Obsidian plans to make RPGs for 100 years by 'not trying to grow aggressively, expand our team size, or make super profitable games'

pcgamer.com:

In a talk at this week's D.I.C.E. Summit, an industry conference whose theme this year is sustainability, Obsidian Entertainment VP of operations Marcus Morgan and VP of development Justin Britch said they're aiming for the studio to be around for at least 100 years, and think it can get there by staying lean, holding onto talent, setting realistic sales expectations, and not going all-in on delivering huge profits. Obsidian's latest game is the just-released Avowed, an RPG we called both «humble and a little old-fashioned» and «engrossing and gorgeous» in our review.

Morgan and Britch brought a sense of humor to the presentation, but weren't joking about their ambition to set up the Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity studio for at least 80 more years of game-making on top of the 20-plus already behind it. «Are we serious? … Yes,» said Morgan.

Obsidian's 100-year plan isn't—and I hope this isn't too disappointing—a decade-by-decade breakdown of future projects that ends somewhere around Fallout: Old Vegas (I'm assuming that pre-apocalyptic settings are popular in 2103). It's more of a thought exercise, but the pair say it's motivated by a genuine intention to maintain a sustainable company beyond their own lifespans. (And why not? Nintendo was founded in 1889.)

One of the pillars of the plan is staying «lean and invested,» meaning small enough that none of Obsidian's employees feel like a cog in a machine. Morgan and Britch said that in recent years they'd been considering opening multiple international offices, but in the end decided to partner with existing studios rather than risk weakening Obsidian's culture by growing too much.

Leanness can also refer to Obsidian's games: It doesn't aim for unprecedented scope or the most advanced graphics, and before it greenlights a game, Britch says the studio spends a lot of time determining how much to invest in the project with the assumption that it will be a «mild success,» not a smash hit.

They didn't call out