• Obsidian CEO: publishers wanted to do Kickstarters with us
    13 replies, posted
[url]http://www.shacknews.com/article/75828/obsidian-publishers-wanted-to-do-kickstarters-with-us[/url]
The whole point of Kickstarter was to avoid publisher involvement. People were getting sick of publisher overstating their role in the development of games, all the while holding the industry hostage because they were the only source for financing. Sure, the benefits of retail connections and localisation support are something you can still use publishers for, but owning IP and trying to steer studios to meet 'market demand' is something the gaming community has grown to hate about them.
No wonder they want to skip the publishers after they lost out on a big bonus from their publisher because they had 1 less metascore than they needed. [url]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116343-Obsidian-Lost-Bonus-for-Fallout-New-Vegas-by-One-Metacritic-Point[/url]
[QUOTE=usaokay;37724348]I would like to see it on Steam and retail.[/QUOTE] If I was a game developer, I would only trust Valve and no other.
Hopefully I can donate 10,000 to their cause and get invited to have lunch!
[QUOTE=usaokay;37724348]I would like to see it on Steam and retail.[/QUOTE] You'll be able to choose between a key for GOG or a key for Steam if you donated to the Kickstarter. So obviously it'll be avaliable from them. I guess no publisher means no retail though?
[QUOTE=JesterUK;37727599]You'll be able to choose between a key for GOG or a key for Steam if you donated to the Kickstarter. So obviously it'll be avaliable from them. I guess no publisher means no retail though?[/QUOTE] you can still go retail and not have a publisher in a traditional sense. like yeah, they would technically be publishing the physical edition of the game, but it's not the same sort of control a regular sort of publisher would get. there are a few examples of this, like Torchlight and Star Ruler.
[QUOTE=FPSMango;37726012]No wonder they want to skip the publishers after they lost out on a big bonus from their publisher because they had 1 less metascore than they needed. [url]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116343-Obsidian-Lost-Bonus-for-Fallout-New-Vegas-by-One-Metacritic-Point[/url][/QUOTE] Yeah I always thought that idea was kind of bullshit, Obsidian makes some buggy games but they're always fun, I thought New Vegas deserved a bit better than what it was getting but thanks to massive bugs on release it was almost unplayable for most people.
Metascores are bullshit anyways, that whole situation was fucking stupid, they really did deserve a bonus, New Vegas was a great game.
Judging a game by a metascore is basically putting together all those paid-for big-name reviews and the sheer popularity of the game together in a single number There's no real organized entity that rates videogames other than really big-name and respectable stuff like Famistu, so it's pretty useless to rate a game based on reviews. Most of them are biased as shit.
Famistu still has the problem of the writers. If a single person over there has a different opinion on the game, the whole review is out of whack
[QUOTE=Clavus;37725909]The whole point of Kickstarter was to avoid publisher involvement. People were getting sick of publisher overstating their role in the development of games, all the while holding the industry hostage because they were the only source for financing. Sure, the benefits of retail connections and localisation support are something you can still use publishers for, but owning IP and trying to steer studios to meet 'market demand' is something the gaming community has grown to hate about them.[/QUOTE] That isn't entirely true. These projects started simply because developers were unable to find publishers (and investors) who considered their pitches safe enough to back. There was certainly a strong tone of frustration with those people in Brian Fargo's initial videos for Wastelander 2, but now there's a distribution deal going for that game with EA, who are putting it on Origin when it comes out (which I'm okay with, so long as EA don't try to exert creative influence over the project and it's not the only way to get it for non-backers). Everything you've said is just how things have fallen, which is good news for anyone who's a consumer waiting on trends to shift towards what they want to see, or is just fed up with the business and service end of games at the moment.
[QUOTE=Nikota;37728185]Famistu still has the problem of the writers. If a single person over there has a different opinion on the game, the whole review is out of whack[/QUOTE] Which is why the scores for each individual writer are shown in addition to a "total".
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