Obsidian was the company to baptize me into the RPG genre.. baldurs gate was my first real RPG and till today my favorite game (equally loved with never winter nights 2) . Seeing this video brought tear on my eyes.. how can a company like Obsidian came too close to disband? How is that even possible? I hope u guys to succeed and i hope u ll manage to save your company and be great and powerful again... Through my heart i say THANK YOU. Thank you for being a reason to have faith in gaming industry in these grim times.
Hexagar Part 1 of this doco summed up most of it up - a big project took up most of their resources, so when it was cancelled they didn't have anything else to fall back on. Their niche was RPGs, which were already suffering from a downturn in interest from publishers (see Brian Fargo's kickstarter pitch for Wasteland 2 for a pretty good mock-up of how pitching RPGs went before kickstarter showed that they were viable again). Cancellation resulted in forcing them to downsize to save themselves from an even quicker closing, which gave them bad press, which meant they were having trouble finding a publisher that wanted to risk hiring them. A vicious circle.
I don't know what will happen with Kickstarter few years from now, but I know that I will always be gratefull for "saving" Obsidian and making Pillars of Eternity possible. Tears in my eyes while watching that. I LOVE BG saga so this... This is dream come true. Thank You Obsidian!
The "responsibility to the backers" part at the end made me happy. I feel like too many studios forget about that. Tim Schafer's Double Fine comes to mind...
kemita Oh, I don't know. Maybe by completely overstretching his budget, having to beg for more, setting that too into the sand and going onto Steam with only half of Broken Age done, while making another Kickstarter, the game of which is doing Early Access and seems bumpy still. Double Fine and Tim Schafer have, from the beginning on, mismanaged their funding in magnificent ways. They made what, 8 times their goal on Kickstarter, got another massive batch of funds via Paypal and preorders, and STILL managed to run out of money because they completely screwed up the scope of the project and overestimated their own abilities. Estimated delivery of Double Fine adventure and the game rewards was in OCTOBER 2012! They literally promised the FINISHED GAME by then. Now it is March 2015 and they're barely finishing up the second half of Broken Age. And in the meantime, they dropped Spacebase DF-9 and released a buggy Hack'n'Slash. I don't see how it is even possible not to see that Double Fine has been screwing up and become one of the, if not THE biggest Kickstarter disappointments.
Without Shafer there would be no Eternity - don't forget that. Also he was the originator of kickstarter for larger games, there was no template laid down, cut him some slack.
No. Cutting an industry veteran like Schafer, who has been making games for as long as he has, is exactly what has gotten it this far. Remember when Bobbi Kotick talked about Tim, after the latter insulted him talking to the press? When the higher ups at EA internally say they're about to cancel Schafer's game because "He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game", years ago, and that this has been a problem with Schafer for ages. Even in his times at LucasArts, he was credited more than once with "Never actively tried to sabotage the project". Even THEN it was such a rarity for him not to screw around, that the guys at LucasArts thought it was worth an honorable mention when he didn't. It is about time people stopped touching Tim with such ridiculous care. He's digging his holes himself, and has done so for years. The fact that he is independent now and the wider public has finally gotten wind of how he squanders the studio's finances should make it quite obvious that he is not qualified to be making these big decisions. Tim Schafer directly caused the bubble for big, and even small scale Gaming projects on Kickstarter to burst. He was one of the most prominent faces representing it, and failed utterly. He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game. That is still as relevant now as it was for EA with Brütal Legend.
What I love about this game and this little video series, is that you can tell it's a labor of love. It's very reminiscent of Squaresoft's journey to make the very first Final Fantasy game. I can only hope that Pillars of Eternity can bring the same amount of success and fans that FF did for Square. I'd love to see more from the Pillars world, and can't wait.
Power to the people, Anytime a game is funded by passionate fans instead of the money greedy publishers - That's a win for gaming. Everyone gets more, the fans get more - the company gets more - no ridiculous publishing contracts that tie one hand behind the devs backs. GG Obsidian & Paradox
FurballHero Paradox is a cut above the rest, at this time. They're getting bigger and bigger as their games get bigger and bigger, so let's hope this doesn't change the way they do business. I would hate to see them go the way of EA.
