Interview Obsidian Media Blitz: The Future of Nu-Obsidian

[Scalpel]

So all this for fucking nothing? Really sounds like they're trying to inflate their status to score a AAA publishing deal or just sell the entire company. No idea why Paradox tagged along.

Also, "RPG's greatest survivors" my ass. Larian Studios is much older than Obsidian.

Feargus called Obsidian triple-A indie studio

Yeah that "iii" bullshit he and Fargo were trying to push. Right now all that really means is "we have A LOT of bills to pay but no funding from big publishers".

Black Isle Studios was created in 1996.

 

[aratuk]

Whatever the purpose of this is, nobody was interviewing anyone on Obsidian's Tyranny team about the expansion Paradox just published.
Hype like this is a little unusual, building up the Obsidian brand without a product being discussed, at least explicitly.
It seems as though Paradox and Obsidian are experimenting with different marketing approaches for different games.
Tyranny's approach was to drop from nowhere out of the clear blue sky, attracting its peak press and consumer attention all at once, rather than parcelling it out over weeks, months, years.
Eternity, on the other hand, necessarily had painstaking community involvement on every design element, because it was the community footing the bill.

What it looks like they're doing here is only laying the groundwork for a larger marketing campaign in the future.
Of course, it's possible that the journalists involved in this simply went off in a different direction than Paradox intended, but when do gaming journalists ever do that?
Laying this groundwork, with the intrigue they're cultivating, could mean they're anticipating a certain degree of brand recognition when they do finally announce.
Feargus seems not to necessarily differentiate between Obsidian and Black Isle ("We were an internal studio for a publisher for a long time and we were successful.") and I wonder if, on this project, Cain and Boyarsky feel a similar continuity with their old digs at Troika.

 

[felipepepe]

Black Isle Studios was created in 1996.

And closed down in 2003. Your point?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

My suspicion - Belgian government support has played a role.

Belgian government taxes you for 70% of your profits and for 60% of what you pay to your employees before they themselves pay 30-50% of what they receive. Belgium is only hot on supporting immigrants, not companies or people that fill the budget.

 

[CyberWhale]

If there is anything this marketing campaign has achieved - it's in cementing my opinion that Feargus Urquhart doesn't really love making games (or maybe even playing them) but continues to do the job because it's the best thing that he knows (or has enough connections) to do for a decent paycheck. He's also a person who plays it safe and only tries new things if circumstances force him to - made his new studio only after he got fired, makes sequels to other studios original titles, is really reluctant to start a Kickstarter campaign after Double Fine makes it popular etc.

Still looking forward to both PoE2 and the unrevealed AAA titles, but I have to say that all in all I'm pretty disappointed in how things turned out.

 

[Grumpy Grognard]

If there is anything this marketing campaign has achieved - it's in cementing my opinion that Feargus Urquhart doesn't really love making games (or maybe even playing them) but continues to do the job because it's the best thing that he knows (or has enough connections) to do for a decent paycheck. He's also a person who plays it safe and only tries new things if circumstances force him to - made his new studio only after he got fired, makes sequels to other studios original titles, is really reluctant to start a Kickstarter campaign after Double Fine makes it popular etc.

Still looking forward to both PoE2 and the unrevealed AAA titles, but I have to say that all in all I'm pretty disappointed in how things turned out.

You could just as easily make the opposite case - Feargus is cautious, focused on making RPGs and has done so for a long time, has made a lot of good connections based on merit and experience, gets paid well - and takes calculated risks when the opportunity presents itself.

 

[Flou]

If there is anything this marketing campaign has achieved - it's in cementing my opinion that Feargus Urquhart doesn't really love making games (or maybe even playing them) but continues to do the job because it's the best thing that he knows (or has enough connections) to do for a decent paycheck.

Umm, what the fuck?

You actually think that Feargus founded a gaming company even though he doesn't enjoy making and/or playing games and has been running that same company for 14 years through some serious hardship even though he most likely could have sold the company away and do something less stressfull for remainder of his career if not even just spend the rest of his life brewing beer like one of the BioWare guys.

The man has his faults, but that's just some retarded bullshit right there.

 

[Achilles]

"Most of the gaming I do on my PlayStation 4 tends to be the big releases," co-owner Chris Parker adds. We are sat in Urquart's office - surprisingly small and unspectacular considering he is the boss. And a little bit messy. (Maybe that's the point.) "Those are the games that I play, those are the games that I love, those are the games that I want to make and compete with. Given a choice I want to go spend all the money on a big budget title and make something that's unbelievable."

