inXile General Discussion Thread

[Morkar Left]

You guys have issues...
He wouldn't be in the game industry for so long in such a position if he wouldn't have a personal interest in it besides earning money. He sure isn't making millions here for himself and I'm pretty sure he has a lot of good connections that he could get a management job somewhere else where he would earn more money.
For a manager/producer who isn't a designer or programmer in the first place he is pretty hands on. I don't know another pure manager/producer who even designed an area in a game by himself. You may not agree with his decisions or his opinion of how a game should be but it's without a doubt that he has no intention of "scamming" people.

 

[Zombra]

what the fuck does his tinder profile pic have to do with anything

 

[Bohr]

Just an affectionate tribute

 

[FeelTheRads]

lul, Fargo is itching to sue. Like that time when Bethesda called a F4 DLC or whatever the fuck something with "wasteland".
Too bad he's just an insignificant bug for Zionmax. They could literally name their games Wasteland and all Fargo could do is tweet passive-aggressive crap like that.

 

[BEvers]

Wasteland: Frost Point is a PUBG/Fortnite-like but in VR, from gumi's earnings report last June:

Apparently inXile also secured 4 million USD from Tencent for this game. So with gumi's 4.5 million USD investment, this could be a 10 million+ USD budget game.

edit: found the original slide: (Japanese, p.22) https://ssl4.eir-parts.net/doc/3903/ir_material_for_fiscal_ym/46404/00.pdf

世界最大規模のゲーム会社であるテンセントが4M USDの出資を実行

Tencent, the world's largest game company, invested 4M USD

Will be interesting to see how that unfolds now. Will we be seeing a joint project by Tencent, gumi and Microsoft?

 

[LESS T_T]

Yeah. FWIW the last financial report presentation from gumi still had inXile's logo (but no update about the progress).

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh yeah, there's also that Autoduel trademark dispute going on with Steve Jackson Games. Final decision will come out sooner or later though.

 

[biggestboss]

I was briefly able to speak with George Ziets this year at a gamedev conference called GDEX where he spoke about designing choice and consequence. I won't share any specifics of our conversation out of respect for him, but the general vibe about Wasteland 3 seemed very positive and I actually feel excited for it.

His talk at the conference was also great, and he cited examples from Mask of the Betrayer which was awesome and he explained parts of Tides of Numemera's design that make me almost want to try playing it again.

 

[Frusciante]

I was briefly able to speak with George Ziets this year at a gamedev conference called GDEX where he spoke about designing choice and consequence. I won't share any specifics of our conversation out of respect for him, but the general vibe about Wasteland 3 seemed very positive and I actually feel excited for it.

His talk at the conference was also great, and he cited examples from Mask of the Betrayer which was awesome and he explained parts of Tides of Numemera's design that make me almost want to try playing it again.

Lol, what extremeties did you guys talk about that you cannot mention it here ''out of respect for him''?

 

[Bl@de]

The fuck is this goat

Brian Fargos secret desire

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I was briefly able to speak with George Ziets this year at a gamedev conference called GDEX where he spoke about designing choice and consequence. I won't share any specifics of our conversation out of respect for him, but the general vibe about Wasteland 3 seemed very positive and I actually feel excited for it.

His talk at the conference was also great, and he cited examples from Mask of the Betrayer which was awesome and he explained parts of Tides of Numemera's design that make me almost want to try playing it again.

Is the talk on video?

 

[biggestboss]

Lol, what extremeties did you guys talk about that you cannot mention it here ''out of respect for him''?

I wouldn't categorize anything we talked about as edgy or confidential, but I don't feel it's right to attribute any statements to him without his permission.

 

[biggestboss]

Is the talk on video?

No, but once I get home from work I can transcribe my notes on his talk.

 

[Infinitron]

G Ziets

 

[biggestboss]

Sorry for the lazy formatting. If it's not legible, I can transcribe it or clarify information.

EDIT: The lower right is George's signature

Spoiler

 

[Safav Hamon]

Maybe it's stubborn of me, but I predict Wasteland 3 will a great game.

 

[Infinitron]

Brian Fargo asks a question:



Some responses:

 

[SlumLord]

Maybe it's stubborn of me, but I predict Wasteland 3 will a great game.

Hopefully, but I wouldn't count on it.

If Fargo (or some of the key leads in the company) came out and said they'd learned from their mistakes on WL2 (and actually *listed* said mistakes!), then maybe the third installment could've come out good. But if you read through Fargo's interviews, one of his main gripes that he often repeats is that his company never has enough resources to complete their games the way they wanted to. Which is a load of horseshit, if you think about it, because on one hand you have him hyping customers via Kickstarter and whatnot about wanting to produce classical RPGs, then on the other once he gets the money and the games turn out shit he says the company couldn't deliver because they didn't have the resources to make the kind of game they wanted (but promised!).

