Review: Blood, Sweat, and Pixels Chapter 1

Hi, my name is Ava, and for the next few weeks I am going to be analyzing Blood, Sweat, And Pixels. This is a lovely book written by Jason Schreier which analyzes the struggles and wonders of developing games from several different creators. Chapter one, which will be reviewed today, covers Obsidian games and Pillars of Eternity.

The World of Obsidian

Obsidian games was not doing so hot a few years ago. While they were working on South Park in the stick of truth, they had a publishing company back out on them. What was going to be an Xbox One release title became a failed project that had a much bigger scope than what could reasonably be expected. They sadly had to lay off a lot of people. This meant that the doves were looking for a way to keep themselves afloat. One of the owners suggested the use of crowdfunding. There had been another crowdfunding game that did extremely well financially, and it became a hope that it could save them.

And… it did. 

They hyped up the release date of their campaign, and when that day came they broke their goal in a matter of hours. They had a budget and the ability to make a game that they wanted. 

The game would be called Pillars of Eternity, and it was going back to Obsidian’s roots with an RPG style.

Crowdfunding: Yes or No?

Personally, I think that the crowdfunding was a blessing for Obsidian. From what I read, their previous game had failed because there was a lack of communication and ideas were getting out of hand. When it came to Pillars of Eternity, they had a constant stream of communication, which meant if any of their ideas got out of hand then there would always be someone to explain why and to attempt to stop them. The example given is how they scrapped an item durability after a well thought out comment explained why they thought it wasn’t a good idea. 

So the good news about crowdfunding is that you get direct communication with the people you are going to be presenting your game too. The bad news is that you have direct communication with the people you’re going to be presenting your game to. Yes, you are going to know exactly what your fans want, but it means that your original vision can get cluttered and anyone that has a gripe can blow it out of proportion if they word their message in just the right way. However, you are also getting opinions from the fans that truly care about the project. 

All in all, I think crowdfunding has its time and place. For Obsidian, they have learned to harness the potential of crowdfunding to give themselves the freedom to create what they want to make when they were at their lowest. Even though this company has since been acquired by Microsoft, it does not change the impact the practice had on their studio. 

I am excited to see what the other chapters of this book have in store!