That old chestnut?
I thought “PC gaming is dead” died out in the 2000s.
Indeed.
Does this mean no more Steam releases? Because a tighter controller integration that works with Steam would be very welcome.
Don’t see a problem with this. MS has shown a big renewed push in gaming with recent purchases, spending money to do the One X, and making Phil Spencer a top tier exec with more say.
I’ve liked what Spencer has done since taking over and this give Obsidian more security.
I wish i had more faith in Microsoft. I’ve seen their here we come gaming and… I’ve seen them exit, more than once.
MS is by far the worst company for an acquisition like this, judging by their past (and present) record.
But Pillars 2 seems to have bombed somewhat, so if the alternative was going bankrupt, I can see this being a better option, if only so the people can keep their jobs (until MS decides to kill the studio).
It would be nice if this warranted pessimism was misplaced, and MS would allow Obsidian to develop proper New Vegas-like AAA RPG without interference and let them release it outside the Windows Store. But I won’t be holding my breath.
Pillars 2 bombed? Didn’t they raise over 4 million in their fidgit thing?
Without Steam and Kickstarter it probably would be dead right now. I.e. the success of PC gaming in the last decade is no thanks to Microsoft.
True, lot of their budget came from crowdfunding; I am judging its “bombiness” based on there being only half people playing at launch compared to the first game, and there being 2500 steam reviews, which might translate to something around 100,000-150,000 copies sold, which doesn’t seem like much.
We also know some very longtime employees left recently (like Anthony Davis) for Blizzard, plus the whole complete disclosure Chris Avellone did at codex regarding the problems at Obsidian.
Better to be bought up than to fall apart in a heap of internal drama I guess. In full public view I mean.
When MS announced they were buying Ninja Theory, they made it clear they would give them the freedom to do their own stuff.
Xbox and gaming are in a very different position at MS than they were around the time of the launch of the One.
I don’t know why everything is always doom and gloom with you guys. You truly are getting old and curmudgeonly.
Personally, if MS were to buy Obsidian, I’d be quite happy to at least give them all the benefit of the doubt and see what comes out of that support.
They are a very interesting developer. The more means they have to work on their projects, the better.
I’m in wait-and-see mode myself, but I’d ignore any statement like this. It’s pretty much what every company says after an acquisition because they know the fans are worried. It’s a commitment that may last as long until there’s some change in management or strategy (Remember Kinect, anyone?) or a game is not selling well.
FWIW, I do believe that Phil Spencer has the best of intentions for this.
It is a giant bureaucratic corporation with poor track record when it comes to their gamedev and PC gamedev - Lionhead, Rare, Bungie, Ensemble, GFWL, Windows Store etc.
I also do actually think Spencer had good intentions here - it does seem to me like he wants that super successful first party stable that Sony was able to build - but I will start being positive when I see positive results - like a great new games from MS released outside Windows Store.
Then likely never if that’s your criteria for success.
Doesn’t make games like Sea of Thieves or FH4 any less awesome. And play anywhere, which I appreciate as someone with both a PC and console .
And I’ll look forward to the future MS output.
I totally agree with waiting until something good comes out. But there is a lot of preemptive “oh noes, this is bad!” going on. That’s all I meant by personally giving them the benefit of the doubt. I’ll wait and see.
That said, if you can’t deal with the windows store, then it’s indeed probably bad news for you.
Not just fans, but employees too. MS might throw some retention bonuses around if they buy, but those bonuses always come with terms that make them unattractive unless you still want to work for the new company.
From my own experience, the ‘business as usual’ and ‘freedom to pursue what you were doing previous’ universally lasts 18 months. After that, the acquired organization had better be ready to be cog #437 or else.
It would be one thing if it were just another unnecessary proprietary store. I’ve made my peace with Origin for Bioware games, and with uPlay for some things there. But I have had enormous technical problems with the Microsoft Store and none of them have ever been addressed by Microsoft, nor did any of the recommended “solutions” work. I eventually had to reset Windows, and so far things seem more stable but I would never trust it will stay that way enough to actually buy things from it.
Yeah, that game only really worked on a controller. Very underrated, too.
Yeah, this has long been my concern with MS. They are so hot and cold, there is no stability. Gaming is a “hobby” for the company, not a core business and there is always the chance that the corporate winds will start blowing in a new direction.
It’s not doom. They earned their rep. This is not the first time someone claims or some event is claimed to be a great thing for gaming and then… Microsoft might do what it often does, doesn’t deliver.
There are people who live in a Microsoft bubble. Some of them post at Qt3. It’s documented. They can’t understand why you folks are skeptical because they do not venture outside that bubble.
The rest of us have seen this over and over again.
You say bubble, I say oh my god we’re really doing this tedious shit again.