"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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[CasvalRemDeikun]

"Man with vested interest in Pathfinder disses WotC"

Unprofessional (IMHO), but about as surprising as discovering that water is wet.

Bingo.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

What I took out of this discussion is that I need to finish up the main storyline in NWN2 so I can start playing Mask of the Betrayer.

 

[Parmandur]

Given their track record, Obsidian really doesn't have a lot of room to talk about the failures of others...

 

[Derren]

Rather than derail the thread I'll just state that I disagree with you on all points, and would reaffirm my encouragement to potential Neverwinter players.

You can of course disagree, but a look into the Neverwinter forums, or its Steam forum where criticism isn't as swiftly deleted than on the official one, supports my side.

 

[variant]

My eye is on Beamdog. They already have the license to create two D&D games, at least one of them is a Baldur's Gate game, after the success of their enhanced versions of the Baldur's Gate series.

 

[DMZ2112]

My eye is on Beamdog. They already have the license to create two D&D games after the success of their enhanced versions of the Baldur's Gate series.

Wait, those weren't even Obsidian ports?

...What has Obsidian been doing for the last five years? Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege III, and the Stick of Truth?

Yeesh. Good luck, Paizo.

You can of course disagree, but a look into the Neverwinter forums, or its Steam forum where criticism isn't as swiftly deleted than on the official one, supports my side.

I make it a point to never frequent video game forums if I can help it, because they tend to be full of the kind of baseless whining and poorly attributed criticism found in this Polygon article about Feargus Urquhart.

How's that for a tie-back?

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

You can of course disagree, but a look into the Neverwinter forums, or its Steam forum where criticism isn't as swiftly deleted than on the official one, supports my side.

If you're playing an MMO for the mechanics, you should probably just give up playing them.

Seriously, MMOs always are the worst examples of the game type they're turning into an MMO. That's just the nature of the beast. And, actually, Neverwinter is doing very well for itself; MMOs like WoW and Eve Online had far, far worse problems this early into their life cycle. In fact, by this point, half of WoW's engine had been rebuilt once already just to get some features working properly. I know they had to, within a year after launch, completely scrap their PvP mechanics and rebuild them from the ground up.

 

[Pauper]

Stories like this make a lot more sense when put into Hasbro's perspective.

Sure, Paizo's folks are (justifiably) happy with the thought that their game is now the #1 mindshare and revenue-maker in the RPG market space. And sure, the WotC folks are likely hoping to get back on top, or at least maintain their position as a major player in the marketplace.

But when Hasbro looks at the bottom line and sees that they made more money from My Little Pony than they did from the D&D TRPG? *That's* why D&D, from Hasbro's perspective, is all about cross-licensing: different kinds of games (D&D Attack Wing, D&D Dice Masters), different delivery systems (Neverwinter MMO, D&D Arena of War tablet/mobile game).

Heck, I'm surprised that somebody hasn't figured out that the current wave of MOBA games owes its pedigree to D&D (through World of Warcraft) and isn't figuring out how to put together a D&D MOBA featuring the greatest characters from D&D's past and present. Perceived market saturation is the only sensible reason why I can't take Mordenkainen and fight alongside Driz'zt against Eclavdra and Storm Silverhand in the Demonweb.

tl;dr: Any market small enough that a single designer can make a living in it is way too small to be interesting to an international corporation all by itself.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Hasbro has listed DnD as one of its top-earners, even beating out a few other flagship products.

As far as Hasbro is concerned, DnD is probably golden right now. It's making enough money to help cover for profit losses in other product lines.

So, when Hasbro looks at their bottom line, they see DnD is a product that is making them money where other products failed. DnD isn't even on the list of products to meddle with right now.

 

[Sunseeker]

Great, somebody with a microphone has shown up to rehash the same ol' dead-horse arguments that "WotC sux, Ha$bro sux, TSR 4eva!1!"

That was my feeling as well.

On the other hand, maybe this will be the poke the beast needs to start (continue?) improving its relationships and licensing agreements with other companies.

Arguably, Obsidian is not a great company to do business with anyway. They're known for creating good games that are also incredibly half-baked.