Obsidian's Almost Baldur's Gate III

[J_C]

So.. Obsidian got greedy. they demanded Atari just hand them 25mil+ just for shits and giggles. LMFAO

Shut up! They didn't demanded, they told them that that would be the cost of a good sequel to BG2. And not just for shits and giggles. You are stupid as alwys. Why do you always turn up when somebody mentions Baldur's Gate anyway.? You are creepy.

One can't help but wonder why a pricetag for a "good sequel" to BG2 was 25mil when a pricetag for a totally awesome spiritual successor to BG2 with a mix of PST is 3,986,929. And when one starts wondering, it's easy to wonder what would have happened had Obsidian asked Atari for 3 mil or so...

I think they would do a full 3D game with full VO and a huge marketing. That would cost more than the barebone PE.

 

[A user named cat]

Highlight of the topic.

<post>

Shut up!

 

[Hormalakh]

Honestly, I'm not in Feargus's shoes but I think he was making the right business decisions. He didn't want his company's name and reputation to continue to be tarnished by publishers who weren't willing to support their developers fully. So he played the tough business guy (asking for a good amount of money) and it worked, until Atari was sold off?

Ultimately they wouldn't be getting any new IPs, and generally publishers (from what I hear) work their devs to death with ridiculous deadlines and half-kept promises. A CEO needs to take care of his own too.

 

[Wizfall]

So glad Obsidian didn't make BG3 because what i understood of the article it's it would have little to do with BG2.
More like what have done Bethesda with Fallout.
I'm so happy PE will be made in isometric fix camera view.

 

[villain of the story]

Don't worry. Trent assured us that he really wants to make BG3 happen, so the future of this franchise is in good hands.

He even has Urquhart's blessing.

"I've known Trent forever, and so I think that he gets it, and I think he's into it, and so I think he could do it," Urquhart said. "I dunno if they have a studio that can make Baldur's Gate 3 the way that Bethesda made Fallout 3. They could make Baldur's Gate 3 like we're doing Project Eternity, but I don't think they could move it in that direction."

This shows just how worthless and meaningless it is to bestow praise upon and give your okay to somebody for doing something you wanted to do yourself or to get such approval and best wishes of somebody else. It's just basic fucking etiquette. What, could anyone expect Feargus to say anything even slightly less even if he literally hated Beamdog for raping BG and further wanting to make Rape's Gate 3?

It is however an amusing thought that BeamDog, made up of a bunch of consolitis piece of shits could possibly make a game when they barely managed to release a shitty hackjob of mods with abysmally shit fan art to replace the cinematics and with an even shittier interface in about half the time it takes to make a game.

 

[aVENGER]

Glad we got Project Eternity instead, I don't think I would have liked the game from that pitch.

It sounded more like "Baldur's Age of Particle Effects" than BG3 to me.

 

[villain of the story]

Pointing out the drastic difference between a 2D game that takes $4M to a "next-gen" 3D game that takes $25 is taking shit out of context. 2D was fucking DEAD. Plus development costs have gone down due to explosion of indie middleware in the meantime. Conditions just aren't the same now. Also part of the reason we've been having an indie games explosion for the last couple of years. Where were all those indies back mid 2000s? Why this indie surge just now? You could just as well bitch about games in 80s about costing too much to develop and too expensive to buy when compared to today's similar indie games sold at around $5 a pop and often cost south of $10K to develop.

 

[villain of the story]

Glad we got Project Eternity instead, I don't think I would have liked the game from that pitch.

It sounded more like "Baldur's Age of Particle Effects" than BG3 to me.

Yeah, I would have never thought that we would see another big budget quality 2D game.

 

[Roguey]

"Huh? NWN2 did pretty well. Don't smoke crack.. mmmkayyy?"
The development of NWN2 was a trainwreck. Atari knows all about the milestones they didn't meet and the sorry state in which it shipped. It sold despite those issues.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I kind of get your point but you do understand approaching Atari with OMG! Let's do a BG/BGII LIKE game with BGIII! They would have been laughed out of the office (at that time). IIRC they tried before to do a classic cRPG like game and was always told LOL! No and the door slammed in their face. I don't see a problem with Fergus approaching BGIII to Atari as basically Baldurs Gate III: like DA but better a problem?

