Obsidian is looking to be acquired by Microsoft.

I am rather pesimistic instead. I think MS will buy out Obsidian, take their IPs, milk them dry and then discard them.

The corporate greed runs deep. And MS isn't a saint either.
 
I'm not saying they are. I'm just saying those two things are the only good outcomes I can hope for from this.

Otherwise, I'm very, very worried.
 
Don't we'll see anything like PoE from Obsidian again, if that happens. Just watered down AAA shit with good intentions as far as M$ allows.

I'm just sincerely hoping this won't negatively affect the Cain/Boyarsky project. I have no idea if it'll be worth anything, but I'm really curious.
 
We can only hope they get to finish up what they're doing. Maybe we'll get some (slightly) better AAA games? Xbox needs to differentiate what they're doing, it could possibly.
 
One good project may come out of this. After that it'll be a steady downhill from there.

As much as people working in that type of industry crave the stability MS can provide... well, I've said it already--nothing good will come out of it in the end.
 
Several years ago, I was really interested in a 3D modeler called trueSpace. It was approaching version 7.5, and I had been using it since version 3. It cost about $800. I had just bought trueSpace and a modeler-specific version of Vray for it, when I learned (about a month later) that Microsoft had bought the company; (apparently sometime in the year before).

About a month or so after that... the developers of trueSpace (Caligari Corporation) had been let go, and they had gone their separate ways. Microsoft released their 20 years of work for free—with the addition of a model export plugin for their virtual earth service; and that's the last they did with it AFAIK. The website was taken down, and trueSpace was dead.

*The Caligari devs did manage to get M$ to allow them to release their final patch for trueSpace; and unfortunately (for me) it included an intentional breaking of Vray; presumably at Chaos Group's request, as trueSpace was by then a free product.
 
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Well it was doubtful that Obsidian would have been able to continue on its own for much longer, seeing as they were bleeding money here and there. (I wonder how much is Feargus' fault)
I don't recall everything MCA mentioned when he talked about Obsidian but it was clear the company was not being run well, employees for the sake of keeping the company afloat foregoing their paycheck, and then when the game is published and money is coming it being spend on other matters.

And there are a number of projects money was thrown at that never got further because Obsidian for one reason or another had a breakup with a publisher.

It will be nice to see Cain's project but I do wonder if any deal with Microsoft will have an impact on it; if it is consider console commercial enough that MS wants it to be redesigned for the Xbox.

A couple of exclusive Xbox or Xbox and later PC games will follow until Obsidian will eventually be dissolved.

I guess the owners will at least have it made.
 
I honestly don't care.

Tim and Leo's new project aside, I stopped caring about Obsidian way before MCA exposed their dirty laundry. Last few of their games have been a resounding "meh" for me in one way or other, and it doesn't take a genius to realize that something was amiss behind the scenes.

While MS getting its dirty paws on Obsidian will almost certainly result in Obsidian's doom, I think that apocalyptic event was coming anyway, sooner or later. I just don't see how a company with such a poor managment and internal organization could be kept afloat for a long time, without help from the others and luck. As far as the former goes, we've already learned that Obs burned a lot of bridges, and the latter always screws you over when you need it the most.
Sure, Obs managed to hold it out for a long time, but there is a breaking point for everything.

It's a shame, really, because at the end of the day, Obsidian is a talented but horribly mismanaged studio which could have become a lot bigger, better and more relevant a long time ago.
But, like I've said, I don't care. I have already seen too many franchises/studios that I cared about go down the drain because of corporate greed/poor managment/stupidity/bad luck or all of the above. Another one added to that list, and nothing more.
 
Atomkilla said:
Obsidian is a talented but horribly mismanaged
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More out of curiosity. How you've come to think that?

I'm also a member at their forum and post quite a bit there, too... and there's quite a difference when it comes to what people have to say for Obs(and other things) between here and there.
 
Seems pretty okay to me, its not like Microsoft is going to try and bleed them for money considering their financial state, about 250 billion or so in the bank.
 
Hulk'O'Saurus said:
More out of curiosity. How you've come to think that?

