Skyforge MMORPG, co-developed by Obsidian

[Diablo169]

Need to see an English article with some real facts before i react.

 

[Mangoose]

It's not about evil publishers forcing Obsidian to make shit, it's about Obsidian forced to make shit lest go out of business.

Forced by whom?

Forced by themselves for not selling better games in the first place.

You mean, good games sell well and bad games sell bad?

'Cos that's not how it works.

Yeah, you're right. First you release a game that is mediocre in most aspects, at best a flawed jewel AFTER a total restoration mod (KOTOR2). Then you release a game that everyone, even we, consider shit (NWN2). Then you finally make a good game (which is still let down by the mediocre NWN2 engine) but due to your mediocre reputation from your first two games, this goes mostly unnoticed. Then you make another two very mediocre game (SoZ and AP). Suddenly FNV comes but after a record of 1-to-4 everyone avoids it at launch. And then a drop back to mediocrity with DS3.

Basically, Obsidian turned into the developer from whom you don't buy games at launch. Instead, nobody knows what to expect from them due to their spotty record, and probably a sizable majority waits for a sale before they actually open their wallets.

 

[Tigranes]

Except as far as we know, every Obsidian game except AP handily met sales expectations (even DS3 due to its small budget). If you want to propose a narrative to explain where they are financially (rather than critical acclaim wise), you're going to have to do better than "games I thought were mediocre then shit then good".

 

[DeepOcean]

The article says that Obisidian is "helping" Allods team and from what I understood they aren't taking the brunt of the work, maybe this is an attempt to freeride on Obsidian reputation of being makers of hardcore RPGs (for popamole standards). Obsidian gets money and russian developer known for shovelware MMORPG crap can associate their image with a known western RPG developer with some credibility but desperate enough for cash like Obsidian and enter in the western market with something to use in their marketing to not appear like the other 1 million F2P MMORPG shovelware out there, it already worked as alot of people in this thread wouldn't even care if this Skyforge piece of crap MMO even existed if it wasn't for Obsidian name attached to it.

It works as money laundering like russian mafia knows how to do but this time is reputation laundering. Some could argue that Obisidian doesn't have that big reputation but certainly is better than russian company that looks like a mafia money laundering scheme at first look.

 

[Mangoose]

Except as far as we know, every Obsidian game except AP handily met sales expectations (even DS3 due to its small budget). If you want to propose a narrative to explain where they are financially (rather than critical acclaim wise), you're going to have to do better than "games I thought were mediocre then shit then good".

Then the sales expectations were artificially low, because if they met sales expectations for what would be necessary to sustain their company in a healthy state, they would not be in a financial state that necessitates working on a pay2win MMO.

 

[MetalCraze]

Forced by the market realities and shit taste of people who don't want to spent money on good RPGs.

Last time I've checked people spent millions on a mere promise of an RPG.

What you wanted to say is "Obsidian was wanting a piece of free2play milkage too, considering that russians are ready to pay 200 dollars for a single in-game item".

But with Obsidian it's always somebody else's fault that they fail all the time isn't? First every single publisher fucks them up, now Day 1 Purchasers fuck them up with their shit taste. Tomorrow when their DAO clone will turn out to be shit it will be Day 1 Kickstarters who didn't give enough money.

 

[Doctor Psitronix]

OH good lord in heaven above, I wept about this.
Decline,Decline,Decline

 

[Infinitron]

Mangoose It doesn't matter for Obsidian's bottom line how much a game sells when the publisher gets all the money anyway. You should know this.

Anyway is this shit even real?

 

[Rahdulan]

Considering Allods Online was actually a fairly decent MMO that got screwed over hard by publisher greed, gotta have them microtransactions and make end game unplayable unless you spend $100 a month to keep up, I'd say those developers have a lot in common with Obsidian as far as that goes. But yeah, it's a new low and completely playing against Obsidian's strengths as a developer. I guess Urquhart's magic bag of tricks is getting empty at this point.

 

[IDtenT]

Probably not much. I wonder how they ended up on a deal with russian F2P MMO developers, though.

They wanted a western developer to run shit stateside. It's not like it's the first MMO that will have different companies handling it in different parts of the world.

 

[Twinkle]

Anyway is this shit even real?

Yup, there is an official PR blurb (in Russian, but Google translation is good enough):

http://corp.mail.ru/press/news/1746

 

[Duraframe300]

Probably not much. I wonder how they ended up on a deal with russian F2P MMO developers, though.

Mail.ru contacted them. I don't see it likely that Obsidian went to an obscure russian MMO developer for work

Mangoose It doesn't matter for Obsidian's bottom line how much a game sells when the publisher gets all the money anyway. You should know this.

Which brings me to this. It's too early, making statements of what kind of deal this is. Two reasons of the top of my head.

1. We're not talking here about Obsidian wanting to develop a game/MMO for Mail.Ru. Mail.Ru wants Obsidian's support on an existing project.

2. This isn't exactly EA.


Also, just a fun fact for everybody that talks about Integrity. You know in which gerne George Ziets and Kevin Saunders started out? George Ziets literary has worked in some capacity on just as many MMO's as single-player rpgs.