Been a fairly large fan of Obsidian for a long time, since KOTOR2. I preordered the game after watching (or maybe a 20 mins into) the Jesse Cox stream of the game. Finally preloading it after seeing it sitting in my library for so many months.
Great videos! Really heartfelt and passionate. I'm even more excited to get this game. This type of development is where gaming needs to go, passionate developers given the opportunity to make their games, their way...for us! Keep up the good work guys! I'm Pre-ordered and ready to rock!
This industry can be cruel, especially from a developer side of things, the bigger AAA publishers, and It's sad to see great studios go through a lot of pain. Though It's things like this that kinda make you feel good about the gaming community. When creative individuals can gather around and brainstorm ideas that aren't restricted by those that oversee projects, Pillars of Eternity happens, Divinity: Original Sin happens, and Wasteland 2 happens. Get great, enthusiastic people to pitch an idea to the gaming community, most of which already know who these people are and what the studio is capable of, and then the magic happens. The game is already getting massive amounts of positive feedback, and It's possibly the best launch title from Obsidian as well. Times like this I'm glad we got Kickstarter and when a studio delivers on everything they initially promised. I hope for continued success and will gladly support Obsidian's next project.
I haven't touched my PC in the last year and a half, basically my graphics card died and since it was around when the Xbox One came out I bought that instead. I always prefer to play games on the couch. However, I missed the kickstarter and I saw the release date come up, so I dusted off my PC, bought a new graphics card and got it ready for Pillars. My friend made fun of me for buying a new graphics card for PoE because it's not exactly graphically intensive, however my favorite games of all time are Planescape:Torment, Fallout:New Vegas and Spec Ops:The Line. Two of those are made by Obsidian (or alumni) and it's because those are the few stories that can only be told with a game. There are tons of games where the movie version would make as much sense, or a book might be better. However games are special and those three show why, you can't explain the story of Fallout:New Vegas without having the narrative framework of the game. So why did I spend $200 on a graphics card just to be able to play a game that probably doesn't need it? Because if there ever was a good reason to get one, it's PoE. I can't wait to play it for hundreds of hours, reading all the text, learning all about the world and trying to find out the answers to the questions the narrative is designed to explain.
I cant wait too play! White March 2 just came out. I promised myself I wouldn't play until then the dlc was done. Its been in my steam library for months lol. I know Im going too love it! I'm so glad for you guys.
I'm glad to see the success of this. FNV is one of my favorite games and the parts that Obsidian brought to the world of Fallout are the best aspects of the series. I've never played BG or ID. The closest I've ever come to that kind of RPG is Dragon Age Origins. I pre-ordered this game based on how much I enjoyed the story and real choices you get to make in FNV. I'm excited to give a new genre a try tomorrow. Best of luck Obsidian!
If this game becomes as good as anticipated and as successful as deserved then Obsidian can always return to Kickstarter for future campaigns and hopefully also finally own a successful brand.
Can't freakin wait! The pre-order stuff isn't really for me, but this will be a day 1 purchase for me. Wish I'd gotten in for the original kickstarter, but DoubleFine had kind of soured my attitude towards KS.
I'm glad that there is still some hope for oldschool gaming... especially after what Bethesda had done to Fallout. I got my copy today, but Steam doesn't allow me to install it for now, I have to wait for release :(
Ephemis Priest Watching so many kickstarter intro videos, I still look forward to hearing from a dev promising that he would keep the company small. There are so many examples that companies when they succeed and grow bigger they turn into another EA and produce bad games simply because they have more mouths to feed. That's not productive.
Ephemis Priest Things like this won't put EA and Activision out of business and nor should they. COD and Battlefield are not marketed to the same demographics as PoE. There is comfortably room for both, as this kickstarter campaign for PoE shows.
:,) i'm so glad you guys didn't go under, every game obsidian's developed has been an 8 or above on a scale of 1 to 10, and that is really high praise coming from me, someone who thinks games like the last of us or far cry 4 is a 6 at best(granted, i am biased since rpgs and lore-heavy games are my jam. Then again, i gave oblivion and skyrim a 6.5).