I'm also a member at their forum and post quite a bit there, too... and there's quite a difference when it comes to what people have to say for Obs(and other things) between here and there.
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MCA's inside commentary aside (which you should definitely read), Obsidian has a track record of many canceled titles - titles which were very lucrative opportunities - Aliens RPG for instance.
Also, they are known for rarely working with a publisher more than once - if ever. MCA attributed this to Feargus's inability as a manager and communicator, which results in publishers cutting their connection to Obs. Even if MCA's words aren't true, it is a fact that Obs doesn't seem to hold a longterm work relationship with almost anybody, which speaks volumes.
Also, their games are known for having a ton of cut/undeveloped material. This isn't uncommon in the industry, but isn't a sign of good business.
They have also had big layoffs in the past, and have had instances of good developers quitting the positions.

All of this, while not 100% certain, still points to the conclusion that Obs is far from the best managef and organized company in the business. They aren't the worst either, on account of them being around as long as they have been, but they always seem to be on the brink of collapse. However, given their time in the business and the games they have made/tried to make, they should have been a lot bigger by now - and I mean a lot.
But they aren't big, and that is telling.
 
Greentoast11 said:
Seems pretty okay to me, its not like Microsoft is going to try and bleed them for money considering their financial state, about 250 billion or so in the bank.
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Microsoft will buy a company for one of its assets... like removing an organ, and then leaving it to bleed out. They seem to have done this with Caligari Corp.

However they might have kept a few of the Caligari staff; Microsoft's 3D Builder has similarities to Caligari's trueSpace.
 
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If you want to see the history of Microsoft video game studio acquisitions go to this Wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft#Acquisitions
Sort the Business category and scroll down to Video games.

It seems that Microsoft usually gets a few years of good games out of a acquired company before the quality of the output starts to go down. But truthfully isn't that the case for any of these game companies. It is extremely rare for a company to keep its talent, its creative culture, and organizational adherence to quality for more than 15 years for any of video game company.
 
Atomkilla said:
Tim and Leo's new project aside, I stopped caring about Obsidian way before MCA exposed their dirty laundry. Last few of their games have been a resounding "meh" for me in one way or other, and it doesn't take a genius to realize that something was amiss behind the scenes.
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Yeah, it's fairly obvious from what I've seen and read outside of MCA's spiel about them that there was something wrong.
The only games I've been too interested in from them are New Vegas and Tyranny in recent memory. I hear too much mixed stuff about PoE but I want to want those games lol.

Honestly, with how Microsoft has struggled in the world of consoles, I really do think we could get some better AAA games from this. Maybe. Who knows? I'm just being too optimistic if I'm being honest but I'd like that. I know people shit on Witcher 3 but I liked it as a AAA RPG. If we could get more big budget games with choices and definitely more RPG mechanics than Witcher 3 that would be nice.
 
Gizmojunk said:
Microsoft will buy a company for one of its assets... like removing an organ, and then leaving it to bleed out.
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That. That's the thing that's bugging me about this. What asset does Obsidian have? PoE isn't really an asset, not by large studio standards, and it's too generic to be an asset for artistic reasons. What else do they have?

Unless they've seen the Cainarsky game and it's awesome beyond belief (which means we'd only get one instalment before it was turned into AAA bullshit), which kidney do they want to sell on the black market asset are they after?

So, I'm kinda sceptical of the rumour - I don't see Obsidian having anything MS would want.
 
Obsidian's entire website is displaying an Offline for Scheduled Maintenance page... at 7:30 in the evening.

OBS.jpg
 
Beardy Unixer said:
That. That's the thing that's bugging me about this. What asset does Obsidian have? PoE isn't really an asset, not by large studio standards, and it's too generic to be an asset for artistic reasons. What else do they have?

Unless they've seen the Cainarsky game and it's awesome beyond belief (which means we'd only get one instalment before it was turned into AAA bullshit), which kidney do they want to sell on the black market asset are they after?

So, I'm kinda sceptical of the rumour - I don't see Obsidian having anything MS would want.
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It's a well liked studio by New Vegas fans. Go look at Fallout Radposting. I'm sure there's a lot of people who only really played New Vegas by Obsidian and would buy a big Microsoft title with their name on it
 
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