient. The pacing just doesn't work for me. I like "turn based" reading, not the real time of a guy narrating.

 

[turkishronin]

Today someone actually turned to me in surprise when I mentioned I read actual books, because they only read, sorry, listen, to audio "books".

Might as well watch another man have sex with your wife instead of doing it yourself