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.
Fair enough. Obsidian and others are certainly open to critiques on their business decisions and their approaches to making games (going first-person, for example). However, based on the core topic of the thread, given that I consider Larian's games to not be good games (including BG3), the last thing I want is for other RPG studios to start cranking out games similar to Larian's games.
Also, people continue to keep furthering the falsehood that PoE2 performed poorly. That is factually not true, and Obsidian have officially stated that PoE2 (eventually) ended up being a financial success for them.
So ...,
Larian: make a few big games that are all very smiliar to one another (D:OS, BG3), and which are all games I don't care for;
Obsidian: make a range of games where games like their PoE games don's sell as much as Larian's games but are awesome niche games, and profits are made up my also making games like Grounded and TOW that make a lot of money for the studio, allowing them to get by with a smaller profit margin for their PoE games.
In this scenario, I'd MUCH, MUCH rather have Obsidian than Larian.
You and Gray Ghost made some good points that I overlooked in my own self-righteous fury. People have different preferences, and there are those individuals who prefer a studio focus on multiple smaller-scale projects rather than go all-in on one. One of Xalavier's points was that by making megagames the standard, consumers will get games made for everyone instead of the one game that was meant for each of us. We need to respect the idea that all developers have their own way of doing things, and the vertical megaproject is not a "one size fits all." Having said that, I do believe there are important conclusions for viable business strategies in development that people are learning:
-There is a need to renegotiate the investor-developer relationship if creative autonomy can achieve the same level of profits and brand recognition as financially-prioritized control.
-Crowdfunding can be very powerful if paired with an active playerbase and player feedback. Larian did not invent the kickstarter or early access, but it is showing the potential for these tactics to carry megaprojects.
-The way an EA is structured can give different impressions to a playerbase as to what that EA is for, and how their contributions help the game. Compare BG3 with other EAs that develop the whole product over the course of the EA, ending with the final release of the game where version 1.0 is marginally different than EA version 0.90.
-While it is attractive to build one's own IP for creative control and profit exclusivity, big name IPs can draw players that otherwise would not play your game. BG3 has the BG fanbase, the Larian fanbase, the CRPG fanbase, and the DND fanbase as a starting point, and is building on that to start with.
-Maintaining enthusiasm over a long development cycle is essential. If you are not Rockstar or Bethesda, people are not waiting for your game with bated breath.
-This one is still up in the air, but I am interested in the idea that company growth can scale with project and revenue growth, only to be consolidated after the project is finished. I don't think of game development as an industrial endeavor, but if it works, this approach could be huge for catapulting indie devs into AAA-sized devs.
