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LudicrousSpeed on 11 August 2018
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DirtyP2002 said:
bananaking21 said:

because the core of those complaints arent that they are microsoft games, but how microsoft handles their studios and franchises.

- Rare was butchered, and people still complain about this dev till this day.

- Lionhead was basically forced to work on games they didnt want to make, and when the end result was bad, MS closed them. MS's decisions were the one who led them down that path

- Black Tusk, now The Coalition, was made to drop its new IP and to be a gears Machine. heck they literally made them come out and say that they are a "gears studio". its clear there is a lack of creative freedom

- Bungie was practically forced out of MS for the lack of creative freedom and choices. they lost their best first party studio because they didnt let them make anything but halo. that would be as big as Sony losing naughty dog.

- Phantom dust devs, Darkside games, was forced to close after MS constant meddling in their development. MS basically screwed them over and kept demanding more and more from them, without willing to add more to the budget. the end result was it was cancelled and the studio closed

- Scalebound died a slow and painfull death

- Crackdown 3 might have the same fate as scalebound. even if it didnt, it still went through development hell. and it was even announced before they had a developer to work on it!

- at the start of the gen MS announced they had 5 brand new studios to create the future of MS's games. only one of those studios ever released a game (black tusk/the coalition). MS Victoria was one of those devs that got closed. 

- Quantum Break was announced alongside the xbox one announcement. which was infamous for its focus on "TV". and guess what, QB had a "tv show" plugged in a video game somehow, the end product was not too good. and while this isnt nearly as bad as the previous mentions its just another indication of MS middling in the games and doing what they want instead of letting a dev make the game they want to make. 

 

anyhow, take a look at that list and realize that without the rare example, these are ALL just from THIS GEN. heck even rare (and lionhead) were forced to make service based games. of course you can come up with the argument that Sony and Nintendo closed some studios this gen and had some blunders. but MS had no where near the success that those publishers have had, further indicating that there is indeed a problem with how Microsoft mismanages its studios, thus a realistic and founded fear for the fans of obsidian about the well being of the studio and fears that it might be butchered or forced to be a shadow of its self, like many other MS studios have been made to do. 

BigBig studios: Founded in 2001, acquired by Sony in 2007, closed by Sony just 5 years later in 2012.

Evolution Studios: Founded 1999, bought by Sony in 2007, closed by Sony in 2016.

Millenium Interactive, Founded in 1989, bought by Sony in 1997, renamed Guerrilla Cambridge, closed in 2017.

Incognito Entertainment, Founded in 1999, lost all their staff, closed in 2009.

Zipper Interactive, Founded in 1995, bought by Sony in 2006, closed just 6 years later in 2012.

Psygnosis, Founded in 1985, 2005 Psygnosis brand was dropped and renamed to SCE Studio Liverpool, closed just 4 1/2 years later in January 2010.

 

Scalebound was not even 1st party and got cancelled. Shit happens. Nobody complains about Agent anymore, which was the very same scenario.
Crackdown 3 was in development hell. So was The Last Guardian or Final Fantasy. Shit happens.

Don't act like only Microsoft has a track record of poor management. Games get cancelled or delayed on every platform.

But breh, at least Sony has a huge stable of homegrown, non-moneyhatted games coming up. Can Microsoft say that? Nope.

We're about to have Spider-Man! Oh wait.. that's not a Sony IP, it's Spider Man. And it's not even a Sony studio, it's Insomniac. So Sony just moneyhats something like Spider Man and no one cares? Huh, must be nice.

But there's Ghosts of whatever coming up, the samurai game. Oh wait.. Sucker Punch was a studio Sony purchased, guess it doesn't count.

Days Gone! Zombie action. But wait, that's another studio purchased with cash. Scratch that.

Surely Guerrilla is going to pump out another Horizon? Sony built GG from the ground up, right? Oh wait, they made that crappy Vietnam shooter on PS2/Xbox, so I guess not. Another one bites the dust.

But who needs those when you got the grand daddy of them all, Last of Us 2. Oh my bad, Naughty Dog was making games looooong before Sony bought them in the 2000's. Shit.

Media Molecule? Dreams is supposed to be big. Nope, bought. Damn.

Santa Monica? Oh fuck yeah boy, they count. Just ignore the fact that their supposedly bad ass new IP was canceled and they were instead forced to make more God of War, that is irrelevant unless it's Microsoft turning a developer into a Gears of War developer.

I guess they have all of those Japanese studios. Great.

All this thread has done is exposed the silly double standard teh Chartz has had when it comes to MS for years now. It's very reminiscent of when Microsoft bought timed exclusivity for Tomb Raider and people here lost their shit, completely ignoring the fact that Sony literally bought complete exclusivity for like... 2-3 games in the same franchise earlier. And some even said Playstation 1 was so good that Sony probably didn't even want to make that deal, that CD or whoever was in charge of Tomb Raider back then actually came to Sony begging for a deal, LOL.

Before I leave the thread I'd just like to say it's weird how all of a sudden a lot of people consider them a great studio and they love their games. If they'd seen this amount of love at retail then maybe they'd not be in financial trouble and be ripe for a purchase. It's very similar to Scalebound, which looked like complete garbage, but for some reason after it was canceled it looked amazing and was the sole reason many were going to buy an Xbone.

They've made some good, even great games in their history but many are niche and/or appeal to a smaller crowd. This idea that Microsoft wants to turn all of their first party titles into GaaS money pits doesn't really mesh with the reality of the partnerships we have seen them establish and the games we've seen come as a result of those partnerships. You wouldn't acquire Obsidian, Compulsion, or Ninja Theory to make big GaaS titles. Outside of Gears and Halo, none of their other titles are very GaaS oriented. Forza kind of was, but now that they're removing loot boxes (which, IIRC were never available for real money anyway) and removing "Forza tokens" or whatever, even Forza is gearing up to be more GaaS in terms of design, but not GaaS on the wallet. State of Decay wasn't, Sea of Thieves hasn't been thus far. Cuphead wasn't. Recore wasn't. Crackdown 3 hasn't had any sort of GaaS element discussed.And even if these were heavy on GaaS... they're all on GamePass. It's really a glorious setup MS has.

Personally I would welcome Obsidian to be purchased by ANY of the big three, just because the alternative is likely closure. Or even if they don't close, financial restraints on their games. Personally I'd rather a developer get a chance to go full throttle. That's why I loved Remedy getting MS money, and I love Ninja Theory getting MS money. Yeah, MS has had some games canceled and closed some studios. Big fucking deal, every console company in history has canceled games and closed down studios. So if you're a fan of their work, maybe it will be nice if they got better financially. And I would say this whether it be Nintendo, Sony, or MS who bought them. If you like their games, you'll play them regardless of what device they're on. And if not, then why do you care?