For all their statements about how the backers mean a lot to them - they didn't mean that much that they gave media sites the full game a whole week before the backers. A company that appreciates its backers would have given both the media and the backers the same access. I love your games Obsidian but your PR needs some major work.
You dicks.... Now I have to go upgrade to the royal edition because you made me to emotional watching this. I didn't even have a clue the makers of my favorite game (new vegas) were in that much of a dire straights. Now I find out you're making a modern d&d style game? TAKE MY MONEY OBSIDIAN JUST TAKE IT!
Obsidian was the company to baptize me into the RPG genre.. baldurs gate was my first real RPG and till today my favorite game (equally loved with never winter nights 2) . Seeing this video brought tear on my eyes.. how can a company like Obsidian came too close to disband? How is that even possible? I hope u guys to succeed and i hope u ll manage to save your company and be great and powerful again... Through my heart i say THANK YOU. Thank you for being a reason to have faith in gaming industry in these grim times.
Hexagar Part 1 of this doco summed up most of it up - a big project took up most of their resources, so when it was cancelled they didn't have anything else to fall back on. Their niche was RPGs, which were already suffering from a downturn in interest from publishers (see Brian Fargo's kickstarter pitch for Wasteland 2 for a pretty good mock-up of how pitching RPGs went before kickstarter showed that they were viable again). Cancellation resulted in forcing them to downsize to save themselves from an even quicker closing, which gave them bad press, which meant they were having trouble finding a publisher that wanted to risk hiring them. A vicious circle.
I don't know what will happen with Kickstarter few years from now, but I know that I will always be gratefull for "saving" Obsidian and making Pillars of Eternity possible. Tears in my eyes while watching that. I LOVE BG saga so this... This is dream come true. Thank You Obsidian!
The "responsibility to the backers" part at the end made me happy. I feel like too many studios forget about that. Tim Schafer's Double Fine comes to mind...
TheDarkChaplain What do you mean? How did he screw his backers?
kemita Oh, I don't know. Maybe by completely overstretching his budget, having to beg for more, setting that too into the sand and going onto Steam with only half of Broken Age done, while making another Kickstarter, the game of which is doing Early Access and seems bumpy still.
Double Fine and Tim Schafer have, from the beginning on, mismanaged their funding in magnificent ways. They made what, 8 times their goal on Kickstarter, got another massive batch of funds via Paypal and preorders, and STILL managed to run out of money because they completely screwed up the scope of the project and overestimated their own abilities.
Estimated delivery of Double Fine adventure and the game rewards was in OCTOBER 2012! They literally promised the FINISHED GAME by then. Now it is March 2015 and they're barely finishing up the second half of Broken Age.
And in the meantime, they dropped Spacebase DF-9 and released a buggy Hack'n'Slash.
I don't see how it is even possible not to see that Double Fine has been screwing up and become one of the, if not THE biggest Kickstarter disappointments.
TheDarkChaplain Damn... that is beyond
terrible.
Without Shafer there would be no Eternity - don't forget that. Also he was the originator of kickstarter for larger games, there was no template laid down, cut him some slack.
No. Cutting an industry veteran like Schafer, who has been making games for as long as he has, is exactly what has gotten it this far.
Remember when Bobbi Kotick talked about Tim, after the latter insulted him talking to the press?
When the higher ups at EA internally say they're about to cancel Schafer's game because "He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game", years ago, and that this has been a problem with Schafer for ages.
Even in his times at LucasArts, he was credited more than once with "Never actively tried to sabotage the project". Even THEN it was such a rarity for him not to screw around, that the guys at LucasArts thought it was worth an honorable mention when he didn't.
It is about time people stopped touching Tim with such ridiculous care. He's digging his holes himself, and has done so for years. The fact that he is independent now and the wider public has finally gotten wind of how he squanders the studio's finances should make it quite obvious that he is not qualified to be making these big decisions.
Tim Schafer directly caused the bubble for big, and even small scale Gaming projects on Kickstarter to burst. He was one of the most prominent faces representing it, and failed utterly.
He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game. That is still as relevant now as it was for EA with Brütal Legend.
