Yeah, i don't exactly see this as a tragedy since what Obsidian lacks is funds to actually finish development most of the time (the extremely buggy New Vegas and Alpha Protocol are two examples). Besides, Microsoft is not known to be an obstacle in their subsidiaries and they showed plenty of support towards them and indie developers in the past. Unlike - let's say - Bethesda.
Aside from Windows Store exclusivity, i don't see this as a purely negative thing.
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Why? Pillars of Eternity is exactly what the studio is known best for, since lots of them come from Black Isle and Interplay.
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Ah i see. Luckily Avellone isn't going anywhere in the industry as we last saw him aiding in the development of Dying Light 2, which seems really cool.
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PoE, to be frank, is not THAT good. The writing is oppressively moody, all party member quests are you listening to them whining for 100+ paragraphs, and the final dungeon and plot twists literally make zero sense.
Essentially, it is a fantasy version of KotOR2, only with a less idiotic main villain motivation and fewer party members to constantly cry about something.
It was good for combat challenge stuff though, the combat mechanics were interesting. Not really thought out (hence the like seven dozen rebalance patches… for a single-player only game…), but a nice change of scenery.
Tyranny was a lot shorter and smaller in ambition, but it worked infinitely better. (Except for having a dozen game elements that were more like thrown there with no real sustenance, like the entire item upgrade mechanic.)
I hope PoE2 turns out better, but I am still waiting for it to get released. I still get a new email every 5-6 weeks about stuff they releasing and I am not even sure any of my pre-purchased season pass content is even there. :D
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Erm, PoE2 has been out for like 5 months...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/560130/Pillars_of_Eternity_II_Deadfire/
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The core game.
The rest is not so much. Both Tyranny and PoE were totally turned upside down by their main DLCs, changing the entire game (in Tyranny's case, the entire story). So I am waiting for the actual game to arrive, not just the middle parts. I am patient and I already bought the full pack, I am just waiting for them to deliver all of it.
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i think only good things can come out of this...... what is a RaRe?
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any kind of exclusivity is a bad thing from consumer standpoint (especially artificial exclusivity made my MS in the past, like 'game cannot run on anything but Win10, oh wait it didn't sell well enough? one patch and suddenly it can work on other systems). And this deal will 100%sure deal to exclusivity of future titles.
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Well, being exclusive on Steam isn't really better, even though i like having everything on it myself. Besides, the game still can be out on both platforms like Quantum Break and Recore.
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where did I say that Steam exclusivity is better? especially as recent Obsidian titles haven't been exclusive to Steam - for example PoE was avaiable on Steam as well as GOG, as well as Windows Store and so on.
Also Quantum Break is really a bad example - this game was not only released as Windows Store and Win10 exclusively, it was advertised as WinStore exclusive and it was claimed that because of technical reasons it would be impossible for it to run on anything else besides WinStore and Win10 - and guess what? After sails failed horribly suddenly it turned out there was no reason and no problem at all to sell it on Steam and to run on Win7, so all this exclusivity for QB was created artificially. And it can indicate what will happen with Obsidian games after takeover.
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This... Microsoft actually have been relatively cool in letting their titles escape from the Windows store after some time. Killer Instinct, State of Decay & Fable anniversary also spring to mind
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yep, more examples
https://twitter.com/THQNordic/status/1040586137205714947
all these games you can now find in steam store
there was a thread here on forum about one game from this list
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/ATp8i/recore-definitive-edition-now-on-steam
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idk, as I am not even one bit intrested in this one, but when they were announcing Quantum Break they were stating that game will be exclusive to Win 10 and WinStore because of technical reasons and it couldn't possibly be sold in other store or run on another system at all - game tanked in sales and suddenly it became absolutelly possible to sell it in other stores and to run on older systems ;p
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well, QB has been in Humble Monthly after it got onto Steam, so a lot of people got it this way ;)
and yeah, I'm sticking to Win7 as well, but mainly because my chinese wireless X360/XOne adapter replacement does not have drivers supported by Win10 ;p So if I switched I would have either give up playing on controller or purchase a new adapter ;p
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I actually felt bad at the part where they started announcing studios they just purchased, especially as all these studios when working independently created amazing stuff. I don't say that M$ does not publish great games, but they generate artificial exclusivity - to platforms, to operating systems, to stores - and having more restrictions and more artificial exclusivity associated woth our games is never a good thing imo.
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In my observation (I could be wrong and would love to learn more from people here), small studios working independently often turn out a fairly high rate of good games. Large (combined) studios produce either flops or occasionally a great game--but not as many good games per year. So quality might go up--or not--but quantity will go way down, and some games might not get made due to "corporate expectations" or greed by the parent company.
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another thing is big publishers will rather want to make 'safe' games, avoid any potential controversy etc. Ninja Theory made Hellblade, excellent game bravely touching controversial topics, like mental health and stabilityy, doing it in great adult fashion - now Ninja Theory is part of Microsoft, do you think Hellblade would get made in such form under M$ wings? I personally doubt it.
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Or the studio will force them to push a topic that, while maybe one that ought to be discussed (or not), probably shouldn't be made in a game, as most gamers (AFAIK, again I could be wrong and would like to learn) want a good time, not a sermon, and some purchasers or potential purchasers) are driven away from the game (or studio) by that game's political or social bias. Thus the studio is tainted among many, and sales of future games aren't as good.
One game that used to be on my wishlist (because the others from the studio were good; before I got scared off by reviews) has a lot of bad reviews on steam for 1) being too "preachy" and 2) you can't win the game if you don't choose the choices that go with the studios viewpoint--which may or may not be an accurate viewpoint, or one that you personally agree with--thus not a good version of a "choices matter" game.
I have heard of other games by major studios that have the same reputation.
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Could be either good or bad news. Obsidian certainly wouldn't have to worry about budgets anymore but it seems unlikely that Microsoft would consider a typical Obsidian RPG a potential hardware seller. So I'd expect Microsoft to make some demands about game design, unlike with their other purchased studios.
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Obsidian goes the way of Rare in 3... 2...
-edit-
Looks like Obsidian was turning to shit for some time now. Chris Avellone apparenty left the company under some very negative circumstances and the former Black Isle devs who made it the Janky Loveable Dev That Always Almost Could are all gone now.
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i think they did very well with kickstarter, in my point of view for us( steam users) its bad news.,
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https://kotaku.com/sources-microsoft-is-close-to-buying-obsidian-1829614135
inb4 microtransactions, artificial Win10 exclusivity, Windows Store exclusivity, death of mods etc...
Rest in Peace Obsidian, one of the very last dev studios I really loved :/
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