Development Info South Park: The Stick of Truth delayed

[J_C]

Mrowak

Just out if curiosity? What is your job? I hope you are not a lawyer at a firm dealing with consumer rights protection. :D

 

[Mrowak]

Mrowak

Just out if curiosity? What is your job? I hope you are not a lawyer at a firm dealing with consumer rights protection. :D

I do software and translation/localisation projects.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Do you really think that managerial "help" from biodrones is going to save KS?

No one's talking about managerial rights. There should be rights protecting the interest of the consumer and requirement for the developer to set up a fail-safe mechanisms (e.g. insurance) and announce their general plan as well as an official, sanctioned vision document.

Do you understand that you are asking for a complete overhaul of the whole industry and KS. Same system should be applied to preorders and etc. Let's be real for a second. Developers don't get that much from KS to help them make their games. What you are proposing is going to decrease the funds they get even further, to some it will decrease to such level that the whole KS will become not viable.

You want take away my freedom to support projects that I want (because some will be unable to participate), just so you could sleep calm? I have a better alternative for you. Don't pledge and there will be no problem.

 

[Mrowak]

Do you really think that managerial "help" from biodrones is going to save KS?

No one's talking about managerial rights. There should be rights protecting the interest of the consumer and requirement for the developer to set up a fail-safe mechanisms (e.g. insurance) and announce their general plan as well as an official, sanctioned vision document.

Do you understand that you are asking for a complete overhaul of the whole industry and KS. Same system should be applied to preorders and etc. Let's be real for a second. Developers don't get that much KS to help them make their games. What you are proposing is going to decrease the funds they get even further, to some it will decrease to such level that the whole KS will become not viable.

It seems to me that I accidentally deleted a sentence from my previous post. Those restrictions should apply only to big developers with over $500,000 estimated budget. If they are big enough, and have those couple of millions or hundreds of thousands dollars stashed - as you kept arguing - they can afford such costs to get even more money for an investment. If they are not so affluent that's a sure sign they shouldn't ask for so much funds.

I spoke only about big players. Smaller developers who do not require so much money and who presented their audience with something more substantial e.g. alpha version of the game, so I don't see a problem here.

You want take away my freedom to support projects that I want (because some will be unable to participate), just so you could sleep calm? I have a better alternative for you. Don't pledge and there will be no problem.

I personally do not care much about the money I spent. I spent them knowing exactly what I am getting into, and I can afford it if they do not return to me what I invested. What I argue here about professionalism and not treating a consumer like a tool - some measures that would actually force the devs to be mindful of what they are doing and get some quality assurance. If they cannot impose it on themselves, I see no reason not to impose that on them.

This is what annoyed me with the campaing - the fact that beyond keywords there was nothing in it. A bunch of commercials, without anyone even trying to treat us seriously. Well, the other side of the coin is that we let ourselves be treated like sheeple. I don't know which is worse, quite frankly.

 

[evdk]

Do you understand that you are asking for a complete overhaul of the whole industry and KS. Same system should be applied to preorders and etc. .

Why not? It's not like it's working well.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Do you understand that you are asking for a complete overhaul of the whole industry and KS. Same system should be applied to preorders and etc. .

Why not? It's not like it's working well.

What exactly are you proposing?

 

[evdk]

I have absolutely no idea. My point was that if the price for more consumer rights was a complete overhaul of the current system then that is a price I would pay without hesitation, mostly due to my before mentioned believe that the current system is shit.

 

[J_C]

Do you understand that you are asking for a complete overhaul of the whole industry and KS. Same system should be applied to preorders and etc. .

Why not? It's not like it's working well.

So far, Kickstarter worked well. Lets just wait how the big players perform.

 

[evdk]

So far, as far as the big boys are concerned, Kickstarter has not worked at all.

 

[J_C]

That's why just wait for the first big projects to finish. If they fail, than that 's a proof that you are right. If not, than you are wrong.

 

[l3loodAngel]

It seems to me that I accidentally deleted a sentence from my previous post. 1. Those restrictions should apply only to big developers with over $500,000 estimated budget. 2. If they are big enough, and have those couple of millions or hundreds of thousands dollars stashed - as you kept arguing - they can afford such costs to get even more money for an investment. 3. If they are not so affluent that's a sure sign they shouldn't ask for so much funds.

4. I spoke only about big players. Smaller developers who do not require so much money and who presented their audience with something more substantial e.g. alpha version of the game, so I don't see a problem here.

