Where are people getting this "info" about the development time for NV was forced by Bethesda?

[Johnny Casey]

Is there any actual official sources anywhere in this world that confirms that the time was forced, or are they just assuming that's what happened?

I've seen overwhelming amount of people blaming Bethesda for the short deadline, but I have never seen any sources regarding anything about it. So where do people getting this from?

[Amanoob105]

At a guess, basic googling.

Fallout 3 had a development time of about 6 years.
Oblivion before that had about 4-5 years.
Fallout NV was given, at best, 18 months.

Bethesda simply would have wanted to cash in on the success that came of F3 asap.
It's also a safe bet they wanted as little competition for, or at least distractions from, their next big release Skyrim (around 6 years of development time) which came out barely a year later.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

At a guess (...)

Alright, so they're just assuming. Thanks for clarifying it.

[Vassago Rain]

The developers have talked about it multiple times, in multiple places, over the years.

[Vali Riversong]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

At a guess (...)

Alright, so they're just assuming. Thanks for clarifying it.

This article is linked as the source on Wikipedia, it being a quote from Josh Sawyer saying they only had the engine for 18 months prior to FNV being released. https://www.vg247.com/2011/12/05/ps3-skyrim-stutter-bug-linked-to-fallout-new-vegas-glitches/

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Vali Riversong:

This article is linked as the source on Wikipedia, it being a quote from Josh Sawyer saying they only had the engine for 18 months prior to FNV being released. https://www.vg247.com/2011/12/05/ps3-skyrim-stutter-bug-linked-to-fallout-new-vegas-glitches/

It only states that they had short development time, not about whether that time was *forced* by Bethesda or not.

[psychotron666]

You'd have to dig around. But I specifically remember reading an interview with Obsidian devs saying that Bethesda had a hard deadline on the game to be released, because they didn't want dlc for the game to be interfering with Skyrim sales, which was Bethesda's biggest project to date and they wanted it to sell well.

Obsidian knew about the deadline before starting the game, it wasn't forced on them last minute like the Kotor 2 deadline was. But the deadline was there.

Just a quick search found Chris avellone talking about the deadline here. https://mobile.twitter.com/chrisavellone/status/1091221808617947136

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Vali Riversong:

This article is linked as the source on Wikipedia, it being a quote from Josh Sawyer saying they only had the engine for 18 months prior to FNV being released. https://www.vg247.com/2011/12/05/ps3-skyrim-stutter-bug-linked-to-fallout-new-vegas-glitches/

It only states that they had short development time, not about whether that time was *forced* by Bethesda or not.

Bethesda is the publishing company. As I understand it that means they're generally responsible for setting the deadlines the development studio has to meet. Why, what's your take on what happened?

[Bansheebutt]

You can always ask Sawyer himself.
He pretty happily takes questions on his twitter/tumblr, even the very obviously loaded ones. (He addressed this on one of them recently.)

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Vali Riversong:

This article is linked as the source on Wikipedia, it being a quote from Josh Sawyer saying they only had the engine for 18 months prior to FNV being released. https://www.vg247.com/2011/12/05/ps3-skyrim-stutter-bug-linked-to-fallout-new-vegas-glitches/

It only states that they had short development time, not about whether that time was *forced* by Bethesda or not.

It's a deadline. A deadline by its very nature is "forced", otherwise it's just a guideline. Bethesda as a publisher (and virtually all publishers) will have a hard deadline that they "force" on you when you sign the contract to work for them as a developer.

Now in many cases a developer can go to the publisher and ask for an extension, Yes. And from what I read, obsidian tried doing that but was denied because Bethesda didn't want the DLC sales to interfere with Skyrims release at all. They wanted the excitement for new Vegas to be gone so people wouldn't think "oh I'm still playing new Vegas, I don't need to buy Skyrim right now".

Especially considering how much the 11.11.11 release date meant to Bethesda. Bethesda devs actually wanted to delay the release for bug fixing and to finish some now cut content but even publisher Bethesda told them no, the release date was a huge factor for them that they weren't willing to push back, especially considering they pushed back oblivion release date 6 months and said since then they always wanted to shorten the time between announcing a game and releasing it, so they wouldn't have to push back releases cus they weren't done.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Just a quick search found Chris avellone talking about the deadline here. https://mobile.twitter.com/chrisavellone/status/1091221808617947136

Nothing really new there. All the mentions about the development time was again, the same thing; it was short. Doesn't really say anything about it was forced or not.

