RPG pioneers Obsidian Entertainment and InXile have been acquired by Microsoft

[Delicieuxz]

 

Microsoft Acquires Obsidian Entertainment and InXile Entertainment

Xbox Acquires Wasteland, Bard's Tale Studio InXile Entertainment

Microsoft to acquire RPG specialists Obsidian Entertainment and InXile

 

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The announcement was made during Microsoft's X018 event in Mexico. Obsidian is best know for creating Pillars of Eternity, Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and South Park: The Strick of Truth. Rumours that Xbox were interested in acquiring the studio surfaced in early October.

 

Meanwhile, InXile is the team responsible for the Wasteland franchise and Torment: Tides of Numenera.

 

It's all part of Microsoft's efforts to expand its internal development resource to boost the number of titles it offers via Xbox platforms and specifically its Game Pass subscription offer.

 

Both studios are known for creating games in similar genres (indeed, members of both teams have worked on the Fallout series, for instance), but Microsoft insists that despite their common heritage, the two teams are different and "will continue to operate autonomously and bring their unique talents, IP, and expertise to Microsoft Studios as they build new RPG experiences for our players and fans." Microsoft says that both studios will preserve their individual cultures 'to realize their creative ambitions'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On one hand, Brian Fargo is seemingly no longer planning to retire after Wasteland 3 releases. On the other hand, this could be the end of creative, PC-oriented games made for hardcore players from both developers. Microsoft is a shit company that turns an awful lot of what it touches to shit, and which also has a reputation for destroying game studios.

 

Ensemble Studios, FASA Studios, RARE, Lionhead Studios, Games For Windows Live...

 

Microsoft's checkered history of gaming acquisitions, from Bungie to Minecraft

Here's What Happened To Every Studio Microsoft Has Bought

Why PC Gamers Hated Microsoft’s “Games for Windows LIVE”

Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC. We must fight it

 

 

I find this a very strange decision. I imagine that InXile must have been in a bad spot financially to do this - and Bard's Tale IV hasn't performed well, and neither did InXile's game before that, Tormet: Numenera (though, I've really enjoyed what I've played of it so far). And, Obsidian is probably in a tight spot after Pillars of Eternity 2 appears to have bombed in sales compared to Pillars of Eternity 1 and even Tyranny.

 

Will Obsidian and InXile games become Microsoft Store / UWP exclusives? Will they become more generic and targeting of casual gamers? Will their games be subjected to Microsoft deadlines that force them to cut corners and pump sub-par games out? It's not like Obsidian games can possibly take being released with any more bugs than is normal for Obsidian games.

 

 

 

Oh, Wasteland 3. What will become of you?

 

 

[S w a t s o n]

After RARE and especially Lionhead, I fear for obsisian but they litreally say in the most clear terms that they would leave them alone. So hopefully they stick to their word...

 

Edit: Oh exclusivity kinda sucks but Microsoft will release on PC one way or another so *shrug*

[Delicieuxz]

11 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

After RARE and especially Lionhead, I fear for obsisian but they litreally say in the most clear terms that they would leave them alone. So hopefully they stick to their word...

One thing Microsoft is known for is not keeping their word. Microsoft says whatever they think will sucker people in at a given moment, with their words not being anchored in anything. Some examples of that include:

 

Promised full support for Windows 7 for all new hardware till 2020 rescinded upon

Microsoft retroactively revoking free OneDrive storage space

Games For Windows Live

Past promises to make PC gaming an emphasis never manifested

A claim that people can control their data in Windows 10

 

 

Microsoft is like the guy in Idiocracy who says he can get the protagonist to a time machine in exchange for some money, while there really is no time machine. The protagonist asks that guy at the end 'but, if there wasn't any time machine, you couldn't have gotten any money - so why did you say you would do it?'. The guy responds, "because I like money". That appears to me to have been Microsoft's own reasoning for lot of the things they have said over the years.

