Preview Wasteland 2 Gamescom Preview at Wasteland 2 Guru

[TwinkieGorilla]

He's rich enough to spend 3 million + dollars making a videogame just 'cuz? Ok.

 

[FeelTheRads]

P.S. Surf Solar I honestly want to punch your petulant little grandma face every time you brofist somebody being negative (and usually simultaneously unintelligent). Including myself. Jesus, dude. Lighten up for a second.

It's true that there's no negative post about W2 without SS fisting it.

Also, myeah... he's no fucking oil baron or even Lord British. The 100k he gave for Torment is quite a lot coming from just one man, really. Risking 3 million.. or even 1 million.. yeah, you wouldn't do it either if you were as rich as him, I guarantee you.

 

[felipepepe]

Is more like between making the exact same money out of Choplifter HD or Wasteland 2, he prefers Wasteland 2.

 

[tuluse]

Why didn't he fund an RPG out of his own fucking money then, like a lot of people have done or are doing? He certainly could do that comfortably considering how rich he is.

Spending 1 million dollars, plus receiving no income for between 12-24 months is a lot to ask even a rich person.

I don't know that it's fair to say he could have afforded that.

 

[Excidium]

He's rich enough to spend 3 million + dollars making a videogame just 'cuz? Ok.

Why didn't he fund an RPG out of his own fucking money then, like a lot of people have done or are doing? He certainly could do that comfortably considering how rich he is.

Spending 1 million dollars, plus receiving no income for between 12-24 months is a lot to ask even a rich person.

I don't know that it's fair to say he could have afforded that.

If he really cared for it. It's like the dude that quits his job to dedicate full time to game development while living with minimum expenses or that works for free for a share of the profits, not knowing if it's even going to turn profitable. 3 million (not that would even need that much to make an RPG) isn't that much for somebody in his position.

Is more like between making the exact same money out of Choplifter HD or Wasteland 2, he prefers Wasteland 2.

Well obviously. I'd much rather be comfortable leading in a niche genre than making a game that has to compete with a trillion other similar ones in an app store too. Kickstarter already did the favor of showing him how financially viable it is twice.

 

[Trash]

in the end, this is a shovelware-budget 3D game about post-apocalyptic cops kicking ass in the wasteland. It's not exactly high concept stuff.

Depressing innit?

 

[Grunker]

So now everyone who wanted it could just fund their own full-fledged RPGs?

Jesus Christ, the Codex memory banks are fucking non-existant.

No wonder nobody makes games for us. Bitching over actually concepts and details I can understand, but bitching over the fact that games are actually made with us as part of the target audience fucking baffles me.

 

[RedScum]

Got to bitch about something i guess.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

shovelware-budget

Is it really that expensive to make games these days? I mean, 3 mil from the Kickstarter + however much they got from that distribution deal should amount to something, or doesn't it? My videogame economics is horrible, but FO1 was 3 mil in the mid-late nineties, so that's about 5 mil of today's dollars; wouldn't W2's budget at least approach that? You'd also think that a lot of things have become cheaper than back in those days (no sprites, etc.).

 

[Infinitron]

shovelware-budget

Is it really that expensive to make games these days? I mean, 3 mil from the Kickstarter + however much they got from that distribution deal should amount to something, or doesn't it? My videogame economics is horrible, but FO1 was 3 mil in the mid-late nineties, so that's about 5 mil of today's dollars; wouldn't W2's budget at least approach that? You'd also think that a lot of things have become cheaper than back in those days (no sprites, etc.).

Fallout was pretty shovelware budget too. I mean, just look at it compared to Baldur's Gate. The production quality just isn't the same. I'm also not sure if that widely quoted 3 million figure includes marketing and distribution costs.

Also, I don't think they received any money from the Deep Silver distribution deal. The distribution deal represents money that they already had that no longer needs to be spent on doing distribution themselves.

 

[Excidium]

So now everyone who wanted it could just fund their own full-fledged RPGs?

If they have the commitment. People have been doing that before crowdfunding and are still doing without it.

shovelware-budget

Is it really that expensive to make games these days? I mean, 3 mil from the Kickstarter + however much they got from that distribution deal should amount to something, or doesn't it? My videogame economics is horrible, but FO1 was 3 mil in the mid-late nineties, so that's about 5 mil of today's dollars; wouldn't W2's budget at least approach that? You'd also think that a lot of things have become cheaper than back in those days (no sprites, etc.).

It's not just making a game but running a business. Paying office rent, bills, taxes, wages and all the things to have a dozen people working fulltime to make the thing in a few months. It's why those kickstarter RPGs cost millions.

 

[Infinitron]

If they have the commitment. People have been doing that before crowdfunding and are still doing without it.

...and rarely actually releasing anything, unless their name is Jeff Vogel or it's a stripped down combat-focused affair like KOTC.

 

[Excidium]

If they have the commitment. People have been doing that before crowdfunding and are still doing without it.

