I do not live and breath MS. I game on other systems as well. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but 4 of MS first party developers (5 if you include MS Casual Games) were created and 5 were picked up. I would say that is pretty good on them. I'm all for MS creating new studios, but which is more time consuming, cost more, and will take longer to get a product out? Creating a new studio of course. If you have been paying attention, you would know MS just created a new studio, but we likely won't see anything from them in the next 3-4 years. In the mean time, MS can purchase a studio such as Obsidian and get games pumped out quicker and with general knowledge of knowing it will likely be high quality.

It seems like Obsidian is looking for a publisher to pick them up. Would it be cool if some 3rd party publisher got them? Sure. I would have zero problems with that because they will get more exposure on more platforms. If they decide to become a first party developer for MS, this was their choice. MS didn't hold a gun to their head and force it. MS isn't some bad guy in this transaction, which you make it seem like they are the ones running the show. Obsidian could easily decline to MS. 

Btw, MS will not shut down Obsidian if they release good games for their platform or waste valuable resources with no results. 

Let them go bankrupt and have to funnel into different studios assuming they find jobs at all, that would be better than being bought and getting financial support to make better games lol.

Except if Microsoft were the rich lazy spoiled kid, they would be creating new studios, not buying me up. Creating a studio gobbles up way more money, so Microsoft are being sensible in what they're doing.

If both the developer and publisher agrees to the deal, and thinks it's the best way to go for them, than who are us to bash any of them?

Also how is it a bad thing if there are multiple competing storefronts on PC, where apeveryone benefits from the competition? I'm puzzled at people wanting a full steam monopoly.

No I was not, but that would be made apparent if not for the "I'm annoyed at other people being annoyed" comment (because it comes off as being quite defensive and passive aggressive).

Going 5 for 5 isn't as good as doing 5 to 10 on your own. IF you want to settle for half, settle for half, but not me.

Creating new and interesting talent will take time, just like creating a new breathtaking animation. The very idea of trying to cut costs and time is nothing more than exec speak and thought. Things take time to perfect, and that's a very important part to take note on when you want to make something good. You shouldn't want to cut corners, it just produces bad results, especially when you end up repeating the same process each and every time.

I know this speech of "it's hard, MS thinks it's hard", well life is hard, even harder for some unfortunate people out there, but that doesn't stop them from trying, so why on earth should a multi billion dollar company give up on something that lesser rich people and companies can do by themselves?. They can do it if they truly and honestly care about the medium. They have the money, oh god do they have the money to do with what they want, but it's dedication and honest to god effort that they need the most to get new talent front and center.

Yes I have been paying attention, but this whole "if you paid' attention" business is just trotting around the main point, which is that MS has closed studios before, they buy up IP's and studios (they aren't the only one, so get that inkling of a thought outside the noggin that it's just MS that does this, but MS is the current subject matter) more than they create. Telling me "oh they created something new last year", will just have me asking "what's their `100% unique creative output vs buying anything they've never owned or thought up of?".

Yeah getting them bought out and "pumping" games out quicker is exactly what some of us don't like seeing. You shouldn't feel the need to spam a studio's creative output all the time. It's not really a healthy thought to think that because a studio is good, they must therefore give us a new game every single year. It makes me wonder if any of you people here know what it's like to be ans artist and know how they too can get burnt out and eventually trip and fall with their workflow and creative output. 

Yes, it seems like they are, but when you say it like that, you make it sound like a love letter, when in reality they are looking for *a* publisher, not *the* publisher. Yes it would be nice to see someone like THQN picking them up, because so far that publisher has shown that they aren't going to forget the lesser known IP's, and that they want to bring some IP's back from the ashes, which so far, all the other publishers have forgotten for years (with MS fucking finally deciding that now of all times is a good time to bring back AoE, only after the original studio was killed off by their own hand, bravo).

"MS isn't some bad guy in this transaction", yeah, not in the transaction, but what follows after it, so let's cut out the "they were never bad period" line of thought we're holding onto (and I know now that I've said this, you'll go "no I don't", because you wouldn't be making a fending off from mentioning them as the bad guy speech if you didn't already contain such a thought in the first place).

That last part, oh that would weasily paint MS as the good guy in practically any scneario, truly a classic "can do no wrong, as long as they do *good*" excuse. 

I'm not buying that excuse and I never quite frankly.

That's funny. Obsidian released on nearly everything. Pillars II released on Windows, Mac and Linux and is available through Steam, GOG and physical media. It also is currently ported to all three current consoles. With Microsoft as owners that would probably reduce to Windows-release on PC, availability through the Windows store and Xbox as sole console version. So that is not increasing diversity, it is strengthening monopolies. To paint the reduction of platform- and distribution-options as a blow against monopoly is ... well very interesting at least.

