Obsidian and inXile acquired by Microsoft

[Nuclear Explosion]

What backlash? Few people are happy about it, but everybody gets that for InXile it was either that or go out of business.
Excluding one linuxrtard on InXile forums who made like 50 posts regurgitating the usual linuxtard talking points from the mid 1990s.

PoE was not finished by 90% or so of its players. Let that sink in. There was no backlash. There was withdrawal. People found out that the BG nostalgia they craved for was simply not to be sated here.

It's like you guys never check any other game's achievement. Generally games have very low finish rate, RPGs especially so.

Only 12% of the people finished Original sin 2, while 19.8% of the people finished Deadfire.

That's probably because of Deadfire's poor sales -- it seems that the only people who bought it are those who liked the first game a lot.

 

[Mustawd]

In every interaction we've had, he had a politician's gift for making you feel like he cared sincerely about you and the things you care about. My innate skepticism of people makes me immune to critical charm failures -- that is, though charmed, I assumed that it was because I was being worked -- so I can't say that he really cares, only that he seems really to care.

There is a guy at my work who I’ve never formally met. I don’t know what he does. I don’t know his name.

But everytime I see him he smiles and gives me a look like he just saw his best friend after a long time. And he smiles and says some random pleasantry like, “Hey! [cuz he doesn’t know my name] Crazy weather huh? I’m glad I brought my jacket!”

The weird part is that he’s so good that it doesn’t feel fake and I find myself smiling and replying in kind. After all my years of work experience I’ve come to recognize these type of people. They are called: Salesmen.


And that’s what Fargo strikes me as. Now that’s nit necessarily a bad thing. A salesman can tap into what is important to you. Speak to you in a way that makes you feel he cares. And let’s for the hell of it assume he does. None of that is a guarantee that this or any particular salesman is a good manager. Or a good CEO. Or a good leader.

To me Fargo is the marketer. The hype man. And with any sales pitch part of that inevitably is misplaced optmism at best or just plain bullshit at worst. And this probably what people dislike about him.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I think Bester has the best theory so far. Most of those 1 million+ buyers were younger gamers who heard a lot about the golden age of late 90s RPGs, but never actually played them because interface/graphics were too dated. So when PoE came out, looking hot and spicy, they jumped on. Wow, finally I can try one of these oldschool RPGs, I heard they're amazing.

And then they discover the genre wasn't for them. That alone probably wouldn't warrant' a negative review, but it would make people skip the sequel.

Or two put it differently, Larian managed to connect with new audience. Obsidian did not, they had to rely on old farts showing up. And there's not 1 million of those wanting for new IE type experience, that's much is certain.

 

[markec]

I don't rate it on FB because I try to minimize my FB usage, but as I see other people's behaviour, they rate and complain a LOT on Facebook. So I guess people probably do both.

I have seen restaurants closing their doors or struggling to get customers with just a few reviews, both positive and negative, on their facebook pages. Yet when I ask people what they think about that restaurants they say they dont like the food so they dont go there.

Some people will leave reviews but majority wont, they will vote with their wallet.

This is same with every business so why in your opinion its different with games?

 

[Quillon]

Yet people hate on PoE because it didn't make them feel like BG made them feel 20 years ago. Then they create circle jerks against the game and people won't buy the sequel...

Divinity Original Sin got away with it because no one expected Baldur's gate. It came out of the blue, had no previous expectations, so people judged it closer to what it was rather than what they wanted it to be.

PoE doesn't deserve all the hate it gets on Codex but to be fair Obs promised the best of IWD-BG-PST soup, Larian did not...probably, I don't know.

 

[evdk]

Yet people hate on PoE because it didn't make them feel like BG made them feel 20 years ago. Then they create circle jerks against the game and people won't buy the sequel...

Divinity Original Sin got away with it because no one expected Baldur's gate. It came out of the blue, had no previous expectations, so people judged it closer to what it was rather than what they wanted it to be.

PoE doesn't deserve all the hate it gets on Codex but to be fair Obs promised the best of IWD-BG-PST soup, Larian did not...probably, I don't know.

Larian promised Ultima and underdelivered. It's just that most people had no clue.

 

[Jazz_]

What happens now to Boyarsky and Tim Cain project?

 

[TemplarGR]

Larian promised Ultima and underdelivered. It's just that most people had no clue.

