Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - Flames of Vengeance New status update

I just spent two weeks of holidays with my family, taking some very necessary R&R after what has been a very intense year. During those two weeks I blocked myself from all communications with the outside world, and so I had no clue what was going on. Specifically, I had no clue that I would get back and see that plenty of people were already playing Flames Of Vengeance and the first reviews were up !

Some people in the forum expressed disbelief at that, but it really is quite simple: The last thing I did before going on a holiday was sign off on the German gold master for FOV so that printing could begin, and while I was aware they were going to be delivered to the warehouse, the best of my info was that the release date planned by the German publisher was scheduled for August 20th, time of the GamesCon in Köln. But since they got the games sooner than they expected, they figured there was no reason to let them lay in the warehouse, so they started shipping them out. Which makes sense of course.

So once I figured out that the game was out, I was obviously very curious to see what people thought of Flames Of Vengeance – there’s always a moment where your stomach becomes a knot when you release something because you know there’s plenty more you wanted to do but just didn’t have time for. Luckily for my stomach the initial reception turned out to be pretty good, better than for Ego Draconis – the team really received a morale boost when we saw the Gamestar gold award come in, given that it’s such a large and influential magazine, and we had quite a lot of fun when we saw the montage gameswelt did of their visit to our studio just before our holidays.

Warm feelings ensued and lasted for some time until cold reality knocked at the door when we started looking at the workload ahead of us – 6 other language versions of Flames of Vengeance need to be created and tested, three spoken languages together with two subtitled languages need to be crammed on one Xbox360 DVD, 7 different language versions of the Dragon Knight’s Saga need to be created, the Dragon Knight’s Saga itself needs to be finished, and we also have 4 Monkey Labs titles coming out later this year. Or in the games industry lingo, we have 18 SKU’s to deliver between here and Christmas as well as some patches, as well as plenty of PR and marketing materials. Probably we’ll have to cram in some demos in there too.

To be honest, it’s the part we all hate – it’s a lot of fun to work on creating a game during pre-production and production, it’s a lot less fun fixing the bugs in postproduction, and it’s downright hell taking care of all the various versions (I didn’t even mentioned all the digital distrubtion versions with their own installer/copy protection systems), especially if you know that a simple QA run through one set of quest solutions takes up to three weeks for one man to do, and there’s plenty of permutations, and you need to do this for all language versions, knowing that in general the first couple of passes most likely will yield too many bugs so you’ll have to redo it anyway.

Stuff like – **** I forgot to put the right publisher logo in the latest build for that country so we’ll have to rebuild it, essentially meaning that the entire version is invalidated and in theory needs to be completely retested can make you do all kinds of things a normally sane person wouldn’t do. Still, it’s part of the job, but it’s also one of those phases where it really feels like a job. Luckily, you know that there’s a moment when all those versions will be out of the door, and you’ll be able to work on your next game.

Our target date for all of this is October 15th 2010, and undoubtedly small miracles will have to be performed to get everything out in good order, but I’m optimistic that we’ll manage, and I really hope I won’t have to eat those words.
Before I end this status update, I wanted to say a few words also about the bankruptcy of one of our neighbours, Playlogic, the next victim of this crisis which has been damaging our industry so heavily. I’ve lost count of the amount of developers that closed or downsized in the last year, but the number is huge, and I feel for all those guys, many whom I know, that lost their jobs, and are having a hard time finding a new one because there simply are less jobs available. We’re not talking a few jobs here, we’re talking tens of thousands of jobs. The fragmentation of the media landscape, the quality expectations from consumers and corresponding exploding development costs, second-hand games and piracy are all reasons which are being quoted, and while these are all true, one of the core issues for developers at least is very simply that invoices aren’t being paid in time when the developer was counting on those invoices being paid.

This has everything to do with our position in the game industry food chain i.e. at the bottom, and imho it’s pretty unfair. Having been in this industry for some time, I find that in general the development side is in general pretty efficient, simply because there’s a lot of economic pressure on it, yet it’s the side where the money comes last. The most upper layers, where the money comes in directly is probably the least efficient, simply because the money is available and can be used to cover up inefficiences, and I have serious issues with that inefficiency affecting so many independent developers who usually are the ones slaving day and night to bring their products to market.

