Chris Avellone On Interplay, Obsidian, KOTOR2

Thanks to Winterwind Productions for its two-part interview with Chris Avellone, former RPG designer for Interplay's Black Isle division, discussing the continued turmoil at that company ("Projects getting cancelled just happens, but the reasons that projects were getting cancelled at Interplay never felt like good reasons"), his new home at Obsidian Entertainment ("I think our starting line of titles are going to be a good foundation to build Obsidian on... and should help when pitching new ideas to publishers"), and his work on Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2, including more specific endings compared to KOTOR ("The current game mechanic we're playing around for the endings with is something similar to Fallout, but it will be presented a little differently.")

Re:Game Developement

[KDR_11k]

Wrong story. The one you meant to comment is the one below this one.

Sounds Like....

[tprime]

It sounds like they at Obsidean are trying to do a little name dropping. If they can somehow connect KOTOR2 to Fallout they will not only get everyone who enjoyed the original KOTOR to buy the game, but every obsessed Fallout nut to buy they game. I fall into both groups, however this might be a way to just draw some attention to Obsidean's past for those that do not already know that they are Black Isle's soul.

I am not denouncing their promotional methods, but rather praising it. In today's gaming world, developers seem to go bankrupt more often than they succeed (an when they succeed most of the time a bigger company buys them anyway). If Fallout name dropping helps them to sell enough to stay solvent and keep those great minds developing games, all the more power to them. I wish you the same luck that I am wishing Bryan Fargo's in-Xile Entertainment.

Re:Sounds Like....

[Ayaress]

The Fallout/KOTOR connection is pretty logical when you think about it. The vast majority of RPGs are fall into some variation on fantasy. Fallout and KOTOR are two of the few big names in that segment of the genre.

Re:Sounds Like....

[jonaac]

No wonder you`re anonymous, because most things you are saying aren`t. The weak license had 5 diferent companies trying to get it since january. With the oem figures it reached over 630000 copies. The fans are demanding people, but they kept interest in games that are 6 and 7 years old, like the Jagged Alliance or the Starcraft communities,and thats not a bad start for a sequel to be released. It may be time to rest Fo3 and move on, but not because you say so, that`s another story. By the way i have enoug

Re:Sounds Like....

[tprime]

Honestly, this was the "rabid fans" the original Coward referred to. Trust me, in reading the Interplay forums AND nma-fallout.com, the original fans ARE nuts. But, then again, it is a rare game that can make so many people this crazy about ANY game. That 630,000 copies sold is mainly a total from the following:

1. The original Fallout shelf game
2. The Fallout2 shelf game
3. The Fallout/Fallout2 discount combo pack
In the grand scheme of things, Fallout Tactics sold very few games and FOBOS sold just as few (but not the minisucle amount that many of the Fallout fans claimed, it was picked up by many of the rental places where PC games cannot be)

Back on the 630,000 copies sold number.... For a console game, that is only decent, but for PC games, that is considered a great seller. Many PC games do not even break the 50k copies mark. That is the difference that Interplay was banking on and reflects back on my original point.

Yes it was a shame that the franchise possibly died with Herve's knife in the development teams' back, but it is certainly not worth starting a /. flame war over. BlackIsle will not be publishing the game, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it published under the Obsidean sticker. For as crazy, bitter and obsessive the fans of the original game are, the developers are even more nuts over their beloved franchise.

Here's to hoping that their craze gets this game published.

Re:Sounds Like....

[Anonymous Coward]

A 50k PC game is a commercial failure today. A 200k PC game is commercial failure for an AA game. A 350k pc game is a commercial failure for an AAA game.

Developing an AAA game costs *a lot of money* these days, up to a couple of millions a month (just wages + expenses for 100+ people teams)

It is increasingly hard to get shelfspace for anything that isn't expected to bust the 800k mark (speaking of PC games).

To give a perspective, the Baldurs Gate (I + II + Exp packs) saga sold more than 5.000.000 copies

Re:Sounds Like....

[jonaac]

Are you sure?

Re:Sounds Like....

[jonaac]

Two games, with the second beeing one of the buggiest games on release ever. Remember Tactics was the most pre-ordered game in the Interplay store history,beat Baldurs Gate2 easilly, then word of mouth killed it, wich was really for the best, a rather week game. They didn`t picked it up because of Herve asking unbelievable ammounts of money, with FO:BOS costing almost twice of the BGDA2 costs according to Fergus, and selling less than 20000 copies, therefore the market value of the franchise droped signifi

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Development Blues

[Ayaress]

I agree with all those points, but it's a bit late for that for Fallout 3. Interplay's on the rocks, and likely to be gone before long. As far as I know, they're still gripping to their game rights like grim death. I hope they get smart and liquidate their intellectual property. Sure, it won't save Interplay, but at least then we have a hope in hell of getting Fallout 3 made and Interplay's brass can make a truckload of money and laugh all the way to the bank like they want to so much.

Re:Development Blues

[tprime]

I followed along with the whole Fallout3 thing and here is how things seemed to happen.

1. Fallout3 is a PC game and PC Games do not currently sell as well as most of the new console games do.
2. BlackIsle is having serious financial problems. Due to the in-depth nature of an epic game like a Fallout3 and the development costs associated with it, staff gets cut and Interplay CEO and SuperGenius Herve Caen believes that the ActionRPG genre (Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath, etc.) can earn his company (and his stock options) a quick buck.
3. Lower development costs, support costs and distribution costs spawn the blasphemous Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (FOBOS) game for the xbox and PS2. All remaining staff are given the option to work on FOBOS or pound the concrete.
4. FOBOS is rushed out the door and does VERY poorly due to generic gameplay and bad controls.

Basically, Interplay made some bad decisions based upon flawed logic to try and stay in business. The only logical conclusion they came to throughout the whole thing is regarding the console vs. PC profit structure.
a. PC games cost more to develop and support because of the meriad of hardware configurations that need to be considered.
b. A full Fallout3 game takes MUCH more time to write from a story side as well.
c. Console games are much more difficult to pirate.
d. This might surprise some people, but console games SELL much better. The original Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance (although Snowblind wrote it, it is another Interplay title) sold more than Fallout and Fallout2 combined.

Do any of these reasons make ActionRPGs better than a Fallout3? In my opinion, Hell NO! I played Dark Alliance through once and sold it back to GameStop. After all of these years I still pick my Fallout2 off my shelf and play. Great game.

This rambles on a lot, but after sitting around in the BlackIsle forums (Before they closed them) for about a year and talking to the developers, this is the impression that they were given by management.