Elder Scrolls Did Bethesda fuck Obsidian or not?

[Roguey]

If Walmart decided one day to start selling toothbrushes that snapped after 50 uses and said that was okay because it was their "business model", would people accept that?

You are supposed to get a new brush every three months. They do wear out.

If Hollywood decided one day to completely stop producing romantic comedies and said "sorry, those are the market realities", would people accept that?

Well, genres do come and go out of style. Just look at westerns, cyberpunk, etc.

 

[Spectacle]

Looking forward to "Did Ubisoft fuck Obsidian or not?" thread one year from now.

You'd think that Obsidian would have learned to keep it's fucking legs closed by then.

The way things went over with the South Park thing between THQ and Ubisoft, I doubt Obsidian had much influence over the outcome.

 

[Volourn]

"start white knighting for gamers. We're what counts here."

No. Hell no. Hell to the no. Gamers are just as bad if not worse than the others. They deserve shit.


"And what is your experience with unions?
I'll tell you mine-
1.) Lazy, bad, unproductive workers being protected by unions. Even being given preferential treatment over better workers just because they have more seniority.
2.) Union representatives showing favoritism over which employees they push grievances for. Funny I thought the whole seniority idea was about getting rid of favoritism.
3.) The company is struggling financially and needs to make changes and have a more flexible workforce to be able to respond to the changing situation. Unions fight it tooth and nail every step of the way and the company is in the red. They then proceed to blame the management for creating the problem.
4.) Unions create bad management. Because they set employees against management and management against employees. The management quality was much higher, and they cared about employees more, in nonunionized workplaces I have worked at.
Edit: Also you are aware that when companies do well their employees do well? And conversely when companies don't do well their employees don't do well. It isn't a case of employees vrs management(like unions say), that creates a poor company that doesn't do well. It is employees and managers all working together as one team to succeed that creates success in companies."

You are an idiot, and a liar. Most of what you say has little to do with unions. And, hate to break it to you, when companies do well and there ar eno unions that just means more money for the company and the higher ups. The rank and file certainly don't get anything out of it. Unions aren't there to help managers. They're there to help the rank and file who have no voice. ie.

Unions do not create bad management. Bad masnagement has always existed. Always. Hate to break it to you, even with unions, companies will fire and elt people go whens truggling. Unions just make it more fair. You whine about union favoritism? Youa re saying companies don't play favorites? L0L Never heard of nepotism, uh? HAHAA! Sure, lazy and bad workers are protected too but I'dr atehr have a bad worker protected than a good worker fired simply b/c he didn't want to suck the boss' dick. FFS

 

[Mantic]

If Hollywood decided one day to completely stop producing romantic comedies and said "sorry, those are the market realities", would people accept that?

This is precisely the reason the games industry is immature. In almost every other media and entertainment niches and different genres are allowed, but in video games it's completely different. It's like since the Kickstarter craze it couldn't be more obvious that there's a reasonably sized and devoted customer base for traditional cRPGs, but the publishers just refuse to budge and make them, in many cases (like those guys making MMX) it's a case of publishers being pulled kicking and screaming to serve niches they know exist, because they will do anything so they don't have to change their business model. In any other industry after seeing the success of Kickstarters like Wasteland 2, PE and Torment, the publishers would of jumped all over this new niche ASAP, that's market economics 101. But what do we see? Basically nothing, Ubisoft threw out an ultra low-budget RPG reusing Heroes 6 assets on Steam Early Access, and that's it. EA, Activision and the like don't want to hear about it unless it's a possible AAAAAA+ mega-blockbuster capable of selling millions of copies and making them rich forever and solving all their long-term financial problems. I don't think there's any industry except video game publishing that operates with that level of delusion.

 

[Vault Dweller]

If Hollywood decided one day to completely stop producing romantic comedies and said "sorry, those are the market realities", would people accept that?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rip-romantic-comedies-why-harry-634776

"I don't see any appetite for rom-coms from the studios," says producer Lynda Obst, who built her career with such hits as Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle and the Kate Hudson-Matthew McConaughey pairing How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. "The meet-cute is dead," agrees Seeking a Friend for the End of the World producer and manager Joy Gorman. "The only ones that have a chance are ones with a very fresh take."

Romantic comedies remain cost-effective and potentially high-reward if they work. But gone are the days when light comedic pairings like When Harry Met Sally … or 50 First Dates reliably packed multiplexes. As studios increasingly focus on films that can be sequelized and play in overseas markets, the one-off, dialogue-dependent rom-coms are a difficult sell. In addition, the decreasing appeal of young movie stars is translating into less demand for romantic pairings built around their star power."

