Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian Entertainment
Private
Industry Interactive entertainment
Computer and video games
Founded 2003 (Santa Ana, California)
Headquarters Irvine, California[1], United States
Key people
 Feargus Urquhart, CEO
Chris Parker, COO
Darren Monahan, CIO
Chris Avellone, CCO
Chris Jones, CTO
Products List of Obsidian Entertainment video games
Number of employees
 135 (2008)
Website www.obsidian.net

Obsidian Entertainment is an American role-playing video game developer founded in 2003 after the disestablishment of Interplay Productions' Black Isle Studios. Although it has created original intellectual property, Obsidian has mostly developed sequels to existing games, and many of their games are based on licensed properties. Obsidian continues to operate under the management of its founding officers: Feargus Urquhart (CEO), Chris Parker (COO), Darren Monahan (CIO), Chris Avellone (CCO) and Chris Jones (CTO).

History

On March 23, 2006, Obsidian and SEGA announced that they would co-develop a role-playing game based on a new franchise.[2] It was revealed to be Alpha Protocol, an RPG set in a modern-day spy adventure setting, which was released on June 1, 2010.[3]

On December 13, 2006, SEGA officially announced that Obsidian Entertainment had been signed to develop a role-playing game based on the Aliens film franchise.[4] However, it has since been canceled for unknown reasons.[5][6] Another game called Seven Dwarves (working title) was also canceled.[7][8]

On April 20, 2009, Bethesda Softworks announced that a new game in the Fallout series, Fallout: New Vegas would be developed by Obsidian. It was released in October 2010.[9]

On February 11, 2010, Red Eagle Games and Obsidian announced that they would co-develop game(s) based on the Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels by author Robert Jordan,[10][11] however on April 25, 2014, CEO Fergus Urquhart told CVG in an interview that the agreement between the companies had dissolved after Red Eagle had failed to secure the necessary funding.[12]

At E3 2010 it was announced that Obsidian would be developing Dungeon Siege III for Square Enix; the game was released in 2011.[13] On September 1, 2011, Square Enix announced that the Treasures of the Sun DLC for Dungeon Siege III was forthcoming, with an anticipated release in October 2011.[14]

Obsidian Entertainment revealed that they are pitching an unknown original IP to several publishers and are getting very good results.[15]

On December 1, 2011, South Park: The Stick of Truth was announced being developed by Obsidian. On March 14, 2012, Obsidian cancelled a "future next gen project", resulting in the layoff of approximately 20-30 employees both from that project and the upcoming South Park: The Game team.[16]

Pillars of Eternity was announced on September 14, 2012. The title is the first from Obsidian to employ a crowd-funded model of financing, utilizing the popular website Kickstarter to acquire funds.[17] The funding ended successfully on October 16, 2012 having gathered $3,986,929, which beat the record amount for video games funded via Kickstarter previously held by Double Fine Adventure.[18]

On March 20, 2014, Obsidian announced they had begun launching a tank-centric tactical military MMO named Armored Warfare, starting with beta testers. [19]

On August 13, 2014, Obsidian announced that they had licensed the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game to make electronic games, starting with a tablet adaptation of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.[20] Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens also confirmed plans for an Obsidian-developed computer roleplaying game.[21]

Games developed

Year Game Platform(s) Notes
2004 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords Xbox, Microsoft Windows Sequel to Bioware's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
2006 Neverwinter Nights 2 Microsoft Windows, OS X Sequel to Bioware's Neverwinter Nights
2007 Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer Microsoft Windows Expansion pack to Neverwinter Nights 2
2008 Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir Expansion pack to Neverwinter Nights 2
2010 Alpha Protocol Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Published by Sega
Fallout: New Vegas Successor to Bethesda Game Studios's Fallout 3
2011 Dungeon Siege III Sequel to Gas Powered Games's Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege II
2014 South Park: The Stick of Truth Published by Ubisoft
Wasteland 2 Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux Co-Developed and published by inXile Entertainment. Sequel to Interplay Entertainment's Wasteland.
2015 Pillars of Eternity Published by Paradox Interactive; Funded by Kickstarter
TBA Armored Warfare Microsoft Windows First MMO developed by Obsidian Entertainment.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mueller, Mark (2008-08-11). "Game Companies Taking Office Space at Faster Clip". Orange County Business Journal. p. 82.
  2. ↑ "SEGA Partners with Obsidian Entertainment to Create Original Content for Next Generation Consoles". BusinessWire. 2006-03-23. Retrieved 2008-11-01.
  3. ↑ "SEGA And Obsidian Set To Redefine The RPG Genre With Alpha Protocol". SEGA News. SEGA Corporation. 2008-03-13. Retrieved 2008-11-01.
  4. ↑ "SEGA Signs Obsidian Entertainment To Develop Alien Title For Next-generation Systems". SEGA News. SEGA Corporation. 2006-12-13. Retrieved 2008-11-01.
  5. ↑ "Obsidian's Aliens RPG Officially Finished". Giant Bomb. 2009-06-26. Retrieved 2009-06-26.
  6. ↑ "Alien RPG canceled". Retrieved 26 July 2011.
  7. ↑ "Former Obsidian artist Ian Ameling's resume" (PDF).
  8. ↑ Massey, Dana (2007-06-29). "Dev Profile Q&A: Kevin Saunders, Lead Designer on NWN2: MotB". Warcry Network. Themis Media. Retrieved 2007-05-30. I was the lead designer on project "New Jersey," which was never announced, and then helped with finishing up NWN2 over its last six months or so.
  9. ↑ "Fallout: New Vegas unveiled". Ellie Gibson. Eurogamer. 2009-04-20. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
  10. ↑ "Red Eagle Games partners with Obsidian". Dragonmount. 2010-02-11. Retrieved 2010-02-13.
  11. ↑ "Obsidian riding Wheel of Time". Red Eagle Entertainment. February 12, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
  12. ↑ "Interview: Obsidian on life after South Park". Connor Sheridan. CVG. 2014-04-25. Retrieved 2014-07-22.
  13. ↑ Remo, Chris (2010-06-16). "E3: Square Enix Owns Dungeon Siege IP, Moves Into Western RPG Market". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
  14. ↑ "Treasures of the Sun DLC Press Release". 2011-09-26.
  15. ↑ "Obsidian's unknown IP". Retrieved 26 July 2011.
  16. ↑ "Obsidian Entertainment Layoffs, Project North Carolina Cancelled". Gamebanshee.com. Retrieved 2012-05-26.
  17. ↑ Schreier, Jason (14 September 2012). "The People Behind Fallout And Planescape Are Making My Dream RPG". Kotaku. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
  18. ↑ Tach, Dave (2012-10-15). "'Project Eternity' surpasses 'Double Fine Adventure' to become Kickstarter's most-funded video game". The Verge. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  19. ↑ http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/20/5528438/obsidian-entertainment-unveils-tank-centric-tactical-military-mmo
  20. ↑ Bendel, Jenny (2014-08-13). "Obsidian Announces Pathfinder License". Paizo Inc. Retrieved 2014-08-14.
  21. ↑ Stevens, Lisa (2014-08-14). "Comment on Paizo forums post "What is this?"". paizo.com. Retrieved 2014-08-14.

External links