So this is not a hate thread this is just a question. How do they stay in business.
- They seem to make sequels of successful games that don't seem to go above and beyond the original. And I know people say its the publishers fault, but if it is, how come they never learn from their mistakes? "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." obsidian has been fooled 9 times, what do you say for that?
- They always lay off their staff, no matter how successful the game is, like KOtoR 2 and F:NV.
- Their games are reviewed from below average to OK, why do people use them for sequels.
Now this is not a hate thread, this is just some questions.

I thought FONV was above and beyond FO3 in terms of story/writing and general fallouty-ness,

I guess they just don't spend as much on marketing and such?

EDIT: Also, not as an insult or anything, but I guess they try to cut back on programming when they can. Obviously FONV was almost exactly like FO3 in graphics and animations.

That is a very good question; one I have often asked myself.

EDIT: In all fairness, vault boy101 is right, in that New Vegas was far and beyond above the usual quality of their work. I really enjoyed it.

They frequently struggle to stay in business, so it's not like a case of them mysteriously rolling in cash. It could be argued, though, that they aim too high; while their games often suffer from flaws, many people believe that if they had been "properly finished", they would be much better than the originals.

They don't really have the option to "learn from their mistakes." The developer spends a great deal of money creating a game over a long period, and may not ever see any profit from sales. Such was the case with New Vegas. A developer that is not already large and wealthy has little choice but to rely on publishers to fund their games, and it's not like going to the store; they have to convince them that they deserve to be supported. Publishers can see a desperate publisher that still has a relatively well-known name, and decide they can give them an insufficient budget and still make their money, and let the developer pick up any pieces.

Low ratings for Obsidian games are, as you mentioned, often because of factors that are usually the publisher's fault, specifically bugs and incompleteness. "Flawed gem" type games can gain devoted fans who aren't bothered by those problems, and consider the game underneath to be superior to others available, and Obsidian frequently makes those type of games. RPG's that actually try to be RPG's are pretty rare these days, and many of those come from Obsidian. Naturally, they have a lot of supporters who miss those games. Publishers probably come to them knowing they can reliably attract those people for a low cost, and then Obsidian has layoffs after because they didn't get much of any of that money.

Fallout: New Vegas got good reviews for the most part. In my opinion it was much better than Fallout 3 (yes, I know plenty of people disagree). Alpha Protocol got mostly bad reviews, but was a really ambitious game with a lot of potential that was obviously not finished. I liked Mask of the Betrayer and it also got mostly good reviews. KotOR 2 is at 85 on Metacritic, which is a very good score.

I dunno, I think the degree to which their games have "bombed" tends to be a little exaggerated. My guess is that they drop staff between games and re-staff when they get big projects, which is bound to save them a lot of money. Man hours are one of the bigger expenses when it comes to running a dev shop, so maintaining a small core team would definitely allow them to work on smaller budgets. Swapping staff that way probably causes other problems, though.

1. well, one reason they don't live up to hype is because alot of their games are buggy and the new stuff they add is usually from mods of the original game. They also have extreme bug issues. And i do agree, obsidian has been fooled a lot, or their fans just made that as an excuse.
2. I know right, are they in so much debt that that even with millions $$$ grossed and they still can't get out of it.
3. like i said, the bugs really mess up the games, AP was a mess though and not just the bugs. And they are mercenaries, the original games developer use them why they make new games(Bioware was making Jade Empire and Bethesda was making Skyrim).

1). What exactly do you mean by this? Are you asking why their products feel like, say, expansion packs rather than fully realized games? Largely because they're not given the time or resources to do so. Obsidian's deadlines have always been tight and all that they were given to work with for the likes of NV, NWN2, and KotOR2 were the assets from the previous game. That's not a whole lot to revamp or make a new engine.

Though for what it's worth, I have to echo the previous guys; NV did go above and beyond what Bethesda did with FO3, and it did so again with just about all of the DLCs. To me, it was not only the best RPG to come out this generation, it was one of the best games period.

2). Largely because Obsidian largely doesn't profit off of their products' sales; their publishers do. Take NV; Obsidian didn't benefit from the sales, Bethesda did. Obsidian was largely paid for the commission of their work and that was it. They were promised to be paid a royalty bonus if NV got a Metacritic score of at least 85, but unfortunately, they only got an 84. So they didn't get their bonus, and they thus had to lay off some employees. See why people like to blame the publishers?

3). Don't know why they're the go-to guys for sequels. Probably because despite getting middling reviews, their products do at least sell reasonably well, enough for the publisher to make a profit anyway. See my answer to #2.

My problem with Obsidian's games is not that they don't finish them properly (although that is a problem). My problem is the air of pretension that surrounds their games. You can just tell that they think they are so much smarter than the people who made the first game, and the people who liked it. The smugness just rolls through their dialogue. Fallout: New Vegas managed to avoid that for the most part, but it crept in at times (especially in the Divide DLC ).

It wasn't really "cutting back" in that case. Black Isle had originally been planning to make Fallout 3, but when Interplay went out of business, the rights to the franchise were sold to the highest bidder, Bethesda. A lot of those former Black Islers went on to Obsidian. Bethesda hired Obsidian to develop the Fallout game they were planning, and gave them the engine used for Fallout 3; it wasn't cutting back on Obsidian's part to copy Fallout 3, the same game resources are literally what they were given to work with. They had limited time and money, and made New Vegas with what they were given, and then Bethesda took all of the profit for the game so Obsidian subsequently fired everyone.

I've heard that they are incognito smart-ass's but i never really see that, got any examples?

Any examples?

New Vegas is one of my all time favorite games, it eclipses Fallout 3 in almost every way possible. It's a defacto RPG game I recommend with disclaimer of bugs. I played Fallout 3 like once, I've played New Vegas like 2.5 times. I plan to play it again as well.