"Mature and responsible", lol. Don't you see? The video game industry is pathetic. It's not serving its customers well. Everything else is just background noise.

It does though. It's serving the overwhelming majority, the ones who buy Skyrim, Call of Duty, Diablo 3 in millions of copies within the first week, the ones who made World of Warcraft a smashing success, the ones who made the gaming industry a mult-billion dollar ones extremely well.

 

[DalekFlay]

All media runs on fads. "X is hot right now, Y is done" people will say. Then 10 years later the opposite is true, or a whole new thing is hot, or whatever the fuck else. Right now it's superheros and cop shows, next year who knows. Every pop song today has a rap section, in 10 years maybe none of them will. Most publishers, execs and even directors lack real talent and go with the flow. Very few people have the talent and guts to shake things up.

Same is true in games. During the Xbox 360 generation dumbed down RPGs, linear as hell shooters and cover systems ruled the roost. That doesn't mean they always will.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

All media runs on fads. "X is hot right now, Y is done" people will say. Then 10 years later the opposite is true, or a whole new thing is hot, or whatever the fuck else. Right now it's superheros and cop shows, next year who knows. Every pop song today has a rap section, in 10 years maybe none of them will. Most publishers, execs and even directors lack real talent and go with the flow. Very few people have the talent and guts to shake things up.

Same is true in games. During the Xbox 360 generation dumbed down RPGs, linear as hell shooters and cover systems ruled the roost. That doesn't mean they always will.

If it started with 360, here's hoping it dies with xbox one.

 

[sser]

I don't know if Bethesda fucked Obsidian, but they absolutely took advantage of them. Really, Bethesda couldn't have found a better developer for New Vegas. Their engine is shit and full of bugs, Obsidian is already known for bugs -- thus they can just offload that mess as Obsidian's fault right off the bat. Why do strong Q&A when bugs are already seen as acceptable by the gaming masses, both critics and consumers?

Obsidian is known for strong writing and great questing in its RPGs. There's pretty much no chance they'd flummox a sequel to FO3, so the game was guaranteed to sell some copies. Everyone knows Obsidian is a scrappy developer that can't quite make itself premiere -- in fact, Obsidian is probably doomed to being the slaveboy to the "starlets" of the gaming community -- like the overwhelmingly overrated Bethesda. So the publisher picks up this developer and pretty much lays out the deal. Obsidian accepts because if they don't, well, a bajillion other developers will eat shit to work for the newly repopular Fallout brand.

The Metacritic thing is just the kicker, really. It's a symptom more than anything. Just another sign of how much power Bethesda wielded over Obsidian in the negotiations. I don't know if Bethesda wheeled and dealed its way to getting Obsidian short of the Metacritic goal, but it wouldn't surprise me. At the same time, they wouldn't have to try very hard. New Vegas was doomed to being seen as "sloppy seconds", and no matter how superior it was, nobody gives Obsidian the sort of leniency they give Bethesda. Those are just the shakes. I guarantee the Obsidian guys knew these things getting into the project beforehand.

 

[DalekFlay]

I'm pretty sure the "OMG NEW VEGAS IS BROKEN" reaction in the press was based on the Xbawks version being shit on day one and not getting a patch for like a week. That same patch was there on day one for PC, and the PC version was ten times more stable. Critics review Xbawks copies because they are 99% console gamers.

I personally never had any serious New Vegas bugs, outside of normal open world jank.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

New Vegas was unplayable for me at launch. The game was crawled to 10-15 fps whenever there was any sort of action on the screen. Downloading a .dll fix from the nexus got things running fine, but in my mind when people say the game was bug-ridden at launch I feel it's completely justified.

That's not to say the game is better than FO3 by any stretch, or that Obsidian didn't deserve their bonus. I love NV, and clocked in at least 300 hours.

 

[Sensuki]

I don't usually post in this shit forum but to me it seems that darkpatriot is like a moderator for one of Bethesda's game forums like an Elder Scrolls community or something.

 

[Blackguard]

Has anyone pointed out the fact yet that Bethesda Softworks, which was the publisher of NV, is a completely different company from Bethesda Game Studios? Bethesda Softworks is the game publishing arm of Zenimax Media, Bethesda Game Studios are the guys behind the Elder Scrolls games. Though they are both obviously subsidaries Zenimax Media.