What I love about this game and this little video series, is that you can tell it's a labor of love. It's very reminiscent of Squaresoft's journey to make the very first Final Fantasy game. I can only hope that Pillars of Eternity can bring the same amount of success and fans that FF did for Square. I'd love to see more from the Pillars world, and can't wait.
Power to the people,
Anytime a game is funded by passionate fans instead of the money greedy publishers - That's a win for gaming.
Everyone gets more, the fans get more - the company gets more - no ridiculous publishing contracts that tie one hand behind the devs backs.
GG Obsidian & Paradox
FurballHero Paradox is a cut above the rest, at this time. They're getting bigger and bigger as their games get bigger and bigger, so let's hope this doesn't change the way they do business. I would hate to see them go the way of EA.
Thanks for putting out these videos! It's so insightful to see the reactions of all of the developers to the progression and scale of this game!
Thank you Obsidian. I always knew your studio had the potential to create something like this. Always being held back by deadlines and publishers.
I have zero doubts this will be an amazing homage to the old infinity games. I'm happy I backed it, and would do it again in a heartbeat.
Am always grateful that there're developers like this.
I am dying, I am dying as I watch. Hats off to Obsidian
This was one of my favorite kickstarters to be a part of. Great video and can't wait to finally return to classic crpg.
They seem like such a genuinely great group of people. So glad I pre-ordered and I can't wait to see more of this documentary.
I'm so glad this game happened, feels good to finally be able to play it - Only 4 or 3 days to go :D Obsidian is by far my favorite studio, much love.
Bloodborne and Pillars of Eternity in the same week.. holy shit, my body isnt ready
Check also Serpent in the staglands... it looks fun for an indie developer.
How the hell am I gonna be able to play those 2 games?! You took those words out of my mouth sir!
Bill The Butcher Yup, same here got Bloodborne Nightmare and Pillars of Eternity Champion Edition ;dNeed to take some time off work methinks. :P
Thank you for making this beautiful game!!!
Please keep up bringing oldschool experiences with fresh technology and design!
Been a fairly large fan of Obsidian for a long time, since KOTOR2. I preordered the game after watching (or maybe a 20 mins into) the Jesse Cox stream of the game. Finally preloading it after seeing it sitting in my library for so many months.
Great videos! Really heartfelt and passionate. I'm even more excited to get this game. This type of development is where gaming needs to go, passionate developers given the opportunity to make their games, their way...for us!
Keep up the good work guys! I'm Pre-ordered and ready to rock!
I'm really glad that you delivered on what you've promised. The game is great! Thank you very much!
This industry can be cruel, especially from a developer side of things, the bigger AAA publishers, and It's sad to see great studios go through a lot of pain.
Though It's things like this that kinda make you feel good about the gaming community. When creative individuals can gather around and brainstorm ideas that aren't restricted by those that oversee projects, Pillars of Eternity happens, Divinity: Original Sin happens, and Wasteland 2 happens.
Get great, enthusiastic people to pitch an idea to the gaming community, most of which already know who these people are and what the studio is capable of, and then the magic happens.
The game is already getting massive amounts of positive feedback, and It's possibly the best launch title from Obsidian as well. Times like this I'm glad we got Kickstarter and when a studio delivers on everything they initially promised. I hope for continued success and will gladly support Obsidian's next project.
I haven't touched my PC in the last year and a half, basically my graphics card died and since it was around when the Xbox One came out I bought that instead. I always prefer to play games on the couch.
However, I missed the kickstarter and I saw the release date come up, so I dusted off my PC, bought a new graphics card and got it ready for Pillars.
My friend made fun of me for buying a new graphics card for PoE because it's not exactly graphically intensive, however my favorite games of all time are Planescape:Torment, Fallout:New Vegas and Spec Ops:The Line. Two of those are made by Obsidian (or alumni) and it's because those are the few stories that can only be told with a game. There are tons of games where the movie version would make as much sense, or a book might be better. However games are special and those three show why, you can't explain the story of Fallout:New Vegas without having the narrative framework of the game.
So why did I spend $200 on a graphics card just to be able to play a game that probably doesn't need it? Because if there ever was a good reason to get one, it's PoE. I can't wait to play it for hundreds of hours, reading all the text, learning all about the world and trying to find out the answers to the questions the narrative is designed to explain.
