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Obsidian on why their Microsoft published XB1 RPG Stormlands got cancelled

Doffen

Member
Maybe you need to go back and re-read my post. Because my point was that mircosoft is garbage as fuck as a publisher outside halo/racing/gears this generation and they have showed they will cancel anything they cant make a huge profit on or turn into a franchise.

Here I'll quote it for you:

Awe did I hurt your plastic box ?

Mircosoft is a shit publisher this generation plain and simple. If you are a pub chasing nothing but pure profit/ next big franchise only then you're in the wrong fucking business.

You state:
If you are a pub chasing nothing but pure profit/ next big franchise only then you're in the wrong fucking business.

Let me bold some shit you wrote:

If you are a pub chasing nothing but pure profit/ next big franchise only then you're in the wrong fucking business.

Now I posted the following:

lol.

Would love to see EA/Activision/Ubisoft/T2 going "Yeah, fuck our investors".

By your logic every fucking publisher is in "the wrong fucking business".

Tell me how EA/Activision/Ubisoft/T2 are not chasing profit and next big franchise?
 

Surface of Me

I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
Sea of Thieves actually looks like a smart bet. Shared world games and games that cater to streamers are big right now, and it is both. Also has a unique hook and look to it.
 

pezzie

Member
Microsoft certainly are free to conduct their business as their own, and if they feel pursuing smaller titles that'll bring in less return isn't worth it to them, that's certainly their right. However, doing this repeatedly and not bringing out new exciting properties isn't bringing me any closer to the XBox family. I hope they're satisfied with the gamers their limited libraries will attract, because some people aren't going to want to just look forward to more Forza or Gears.
 
Thousands of game ideas get pitched.

A small percentage of them get the green light for development.

A percentage of those only ever see the light of day.

This is happening all over the world, at every company.

4335715-really.gif
 
Bethesda should have just bought Obsidian years ago. Fuck it, have them making off-year Elder Scrolls and Fallout games like Treyarch did with Call of Duty.

Terrible idea. Besides, you probably mean Zenimax Media should have bought Obsidian.

If anyone from Obsidian is here, ask the higher ups not to ever sell to Zenimax Media. Thanks.
 

joecanada

Member
Thousands of game ideas get pitched.

A small percentage of them get the green light for development.

A percentage of those only ever see the light of day.

This is happening all over the world, at every company.

4335715-really.gif

yeah but when you have a platform where a percentage of a small percentage ends up being zero, that's a big problem. That is why console makers need to take risks, it's all the "small" games that start to add up to a decent library over time. otherwise what do you even have? droughts that last months like WiiU (that's probably not even true but seemed that way).
 

jtb

Banned
Terrible idea. Besides, you probably mean Zenimax Media should have bought Obsidian.

If anyone from Obsidian is here, ask the higher ups not to ever sell to Zenimax Media. Thanks.

Jesus, I just want them to have jobs and stay alive. Is that such a terrible thing?

There are worse places to end up than a publisher who's turned an IP you created into a mega-hit.
 
Jesus, I just want them to have jobs and stay alive. Is that such a terrible thing?

There are worse places to end up than a publisher who's turned an IP you created into a mega-hit.

Oh, come on. How melodramatic. Any sensible person would want them to have jobs. Sheesh. I want them to have jobs AND credibility. I love those guys and what they put out. If it meant them going into the shitter or picking Zenimax, fine. Whatever. But if they can get better, I'd be all for that instead.
 

jtb

Banned
Oh, come on. How melodramatic. Any sensible person would want them to have jobs. Sheesh. I want them to have jobs AND credibility. I love those guys and what they put out. If it meant them going into the shitter or picking Zenimax, fine. Whatever. But if they can get better, I'd be all for that instead.

Have you been paying attention the past decade? They clearly can't.
 

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
I agree with this. The beta was boring.

That sucks. I saw it at E3 two years back, and I thought about playing it, but I was too busy wandering around and looking at shit. Bummer to hear it wasn't that hot.

I bought an Xbox for Fable 1 (And Kotor). Got a 360 for Fable 2 (and Mass Effect. Lol), and probably would have eventually got an Xbox ONE for Fable 4. Me and my wife loved playing co-op in Fable 2, and 3, even if we didn't think they were as good as 1. I always thought it was a charming franchise on the cusp of real awesomeness. It annoys me that we won't get more entries.

