RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

[Fry]

re: child labor

IIRC, Chris Keenan from inXile started working at Interplay when he was 15 years old.

You can work starting at age 14 in CA, but there are heavy restrictions on work hours and times of day you're allowed to be on the job.

https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/DLSE-CL.htm

 

[pomenitul]

Muricans, litigious as fuck. You'd think there were more civilised ways of resolving this kind of thing. Pistols at dawn for example.

https://www.clements.com/resources/articles/The-Most-Litigious-Countries-in-the-World

 

[Goral]

Chris Avellone is/was Infinitron on Obsidian's payroll too?

Fixed.

 

[AwesomeButton]

HEY GUYS FOR FUCK SAKE WAIT I WANT MY CAINARSKY PROJECT FIRST AND THEN YOU CAN DO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT

Who cares? They would replace stats for figures anyway. Let Obsidian close its doors so they can make a new studio with Avellone, Stygian Software, Iron Tower, and Whalenought Studios. It will be glorious!

At least one of the founders is on record that he doesn't need money any more.

 

[2house2fly]

Hey Chris, big fan, quick question: all this stuff you've talked about that Feargus did seems pretty rough, and yet I see you're quite comfortable saying his name. Hypothetically, under what circumstances would you refuse to acknowledge Feargus in any but the most oblique terms?

 

[Alienman]

Obsidian with the first ever RPG made with the help of child-labor. That got to be worth something.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Remember when you were in high school and thought working on video games would be your dream job?

Really dodged a bullet on that one.

True story. I was pondering a career in game development but did a 180 and eventually became a taxman. Look who's laughing now !

Surely you must tax a lot if you talk like that. LOL

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

But muh Bloodlines got them figures anyway

 

[Roguey]

https://www.clements.com/resources/articles/The-Most-Litigious-Countries-in-the-World

For me, the most surprising thing here is that #3 isn't #1.

 

[Maculo]

My understanding is that having true ghost employees can be considered tax fraud as the tax forms filled out fraudulent. In addition, the tax returns which would include these tax payments would also be considered fraudulent.

Now I do agree with you that the IRS is likely not the best organization to report this to for a variety of reasons. However, I also would not discount it as MCA providing more details to a professional might open up possibilities we’re not aware of because we’re not tax lawyers.

I seem to remember an issue with closely held companies when it comes to salaries of owners and family members. Basically the IRS might consider a 100k salary for an owner’s wife as a disguided dividend. This is because dividends get taxed twice: Once as a dividend and again as part of that person’s income. So the fraud includes finding a way to disguise this dividend as something else. Aka a family member’s salary. The term is referred to as constructive dividends.

Payments to family members of shareholders: Amounts paid to a family member that were in excess of the value of services the family member provided constituted a constructive dividend (Snyder, T.C. Memo. 1983-692). Also, payments to a family member made on a lease that did not have a business purpose were constructive dividends (58th Street Plaza Theatre, 16 T.C. 469 (1951)).

I’m not saying this is necessarily fraud, as I’m not a lawyer and my work only deals with taxes very peripherally. But I wouldn’t necessarily discount the fact that there are tax implications with what MCA describes that the IRS would be interested in. This is a random example I remembered from a tax class years ago.

I thought about that, but I am still inclined to start with state authorities first. Furthermore, Bester's complaint appears to focus on ghost employees (i.e.,the employee does not exist), whereas here the employees do exist, but those employees are family members with questionable duties. Maybe it is a a false distinction I am making, but I am inclined to view those two as separate claims, although possibly related.

At this point, Chris Avellone needs to make a couple calls if he is serious about it.

 

[Fairfax]

That Stonekeep 2 cover is beautiful. That reminds me why I love rpgs.

The cover he made for BG3 is beautiful as well:

Eh... not exactly. I remeber it was quest - that's how I called then adventures, and it was in 3D maybe.
Maybe its name included word "Chapters" or something liek that. Maybe it was non-profit project and was a mod first.
I saw it definitely AFTER PS:T, but not far after - like 2000-2002 or something like that.

I'd guess it was the City of Doors Initiative (aka CODI), a NWN1 fan project that started in 2002. IIRC they did create a lot of areas and models, but never a complete module. It didn't have chapters, though. That was Planescape: The Shaper of Dreams, a NWN2 mod.

Who is the artist?

Artist who made the cover art? Vance Kovacs.

 

[The Wall]

Chris Avellone is Infinitron on Obsidian's payroll too?

Wow, didn't know Feargus has son who works for Israeli Defence Force, wrote Tyranny and is mod on RPG Codex while only being 10 year old!

That's why Avellone has been teasing him entire thread, cause he knows him from Obsidian but won't go too hard on him cause he's well, 10 year old and sins of father are not passed on son. Money is though...