Also Metacritic score is complete bullshit because even the "professional" reviewers fawn over big name game companies. If NV had been made by Bethesda themselfs it would have had close to 10 point higher average score simply from having the name Bethesda behind it.

 

[Volourn]

It's the same fukkin' company with the same fukkin' bosses. Only a delusional person thinks otherwise.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Has anyone pointed out the fact yet that Bethesda Softworks, which was the publisher of NV, is a completely different company from Bethesda Game Studios? Bethesda Softworks is the game publishing arm of Zenimax Media, Bethesda Game Studios are the guys behind the Elder Scrolls games. Though they are both obviously subsidaries Zenimax Media.

bethesda game studios is a division of bethesda softworks.. so yeah.. totally different company...

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I don't know if Bethesda fucked Obsidian, but they absolutely took advantage of them. Really, Bethesda couldn't have found a better developer for New Vegas. Their engine is shit and full of bugs, Obsidian is already known for bugs -- thus they can just offload that mess as Obsidian's fault right off the bat. Why do strong Q&A when bugs are already seen as acceptable by the gaming masses, both critics and consumers?

Huh? If no one cares about bugs, then Beth doesn't have to worry about finding someone to blame about the bugs.

The Metacritic thing is just the kicker, really. It's a symptom more than anything. Just another sign of how much power Bethesda wielded over Obsidian in the negotiations. I don't know if Bethesda wheeled and dealed its way to getting Obsidian short of the Metacritic goal, but it wouldn't surprise me. At the same time, they wouldn't have to try very hard. New Vegas was doomed to being seen as "sloppy seconds", and no matter how superior it was, nobody gives Obsidian the sort of leniency they give Bethesda. Those are just the shakes. I guarantee the Obsidian guys knew these things getting into the project beforehand.

It wasn't "doomed" to be anything, the worst that could happen is the general public not giving it as much attention as they gave FO3, because it's not new and exciting anymore. There weren't any magical forces keeping Obsidian down and preventing them from making something that would kick FO3's ass in the eyes of the average player. That didn't happen because Obsidian doesn't make that sort of game, simple as that.

And do you think that bethesda would deliberately try and get the game rated lower in order to avoid paying a few million more to Obsidian? To publishers higher review scores = more sales = more money. Much more money than the bonus to Obsidian would have been.

For fuck's sake! You can't be THAT stupid that you think an 85% as opposed to 84% metacritic score would had meant 'much more money than the bonus to Obsidian would have been.'

Obviously an extra 1% wouldn't bring them bucketloads of money, but I think it's a bit of an absurd scenario, metascore clocking at exactly 85% and then Beth starts calling reviewers and asking them to lower their scores a little. I can't really see Beth acting against their best interests and preventing the sequel to one of their two main games from having the highest score they can get. Beth intends to milk TES and Fallout for years, and whenever a new game of those series is announced the internet starts jacking off. The bonus promised to Obsidian pales in comparison to that goldmine.

 

[sser]

Huh? If no one cares about bugs, then Beth doesn't have to worry about finding someone to blame about the bugs.

No one cares about the bugs when it is Bethesda that makes the game. Surely you've recognized this by now, right? The PS3 version of Skyrim was technically worse than what Obsidian put out there with NV. Where were the critics then? Oh right, they had Bethesda's cash stuffed in their faces.

It wasn't "doomed" to be anything, the worst that could happen is the general public not giving it as much attention as they gave FO3, because it's not new and exciting anymore. There weren't any magical forces keeping Obsidian down and preventing them from making something that would kick FO3's ass in the eyes of the average player.

It was doomed to be sloppy seconds. That means a few things: one, it wasn't gonna be protected like Bethesda's products already are (demonstrated above); and two, Bethesda didn't have to invest itself in the project, or seek anyway to "protect" it. Obsidian was there to make a sequel and thus some money. Bethesda bullied them in that they held an enormous amount of leverage and used all of it -- up to and including the bush-league Metacritic nonsense.

Considering New Vegas is superior to FO3 in every way, what else could Obsidian have done? If the games industry was all about the best products winning based on their being the best products, don't you think we'd be looking at a totally different industry right now?

 

[Mastermind]

Huh? If no one cares about bugs, then Beth doesn't have to worry about finding someone to blame about the bugs.

No one cares about the bugs when it is Bethesda that makes the game. Surely you've recognized this by now, right? The PS3 version of Skyrim was technically worse than what Obsidian put out there with NV. Where were the critics then? Oh right, they had Bethesda's cash stuffed in their faces.

