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

[Murk]

Despite the wolves debacle, MCA has forced my heart open to him again.

I will take one of my many copies of PST, grind it down to a fine dust, and snort it tonight to celebrate and commemorate.

 

[Tovias]

Felix, you genuinely make me feel second hand embarrassment, stop posting any time now. This is like watching the retarded kid in college loudly declare he is communist to the teacher.

 

[2house2fly]

my opinion is you spread the wealth

As a communist, I agree. Thanks for the candour

 

[Lyre Mors]

Even more importantly, Feargus’s behavior no longer had to be ignored by the person on the other end of the phone or in discussions in the conference room: Where once if Feargus asked a developer or contractor to do something, they would largely have to swallow it or fight to be polite in order to get paid or keep their project going, the reverse was very hard for Feargus to deal with, and led to a lot of shouting matches (which you could hear down the hall), and even hanging up on publishers. We knew about this because he’d come brag to us about when he hung up on a studio head or producer, which made me even more depressed, since it meant we’d likely lose another contract with no back-up plans (he actually did the bragging rounds from owner office to owner office when he shouted at someone in the studio as well, as if he was showcasing the strength of his management style).

This is fucking insane.

My comment was met with silence by all the owners.

I repeated the concern, but when I brought it up again, Feargus simply said, "we never promised we'd pay the employees back," as if that excused things - but paying the employees back didn’t seem like a technicality to me, this was the right thing to do.

And disgusting.

 

[Fenix]

Josh did turn in his resignation more than once, and apparently (!) Feargus did threaten to fire him and Adam if PoE1 didn’t come out in March

When you thinking this can not be worse... you see next post from Chris Avellone!

 

[Imoens pet]

Financial Matters and Ethics: I also don’t know where the training for handling and responsibility for finances came from, but we didn’t see eye to eye on that, either, as I've said.

It went beyond the transparency in finances - the biggest shock came when the matter arose about paying back employees (not the owners, but our employees) who had given up their paychecks to keep Obsidian from going bankrupt. When we did start getting money in the bank again after this bleak period, however, the company's spending began accelerating again.

This made me uncomfortable, so at that time where our finances became healthy again, I brought up that since we had the means to do so, we should pay back the employees who gave up their paychecks to keep us going.

My comment was met with silence by all the owners.

I repeated the concern, but when I brought it up again, Feargus simply said, "we never promised we'd pay the employees back," as if that excused things - but paying the employees back didn’t seem like a technicality to me, this was the right thing to do.

He then said he wanted the matter dropped.

Fortunately, another owner did finally admit he agreed with me some time later (mostly because one of the unpaid employees confronted the owner on what was going on with it), he was someone Feargus would listen to, and when he brought it up (this time he asked for my support, even though he had been silent before), we were able to push Feargus into establishing a payback plan and get restitution for the employees who sacrificed for us - and this was well before any owner paychecks resumed (by this point, the owners were resolved to not getting paid back, so it wasn't a huge shift).

Overall, it seemed a shameful way to treat our employees who had sacrificed for us, and I wasn’t happy we even had to discuss compensating them – it didn’t seem to be something we should discuss, we should simply do it because it was the right thing to do.

Oh my god that is depressing.

 

[Kingston]

What a fucking shitshow Obs is (if even half of what MCA says is true (why not)). If you're not paying your employees what they are due Especially if they've given up their pay then u can fuck right off. What a fucking joke.

Edit: fixed some spelling, I am drunk

 

[CrustyBot]

I repeated the concern, but when I brought it up again, Feargus simply said, "we never promised we'd pay the employees back,"

 

[2house2fly]

[Cruel] We never promised we'd pay the employees back.

 

[Glaucon]

I'm waiting for the bombs on harassment to be dropped.

 

[Kingston]

Hey MCA was this shit evident from the beginning or was there a distinct change in the way things were handled at some point?

 

[Edmund Spenser]

.

I repeated the concern, but when I brought it up again, Feargus simply said, "we never promised we'd pay the employees back," as if that excused things

This is absolutely pathetic.

 

[Quillon]

I want to apologize if I missed any questions, it’s hard to track them all in the thread – if I missed someone, I apologize, it wasn’t personal, there’s just a lot to read (and apparently on Reddit, too, which I didn’t realize).

I don’t have any issues with Josh, he’s not part of the upper management I mention here (he wasn’t even Design Director until a while after I left, I believe), and I think he’s a good Project Director. I also don’t have any issue with Tim, Leonard, Charlie, Tyson, Rich (Taylor) etc. and they are not part of this either - I like them all and respect their work very much. I am looking forward to Project Indiana.

Josh did turn in his resignation more than once, and apparently (!) Feargus did threaten to fire him and Adam if PoE1 didn’t come out in March, which I never knew. (Yes, owners didn’t talk amongst themselves when they threatened to fire senior employees, apparently, because why would they – it was symptomatic of the poor communication at the studio. I also was never told when Feargus decided to move PoE1's ship date from Sept to March, he didn't mention that fact, either) I only heard about the firing threat when I read about it in Blood, Sweat, and Pixels (at least in the draft I read). I think threatening to fire Josh and Adam under any circumstances isn't a smart move, especially since Obsidian always struggled with trying to find good leads and good programmers. I don't ever think you should threaten employees like that, either.