 

[MetalCraze]

Mangoose It doesn't matter for Obsidian's bottom line how much a game sells when the publisher gets all the money anyway. You should know this.

How do you know this? Have you seen all their contracts?

At least you should not be a retard with "I know the truth! Evil evil publishers everywhere! Listen to my doomsay people!". Please stop.

 

[IDtenT]

Mangoose It doesn't matter for Obsidian's bottom line how much a game sells when the publisher gets all the money anyway. You should know this.

How do you know this? Have you seen all their contracts?

He doesn't and all contracts will have performance rewards.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh FFS. Paging Anthony Davis

 

[Anthony Davis]

News to me. Shrug. Way too early to roll out my jump to conclusions mat.

 

[IDtenT]

News to me that X% on MetaCritic isn't a performance reward (even if a retarded one).

 

[Duraframe300]

News to me. Shrug. Way too early to roll out my jump to conclusions mat.

Well, thanks anyway. At least this means, it's a rather recent development.

 

[Infinitron]

News to me. Shrug. Way too early to roll out my jump to conclusions mat.

I paged you for your knowledge of the terms of Obsidian's past contracts, but I understand if you don't want to reply.

 

[Anthony Davis]

News to me. Shrug. Way too early to roll out my jump to conclusions mat.

I paged you for your knowledge of the terms of Obsidian's past contracts, but I understand if you don't want to reply. :p

I misunderstood.

Without even going into specifics to Obsidian, the publisher/developer relationship isn't that different from a lot of other contracts.

Sometimes the publisher wants to keep the IP as part of the deal.
Sometimes the publisher doesn't want the IP.
Sometimes the publisher already owns the IP and are looking for someone to develop it.

Sometimes the publisher is just looking for straight up hired guns. In cases like that, a profit margin is figured into the bid. Problems can arise of course if the project goes off the rails, but that is the developer's problem first, the publisher's problem second. Think of Jurassic Park, Nedry's money problems were his, he agreed to do the job for the amount of money he bid. The fact that in the book he ran into money problems was not the responsibility of the guy who hired him.

Sometimes the publisher, as an incentive, will offer a completion bonus. This usually hinges on delivering the milestones and the final product on time.

Sometimes the publisher, as an incentive, will offer a performance bonus. This usually hinges on well the final product reviews and rates.

Sometimes the publisher, as an incentive, will offer a share of the royalties. This in my experience is very rare. I only saw it once in my almost 9 years in the industry. Josh Sawyer also I think mentions that he has only seen royalties once in his long career. They don't happen very often. Usually a lot of things have to come together to create this situation, 1) the publisher REALLY wants a certain developer. 2) There is an exchange, for example the developer trades the IP rights for royalties, 3) some other situation i can't imagine.

The publishers risk the money, and they reap the rewards.

 

[Roguey]

Suddenly FNV comes but after a record of 1-to-4 everyone avoids it at launch.

Um, it shipped over 5 million at launch. Plus straight from Josh:

there is some weird source that suggests f3 outsold new vegas but that is not true based on anything i ever saw through the end of the last DLC's development. f:nv outsold f3, though it is certainly arguable that f:nv wouldn't have done that without f3 in the first place.

How do you know this? Have you seen all their contracts?

At least you should not be a retard with "I know the truth! Evil evil publishers everywhere! Listen to my doomsay people!". Please stop.

Avellone said on twitter that they do not get money for sales of kotor 2, Alpha Protocol, or New Vegas. They do get royalties from Neverwinter Nights 2.

 

[abnaxus]

Obsidian should work on some Aeria games instead.

 

[Tigranes]

Except as far as we know, every Obsidian game except AP handily met sales expectations (even DS3 due to its small budget). If you want to propose a narrative to explain where they are financially (rather than critical acclaim wise), you're going to have to do better than "games I thought were mediocre then shit then good".

Then the sales expectations were artificially low, because if they met sales expectations for what would be necessary to sustain their company in a healthy state, they would not be in a financial state that necessitates working on a pay2win MMO.

You... don't know how developer finances work, do you. See above posts. I know you're trying to use basic logic here, but sometimes that needs to be complemented by facts too.

If this news is true it is just sad, it's a new low and I think everyone would prefer yet another D&D or Star Wars or even South Park RPG than this crap. (Although we had basically same kind of rumours about Wheel of Time and it seems that never started.)

 

[Duraframe300]

Obsidian is in better financial shape than ever and I really doubt this was *necessary*.

I'm also not as freaked out about this than some other people here. As said before, they most likely only have limited involvement in this.

Wake me up when Obsidian is actually developing (and not just helping out) an MMO and dedicating a large part of their work force to it and they're doing it for EA or Activision.

Before that, I really don't know what I should be worried about here.

 

[MetalCraze]

Avellone said on twitter that they do not get money for sales of kotor 2, Alpha Protocol, or New Vegas. They do get royalties from Neverwinter Nights 2.

So basically it all depends on contract they sign and not Evil Publisher just coming and extorting all the jewgolds like Infinitron suggests? News at 11