[Jito463]

As one who has backed both Obsidian and InXile on KS/Fig, I'm rather disappointed to hear about this news here rather than directly from either company (e.g. through mass mailing or an update on their respective crowdfunding pages).  I wish them both the best, but don't hold out much hope for their futures.

 

Still, could have been worse.  They could have been bought by EA.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Jito463 said:

Still, could have been worse.  They could have been bought by EA.

or Sony...

 

Exclusive is exclusive, it doesn't exclusively exclusive, when exclusive exclusives are exclusive.

[aezakmi]

may they rest in peace

[ZcanKal]

Better Microsoft than EA.

[Misanthrope]

I fully expect a "you all have phones right?" moment within 4 years out of them.

 

Also I'm sure all the kickstarter backers that made their later indie titles possible enjoy their hard earned efforts in contributing to Microsoft's stock and the destruction of their hobby because of course that fucking happens: pouring money into kickstarters does fucking nothing to change the industry overall.

[Nowak]

Rest in peace.

[Delicieuxz]

At least Wasteland 3 won't be a Microsoft Store exclusive and will be available on Steam and GoG, per InXile's statement to investors:

 

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UHYrbAyrUb8J:https://inxile.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004493467-Will-Wasteland-3-be-DRM-free-+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

 

Quote

Will Wasteland 3 be DRM-free?

 

Yes, we plan to offer a DRM-free version of the game via GOG. Backers will also be able to choose between Steam or GOG.

 

 

[ARikozuM]

As long as they don't make Obsidian make their games use Games for Windows Live. 

[Sakkura]

55 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I fully expect a "you all have phones right?" moment within 4 years out of them.

 

Also I'm sure all the kickstarter backers that made their later indie titles possible enjoy their hard earned efforts in contributing to Microsoft's stock and the destruction of their hobby because of course that fucking happens: pouring money into kickstarters does fucking nothing to change the industry overall.

I disagree. When you contribute to the crowdfunding of a game, you're contributing to that game. Not to some grand vision of what the industry should be. And the funds they've received in those crowdfunding campaigns have already been spent. It's not like Star Citizen.

[Andreas Lilja]

Not really titles worth the "pioneer" nomenclature.

[PineyCreek]

My first reaction...well, it's not like MS is EA.  The studios and/or IPs have a good chance of surviving and even possibly thrive.

[Tog Driver]

Yeah, This sounds like it's not going to end well. . .

[PineyCreek]

52 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

MS is going to suffocate both studios by confining their (primarily PC) releases to the shunned Microsoft store/UWP

And of course twist their creations to try and sell on Xbox

 

Slow and painful corruption until death

Meh...Minecraft seems to be doing well.

 

Now, if they'd only bring back Freelancer.

[suicidalfranco]

 Welp was fun while it lasted.  At least Tiranny wasn't released under Microsoft's supervision, and it was a great games.

 

Now lets see MS ruin everything by making them focus on Xbox, make them release exclusively on MS Cancer Store, dumb down future games as much as possible for mass appeal, micro transaction galore and broken releases 

[Master Disaster]

6 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

After RARE and especially Lionhead, I fear for obsisian but they litreally say in the most clear terms that they would leave them alone. So hopefully they stick to their word...

 

Edit: Oh exclusivity kinda sucks but Microsoft will release on PC one way or another so *shrug*

Lionheads failure wasn't Microsoft's fault, it was the OG liar Peter Molyneux who destroyed them.

 

Rare were also waaay past it long before Microsoft got hold of them. Go back and look at the horse shit rare were pumping out on the PS2 & Xbox and you'll see what I mean. Nintendo let Rare go because they knew the transition from Gen 5 to Gen 6 was too much for them and it turns out they were right.