Again, that's not what Feargus said in the article.

Honestly, I'm not in Feargus's shoes but I think he was making the right business decisions. He didn't want his company's name and reputation to continue to be tarnished by publishers who weren't willing to support their developers fully. So he played the tough business guy (asking for a good amount of money) and it worked, until Atari was sold off?

It's like saying 'I thought I could fly, so I jumped off a building and it worked until I hit the ground'.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Pointing out the drastic difference between a 2D game that takes $4M to a "next-gen" 3D game that takes $25 is taking shit out of context. 2D was fucking DEAD.

It doesn't have to be 2D, does it? Did you guys hear about this Fargo guy who's making a 3D RPG on the same budget as PE? Crazy or what? Sure, his name is not next-gen, but does it really take 6 times more to turn WL2 into a next-gen RPG?

I was simply surprised at Feargus' statement and the difference. Obsidian and inXile were happy as pigs when they got 4 mil, which they feel is enough to make great RPGs, yet when they talk to publishers even 10 mil isn't enough, apparently. So, I'm merely wondering if developers share the blame for driving up the cost and contributing to the decline.

Plus development costs have gone down due to explosion of indie middleware in the meantime. Conditions just aren't the same now. Also part of the reason we've been having an indie games explosion for the last couple of years. Where were all those indies back mid 2000s? Why this indie surge just now? You could just as well bitch about games in 80s about costing too much to develop and too expensive to buy when compared to today's similar indie games sold at around $5 a pop and often cost south of $10K to develop.

It was 5 years ago and the main reason we have the "indie surge" is kickstarter. Take that Madoc guy (Sui Generic), for example. Before KS, he would have had to work for years to turn it into a game or go to a publisher and probably be turned down. Now that people know they have a chance to raise tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, they have a reason to tinker with engines. Cause and effect.

Indie developers were always around, but until KS the easiest way to get a game out was to make a cool mod that was almost a stand-alone game and hope that it would catch the publisher's interest. Like Hammer & Sickle, for example, or DayZ.

 

[villain of the story]

Pointing out the drastic difference between a 2D game that takes $4M to a "next-gen" 3D game that takes $25 is taking shit out of context. 2D was fucking DEAD.

It doesn't have to be 2D, does it? Did you guys hear about this Fargo guy who's making a 3D RPG on the same budget as PE? Crazy or what? Sure, his name is not next-gen, but does it really take 6 times more to turn WL2 into a next-gen RPG?

GOOD EVENING AND WELCOME TO THE QUOTE GAME(tm), HOSTED BY VAULT DWELLER! IN THIS GAME, WE WIN BY TAKING THINGS OUT OF CONTEXT. GOOD LUCK!

See the point about indie middleware at the end of this post.

I was simply surprised at Feargus' statement and the difference. Obsidian and inXile were happy as pigs when they got 4 mil, which they feel is enough to make great RPGs, yet when they talk to publishers even 10 mil isn't enough, apparently. So, I'm merely wondering if developers share the blame for driving up the cost and contributing to the decline.

Perhaps they do. Then maybe not. We don't know and it's likely we will not. However, around $20M is the standard cost of a high profile multi-platform AAA game. For comparison, Mass Effect 3 (since Feargus gave Mass Effect as an example to measure up to) cost about $40M according to teh internets. I imagine that at least $5-10M must have gone to celebrities and VA but that's probably an optimistic figure. Anyway, it's what it is. GTA4 is rumoured to have a budget of $100M, for instance.

As previously said in an interview, South Park needs to sell 2 Million units to break even. PC Pre-order price is $60 right now. Let's settle on $50 with various discounts and platform price disparities. Does the game have a budget of a hundred-fucking-million-dorrars? It seems to be so if that "2M to break even" figure is true. In comparison, $25 is nothing for a high profile big budget game.

I think a more relevant question is if Feargus have overestimated the marketability of Baldur's Gate brand and thought that he could turn it into a big hit with enough budget push. Who knows, maybe he could, though I would absolutely doubt that, given their track record even if the brand recognition of BG amounted to anything.

