Chapter Review – Obsidian Entertainment

Recently, a new series of assignments in our class for CSG 4603 – Portfolio & Professional Development has arisen. In the book, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, we will be overlooking each chapter and the story it tells. In this first chapter, it looks at the tale of Obsidian Entertainment back in 2012 when they encountered a problem in their funding from Microsoft after being dropped and their game being cancelled for Xbox One.

The Loss of Talents

With Microsoft cancelling their game, Obsidian Entertainment was met with a difficult challenge: funding all of their workers while not having a game to create or give profit. With tons of their own money already invested, and a fee of $500,000 a month for hosting all of their employees, they were forced to lay off 26 of their 50 staff. These weren’t bad workers, they weren’t lacking in certain roles, they weren’t hated. There simply was no cashflow to keep them there, bringing a harsh reminder to the workers. Even if you are a good talent, and a strong worker, you can still be taken out at the end of the day if there simply isn’t enough revenue from your product.

Getting Money

Between finding investors, signing contracts with game publishers, or funding their own games through either of the prior options, they would be able to stay afloat and continue working to create games. A new plan for funding was coming around in recent times, however: crowdfunding. To do this would mean getting to be supported by those interested in your game through hundreds if not thousands of smaller donations in order to support your company and its workers. With this idea in mind, they decided to pursue a kickstarter while working with publishers on their game, South Park: The Stick of Truth. With the promise of making an RPG, they were able to raise money to bring them back from the edge of collapse, getting to 5.3 million dollars in donations through the kickstarters under the promises of adding different content in the game and being able to keep working on the game.

Making the Game

Now that the kickstarter had ended, it was time to work on producing their take on the Dungeons and Dragons game-style for an RPG: Project Eternity. Several other games that had been made previously with similar ideas in mind had several maps in their game, totaling around 200. For Obsidian Entertainment, they did not have as high of a budget or number of employees, only able to sustain 40 workers for about 10 months off of the money they raised, so they settled in 120-150 maps. As they kept productions up and worked on the game, going through several complication along the way from the way levels were designed to the change from old software to Maya for their 3D modeling, they felt the need to keep all 74,000 of their kickstarter backers informed of their progress along the way to ensure they all felt safe in their decision to fund this studio. On December 10th, 2013, Obsidian’s production lead, Brandon Adler, sent out the update of their first trailer of the game dropping and the official retitling of the game to Pillars of Eternity. Hundreds of comments started flowing in, comments and support raining down on the company, allowing them to keep close ties to those who they are making the game for.

The Finale

After many problems in their productions, and the big rushes and delays that happen in all games to ensure quality content upon release, they were finally ready. On March 26th, 2015, Obsidian Entertainment released Pillars of Eternity, selling over 700,000 copies of the game in the first year of its release, and the production of the second part of the game had begun to. With this extra funding from selling the game, the passion project continued until their second release of The White Marsh. They continued the cycle, getting crowd-funded, producing for the people, and to this day they haven’t had as close of a call since all those years ago when their game was cancelled. Game production is about evolution; Through their changing of their software to changing how they got their games funded, it all allowed more freedom for them to pursue their goals of creation.

Personal Thoughts

In reviewing this chapter, I found it a personally fascinating story of how Obsidian Entertainment was not only able to stay afloat and thrive due to the help of donations from crowdfunding, but also able to break free from the model of services game production studios have been tied to for so long. To free yourself from a higher-up who cares more about the profit than the game in order to work for the people you are trying to please, the people who are funding your game looking for a great adventure allowed Obsidian Studios to truly spread their winds in the production of their games. The ability to stay connected through the videos and weekly updates brings a greater community and bond between developer and user, allowing for a greater flow of ideas. While crowdfunding seems like it could be the sole solution for the industry, there will be times where it is better to get work from a company with a lot of money when looking for a product. While it could be pulled out from under you rather quickly, it does make for a more stable means of production, while crowdfunding relies on people trusting you and believing in your project, as well as there being enough people who have enough money to donate to you. If the world is going through a minor economic crisis at the time, it could cause a collapse in your studio when people stop funding you. Over all, I found this chapter looking at Obsidian’s almost fall into its ascension to be an empowering and inspiring wholesome story for many game developers out there who may fear the same happening to them.