[Master Disaster]

6 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

One thing Microsoft is known for is not keeping its word. Microsoft says whatever they think will sucker people in at a given moment, with their words not being anchored in anything. Some examples of that include:

 

Promised full support for Windows 7 for all new hardware till 2020 rescinded upon

Microsoft retroactively revoking free OneDrive storage space

Games For Windows Live

Past promises to make PC gaming an emphasis never manifested

A claim that people can control their data in Windows 10

 

 

Microsoft is like the guy in Idiocracy who says he can get the protagonist to a time machine in exchange for some money, while there really is no time machine. The protagonist asks that guy at the end 'but, if there wasn't any time machine, you couldn't have gotten any money - so why did you say you would do it?'. The guy responds, "because I like money". That appears to me to have been Microsoft's own reasoning for lot of the things they have said over the years.

Both Microsoft and especially Xbox have had regime change since those days, Satya Nutella (Nadella) seems very much like he's only interested in how much money something is worth to Microsoft and as soon as something stops making money I have no doubt he'd kill it off quicker than Superman on laundry folding day but Pete Hines seems like he's a genuine guy who has genuine care for Xbox, it's partners and it's players.

 

I wouldn't be 100% sure this is a bad move for those studios yet, I'm not saying it won't end badly for them but let's at least see if Pete has some grand vision.

[Delicieuxz]

5 hours ago, Raskolnikov said:

Not really titles worth the "pioneer" nomenclature.

Obsidian was Black Isle Studios, and Brian Fargo, founder and CEO of InXile, was founder and CEO of Interplay.

 

Their titles include:

 

Bard's Tale (1985) series

Wasteland (1988)

Fallout 1 (1997) and 2

Baldur's Gate 1 (1998) and 2

Planescape Torment (1999)

Icewind Dale (2000)

 

They did a lot to pioneer CRPGs. And Interplay published a lot of iconic non-RPG games, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Interplay_games

 

Also, Interplay was Blizzard Entertainment's publisher when Blizzard was called Silicon & Synapse, before Blizzard began publishing their own games. Maybe there wouldn't be today's Blizzard Entertainment without Interplay.

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, Sakkura said:

I disagree. When you contribute to the crowdfunding of a game, you're contributing to that game. Not to some grand vision of what the industry should be. And the funds they've received in those crowdfunding campaigns have already been spent. It's not like Star Citizen. 

Hold on...

People always give the excuse of "on kickstarter you don't actually buy things, you donate to the project and get stuff in return for believing in them". If that is the case then people can absolutely contribute to a grand vision of what the industry should be. Kickstarter is (or at least so I'm told by many people who defend failed projects) a platform for donating to companies, and hopefully you get something in return. If that is the case then I would argue that yes, pledges on kickstarter is most certainly donations to a company you believe in, not some glorified pre-order system.

 

Mozilla used to reward people who donated 30 dollars or more with a t-shirt. People who donated that money were not just buying a shirt for 30 dollars. They were donating that money because they wanted to help Mozilla, and as a thank you they got the bonus of getting a t-shirt.

 

 

You are essentially saying "no, you didn't give money to this company for the reason you think. I know your reasoning better than you do, and you're wrong", which is pretty rude.

People are free to give money or buy things for whichever reasons they want. Did some people buy an Obsidian game because they believed that it would be entertaining? Most likely yes. Did some people buy an Obsidian game because they liked the company? Chances are, some people did. I've certainly bought things on principle before.

[Sakkura]

26 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Hold on...

People always give the excuse of "on kickstarter you don't actually buy things, you donate to the project and get stuff in return for believing in them". If that is the case then people can absolutely contribute to a grand vision of what the industry should be. Kickstarter is (or at least so I'm told by many people who defend failed projects) a platform for donating to companies, and hopefully you get something in return. If that is the case then I would argue that yes, pledges on kickstarter is most certainly donations to a company you believe in, not some glorified pre-order system.

 

Mozilla used to reward people who donated 30 dollars or more with a t-shirt. People who donated that money were not just buying a shirt for 30 dollars. They were donating that money because they wanted to help Mozilla, and as a thank you they got the bonus of getting a t-shirt.