Plus development costs have gone down due to explosion of indie middleware in the meantime. Conditions just aren't the same now. Also part of the reason we've been having an indie games explosion for the last couple of years. Where were all those indies back mid 2000s? Why this indie surge just now? You could just as well bitch about games in 80s about costing too much to develop and too expensive to buy when compared to today's similar indie games sold at around $5 a pop and often cost south of $10K to develop.

It was 5 years ago and the main reason we have the "indie surge" is kickstarter.

*takes a look at the hundreds of indie games released in the last couple of years, a few dozen of which are really fucking good*

*checks if they were kickstarted*

*no, they weren't*

R00FLES!

Take that Madoc guy (Sui Generic), for example. Before KS, he would have had to work for years to turn it into a game or go to a publisher and probably be turned down. Now that people know they have a chance to raise tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, they have a reason to tinker with engines. Cause and effect.

A bland renderer with gimmicky physics. I don't see it going anywhere. I find it amazing it even got funded but we'll see whether they will manage to make anything worthwhile of it. There are a number of other indie games using physics in very gimmicky or creative ways without Kickstarter. And as chance would have it, they all seemed to pop up in just the last couple years. Sounds like a strange coincidence to me.

Indie developers were always around, but until KS the easiest way to get a game out was to make a cool mod that was almost a stand-alone game and hope that it would catch the publisher's interest. Like Hammer & Sickle, for example, or DayZ.

There have been increasingly more indie games with increasingly better market visibility. Not that much to do with Kickstarter.

It is simple, for the same reason Obsidian opted to use Unity while they already had an in-house engine they knew every ins and outs of: licensing costs for the third party middleware. There are more indie middleware today than before late 2000s and a lot of them are dirt cheap if not free. There are also more people striving to make games and sharing that knowledge. You can (though only few manage to) even make a simple but complete game in a relatively short time with no licensing costs. A lot of game development suits have their free to use versions.

Also add the countless discounts and sales promotions on Steam and elsewhere which became bolder and crazier also in the last couple years compared to before.

 

[suejak]

Indie games have boomed because of digital distribution, not KickStarter. VD says some dumb shit.

 

[Infinitron]

It's true. As much as freetards will hate to admit it, the greatest savior of gaming, before Tim Schafer, before Brian Fargo, is Gabe Newell. :mhc:

 

[Vault Dweller]

See the point about indie middleware at the end of this post.

I did see it, but I read it as a fancy blame word of the day. "Fucking middleware, man. It takes 3-4 mil to make a decent RPG but then you've gotta spend 20 mil for middleware, so that's why all RPGs cost 25+ mil."

Perhaps they do. Then maybe not. We don't know and it's likely we will not. However, around $20M is the standard cost of a high profile multi-platform AAA game. For comparison, Mass Effect 3 (since Feargus gave Mass Effect as an example to measure up to) cost about $40M according to teh internets. I imagine that at least $5-10M must have gone to celebrities and VA but that's probably an optimistic figure. Anyway, it's what it is. GTA4 is rumoured to have a budget of $100M, for instance.

And? Bioware had over 100 people working on NWN. Bethesda - about 70 on Oblivion. Maybe it's the other way around, but the point is that just because some game costs 100 mil doesn't mean that it couldn't have been made for a lot less without a noticeable effect on the overall quality.

Simple math for your amusement: 70 people at an average pay of 50k working for 4 years = 14 mil right there, before we touch any middleware, computers, and other overheads. Does it take 70 people working for 4 years to make a decent RPG? Probably doesn't. If you go with 15 people and cut it down to 2 years, you get 1,5 mil and save 12.5.

As previously said in an interview, South Park needs to sell 2 Million units to break even. PC Pre-order price is $60 right now. Let's settle on $50 with various discounts and platform price disparities. Does the game have a budget of a hundred-fucking-million-dorrars? It seems to be so if that "2M to break even" figure is true. In comparison, $25 is nothing for a high profile big budget game.

