icemann on 11/11/2018 at 03:51
Meh. All the good KS based companies are all getting bought up. First Harebrained now inExile and Obsidian. Meh.
For me its the indepedence that made them all so great, and with KS the people help (with their dollars) decide on what shape the game will take.
With the gaming megacorps you get what their market rrsearch teams tells them = the best profit whilst also sticking to tried, tested and safe types of games, rather than taking risks.
The next to get bought up will be Night Dive. Thats my bet. System Shock license is worth quite a bit. And the more IPs ND acquires, the more tempting they will become to companies like EA, Take 2 etc etc.
Sulphur on 11/11/2018 at 04:52
Well, good or bad, whoever's doing this is making smart purchases. MS knows that one of their problems is that they don't have many high-quality internal studios pumping out exclusives, and Ninja Theory, Obsidian, etc. are known for putting out really good games that didn't light the market on fire. Coupled with MS's marketing, they could actually stand a chance to be successful before the publishing execs run them into the ground by iterating a single IP formula ad infinitum. Kickstarter is none of these studios' saviour at this point, because a) it's not a source of regular funding, and b) the level of backer investment has remained roughly in the ~3-5 million USD ballpark, which means scoping smaller projects and a smaller workforce in general if they want to survive.
Anyway, how can anyone miss Obsidian and inXile coming under the same wing? It's like a Black Isle & Interplay reunion, only now they're toiling under a corporate hegemony.
icemann on 11/11/2018 at 07:22
I'm more pissed about Harebrained.
And what happened to Rare after purchase from Microsoft should be a good example of what goes on over there.
Malf on 11/11/2018 at 08:17
Yeah, studios bought by MS do tend to die slow, horrible deaths by corporate culture absorption (see Lionhead too).
Still, in related news, Crackdown 3 is coming to Windows!
Have some Terry Crews:
[video=youtube;ulPrpqAOA7U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=66&v=ulPrpqAOA7U[/video]
N'Al on 14/11/2018 at 21:31
[video=youtube;MlMLEIDdIn0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMLEIDdIn0&t=0s&list=WL&index=8[/video]
Judith on 15/11/2018 at 07:07
New game by Ken Levine and his crew, added to wish list instantly.
[video=youtube_share;hXY3IrBcoRI]https://youtu.be/hXY3IrBcoRI[/video]
N'Al on 15/11/2018 at 07:12
I don't think Ken Levine is involved in this, is he?
Judith on 15/11/2018 at 07:33
Correction, he just recommended it. For some reason I thought he's the mind behind it.
N'Al on 15/11/2018 at 08:08
There are other ex-Irrational folks involved though, to be fair.