I would like to have read the entire interview so as to be able to put all of Urquhart's comments into the proper context.
My reading is that he thinks that the future of tabletop D&D is a big question mark. Many people on this very board have expressed the concern that 5e is essentially a "final" version of the game in order to keep something in print while Hasbro focuses on licensing the brand for more profitable ventures. The folks at Paizo have worked hard to develop a community around Pathfinder, and they continue to support than community. D&D isn't a big enough property under the Hasbro umbrella for them to dedicate that kind of care and attention to. Many D&D 3.x fans felt abandoned when WotC released 4e, and many 4e fans felt the same when 5e was announced. Their digital strategy for D&D is something of a mess. Under Hasbro, D&D isn't a profitable enough brand for it to get the resources that it needs to thrive. I think that's what's he's getting at.
At any rate, Feargus Urquhart isn't some clueless exec with a suit and an MBA; he's a gamer who started at Interplay as a playtester in 1991 and ultimately was selected to head up Interplay's new RPG division in 1996. The first game produced by this division was
Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Adventure, released in 1997. The following year, this RPG division was re-named Black Isle Studios. They would go on to create several acclaimed RPGs:
Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, and
Icewind Dale II. They also published
Baldur's Gate and
Baldur's Gate II for Bioware.
So, basically is he critiquing the release schedule, or lack there of, the uncertainty of the life span of this edition* and the fact that D&D has a lot more people looking over its shoulder and meddling with it**.
He is right.
Absolutely.
He has been burned by Hasbro's handling of the D&D computer/video game license in the past. In 1995, TSR divided the D&D license among mulitple publishers, with Interplay being granted the license to the Forgotten Realms and Planescape brands. WotC purchased TSR in 1997, and were in turn acquired by Hasbro in 1999; at this point in time, Hasbro's existing subsidiary Hasbro Interactive gained the right to use the D&D brand in their software products. In 2001, Hasbro Interactive was sold to Infogrames Entertainment (which later rebranded itself Atari after acquring that trademark), transfering the D&D electronic license with it. According to Urquhart, Interplay lost the D&D license in late 2002 or early 2003, two years into the production of
Baldur's Gate III. The rights have since reverted back to Hasbro/WotC. WotC's handling of their "digital initiative" has been abyssmal, to say the least, so I would probably be somewhat reluctant to work with them.
Also, if "becoming TSR again" means "turning on the supplement treadmill and crashing down"... then, no thanks!
I'm pretty sure he means that D&D needs to be managed by what is effectively "The D&D Company." Not as an afterthought to a collectible card game as part of a subsidiary to one of the largest toy companies in the world. Likewise, computer RPGs are best in the hands of those who appreciate how and why they are different from mainstream action games.
Obsidian could not afford the D&D license most likely; they have not been doing well. They had to kickstart their last game (Wasteland 2).
InXile Entertainment made
Wasteland 2, not Obsidian. Brian Fargo founded InXile after he left Interplay back in 2002 -- a company which he also founded back in 1983. Obsidian funded
Pillars of Eternity on Kickstarter. Both companies turned to Kickstarter to fund these games so that they could make the games that they wanted to make without having to compromise their vision to suit a publisher's whims. Fargo has talked about this many times; he pitched
Wasteland 2 to several publishers, only to have it rejected because they considered turn-based RPGs to be unprofitable and outdated relics.
Kickstarter has been a blessing for fans of computer RPGs (and adventure games) from the 80s and 90s. It has nothing to do with whether or not a company is doing well.
Obsidian seems to jump from one publisher and license to the next. They've probably burned a lot of bridges over the years.
They're an independent studio and they need to be working on projects in order to stay in business, so they take the work that is available. They aren't "jumping" from one publisher and license to the next; they're essentially freelancers who bid on jobs that are available. It was actually Matt Stone and Trey Parker who approached Obsidian about working on
South Park: The Stick of Truth. The development problems with that game were absolutely the result of THQ going bankrupt and UbiSoft's demands for significant changes upon acquiring the rights to the game.
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?
They released Fallout: New Vegas the same year as Alpha Protocol (2010), and they're currently working on Armored Warfare (tactical MMO) and Pillars of Eternity (since 2012), as well as this Pathfinder game. Microsoft canceled Obsidian's unannounced Xbox One project in 2012, forcing them to lay off 20-30 people.
Given Obsidian Entertainment is these days known for their buggy, low-quality games and problems solving coding issues that even I, with my amateur level of coding skill, have learned how to solve just by reading the textbook...
Game development is
hard. I've been there and done that. There is a 0% chance that an amateur coder could keep up with the least skilled programmer on their team.
Their games do unfortunately tend to be buggy, but very few other development studios even attempt to make games that react to the player's decisions the way that Obsidian tries to -- much like Troika Games before them (
Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, and
The Temple of Elemental Evil). Both studios were founded by people who worked on the original
Fallout game, and their games are heavily inspired by those design sensibilities.
Knights of the Old Republic II was buggy and unfinished, with an abrupt endgame that could barely be called an "ending," but it was also a more ambitious and complex game than was the original.
Fallout: New Vegas attempted to portray a more reactive world than did
Fallout 3, which is one reason why it was a buggier game. Also, as with KOTOR2, it had a much shorter development cycle (18 months for F:NV), which inevitably means that there is less time for QA. The publisher is responsible for the bulk of the QA, by the way. Developers will typically have a small team of testers who work alongside the designers and programmers, but the large-scale QA is handled by the publisher. In many cases, the publisher will sign off on a game and release it, despite the developers telling them that there are still severe bugs present.
