With its latest game, Avowed, the studio that has been in the news lately is not chasing big profits and aggressive growth.

Obsidian Entertainment’s VP of Operations Marcus Morgan and VP of Development Justin Britch also spoke at the D.I.C.E. Summit. The now 22-year-old company wants to stay afloat for a century, and the two VPs say that can be achieved by keeping headcount low, sticking with talent, setting realistic sales goals, and not going all-in on big profits. Morgan says the 100-year plan is serious. Nintendo was also founded in the 19th century (1889), so perhaps what Obsidian has set for itself is not too steep…

With a small staff, the goal is to make each employee feel important, not just a cog in a machine. Morgan and Britch say they’ve been planning to open more offices overseas in the past few years, but they’ve partnered with existing studios rather than risk distorting Obsidian’s culture by getting too big. Size also applies to the studio’s games: the team doesn’t want revolutionary graphics, and before committing to a concept, Britch says the studio takes a lot of time to determine how much they want to invest so that the game ends up being a “mild success” rather than a smash hit.

No specific examples were given, but the fact is that Obsidian doesn’t spend a lot of money on games, and you don’t hear much about reboots in development. It’s rare for high-stakes projects to pay off (Baldur’s Gate 3 was one). Obsidian has sent people away before, but since the Microsoft acquisition in 2018, that hasn’t really been the case for the studio, which has so far produced Grounded, Pentiment, and Avowed in the 2020s. And all three have turned out pretty well.

Morgan and Britch’s plans include building institutional knowledge by aiming for the lowest turnover rate in the industry and continuing to release the games they are known for (player freedom and world building are also important elements) at a steady pace, not in a hurry, but often. Britch described his vision of Obsidian as a 1973 Volkswagen Transporter with a trunk full of tools and a manual in which they constantly take notes. He summed up the plan by saying that the Obsidian would more or less continue what it was doing.

So far, the studio has been doing well, so there’s no reason to change the plans…

Source: PCGamer