Pewpewlazors99
Member
As long as they aren't puchased by EA, Activision, or Nintendo I'm happy.
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Obsidian open to being bought by another company, talks independent dev pains
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Are people really suggesting console manufacturers as buyers?
I mean come on. Nintendo? What a revolting idea.
I mean come on. Nintendo? What a revolting idea.
To be clear, I don't want them to start making BioWare games either. I was largely talking about the health and stability of the studio, not whether they would still make games that a small subset of the gamer populace wants them to make. BioWare right now is functioning as a healthy business entity in a way they could never have dreamed of in the DAO/ME1 days. I'm happy Pillars seems to have gained Obsidian a bit of financial breathing room, but it's clear the studio is still very worried about its long-term survival prospects. Would they survive with a big publisher? Who knows. But if Pillars hadn't succeeded, they'd be gone, just another Troika to add to the list. For gamers, this is a hobby, but for Obsidian, this is a career.
As an aside, I kind of doubt BW's transformation can be pinned on EA. KOTOR and Jade Empire demonstrated a clear shift in vision that skewed towards cinematic anyway. Jade Empire in particular with gameplay that is even more actiony than DA: I should show what the studio was becoming interested in.
Just wanted to say this analysis is spot-on. Really well posited, in my opinion.
I wish it would happen nonetheless, though.
Well, Bethesda wouldn't purchase them anyway, they don't have that power. It would be ZeniMax. I know quite a few people that have worked at either ZeniMax or Obsidian over the years and that there is a lot of bad blood between ZeniMax and Obsidian over New Vegas.
You also have to consider that if ZeniMax were to purchase Obsidian they really aren't getting anything. Bethesda already makes RPGs. Every other purchase ZeniMax has made has been to strengthen and diversify their overall IP and tech portfolio.
Another big negative is that Obsidian really doesn't "do" console games. When asked if they would ever bring PoE to consoles:
At this point ZeniMax has no interest in a studio that desires to be PC-only, the vast bulk of their sales come from consoles. The only PC exclusive genre that is even remotely profitable is F2P MOBA/Arena based combat and they already have a studio for that, Battlecry, which made a bad f2p game.
Paradox or Nordic Games would be a much more appropriate buyer for Obsidian.
Thanks for the insight. Never thought of it in those terms.
No. Obsidian has 200 people on staff. Way too large scale for Devolver.
lightskintwin
Banned
I know most people would hate it, but I do think they would be a good fit if they were bought by Microsoft.
LordBaztion
Member
I would really like Microsoft to step in and give them the best conditions to make genre defining RPGs like they did during the OXB and early 360 times but at this point I don't trust into their first party management. They would probably make them make a Scorpio VR game, then when it doesn't match expectations, will make them make whatever is the focus of the company at the moment until all the talent leaves and eventually closes it.
EchoChamber
Member
Bethesda please I need more fallout games.
MS won't do it. They don't have any active projects together and the last collaboration between them ended with a cancelled game.
Obsidian being bought by Microsoft would be bad. MS is terrible to studios they purchase, they are very mercurial and Obsidian is not agile enough to deal with constant changes in demand, especially when Obsidian acknowledges in the very interview in the OP that they just go with whatever the publisher wants.
Consider that Bungie wanted out from under MS so badly that they took a relatively poor deal with Activision to make it happen. Consider what happened to Rare, FASA, ACES, Lionhead, Ensemble, the list goes on.
lightskintwin
Banned
The cancelled game was early in production and only 7 months in development and 4 years ago. Not to mention, we have no idea the exact reasons why it was cancelled. As Feargus Urquhart says in the interview:
I don't see what Bethesda would lose by hiring Obsidian or another studio to do an in-between Fallout game while they're working on TES. It's not like New Vegas made the people who loved 3 less excited for 4. It's a good way to keep the brand in people's mind.
What fuck? What kind of stupid-ass software development process is this? This has got to be the dumbest thing I've seen.
I agree, Nintendo wouldn't stand for such a clusterfuck development process.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
If I'm not mistaken, Wayforward & Telltale are both independent (although they both mostly make licensed games) and have staff sizes well over 100.
