He says in the interview they were 7 months in or something having already done some of the work before the pitch, the company fully committed to it and then had too make drop large amounts of their staff
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Obsidian on why their Microsoft published XB1 RPG Stormlands got cancelled
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
He says in the interview they were 7 months in or something having already done some of the work before the pitch, the company fully committed to it and then had too make drop large amounts of their staff
pretty done
Member
How did Tyranny end up turning out?
yet they chose to publish both of those games and only canceled them when the development didn't pan out
VincentMatts
Member
Id argue that they want system sellers.
Wasn't that only because of Nintendo? Same with Dragonquest 7 and 8.
Trogdor1123
Member
Ummm yeah, I hope they do exactly that...
What? No!
I haven't played it yet (bought it of course
) because we are getting so many great CRPGs that my backlog of those now probably spans years. But I heard good things.
Trogdor1123
Member
I hope not, sea of theives looks awesome
It's great imo, particularly so considering the shoestring budget of the game
LordRaptor
Member
I know its entirely anecdotal, but an exclusive Obsidian WRPG with an interesting premise and a Platinum attempt to out-Monster hunter Monster Hunter to my mind are far more likely to get people who are otherwise uninterested in the xbox to contemplate a purchase than another Halo / Forza / Gears does.
That sounds pretty early to me know, assuming the 7 months included that pre-production. My point being that it's not something that stretched on for years, so comments about the project being mismanaged by Obsidian or over budget are not reasonable.
Trogdor1123
Member
I forgot it even came out. Sound really interesting. Anyone care to share their insights on it?
Let's be real. Neither of those games are going to outsell forza halo gears etc. Forza Horizon 3 has done great sales wise, halo 5 even though lower than 3 still did really well for an exclusive. And gears is doing around judgement. Platinum games are instant bombas and an obsidian game may do kinda well but it's not going to have the tail or MT as the other core games do
Service games are very popular on console. Out of the top 20 most played Xbox games, 18 of them are multiplayer service games. Sea of thieves and Crackdown both have service models in them
You'd rather they only release market tested guaranteed money makers over anything remotely risky? How boring.
Trogdor1123
Member
I would hope they make every game in a way to make money yes. This doesn't mean you don't risks at all. I would much rather see small iterations and changes then them going crazy and leaving the market.
Broken Hope
Member
Where's Sony has no issues selling Gravity Rush and Gravity Rush 2 even though they don't sell that well and probably don't actually make them that much money, but they do it for the fans.
#sorrynotsorry
Member
That's why MS was interested in them. But releasing bad games hurts the brand. Do you think MS threw away all the money spent on Scalebound lightly?
Don't kid yourself.
ok now im gonna give you alot examples why you talking nonsense
first off what has to do with cancelling something where you as producer dont belive its gonna make money?
second off, bravel default WAS a save money projekt for japan, are you saying devoleping a non handheld game like in this topic and translating something to a anoter language has the same risk and reward strutcure?
third off how is this a counter argument to what i am saying? i respond to a post that implyed the first primary goal of multi billion company is not to make a profit but rather flush millions down to the toilet, saying this is bullocks. Are you the opinion not every company acts this way?
You see, Sony isn't a business. Nor is any other publisher who put out risky projects. To be a business means canceling everything but 100% locks.
Krappadizzle
Member
I feel bad for Obsidian a bit. I feel that they haven't got the attention and respect from the proper publishers that they deserve. Glad to see that they are still managing to survive all these years though.
VincentMatts
Member
I agree that just having a big library of exclusive games would absolutely help. But they dont seem to want just anything. I mean if they cancelled it, there had to be something that was 'off' about it.
So you just want sequels is what you're saying?
I'm glad we have Sony putting out games like Until Dawn and The Last Guardian, and Nintendo reinventing Zelda.
I'm conflicted. While I think the industry overall is far too conservative as far as taking risks, I can't fault a company from shying away from projects that get out of control from their budgets.
