This is a hilarious controversy to me because it is so obviously a labor dispute but nobody is covering it that way.
If you work as a creative and your product doesn't sell because you were forced to cut corners by your boss you should be mad at your boss not your audience.
This is a complex issue that most people who haven't followed AA and AAA RPG development for the past 20 years or so won't fully understand. For an entire period between the late 90s all the way to the early 2010s, RPG developers were taken over by large publishers, like Electronic Arts, and the operating ethos was that RPGs had to diversify their audience away from their core fans. The fallacy all along was a false dichotomy between two caricatures. The RPG fan who likes reading 17 novels of text in each questline and who is ok with number crunching, and a caricature of the console purchasing Call of Duty / FIFA player. Developers like Bioware followed that ideology to a t, shifting genres with each new release. They did expand their market, but only slightly nowhere near the level they expected. They arguably cannibalized their own audience while failing to make inroads elsewhere because the studio's identity was dilluted over time. Meanwhile, developers like Bethesda also believed in the prevailing ideology, but they only went so far. They didn't make RPGs in the style of the late 90s, but they didn't diversify from their formulas either. While Bethesda streamlined their games, they didn't change genre with every release. Hell, Bethesda didn't even change engines.
The real lesson of Skyrim's release in 2011 is that developers need to build up their audiences and their teams. They need to hone their pipelines, groom and attract talent, and become known for their niches. Most people on Steam don't even play much of the games they buy. They purchase games nonetheless, because they wish to be part of the wider culture of videogames. This ultimate lesson is what's behind successes like Rockstar's, FromSoftware's, and most recently Larian's. However, studio heads tend to see things in terms of market appeal. So everyone had to make a Soulslike game. Everyone had to make an open world Skyrim successor. What's particularly impressive about Larian is that they stuck to their guns, and those weren't guns anyone was ready to bet on. Elder Scrolls at least is built on a foundation of something that seems mainstream-able. Baldur's Gate 3 is a turn based RPG using a full implementation of the D&D rules and with rolls on screen for dialogue options. Ask anybody on the scene 10 years ago that this sort of thing would reach 700k-1million concurrent players on Steam and they'd laugh you out of the room. D:OS 1 and 2 were already bigger succcesses than we would have expected when they came out.
The developers who say that Larian's success is lightning on a bottle are right. Though it's more akin to a strongly built foundation, where bricks were layered over a long time with a lot of patience. Nobody woke up one day and decided to give some guy hundreds of millions of dollars to make the RPG with the most reactivity in the world. What you had instead was Sven Vicke and his little studio doing decades of mercenary work and what games they could afford to, so that they could pay the bills, surviving and creating a pipeline that all lead to this. The developers are right that BG3 isn't the new standard. It's exceptional. And now people online who remain frustrated with publisher and marketing led development are harping on those people's words, as though clueless devs don't want to give people what they want. The clueless people are on top, not on twitter.
Well said! I was thinking the same things but could not express it properly
The thing is that people's feelings when they see those statements are valid, they just don't know how to deal with them you know. When they say 'I bought BG3 because its a cool project that deserves support', they are right. There's a lot of pointless money being thrown around in AA and AAA development. There's a lot of frustration. And since I've been around the place for so many years, I just overthink this stuff through.
I think one able comparison is with Owlcat Studios, the crazy russians who came out of nowhere and started selling millions of copies with their Pathfinder adaptations. When they first announced their Kingmaker development, most people on the scene felt that it would play second fiddle to Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity. But nobody expected either game to do as well as Kingmaker ultimately did. Fast forward a few years and Owlcat came out with Wrath of the Righteous, which was just a refinement from Kingmaker. Only much more massive a project. The game wasn't even playable for a year after release but it was still enough of a success that the studio could afford to relocate to Cyprus and soldier on with the development of a Warhammer 40k game. Nobody would claim that Owlcat's games are less valuable now that Baldur's Gate 3 came out. Both Owlcat's and Larian's games are valuable because they have an identity and a niche, and aren't afraid to be insanely ambitious to get where they want.