5. I personally do not care much about the money I spent. I spent them knowing exactly what I am getting into, and I can afford it if they do not return to me what I invested.

1. There are no bid developers on KS. If you mean DF, Ixile and Obsidian. They are not big and the amount they get is trivial compared costs making a game. 500 K - KS fees - 200 K Insurance - Physical goods and bandwidth. And what doe they get for actual game development.

2. AAA budgets get to +100 million, they are asking for 1%. Why do you want to rake them even further? What about people who are not known but actually managed to get more. Should they be capped at 500K ? What would be their insurance premium? What would be the insurance premium of some crew of 5 guys that are new and ambitious new comers if one of them has a criminal record? And it's just a top of an iceberg.

3. So if you are rich you become richer and if you are poor - just die with your game ideas.

4. Alpha version of the game? So if some people want money tom quit their day jobs to actually make a game, they need the game almost ready. If you are at alpha, chances are you are going to finish the game without extra funding. Giving money to people who don't actually need it?

5. Don't lie! People who don't care don't ask for a guarantee in EVERY PE thread. People that donated and did not ask for guarantee are the ones who don't actually care.

 

[l3loodAngel]

I have absolutely no idea. My point was that if the price for more consumer rights was a complete overhaul of the current system then that is a price I would pay without hesitation, mostly due to my before mentioned believe that the current system is shit.

Do you understand that implementation of those rights would cost a shitload and would handicap many if not all companies willing to do a KS. The companies that will not be affected will be Activision -Blizz, EA, MS publishing and etc. Be careful of what you wish, because you just might get it.

 

[evdk]

Matt
Basically yes. It's just that as it is now such a big failure might fuck any future KS project hard.

 

[Mrowak]

4. Alpha version of the game? So if some people want money tom quit their day jobs to actually make a game, they need the game almost ready. If you are at alpha, chances are you are going to finish the game without extra funding. Giving money to people who don't actually need it?

It appears you are clueless. First of all, alpha isn't an "almost made game". It's a very early stage of development. Secondly, there are actually plenty of games that got funded this way. Just look at FTL:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light

or Retrovirus (unsuccessful)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cadenzainteractive/retrovirus

Young, ambitious developers *have to* put something substantial other than a bunch of promises. FTL guys did present their concepts and this allowed them to develop their project. Why should Obsidian, a much larger studio with "professional" designers and planners be excused? I mean I know that due to the scope of the project they cannot prepare an alpha version. But since they have all those people and magical "possibly millions" in their coffers why they cannot be bothered with a bloody vision document? Don't you think something's clearly wrong here?

5. Don't lie! People who don't care don't ask for a guarantee in EVERY PE thread. People that donated and did not ask for guarantee are the ones who don't actually care.

I do not lie. I've got money to burn. Maybe not all that much, but whatever :shrugs: I simply loathe when someone tries to treat me like a gerbil. The only thing worse than that is letting others do so.

 

[Roguey]

That's the problem. Their buggy games have nothing to do with bad financial management. They had a bad QA team, that's certain. They admitted this themselves when they sad in an interview that they had a very small QA team.

You misunderstood, they have a small QA team because the publishers are responsible for the vast bulk of it. Obsidian bugs are usually the result of rushed schedules. Poor planning can be a part of that, since they have promised to do too much given what they can realistically do.

 

[J_C]

That's the problem. Their buggy games have nothing to do with bad financial management. They had a bad QA team, that's certain. They admitted this themselves when they sad in an interview that they had a very small QA team.

You misunderstood, they have a small QA team because the publishers are responsible for the vast bulk of it. Obsidian bugs are usually the result of rushed schedules. Poor planning can be a part of that, since they have promised to do too much given what they can realistically do.

But the publisher QA didn't do a good job either.

 

[maverick]

Goddamn. Obligatory:

 

[DarkUnderlord]

DU is usually a man of sound reason, so I don't understand why he's gone off the deep end here. Both DarkUnderlord and Mrowak are guilty of exaggerating every possible problem regarding PE and Obsidian while ignoring anything positive.

Obsidian has been in business for nearly 10 years and have released many games in that time. Why is it so hard for you to accept that Obsidian knows how to make games and how to stay solvent in an unstable industry?

Yes, they've been in business for 9 years - but most of Obsidian's games have been sequels to other franchises they've been able to acquire out of relationships and friendships they've had with those developers. They haven't been original titles.

