KevinV12000
Arcane
I don't like seeing Obsidian get hurt by a lack of sales, but, at the same time, I'm pleased to see my judgment that there was zero appetite for "more of the same but with PIRATES and written by O.C. girls!" was correct.
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Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread
- Thread starter Roguey
- Start date
Wrong. Deadfire on consoles will be released later this year. One might count the DLCs as releases as well and the eventual Definite Edition that some people will wait for before buying the game.
How would you fix the issue? They can't really hurry Indiana. They have a fixed budget for it, paid by Private Division. It takes a certain time to finish the game. You can't create a project out of thin air. They've gone from Pillars of Eternity/AW/Tyranny/Pathfinder to Tyranny/Deadfire/Deadfire DLC's/Indiana/and maybe that ½ of project they mentioned.
Meaning there's a cycle to releasing games. When at least 2/3 of your workers are working on two projects Deadfire and Indiana, it doesn't leave very much room to maneuveur.
Unless Paradox completely twisted their arm on the Tyranny deal they have Pillars 1, Tyranny, Pathfinder and Deadfire creating income. Yes, it's not lot and won't definately feed the whole studio, but it shouldn't have to with Private Division paying for Indiana.
Looking at their team sizes for Indiana and Deadfire I believe it leaves some people working on pitches/3rd project (Mississippi?). Sure, if that game is bigger in scope it won't get released any time soon. It might have a publisher that is paying the costs or they might be begging for few million dollars soon on Fig to lauch the IP. Best case scenario is that instead of building beachouses to their kids, they actually spent some of the Pillars of Etenity money on the game and they might actually have something to show us sometime soon. (No, they won't)
One thing I would criticize Feargus is on, not releasing smaller indie games that are more experimental when it comes to setting, theme and/or gameplay. He is stuck to this idea that their games need to be big enough (with the exception of Pathfinder, so maybe there's hope) that they wwill be looked down upon as petty indie developer that creates games that no one plays if they end up releasing games that don't have millions of dollars spent on them.
You don't have to sell massive amount of copies if the original budget isn't huge to begin with. You want your company creating a steady stream of revenue that isn't controlled by publishers. But you can't have that if you release one such game every 2 years, even then with the help of a publisher.
That was back then. The market changed with the enchanced edition and the sequel. Reviewers will and would have compared the two games Deadfire and DOS2 to each other. If one game has full VO and the other one doesn't, it reflects on the score. It's retarded, but that's how gaming media works.
The game has sold at least some copies since the sale started. It has moved up on the all time best selling lists, but hasn't gained a huge momentum either.
I'm pretty sure that you can count Deadfire on consoles as a project, and probably Versus Evil payed for this, as Paradox did with PoE. I dont think Obsidian can count with this sales on console as a stable income.
They cant? What more they can do? You have bills to pay and your product for this entire year is not selling well, what you do? Hurry your next project and start to cut everywhere. It happened before, and I dont see another choice, if the cashflow is low. MCA said that they dont have too much money if some mistake happens. Maybe is time to fire your children, Feargus.
I agree with you. See what inXile did with Mage's Tale, they are trying to do something else to generate some income, after TTON failed. But they still have two more games to go, and they were financied by backers, so I think they are somewhat confortable now. They opened a second office, after all.
From what I know the console port of Deadfire will be outsourced, so it's more of an expense for Obsidian than a source of income, until it's released, and it's hardly occupying anyone from Obsidian, I doubt there will be more than 2-3 Obsidian devs engaged full time with supporting the team working on the port.
The same who did the translation to PT-BR? Jesus, you have to see what kind of work they do. Simple example:
EN: <DefaultText>"Blast! That usually works!"</DefaultText>
PT-BR: <DefaultText>"Explosões! Costumam funcionar!"</DefaultText>
means: Explosions! That usually works!
Trashos
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2015
- Messages
- 3,413
Not sure such a thing is feasible, although I am judging by how other industries work. For one, in moderately big companies everyone wants to work on the biggest budget projects, with very few exceptions. Also, smaller hardcore projects probably won't bring enough revenue to cover the salaries at Obsidian, unless they work with interns. Finally, if they have people with talent that want to go the AoD/Underrail route, such people would be better off creating such games outside of Obsidian (or any biggish company) anyway.