It’s obviously something which is the case of all media industries, but it really is something that should change. I appreciate the work that is done by many in the publishing and distribution industry, but I also see a lot of redundant and often inefficient work being done, which doesn’t necessarily get optimized when times are tight. Rather the burden is placed on those lower in the foodchain. What I mean is that when the going gets tough, the jobs that probably contribute the least to the creation of games are the ones first protected whereas the jobs of developers of often succesful products are the ones first destroyed, just because of the direction of the money flow. In my opinion, and obviously I’m a developer, it should be the other way around.

Some developers managed to turn the tide, witness the success of Steam, and would we all have mechanisms with which we can reach consumers directly without having to go through the food chain to develop and publish our games, the slaughterhouse that has been the developer scene since 2009, would probably look quite different. Developers really could do with a high visibility portal, with high quality standards, but with very reasonable margins, to release their games directly to consumers, where the developer immediately get access to the income. It would be a welcome change to have a world wherein the creativity of a developer is not rewarded with the creativity of a legal department of a publisher that contrives various reasons not to pay the developer their share.

The typical strategy that has caused more than one independent developer to die in the last two years is pretty cynical. It basically boils down to – publisher/distributor owes a developer money. They don’t pay. The legal hassle starts, the developer finds itself in trouble because it was counting on that money. If the developer doesn’t have sufficient financial stamina to last for quite some time and pay the required legal fees (which are very high), the developer dies, the publisher doesn’t have to pay its royalties and problem solved (from the publisher point of view).

I find this obscene, and I can easily pinpoint the developers that died because of these practices, and it’s only made possible because the revenues from the sales of the game don’t arrive directly at the developer. I get sick when I see some publishers who I know engaged in these practices boast how they steered their company through difficulty times, because they did it by using illegal methods bordering on the criminal.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not the kind of thing all publishers engage in, though it’s the kind of thing you see increase in frequency when publishers are under financial stress, and for a healthy gamesindustry with healthy developers, it should be something that shouldn’t be possible in the first place. And it would’ve avoided many talented teams from going under. It would also result in better games.

The upside of all of this is that those developers that survive do so because they learn to counter these practices, and I think that inevitably it will lead to a change in relationship between developers and publishers in the coming years. It’s just a shame that so many blood will have been shed unnecessarily during the maturation process of this industry, and legal blah prevents these practices from becoming public. There really should be a website dedicated somewhere to uncovering the dirt that goes on. At least future victims of those that are prone to this behavior would be warned then.

This post turned out a bit longer than expected, but it’s an issue I carry close to my heart. I’ve seen plenty of displays of massive money waste at publishers whereas I knew some of their developers weren’t being paid, and it angered me tremendously. But I guess it’s like the conversation Joseph Heller described between David and God in his brilliant book “God Knows” - David says to God “That’s not fair” and God replies “Where stands it written that I have to be fair”

Rereading my post, I realized that this reads too much like a developer versus publisher rant, and that wasn’t really my intention. My point is that we could do with more high profile systems where the developer gets the revenue he is owed immediately, rather than it having to pass through the hands of the retailer, the distributor, the publisher before he gets it, because on the one hand, the time until which he gets the reward for his work can be so long (sometimes a year) that it can cause him to go under and on the other hand, if one of the parties in the chain is in trouble, the developer might not get his cash at all. It’s the side people in this industry seldom talk about, yet it defines very much the activities of developers around the globe. It’s why digital distribution is a blessing, but even there, all is not as it should be.

Cheers

Lar

Thanks for the update, Lar.

I wonder if Radon Labs (Drakensang developer) went down due to some of these publisher 'malpractices'...

I had exactly the same thought ...

Hey again Lar.

Thanks for your honesty. That precise thing happens in many many business ranging from "simple" farming => supermarket food distribution, up to music, videogames, etc.

In time, i do have hope that technology will overcome this "distribution barriers" and things will be much easier in the future in therms of digital distribution.