2004 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords
2006 - Neverwinter Nights 2
2007 - Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer
2008 - Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir

2010 - Alpha Protocol*
2010 - Fallout: New Vegas
2011 - Dungeon Siege III

TBA - South Park: The Stick of Truth*
TBA - The Wheel of Time* (speculated since 2010)
TBA - Project: Eternity*​

*Denotes an original title.

When they've attempted to develop their own games, they've had less than stellar results. Alpha Protocol sales were "slow" and "hasn't sold what we've expected" (SEGA blamed it for a weak quarter in 2010). Even so, their sequels have not been well-received either. Dungeon Siege III was not well received (I mean FFS it's a game based on an interactive screensaver - how can you fuck that one up?). Obsidian failed to hit the required 85 MetaCritic score for Fallout: New Vegas and so missed the boat on some extra cash there.

BioWare are what kept Obsidian alive for the first five years of its life. They're an EA puppy now though and I believe it would be unlikely that Obsidian will be receiving any love from them. The two BioWare Doctors (whom most of Obsidian had a relationship with from the old IE days at Black Isle Studios) are no longer there. Bethesda... might look to them for another Fallout expansion, if they over-look the low metacritic score. The Stick of Truth was a happy circumstance and P:E is their own self-funded baby. The Wheel of Time is still unknown.

Given their poorly received titles and lower than expected sales, you can't say Obsidian are floating in cash (at best we've had speculated a few hundred k) and yet they do have large premises - and they're now a studio that likes to work on 2 - 3 titles at once. They've got (or had, before March) around 125 employees but they've never had that "huge hit" a video game company needs to really survive.

They've also been set with major lay-offs. Of course they're hiring and firing people as projects come to a close (in that respect, the game industry is a lot like a film company). What it indicates is a company that is living from project to project.

We know that Obsidian only have 2 projects on the go. South Park, and P:E:

RPS: Recently, Obsidian had to lay off a large number of people, which was absolutely devastating to hear about. Can you discuss, at all, the circumstances behind that? How many projects is Obsidian working on at this point?

Chris Avellone: A project was suddenly canceled. It happens in the industry – in this case, it affected a large number of employees. We’re working hard at finding them jobs, and friends and developers in other companies also were great in coming forward and helping us out, so many thanks to them. We’re still working on two projects: South Park, and a team focused on pitching our second project that we put on hold for North Carolina.​

That was in April. "Our second project" either failed and P:E was born, or P:E was the second project. There is an option that the "second project" was successful and P:E is a third project - but I honestly doubt that given there's been no news I've seen of that.

P:E is at best, a B+ title, not AAA (although I'm sure they'll make it look good). It can afford about 20 staff - and is not a large project. The other one of those projects, South Park, is potentially under threat from THQ. We don't know the details of the publishing arrangement nor how much THQ are putting into it themselves - if anything, or how that is structured. But it doesn't bode well. There's also the addded fact that it's being worked on around Matt and Trey's own availability - which must be wrecking havoc with Obsidian's schedule. (Oh yeah, and most of the hard programming stuff has most likely been done over the last year, meaning Obsidian don't need those people around anymore - hence the SP team lay-offs earlier this year.)

So yeah, when I see idiots banging on about how this is all great and thinking P:E is paid for out of some kind of pool of "other money", and then how "office space is free!!!11!oneonetwo", I like to point out reality.

 

[Rake]

DU is usually a man of sound reason, so I don't understand why he's gone off the deep end here. Both DarkUnderlord and Mrowak are guilty of exaggerating every possible problem regarding PE and Obsidian while ignoring anything positive.

Obsidian has been in business for nearly 10 years and have released many games in that time. Why is it so hard for you to accept that Obsidian knows how to make games and how to stay solvent in an unstable industry?

Yes, they've been in business for 9 years - but most of Obsidian's games have been sequels to other franchises they've been able to acquire out of relationships and friendships they've had with those developers. They haven't been original titles.

2004 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords​

2006 - Neverwinter Nights 2​

2007 - Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer​

2008 - Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir​

2010 - Alpha Protocol*​

2010 - Fallout: New Vegas​

2011 - Dungeon Siege III​

TBA - South Park: The Stick of Truth*​

TBA - The Wheel of Time* (speculated since 2010)​

TBA - Project: Eternity*​

*Denotes an original title.

When they've attempted to develop their own games, they've had less than stellar results. Alpha Protocol sales were "slow" and "hasn't sold what we've expected" (SEGA blamed it for a weak quarter in 2010). Even so, their sequels have not been well-received either. Dungeon Siege III was not well received (I mean FFS it's a game based on an interactive screensaver - how can you fuck that one up?). Obsidian failed to hit the required 85 MetaCritic score for Fallout: New Vegas and so missed the boat on some extra cash there.