ScatheZombie
Member
It's the game industry. You'd be surprised how many projects start out like this. And continue to be like this throughout most of development. It's honestly a fucking miracle that most projects end up as successful as they do. Developers have been complaining about project management for decades and it really hasn't gotten any better outside of AAA franchise farms.
Though with Techland and Telltale, I feel it's worth separating out studios that self publish their own games (and even other people's games) due to having gobs of cash from previous successes from the ones who work paycheck to paycheck.
I don't know how they're capable of building a website working like that much less a full game.
CrichtonKicks
Member
Exactly- that cinematic style of RPG has been a part of Bioware's DNA since KOTOR and has been the clear primary driver behind their design philosophy.
With BGS's games and IP being the biggest thing that ZeniMax has going coupled with their very slow release schedule I do think it would make good business to bring another RPG developer into the fold that can iterate on the IPs during the years between major flagship releases. Otherwise you are only getting a major release of a Fallout or Elder Scrolls game close to once every decade (MMO excluded). Seems like a waste of IP from a business standpoint.
Obsidian would probably have been a good fit, especially with the evergreen success of FO:NV, but that clearly isn't int he cards.
ForsakenLotus
Member
Obsidian deserves to have so stability. In the right situation, I think they could really do some fantastic things, so I'm rooting for them to find the right publisher - I just don't know who that is.
ScatheZombie
Member
From my own personal experience...
RIFT, about 6 months before launch, was nothing more than a tech demo for Trion Worlds publishing platform. It's intended purpose was to get more investor capital to build a Steam/Origin/Uplay type platform for handling international products (mainly developed outside the US) for world-wide launch, specifically for the NA/EU markets. And that's pretty much what Glyph has become.
But the creative director (who was Scott Hartsman at the time) realized they had part of a potential successful game and cobbled together a launch-able product with a bare-bones post-launch plan. And it ended up being one of the most successful MMO launches in years with +1m subs and +500k concurrent users - from an unknown, untested studio and a brand new IP.
On the other side of the coin, Wildstar was pretty much an unmitigated disaster with similar circumstances. Carbine was originally founded to build an FPS title that slowly morphed into a Fantasy RPG that morphed back into a Sci-Fi MMO. The game was in development for almost 8 years total but ... 90% of the game was slapped together in the 9 months before launch. We crunched the whole fucking time. Our release date was originally almost a year before we actually launched but by that time we had maybe half of an MMO done. Then our alpha feedback came back atrociously bad and NCSoft began putting pressure on upper management - most of which had no idea what the fuck they were doing and panicked. I would say probably 50% of the half-game we had finished was scrapped or heavily modified. In 9 months, with no plan, working 80 hour weeks, we somehow managed to release a product that wasn't entirely shit.
And then they laid off 3/4 of the studio.
Welcome to the games industry.
GoodCoffeeJoey
Banned
Double Post
GoodCoffeeJoey
Banned
The only company I could possibly see buying them is mail.ru and they'd become a dedicated AW developer.
Fake edit: Is the reboot of the cancelled MS game Tyranny? Or is it a separate project?
Fake edit: Is the reboot of the cancelled MS game Tyranny? Or is it a separate project?
exmachina64
Banned
Yes.
disappeared
Banned
Unless Bethesda steps in again I guess this means another Obsidian Fallout game is dead.
Crazy. This is like Bayonetta 2 all over again. I assure you if it's a choice between Nintendo and death they choose Nintendo lol craziness.
But don't worry, most likely they die or shrink drastically, which sucks. So if its Nintendo then great, at least those people dont have to all lose their jobs.
Nintendo is a big fan of keeping a low cost budget, something platinum can do very well (which is how they are still alive).
I don't think RPGs fall can do that. At least not at the scale Obsidian is interested in. I'm very interested to see the budget of Scalebound compared to Platinums other (non activision) projects. Its probably exponentially bigger.
I've mentioned it before, but I used to work at Obsidian some years ago. QA on Neverwinter Nights 2. They were awesome people.
Feargus and Chris Avellone especially were incredibly friendly people, and being on a first name basis with Feargus was pretty cool. I loved working there, and I hated that I had to leave due to my commute being a pain.