The second important comparison is with BioWare. Baldur's Gate 3 feels like the game that BioWare should have made after Dragon Age: Origins. Even if BioWare didn't want to make a full turn based D&D adaptation, not only did BioWare's brand begin with Baldur's Gate, but in many ways Baldur's Gate 3 feels like a Dragon Age made with Original Sin technology. The camera work, the character driven storytelling, the RPG mechanics. BioWare could have evolved in that direction. But telemetrics and market demographics never told them it was an option. If I was in charge of the Xbox division the one thing I wouldn't have done is what happened to BioWare. The studio was acquired and retooled - almost by osmosis really - to follow their parent company's ethos. They went from making niche RPGs to believing that the only way they could afford to tell their character driven cinematic games was to become more like a mainstream action blockbuster release. Baldur's Gate 3 disproves all of that.
It really is poetic how Larian is doing all this with BioWare's former series! It makes me sad that I enjoyed the Dragon Age and Mass Effect game so much in the day and now have no expectations from them
The second important comparison is with BioWare. Baldur's Gate 3 feels like the game that BioWare should have made after Dragon Age: Origins. Even if BioWare didn't want to make a full turn based D&D adaptation, not only did BioWare's brand begin with Baldur's Gate, but in many ways Baldur's Gate 3 feels like a Dragon Age made with Original Sin technology. The camera work, the character driven storytelling, the RPG mechanics. BioWare could have evolved in that direction. But telemetrics and market demographics never told them it was an option. If I was in charge of the Xbox division the one thing I wouldn't have done is what happened to BioWare. The studio was acquired and retooled - almost by osmosis really - to follow their parent company's ethos. They went from making niche RPGs to believing that the only way they could afford to tell their character driven cinematic games was to become more like a mainstream action blockbuster release. Baldur's Gate 3 disproves all of that.
If there is at least one game I'm extremely nostalgic about is Neverwinter 1, NWN was the game in the early 2000s arguably probably more popular than BG imo.
I wonder what's your take on the NWN 1-2 transition from Bioware to Obsidian. I don't entirely understand what went on there, I looked at the wiki before and it was something about licensing so reading your comment I'm not even sure where exactly the decision was made to just give up on those DnD games if that was even a thing.
It's simple really. BioWare was hard at work on Mass Effect at the time and wanted to create more original IPs overall. From what I remember, they were the ones who recommended Obsidian to Atari. What's interesting to me is how NwN2 ended up shaping not only Obsidian, but our general perception of the studio.
First, NwN2 came out during that dark age I mentioned, close to the height of the computer RPG dryspell of the 2000s. Standards were low, not only in terms of overall creativity but also on the technical side. Games like Bloodlines, Arcanum, and so on would all become cult classics even though some were brokenly unplayable or outright unfinished. Even so NwN2's development was a disaster. The first lead did a terrible job, and it was Josh Sawyer who got the game out of the door. It was in a barely shippable state and it showed. Taking NwN1 with all the strengths and limitations it had, and turning it into a party based RPG was not a good idea.
That said, the lead writer (George Ziets) and the lead designer (Josh Sawyer), as well as the studio as a whole, were all young enough that they were willing to try something new with the expansions. Mask of the Betrayer kinda redeemed the NwN2 release. Whereas before people would say 'at least the NwN2 Original Campaign's trial scene was cool' (good lord), now they could say that MotB was worth a playthrough all of it's own (and it was). The spirit meter and the plot combined to tell a very compelling story. MotB, together with Avellone's writing in Kotor created the image of Obsidian Entertainment as the bottomfeeder studio willing to do mercenary work for BioWare and Bethesda, but capable of adding compelling twists and turns of their own. Obsidian had become synonymous with subversion in the minds of many. Sawyer grew in confidence within the studio, and Avellone's fame outgrew retroactively from his stint in Planescape Torment. However it was an illusion, and it did not describe the team as a whole.
