If you add $25 to donations below $100 you can be crowd sourced into their beta!
I didn't actually convey it, but in my head, the above was said with a comically naive zeal and grin that made the joke obvious.
We can only hope that the better part of Obsidian's problems with their shit has been outside-of-company interference (rather than the more likely internal management problems). Also, maybe enough of the BioWare systems guys have pulled an Avellone that he can actually hire a team that can build a systems engine.
... Wow, I guess I am too sincerely misty-eyed about this for my absurd optimism to be taken at anything but face value.
Here's the way I see Obsidian: As much as I love their games, you can only say your problem is with everybody else a couple of times before it starts getting empty sounding. (I'll save beat the trouble: hurr talkin about himself guys) As much as they passed the buck to Bethesda for making them sign a shitty contract with new vegas, they got such bad reviews on metacritic because their game had fatal bugs on both the 360 and the Ps3 at launch. The game was, out of box, unplayable on the consoles it was developed for. That's a pretty big problem. It's been the same story with most of their major releases - it wasn't us, guys, it was deadlines. It was a lack of publisher faith. We were underfunded.
They will not have the advantage of doing work for somebody else here. There is no passing the buck this time. It's their project, they're setting their own deadlines. While I had no problem pitching in 20 bucks towards it, that's because I can endure the cut content and horseshit bugs that are inevitably going to ship with the game. I am really hoping that they do a good job with this, and I have high hopes, but it is pretty telling that they are already asking their fans to pay for the privilege of doing something they would be paying somebody 25k/yr to do.
I guess I can see where people were coming from about the Amanda Palmer thing.