As a direct man than i am, i wanted to ask you 2 very direct and frontal questions, that you might
answer only if you have no problems with it, so please don't answer if that will get you into trouble.


a) How did it go your relationship with steam for div2 ? in the end how would you describe the result as satisfactory, amazing, disapointing ? An experience to repeat?

b) A lot has been talked about DTP especialy. After your post, how would you describe your current distribution partners? do you regard them as trustworthy partners or do you "fear their legal staff" as much as the next one?


I know, hard to answer, but i had to ask

I don't know about other European countries but in Germany it is usual for the big electronics chains (like Media Markt and Saturn who both belong to the Metro Group) to negotiate extremely generous payment targets, i.e. the chains get games from a distributor or sometimes directly from the publisher but they only need to pay after 90 - 180 days (in reality they pay after a "tolerable" additional delay so you can add another 30 - 60 days to those targets).

So it's not just the developer who gets a delayed payment but actually the distributor and/or the publisher do get their money with a fairly hefty delay as well.

To be honest, I think that the publisher is almost in the shittier situation here than the developer because the developer at least got paid during the development of the game (via the milestone payments) and if they are lucky then they are already getting paid again for developing an add-on/expansion/sequel/DLC/patches but the publisher might not have seen ANY money yet. Like... at all! Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Instead they might have spent three years funding development and then when the game is finally shipping they need to wait another three to six months before they get their first cheques from the retail chain. It would seem to be almost natural that the publishers would try to delay their royalty payments to the developer by some margin as well.

Naturally I don't have the insight that Lar does so I don't doubt at all that there are indeed black sheep among the publishers who have been pushing this way beyond the limits of "good taste" and who have become the cause of developer deaths. Shame on them! Rightfully so...
On the other hand let us not forget that there have also been plenty of headlines the past couple of years of publishers going bankrupt or of them experiencing severe financial woes. It's not just the devs who are dying. The publishers are suffering and dying, too.

Speaking of publisher inefficiencies, there is no way for anyone in the US to pre-order FOV. I just check with Amazon and Gamestop.

Piracy has always been a problem and will never stop. Though now it is all free instead of paying a shady person $5 for a copy of a game or movie that is normally $20 for a movie or $60 for a game.

If digital distribution didn't have a limited amount of installs, I'd go that rout. Problem is I like to upgrade my computer quite frequently often going ground up. DVD protection that just checks to see if you got a legit copy of the game in your DVD drive is much more do-able solution for me.

Now I won't mind buying a game off GOG.com since they don't use limited install copy protection.

@Moriendor: That's very correct and the point was indeed about the chain being the problem. Also in a lot of cases, the actual funding of publishers for games comes not from their own cash-flow, but rather through investors,funds and the likes. My point was against both those publishers that are malafide and abuse the system in times of need at the expense of developers as well as against the fact that the chain allows for this to happen, and it's pretty hard for developers to defend themselves against that. In an ideal world the chain would be different - developers who obtain their own funding for their games employ the services of publishers/distributors to bring their game to market, and then pay them a fee from the money they collect. It's something that's more or less happening, though not through the traditional publishers - if you're a developer who's lucky enough to be able to finance your development yourself, then it's possible to use the services of PR/Marketing/distribution firms, some of which can actually be publishers, and ensure your cash-flow that way. It's more or less also the model Larian is using more and more, but obviously it's not the easiest route.

@KnightPT: I can't comment on Steam because we never dealt with them directly so far. As for our distributors, I think that the fact that Larian is still around is testimonial to the fact that we have relationships that work.

@LightningLockey: We're still working on the US market - I hope we'll be able to announce something soon. The bankruptcy of CDV didn't really help there and created a complicated situation which we are trying to sort out.

Well, div2 is on sale on steam, thats why I asked...
http://store.steampowered.com/app/27220/

So i guess the whole steam situation was :

Larian => DTP => Steam => Customer with no connection between Larian and Steam.

So DTP has to make money, Steam also charges fees, and the game is realy realy cheap there on sale besides all that....

I'm starting to see your point :\

I love these status updates. It gives everyone an inside look of the gaming industry - but also all the pain and struggles that come with being in said industry.

Also, I'd like to note that I feel the pain of those developers who have been royally screwed over by companies that they're in business with. I'd like to warn Larian to stay far away from Southpeak when it comes to publishing deals. A ton of North American development studios have been screwed out of funds by this company, and most of these developers have taken them to court over it.

