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Inside Xbox, Obsidian Is Trying to Reinvent Itself

Repeating myself from the other thread:
These games would do far better if they released at 40-50$. That way they could have had a lot of gamer goodwill, just like E33. I have no idea why games like Avowed and TOW2 released at 70$. They have reduced the price for the ps5 release, but I am afraid it might be too little too late.
 
MatrixReloaded101 said:
They did not do a good job of marketing these games and when they initially tried to sell Outer Worlds 2 at $80 that wasn't a good move.
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I dont think better marketing would improve sales much at all.

The games dont resonate with gamers. Grounded, Avowed or Outer Worlds are all games that have a odd combo or being too quirky/DEI-ish/cartoony. But if you look at their earlier games you had better and gritter adventure/RPG games like SW, NWN, Fallout Vegas.

Very similar to Bioware changing from their old gritty RPGs to modern games Mass Effect Andromeda and Veilguard.
 
Mild success, then?

Thierry Henry Smile GIF by hamlet
 
Denton said:
Obvious based on Steam numbers. I mean, Bloodlines 2 was a total flop that Paradox lost almost 30 million USD on and it still posted better numbers.
I finished Avowed and it is very much the definition of "not great, not terrible" 7/10 game with lame writing, decent exploration and combat. It has extremely basic mechanics and non-reactive world and does not inspire much reverence.
Outer Worlds 1 was similar, OW2 I have yet to play.
Days of New Vegas and KOTOR 2 and Alpha Protocol seem to be long gone. I hope I am wrong though.

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I assume that a flop in Microsoft's world today is when games don't increase or retain Gamepass subscription numbers. Steam numbers is kinda pointless for Microsoft's games, most of their core userbase will no doubt play on Gamepass. Did you play on Steam? I didn't.

Starfield had lots of players on Steam though, 300k+ CCU, but that's most likely because Bethesda's games are popular to mod and Gamepass and modding can be a gamble. Even old ass Oblivion had 150k+ CCU.
 
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Wtf kind of sales target could Microsoft possibly have had? They were literally giving the game away for free.
 
Fess said:
I assume that a flop in Microsoft's world today is when games don't increase or retain Gamepass subscription numbers. Steam numbers is kinda pointless for Microsoft's games, most of their core userbase will no doubt play on Gamepass. Did you play on Steam? I didn't.
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I disagree. While GP is important to MS, MS no doubt still expects the games from their studios to sell well outside of it. And there are lot of examples of games that do release on GP and still post very good numbers on Steam.
Plus, if a game fails outside of GP, there is very high likelihood that it also failed to move GP subscriber needle in any meaningful way.
 
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StreetsofBeige said:
I dont think better marketing would improve sales much at all.

The games dont resonate with gamers. Grounded, Avowed or Outer Worlds are all games that have a odd combo or being too quirky/DEI-ish/cartoony. But if you look at their earlier games you had better and gritter adventure/RPG games like SW, NWN, Fallout Vegas.

Very similar to Bioware changing from their old gritty RPGs to modern games Mass Effect Andromeda and Veilguard.
Click to expand...
This is the answer, and it's on par with the industry swing of making everything shittier, more colourful, less inspiring trying to capture that mythical "new audience" that all the execs want. In the end you lose old fans and don't gain new ones (because kinds playing Fortnite want to play Fortnite, not RPGs for old farts).
 
Plague Doctor said:
It did have a style. The style was , "quirky" and "all of the above".
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Millennial/marvel/reddit writing is not popular anymore. COE33 was popular in part because it didn't have that stuff in it. Any dev that employs a bunch of quirk chungus millennial women on their writing staff is not going to find success.
 
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MagiusNecros said:
If the game is cheaply made....why does it cost so much?
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The higher up the chain of command goes, the more money you have to give to those people and the less that goes towards making the game.

...I guess? I dunno man.
 
adamsapple said:
That should be in the OP then, lol.
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Yea very weird not to add that to the OP.

Anyways this isn't surprising. It's like the guy from Taketwo said. Releasing good games isn't enough anymore. Back in the day Avowed and Outerworlds 2 would have been enough to make their money back and then some. These days it's just not enough. There are to many great games out there and some of them are even FTP.
 
tronied said:
I like Avowed but never got into the Outer Worlds
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I finished and mostly enjoyed Avowed, but in the end it competed with Oblivion for me and lost terribly.

I've played maybe 10 hours of The Other Worlds 2, I liked it but it also competed with Oblivion since I hadn't stopped playing that yet, and again lost terribly.