BioWare are what kept Obsidian alive for the first five years of its life. They're an EA puppy now though and I believe it would be unlikely that Obsidian will be receiving any love from them. The two BioWare Doctors (whom most of Obsidian had a relationship with from the old IE days at Black Isle Studios) are no longer there. Bethesda... might look to them for another Fallout expansion, if they over-look the low metacritic score. The Stick of Truth was a happy circumstance and P:E is their own self-funded baby. The Wheel of Time is still unknown.

Given their poorly received titles and lower than expected sales, you can't say Obsidian are floating in cash (at best we've had speculated a few hundred k) and yet they do have large premises - and they're now a studio that likes to work on 2 - 3 titles at once. They've got (or had, before March) around 125 employees but they've never had that "huge hit" a video game company needs to really survive.

They've also been set with major lay-offs. Of course they're hiring and firing people as projects come to a close (in that respect, the game industry is a lot like a film company). What it indicates is a company that is living from project to project.

We know that Obsidian only have 2 projects on the go. South Park, and P:E:

RPS: Recently, Obsidian had to lay off a large number of people, which was absolutely devastating to hear about. Can you discuss, at all, the circumstances behind that? How many projects is Obsidian working on at this point?​

Chris Avellone: A project was suddenly canceled. It happens in the industry – in this case, it affected a large number of employees. We’re working hard at finding them jobs, and friends and developers in other companies also were great in coming forward and helping us out, so many thanks to them. We’re still working on two projects: South Park, and a team focused on pitching our second project that we put on hold for North Carolina.​

That was in April. "Our second project" either failed and P:E was born, or P:E was the second project. There is an option that the "second project" was successful and P:E is a third project - but I honestly doubt that given there's been no news I've seen of that.

P:E is at best, a B+ title, not AAA (although I'm sure they'll make it look good). It can afford about 20 staff - and is not a large project. The other one of those projects, South Park, is potentially under threat from THQ. We don't know the details of the publishing arrangement nor how much THQ are putting into it themselves - if anything, or how that is structured. But it doesn't bode well. There's also the addded fact that it's being worked on around Matt and Trey's own availability - which must be wrecking havoc with Obsidian's schedule. (Oh yeah, and most of the hard programming stuff has most likely been done over the last year, meaning Obsidian don't need those people around anymore - hence the SP team lay-offs earlier this year.)

So yeah, when I see idiots banging on about how this is all great and thinking P:E is paid for out of some kind of pool of "other money", and then how "office space is free!!!11!oneonetwo", I like to point out reality.

DU I agree with most of the things you say except one thing. In the end your theory just comes down to this: DarkUnderlord said: Obsidian need a large number of AAA projects on the go (2 - 3) in order to maintain their space... But they don't have that. They've got South Park - which itself is on shaky ground given THQ's situation. Without another project or 2, they can't afford to keep the space. Not with just South Park's money.

So, they sought another project. That project was P:E
This is just speculation on your part.you could be right, but its just as posible that they had another AAA project and P:E is just their oportunity to use kickstarter to make their own IP and retain the rights to it using the people's money. As a plus in this way they get all the money from the games sales and kickstarter is free marketing in all game sites

OEI designer Matt Festa's LI profile updated

Quote
Lead Technical Designer
Obsidian Entertainment
May 2008 – Present (4 years 6 months)

• Prototype Designer on unannounced project
• Strike Team Lead on Project North Carolina [unannounced, cancelled]
• CTG (Core Technology Group) Tech Designer
• Lead Tech Designer on Dungeon Siege 3: Treasures of the Sun DLC
• Lead Tech Designer on Dungeon Siege 3
• Lead Area Designer on Dungeon Siege 3
• Designer on Aliens: Crucible [cancelled]

This implies that there is an unannounced project
If P:E was the second project and they were making it from April they wouldn't making the strech goals on the fly and propably they would have the design document some of you want. FFS they didn't know if they could make the money,there is no way they were working on this for Six months

 

[J_C]

Yes, they've been in business for 9 years - but most of Obsidian's games have been sequels to other franchises they've been able to acquire out of relationships and friendships they've had with those developers.

Noone gives a fuck. The important thing is that they continued to develop games. Some of them were well received, some of them not so much.

BioWare are what kept Obsidian alive for the first five years of its life.

