Obsidian raised a million dollars in a day on Kickstarter

[celedhring]

Now, this is a great coup for Paradox... but couldn't Obsidian secure a bigger publisher? They're not an indie developer working in their pops' garages, you know... 

[Grey Fox]

Now, this is a great coup for Paradox... but couldn't Obsidian secure a bigger publisher? They're not an indie developer working in their pops' garages, you know... 

In this day and age bigger would have mean Activision, Ubisoft or EA & that just means more Bullshit to deal with.

[Monoriu]

Feel free to enlighten me 

Eh, it's a lot of backers pledging individually what amounts to sofa cushion change in order to get something like Baldur's Gate to play with. You're basically a patron of the Arts, hoping your Mozart writes something decent to listen to and dosen't just run off to drink and whore the money away.

In which case you've risked little and lost even less as an individual.

I have an even better plan: let others pay Mozart, then listen to it for free when it comes out

[sbr]

Feel free to enlighten me 

Eh, it's a lot of backers pledging individually what amounts to sofa cushion change in order to get something like Baldur's Gate to play with. You're basically a patron of the Arts, hoping your Mozart writes something decent to listen to and dosen't just run off to drink and whore the money away.

In which case you've risked little and lost even less as an individual.

I have an even better plan: let others pay Mozart, then listen to it for free when it comes out

That works fine until no one pays, then no one gets anything for free or otherwise.

[Jacob]

My understanding is Obsidian didn't do too well out of New Vegas, because they didn't get a high enough Metacritic review to make a bonus they would have in their contract, but I read that here and so it could be wrong.

That was my understanding as well, but the lesson to be learned there is not to agree to MOEs like that, not to stop making games with the contractee.  Obsidian lost the bonus because they signed a contract with a clause that made it too hard to earn the bonus.  That's on them.

Publishers tend to have a lot more power in those kind of contract negotiations. Or they used to. Maybe it will change; certainly the industry is changing.

EDIT: didn't notice the date on the post I responded to...

[Jacob]

Now, this is a great coup for Paradox... but couldn't Obsidian secure a bigger publisher? They're not an indie developer working in their pops' garages, you know... 

I ran into a colleague of mine at GDC who's now pretty senior at Obsidian... to me it sounded like the arrangement with Paradox was pretty good.

Just because Activision, EA, Ubisoft or whoever are bigger doesn't mean the terms of the deal are better. Perhaps the meta critic score doesn't factor into the revenue with the Paradox deal, for example.

[Jacob]

Feel free to enlighten me 

The reputational risk is too high.

If you are a senior decision maker at Obsidian you have a direct ownership stake in the company. Future potential revenue from legitimate operations outweigh the roughly $1M to be gained from bamboozling the public. Ultimately they're hoping to put the studio in a position where it's worth several hundred million dollars to a potential acquirer (whether they choose to cash out that way, or to keep control of the company and profit as operators).

Basically, it would be the equivalent of you risking the rest of your career and a your pension by embezzling US$50K from your employer. Sure, it's a nice amount of money, but the damage to your future prospects when the inevitable consequences manifest makes it not worth it.

[Valmy]

I have an even better plan: let others pay Mozart, then listen to it for free when it comes out

Your plan has failed for years.

[celedhring]

Now, this is a great coup for Paradox... but couldn't Obsidian secure a bigger publisher? They're not an indie developer working in their pops' garages, you know... 

I ran into a colleague of mine at GDC who's now pretty senior at Obsidian... to me it sounded like the arrangement with Paradox was pretty good.

Just because Activision, EA, Ubisoft or whoever are bigger doesn't mean the terms of the deal are better. Perhaps the  score doesn't factor into the revenue with the Paradox deal, for example.

Aye, the metacritic clause is some serious bullshit if true. I understand videogame sales are really review-driven (unlike movies), but couldn't they just tie the bonus to gross sales? That's what it's about, after all.

[Jacob]

Aye, the metacritic clause is some serious bullshit if true. I understand videogame sales are really review-driven (unlike movies), but couldn't they just tie the bonus to gross sales? That's what it's about, after all.

I don't know what the current state is as I've been out of console games for a bit now, but metacritic clauses were pretty widespread. In fact, I think they were pretty much standard when dealing with publishers etc.

I think the thing is they're the closest thing to an "objective" metric you can get on the quality for a game for the MBA type senior executives who care about Key Performance Indicators (and that's many of them at the big publishers). Thus the bonus and incentive structures for mid-level executives are tied to those, and down it flows from there.

[Razgovory]

I sorta assumed that that the idea was to get picked up by a publisher from the beginning.  Though after seeing several projects come out from kickstarter I dropped that assumption.  I've noticed that Paradox as a publisher goes in for a lot of longshots.  Some work out well and make money (like Magicka), others fail miserably such as that that steampunk Gettysburg game.  I do like to see them take a risk though.

[Jacob]

I sorta assumed that that the idea was to get picked up by a publisher from the beginning.  Though after seeing several projects come out from kickstarter I dropped that assumption.  I've noticed that Paradox as a publisher goes in for a lot of longshots.  Some work out well and make money (like Magicka), others fail miserably such as that that steampunk Gettysburg game.  I do like to see them take a risk though.

Game publishing is pretty broken these days. Everyone, including publishers, are looking at alternative models while trying to milk the old one if they can.

Personally, I like the moves Paradox are making.

[Sheilbh]

Aye, the metacritic clause is some serious bullshit if true. I understand videogame sales are really review-driven (unlike movies), but couldn't they just tie the bonus to gross sales? That's what it's about, after all.

It seems weird that movies have seen critics more undermined because of social media and online reviews (with the exception of Ide, whose reviews only undermine himself) than a video games.

[Razgovory]

Ide doesn't write reviews, he writes dissertations.

[Syt]

I've pretty much stopped looking at review scores and instead look at the reviews themselves and user feedback/let's plays instead. I find those much more informative than a "87%" or "8.5/10" ratings.