Re:the Drama:
Xalavier made some great points insofar as the apply to studios that check one of the following boxes:
-Small
-Limited Professional Experience
-Limited Budget
-Limited Notoriety
And most devs retweeting that argument were in the right. But two devs retweeting that argument need to fuck right off: Obsidian and Blizzard, who have massive notoriety and IPs, comparable team sizes, capacity for large budgets and fundraising potential, and decades of experience.
Avowed shouldn’t have gone through development hell and everything Larian did to develop its brand and secure contracts could easily have been accomplished by Obsidian which was following similar trajectory. Back in the mid-2010s it was clear that Obsidian and Larian were reviving CRPGs together, but only one company had the stomach to stick with it. Don’t even get me started on Blizzard.
Not shitting on Obsidian, which has produced some AMAZING games. But for Sawyer to come out and say that consumers shouldn’t expect RPGs to take the example of BG3 is just not a good look.if a new bar is set in cinematic and reactive RPGs by high level production on a single player experience with a long early access phase, then mid to large sized developers with those capabilities can either publish or perish.
Ambition is not poison. It is risk. For those who have it, they can fly high or crash and burn. For those who don’t, they can find peace in happy mediocrity.
Edits for addition:
If the reason the devs that don’t tick those boxes cannot find success is because of the standards and parameters set by their corporate or financial overlords, then I hope the financial success of BG3 (and hopefully failure of corporate operations) will force a critical reevaluation of investor-developer relations in this space. Because either the devs are incompetent in game development (unlikely) or investors are shifting priorities so much that it is breaking their products.
For example: Obsidian is responsible for multiples all time RPG classics, has a total employee count exceeding 200, has tremendous industry experience, and can raise millions overnight, as seen in the POE kickstarters. Obsidian was doing every step that Larian was doing, but had more years of success under its belt.
Yeah they need to fuck off, why couldn't Obsidian or Blizzard do this, they're much bigger studios than Larian, it seems like something they could've easily pulled off themselves but for some reason they decided to complained about it, like a bunch of pathetic losers.
Thank God Obsidian and others are NOT following Larian's example.
We are talking about Xalavier’s points on scope and scale for what he calls “megagames,” not Larian’s specific style of game. Obsidian hasn’t put out an RPG since the Outer Worlds, and their production team is consistently divided across multiple projects. Did you think the announcements about Avowed made the game enticing in contrast to its initial release trailer?
I would prefer Obsidian spend its resources on experiences like Pillars, except with more budget and labor to produce fuller experiences.
Whether you like Larian’s style of game or not (even if you haven’t played it), Swen and co. Made extremely intelligent business moves that Obsidian easily could have taken. For example:
-Kickstarters (POE kickstarters were MASSIVE)
-Soliciting player feedback and developing player statistics and datasets.
-Seeking out strong IPs to piggyback or developing more tie in products for their RPGs and worlds.
-Cordoning of 15-20 percent of their game to release as an Early Access pre-order.
-Temporarily scaling company growth with revenue and project growth, and then consolidating after release.
-Centering your team on a small number of projects and maintaining talent enthusiasm and autonomy to avert “development hell.”
-Finding ways to build hype through community engagement even after years of development. People shit on Swen for doing skits and wearing armour, but the panels and influencer collaboration helped to bring community engagement.
Demand more from your favorite companies, not less. In an alternate universe, Obsidian is also putting out their own take on the RPG of the decade, inspired by CRPG classics, Fallout New Vegas, and Owlcat’s Pathfinder.
