Money. Everything is always about money.

Obsidian doesn't "take" other companies' games, they're contracted by those companies to make them. They developed New Vegas precisely Bethesda hired them to.

Hahaha wow.

I always thought it was the other way around. As in Obsidian asks permission to make said game.

Nope, Obsidian was contracted by Bethesda. Obsidian also has many of the original creators of Fallout so if anything, Bethesda temporarily gave it back.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/15/obsidian-missed-fallout-new-vegas-metacritic-bonus-by-one-point/



If 1 [censored] point results in Obsidian going under, pissed off will not even begin to describe my feelings.

I assume you're being sarcastic? Otherwise...wow, just wow.

I want to go out and buy an ultimate edition of FNV to show my support, but that won't help them since they don't get royalties...

I hope this doesn't mean the end of Obsidian Maybe someone could buy them or something, they wouldn't be independent but they would still exist. Zenimax maybe?

No, not zenimax. I blame zeni for them not getting paid (one [censored] point), also zeni (or atlest bethesda) seems more interested in streamlining everything. Thats not good for Obsidians games.

It is if you want a kickass job. I relocated twice for my company between 2002 - 2008. Money was good and dealing with a move made sense. If Bethesda is looking for people they should reach out to some of the guys who were let go from Obsidian.

Nah, you just prefer Bethesda style of doing things. Nothing stupid or wrong about that. I disagree, but that's just my opinion

And yes, if you can get writers from Obsidian, go for it Bethesda! Skyrim's story was... Well, it had an excuse to kill dragons Or the people responsible for the game mechanics. Or, well, pretty much anyone except the ones responsible for the world design Then again, letting them work with Bethesda world designers might result in a bit more believable world while keeping Bethesda expansiveness, so yes, hire anyone you can from Obsidian

This stuff is confusing.. kinda sad.. and makes me angry, too. This stuff doesn't sound fair. Sounds like some people are getting taken advantage of, people whose names I don't necessarily know but whom I respect.

I hope things get better rather than worse for those who ended up in this situation.

Wouldn't be surprised if there aren't lawsuits over this in the near future.

As it is, the InXile effort with Wasteland 2 might just be the lifeline Obisidian needs. We shall see.

The part that's really messed up about the whole Metacritic thing is that Bethesda was responsible for making sure the game (Fallout: New Vegas) was stable before it was released, not Obsidian. I think it's safe to assume that they would have hit the 85% mark had the game not been released so buggy.

Not saying its their own fault, but the only recent game they made that were succesfull is New Vegas.

Then they realase the crappy games; Alpha Protocol and Dungeon Siege III. Those games were bashed alot be crititcs.

I mean, how many you know actually bought these games? The income of those games propably didnt exeed the budget

Obsidian is crap and always has been. i'm surprised this didn't happen sooner.

Alpha Protocol came before New Vegas, actually, and was panned for just about the exact same reasons; bugginess and lack of polish, which just as with New Vegas, were mainly the publisher's responsibility. Actually, this seems to be a recurring issue with Obsidian, looking back at the things they've developed. KotOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol, New Vegas. The feedback I've heard from all of these games is almost identical: "Could have been great, but released too early". It could be argued that Obsidian might be "too slow" as a developer (I don't really have any idea of the development time given to these games compared to average), but for all of these games the budget and development time allowed to these games, and their subsequently unfinished release, was out of Obsidian's control.

It's a shame too, I've had no issues with the Ultimate Edition aside from some typical Gamebryo stuff. A 6 month debugging polish would've done great wonders for Beth/Obsidian's bottom line.

.. Yeah .. it's bad. Many are losing jobs.

Heard about Sony Shuting down Zipper Interactive Developers for MAG, and Unit 13 for the Vita.

It's pretty bad ..

How can you even feel sorry for these companies? Obsidian makes second rate games that usually svck and Zipper has produced nothing but crap over the last few years. Developers need a wake up call, make crap games and your going to be on the outside looking in!

Greg

New Vegas svcked?

And how can you not feel bad for someone who loses their job? It's a terrible misfortune, no matter which company it is.

It's not the companies that are being laid off. That's a pretty myopic perspective.

New vegas did svck compaired to Fallout 3. And no I am not going to feel sorry for some one doing a terrable job. These developers test these games before they release them. They know they svck, they know their full of bugs. Yet they release them anyway and at full price. They get what they deserve!

Greg

P.S. I do feel sorry for some one who loses their job and puts effort into their job and does a honest days work.

1. Disagree about New Vegas
2. You do know that Bethesda did the testing and QA for New Vegas, right? QA is almost always the publisher's responsibility, not the developer's.
3. Bethesda decided when to release NV and in what state, and they made most of the money. Shouldn't Bethesda be laying people off by your logic?