...and rarely actually releasing anything, unless their name is Jeff Vogel or it's a stripped down combat-focused affair like KOTC.

But they really try. And that's what I mean. Can't really say Fargo "tried" by throwing Wasteland at publishers to see if it sticks, when the gardening of his mansion probably has a higher budget than Vogel games.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

It's not just making a game but running a business. Paying office rent, bills, taxes, wages and all the things to have a dozen people working fulltime to make the thing in a few months. It's why those kickstarter RPGs cost millions.

The production quality just isn't the same. I'm also not sure if that widely quoted 3 million figure includes marketing and distribution costs.

Wouldn't it be weird if that 3 mil figure for FO1 didn't include those things? We should have Sduibek bother Tim Cain about it.

 

[Infinitron]

Wouldn't it be weird if that 3 mil figure for FO1 didn't include those things? We should have Sduibek bother Tim Cain about it.

I believe it's been said that Fallout was a "side project" for a long time, ie, many of the people working on it may have been working on other games simultaneously. (I wouldn't be surprised if Obsidian were putting extra hours into Project Eternity in a similar way - by using manpower officially earmarked to the the South Park project's budget. Thanks again, Ubisoft!)

 

[Roguey]

He's rich enough to spend 3 million + dollars making a videogame just 'cuz? Ok.

He lives in a mansion and comes from the family that co-founded Wells Fargo. American Express too.

 

[abnaxus]

He's rich enough to spend 3 million + dollars making a videogame just 'cuz? Ok.

He lives in a mansion and comes from the family that co-founded Wells Fargo. American Express too.

Source?

 

[Roguey]

His last name is Fargo and he obviously had a lot of money when he started Interplay. Though of course there's Wiki which sources from American Pioneers: The Fargo Family History.

A descendant of the family that created the banking giants Wells Fargo and American Express, Fargo was born in Long Beach, California, and grew up in Whittier and Newport Beach. The only child of Frank Byron Fargo and Marie Curtis Fargo, he attended Corona del Mar High School, where he participated in track and field and developed a desire to create video games after his parents bought him an Apple II computer in 1977

 

[Infinitron]

He's rich enough to spend 3 million + dollars making a videogame just 'cuz? Ok.

He lives in a mansion and comes from the family that co-founded Wells Fargo. American Express too.

Source?

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Fargo (see first footnote)

Last year, somebody on Twitter accused Fargo of not needing money because of this. He replied that being a descendant of that family hadn't helped him much in life other than the bank tellers in Wells Fargo banks being polite to him.

 

[Liston]

Wouldn't it be weird if that 3 mil figure for FO1 didn't include those things? We should have Sduibek bother Tim Cain about it.

I believe it's been said that Fallout was a "side project" for a long time, ie, many of the people working on it may have been working on other games simultaneously.

This is pretty much the case, they had 3 team members for the first year and there were a lot of people that worked on the game in their free time also. Source

Here is a bonus part where Tim explains how he fought against marketing department who wanted him to turn Fallout into Diablo clone in the middle of development.

 

[Roguey]

Last year, somebody on Twitter accused Fargo of not needing money because of this. He replied that being a descendant of that family hadn't helped him much in life other than the bank tellers in Wells Fargo banks being polite to him.

Privilege check http://wikimapia.org/16992912/Brian-Fargo-s-House

 

[Infinitron]

Last year, somebody on Twitter accused Fargo of not needing money because of this. He replied that being a descendant of that family hadn't helped him much in life other than the bank tellers in Wells Fargo banks being polite to him.

Privilege check http://wikimapia.org/16992912/Brian-Fargo-s-House

Yup. However, you don't become a millionaire by throwing away large sums of money on products without a proven market. Self-funding Wasteland 2 would have made it essentially a vanity project, like those billionaires who bankroll non-profitable soccer teams. Fargo is rich, but he's not that decadent.

In other words, Kickstarter isn't just about getting money, it's also about proving that a market is there. After years of people saying that PC gaming is dead and traditional RPGs are dead, that was not at all obvious.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So now everyone who wanted it could just fund their own full-fledged RPGs?

Yes, Grunker. A wealthy man like Fargo who founded Interplay and now runs his own game development studio is 'everyone who wants to'.

 

[felipepepe]

After years of people saying that PC gaming is dead and traditional RPGs are dead, that was not at all obvious.

If one has money and knows that there is a unattended market full of eager consumers (not to mention older and with jobs, thus money), investing there to become the market leader seems like a nice move, not a decadent vanity project, especially since he already has the know-how on that market...

Of course, Fargo turned his businessman powers to 11 and made that exact same move, but with other people's money and almost 0 risk to him.

 

[Infinitron]

knows that there is a unattended market full of eager consumers

But one doesn't know. Two years ago, as far as anybody knew, the "hardcore CRPG fanbase" consisted of maybe a thousand pissed off RPGCodex members and not much else.

Personally, if I had just had to downsize my company and fire 45 people, I wouldn't have gone there alone.