In short, I wouldn't hold my breath.
One can blame Tim Schafer for a lot of things, but he did a great job with converting Double Fine into a small-medium studio which is always working on a few smaller indie games, and occasionally a bigger project. Obsidian should have tried something similar a long ago.
Partially true at least. I think it comes down to finding the right people. Sure some are joining the company work on a specific game and you can't really throw those guys on a very small scale project. But I would imagine they have people in the company willing to work a smaller project as well if given enough freedom to create something. People also have ambition to create something "of their own" instead of working on bigger project in a limited role.
Sure if you are only joining the company as a stepping stone to move onto Blizzard you will want to work on the bigger projects. But if you have that already down, being project director or lead would be a huge benefit for some to get them further along their careers both at Obsidian and elsewhere.
You want a limited budget for the game and not make it too hardcore so that no one buys it. When you have team of 10-20 people making a game the amount of copies they need to sell (even at a lesser price) isn't huge to cover their expenses. It's not a huge risk for the company if they limit the budget and they stick to it. They want own their own IPs, this is one way to do it. Ideally they would release bigger game once a year or 1½ years with one smallish game released between the bigger games. The smaller games won't take them to the moon and back, it sure would create some much needed revenue that keeps on giving in the years to come. Not to mention helps them build IPs. Who knows, they might hit a gold vein and create a Darkest Dungeon of their own and end up selling millions of copies. But if you aren't even trying...
Going totally indie isn't right fit for everyone. While you won't get the revenue from your game, you won't have to worry about not feeding your family either when the company is paying for the development of the game.
I don't think it's this simple but I do agree reviewers tend to do that shit. Once a "new standard" has been set they harp on and on when it isn't met. Prepare for every CRPG from this point forward to get knocked for not having VO, like anything big budget did following Oblivion. With Deadfire though, I think it's also the fact PoE disappointed some and the market is more flooded than it was.
Mustawd
Guest
Isn’t this setting Obsidian up for a make it or break it situation on Project Indiana? If so, they might feel the itch to casualize it to maximize sales. It’s not necessarily a great sotuation for them.
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2015
- Messages
- 521
Project Indiana is almost certainly a multiplatform action game with geometry instead of stats trying to make their own Skyrim/New Vegas 2. How much more casual can you get?
Deleted member 7219
Guest
DOS got a lot of press attention, certainly more than Pillars 2 where many sites seemed to ignore it.
Umm, not really? Depending on the deal they have with Private Division they might not see any royalties coming their way. So whether the game sells 500k or 3M units won't matter when it comes to how much Obsidian is getting paid for the game. Sure, selling 3M units will make that IP a hot property making Obsidian more worth buying and would make creating a sequel with Private Division pretty much guaranteed.
PD and Obsidian have set up a budget for the game and how it works is that PD pays a fixed amount of money each milestone Obsidian hits thus keeping the wheels turning.
Trashos
Arcane
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- Dec 28, 2015
- Messages
- 3,413
I think they sorta kinda did something like that with Tyranny. Anyway, that's a great plan for companies that take the long-term approach to develop their talent, but it's extremely rare and I am not sure that Obsidian qualifies.
OK, I haven't been to California for more than a decade, but I would guess that 10-20 people at Obsidian must be costing what, 1-2M/year? Including insurance. It is probably not a reasonable risk for California-based companies. Not to mention that there is probably going to be other bigger projects that need hands badly at the same time.
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#Tim Cain's gone senile; #Obsidian shovelware factory; #I don't support Feargus children; #Narrative designer is not a job title; #Most dangerhairs in game development are from Commiefornia.
mitochondritom
Educated
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- Mar 30, 2016
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- 69
Don't tell me that is Tim Cain and Leon Boyarski's new game
Please let this be real. XD I'd be laughing myself to the grave.
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Oh, come on, you know that's not real.
This is the apparent source:
Nobody in the replies even noticed the Obsidian logo.
This is the apparent source:
Nobody in the replies even noticed the Obsidian logo.
Yeah, probably. The Obsidian logo also looks pretty weird. It's like it spells OBSDAN.
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