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

[Grauken]

Most of what Chris says is believable and shameful on Obs' management if true(prolly is) but the timing of all this is annoying. I was watching Anthony Davis' streaming Pillars 1 few hours ago and one of the QA guys from Obs dropped by and told him they are hard at work polishing the game and he has a few hours rest before overseeing that Cohh guy's Deadfire stream, despite all this he was very enthusiastic and said he's very lucky to be part of this etc bla bla you can cry now And MCA here trying to ruin it for them(the devs he apparently likes) with the timing of his gut pouring after about 3 years. Yeah :D

Anthony is worked very hard at Obsidian, and I regret any long hours or stress he has to deal with (he'll likely have his own response in a few hours, though).

If you ever think I'm attacking Anthony, though, that will never be the case - I think he's an amazing developer, and he's not even a nepotism friend.

Which begs the question, who are your nepotism friends?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

It's the spiritual successor to Darth Roxor's PoE review.

Imagine how Roxor's PoE2 review will look like.

are there really 80 pages already. this is the Torment of threads.

this is the RPGCodex renaissance

Yes the word spreads and lo behold what I saw in reddit, but the edge of abyss that is RPG Codex and I followed its call back again. Time to breath fire back to the Gems of Glittering Hatred.

 

[Brancaleone]

Is there ever been an official poll on the best Codex drama-thread?

 

[Prime Junta]

are there really 80 pages already. this is the Torment of threads.

this is the RPGCodex renaissance

this thread is a typical late Chris Avellone production

over here, a band of merry adventurers murdering xaurips and turning in spears for coin

over there, durance and the grieving mother playing a four-handed war requiem on a church organ

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

"This system doesn't work as well as it could so let's replace it with another system that's been proven to be even worse time and time again"--

But it wasn't true socialism!!! LOL

I will bite. What is real socialism,sweden?

Nope, the wellfare system of sweden can only be sustained by the glories of the free market. What they mean by that is an utopia where their political and ecomical goals are achieved (abolishing private property, etc.), but the country doesn't become a backwater and bloody dictatorship.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

UNIONS!

 

[fantadomat]

"This system doesn't work as well as it could so let's replace it with another system that's been proven to be even worse time and time again"--

But it wasn't true socialism!!! LOL

I will bite. What is real socialism,sweden?

Nope, the wellfare system of sweden can only be sustained by the glories of the free market. What they mean by that is an utopia where their political and ecomical goals are achieved (abolishing private property, etc.), but the country doesn't become a backwater and bloody dictatorship.

In such a society,will YOU agree to be one of the field or factory workers?

 

[Bohr]

And here we go again...

Ah well. Archive.is was probably about to blacklist my ip for spamming their servers anyway.

 

[ArchAngel]

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment:
Maybe those unknown Feargus expenses were the plane tickets home for those poor developers whole family was in dire need that Anthony Davis was talking about.

 

[Quillon]

Which is why you came here where most of the audience reveres you as god among men :D

Again, the Codex was one of the few that ever asked.

Btw. we've been asking you Qs for as long as I was on codex in your appreciation thread(prolly before that also), the messenger always said something about NDA & you can't talk somehow, and you responded very rarely there. Just saying.

 

[ArchAngel]

Which is why you came here where most of the audience reveres you as god among men :D

Again, the Codex was one of the few that ever asked.

Btw. we've been asking you Qs for as long as I was on codex in your appreciation thread(prolly before that also), the messenger always said something about NDA & you can't talk somehow, and you responded very rarely there. Just saying.

Answer is very simple.
Lets look at the facts first:
1. DarkUnderlord is nowhere to be seen in this topic
2. DarkUnderlord likes to troll the Codex

So the only possible answer is that DU has taken over Chris Avellone account and he is creating this drama.

EDIT: I am not the first that came up with this idea but after he has not appeared in the topic for many more pages after last time someone brought this up, it just makes him more and more guilty

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

what unknown expenses?

i am visiting the thread after 50 pages

 

[ArchAngel]

what unknown expenses?

i am visiting the thread after 50 pages

I guess you have to go back now and read all those 50 pages you missed. I am sure the answer is somewhere in there

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Anyway Chris, I think even the people reading this thread who take your claims about Obsidian as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, would probably agree you've got a bit of a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side complex.

I mean, are you telling me that the Chris Avellone that we see before us today, the ideologue of correct management practices, wouldn't find Troika Games to be a mismanaged clusterfuck?

Have you watched Leonard Boyarsky's interview on Matt Chat? There's some real despair porn in there: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10827

And he's not all that proud of what he did afterwards at Blizzard either.

And then there's your friend Ken Levine, whose troubled stewardship of Bioshock: Infinite was the topic of many a Kotaku and Polygon longform expose.

It's a troubled industry full of broken processes, but somehow at the end it all evens out, mostly.

You don't know how Troika would do if they had access to Steam, GOG or kickstarter. Or if at the time they were willing to compromise instead of wanting to make CRPGs.

 

[AwesomeButton]

kickstarter

Thanks, but no. I saw what Kickstarter brought. It's sword dildos and full VO.

