Pillars of Eternity Interview
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Obsidian Entertainment's Feargus Urquhart has braved quite a few more questions about Pillars of Eternity, their partnership with Paradox Interactive, and the role that Kickstarter is playing in the game development landscape in a new interview over at Stevivor. Here's a little something to get you started:
Stevivor: Was there always the intention to find a publishing partner, or was Obsidian going to go at it alone?
Urquhart: You know, I think when we first started, we thought we were going to do everything. A lot of it was that we had no idea how well the game would be received. A lot of us had come from a publisher, and we could have contacted people to help us out a bit. So, ultimately, it really was, coming out of it, that we'd do it ourselves. Then, we stepped back and asked ourselves what that really meant.
When we started to really think about it, it meant customer service. We want to sell the game in China, so it meant that I'd have to travel to China, you know?
I was having lunch with Brian Fargo, who runs inXile, and he mentioned that he was talking to Deep Silver about distribution to retail for Wasteland 2. I hadn't really thought about contacting a publisher in terms of distribution and marketing. It made sense; I didn't want to have a warehouse full of boxes; it's not what we do. So I started going around talking to publishers; we'd known some guys at Paradox for a while, and we just started chatting.
It's something they do; they publish games, they market games. I really like how they market games; in particular, they care about PC, and they care about gamers who love PC games. And, to be honest, hardcore games. In the end, it felt like a good fit because they believe in games like Pillars of Eternity.
In the end, it stops me from having to fly to China. *laughter* It also lets us focus all of our efforts on making the game, and keeps all the control with us too. We own Eternity and there's no changes there, and they were very comfortable with that. So, it felt like a great fit.
Stevivor: The relationship makes what I'd consider obvious sense from Obsidian's point of view, but what does Paradox get out of the relationship?
Urquhart: I think, obviously, it's money; they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They also get to involve themselves with a little product that's high profile. I mean, it's not Titanfall, but it's a game a lot of people are really looking forward to. We've got 100,000, or 120,000 backers now. They get to be involved in this, and that's cool for them. And, if they do a great job, they do financially too.
