1774 réponses à ce sujet

[FutharkTomahawk]

I wonder if this really grinds the gears of the corporate types the big publishing houses? I most certainly hope so! :-D

[Brockololly]

And Obsidian posted this with their second to last update. Neat look at how they made the one environment from the screenshot:

[Morroian]

So doesn't Chris like Arcanum?

[Allan Schumacher]

But is there any reason why a traditional publisher like EA or Ubisoft or Activision would turn down the possibility of funding a decidedly smaller scale budget game like Project Eternity? That's what confuses me- the demand has always been there for these types of games yet big publishers stopped making them alltogether. Is it just because those bigger publishers only want super huge budget games that can potentially be "blockbusters" and don't want to waste time with smaller budget games (unless they're F2P or Facebook type games)?

Opportunity cost is the big one.

For starters, due to kickstarter ironically the game can be a complete success if the only people satisfied are those that contributed. If this is achieved, with zero sales the game could still be considered a success. Ideally Obsidian turns a nice profit and never needs to make a kickstarter again. Super ideally the game is a runaway success and makes big publishers take notice.


But opportunity cost is the biggest one. Lets say Obsidian makes $10 million in profit for this (which would be huge ROI, over 200%, but really only needs to sell maybe 150k units or so to achieve this so maybe isn't not that big of a stretch, especially if its highly regarded)

I think this would be considered "insane success for Obsidian" and probably even well enough for big publishers to take notice.

Now lets take the latest grand poombah, Modern Warfare 4 had $775m in sales in 5 days. Even if we peg the development costs at $100 million (which is probably high), and lets assume that the developer only gets half of the sales. $287.5 million in profit is still better ROI, and much, much higher in real dollars.

So you get into issues with economies of scale. In order to try to match the real dollar value, does a publisher then fund $100 million in small developments? Lets put Project Eternity at $4 million. Do you still see the same return on investment (that is, would each of them make $10 million in profit) if you were suddenly developing 25 Project Eternity games? Will there be some level of self-competition that would undermine sales at all?

You could do 25 games that don't directly compete with one another, but there will still be competition amongst yourselves for retail shelf space that will never go away, and I just don't know what sort of costs may be incurred for the level of bureaucratic support, and whether the losses there would compare to potential gains for not using larger teams focused on less products.


Then you get some games like World of Warcraft that will bring in probably close to 4 times Obsidian's Kickstarter every month alone.

[Yrkoon]

Morroian wrote...

So doesn't Chris like Arcanum?

He never played it.     In the reddit Q&A  yesterday, someone asked him a question about something in Arcanum and  he lamented that he never got around to playing it.   That came as a shock to a bunch of people. And that set off a series of  responses with people wondering how  such a thing  could be, and  how he should stop what he's doing, get Arcanum, and play it now.

So today, we've got it as a stretch Goal. lol

Brockololly wrote...

Plus the ~100k they have from PayPal. It probably won't but ut would be cool if it hit $4 million.

They likely will, actually.  They're less than 200K away and they still have 4 hours.  They're doing 1k per minute

Modifié par Yrkoon, 16 octobre 2012 - 08:49 .

[FedericoV]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Opportunity cost is the big one.

Ok, it sounds right. Just one objection: it's clear that for any MW or WoW that has high ROI, there are plenty of other games who flop while costing millions of dollars. Games who are considered failure even if they sell a lot of copies (like LA Noire).

I mean, EA has invested a lot of dollars in TOR in the pursuit of big revenues like WoW's ones. And we can agree that it failed if that was the point of the venture. If they developed 4 or 5 sequels to the single player game, they would have made a better deal, even if the potential ROI was way lower.

Basically, what I'm saying, is that running behind the few super hits, transforms game development in a lottery (not to mentions the fact that it kills game development on a creative level).

Modifié par FedericoV, 16 octobre 2012 - 08:46 .

[MichaelStuart]

Well I've give all the money I could give and more.
Really hope to get to 4 four million, the commentary sounds interesting.

[Allan Schumacher]

Ok, it sounds right. Just one objection: it's clear that for any MW or WoW that has high ROI, there are plenty of other games who flop while costing millions of dollars. Games who are considered failure even if they sell a lot of copies (like LA Noire).

Thing is, a game like Planescape: Torment turned a profit (Feargus' words), but still wasn't considered a financial success either.

ROI and total dollars are still important


(It's important to note I'm looking at this purely from a business perspective.  Such things will apply across many/all businesses, not just game developers).

Basically, what I'm saying, is that running behind the few super hits,
transforms game development in a lottery (not to mentions the fact that
it kills game development on a creative level).

I do agree that the games industry is stagnant from a big business perspective.  Which is why I'm a huge fan of digital distribution and even things like kickstarter.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 16 octobre 2012 - 09:03 .

[Cutlass Jack]

Well I upped my donation just now, just to force Chris to play Arcanum. Not having done so is a crime against humanity.

[Fishy]

Anyway .. obsidian seem to really enjoy themselves with project Eternity .. Which is great and fun to see.

[Yrkoon]

Paypal is at 130k, which means we're at 3.9 million. So we need to do 100k in 2 hrs and 20 minutes. Not hard at all.

[c_cat]

According to earlier reports paypal had already passed 150k. I guess that was wrong but it doesn't really matter with the way the kickstarter is flying. It's unbelievable!

Modifié par c_cat, 16 octobre 2012 - 10:08 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Is it new backers or people upping their pledges?

[Jozape]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Is it new backers or people upping their pledges?

Both. The campaign has 6k new backers, and the average pledge today is over 70 dollars.

[Fishy]

They need to hire this composer. Underrated and under the radar for too long!

[Jozape]

Filament wrote...

Unff... can the in-game pets talk?

Having a magic talking cat might be worth $15.

I didn't even realize I get a pet at $50. I can't keep up with all the add-ons and tier upgrades.

[Yrkoon]

Feagus's son looks just like Feargus. He's a mini-feargus

[TobiTobsen]

180.000$ left! Force Avellone to play Arcanum!

[Jozape]

TobiTobsen wrote...

180.000$ left! Force Avellone to play Arcanum!

With PayPal we're only 50k away from that happening.

[Yrkoon]

well, IF paypal is at 150K then we've just broken $4 million. But no one at Obsidian seems to be acknowleging it at the moment

[Addai]

A good day for gamers. The preliminary screenshots look gorgeous (I hadn't seen them before following a tweet to the project page).

[Jozape]

Yrkoon wrote...

well, IF paypal is at 150K then we've just broken $4 million. But no one at Obsidian seems to be acknowleging it at the moment

It's at 137.5k, last update from the stream. Which means that we are over 4 million now.

[Brockololly]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Is it new backers or people upping their pledges?

As of 7:21PM EST:



Looks like today will be the third biggest day in terms of backers and money ( or maybe #2 for money by the time its over). I just upped my pledge for the hell of it

Modifié par Brockololly, 16 octobre 2012 - 11:23 .

[chunkyman]

Good lord, I can't believe Project Eternity got over $4,000,000. This makes me happy.