Oh fuck off with your bullshit you deranged cunts. Obshitian has shoved game killing bugs into both games for which I preordered a collectors' edition. Bethesda was never this bad. Nevermind that people do bitch about Bethesda bugs, both on and off the codex.

It was doomed to be sloppy seconds. That means a few things: one, it wasn't gonna be protected like Bethesda's products already are (demonstrated above); and two, Bethesda didn't have to invest itself in the project, or seek anyway to "protect" it. Obsidian was there to make a sequel and thus some money. Bethesda bullied them in that they held an enormous amount of leverage and used all of it -- up to and including the bush-league Metacritic nonsense.

They could have offered Obsidian... nothing, and gotten a ton less hate for it. If Obshitian didn't like the deal they shouldn't have taken it.

Considering New Vegas is superior to FO3 in every way

Bullshit. NV is glaringly lacking in exploration. FO3 OTOH has a ton of sizable "dungeons" to explore. NV is primarily a storyfag game, which isn't really what I'm looking for in these types of games.

 

[DeepOcean]

Oh fuck off with your bullshit you deranged cunts. Obshitian has shoved game killing bugs into both games for which I preordered a collectors' edition. Bethesda was never this bad. Nevermind that people do bitch about Bethesda bugs, both on and off the codex.

Man, when I tried to play Fallout 3, when I still tought there was something worthy in that bullshit. I couldn't even start the game and this was years after release with alot of patches already released. I had to search in Bethesda forums for 1 hour to discover how to fix that shit. Skyrim Dawnguard has a bug that can simply stop all the chain of quests of the DLC and I encontered that too. If you visited the vampire castle before starting the DLC questline (what it isn't even hard to happen as the castle is big and call attention at distance) the whole DLC quest line is broken. New Vegas had patches that not only fixed bugs but solved gameplay balance issues. All explosive weapons were pretty shitty in terms of damage, to the point of almost making them useless, the patches rebalanced the game and explosive weapons ended being a viable alternative.

 

[sser]

Oh fuck off with your bullshit you deranged cunts. Obshitian has shoved game killing bugs into both games for which I preordered a collectors' edition. Bethesda was never this bad. Nevermind that people do bitch about Bethesda bugs, both on and off the codex.

Seriously? I've run into bugs with every Bethesda game - it's kind of their thing. And one could barely get Skyrim to work on the PS3 for more than hour before it shut down. It'd wipe your saves. It'd glitch up quests. Loading screens would hang. And, sometimes, it just wouldn't work. All that happened with NV's PS3 version repeated itself in Skyrim two-fold over because it was an even more complicated game. Also, Bethesda gets a total pass on their bugs from critics and many consumers alike. Bethesda ain't the only company to skirt beneath the radar with broken games. Few years ago, I sat and read how Empire: Total War was a 95%/perfect/A+ game only to buy it and find a game so utterly broken I blacklisted not only gaming "journalism", but also Creative Assembly altogether. If you consider a broken or barely functional game getting near-perfect scores "bitching" then there's a large issue of semantics here.

They could have offered Obsidian... nothing, and gotten a ton less hate for it. If Obshitian didn't like the deal they shouldn't have taken it.

Nobody's saying Obsidian didn't have agency in their own decision making. The point is did Bethesda as a business try and fuck over Obsidian because they could, and the answer is obviously yes. The Metacritic shenanigans were just a cherry on top. Bethesda did what it wanted to do as a business and if it wasn't Obsidian it would've been someone else because the FO-franchise was at its peak in popularity. I think we can accept that a business can both look after its interests and behave shittily in doing so - it's not really a black and white issue.

Bullshit. NV is glaringly lacking in exploration. FO3 OTOH has a ton of sizable "dungeons" to explore. NV is primarily a storyfag game, which isn't really what I'm looking for in these types of games.

Well it was just an opinion, but one that many people at least do hold.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Obviously an extra 1% wouldn't bring them bucketloads of money, but I think it's a bit of an absurd scenario, metascore clocking at exactly 85% and then Beth starts calling reviewers and asking them to lower their scores a little. I can't really see Beth acting against their best interests and preventing the sequel to one of their two main games from having the highest score they can get. Beth intends to milk TES and Fallout for years, and whenever a new game of those series is announced the internet starts jacking off. The bonus promised to Obsidian pales in comparison to that goldmine.