 

 

You are essentially saying "no, you didn't give money to this company for the reason you think. I know your reasoning better than you do, and you're wrong", which is pretty rude.

People are free to give money or buy things for whichever reasons they want. Did some people buy an Obsidian game because they believed that it would be entertaining? Most likely yes. Did some people buy an Obsidian game because they liked the company? Chances are, some people did. I've certainly bought things on principle before.

I did say contributing rather than buying...

 

The project you contribute to is one project, you don't just throw money at a company so they do the right thing. It would have to be more like GoFundMe to be that kind of donation.

 

It's not comparable to a t-shirt, which is a far more generic piece of merchandise.

 

And it's not just about the motivation of the buyer, which could in theory be anything. It's also about what the seller is offering. They were explicitly offering a particular project, and using specific extra features in the project to draw in more funds past the minimum. It's pretty clear Kickstarter is a project-oriented crowdfunding site, not a site for no-strings support for companies you like.

[Lathlaer]

NVM.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

The one bad thing about this is that we have to deal with Windows store games, and the fact they acquired Remedy Entertainment and still haven't done the 2nd game. and they also acquired Ninja Theory as well so say goodbye to 30$ game on steam that's on the same level of AAA games from them. although not evil, nothing good has come from them acquiring game studios.  

[Misanthrope]

10 hours ago, Sakkura said:

I disagree. When you contribute to the crowdfunding of a game, you're contributing to that game. Not to some grand vision of what the industry should be. And the funds they've received in those crowdfunding campaigns have already been spent. It's not like Star Citizen.

The visions never get realized all that fully because as soon as a developer could start exploring even better ideas, their mindset it's still just "sell ourselves to get rich and we'll be the first fucking company in history to still get to explore our creativity while under the name of a big publisher!"

 

All game developers still can't get past that mindset: there's a lot of talk about their ideas and projects, and with kickstarter some of them are getting realized, but they're still enamored with the idea of "making it big" and thus susceptible to buyouts.

 

Don't get me wrong is not that I don't understand your points, at least some of their more creative games got made and they outlived the bad years so to speak but in the end most of them are just still thinking of "how to make it big". There's a couple of assumptions they can't get past of (Actually this is true for most people inside or outside of gaming but trying not to get political)

 

1) We have a grand vision

2) We want to realize that grand vision

3) We have to compromise or get the best deal so somebody pays for that grand vision

 

Nobody gets to stop at step 1) to think "Is our grand vision flawed? Why?" Because the default is for game developers to want to make this huge, visually stunning, ground breaking, massive efforts (Precisely like Star Citizen) that are completely unrealistic and impractical even with technological advantages or the luxury of time and money without external constrains (And there's never all 3 on that equation btw, never).

 

It's just constant one-upmanship and competitiveness that drives people to just wanting things that are too big, too ambitious, too long. None of this things are necessary elements of a good game at all in fact there's good games without any of those qualities: short, easily created, done on the cheap, etc. Their creativity goes beyond just saying "We want to make everything bigger, longer, prettier, more complex!" instead of thinking about what you want to convey with a game and having mechanics, story, visual design, etc. Support that core concept and honestly it doesn't has to be that bad.

 

Indie devs have confused the reason why people love indie games: they got to make them under really serious constrains and they only assume that people like their games because they're special and put their self worth in the product they create and think they can do even better without the constrains. Yet those limiting factors are what make indie games special. If you remove them you'll lose a lot of what resonated with people, regular people. People who didn't care your game looked ancient or was 2 hours long and just enjoyed it for what it was. That just does not translates at all to the kind of games EA or Microsoft will either "enable" you to but, more realistically, make you do.

And you probably won't be good at making those. You might be passable and make your company some money but you will be forced to compromise on the wrong things and change your product as the result.