Looking at this quote:
If I'm spending money on a real estate venture, and the guy who is making repairs quotes me a figure and it keeps growing and growing as the project goes further along...I'm not going to have a good feeling about that. If at the end, I end up having to commit six times the resources that I thought I was going to, that sucks. If that was me, I would never want to do business with them again.
Just because it is a large corporation doesn't absolve that. When you look at Microsoft, you go "Oh, well they are a big company, they can afford it", but when you look from the perspective of the mid-level manager at Microsoft who has to justify it (and will lose his job if it doesn't work out), it looks like a lot more reasonable decision.
I keep meaning to finish it myself, but it's quite awesome. Has some slight flaws(balancing issues with combat mainly) but the decisions you are forced to make are raw and quite difficult. Great world, great characters, a really fascinating take on the "other side" of most good/evil conflict-focused rpg's. Highly recommended.
Neat, always wondered about this game - will give this article a read, thanks.
Lawl - Devs must be tripping over themselves, offering MS exclusives when they see this all this risk taking. Smart like a fox, I tell ya.
Those can easily become games as a service and Microsoft is all for that now.
And Microsoft putting out games like Recore and Ryse and Sunset Drive.
The game did not look good.
Pretty good. Don't go into the game expecting some 40+ hour adventure though. Tyranny was designed to be short and replayable. I think it succeeds in that. My playthroughs ranged from 22ish hours to 9ish hours. The combat seems to be the biggest point of disagreement about the game.
SamuelSupreme
Banned
This is a creative industry. Taking a chance and a risk on a title for the benefit of their console loneup and the consumers who put faith in them to provide some variety. Look at Sony.
Again Sony has a substantial lead over Microsoft and they've taken risk after risk this gen without fucking over their consumers or their variety in genre choice.
Thats right Microsoft has never published critical failures or anything that's inherently broken like MCC.
LordRaptor
Member
No, they were probably never going to outsell those games.
They might have helped sell consoles though.
I don't think its a stretch to say anyone who really likes Halo, Gears and / or Forza already owns an Xbox, and anyone who doesn't isn't particularly swayed towards a purchase by the sales of those titles.
Based on this article I'd suspect there was nobody in the US fighting Platinums corner.
Broken Hope
Member
Look up sales of Gravity Rush or it's sequel it's not setting the world on fire, it won't be making them a ton of money. Why else would they release them if not for the fans?
Yes those were good risks they took, what 3 years ago now? Where are the risky games now?
Recore was shit.
randomengine
Banned
Actually, gaming was much better when it was mostly hobbyists and gamers doing it for the love of it.
If anyone is just making games to make money usually their games are shit.
That part makes me really sad because I know it's true, and not only in this industry but everywhere else. So many good things are lost into the ether just because they don't have "advocates" like some other less interesting proposals.
VincentMatts
Member
I dont buy that. I mean they dont have a bunch of idiots running the company there, they must have seen the game running on multiple occasions. If they game looks interesting and feels good, they would absolutely not cancel it.
I just dont buy that the only thing wrong with this game was that no one was fighting for it in the US. Id have to imagine that its absolutely more complicated than that.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
To be fair, how many big, expensive publishing/funding deals with external developers have backfired on MS this gen? I think their biggest success so far has been Sunset Overdrive which still absolutely underperformed (which is a shame, because discounting Smash Bros on Wii U it's easily my game of the generation).
It's not what you know it's who you know, basically.
Yep, I'm always amazed by how quick the defense force for MS is on the draw on this site.
If this were even remotely true, MS wouldn't release any bad games and other publishers wouldn't release niche/hardcore centric games at all... yet both of these things happen a lot.
Yep, I'm always amazed by how quick the defense force for MS is on the draw on this site.
If this were even remotely true, MS wouldn't release any bad games and other publishers wouldn't release niche/hardcore centric games at all... yet both of these things happen a lot.
There's always a caveat. How will you dismiss Quantum Break? If Recore was shit...isn't that proving they don't only release certified hits?