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Why, what's your take on what happened?

An interview with one of the developers at Obsidian specifically saying that the timeline for New Vegas was something that they had agreed to.

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Bethesda as a publisher (and virtually all publishers) will have a hard deadline that they "force" on you when you sign the contract to work for them as a developer.

So... they had *agreed* upon their given development time on a contract that they're about to take. I don't understand why would that be considered a 'forced' contract.

Originally posted by psychotron666:

(...) from what I read, obsidian tried doing that but was denied because Bethesda didn't want the DLC sales to interfere with Skyrims release at all.

That's new. Could you provide me a source for that info?

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Why, what's your take on what happened?

An interview with one of the developers at Obsidian specifically saying that the timeline for New Vegas was something that they had agreed to.

Right. So the publisher gave a deadline, the studio agreed to it, then the deadline proved unfeasible but the publisher didn't extend it. Thus forcing to the studio to submit it before it was finished. Fairly simple.

[Amanoob105]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by psychotron666:

(...) from what I read, obsidian tried doing that but was denied because Bethesda didn't want the DLC sales to interfere with Skyrims release at all.

That's new. Could you provide me a source for that info?

Does the basic logic of how marketing practices work not count? You don't want two big names released by the same company released too close to each other because it will make most people, who can't or won't buy both, have to choose which they get.
Instead you leave a nice amount of time between them, i.e. a year, so they can build up the funds for the next big thing after they are starting to wear out on the last big thing.

This really only leaves about three options;
-Leave one in production for longer. But this costs money to do so your average company will normally avoid this option whenever they can.
-Finish it but leave it on the self until hype for the other option dies down, but this runs the risk of the hype of F3 not having enough left over for people to want to buy the new one. At least not in the numbers they would like to see, without running an advertising campaign to drum up interest, which again would cost more money.
-Rush it out, which leaves time for the interest to die down in time to the new thing they want people to buy and have saved up enough money to do so. Added bonus, you get to cash in (pretty literally) of the interest left over of the last game.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Right. So the publisher gave a deadline, the studio agreed to it, then the deadline proved unfeasible but the publisher didn't extend it. Thus forcing to the studio to submit it before it was finished. Fairly simple.

Aside from the fact that you're conveniently assuming Bethesda denied the Obsidian's request for extended development time, How is it the publisher's fault when the developers couldn't managed to make their own product in time that they themselves had agreed to do so?

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

Does the basic logic of how marketing practices work not count? You don't want two big names released by the same company released too close to each other (...)

That's a very good point, but again, it's just an assumption of what would probably happened. If such request was happened and denied as well, it would have been mentioned somewhere, given by the Obsidian's nature of 'exposing' everything behind their relationships with the publishers they've been working on.

In the end, it doesn't seem like you could say "The deadline was forced by Bethesda". You can say their deadline was short, and they needed more time. But that's about it.

[Amanoob105]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

That's a very good point, but again, it's just an assumption of what would probably happened. If such request was happened and denied as well, it would have been mentioned somewhere, given by the Obsidian's nature of 'exposing' everything behind their relationships with the publishers they've been working on.

In the end, it doesn't seem like you could say "The deadline was forced by Bethesda". You can say their deadline was short, and they needed more time. But that's about it.

It may be an assumption, but given what we do know of how this played out it's safe to call it a very safe assumption.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Right. So the publisher gave a deadline, the studio agreed to it, then the deadline proved unfeasible but the publisher didn't extend it. Thus forcing to the studio to submit it before it was finished. Fairly simple.

Aside from the fact that you're conveniently assuming Bethesda denied the Obsidian's request for extended development time

I didn't actually make that assumption, but okay.

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

How is it the publisher's fault when the developers couldn't managed to make their own product in time that they themselves had agreed to do so?

Both publisher and developer underestimated the time needed to complete the game, but only the developer can make the final decision about when it ships. Can I ask why you're so invested in the game's problem's not being Bethesda's fault? Your posts don't read like someone wanting a question answered so much as someone looking to reject the answer they already had.