If BioWare's pitfall was believing they had to diversify from 'rpg nerds' towards 'fratbros who buy Xboxes' (both caricatures), there was perhaps no studio head who believed that false dichotomy more than Feargus Urquhart, the Obsidian head. The man always dreamt of making a Skyrim killer. Obsidian was lead for that end. When they made Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian created a beautiful, competently played game that nonetheless played it extremely safe. It tried to be a little bit of BG1, a little bit of Icewind Dale, a little bit of BG2 and it overall lacked in spice with it's delivery. When Obsidian made Tyranny, they had a real gem in their hands, but (allegedly) diverted funds from it towards the making of Pillars 2. When they made Pillars 2 they overcorrected from the subdued nature of Pillars 1's story, and failed to market the game properly, underestimating the effect that Pillars 1 had on their fanbase, as well as believing that Critical Role alone would sell millions of copies. None of it mattered though, because Feargus still got to sell his studio to Microsoft, which then greenlit funds to make his open world game. Except he never built a team towards that end. Obsidian had made New Vegas using Bethesda's tech and assets. Then they made The Outer Worlds, which was a commercial success, but quite underwhelming overall. Now they are making Avowed, which seems to have been scaled back hard towards something on the scale of Outer Worlds rather than Skyrim.
'Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle', people will say of Elder Scrolls and Bethesda games in general. Turns out digging an ocean wide puddle is still a ton of work. It requires a team, it requires patience, and eyes on the ball. Obsidian ended up no different from BioWare, chasing trends and imagined audiences rather than focusing on their core strengths. Ultimately story leads ended up quitting the studio, and those who didn't, like Sawyer, ended up exhausted and risk averse. This means the new blood would join a studio with a fame for cool stories and subversions of mainline settings, only to end up directionless and working for Urquhart's cashout boutique.
We cant have nice things because game dev is hard is not a take I agree with. There could be more studios with well developed pipelines, and rational timeframes of completion that eschew predatory monetization if these devs would unionize.
I'm not saying it would fix everything overnight. Being unionized doesn't protect you from mismanagement - but it can protect you from feeling like you have unreasonable expectations to meet.
The devs agree! Josh Sawyer gave a talk at a game dev conference a few years back about the benefits of unionization. Shoutout to Sega devs and their recent success in Irvine. They're just a few miles away from Obsidian and Blizzard
I'd suggest they get busy then. I'm sorry for being terse but as someone who has been fired for unionizing I get a little annoyed with takes that boil down to "a better world isn't possible".
I don't think any of the any of the takes today boiled down to that though. I mean just check out the games these guys work on, Xavier made Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and Josh Sawyer directed Pentiment. They get to experiment and make cool stuff I think they for sure think a better world is possible.
Anyone who is convinced it can get better probably burns out and leave the industry. Most people leave the industry for better working conditions
If Xavier specified that he meant the publishers expectations are unreasonable I wouldn't have a problem but these critiques aren't about the publishers they're about the audience having too high of expectations.
Being unionized doesn't protect you from mismanagement - but it can protect you from feeling like you have unreasonable expectations to meet.
Truth be told this issue is entirely besides unionization. The latter is about worker's rights. The former is about the overall objectives of the teams involved. A lot of the studios that stick to their guns and develop their niches into commercial and artistic success also practice predatory workplace policies like crunch time.
BioWare could have been unionized all along, it wouldn't have changed what sort of games they were working on because most everybody in the studio as well as every single lead came to buy the vision. That their cinematic character driven space/fantasy operas could only be supported by selling 10+ million copíes. Which in turn means they had to 'go mainstream' and 'chase the call of duty audience'. They would say as much when interacting with their fans. And of course they did, it was the prevailing ideology for more than 10 years. Hell, BioWare could have been a co-op. There's no reason they wouldn't co-operatively choose to be fundamentally wrong. Dragon Age: Origins came out in 2009. It was already sold as a 'compromise' between the 'hardcore fan' and the 'normals'. It took 14 years for something like Baldur's Gate 3 to come out and prove the whole project direction of Dragon Age as a series as wrong.
