Alpha Protocol - Sells 700k

It was mentioned several times in this thread that Alpha Protocol will not receive a patch, despite earlier announcements that it will (by Obsidian).

I did a quick Google search on it and found nothing substantial. Does anyone have any solid sources on this?

AP was a mess - but I sympathise with Obsidian. They might not be particularly competent, but their "hearts" seem to be in the right place. Well, the Obsidian of the past - that is. I'm not sure about the present.

I'd like for the game to be a mild success - if only to make them stay afloat and not entirely discourage them from trying new things. Hopefully, though, they now understand that you can't truly please the mainstream AND the enthusiasts at the same time. You have to make a choice to an extent - and it seems to me, that Obsidian were always more about the enthusiasts.

So, invest less money and more heart next time - please

Not many developers left with such a disposition, so I'd certainly support them all I can - as long as they stay true to that.

Weather Alpha Protocol will be remembered in 10 years or not is irrelevant. What really matters here is these disappointing sales could signal the end of Obsidian as a creative entity. While that would arguably be nowhere near as big a catstrophe as losing Looking Glass or Troika it would still mean one prominent western RPG maker less. And that would be a real shame no matter if you liked Alpha Protocol or not. Let's hope Fallout: New Vegas and Dungeon Siege 3 will save them.

tolknaz said:

Weather Alpha Protocol will be remembered in 10 years or not is irrelevant. What really matters here is these disappointing sales could signal the end of Obsidian as a creative entity. While that would arguably be nowhere near as big a catstrophe as losing Looking Glass or Troika it would still mean one prominent western RPG maker less. And that would be a real shame no matter if you liked Alpha Protocol or not. Let's hope Fallout: New Vegas and Dungeon Siege 3 will save them.

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That would be sad indeed, but honestly - I felt it was the wrong game for them to do from the start.

Not that it helps them any, but they'd have to be somewhat stupid to expect a game like AP to sell like hotcakes.

I would have preferred the Aliens game by a country mile - myself. Maybe it wouldn't have been better, but certainly a lot more interesting in terms of setting and potential, if you ask me.

What 'end of Obsidian'?... Come on... They started doing sequels for Bioware and they'll do a sequel for Bethesda next. I understand AP is their only commercial failure yet (I read that somewhere... correct me if I'm wrong) - all their past and future games, except AP, were and are guaranteed to sell a lot from day one regardless of quality.

coyote said:

It was mentioned several times in this thread that Alpha Protocol will not receive a patch, despite earlier announcements that it will (by Obsidian).

I did a quick Google search on it and found nothing substantial. Does anyone have any solid sources on this?

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I'd like to know as well. Last thing I heard was that Obsidian wanted to release regular patches whenever the patches were ready for release while Sega wanted them to take their time and release one big patch further down the road. Anyone know what's become of that?

holeraw said:

What 'end of Obsidian'?… Come on… They started doing sequels for Bioware and they'll do a sequel for Bethesda next. I understand AP is their only commercial failure yet (I read that somewhere… correct me if I'm wrong) - all their past and future games, except AP, were and are guaranteed to sell a lot from day one regardless of quality.

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I don't think they will "end" in that sense. I'm more worried they'll end in a spiritual sense - and I take AP as something that could really make them decide, one way or the other, who they really are.

AP should not be much of a financial problem for Obsidian as Sega would carry most of the cost for lower than expected sales, sudden cancellations per Aliens are almost always considerably worse from that respect as budgeted milestone payments would then not be made while for a finished title only royalties (if any are even allowed) are missed.

Moriendor said:

I'd like to know as well. Last thing I heard was that Obsidian wanted to release regular patches whenever the patches were ready for release while Sega wanted them to take their time and release one big patch further down the road. Anyone know what's become of that?

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Sega announced they would not be releasing patches for AvP2010 console versions which is the last patch info from Sega I know of, perhaps it has been implied from that and Sega's recent history. Anything Obs says on the matter must be taken with a grain of salt as they do not have the final say.

Unfortunately Sega doesn't seem to be on the GamesCom. What a shame ! This could have been the ideal occation to ask them !

I specifically remember reading a report that Sega had declared they would not fund a patch, though Obsidian said that they wanted to work on one. The news came prior to the announcement that there would be no sequel.

Having said that, I cannot find the original article I read. Nor can I find a definitive statement by Obsidian/Sega that there are *currently* no plans for a patch. The original article I read may have been speculation. Or it may remain accurate and I just cannot find it.

Of course, at this point, why would Sega fund an extensive patch for a game they're clearly disappointed by? Why would Obsidian put that effort into the game when they're doing their best to keep up with their other, upcoming projects? I'm guessing this one is going to be brushed under the rug. And as I said in my original post, that's too bad because I really enjoyed playing through the game a couple times.

Even if you're disappointed with AP, if you love RPGs you have to hope Obsidian can have success. The RPG market does not benefit when only a few companies can sell them. Really, we need more companies to pop up and more diversity from them -- even if that means smaller companies like DoubleBear and Iron Tower.

If Obsidian made a patch regardless, this would cost much money, but also boost their reputation. (Oops, sounds almost like an RPG here )

But it could also be that the contracted firm (here: Sega, once: LucasArts) forbids that. By contract. Although I canot say this would make much sense to me other than an insane degree of control over the game's contents, even regarding to any patch there might be. Or in other words: Better no free patch than losing control over a game's content. (Sounds weird even to me.)

Obsidian might be a generally cool developer, certainly is one in my view, but offering no further support for a game that, from what I read at least, fell quite short of the original expectations generated for it by the marketing hype, despite being able to fix at least some of the deficiencies by patch? This is simply irresponsible and shows, in my opinion, a strong disregard for the paying customer.

Whether this would be SEGA's fault or Obsidian's, I guess both companies would suffer a loss of reputation in particular among the more hardcore RPG gamers that were looking forward to the game, if they were really to try to sweep this under the carpet. Whether this is an important enough market for any of these companies, I do not know. But let's see, my hope is that the patch will still come, even if late.

Otherwise, it's a nice confirmation of my recent habit of waiting after a game's release, until it has had time enough to show it's true colours, before I consider spending both my time and money

I don't quite get the AP dislike, best RPG since The Witcher IMO ( not that it's had a lot of competition ). I've beaten it 4 times now.

AP has it's flaws but I thought it was still an enjoyable game, I'd love to see an AP2 with less linear levels, maybe a little more sandbox could open up the spy aspect of the game.

Though ME gets it's share of flack here it's lauded everywhere else and this was a more interesting ME with much better C&C and better combat. AP graphics were better, the levels were just as linear, the inventory was better. That's really the part I don't get, why are ME and the much worse ME2 getting great reviews yet people rail on AP even though they're 90% the same game but AP is better in every way in it's differences?

Was the characters skill affecting the aiming reticule really that difficult to understand?

If the only difference with the game had been that it was developed by Bioware it would've gotten scores in the 90%+ range, easily.. That's just how it works.

Bioware could probably release farts wrapped in plastic and it would receive 10/10 from fans and many sites because it's afterall, Bioware. Gaming magazines and sites has to be very careful not to piss off too many fanboys too, i mean even a 9 or a 9.5 instead of a 10 can create quite an uproar on their forums if it's a Bioware game..

Lack of polish and bugs is what AP apparently has more of than ME 1 and 2, apparently.