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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.eurogamer.net/amp/2018-11-09-microsoft-studios-obsidian-inxile-entertainment-acquisition



Not sure how I feel about this. Can I just get Wasteland 3?

This could be quite a good thing for Obsidian since MS has considerable resources which could let them fund even bigger and more complex/detailed games than they've made off the backs of kickstarters. That said it might also change the management focus of the titles. All depends how much of a hand MS has in things at the management level.

That said the computer game market has always been a very volatile area. Even many companies that have made and sold big selling popular games have been forced to close, merge or get bought out (or they sell out).

 Overread wrote:
This could be quite a good thing for Obsidian since MS has considerable resources which could let them fund even bigger and more complex/detailed games than they've made off the backs of kickstarters. That said it might also change the management focus of the titles. All depends how much of a hand MS has in things at the management level.

That said the computer game market has always been a very volatile area. Even many companies that have made and sold big selling popular games have been forced to close, merge or get bought out (or they sell out).

One disadvantage is that we won't get a Fallout 4: NV type of game...

But generally I'd agree and whether it is good or bad depends on how MS enforces it's will on the companies or whether it just provides a financial surety for the companies. On the other hand they both make similar games so they may merge both companies (which may not be a bad thing if it brings back something like Black Isle Studios).

 Whirlwind wrote:


One disadvantage is that we won't get a Fallout 4: NV type of game...

I wouldn't totally rule it out to be honest. Microsoft and Bethesda have been pretty pally when it comes to Fallout in the last couple of years, being much more accommodating of console mods than Sony were/are and securing early access to the FO76 BETA over PS4 and PC. And Microsoft direly need some good console exclusives, Fallout definitely has the potential to be that. I'm not saying it's likely, but I'd also not call it impossible.

On the whole though, if Obsidian get to keep doing exactly what they're doing with a bigger budget, that can only be a good thing. They've always struck me as an incredibly talented studio who could be sunk by one poorly-received game, hopefully the backing of Microsoft will act as insurance against that and maybe leave them free to take a few more risks.

Shame the Star Wars license is still tied up with EA, given that the last Obsidian Xbox exclusive was KOTOR 2 (I think? Fairly sure that never came to PS)... What I'd not give for another one of those...

It is almost a Black Isle reunion, I guess. I will be happy if Obsidian has time to finish one of their games properly.

Good in that we'll most likely get two or three games from both before MS has a change of management / direction/ whatever 5 or 6 years done the line and decides to quietly wind them down

Best outcome: MS will force them to do QA, and notlet them blow large chunks of the budget tinkering with systems that don't need to be changed (or bizarrely use the Something Awful forums for as a sound board for terrible ideas about game design and direction)

Deadfire was a fairly good example of horrible management churning out a disappointing product.
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InXile I'd happily see gutted for talent and dumped. nostalgia bait junk titles was all they managed.


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Keep in mind that a radical shift in games wouldn't necessarily come from MS. Feargus (Obsidians chief) has rattled on for years about wanting to do big budget action/FPS games along the lines of Skyrim, with presumably a heavy console focus. This might be a way to get the backin he wants for that.

One of the most interesting things I found out about this, was that Obsidian was pretty close to going bankrupt. I had no idea that Pillars 2 sold so badly, and Tyranny under-performed as well.

I really liked PoE 1 and 2 a lot, so I was pretty surprised to hear this.

I think the problem is that both Pillars and Tyranny likely didn't get the huge marketing boom that they needed to mainstream sell. Many smaller companieso n tight budgets often have to rely heavily on word of mouth to market their games.

IT can work great like for Minecraft, but if it fails too then they can go under.

I think both those games did "ok" but neither was a run away success.

Voss wrote:


InXile I'd happily see gutted for talent and dumped. nostalgia bait junk titles was all they managed.

I'm not sure what is being referenced here? Torment and Wasteland 2 I found very enjoyable in the more classic isometric style. Yes there was lots of reading in the former but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

 Whirlwind wrote:

Voss wrote:


InXile I'd happily see gutted for talent and dumped. nostalgia bait junk titles was all they managed.