I'm also on the "okay if Obsidian gets bo Got by Bethesda/Zenimax" tip. I'd rather have the talented folks at Obsidian still making games (and thus a living), than have to shutter and layoff the staff. An ideal scenario would have Bethesda sticking to the Elder Scrolls franchise, and giving development of the Fallout IP to Obsidian.
 

Three

Member
Same with every other publisher?? In fact this is probably less true of MS.

MS cancels games they think are bad. Better than releasing a mediocre game.

Nonsense. Out of the big publishers they have the least critically well reviewed games. Both in quality and quantity. They are kind of hurting right now so they cancel games. Personally MS are the least concerned in growing a non-established product or studio or they are bad at it. They just want in on the market but they don't really put in the effort or risk in studio creation or IPs. I think there is a reason most of their IPs and studios are bought.

They have money they just lack vision in a product. Most of their stuff is reactionary most of it is them just wanting it too after somebody elses success by going and buying it.
 
Here I'll quote it for you:



You state:

Let me bold some shit you wrote:



Now I posted the following:



By your logic every fucking publisher is in "the wrong fucking business".

Tell me how EA/Activision/Ubisoft/T2 are not chasing profit and next big franchise?

of coarse those pubs are but Microsoft isn't any of those fucking publishers and never will be so trying to draw a comparison to publishers you have poured a fuck ton of resources/money to get those games where they're today while creating/taking risk on new ips without cancelling them is a joke.

whats so fucking hard to understand where you aren't getting this ? my logic with my comment was that if all you're trying to do as a publisher is create the next halo / gears / racer. ETC...ETC...ETC... its not feasible and in the end you're doing nothing but fucking over your fans/customers.
 

tuna_love

Banned
of coarse those pubs are but Microsoft isn't any of those fucking publishers and never will be so trying to draw a comparison to publishers you have poured a fuck ton of resources/money to get those games where they're today while creating/taking risk on new ips without cancelling them is a joke.

whats so fucking hard to understand where you aren't getting this ? my logic with my comment was that if all you're trying to do as a publisher is create the next halo / gears / racer. ETC...ETC...ETC... its not feasible and in the end you're doing nothing but fucking over your fans/customers.
all this anger over a little plastic box
 

Three

Member
I honestly wonder how they're managing to justify Crackdown 3 development when we haven't seen anything and it's been 3 years.

Cynical me kind of thinks partly because the backlash for that would be higher than the others since that's the champion for "power of the cloud". It's the one thing that they need to save total embarrassment on that lie.
 

Durante

Member
Have you been paying attention the past decade? They clearly can't.
I actually have been paying attention. They released Pillars of Eternity in the past decade, and I don't think they could have ever done anything like it under Zenimax.
 
Who else is out there acquiring studios who will let them make only immersive sims and RPGs?

I'm really, really, really not a fan of the actual campaigns in Elder Scrolls games at this point, my heart was broken by what Fallout 4 ended up being, but like... imagine if instead of the bulk of Obsidian's staff being stuck on a Russian tank MMO for years, they were making another New Vegas or new IP in the vein of what Arkane gets to do?

I won't let my distaste for how boring mainline Fallout and ES campaigns are cloud the fact that Obsidian would be better off there than almost any other publisher willing to give them AAA budgets.

Fair enough. But I won't backtrack on what I said.

Have you been paying attention the past decade? They clearly can't.

Yes. I have.
 

Patapwn

Member
Too bad this happened

MS not having the best time right now with 3rd party relationships. An obsidian RPG series seemed like a no brainer that could expand their portfolio, as did a character action game from the esteemed platinum... As did an open world adventure series from insomniac... as did a 3rd person adventure series with Remedy...

So much stuff is falling through it's a genuine trend
 
I will tell you 1 example of why your post is really stupid: Square didn't think bravely default would be a success because it was a Old School RPG and they thought it would bomb in the West, they gave it a chance and boom, we have a nice new IP with sequels to come.

This is like saying you know a guy who totally won on the slot machines in a casino.
 
Same with every other publisher?? In fact this is probably less true of MS.

MS cancels games they think are bad. Better than releasing a mediocre game.

I would sympathize with them, but they release mediocre games already, plus they barely release games. To me, it doesn't seem like MS is taking the high road, it seems like they are scrambling.

I can't decide whether Fable Legends or Scalebound is the "cancelled after spending $80m" game.

