"Tabletop D&D Has Lost Its Way" Says Pathfinder Video Game Exec

Feargus Urquhart, one of the execs from Obsidian Entertainment, which is behind an upcoming Pathfinder-themed video game, told Polygon why the company chose to go with Paizo rather than WotC for tabletop fantasy inspired games. "One of the reasons we actually went with Pathfinder was ... how do you say it? I'll just say it: We were having a hard time figuring out how to move forward with Dungeons and Dragons." The issue, he says, is that "D&D is a part of Wizards of the Coast and WotC is a part of Hasbro" and that he would "love to see D&D be bought by someone and become what it was before... Become TSR again."

Of course, TSR went bankrupt, so I'm not sure wishing that on somebody is a kindness.

Urquhart is a long-time D&D video game exec, having worked on games like Neverwinter Nights 2; he points out that "I'm probably one of the people who has one of the most electronic D&D games that they've worked on". Now, of course, his company has moved on to Paizo's Pathfinder.

The upcoming Obsidian video games will be based on the Pathfinder games - specifically a tablet game based on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, due in the next few months. The studio is, of course, known to tabletop RPG fans for D&D games like Neverwinter Nights 2. Urquhart did hint at non-card-game based projects, saying that "We're thinking about how can we take traditional RPG stuff and put it on the tablet. No one has solved it really."

You can read the short interview here.

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[Shasarak]

Running kickstarters is also a good way to lose prestige if you aren't an indie developer. It says "we badly need your alms to make this game". Which is a shame after NWN2, KotOR II, and Fallout: New Vegas.

I was happy to see Inxile running a kickstarter for Torment 2 and disappointed that WotC could not get on board so that it would be based in the Planes again. It just seems like such a big missed opportunity to me.

 

[Dire Bare]

From everything I've read and heard and people I've talked to, Gygax actually didn't mishandle the company prior to Williams. It was the Blumes who spent like crazy on things like cross stitching and needlepoint. In fact, Gary had to come back from Hollywood early to try to get a handle on things, but he didn't have enough % ownership in the company. By all accounts, Gary wanted to keep the company fairly small.

If Gygax had been a decent businessman, he'd never had lost control to the Blumes. And they would not have passed the torch to Williams. Gygax deserves props for innovation and the creation of the MOST IMPORTANT GAME EVER!!! He might have even been a good insurance salesman (that was his job prior to D&D, if I remember correctly). From all reports I've read, he ran his business, TSR and personal, very ethically. But he was not a savvy entrepreneur.

 

[Mistwell]

Well, that's more-or-less in line with the upper end of [MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION]'s speculation: 35% of $50 is 17.5, so a million sold would be a bit less than $20 million.

As someone who follows the Amazon trends and other sales/industry data, do you think they have sold one million 5e book?

No a million sounds quite high to me. I was just putting out the little data I had, I was not trying to make some point about quantity sold. I don't really know, but my instincts tell me a million is way too many.

 

[MerricB]

If Gygax had been a decent businessman, he'd never had lost control to the Blumes. And they would not have passed the torch to Williams. Gygax deserves props for innovation and the creation of the MOST IMPORTANT GAME EVER!!! He might have even been a good insurance salesman (that was his job prior to D&D, if I remember correctly). From all reports I've read, he ran his business, TSR and personal, very ethically. But he was not a savvy entrepreneur.

A reminder of Jon Petersen's excellent articles: The Ambush at Sheridan Springs and How Gary Gygax Lost Control of TSR.

Cheers!

 

[Barachiel]

I miss TSR days, or should I say, pre-Hasbro days. We were getting so many sourcebooks with so much fluff. And alongside Dragon/Dungeon Magazine. Long do I miss the days of so much setting lore, all the settings had a great many books filled with nice "fluff." Settings like Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Planescape...

Nowadays...we're excited to get a tiny little Realms article on their website once a month maybe...sad days.

 

[SirAntoine]

The problem is for Wizards of the Coast, their approach has been about the rules. With each edition they managed to publish, 3rd Edition through 5th Edition, they have re-designed the rules. Obsidian seems to think 3rd Edition was from TSR, though.

 

[Dire Bare]

I was happy to see Inxile running a kickstarter for Torment 2 and disappointed that WotC could not get on board so that it would be based in the Planes again. It just seems like such a big missed opportunity to me.

I'm pretty sure InXile didn't ask WotC to be involved at all. The whole point was to create a spiritual successor, not an actual one.

 

[Parmandur]

Just looked it up; inXile publically said that WOTC was not willing to license Planescape to them, and WOTC publically said they were totally willing to license Planescape if approached with a proposal, but hadn't been asked. He said, she said?

 

[Shasarak]

Just looked it up; inXile publically said that WOTC was not willing to license Planescape to them, and WOTC publically said they were totally willing to license Planescape if approached with a proposal, but hadn't been asked. He said, she said?

Given what Urquhart says regarding the difficulty working with WotC, I could easily see both statements being true.

 

[Sonny]

Given what Urquhart says regarding the difficulty working with WotC, I could easily see both statements being true.

Pretty much. The guy who said he approached Wizards chocked it up to some sort of miscommunication and quickly dropped the matter.