We all respect the hard work that you folks of Larian put in your games. I hope you all achieve even more success. Larian needs to remain in this industry.

I didn't realize CDV went under. Well at least I know that I might be importing or going to suck it up and buy a digital download.

Will FOV from the UK work with the US version of ED? Or should I buy the KS package off digital download from the UK?

History is an amazing thing. In allows you even to predict a future. Let's make some prophecy here:

[Year of 2009]

July. Larian and it's publisher(s) make bad decision and releases ONLY german version of the D2.
But not just that, they delayed the worlds release FEW times: first, september, then, october, then december...

[Year of 2010]

July. Again. Same foolish mistake - only GERMAN release. Now, they say ctober. I say: december of 2010 -- january of 2011.

Wanna bet? Anyone in? :P

The German publisher was onboard much earlier than any of the others, and as far as I can see, was much more supportive (releasing a collector's edition of D2:ED, etc).
Should they wait until every other publisher is lined up and ready to go? Should problems in one region (say with CDV going bankrupt, and no announced North American publisher yet) delay every other region?

Estimates of release dates are estimates. Pretty much the only games that don't slip past initial estimates are ones where no estimate is ever made public.

Yeah, sadly, I have to agree with you, Kein.

I read your entire post and wanted you to slip up, just so I could prove you wrong, but you're right. I think this will be a repeat of last year. I received Divinity II: Ego Draconis late December, even though it wasn't dated to hit until Jan. 5th.

I can't see them releasing this in North America within a few months. It just seems very unlikely.

At last, they could put raw english translation into FoV as excuse for such bad play ;< I bought german version of D2 just because I TIRED to wait for english release.
I bet the same things will happen with FoV, but there is no english dialogs :< And I'm definitely not gonna buy it then.

Don't forget Lar said also (underlined linea) !

Are some gamers sooo unpatiently and intolerant? Lar is a optimistic person, I like that much more that the ALWAYS sarcastic and pessimistic persons !!

Plus: why should 2009 be the same as 2010 ?
Plus: there are more games as The Dragon Knight Saga that sould come out on the last quarter of this year!
Or are you ONLY waiting for FoV? Hmmm... ... that will mean you all are really big fans of the Larian games, good news for Larian !!

He's optimistic, and I respect his choice to be, but given the present date and the planned date for its release, I have to be quite pessimistic. It's less than 2 months until October. To get a publishing deal (or if they already have, announce who it is), make the release date announcement, go gold, finish up your RP/marketing campaign and get it running, etc. This seems like a lot to do with so little time.

Well they've already got the European Publisher in Order.
When Lar said a possible October 15th date, I think he was specifically was talking about the European one.
I sort of think of as a shut off date, the date they're hoping to finish it.
Although I'm expecting it to move to November.
Due to the HUGE Amount of RPG's in October.

Divinty II Really didn't get much marketing in most places.
CDV did a great job imo at trying to market Div II.

So, wait - has any company bought out CDV yet?
Or is CDV trying to sell publishing rights of Div 2 games to somebody here in the USA?
Or something else?

Steam's own Steamworks DRM doesn't limit installs. Steam only limits that YOUR account as the only account that can run that particular game-key at once. You can install it on as many PC's you like, but only one copy of the game can be running at once.

A lot of the additional DRM placed in games sold by digital distributors (Steam, Impulse, D2D, etc) - additional DRM methods are requested by the 3rd party companies (either by 3rd party publishers, game dev's, or both) who want their game on the digital distributor's site. Usually, if there are additional DRM measure, they're listed on the game's page.
Example: See Sacred 2: Fallen Angel - Steam version, which has both the standard Steamworks DRM and also Securom Internet Edition Install Limit DRM.

Impulse and D2D do sell some games that have no DRM period - a lot of the Indie ones, namely.
Example: Direct2Drive sells A Farewell To Dragons without any DRM.

I bought D2:ED from Impulse myself and the DRM they used is GOO. It's basically an online authentication (once) and no install limits (Well I think they have an install limit of something like 100 a day or some-such in case it hits torrents)

Same principle as Steam but the Impulse client is only required to run during install, not to play.