It is clear that DOS is based on Ultima, but i don't recall Larian promising Ultima. Even if they did it was not well-known because it is the first time i heard of them actually promising Ultima. Have a source?

 

[TemplarGR]

Indeed. The codex has always misread the appeal of BG/2. It's never been the mechanics. It is prettiness and an interesting story. When the audience has to clog through rinse repeat games *today* in the world where streamlining is the norm to find a bland and uninteresting world, the game is dead.

I actually liked the mechanics of BG and when i replayed the whole EE saga a few months ago i found out i still liked them, most of the time (until late levels when it turned to absolute shit and i turned on story mode to retain my sanity and stop wasting time). Lower DnD levels were still interesting and enjoyable to me.

Also i think calling PoE's world "bland" and "uninteresting" is not fair. Yes it is typical fantasy like Faerun but it does the job rather well.

The true issue is that people cannot get immersed in a new world through text and 2D graphics in the age of the Witcher 3 and ADD children. It is not possible. It is the same reason people don't read books anymore. Millions played the Witcher 3, thousands read the books. Everytime i discuss the story of the Witcher 3 people constantly refer to the Witcher 3 as their only source of lore and i cringe, having read all 8 books...

So people found the world of Witcher 3 interesting, why they didn't read the books then?

Playing text-heavy games like PoE with isometric camera and 2.5D graphics is much closer to reading a novel than immersing yourself in a modern AAA RPG like the Witcher 3.

And that was mostly the problem. The world was fine, great even. It just wasn't delivered in a great way to a modern *spoiled* audience. And i have to say, even though i am a "veteran", i am still spoiled too. I too found it difficult to immerse myself into PoE. Having played games like Mass Effect trilogy and the Witchers, i was alienated at first.

 

[Jarpie]

I think a lot of people in here hates PoE 1because of missed potential, rather than it being utterly horrible game, like Gothic 4 for example. PoE is just very mediocre, bland and very underwhelming, which is why people didn't really leave negative reviews IMO. It is a very fascinating failure, and same goes for Deadfire, there is no just one reason why it flopped, IMO it's combination of many factors. Being direct sequel and continuation is one of them. Other reason is that it didn't have The Hook, you have to have something to hook potential buyers into buying the game.

Let's take Vault Dweller's The Age of Decadence which had great potential hook, the many different ways to play it, and different starting points/backgrounds, which I think he IIRC under utilized.

 

[Funposter]

I think a lot of people in here hates PoE 1because of missed potential, rather than it being utterly horrible game, like Gothic 4 for example

i was able to finish gothic 4 but PoE made me tap out after 15 hours. It's pretty bad.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

If you are not running Linux or BSD by now you are massively retarded.

You sound like it is obvious that sane people are using Linux, but the reality is that you are more retarded if you think like that. In what world are you living in? There are core group of people who are using Linux, but the average Joe (which is 96% of the gaming market) is just using the more comfortable Windows platform. Don't make yourself delusional, Linux is nowhere near Windows and probably never will be.

There is no hope for the average joe anyway, they represent the decline. But here on the Codex? You guys gotta know better.
If you have more than one brain cell then Linux is very comfy, they made great strides in the last few years.
BSD too, if you don't buy retarded proprietary RGB gaming keyboards or other shit made for children you should be fine, just requires a bit more tinkering.

Jesus christ you Linux parasites will never face reality. No one cares. As a gamer, yes Proton has made strides. But even then it's not 100% compatibility and a lot of games that are compatible still have issues. This is before you get into backwards compatibility with pre steam games. Windows is utter bullshit but it's still the primary platform for PC gaming. With support for any issue you can find. Unless Linux can find a way to get day one parity with windows game releases no one will want to know.

 

[The Bishop]

Honestly, Obsidian silently losing lots of players between PoE and PoE 2 is pretty easy to explain. I personally read from quite a few people that got on board with PoE, even pledged to kickstarter, just to see what the fuss was about. If so many people are pledging to this project, there should be some reason why it's good, right?

When the game came out they launched it only to find that they can barely see what the hell is going on on the screen during fights, let alone hope to control them. At that point they didn't make a scene, didn't get red in their face in anger, didn't write ten disparaging reviews at every website they can imagine. They weren't particularly invested in this whole thing to begin with. They just concluded that this type of game is definitely not for them and clicked the uninstall button.