Again, noone gives a fuck. They just started a new studio, there is no shame in being a number two for a big name studio, especially. I think many developer would have given their left arm just to work on Kotor 2, Neverwinter Nights 2 and FAllout New Vegas.

Given their poorly received titles and lower than expected sales, you can't say Obsidian are floating in cash (at best we've had speculated a few hundred k) and yet they do have large premises - and they're now a studio that likes to work on 2 - 3 titles at once. They've got (or had, before March) around 125 employees but they've never had that "huge hit" a video game company needs to really survive.

Yet they survived for 9 years. And since when a company needs a huge hit to survive? It is only needed to the big players (Bioware, Blizzard etc). It is not a bad thing, but there is a lot of medium sized companies, which survive just OK by making niche games which have OK sales. Stop predicting the doom of Obsidian.

 

[Brother None]

*Denotes an original title.

South Park and WoT may be original titles to video gaming but they're not original IPs or owned by Obsidian. They were only assisting on WoT anyway and to the best of my knowledge that's been frozen for ages (not sure though).

Obsidian failed to hit the required 85 MetaCritic score for Fallout: New Vegas and so missed the boat on some extra cash there.

It sold well though. Bethesda announced "record sales numbers" when it shipped 5 million only a few weeks after launch, citing "revenue" of $300 million. Obsidian saw very little of that, obviously, but still, they can create a hit.

Metacriticic bonus structures suck.

That was in April. "Our second project" either failed and P:E was born, or P:E was the second project. There is an option that the "second project" was successful and P:E is a third project - but I honestly doubt that given there's been no news I've seen of that.

We wouldn't really hear about a project being pitched back in April now, if the pitch was successful. Games usually have a very long hushed-up period before they go public. Not saying their pitch was successful, per Rake's post it wasn't, just saying there's no reason to assume we'd know if they had another AAA project running.

Yet they survived for 9 years. And since when a company needs a huge hit to survive? It is only needed to the big players (Bioware, Blizzard etc). It is not a bad thing, but there is a lot of medium sized companies, which survive just OK by making niche games which have OK sales. Stop predicting the doom of Obsidian.

That's not what Obsidian is. It's what Larian is, or Piranha Bytes, or inXile. They're small-to-medium companies who are fine being small-to-medium. Obsidian is like CD Projekt RED, a studio that immediately wanted to go big and still wants to be huge, run multiple AAA projects at the same time. RED had the backing and licensed IPs to make a big push and they *still* nearly went over the cliff after TW1's release because of the crisis. I don't really doubt Obsidian's skirted the cliff a few times. They're too big, and they don't have a continuous, self-owned source of income, which many of these other studios do. There's no continuous stream of revenue from sales of back catalogs because they don't own anything, so they're pretty much at the mercy of publisher's whims. It's not an enviable position to be in.

 

[J_C]

I don't really doubt Obsidian's skirted the cliff a few times. They're too big, and they don't have a continuous, self-owned source of income, which many of these other studios do. There's no continuous stream of revenue from sales of back catalogs because they don't own anything, so they're pretty much at the mercy of publisher's whims. It's not an enviable position to be in.

I agree with that. But this doesn't mean that Obsidian is destined to be doomed, like DU thinks it is.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

 

[DarkUnderlord]

This is just speculation on your part.

Yes - but it's speculation based on what we know. We know Obsidian have fired staff recently. We know they were only working on 2 projects back in April when that was announced, one of those was South Park, the other was "an idea that was being pitched". We know they lost a next-gen title and had to sack people, and that those lay-offs affected the South Park team.

you could be right, but its just as posible that they had another AAA project and P:E is just their oportunity to use kickstarter to make their own IP and retain the rights to it using the people's money. As a plus in this way they get all the money from the games sales and kickstarter is free marketing in all game sites

Absolutely - and it's great Obsidian are finally getting the chance to "do their own thing"... Assuming of course, they both survive long enough to complete it and that they're able to deliver a product of sufficient quality.

If P:E was the second project and they were making it from April they wouldn't making the strech goals on the fly and propably they would have the design document some of you want. FFS they didn't know if they could make the money,there is no way they were working on this for Six months

Yep, which means either that second project failed - resulting in P:E, or it was successful and they've done a good job at keeping things under wraps. Usually though, this stuff leaks out somewhere (we knew about Wheel of Time for example, even though Obsidian never said anything about it) and we've yet to hear news of this "second project". We do know "North Carolina" was shelved though.

Yes, they've been in business for 9 years - but most of Obsidian's games have been sequels to other franchises they've been able to acquire out of relationships and friendships they've had with those developers.