So the co-owner loves playing big releases on his Playstation 4. Just shut down the studio and be done with it, it has nothing more to offer.

 

[Roguey]

(or maybe even playing them)

He refuses to let Obsidian work on fantasy games without spell slinging because he has to be a wizard.

If he plays Kingdom Come Deliverance, it'll be purely for research purposes.

 

[CyberWhale]

Oh, a regular fantasy nerd. Even worse than I thought.

 

[felipepepe]

During the height of kickstarter, Larian was doing the absolute best work with their community. But the press kept reporting on fucking inXile "collaborative development', which was arguably the worst of them all.

Now the news is that Obsidian are the great RPG survivors - when Larian is much older and also faced terrible challenges.

However, now Larian is breaking records with D:OS2 - a multi-platform AAA RPG based on their own original IP.

There's some justice in this world. Larian deserves it.

 

[Toxic Masculinity]

Larian is Belgian, inXile and Obsidian american, there's your answer.

 

[Sentinel]

AAA RPG

what

 

[Azarkon]

You're way out of date Flou, Larian now has four studios with at least 130 employees in total.

They've been very successful. Unusually successful. Larian has been able to do things that other similar independent studios simply don't get to do, and it's unclear exactly how. I'd love to interview them about their financial state over the years, but I doubt I'd get a straight answer.

My suspicion - Belgian government support has played a role.

You don't think it has anything to do with the fact that Larian succeeded with their one big opportunity, while Obsidian more or less dropped the ball?

Both companies had to work for hire to finance their chance. Larian did it through education games, while Obsidian did it by making sequels for other companies. All in all, I'd say Obsidian was actually more successful working for hire, since the company grew a lot faster than Larian during the period, and still is bigger than Larian. Although the track record of their publishers isn't exactly ideal - with many publishers ultimately crumbling or failing to provide enough money - Obsidian has had a lot of offers, and I don't think you can say the same for Larian.

Then came the first big test: Larian's Divine Divinity Original Sin, and Obsidian's Alpha Protocol. Both in development for a long time, both new directions for their companies. Guess which company came out ahead of this exchange?

Obsidian has also had other opportunities. Much more so than Larian, they had an overwhelming amount of support for their first crowd funded title, Pillars of Eternity, which made enough money for them to not only make the sequel, but also got them support for Tyranny. Yet again, however, Tyranny proved mediocre. But hey, there's still Pillars of Eternity 2, and the new game they're working on which could be a new property.

So I'd say Obsidian has had plenty of opportunities. What they did with these opportunities is a different story. Divine Divinity: Original Sin was a work of genuine passion, and the market rewarded Larian for it. Maybe Pillars of Eternity was, too; but I have a hard time believing it.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Your slavishly devoted fanboyism is so extreme that I can now accurately predict which post ratings are yours in any thread relating to Obsidian or inXile.

Lots of people think this but I'm actually a Larian supremacist. IMO they're the top RPG studio today and one of the best ones in the entire history of video gaming.

Be that as it may, you never fail to tag a post critical of inXile or Obsidian with a passive-aggressive rating. Every once in a while, you might consider allowing someone to state their opinion and just scroll on past like a normal person who isn't obsessed.

Just ignore him. His opinions are worth piss and shit. By showing that you notice his trivial ratings you are just making him feel important, while he has drifted into irrelevance to any being who was given a large brain long ago.

 

[Flou]

Obsidian has also had other opportunities. Much more so than Larian, they had an overwhelming amount of support for their first crowd funded title, Pillars of Eternity, which made enough money for them to not only make the sequel, but also got them support for Tyranny. Yet again, however, Tyranny proved mediocre. But hey, there's still Pillars of Eternity 2, and the new game they're working on which could be a new property.

So I'd say Obsidian has had plenty of opportunities. What they did with these opportunities is a different story. Divine Divinity: Original Sin was a work of genuine passion, and the market rewarded Larian for it. Maybe Pillars of Eternity was, too; but I have a hard time believing it.

When it comes to Tyranny whether you like the game or not, that project allowed Obsidian get more experience with the engine and add more features to it on someone else's dime and they can use all that when making Deadfire. To me, that's taking advantage of a good opportunity, not to mention it allowed growth or at least didn't result in layoffs.

They did use some of the profits on Deadfire and on the Pathfinder Card game. Obsidian owning the IP on Project Indiana might mean they used some of that money on Indiana as well.

Larian is definately currently in a good place with the game selling so well and it is pretty fucking great for the genre itself that Larian is doing great.