This feeds back into the popular perception of corporate meddling. People often imagine that the corporate heads at Microsoft or EA are micromanaging studios unto death. That does happen, with highs and downs depending on time and place. However the real danger of corporate meddling doesn't go away even when the publishers take a hands off approach. Far from it. That's when it gets really insidious. The parent company can't help but bleed their own culture into that of their subsidiaries. Something as simple as setting timescales also sets the tone for the entire enterprise. Over the years the prevailing worldview will change all across the spectrum. Even when you are as big as Microsoft and just wants your 'acquisitions' to do their own thing for the Xbox Pass. That's what happened at BioWare. Unions wouldn't have fostered an independent studio culture there and 'pushed back' against EA because EA themselves never had to push themselves in. They didn't have to do anything but be in the same conversations as BioWare employees. The EA producer will learn that maybe you can't push out RPGs yearly like you do with FIFA. The BioWare producer will learn that market appeal is built by chasing industry trends, participating in design arms races with your competitors, and appealing to as many demographics as possible.
Games development is hard. These projects are massive and complex. They require cooperation and an in-built culture that is attuned to the kinds of projects being developed. Building these teams takes time, and must be done regardless of turn over. Even if a games company isn't too exploitative of their employees, the people involved still have a lot of options for employment. And will seek them over the years. Which is all the more puzzling when studios who are very good at street grafitti decide to change tack and get into wood carvings instead. New employees will show up with spray cans due to the team's fame. Old employees might have tenditinitis that prevents them from using a chisel. And then the whole thing falls into development hell but nobody can really tell why.
If you work as a creative and your product doesn't sell because you were forced to cut corners by your boss you should be mad at your boss not your audience.
I think it's fine for Obsidian devs to be a bit upset that they'll probably never have these resources at hand, being a generally smaller studio and not usually shipping very many copies. But insomniac and blizzard is funny. Going "I'm just a smol bean" when they're behemoths.
I dunno what Obsidian said specifically but I have a pretty poor opinion of any dev trying to redirect this to the audience. If it was just "I wish we had a bigger budget" then I have no prob with that.
I just skipped through the video to see the tweets, none of these read like attacks. The guy who said "Rockstar-Like Nonsnse" has been waiting for BG3 and clearly really likes it, this is simply a phrase that implies it is a level of effort and scope similar to Rockstar games. As he's talking about how this game probably has more dev effort than the next 2-3 games in this genre
The Xavier and Josh Sawyer tweets did not seem mad at the audience. They were just saying that is BG3 is exceptional and will not be the norm. Only under Twitter reader comprehension can this be taken negatively
To me the Xavier tweets read like opinions of a comfortable person who is too afraid to agitate for better working conditions and instead is trying to manage expectations, so we'll have to disagree on that.
He's an indie dev so I have no reason to read it that way.
I didn't know that. It kind of makes the take even more baffling. Why does he care? If he has no overlord he should be free to do whatever he wants. Indie games don't have to follow those expectations at all.
Lots of Gamers look at indie games and scoff at spending $10 on a two hour experience when they can instead buy a AAA open world collect-a-thon and play for 120 hours for $60
Anyways this conversation seemed mostly about resources/team size rather than working conditions
I don't think that first part is true at all. This era of gaming is pretty much hallmarked by indie success and AAA bloat and failure.
Resources / Team size is a discussion about working conditions.
edit: He edited his comment to make me look wrong. Neat.
Some indie games are very successful yes. But I think a lot of people who might check out a game like Venba ( a short narrative focused game) on GamePass would not consider spending $15 on buying it. Since thats the same cost as a month of the subscription. An indie dev has heard their game called worthless for being small many times
Oh ok, when you mentioned working conditions I thought you meant pay, crunch, etc.
If you are gonna posthumously edit your comments to change the meaning you should give the person a heads up. Now I look like I'm wrong about something I was objectively correct about.
