Obsidian Fridays
Josh Sawyer posted a long Project Eternity update (RPGWatch flubs it and calls the game Project Infinity instead) on a variety of topics, including UI design, combat, and screen resolution. Worth a read if meaty technical detail is your thing. Sawyer was also interviewed by Gamers.de recently.
Kotaku posted a lengthy feature piece about Obsidian’s history earlier in the week, which contained some interesting new details (well, one interesting new detail) about the Ultima that Obsidian was approached about making back in 2006.
Another interesting detail from that article was the fact that Obsidian initially lacked funding for South Park: The Stick of Truth. Which game, by the way, should still see release despite the fact that THQ, its publisher, just filed for bankruptcy. (See here for a bit of an explanation.)
Infinitron Dragon posted a lengthy Wasteland 2 development update to the RPG Codex, quoting from various sources all the many things the developers have said about a variety of topics over the last little while. Seriously, hit the post up and have a read…it’s got way too much stuff in there to fit into this post, which I’m aiming to keep at least kind of short.
No Mutants Allowed have done their own round-up of Wasteland 2 developer comments, by the way. inXile’s latest project update, meanwhile, went in a bit of a different direction, and concerns the free copy of The Bard’s Tale that some donors will receive.
Oh, and there’s news about Interplay’s resurrected Black Isle Studios, and none of it is all that good. Essentially, Black Isle have launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance a prototype of something called “Project V13”, which could be a single-player adaptation of what they can salvage from the planned Fallout MMO. Maybe. If it ever gets made.
But here’s the kicker: pledging to their crowdfunding campaign doesn’t get you a copy of the game proper. It just gets you forum access, with or without the privilege of perhaps interacting with some of the developers.
It’s not just me that reads all this and thinks “this is stupid”, right?
Finally, interesting factoid: Dungeon Siege 3 cost around $8 million to make. I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about what Obsidian will be able to deliver with the $4 million and change they raised for Project Eternity…I would assume that much of the cost of DS3 was consumed by things like IP and middleware licensing.
Still…interesting.
Square Enix owned the IP, so I don’t think Obsidian had to license any IP for that. They also used their own engine, but they may have payed for some middleware. And they paid for console licenses.
Brian Fargo said however, that one of the unnecessary costs in traditional AAA development is making several milestone releases and constantly convincing the publisher that they shouldn’t cancel the project.
Project Eternity will have far less than 4 million from crowd-funded budget. Of the $4.1 million, KS takes a 5% cut, Amazon payments takes a 5% cut. Then they have to ship all the physical backer rewards that cost money. There is a good chance that Obsidian will see more like $3.3 or $3.4 million that they can spend.
But these guys have been making games for decades, and I trust them to deliver.