And for PoE 2 there wasn't anywhere near as many people willing to find out what the fuss is about, partly because there wasn't that much fuss to begin with, but also because most of those who could potentially want to do this already made up their mind after the first game.

 

[evdk]

Larian promised Ultima and underdelivered. It's just that most people had no clue.

It is clear that DOS is based on Ultima, but i don't recall Larian promising Ultima. Even if they did it was not well-known because it is the first time i heard of them actually promising Ultima. Have a source?

I am pretty sure Sven talked about Ultima being their biggest inspiration for the first game in some Codex thread, but I do not actually have any links.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

That's what you get for using a GNU kernel. Operating anything but TempleOS is pure heresy and should be punishable by law

Spoiler

Goddamn CIA glow in the dark niggers infiltrating our RPG makers.

 

[Nuclear Explosion]

Larian promised Ultima and underdelivered. It's just that most people had no clue.

It is clear that DOS is based on Ultima, but i don't recall Larian promising Ultima. Even if they did it was not well-known because it is the first time i heard of them actually promising Ultima. Have a source?

I am pretty sure Sven talked about Ultima being their biggest inspiration for the first game in some Codex thread, but I do not actually have any links.

He talked about Ultima 7 being his favorite game when he was promoting D:OS.

One of the stretch goals was NPC schedules, which were never implemented, but Ultima-like item interactivity was.

 

[Jazz_]

Speaking of Linux, I recently installed quite a bunch of games on a laptop with Ubuntu and they all work flawlessly (and without requiring any esoteric tinkering whatsoever), some natively, some thru Wine but I was pleasantly surprised, seems like gaming on Linux has come a long way and it is quite feasible now.

 

[Edija]

Hi.

Gosh wtf! this is just I know for me too because of our new family computer webuilt to play games like Pillars graphics in high or ultra high but what now okay? I do not know and do not want have money to buy xbox if there is another pillars game I will not get one so this is it for me if it happens and xbox version comes out for third one Orange story will never be completed because what happens to Orange then never to finish story? That is bad okay! Reading since the release lots do not like the game but I do and very me disappointed about the news of new aqcuzition and what is going to happen with the series now makes me sad. There is that new game coming out lookings liek ultima with the updated gaming rules from bg series not bought out yet there is a kickstart so check it out realms beyond and maybe that is where JOsh will go if they do not want to be in this new company right? Already J osh will be making a Lich King and the crypt and encounter so that opens the door to more maybe like helping on expansion or consulting item descriptions or lore because that is one of many I like about pillars world made .All the best thank-you for at least bring fun for me with the pillars franchise at least okay.

Thanks,
Sherry

Could you elaborate a bit further on that, friend.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

When the game came out they launched it only to find that they can barely see what the hell is going on on the screen during fights, let alone hope to control them.

It was all RTwP's fault.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

The irony is that they themselves are the biggest example of it...

There is no place that PoE is more hated than the codex. Every time PoE is mentioned there is a legion of people spewing vitriol for the game and Obsidian of course. People here don't claim it is "meh", they claim it killed their firstborn.

Why would they do that if the theory is "that the game was mediocre so we didn't bother leaving reviews for it". Yeah, you certainly keep silent about your hatred for the game, and it shows, especially on the Codex...

And it makes sense: People expected to relive their childhoods through PoE, to feel the same feelings the BG saga made them feel in the 90s when they were still young pure souls and not dead inside 30-40somethings. But this was impossible no matter how good PoE was. So after they felt "meh" about PoE, they decided to hate it eternally.

And since Chris Avellone left Obsidian, the hatred multiplied here because we all know rpgcodex is the unoffical Chris Avellone "i beg you please let me lick his balls" fanclub.

To an objective critic, PoE was a really good game. It had many faults at release and it got vastly improved with patches and DLCs. But still deserved its metacritic score. I mean, what competition there was? Outside of Witcher 3 and perhaps Metal Gear, Fallout 4 and Rise of the Tomb Raider what other game was actually good that year? I don't mean masterpiece, just good... Was Age of Decadence released in 2015 IIRC? Add that to the list.

I feel that sometimes people lack context. This generation of games is not exactly chokeful of quality content... We get a metric crapton of games but most of them are shitty shit full of shit. It is nothing like the 90s when interesting quality games were releasing left and right both on PC and on consoles and still Baldur's Gate was king of the hill and considered AAA by then standards.