I'm far from Obsidian's biggest fan, but the whole Metacritic deal seems a wee bit fishy. It's not hard to imagine a Bethesda bean counter running some sort of regression analysis (gotta use those b-school skills for something...) where they calculated the relationship between Metacritic percentage points and sales revenue and found that a drop below the bonus score threshold would have been a financially sound move and then acted on it. Maybe they spent a little less on giving reviewers a great experience, they didn't make the review kits that went out with advance copies as detailed, and so on.

It's generally not that far-fetched a theory, given that there is already a bit of a conflict of interest inherent in the deal.

That said, it could just be the capricious standards of mainstream reviewers at fault. It's actually difficult to tell how they will rate titles that are mechanically similar to big-name, AAA-franchises that are showered with "10/10 GOTY, NAY...GOAT!!!!!!!!!!" ratings from the mainstream commentariat. I think zomg has poasted a few times about this strange phenomenon, one that I've recently (well, the past few years) begun to notice. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is probably the foremost example that comes to mind. It is vastly superior to God of War in practically every meaningful way, yet while God of War is showered in accolades, Lords of Shadow was met with far less praise alongside some spurious criticisms. Why? I haven't the foggiest.

And the situation is none too dissimilar to New Vegas. For everything Fallout 3 was praised for, New Vegas upped the ante (often times greatly so). When other AAA franchises do such, the high scores are guaranteed (hell, even when they don't, the gaming press will cover for them). But not in this one case. And the only salient difference we are privy to is the Metacritic bonus agreement.

Hard to not jump into tinfoil hat territory, no?

 

[Duraframe300]

Not to cry conspiracy, but the only place that Bethesda would have to influence is Metacritic themselves.

They are as arbitary as possible when it comes to choosing reviews and may forget a proffessional reviewer and instead post some random Blog reviewer. They may also wrongly translate a different score system into theirs which makes a well recieved game pretty fast into a 60%.

Metacritic really really sucks.

 

[Duraframe300]

Also, Obsidian didn't have a choice regarding the deal. They literary held NO power in contract negotiations.

Saying No isn't always a choice when No is filled to the brim with consequences. Add to that that it is an IP many people at Obsidian are passionate about and voila.

This is a gun to the head situation, nothing more.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I'm far from Obsidian's biggest fan, but the whole Metacritic deal seems a wee bit fishy. It's not hard to imagine a Bethesda bean counter running some sort of regression analysis (gotta use those b-school skills for something...) where they calculated the relationship between Metacritic percentage points and sales revenue and found that a drop below the bonus score threshold would have been a financially sound move and then acted on it.

Thing is, Beth isn't starved for money. While keeping the bonus might be worth more $$$ immediately, it's not worth doing anything to harm their golden goose's image. They'd have to be really short-sighted.

 

[Minttunator]

That said, it could just be the capricious standards of mainstream reviewers at fault. It's actually difficult to tell how they will rate titles that are mechanically similar to big-name, AAA-franchises that are showered with "10/10 GOTY, NAY...GOAT!!!!!!!!!!" ratings from the mainstream commentariat. I think zomg has poasted a few times about this strange phenomenon, one that I've recently (well, the past few years) begun to notice. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is probably the foremost example that comes to mind. It is vastly superior to God of War in practically every meaningful way, yet while God of War is showered in accolades, Lords of Shadow was met with far less praise alongside some spurious criticisms. Why? I haven't the foggiest.

And the situation is none too dissimilar to New Vegas. For everything Fallout 3 was praised for, New Vegas upped the ante (often times greatly so). When other AAA franchises do such, the high scores are guaranteed (hell, even when they don't, the gaming press will cover for them). But not in this one case. And the only salient difference we are privy to is the Metacritic bonus agreement.

Hard to not jump into tinfoil hat territory, no?

I'm inclined to agree - I think Occam's Razor is a good approach here. It seems entirely feasible that Bethesda just invested less money into paying off the mainstream reviewers (either directly or through advertising) with NV than they did with FO3 - hence the slightly lower average score, despite NV actually being a better game (and also having a higher user score on Metacritic - which, in my opinion, is a much better indication of a game's quality, but that's another discussion).

 

[Spectacle]

Considering New Vegas is superior to FO3 in every way, what else could Obsidian have done? If the games industry was all about the best products winning based on their being the best products, don't you think we'd be looking at a totally different industry right now?

There are plenty of people who enjoyed Failout 3 more than New Vegas, since the former allows the "go anywhere, do anything" playstyle that bethtards love a lot more than NV does. We here may prefer a proper RPG, but I'm sure that Obsidian could easily have gotten a few more metacritic points by making the game more popamole.