The man's a fucking con artist! Teams are supposed to work within the financial constraints of their company - if you have just enough money to produce a PS:T knockoff (isometric fixed camera, 2D stylized graphics, lore-heavy backstory, lots of text, limited VO and C&C), then you shouldn't cry about not being able to turn the game into Skyrim-lite. But for Fargo, it's never enough. Especially since he had the budget to keep together a team of 15 or so people to produce the Kickstarted games, instead of bloating the company with unnecessary hires and opting for Unity garbage engine and assets. Imagine how much better a fully 2D heavily stylized TToN would've been, with sprite-based characters lovingly drawn and animated.

Brian is deluded. Or dishonest. Or both, maybe? Had WL2 and TToN been handled within the scope of isometric RPGs, and with care, they could've brought enough money into the company to scale up subsequent projects. You don't go from shitty old remakes to AAA games in the span of 2 projects. So in the 16 odd years that Inxile has been open, they never managed to move up that first set of stairs - making a *competent* CRPG to rival the old classics (graphics aside). Think about that for a bit: for all the fancy tech and worktools available today, where a single person can produce content that used to take an entire team just 2 decades ago, Inxile's games have managed to not only fail to eclipse the games they were trying to emulate, but have actually fallen short of them.

WL3 will be a burning pile of garbage, and it'll take a shitton of MS $$$ to put the fire out. Especially since Fargo will bamboozle whatever poor fucker gets put in charge of WL from Microsoft's side.

I hope I'm wrong because I'd love to play a competently-made Wasteland game, but Fargo's track record speaks for itself.

/endrant

 

[StaticSpine]

"It's always been difficult for development companies to become self-sustaining no matter which business model you are using," says Brian Fargo, CEO of InXile.

"At least 50% of my time is in fundraising and we have so little room for error. It generally takes a mega hit to break you out of the cycle and that is always hard to come by. A mid-size hit is nice, but the after-tax monies from that generally support another five to six months of payroll and leave you back on the hamster wheel. It turns out that talented game developers are expensive. My friends always like to comment that I should 'just make a Fortnite or Minecraft'."

So it must be exciting to those stuck on the funding treadmill to hear that Microsoft, which has historically been only interested in high-end AAA studios, is openly acquiring mid-size game developers such as Ninja Theory, InXile, Obsidian and Undead Labs.

Or at least it would be exciting if it were not for Microsoft's inconsistent track record with development studios. Although the likes of Rare, Turn 10, and Mojang might speak warmly of their parent company, the former employees of Ensemble, BigPark and Lionhead might feel differently.

"It's a natural thing for gamers to worry about, but Microsoft was very clear in their desire to give us resources to improve our quality while we continue to bring our unique style of games to our fans," Fargo reassures.

"We also spent quite a bit of time with the development groups they purchased and their teams could not have been more enthusiastic about how fortunate they felt to finally be given the time and money to create. I only know the Microsoft under Phil Spencer and Matt Booty and they are passionate gamers who care deeply about supporting talent. More important than words and promises will be the games that come from us in the future, that will be the proof."

Microsoft's decision to acquire these businesses comes from a different place, too. InXile's titles are not exactly expected to drive hardware adoption of Xbox consoles. The studio has been picked up to deliver games into the Game Pass subscription platform.

Halo, Gears of War, Forza, Sea of Thieves... these titles are expected to drive adoption of the subscription service. Yet these games take years and years to craft. Xbox is looking for content to fill the months in-between the big launches. They're looking for titles to keep people engaged in Game Pass as they await the next major game in the Crackdown universe.

Some of those games will be legacy titles from third-party publishers, some will be from indie creators, and some will come from the likes of InXile, Obsidian, Compulsion Games and Undead Labs.

On paper, you can see how this appeals to mid-sized development teams. They can create the games they want without the pressure to deliver big numbers. They can also reach an audience of people who perhaps would not have played their games previously. Similar to how Netflix encourages people to try different shows as they await the next series of Stranger Things.

"As a creator, all I care about is getting our games in front of millions of people so we can watch them play and hear about their experience," Fargo enthuses. "Game Pass immediately provides us that audience and gives us more energy to focus on creativity rather than worrying about things like monetisation. I also see it as a vehicle to allow developers to take more creative risk with their games. I think Netflix is a good example of a subscription service that allows an offering of artistic content that was unlikely to be financed otherwise. Buster Scruggs seems like a fine example of that."

He continues: "It is an absolute benefit to have a business model that allows Microsoft to support our dreams. The stable of development support we'll have access to is unlike anything that we've used before. We were blown away by the tools we'll be able to use that will allow us to hone our craft."

InXile says Microsoft offers more than just the freedom from worrying about money. There's the resources of all those development teams (Microsoft's development family now features 13 studios), and the possibility to work on some of Xbox's existing brands (although Fargo says the team is currently focused on their own IP). There's also the financial backing that will enable the team to add experts in cinematics, audio and animation to the team.