What? Xbox and/or Windows Store doesn't have a monopoly to strengthen in the first place. This will lead to increasing competition against the monopoly, which is Steam. 

People seem to hate on every storefront that is not Steam (Origin, Uplay, Windows, etc). The recent announcement that Fallout 76 will only be available on Betheda's launcher got a hate not because the launcher is bad, but because it it wasnt on steam. I dont know what to say.

By that warped logic, any studio, any medium that has someone creating a new studio or IP would be called "stupid" for not being like MS. That way of thinking is already warped and stupid beyond words.

Who are you to bash against those who differ from your way of thinking?.

"multiple competing storefronts on PC", oh my that is truly adorable, truly it is that you think that. "everyone benefits from competition", except not everyone does, and competition only works when people actually bother to compete and compete big time, not small time, big.

I'm puzzled at people wanting an MS monopoly or defending them to the literal death, seriously. You guys who defend them care not for the features Steam has, care not for mmod support and as such, yes I will deem you as a threat to an already open platform. If you never cared for any of those features or the modding community, you could have simply said nothing, but instead your lot mutter "mods don't matter, neither do features my favourite company doesn't use". You then want that pushed onto eevryone else and you guys hardly see how annoying ansd childish that comes off as.

I will say this now, because it's been building up for months if not years. If you do not care for mdoding, kindly close the mouth and zip it. If you never cared for it, there is no need to say "it doesn't matter", because you have no bet in that race if you were neverr invested in it in the first place. If the competition is using modding tools and supporting the mod scene then they get the kudos, but when the competition ignores what the other is doing, then you either argue against them to have them take on said features, or you simply zip the mouth.

I want mod support to be a feature supported by the competition and for the users to pick and choose from. Those that want ti ignore it can do so very easily like others have done so for the past few decades. The competition doesn't want modding, because they believe it's something that either has to be controlled, made profitable or something to do away with. Again, diligaf on the "I don't care about mods", I do and the sodding competition is doing diddley fucking squat about it and some of you have the abasolute balls to get on Steam for supporting something some of you give little to no shit about.

Seriously, nothing annoys me more than people spouting shit like "uhh I don't want X company having a monopoly, I want a walled garden to control it all". What you think is good for me is actually really, really fucking shit and I will loathe you for it, I seriously will. Wanting mod support for all, even for the competition is not a bad thing, it's an optional resource to make use of that can benefit both parties. If you think it is something that needs to be controlled, I'll have to ask you to take your greedy little exec hat off and to get out.

But you declare the reduction of different options as a blow against monopoly. That's not how things work.

And I personally don't care about Steam. I got Pillars as the Linux-version over GOG. No Steam-monopoly here. If Obsidian would release exclusively through Steam, you would've a point, so your argument falls flat. Because with MS as owner the games will lose alternatives to Steam.

EDIT: Well, at least likely. It might be MInecraft-situation, in which MS decides to still release the games on everything. I doubt it though.

Defend them to literal death? What?  Never did I once say I want Microsoft monopoly. Buying and owning Obsidian will not suddenly give Microsoft a majority market share, ffs. And I bash Microsoft where I see fit. You're freaking out over essentially nothing. "greedy exec hat?" I'm not the one acting like I've been paid by Valve here. 

And please stop with these false accusations please.  Please stop putting words in my mouth. I don't want a walled garden, I want competition. Quite the opposite. Don't know how those two get together. 

And I'm not bashing the way other think. Not once. I'm only perplexed by people's odd line of thinking, that's all.

And when did the argument become about mods?

No, but you imply it via defense, "the best offense is a good defense".

Mirror retorts do not work here either, so drop those now while you still can.

Why don't you first?, you talk big now because I'm onto you after you jumping before, so why don't you calm it first for a change? ("I'm not the one acting like I've been paid by Valve here").

If you want competition proper, then you'd want MS to take the pages from GoG and Steam, rather than "we don't need those pages because I don't care about them".

It's odd to you, but your's is also just as odd.

The argument became about mods because you went on cramming in that "competition makes everything rainbows" speech. Something with the actual competition ignores (Which Bethesda is actually picking up on, but wants to control it, which kills it's general appearance of "caring"to begin with). Competition works when the rest want to compete and when they actually tackle what the others have been putting out. I made a thread specifically talking about the clients that are currently out there and the lack of Driving competition needed for the rest of those clients to get on Steam's level of factual features, not some poppycock "paid by valve" "opinion", get off that high horse bullshit. When someone has a feature and the other does not, that becomes a fact, not a "shills" sodding opinion.

I want actual brutal competition, but so far that's not been happening on PC for years. Definitely not in the way that the client data shows.