It's at least Legends, if not both.
 
yeah but when you have a platform where a percentage of a small percentage ends up being zero, that's a big problem. That is why console makers need to take risks, it's all the "small" games that start to add up to a decent library over time. otherwise what do you even have? droughts that last months like WiiU (that's probably not even true but seemed that way).

And when someone get's to that stage it might be worth discussing. The Wii U died a quick death, releasing a few more games on it wouldn't change anything. So Nintendo most likely realized this and switched a lot of development to the new hardware.

The Xbox has enough exclusive games with variety, and of course get's all the major 3rd party support. A couple more games might be nice but isn't going to change much.

In the near future they have -

Halo Wars 2
Crackdown 3
State Of Decay 2
Ori 2
Sea Of Thieves
Phantom Dust
Other?

Looks like enough variety to me and that's excluding the Halo / Gears / Forza games, which are the usual limited narrative of these threads. It's far from the truth that MS only make those titles and so makes for a pointless and frankly child like discussion. Every single time!

Edit - If one thing I would change about Xbox it would be to bring back the Xbox Arcade. Make a few smaller budget digital titles to help pad the lineup during the 'off season'.
 

shandy706

Member
MS defenders rolling in here quick.

What does that make you?

Microsoft have a strategy game, an open world "super hero" game, an open world Survival/base bulding/sim/zombie game, and a racing game most likely this year. I'm sure I'm missing something on top of the hundreds of non first party games.

I do hate to see games not come to light though.
 

EBreda

Member
Well, I'm curious to know wath MS will show this year, because seems the exclusive lineup is increasingly poor.

Yes. I gave them the benefit of the doubt for the last couple of years , the X1 is still my favorite console by far (yes, I own a ps4 and a Wii u...), but we gotta have more out of nowhere games published in house.

You need to curate a diverse ecosystem of genres and games and I'm willing to bet something will eventually be a surprise hit.

I understand it's easier to do this while you're ahead, but MS has got to step up their 1st party efforts. Their Trinity of 1st party games is not enough to bring extra buyers.
 
This "Companies need to make money" mentality isn't really that simple guys, sometimes you have to take chances with something that isn't a guaranteed money maker, because those products, the ones that are special and maybe not so safe to make (But end up being awesome and love by fans), those are the ones that build a good image in the long run. What does this mean? it means that, even if said product isn't making that much money right now, it will make money for the company in the future, because the company image as a whole improves with the fanbase, which doesn't stay static.

A good business man should know this, sometimes there is money to be made in the long run. And I'm not saying MS doesn't know this, cause the MS I love build their whole gaming business by making awesome games and deciding to spend money on this kind of projects, I just hope they can make a comeback with Scorpio now. Sorry if english isn't correct sometimes.
 

Head.spawn

Junior Member
The fucked up part is that i bet they cut the budget/canned this game to give another year+ of development time and breathing room for Scalebound.

Oh well, i can't be too upset about something i never saw or that want even announced.
 
And when someone get's to that stage it might be worth discussing. The Wii U died a quick death, releasing a few more games on it wouldn't change anything. So Nintendo most likely realized this and switched a lot of development to the new hardware.

The Xbox has enough exclusive games with variety, and of course get's all the major 3rd party support. A couple more games might be nice but isn't going to change much.

In the near future they have -

Halo Wars 2
Crackdown 3
State Of Decay 2
Ori 2
Sea Of Thieves
Phantom Dust
Other?

Looks like enough variety to me and that's excluding the Halo / Gears / Forza games, which are the usual limited narrative of these threads. It's far from the truth that MS only make those titles and so makes for a pointless and frankly child like discussion. Every single time!

Edit - If one thing I would change about Xbox it would be to bring back the Xbox Arcade. Make a few smaller budget digital titles to help pad the lineup during the 'off season'.


Crackdown 3 getting delayed and then cancelled
State Of Decay 2 no release date
Ori 2 no release date
Sea Of Thieves no release date
Phantom Dust HD port of a 2003 game with no release date


you call one new ip in a whole fucking year variety ? hooo boy !
 

Ushay

Member
MS are risk averse. Not a good stance to have in the gaming industry where risk equates to reward for the most successful franchises out there.
 

Head.spawn

Junior Member
MS are risk averse. Not a good stance to have in the gaming industry where risk equates to reward for the most successful franchises out there.