First, 50 bucks is the in-store price. The publisher gets 35-40 at best; minus packaging, shipping to stores, marketing, admin costs so let's say that the publisher gets $15-25 at best (depends on how much they are planning to dump on marketing). 2 mil to break even - that's 30-50 mil in publisher's revenue. Mind you, it's a licensed IP, so they've gotta pay the South Park guys who are working on the game too and I bet they expect a decent slice of the pie too. That would water the revenue down even more.

Second, I think that "we need 2 mil to break even" is an exaggeration, a marketing gimmick aimed to squeeze more sales from the socially responsible people.

It was 5 years ago and the main reason we have the "indie surge" is kickstarter.

*takes a look at the hundreds of indie games released in the last couple of years, a few dozen of which are really fucking good*

*checks if they were kickstarted*

*no, they weren't*

R00FLES!

Hundreds of indie games? A few dozen really fucking good? I must have missed something, do elaborate.

A bland renderer with gimmicky physics. I don't see it going anywhere. I find it amazing it even got funded but we'll see whether they will manage to make anything worthwhile of it. There are a number of other indie games using physics in very gimmicky or creative ways without Kickstarter. And as chance would have it, they all seemed to pop up in just the last couple years. Sounds like a strange coincidence to me.

I couldn't agree more, but the fact is, he got $250k, which is more than Vogel got for his entire Geneforge series. I'm sure it will motivate a lot of people.

It is simple, for the same reason Obsidian opted to use Unity while they already had an in-house engine they knew every ins and outs of: licensing costs for the third party middleware.

Are you saying it was impossible to do a decent engine without fancy middleware 5-10 years ago?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Indie games have boomed because of digital distribution, not KickStarter. VD says some dumb shit.

Really? So how many decent indie RPGs did we get thanks to the digital distribution? There is Vogel who's been making games since forever. There was PtD that didn't sell. There was KotC that didn't sell. There was that promising NWN2 module that didn't sell. What else? Legend of Grimrock? It was in the making for 10 years and would have been released regardless.

 

[gromit]

Indie games have boomed because of centralized digital distribution

Fixed that for you. If you've never bought a game by submitting a paypal form embedded in some ancient geocities abomination, and then sat around waiting for the guy to send you a whalemail link or some shit...

well, then, you're just like the overwhelming majority of gamers. Err, no offense.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Indie games have boomed because of digital distribution, not KickStarter. VD says some dumb shit.

Really? So how many decent indie RPGs did we get thanks to the digital distribution? There is Vogel who's been making games since forever. There was PtD that didn't sell. There was KotC that didn't sell. There was that promising NWN2 module that didn't sell. What else? Legend of Grimrock? It was in the making for 10 years and would have been released regardless.

They'd sold better if they made videos as interesting as Cleve does.

 

[villain of the story]

See the point about indie middleware at the end of this post.

I did see it, but I read it as a fancy blame word of the day. "Fucking middleware, man. It takes 3-4 mil to make a decent RPG but then you've gotta spend 20 mil for middleware, so that's why all RPGs cost 25+ mil."

1. Obsidian has an in-house game engine they developed to suit their needs.
2. They opted to use another, entirely new engine they were unfamiliar with.
3. They said the reason was the middleware licensing costs.

Facts speak for themselves.

Perhaps they do. Then maybe not. We don't know and it's likely we will not. However, around $20M is the standard cost of a high profile multi-platform AAA game. For comparison, Mass Effect 3 (since Feargus gave Mass Effect as an example to measure up to) cost about $40M according to teh internets. I imagine that at least $5-10M must have gone to celebrities and VA but that's probably an optimistic figure. Anyway, it's what it is. GTA4 is rumoured to have a budget of $100M, for instance.

And? Bioware had over 100 people working on NWN. Bethesda - about 70 on Oblivion. Maybe it's the other way around, but the point is that just because some game costs 100 mil doesn't mean that it couldn't have been made for a lot less without a noticeable effect on the overall quality.

Simple math for your amusement: 70 people at an average pay of 50k working for 4 years = 14 mil right there, before we touch any middleware, computers, and other overheads. Does it take 70 people working for 4 years to make a decent RPG? Probably doesn't. If you go with 15 people and cut it down to 2 years, you get 1,5 mil and save 12.5.