 

[sser]

Thanks.


Also in before every American on the 'dex gets audited.

 

[Prime Junta]

Next time I need legal advice, I'll be sure to ask here first also.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The IRS angle is completely deranged. If the wife is officially on the books, then she fills her taxes. And if she fills her taxes, why would IRS give a slightest amount of fuck about specifics of her employment. The IRS wants its loot. Once they get that, they don't give a shit.

 

[Mustawd]

I thought about that, but I am still inclined to start with state authorities first. Furthermore, Bester's complaint appears to focus on ghost employees (i.e.,the employee does not exist), whereas here the employees do exist, but those employees are family members with questionable duties.

Well, LA county district attorney has a white collar crime division, so that’s probably the best bet.

http://da.co.la.ca.us/contact/office-directory/white-collar-crime-division

 

[Mustawd]

why would IRS give a slightest amount of fuck about specifics of her employment. The IRS wants its loot. Once they get that, they don't give a shit

If they are constructive dividends then they are not getting all their loot, which is the point.

 

[Chrio]

Be aware, not that im denying anything, but grains of salt might be useful, as the Codex is an Avellone fanboy haven that tends to shit on devs like Obsidian in current times and is full of honestly trash people. I mean, just browse some of the codex threads and you get a sense of the type of folk that hang out there. They have something to gain from dropping this right before Pillars 2 comes out.

edit: lots of swearing against resetera / neogaf

@topic baked the game with 250€€€ fuck me

@avallone what a fucking shitshow, no business is a honeybunny lovetrain but this is straight out of a nightmare. as an economist it makes someone quite curious whats going on with the obsidian management, i mean they have quite a lot of somewhat successful and well known ip´s and still are struggling for years now.

 

[Maculo]

The IRS angle is completely deranged. If the wife is officially on the books, then she fills her taxes. And if she fills her taxes, why would IRS give a slightest amount of fuck about specifics of her employment. The IRS wants its loot. Once they get that, they don't give a shit.

Because an owner may try to structure payments to the reduce tax implications. As Mustawd stated prior, a dividend (i.e. payment to shareholder) typically has a higher tax burden than a wage. To avoid the higher tax burden, one just pays a family member a "wage" and saves on the taxes.

 

[Infinitron]

Chris Avellone is Infinitron on Obsidian's payroll too?

Wow, didn't know Feargus has son who works for Israeli Defence Force, wrote Tyranny and is mod on RPG Codex while only being 10 year old!

That's why Avellone has been teasing him entire thread, cause he knows him from Obsidian but won't go too hard on him cause he's well, 10 year old and sins of father are not passed on son. Money is though...

My role at Obsidian is "that RPG Codex dude who sends passive-aggressive shitposts to Josh Sawyer's Tumblr Q&A at least three times a week, trolls on Pillars of Eternity Twitch chats, tries to insert inappropriate memes as Kickstarter backer content, and stirs up drama on the forums every chance he gets"

 

[Mustawd]

as an economist

Welcome to the club. We have your seat reserved. This thread is about business and law now.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

The IRS angle is completely deranged. If the wife is officially on the books, then she fills her taxes. And if she fills her taxes, why would IRS give a slightest amount of fuck about specifics of her employment. The IRS wants its loot. Once they get that, they don't give a shit.

250 pages later....

Feargus' prison was completely unecessary. Avellone didn't provide any concrete evidence. I'm sure that Obsidian will reopen its doors soon enough. The government doesn't have all this power.

What can change the nature of a fanboy?

 

[toro]

The IRS angle is completely deranged. If the wife is officially on the books, then she fills her taxes. And if she fills her taxes, why would IRS give a slightest amount of fuck about specifics of her employment. The IRS wants its loot. Once they get that, they don't give a shit.

I agree. This is a conflict between two business owners bound by a shareholders agreement and that agreement should incorporate some dispute resolution mechanisms.

My guess is that there no such agreement or Feargus wrote it. You cannot be "de-ownered" without compensation unless there are some other contractual obligations which MCA did not mention.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Man, this thread is for the ages.

 

[The Wall]

My role at Obsidian is "that RPG Codex dude who sends passive-aggressive shitposts to Josh Sawyer's Tumblr Q&A three times every week, trolls on Pillars of Eternity Twitch chats, tries to insert inappropriate memes as Kickstarter backer content, and tries to stir up drama on the forums every chance he gets"

That seems like awfully lot things to take care of, not to mention patroling this asylum all while at work. The question is, who then protects Israel from Muslim sea that surrounds it if you're too busy retardoing threads on Codex and getting under Josh Sawyer's skin? Does, does.... that mean the Gates of Israel are unguarded??

Who'll storm this thread first, Mossad or IRS? Place your bets!