Hard to disagree i guess. With all the money they've sunken into games that didn't make it to release, you would think they would let one of them ship and let it be a stinker on its own and at least see what they could have changed for a sequel. I mean, no matter how bad a game is, they're are always some fans.
 

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
My boycott on Microsoft games and consoles is still in effect after they almost killed Obsidian.

Bethesda should have just bought Obsidian years ago. Fuck it, have them making off-year Elder Scrolls and Fallout games like Treyarch did with Call of Duty.
CjZ79D7.gif
 

Doffen

Member
of coarse those pubs are but Microsoft isn't any of those fucking publishers and never will be so trying to draw a comparison to publishers you have poured a fuck ton of resources/money to get those games where they're today while creating/taking risk on new ips without cancelling them is a joke.

whats so fucking hard to understand where you aren't getting this ? my logic with my comment was that if all you're trying to do as a publisher is create the next halo / gears / racer. ETC...ETC...ETC... its not feasible and in the end you're doing nothing but fucking over your fans/customers.

Not being content with Microsoft's current publishing lineup dosen't make them a oddball when it comes to the publisher business structure. You seem very eager to push this as a objective issue and not a subjective issue.

But since we're in a era of alternative facts we might as well ignore Ryse, Killer Instinct, LocoCycle, Sunset Overdrive, Kalimba, ScreamRide, Ori and the Blind Forest, Quantum Break and ReCore as games published by Microsoft Studios this generation, because we know they've only published Halo, Forza and Gears of War.

You don't like the games Microsoft publish, fine. But don't even try to push this as a unique fault in their business model, because every fucking publisher focus their resources on the heavy hitters.
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
MS are risk averse. Not a good stance to have in the gaming industry where risk equates to reward for the most successful franchises out there.

That's what happens, when your gaming division doesn't have a shred of independence.

The Microsoft shareholder are about profit margins, not portfolio expansion.
 

jtb

Banned
I actually have been paying attention. They released Pillars of Eternity in the past decade, and I don't think they could have ever done anything like it under Zenimax.

I guess.

I like PoE. I think New Vegas is the better game, though, and a more financially sustainable future.

Obsidian's current state just makes me sad. Living life perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy and/or laying off all your employees. That sucks. Like, put that team that's working on a F2P MMO working on a AAA WRPG, you know? Especially since we know that Obsidian plays really well in other's universes.

They shouldn't have to be making PoEs on skeleton crews to survive.

Also, to be blunt, neither Tyranny nor PoE impressed me all that much. (Of course, I like to think of myself as Obsidian fanboy #1 so I'm coming at this from a very particular point of view.) I don't really see them getting the opportunity or freedom to do in 2D isometric games what they couldn't do in 3D "AAA" games. They're still incredibly hamstrung by having no resources.
 

Irobot82

Member
I guess.

I like PoE. I think New Vegas is the better game, though, and a more financially sustainable future.

Obsidian's current state just makes me sad. Living life perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy and/or laying off all your employees. That sucks. Like, put that team that's working on a F2P MMO working on a AAA WRPG, you know? Especially since we know that Obsidian plays really well in other's universes.

They shouldn't have to be making PoEs on skeleton crews to survive.

Sounds good, can you fork over the cash for them?
 

Durante

Member
Also, to be blunt, neither Tyranny nor PoE impressed me all that much.
Well, I strongly disagree. And if Obsidian wasn't making RTwP CRPGs basically no one would be, so I'd be pretty annoyed at that.

Also, Pillars of Eternity is easily Obsidian's highest-rated game of all time, so I am unlikely to be alone in my view.
 
Not being content with Microsoft's current publishing lineup dosen't make them a oddball when it comes to the publisher business structure. You seem very eager to push this as a objective issue and not a subjective issue.

But since we're in a era of alternative facts we might as well ignore Ryse, Killer Instinct, LocoCycle, Sunset Overdrive, Kalimba, ScreamRide, Ori and the Blind Forest, Quantum Break and ReCore as games published by Microsoft Studios this generation, because we know they've only published Halo, Forza and Gears of War.

You don't like the games Microsoft publish, fine. But don't even try to push this as a unique fault in their business model, because every fucking publisher focus their resources on the heavy hitters.

Let me ask you a few things

-How many new ips or studios has Xbox fostered this gen ?
-what other publiser is constantly cancelling shit and fucking over devs ?
 
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