This game will bring in more than double the 3.9 mill I think
Pillars of Eternity 2, Would back that right now!
Thanks so much, really you return my boyhood. Best game im played for decade. Hope u make addon or DLC for this game, or make another one.
I cant wait too play! White March 2 just came out. I promised myself I wouldn't play until then the dlc was done. Its been in my steam library for months lol. I know Im going too love it! I'm so glad for you guys.
I'm glad to see the success of this. FNV is one of my favorite games and the parts that Obsidian brought to the world of Fallout are the best aspects of the series. I've never played BG or ID. The closest I've ever come to that kind of RPG is Dragon Age Origins. I pre-ordered this game based on how much I enjoyed the story and real choices you get to make in FNV. I'm excited to give a new genre a try tomorrow.
Best of luck Obsidian!
If this game becomes as good as anticipated and as successful as deserved then Obsidian can always return to Kickstarter for future campaigns and hopefully also finally own a successful brand.
my body is so ready!
Can't freakin wait! The pre-order stuff isn't really for me, but this will be a day 1 purchase for me. Wish I'd gotten in for the original kickstarter, but DoubleFine had kind of soured my attitude towards KS.
Paradox is handling physical distribution of the game and kickstarter physical .rewards
Thanks! I was wondering why this was on Paradox's page.
I'm glad that there is still some hope for oldschool gaming... especially after what Bethesda had done to Fallout.
I got my copy today, but Steam doesn't allow me to install it for now, I have to wait for release :(
Obsidian! Can't wait for tomorrow :)
Backing things like this is how you scare the fuck out of EA and Activision. If this became the standard they would be out of business.
With all the major game engines being free, quality looking games will surely be made with more modest budgets. That's a win for everyone.
Ephemis Priest Watching so many kickstarter intro videos, I still look forward to hearing from a dev promising that he would keep the company small. There are so many examples that companies when they succeed and grow bigger they turn into another EA and produce bad games simply because they have more mouths to feed. That's not productive.
Ephemis Priest Things like this won't put EA and Activision out of business and nor should they. COD and Battlefield are not marketed to the same demographics as PoE. There is comfortably room for both, as this kickstarter campaign for PoE shows.
Ephemis Priest I am currently liking my dragon age game, so I don't know if I want EA going out of business.
Ephemis Priest It is like communist capitalism!
I'm always a little worried when paying for a service upfront.
I can't register on the forums why?? It says can't register????????? and i rly want to make mods for HOI3 Please help!
Wait are you still going to work on citys skylines?
Kimberly McGovern That's a completely different development company. There is simply no good reason to ask this...
achmedaan oh I did not know that I thought this company was taking over citys skylines
The 20 years waiting as come to an end. Can't focus at work.
:,) i'm so glad you guys didn't go under, every game obsidian's developed has been an 8 or above on a scale of 1 to 10, and that is really high praise coming from me, someone who thinks games like the last of us or far cry 4 is a 6 at best(granted, i am biased since rpgs and lore-heavy games are my jam. Then again, i gave oblivion and skyrim a 6.5).
I remember that twitch stream.
Feargus Urquhart looks alot like Sid Meier ^^
For all their statements about how the backers mean a lot to them - they didn't mean that much that they gave media sites the full game a whole week before the backers. A company that appreciates its backers would have given both the media and the backers the same access. I love your games Obsidian but your PR needs some major work.
я аж прослезился:З
обожаю их)
You dicks.... Now I have to go upgrade to the royal edition because you made me to emotional watching this. I didn't even have a clue the makers of my favorite game (new vegas) were in that much of a dire straights. Now I find out you're making a modern d&d style game? TAKE MY MONEY OBSIDIAN JUST TAKE IT!
love Black isle
haha this is so cool!
These guys had to be making new Torment. Not inXile crew.
happiness
glad this game is happening, pissed that they lied about expected system reqs. I cant fucking play it.
Come on, we do not want this game, we want heart of iron 4!
4. MORE. HOURS. :|
There are jokes that are so funny that even if you disagree, you have to laugh before you stop yourself. This just wasn't funny.