I think Obsidian release flawed gems, games that could have been really great but suffer from technical issues and being unpolished. Which is very unfortunate as it's something that annoys a large chunk of the gaming audience. I have no problem with looking past the technical issues though, and do consider Alpha Protocol to be possibly the best game of 2010.

FNV didn't grab me for some reason though. Well, not to say I didn't enjoy the game, I did. And I finished the game, but then I felt no urge to play it any further. Even though I received the DLCs for free I have yet to bother to play them.

Anyway, I do look forward to play the South Park RPG

Aw man, can't believe I already forgot about that game. Definitely going to get it, maybe not release date but eventually.

Well, aside from the already mentioned Lonesome Road DLC (got the name a bit wrong there, whoops), the biggest example I can think of off the top of my head is Kreia from KotOR2. Man, that [censored] could not get off her high horse. If you want me to go more in-depth on the subject, you'll have to wait until tomorrow, because it is really late here, and I don't have time to put together something longer before I go to bed.

My major problem is the technical issues, i think the games are good but the technical issues kill them, but i think the one thing about them unlike alot of others is they dont make themselves out to be better or bigger, they dont make promises they cant produce, there are some games companies out there that have very loud voices and alot are really getting beaten down because they put themselves in the spotlight only to find theres nothing of substance there, but sometimes the quiet ones are the ones that keep on chugging along and keep a happier fan base.

I think if Obsidian had the time and marketing budget of a triple-A studio---like Bethesda, for example---you'd see a notable shift in how their games are scored. Obsidian gets chewed out for their bugs, whereas bugs in a Bethesda game are seen as being cute. At least as far as the gaming press seems to be concerned.
I'm not sure how Kreia is any more pretentious than, say, Master Vrook. The difference is Kreia actually explains her philosophy whereas Vrook just spits out tired platitudes while deriding you. And I'm not sure why you think a single character's personality is somehow indicative of the developer's general attitudes.

I've not played Lonesome Road, so I can't really comment there.

...which is quite often the direct result of the publisher (who are responsible for release dates, QA, and sometimes project management depending on the project) deciding not to put an adequate amount of time/money into making sure it can be polished. If you look at the length of most of Obsidian's projects the time-frames are extremely tight. That said, Obsidian tends to be really ambitious with their design goals given the timelines allotted by their publishers. I think the blame probably goes both ways. Ambition is great and I think Obsidian puts a lot of genuine love into their games, but as a dev it's also really important to be realistic with your goals.

I think one or two really good, profitable projects would result in them sorting out a lot of their problems, but I'm just speculating. Making games is really expensive, and I don't think they have the cash flow to rise above the kinds of "farmed out" projects they've been doing lately without quite a bit of publisher support.

As do I. I tend to stay away from Obsidian games though I've slowly ran into a few. I actually liked Alpha Protocol.

I've only played a couple of their games that I can remember. KOTOR 2 was disappointing for me, but I really enjoyed New Vegas when I finally got round to playing it.

I'm another one who's really looking forward to the South Park RPG, especially since Parker and Stone are writing it themselves. Let's hope it lives up to expectations.

I'm sure it's a challenge for every independent developer to stay profitable. In the case of Obsidian, they have a brilliant track record and I'm sure they will continue to be hired by publishers for years to come. Eagerly awaiting South Park: The Stick of Truth.

[censored]ing South Park. I'm not a fan of it at all and hence have no interest in The Stick of Truth, but I really want it to at least succeed so that Obsidian can make something truly amazing in the near future. So now I'm in a precarious position; do I really want to pay for a product I don't want just to help them along?

I'm all for supporting favorite developers, but I think it would be a mistake to buy a game you probably won't enjoy. Perhaps they'll have some sort of playable demo.

I buy Obsidian games because I enjoy them and mostly because they do not have that 'sold-out' feel of most AAA titles. They go the extra mile to make characters unique and interesting.

After I saw all the hate spewed about Alpha Protocol I picked it up on a Steam sale and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has a lot of flaws, but it was still very entertaining.

NWN2 had the same problem, but I think that was mainly due to incomplete drivers at the time (first DX10 GPUs were just released). I played the hell out of that game and mask of the betrayer while I hated the first NWN.

KotOR 2 feels like they wanted to make a game the size of the first, but were only given time to make 1/2 of a game. The characters real a lot more genuine than those in the first title.

NV was rushed for a holiday release. Other than a couple quest bugs I had no problems at launch, but after patches the draw distance and framrate worsend.

I agree that they are partially to blame for their faults. They want so bad to make full-size AAA games, but are only given the time and resources to make half baked cash-ins.

That's exactly how I felt about it: I played it, enjoyed it, finished it, and then had no desire to play it again. Still, it beats most games, which I never even finish. Fallout: New Vegas averaged an aggregate score of 84% - which is very high - and had sold 5 million copies to retailers by November 2010. I think that meets every possible criteria of "success".

I personally get the impression that they're like the dev equivalent of the "jobbing actor" - comparatively cheap, efficient and reliable. They're the Rutger Hauer of gaming. That's why they get picked for sequels: they're a known brand associated with a reasonable standard. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, if you want to be an A-lister, you need a lot of capital behind you. I once read something - not sure if it was about him or someone else - that broke down the $20 million-per-film fee, and that money goes on personal trainers, plastic surgery, nannies, bodyguards, fitness equipment: everything that goes into creating the Schwarzenegger brand. It therefore makes sense that Obsidian would lower their costs by axing their personnel count between projects - if you can't afford Schwarzenegger at $20 million but you can afford Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson at $1 million and he'll do a comparable job, then you'll pick Johnson.

(*looks it up* Wow ... The Rock earns up to $15 million per movie now? Who'da thunk? )