Yet people hate on PoE because it didn't make them feel like BG made them feel 20 years ago. Then they create circle jerks against the game and people won't buy the sequel...

Divinity Original Sin got away with it because no one expected Baldur's gate. It came out of the blue, had no previous expectations, so people judged it closer to what it was rather than what they wanted it to be.

The best objective critics strawman their opponents and refuse to hear anything bad about a game. The Games Journalism Clique taught you well.

 

[commie]

I dunno what the hate for Fargo is either. inXike would likely be closed down if it wasn’t for this deal. I mean, I guess ppl are mad it didn’t close down?

I dunno.

Yeah...it's easy to play the 'stoic defender of principle' from your mother's basement, but Fargo has other people to look after. He could just say "see you laterz bitchez" and walk off counting his cash and leave however many people suddenly unemployed, like others in the industry, but the irony is that the same people bitching about this now, would be hating on him more for being a total prick and bastard for doing that to his employees!

 

[fobia]

Didn't he announce his goodbye from the gaming industry at some point? Or at least from InXile?
There's so much developer drama going on, it starts to get blurry after a few months.

 

[razvedchiki]

So this is good news for owlcat games and smaller devs like vault dweller/styg? Will it not open up more breathing space for them?

 

[cruelio]

I dunno what the hate for Fargo is either. inXike would likely be closed down if it wasn’t for this deal. I mean, I guess ppl are mad it didn’t close down?

I dunno.

WELL LETS SEE WHAT IT COULD BE ALL ABOUT

HOW ABOUT THE TIME HE RAN INTERPLAY INTO THE GROUND, AS A JOKE, THROUGH HORRIFIC MISMANAGEMENT, DOING HIS PART TO KILL CRPGS IN THE PROCESS AND USHER A CRPG DARK AGE????

AND THEN MADE A SHITTY COMPANY CALLED INXILE TO MAKE CELL PHONE SHOVELWARE????

AND THEN CASHED IN ON THE KICKSTARTER FAD TO MAKE GARBAGE GAMES WHERE NO ONE HAS EVER EXPLAINED TO ME HOW THEY COULD POSSIBLY COST MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR BEING SO BAD AND HALF ASSED. NO ONE CAN ACCOUNT FOR HOW WASTELAND 2 LOOKS WORSE THAN GAMES TEN YEARS OLDER AND NEEDED A RE-RELEASE TO EVEN BEGIN FIXING ITS SHITTY MECHANICS, OR HOW NUMERA IS LIKE FIVE HOURS LONG, OR HOW BARDS TALE 4 SHIPPED UNPLAYABLE AND NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT IT BECAUSE EVEN THE MOST DENSE MORON (EXCEPT THE ONES ON THIS FORUM) HAS FIGURED OUT AT THIS POINT THAT BRIAN FARGO IS VIDEO GAME AIDS AND STOPPED BUYING INXILE GAMES.

THE MAN HAS ALLEGEDLY BEEN INVOLVED IN MAKING VIDEO GAME SINCE THE FUCKING EIGHTIES! WHY IS EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES DOOMED TO FAIL WHILE HE RIDES OFF RICHER AND RICHER?!???

REMEMBER HOW HE WAS RUNNING KICKSTARTERS FOR NEW GAMES WITHOUT EVEN RELEASING THE PRIOR KICKSTARTED GAMES??? HOW DID NO ONE BUT ME REALIZE THIS WAS A FUCKING SCAM??

IT'S LIKE HE WATCHED THE PRODUCERS AS A KID AND THOUGHT "THIS IS IT, THIS IS HOW I WILL LIVE MY WHOLE LIFE, EXCEPT I WON'T MAKE ANYTHING GOOD EVEN BY ACCIDENT AND RETARDS ON THE INTERNET THAT HASN'T BEEN INVENTED YET WILL DEFEND ME"

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

No part of the Pillars franchise is designed to leave a strong impression. Plot and setting-wise it's fueled by nostalgia, and in terms of systems it's balance all the way down.

Many things are surprisingly forgivable in an RPG if it leaves a strong positive impression in spite of those things, and this is probably exemplified by Arcanum (as one example). Blandness, however, is utterly unforgivable.

Yeah and Arcanum sold like hot cakes, too!