I'm not sure what is being referenced here? Torment and Wasteland 2 I found very enjoyable in the more classic isometric style. Yes there was lots of reading in the former but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Never bothered to touch 'torment,' but I found Wasteland 2 to be awful. The writing was just bizarre exposition dumps about the original game to prove how authentic this 'sequel' was, and the mechanics and UI were terrible and out of date. Exploration was curtailed by artificial roadblocks and nonsense. Fallout Tactics did a better job at the combat (featuring such novel things as crouching and going prone) and did it with a sensible UI, 15+ years before inXile tried to make a non-fallout fallout off the back of a different license.

The new Bards Tale similarly came off as unimpressive, and from what I understand they handled the backer rewards and release very poorly.

Basically they dragged out some old names and loosely attached them to weak games, hence nostalgia bait junk titles.

Voss wrote:
Never bothered to touch 'torment,' but I found Wasteland 2 to be awful. The writing was just bizarre exposition dumps about the original game to prove how authentic this 'sequel' was, and the mechanics and UI were terrible and out of date. Exploration was curtailed by artificial roadblocks and nonsense. Fallout Tactics did a better job at the combat (featuring such novel things as crouching and going prone) and did it with a sensible UI, 15+ years before inXile tried to make a non-fallout fallout off the back of a different license.

The new Bards Tale similarly came off as unimpressive, and from what I understand they handled the backer rewards and release very poorly.

Basically they dragged out some old names and loosely attached them to weak games, hence nostalgia bait junk titles.

Strange how people have difference perception of things. Never found any of these things to be a particular issue. Writing was fine (but never played Wasteland so have no reference point to what it was and authenticity, just stood up on its own for me). UI never got in the way.

I'd agree to some extent that the game was a bit too linear in exploration but then compared to other games I have played it's definitely not the worst I've ever seen. That's likely more due to funds rather than anything else. Only thing that slightly frustrated me was the boss taking over my medic in the last battle. It made it all the more difficult but still found it fun.

There was definitely a crouch option, it was called kneel. No prone option - but again I don't see a particular need if it just makes the game more static.

Not played Bards Tale, not my type of games (it wasn't really the Dungeon Master style of game) but having not played it I'm hesitant to criticise or promote. As for kickstarters, well there's always a risk with these. I think people forget that it is liek a business investment, rather than a pre-purchase. You take a risk sometimes it pays off, others it doesn't.

Kickstarters aren't an 'investment.' You don't get a financial return on the money you give them. You're blindly pre-paying for a game (or whatever) and hope it turns out acceptably. It's the preorder problem turned up to 11.

That said, I don't have any issue with them doing that way- my criticism is solely for the game as it turned out, not the methods they used to fund it.

Well, Fig (where wasteland 3 was crowdfunded) has an investment option.

And yeah, wasteland 2 definitely had a crouch mechanic.

 Bromsy wrote:
Well, Fig (where wasteland 3 was crowdfunded) has an investment option.

It does. For Deadfire, for instance, it involved tossing $1000 at a game. As of September, the return has been less than $200. By investor calculations (apparently they don't get real numbers from the company they invested with), sales of the game were pretty woeful. The 'break even point' was 580,000 copies, and the estimate based on the return is about 110,000 copies.

https://www.thegamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire-huge-flop/


The poor sales are a good pointer at why the microsoft buyout happened.
As does this old article from 2 years back:

https://www.pcgamer.com/obsidian-ceo-id-love-to-turn-eternity-into-more-like-a-skyrim-product/

Feargus, the Obsidian head, really wants to a skyrim style game. For an Xbox/PC exclusive, that'd be a real easy sell to MS.

Witcher 3 also showed that you can make a Skyrim style game with tight storylines and plot and it will sell and do well! Thing is to make a game like that, even in top down view, requires a bit budget that Obsidian just wouldn't be able (or at least likely) to raise on their own. MS might well be able to put proper resources behind the company - its one of the bonuses of having a big publisher. Of course other things come with that deal, but sometimes its not all bad