Chris already mentioned that he recommended that Eric not be the creative lead because he was too busy creative leading South Park.
Looking at the list of PoE's writers, they really didn't have anyone there qualified for the job except maybe Matt MacLean who was busy elsewhere (also a lead on South Park, eventually leading Tyranny). Perhaps Avellone should have stepped up himself like Feargus initially wanted.
Stepping up was dangerous and demoralizing, especially with Feargus. For all the games that got released, there were others on the never-got-made pile.
But dispensing with the vague answer, here's the specifics of one case, and why I became hesitant to be a lead at Obsidian again (not just South Park, but elsewhere).
After DS3, I did get asked to take on a Project Director role (for a potential sequel) not by Feargus - but because of Feargus.
The reason I was asked, however, was because of how Feargus was treating the team – for all the control he tried in DS3, it had upped in DS4, and the
team came to me and asked if I would come on to be a buffer between them and Feargus, since they were finding a hard time getting approvals and getting work done. It ended up being a lesson that made me very hesitant to report to Feargus (even though I did in the last year at Obsidian).
Feargus, it turned out, sometimes had a tactic where if he disapproves of someone or is angry at someone, he micromanages them to an excruciating degree, calls out everything he objects to (not something that’s necessarily wrong, just something he objects to), and makes it very difficult to move forward on anything. I had seen hints of this indirectly, but never experienced it – it sometimes was employed as a way to get someone to resign without actually firing them. It mostly seemed like an extended form of punishment with no positive goal except to punish the person for some perceived failing.
So I agreed to take on the role, because the ones asking me genuinely seemed to need help, and I also foolishly thought that surely this couldn’t be the case. The project also seemed like it might be fun.
Within 2 weeks of the role, I realized the team was absolutely right, and the problem wasn’t limited to what was brought up to me – it was worse.
While being a buffer helped (slightly), the issue started coming up that Feargus would do sudden pivots on elements he had approved and the team had spent a lot of time on. He would also forget he approved them and would assume he hadn't when he saw a decision he (now) didn't like had been made.
I’m not sure I even classify these events as lies when they occurred because it involves memory and the old classic managerial “gut instinct,” but what I discovered is that elements I would fight for and the team wanted (starting with the story, which was being savaged just like DS3) would be given approval by Feargus when I asked, then he would forget he gave approval, and within a few days of me relaying the good news to the team, he would backpedal and say, “Why this story and not mine? I never approved that.” When confronted on the fact he had approved the change, it would then become, “well, it’s not how I feel today.”
When this occurred, I felt as if I had lied to the team and let them down – and the situation had been out of my control despite my best intentions.
Realizing I couldn’t manage if I didn’t get reliable approvals (it undermined anything I said or did), I stepped down.
The pitch died not long after, which was probably for the best. The core idea was sound, but the process was going to strangle the life out of it. More time and money wasted.
The “I don’t care what I approved, that’s not how I feel today” management retractions would happen a lot. It happened with Parker, too. I don’t care so much about managers changing their mind, but it was rarely communicated to the people who needed to know when they did – and you felt like you were about to walk into a trap you can’t even see coming every time you had a meeting. It would also be easier to take if it the dismisiveness of the decision didn’t also come with anger at the person relaying what had been asked for – and the messenger had no idea their manager no longer wanted it, because their manager had never communicated they had changed their minds and
when they had changed their minds. It was like watching days, even weeks of work, spiral down the toilet.
Again, part of this is a manager’s right, but between Feargus and Parker, their management style would often be to ask for something, you’d plan it out, work on it, and then when they got exposed to what they’d asked for, they’d claim they never approved it.
When you took a risky move and said they had (and
could prove it), their response would be, “well, it’s not what I want today.”
And I do say “risky move” in bringing up the facts of what they asked for because of what would happen when you did.
So, in an effort to fix this (my next mistake), I started relying more on email to track requests and get confirmation vs. face-to-face meetings (which I thought might be the problem, since no notes were taken so decisions could get clouded).
This tracking mechanism worked, but ended up being a mistake, since the facts ended up not being the issue.
The reason it was “risky” was because presenting facts and their actual request never went over well – they’d lose their temper because their change of mind was exposed, so the facts ended up being useless. (Parker once lost it when I asked when we were getting a designer on KOTOR2 that he had promised and was using exclusively for UI work, since it was past the date for the designer to move over to content assistance – and then told me despite what he had promised, this was simply the way it was now, and the designer I had planned for would simply not be available and I had best deal with it – and this blaming was for a plan I hadn’t even proposed, so I didn’t understand the rage.)
Managers can change their mind, that’s fine, but it’s rough when you plan ahead and your manager has changed their mind and doesn’t tell you. It’s more disempowering and chilling when you realize they don’t even know what they asked for or approved of - compounded with the feeling when you have to tell the team the bad news.
My opinion is “That’s not how I feel today” makes it impossible to plan for tomorrow.