"Our money raised through crowdfunding was a wonderful catalyst to get us back in the saddle making the kind of games that speak directly to our fans. That said, we were always well aware of the in-house disciplines we were missing. The benefit to having talent focused on specific areas of game creation can have a profound effect on the overall experience. A few key positions we're looking to hire will allow our games to shine like never before. Gamers are very discerning, and they notice when a team adds that extra little touch or when things are tightly integrated."

Fargo concludes: "Spending 100 per cent of our energy making games with the resources we only dreamed of in the past. It's the holy grail for an ambitious developer."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...o-i-spent-50-percent-of-my-time-raising-money

 

[Sacred82]

Brian Fargo asks a question:

-snip-

Some responses:

Travel time seemed alright in Ultima VI and VII because you couldn't scroll the camera. What you saw of the world was as far as you could travel at any moment (and you also couldn't just click to where you wanted to be). Which negated both of those points.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

 

[Bohr]

There's still hope for BT4...

Despite its various delays, 63 1/3 launched with an obvious lack of quality and several precarious content cuts.

The original 17-character roster was cut down to 12 due to file space limitations, removing the following five characters: main antagonist Dr. Kiln’s faithful hound Lockjaw Pooch, living clay statue Lady Liberty, the cannibalistic Zappa Yow Yow Boys, High Five (Kiln’s severed hand), and an alcoholic, homeless fighter gracefully named “Hobo Cop.”

A company forced to cut characters shortly before launch could only hope that players might not notice the missing fighters. Unfortunately for Interplay, Lockjaw Pooch was featured prominently on the cover of ClayFighter 63 1/3. Likely to soften the blow from this oversight, an in-game message declares Lockjaw dead.

In addition to these omissions, the N64 title suffered from buggy backdrops with bad camera angles, poor character animation, sluggish gameplay, and an overall terrible presentation. Reviews from major gaming publications such as GameSpot, IGN, and GamePro scored the game in the 3/10 range, while Nintendo Power’s follow up review after the game’s official release was much more positive than the others.

Roughly six months after the release of 63 1/3, Interplay fired back with a new, special edition of the game. ClayFighter Sculptor’s Cut looked to right the wrongs of its predecessor.

 

[Doktor Best]

Maybe it's stubborn of me, but I predict Wasteland 3 will a great game.

Hopefully, but I wouldn't count on it.

If Fargo (or some of the key leads in the company) came out and said they'd learned from their mistakes on WL2 (and actually *listed* said mistakes!), then maybe the third installment could've come out good. But if you read through Fargo's interviews, one of his main gripes that he often repeats is that his company never has enough resources to complete their games the way they wanted to. Which is a load of horseshit, if you think about it, because on one hand you have him hyping customers via Kickstarter and whatnot about wanting to produce classical RPGs, then on the other once he gets the money and the games turn out shit he says the company couldn't deliver because they didn't have the resources to make the kind of game they wanted (but promised!).

The man's a fucking con artist! Teams are supposed to work within the financial constraints of their company - if you have just enough money to produce a PS:T knockoff (isometric fixed camera, 2D stylized graphics, lore-heavy backstory, lots of text, limited VO and C&C), then you shouldn't cry about not being able to turn the game into Skyrim-lite. But for Fargo, it's never enough. Especially since he had the budget to keep together a team of 15 or so people to produce the Kickstarted games, instead of bloating the company with unnecessary hires and opting for Unity garbage engine and assets. Imagine how much better a fully 2D heavily stylized TToN would've been, with sprite-based characters lovingly drawn and animated.

Brian is deluded. Or dishonest. Or both, maybe? Had WL2 and TToN been handled within the scope of isometric RPGs, and with care, they could've brought enough money into the company to scale up subsequent projects. You don't go from shitty old remakes to AAA games in the span of 2 projects. So in the 16 odd years that Inxile has been open, they never managed to move up that first set of stairs - making a *competent* CRPG to rival the old classics (graphics aside). Think about that for a bit: for all the fancy tech and worktools available today, where a single person can produce content that used to take an entire team just 2 decades ago, Inxile's games have managed to not only fail to eclipse the games they were trying to emulate, but have actually fallen short of them.

WL3 will be a burning pile of garbage, and it'll take a shitton of MS $$$ to put the fire out. Especially since Fargo will bamboozle whatever poor fucker gets put in charge of WL from Microsoft's side.

I hope I'm wrong because I'd love to play a competently-made Wasteland game, but Fargo's track record speaks for itself.

/endrant

Wasteland 2 DC was a big improvement and very fun to play. Isnt that kind of proof that he learned from his mistakes?

 

[Infinitron]

Fargo finds a relic:

 

[Hellion]