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| [Oct 20, 2012, 1:26 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
An interview on GamesIndustry International talks with Chris Avellone of Obsidian Entertainment about their recent Kickstarter for Project Eternity, and how they managed to attract a record-setting four-plus million dollars in funding. As noted by VG247, this conversation includes indications they hope this role-playing game will become a multimedia franchise: Our hope with Eternity is that it's just the first in a series of installments, and then obviously we want to do the full expansion packs, and then extra content, just because we know we really enjoyed doing that for Fallout: New Vegas. We'd want to continue adding new content to the world. The first game is only one moderately sized nation in a much, much, much bigger world where a lot of other things are going on. There's plenty more room for games in that universe and that's what we'd like to do.
It's kind of nice because not all of that has to be done in the games; we can go out and look for graphic novel tie-ins and novel tie-ins and stuff. It is kind of cool to be able to pursue that on our own without having to go through a publisher, or accept the fact that whatever franchise we're with already has the avenues all covered. It's such a nice feeling.
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| 28. |
Re: Obsidian Hopes Project Eternity is a Series |
Oct 21, 2012, 02:28 |
Creston |
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mellis wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 21:34:
It still bothers me how little $4 million is for developing a AAA game. Obsidian is not a small developer, their burn rate must be substantial.
You're assuming the entire studio is working on Project Eternity, which is not the case. They've said that the added funding will allow them to shift people over TO PE from other games, but obviously it will be a fairly small team working on it (20-30 people maybe.) Beside PE, Obsidian is working on the South Park game, and an as yet unannounced game.
Their staffing levels certainly appear sufficient (based on the team photo) to actually get a AAA title out the door, but $4 million is going to disappear in no-time. Some analyst was recently quoted as saying that it costs $20-30 *million* to produce an -->average<-- AAA title. Granted that's likely to include cross-platform ports, but even so - $4 million is a long way shy of even half that number.
I don't need an AAA game. I need an enjoyable RPG with a deep storyline, cool characters and manageable combat. It requires no cutscenes, no voice-overs (other than flavor), no 3D world, etc. It also requires little to no marketing, since they're making it for the people who've already paid for it. Finally, it doesn't have to pay for the salary of the 600 dipshits employed at the publisher, 580 of whom have the word "Director" in their fucking title.
I think 4 million can make quite a nice game.
A high profile developer - I'm pretty sure it was one who made games for LucasArts in the distant past - commented that (And again, I can't find the damned link) that PC only Monkey Island 3 or maybe Grim Fandango cost in the region of $13 million to make. Those are not recent games and that's a lot of money, a lot more than $4 million...
Jerykk already showed that Grim Fandago cost 3 million, but in any case, that's a very different style of game. Grim Fandango actually had incredible production values for its time.
People who chipped in (myself included) have Baldurs Gate/Planescape esque expectations - I wonder how realistic they *actually* are.
Well, that's what they said they're making. And they seem pretty damn convinced that they CAN make it for that money. They've also said that they were hesitant to ask for 1.1 million at the start, but they didn't want to ask less, because they couldn't do it for less. So they figured "better be honest about it, that way if it doesn't make funding, we're not promising things we can't do."
So if they say they can do it for 1.1 million, and they've now got 4 million, I think we'll actually get a pretty cool Baldur's Gate-style game.
Creston |
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