I'd love it if they were bought by a company that appreciates what they do, and gives them the support they need. A bunch of hard working people work there. It's one of the few industry jobs I've had that I really miss.
Feargus and Chris Avellone especially were incredibly friendly people, and being on a first name basis with Feargus was pretty cool. I loved working there, and I hated that I had to leave due to my commute being a pain.
I'd love it if they were bought by a company that appreciates what they do, and gives them the support they need. A bunch of hard working people work there. It's one of the few industry jobs I've had that I really miss.
They definitely are compatible, but that's like a fish trying to swallow a shark
I'm sure they would choose Nintendo in a heartbeat if they could. Difference is, Nintendo wouldn't choose them.
Man, I looked into this. Didn't know they worked on a cancelled Xbox launch title.
Came across an old Obsidian's Feargus Urquhart interview on Gameinformer podcast. He goes into it a bit on why the MS project fell apart, if anyone wants to listen it. MS part starts at 2h26m in.
https://youtu.be/7hqYxXEdw8U?t=2h25m53s
Had a small laugh at the part when he mentions MS wanted it to feel like a first party title, then the interviewer basically asks what does an MS first party title suppose to feel like? and responds with that's good question, I dunno, lol.
Cancelled?
Damn son.
disappeared
Banned
MS and Beth are good pals in the industry. If they both agreed on pub rights and Beth gave Obsidian keys to the Falloutmobile I'd die happy.
Quiet I'm dreaming aloud.
Quiet I'm dreaming aloud.
The thing is under Nintendo there would be a serious streak of restructions following a potential acquisition. The whole studio would be turned upside down to meet Nintendo's vision of profitability and productivity which is a good thing considering how Retro turned out after Miyamoto got dispatched.
BlindJesus
Member
The main problem with a big publisher buying out Obsidian is that their is a large rift between what Obsidian thinks an RPG is and what a AAA publisher expects an RPG to be. The demographic that these mega-publishers go after have no interest in old-school RPG design philosophies, which has been slowly rooted away over the past 15 years.
rekt
Turin Turambar
Member
1. Obsidian doesn't really "do" console games because they can't, they have pitched two or three concepts to publishers but they were rejected. So right now they are doing pc only games... but not really by choice.
2. And Chris Avellone is right now working a a pc/xbox one/ps4 game, the new Prey.
----
To be honest, If I was a rich man with a game publishing company and was looking into investments... I wouldn't buy Obsidian. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
What's the good of Obsidian? Just hire the 3 lead/most veteran writers and the 3 lead/most veteran quest designers and you will have already 85% of what people like from them. Way cheaper than buying the entire company!
Sony has been ignoring basically every partner they've worked with that's been up for sale recently so I really doubt they'd be interested in Obsidian.
cartman414
Member
For the love of dogs, not a AAA pub who will control/gut them.
They've been the Bernie Sanders of WRPGs.
They've been the Bernie Sanders of WRPGs.
Why you coming in here ruining our dreams and hope fam?
I just want more big WRPGs from the studio that gave me the most memorable games ever
Pipe dream but EA should buy them and then they have the Star Wars license again to make some sick sci-fi RPGs leaving Bioware to the Mass Effect series.
Voysa Reezun
Banned
Sony plz.
Obsidian are my favorite devs going for the past two generations, no matter how buggy their games are (and the issues with getting testers because publishers divert those resources to other releases explains a lot). Someone save them and let them make awesome CRPGs and modern WRPGs, please.
Like you Sony. PLZ.
(Actually, this would be the kind of dev that is right up Microsoft's alley in terms of growing a portfolio of devs who make games for Microsoft's audience, but now is obviously far past the time when Microsoft would have thrown money at acquisitions like this for their Xbox division.)
Obsidian are my favorite devs going for the past two generations, no matter how buggy their games are (and the issues with getting testers because publishers divert those resources to other releases explains a lot). Someone save them and let them make awesome CRPGs and modern WRPGs, please.
Like you Sony. PLZ.
(Actually, this would be the kind of dev that is right up Microsoft's alley in terms of growing a portfolio of devs who make games for Microsoft's audience, but now is obviously far past the time when Microsoft would have thrown money at acquisitions like this for their Xbox division.)