 

[Maculo]

Chris Avellone dream scenario:

1) Obsidian owners resign in shame
2) Tim Cain appointed acting CEO
3) During Project Indiana's development, Obsidian acquired by Take Two Interactive
4) Chris Avellone appointed as General Manager
5) The purge begins

Based on these steps, I wouldn’t do a purge – and I also wouldn’t want some of the owners to go, either – but they would need bosses. I'd even consider working with Feargus if he had someone watching him (production-wise and accounting-wise, I wouldn't let him near finances).

I also wouldn’t want to be a GM, I’d want Cain (and Boyarsky) to do whatever they’d like and support them because I believe based on their track record, that would pay off in the end – for everyone, including them.

But, before you think I’m being overly kind, the poorly-performing nepotism hires would, yes, all be let go. They are evident even to the folks still at Obsidian, and it causes problems to this day to see some underperformers getting special treatment for no other reason than, well, "the owner knows them and drinks beer with them."

Seems the clique speculation was not too far off.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Which is why you came here where most of the audience reveres you as god among men :D

Again, the Codex was one of the few that ever asked.

Btw. we've been asking you Qs for as long as I was on codex in your appreciation thread(prolly before that also), the messenger always said something about NDA & you can't talk somehow, and you responded very rarely there. Just saying.

Answer is very simple.
Lets look at the facts first:
1. DarkUnderlord is nowhere to be seen in this topic
2. DarkUnderlord likes to troll the Codex

So the only possible answer is that DU has taken over Chris Avellone account and he is creating this drama.

EDIT: I am not the first that came up with this idea but after he has not appeared in the topic for many more pages after last time someone brought this up, it just makes him more and more guilty

I stopped caring about RPGs around about the time Troika died, when Avellone became a lost wandering soul, Leon joined the ever declining Blizzard, and Tim sold his soul to the MMO crowd.

Also, I ain't wading through 80+ pages of Codexer's shit just to find some juicy Avellone nuggets. I'm waiting for Infinitron to post the summary article.

So far, as to what's been said, none of it is surprising or unexpected. Particularly in creative fields. And particularly in the game industry. And particularly with Feargus and Co. We know he can't run a business. Don't you guys remember Interplay?

 

[Roguey]

I’m not sure what you did will protect you from libel, and unfortunately, your blast was much wider than Roguey’s when you spread the news you believed was true to a wider audience - so I would accept it and hope for no consequences.

??? When did this happen? I remember him being skeptical, and I don't recall it being discussed anywhere outside the appreciation thread.

 

[2house2fly]

Infinitron

Can we please move the communism bs from Prime Junta to GD, where it belongs?

Agreed, could the authorities please come in here and remove the bad think?

 

[Quillon]

and I don't recall

It ain't happened then.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Maculo]

Articles of Incorporation below in case anyone is interested (probably no one )

So Bester made me think about something weird here. Article 4 clearly states:

This corporation is authorized to issue only one class of shares of stock, which shall be designated "Common Stock

Which means MCA never did have a lower class of stock. Which tells me:

1. The assumption when this company was formed is that its owners, in terms of type, are on equal footing. Of course this can vary in terms of power in how the shares are distributed. But if you own a lower share of stock there's always that implication that you're a lower tier owner.
2. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have particular experience with private corps like Obsidian. But I'd be willing to bet the forcing a stock buyback would have to clear a p. big bar. So that tells me either One person holds more shares than the rest of the owners. Or that the majority of owners had to vote to kick MCA out.

I'm sure some of you might think that's not a huge distinction, but I tend to think it is. IMO it'd be a bigger fuck you to him for it to be done by his fellow owners at Obsidian. But who knows who has the share distribution or what's in the shareholder agreement.

Technically yes, but Avellone's answers leaves much to the imagination. Based on his prior posts, it just seemed like a snap of the finger decision by Feargus, which makes it seem less like a forced stock buyback. A stock buyback requires some degree of corporate formality (i.e., resolutions, notice, etc.) in my experience, and those details are absent in Avellone's posts.

Hard to say without more details.

So that's it? Just one page with no bylaws and association articles whatsoever? Is that common in US corp. law?

Pretty much. In my experience, most corporate documents are kept strictly confidential to the extent possible by the Board of Directors and shareholders. Information on State Corporation Commission websites typically is available just to ascertain the entity's status (i.e., still existing) and registered agent. When corporations clear the bar to become public corporations, there are additional filing requirements, but that often relates to financial information as opposed to corporate governance documents.

 

[Hassknecht]

A studio for the PEOPLE

Hm, that has a nice ring to it. Or a studio for GAMERS.
How about this for a slogan: By gamers, for gamers? That sounds great, why has nobody thought of it before??

/edit:
Aw shit, The_Time_Master already made that joke.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Well, I somehow managed to get through 89 FUCKING PAGES OF FUCK! All it took was those 89 pages to convince me not to buy PoE 2. Thanks for tanking my perception of my favourite RPG dev.

 

[Roguey]

By the way I think it's delightful that he's being coy and all "What? I never mentioned any names. You inferred that," when he specifically mentioned it was "nerve-wracking and anxiety-inducing to even be at work and made me avoid company events as well." Seems to me that could only ever describe Interplay or Obsidian, and while it seems rather difficult to find out who the HR director was at Interplay, I doubt it was one of Fargo's wives.