I also support the idea of making financial and resource sacrifices if it will make the end result better (I supported PoE2’s delayed launch), which was also apparently the crux of the threat.

Special treatment is a much larger issue because all that I observed wasn't consistent, it often made things confusing for other employees (hey, why does so-and-so always get to come at 11?) and bred resentment if not explained, and it can be disruptive to a lead if an owner tells an employee to take the day off or tell them they don't have to make up work afterhours... because they may actually have to do and their lead needs them to do. My opinion is you don't give special treatment, you showcase it in raises and reviews, and you make the reasons explicit, but be very careful of outward facing special treatment in case it could be mistaken for something else. Inward special treatment can also be bad if discovered (hey, why are Josh and Adam getting royalties on PoE and we aren't? Even if "understood," finding this out can be bad for morale - my opinion is you spread the wealth).

Phew... how hard was that to write Chris? Good tho, *sighs* since I had ran out of ways to goad you...

edit: Fuck this shit, Feargus should be banned from game industry with any other wrongdoer with him. But I wouldn't wanna lose Obsidian with him, Deadfire looks gorgeous. Fuck.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Josh did turn in his resignation more than once, and apparently (!) Feargus did threaten to fire him and Adam if PoE1 didn’t come out in March

When you thinking this can not be worse... you see next post of Chris Avellone!

This is old news though.

 

[Fenix]

Felix, you genuinely make me feel second hand embarrassment, stop posting any time now. This is like watching the retarded kid in college loudly declare he is communist to the teacher.

I feel like you crying somewhere there, whiner.


Infinitron take a note please.

 

[Tom Selleck]

1. Where's this Reddit?

2. Our very own Prime Junta discovered Josh wore a Sinn 103 St. Sa. Do you wear a watch, Chris? And if so, what is it?

3. Of the studios / developers you've worked with since your departure from Obsidian, which of them is the LEAST like Obsidian in terms of humanity and decency? If you *had* to work for one in a permanent capacity, which one would you attest to the best conditions under?

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

Mr Chris Avellone, I have a game design related inquiry. How do you rate and relate player agency within the medium of gaming and, more specifically, cRPGs in general? I'm of the opinion that meaningful reactivity and C&C are paramount to consummate player agency with respect to cRPGs(comparatively speaking, I don't think any other genre does justice to agency vis-à-vis reactivity or C&C). So, the second part of my inquiry, how would you set about designing a cRPG that focused heavily on C&C and reactivity? Would it be - Arcanum style tech v magic, strong chargen(race/ethnicity, backgrounds/histories, stats/talents/skills/, ect) and in game consequences(Ie hideously disfigured low charimsa orc named Feargus getting attacked on sight), say Dragon Age like origin stories(I liked the idea even if their execution was lacking) maybe a narrative approach that is hour glass shaped(lots of C&C early, little in the middle and more in the end)?

 

[Fenix]

This is old news though.

But I was right because of this

Feargus simply said, "we never promised we'd pay the employees back,"

Things get worse with every post...

 

[Kingston]

Wherever I am, I must also meme.

(im incredibly drunk=)

 

[Chris Avellone]

1. Where's this Reddit?

2. Our very own Prime Junta discovered Josh wore a Sinn 103 St. Sa. Do you wear a watch, Chris? And if so, what is it?

3. Of the studios / developers you've worked with since your departure from Obsidian, which of them is the LEAST like Obsidian in terms of humanity and decency? If you *had* to work for one in a permanent capacity, which one would you attest to the best conditions under?

1. The Reddit is here: (1600 upvotes, Jesus) https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/8h57zx/chris_avellone_criticizes_obsidians_upper/

2. I don't wear a watch, I wear a fitbit because I am a colossal fatass - but metric tracking helps me fight being even larger.

3. They've all been pretty great - either tracking software wise, producers, or they're just nice, period, sometimes all three. I can't currently list all the studios I'm working with for various reasons, unfortunately. Maybe in a year, but by then, there'll probably be a new set (I usually get new job offers every 3 days, and while I can't accept them all, I do take on a number of them if they're cool and I can make the timing work).

 

[Imoens pet]

Chris Avellone what are your thoughts on Baldur's Gate 1.

 

[Fenix]

My question remains the same Chris Avellone - do you have any RPG in mind, that you want to see, and maybe can't wait to play?
Is it Disco Elysium? I know this joke got old, but I think this RPG game can stand on a par with the Planscape:Torment, and in some aspects even surpass it.
I know you have heard about it already. )

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

 

[Kingston]

MCA what is ur opinion on this wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_furry_role-playing_games

 

[azimuth]

Chris Avellone Thanks for your posts. It sounds like things were bad at Obsidian, but there's something that just doesn't make any sense to me: if the company is so poorly managed, how has it lived longer than BIS (7 years), Troika (7 years), Ion Storm (9 years), and countless other indie studios making similar niche games? (I know BIS was part of Interplay -- but that means Obisidian successfully emerged from the ashes of Interplay in a market that killed Interplay...)

Nobody wants to see how the sausage is made, but every business has its ugly underside, drama, and close calls. Do you recognize that, for all the flaws of Obsidian's upper-management, they obviously have a cockroach-like ability to endure that others lack?