Noone gives a fuck. The important thing is that they continued to develop games. Some of them were well received, some of them not so much.

BioWare are what kept Obsidian alive for the first five years of its life.

Again, noone gives a fuck. They just started a new studio, there is no shame in being a number two for a big name studio, especially. I think many developer would have given their left arm just to work on Kotor 2, Neverwinter Nights 2 and FAllout New Vegas.

It's not about whether you give a fuck or not, it's about who's paying the bills. Obsidian relied on their partnership with BioWare to generate income. And BioWare is now EA's bitch - and like all EA studios, being raped to hell and back. It is unlikely Obsidian will receive any further funding from BioWare.

This isn't about some sort of altruistic notion - or even shame, this is about where Obsidian's money has come from and where the money's going to continue to come from for them to stay alive.

All I'm really saying is: Obsidian need another project because THQ's issues with South Park potentially put that in jeopardy (and we know recent lay-offs affected that team) and P:E is a "small title". Now either they have another project - or they don't. And if they don't, then they need to get something. But BioWare aren't going to give them Dragon Age, SEGA are having too many problems of their own to re-start the Aliens RPG and as far as we know, Wheel of Time is going nowhere. So who's going to come along and give Obsidian an RPG to develop?

Given their poorly received titles and lower than expected sales, you can't say Obsidian are floating in cash (at best we've had speculated a few hundred k) and yet they do have large premises - and they're now a studio that likes to work on 2 - 3 titles at once. They've got (or had, before March) around 125 employees but they've never had that "huge hit" a video game company needs to really survive.

Yet they survived for 9 years.

Yes, but again, only because of the goodwill of other studios giving them projects. Because BioWare decided to give the sequels to two of their award winning franchises to Obsidian to develop. And because Bethesda decided to give the "original Fallout developers" a chance to make a Fallout game. Even South Park is someone else's idea. Obsidian haven't pitched these ideas to developers themselves, they've been lucky¹ enough to have been given other people's projects.

As Brother None says, unlike BioWare or Interplay, they don't have a revenue stream from successful IPs of their own. They've relied on other people giving them projects. And they've failed in either delivering games that sold well - or games that "scored high enough" for them to get the big bonus payments that would've helped them out. F:NV may have sold very well, but Obsidian didn't get that money.

It doesn't matter that they're sequels. What matters is that they don't get any money from them. I don't think I even need to go into how flaky and risky the game business is either. Pretty much all the RPG developers over the last 20 or more years have eventually run into some major problem and gone under. Black-isle Studios, Interplay, Troika and CD Projekt are the more recent ones. And BioWare looks like it's about to cark it thanks to EA's bungling.

¹In fact, I'd say a lot of Obsidian's projects seem to have relied on luck.

And since when a company needs a huge hit to survive? It is only needed to the big players (Bioware, Blizzard etc). It is not a bad thing, but there is a lot of medium sized companies, which survive just OK by making niche games which have OK sales. Stop predicting the doom of Obsidian.

Except as Brother None and I have pointed, this isn't Jeff Vogel making games in his home office here. This is a big studio with a serious setup, including their own sound room and their own motion capture studio. And that shit ain't cheap.

I've just seen this happen too many times over the past decade to be able to think Obsidian will somehow be different.

 

[J_C]

Now you are starting to make sense.

All I'm really saying is: Obsidian need another project because THQ's issues with South Park potentially put that in jeopardy (and we know recent lay-offs affected that team) and P:E is a "small title". Now either they have another project - or they don't. And if they don't, then they need to get something.

No argument here. They need another project, or they need to downsize to a more manageable level.

So who's going to come along and give Obsidian an RPG to develop?

I don't know, they are probably constantly pitching stuff to publishers. They worked with Sega. They worked with Square Enix and they had a good relationship with them, also SE is interested in working with western devs (Tomb Raider, Dungeon Siege III, Deus Ex, Sleeping Dogs). There are other players on the market besides Bioware, EA and THQ.

Yes, but again, only because of the goodwill of other studios giving them projects. Because BioWare decided to give the sequels to two of their award winning franchises to Obsidian to develop. And because Bethesda decided to give the "original Fallout developers" a chance to make a Fallout game.

This industry is not about goodwill. Bioware didn't say that "damn, those guys at Obsidian are great guys, we should give them our beloved franchises to play with them". No, they looked at the company, saw that they are capable to make a sequel to their games and hired them. Also, we don't know if Obsidian approached the big companies (more likely), or the other way around.