It is obvious the actual cost of development is nowhere near those astronomical figures. Does anybody even dispute that? I don't know why you are bringing that up. You can probably pull development costs even lower if you run a development-sweatshop with illegal immigrants in a basement. Good luck selling the numbers you want without any marketing costs, though.

Feargus' $25M figure has a context. He gives Mass Effect as a comparable example so you need to consider and judge his goals within that context. And within that context, $25M is about standard for a high profile AAA game. Under the right circumstances, you can make a game sell more if you throw money at it to reach those figures. Isn't that what Bioware and Bethesda has been doing? What is in dispute is whether Baldur's Gate has such a market potential and even if it does or could be made to have it, if Obsidian has the ability to fulfill that potential.

Ultimately, I think that at least a few disasters (for Obsidian's well-being) were averted by publishers either by not funding a game (BG3) or cancelling it (Aliens RPG) and Obsidian should be happy for it.

It's good to know that the South Park budget likely can't be that ridiculous, however.

Hundreds of indie games? A few dozen really fucking good? I must have missed something, do elaborate.

Question mark for both statements? New to the internets? You are a grown up boy, you shouldn't need somebody else holding your hand or giving you a quest compass to see that it is crawling with (mostly shit) indie games out there.

A bland renderer with gimmicky physics. I don't see it going anywhere. I find it amazing it even got funded but we'll see whether they will manage to make anything worthwhile of it. There are a number of other indie games using physics in very gimmicky or creative ways without Kickstarter. And as chance would have it, they all seemed to pop up in just the last couple years. Sounds like a strange coincidence to me.

I couldn't agree more, but the fact is, he got $250k, which is more than Vogel got for his entire Geneforge series. I'm sure it will motivate a lot of people.

We are talking about the the period between the present and a few years back, though; not the future.

It is simple, for the same reason Obsidian opted to use Unity while they already had an in-house engine they knew every ins and outs of: licensing costs for the third party middleware.

Are you saying it was impossible to do a decent engine without fancy middleware 5-10 years ago?

I am saying what I just said: that even in their Onyx engine built-up in-house to suit their needs, Obsidian was (ironically) using expensive middleware and that is the reason they dropped Onyx for PE. Therefore, your question is better addressed at Obsidian, which you might like to keep in mind for the next time you interview someone at Obsidian.

However, I know that the number one reason for a lot of developers not releasing modding tools is the middleware licensing costs. They can't release tools to stuff that uses those licenses without extra arrangements/costs. Make of that what you will.

And I just remembered Tim Cain saying in an interview that developing games were harder and took longer back in the day because they had to develop everything themselves since there weren't middleware solutions for everything you might need. I couldn't find the exact quote, though.

 

[villain of the story]

Indie games have boomed because of digital distribution, not KickStarter. VD says some dumb shit.

Really? So how many decent indie RPGs did we get thanks to the digital distribution? There is Vogel who's been making games since forever. There was PtD that didn't sell. There was KotC that didn't sell. There was that promising NWN2 module that didn't sell. What else? Legend of Grimrock? It was in the making for 10 years and would have been released regardless.

Didn't Vogel say that he made more money since his games got on Steam than he has ever made pre-Steam?

If ZeroSum were still around, fixed PtD and got it on Steam, would it not sell?

And Knights of The Chalice isn't on any centralised distritbution platform either, is it?

And that promising NWN2 module (Mysteries of The Westgate) got practically zero coverage, was delayed numerous times and today, you can't even find a mention of it in most NWN2 bundles. In fact, it's not even clear whether digital NWN2 bundles come with MotW or not. They really got assfucked by Atari.

Legend of Grimrock would have been released regardless, but would it sell as good?

I'm looking forward to your account of sales numbers between Steam and non-Steam after AoD will be released.

 

[Rhalle]

"Huh? NWN2 did pretty well. Don't smoke crack.. mmmkayyy?"
The development of NWN2 was a trainwreck. Atari knows all about the milestones they didn't meet and the sorry state in which it shipped. It sold despite those issues.

I bought NWN2 day 1. What struck me was how little excitement and hype there was for the game before release. NWN was a big deal. NWN2? Nobody seemed to care. That has always struck me as very strange.

 

[villain of the story]

Wasn't that also the case with KOTOR2, which is now retconned?

 

[Volourn]

"ook, I almost wrote, "Hey, am I the only who thinks Volourn has a point here?" Then I went back to the OP to click on the link to the article and check it fully, and I discovered you were totally off-base and off-topic about this. Man"

Obsidian Apologist Alert!


"The development of NWN2 was a trainwreck. Atari knows all about the milestones they didn't meet and the sorry state in which it shipped. It sold despite those issues."

It sold. That's all that matters. 2 expansions. 3 if you throw in the official premium mon. Go cry to yo momma.

 

[Vault Dweller]

See the point about indie middleware at the end of this post.

I did see it, but I read it as a fancy blame word of the day. "Fucking middleware, man. It takes 3-4 mil to make a decent RPG but then you've gotta spend 20 mil for middleware, so that's why all RPGs cost 25+ mil."

1. Obsidian has an in-house game engine they developed to suit their needs.
2. They opted to use another, entirely new engine they were unfamiliar with.
3. They said the reason was the middleware licensing costs.

Facts speak for themselves.

The only fact here is that Obsidian has a high-end, console-friendly, eye-candy engine with a lot of expensive middleware packed in to attract publishers. It doesn't mean that that's the only way to go forward and any engine must have expensive middleware to win publishers' hearts.

Feargus' $25M figure has a context. He gives Mass Effect as a comparable example so you need to consider and judge his goals within that context. And within that context, $25M is about standard for a high profile AAA game. Under the right circumstances, you can make a game sell more if you throw money at it to reach those figures. Isn't that what Bioware and Bethesda has been doing?

I'm not saying that $25 mil is an unreasonable budget for a AAA game. I'm saying that $25 mil is a lot of money and perhaps Feargus would have gotten the contract had he asked for less. It's not like Atari doesn't greenlight smaller projects and never spends less than 25 mil on games.

Hundreds of indie games? A few dozen really fucking good? I must have missed something, do elaborate.

Question mark for both statements? New to the internets? You are a grown up boy, you shouldn't need somebody else holding your hand or giving you a quest compass to see that it is crawling with (mostly shit) indie games out there.

You are the one who's making a claim that there are a few dozens really fucking good indie games out there. Asking you to list some examples (preferably RPGs, as who cares about platformers or puzzle games) is hardly unreasonable and hardly calls for "google it".

Are you saying it was impossible to do a decent engine without fancy middleware 5-10 years ago?

I am saying what I just said: that even in their Onyx engine built-up in-house to suit their needs, Obsidian was (ironically) using expensive middleware and that is the reason they dropped Onyx for PE. Therefore, your question is better addressed at Obsidian, which you might like to keep in mind for the next time you interview someone at Obsidian.

See above.

And I just remembered Tim Cain saying in an interview that developing games were harder and took longer back in the day because they had to develop everything themselves since there weren't middleware solutions for everything you might need. I couldn't find the exact quote, though.

Harder and longer doesn't mean impossible. Didn't he do the Fallout engine in six months or so? Does anyone know how long it took him/Troika to do the Steam engine for Arcanum? Their PA tech demo looked pretty good too.

 

[Brother None]

Indie games have boomed because of digital distribution, not KickStarter. VD says some dumb shit.

Really? So how many decent indie RPGs did we get thanks to the digital distribution? There is Vogel who's been making games since forever. There was PtD that didn't sell. There was KotC that didn't sell. There was that promising NWN2 module that didn't sell. What else? Legend of Grimrock? It was in the making for 10 years and would have been released regardless.

He said indie games though. And there has definitely been an indie game boom. RPGs? That's a little trickier, because RPGs are inherently of a much bigger scope. Not all genres follow the same logic.

Digital distribution is kind of necessary to make all of this, including Kickstarter, happen. Necessary, but perhaps not sufficient for RPGs specifically, because of the size and budget those games tend to command.