So, Obsidian, start making your games more like Bethesda's games. Minus the jank. Better interactivity, physics, life, open world and full of side content.
 
winjer said:
I guess that by mild success, they meant breaking even.
So they didn't even do that. They lost money to Microsoft.
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It's such a shame though to see them fall like this. Obsidian had some of my favorite well written and interestingly done games. From KOTOR 2 to New Vegas and more.
 
Fess said:
I finished and mostly enjoyed Avowed, but in the end it competed with Oblivion for me and lost terribly.

I've played maybe 10 hours of The Other Worlds 2, I liked it but it also competed with Oblivion since I hadn't stopped playing that yet, and again lost terribly.

So, Obsidian, start making your games more like Bethesda's games. Minus the jank. Better interactivity, physics, life, open world and full of side content.
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They will have to make their games in Creation Engine. Would love to see that.

Instantly will be a massive upgrade in so many things.
 
Buggy Loop said:
Obsidian's entire history is basically failures of meeting sales expectations. Even with Star wars franchise slapped on it. Their biggest success being Fallout NV but Bethesda basically got most of the rewards while they got fucked by reviews.
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The first Outer Worlds actually sold a lot, that was a real success (Grounded too).

But it probably didn't convince a lot of people since no one cared about the second game.

I don't really see how Obsidian are going to turn the tables, the total absence of personality of their games seem deeply engraved into the studio's culture by now.
 
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Denton said:
I disagree. While GP is important to MS, MS no doubt still expects the games from their studios to sell well outside of it. And there are lot of examples of games that do release on GP and still post very good numbers on Steam.
Plus, if a game fails outside of GP, there is very high likelihood that it also failed to move GP subscriber needle in any meaningful way.
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They surely got some kind of sales target that takes into account GP members. It's not like every Xbox gamer even has GP or even standard Xbox Gold (whatever it's called) to begin with. So there's going to be groups of gamers who need to buy to play.

But sales from these groups must be crap as their RPGs arent resonating with adventure gamers. Their games still get pretty good review scores, so it's not that. Their RPGs just look dumb. You can tell since gamers rag on them being too colourful or corny. I dont touch them either. I look at the trailers or gameplay snippets and wow. It's a cheesefest. But if they took part making a new Fallout game, I'd play it for sure.
 
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They need to hire some better writers. For fuck's sake, if you're going to make a role-playing game that focuses on player choice, party member relationships, moral choices, etc then you need to create characters we love (or hate), conflicts that we care about, high stakes, believable motivations, etc.


That shit doesn't work when every single person and faction in the game is some retarded caricature.


I played Outer Worlds 2 over 20 hours before dropping it. It's solid technically and has decent gameplay mechanics but I just didn't give a single shit about anything that was happening in the game.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
I dont think better marketing would improve sales much at all.

The games dont resonate with gamers. Grounded, Avowed or Outer Worlds are all games that have a odd combo or being too quirky/DEI-ish/cartoony. But if you look at their earlier games you had better and gritter adventure/RPG games like SW, NWN, Fallout Vegas.

Very similar to Bioware changing from their old gritty RPGs to modern games Mass Effect Andromeda and Veilguard.
Click to expand...

Cyberpunkd said:
This is the answer, and it's on par with the industry swing of making everything shittier, more colourful, less inspiring trying to capture that mythical "new audience" that all the execs want. In the end you lose old fans and don't gain new ones (because kinds playing Fortnite want to play Fortnite, not RPGs for old farts).
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It sure seems like that this is answer.

It's probably more complicated than that. But…. Maybe it isn't.

A studio that went from writing Fallout New Vegas. Pillars, alpha protocol… all with edge. With bite. To this toothless slop we got in their most recent offerings is just depressing.

They were so good.
 
MiguelItUp said:
Not too shocked, though I'll admit I was genuinely surprised The Outer Worlds even got a sequel
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The original was actually a pretty big hit selling over 5 million copies, despite the seemingly overwhelming consensus that it was "just ok". I think Microsoft massively overestimated this series. They even tried to make OW2 their first $80 game lol
 
Some people here saying its because of their quality are clueless af. Microsoft's tax killed their sales. Can't speak for Avowed since I havent played it yet, but Outer Worlds 2 is a well made/high-quality game, but its price should be 50 euros at best. Avowed was 80 lmao, ofc Obsidian cant get sales with these outrages prices. Avowed has now perma-lowered its game price and it may gain some long legs.
 
ungalo said:
The first Outer Worlds actually sold a lot, that was a real success (Grounded too).

But it probably didn't convince a lot of people since no one cared about the second game.
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Yeah first Outer Worlds had good pre-release word of mouth since people expected new "New Vegas" and it was from Creators of Fallout (Tim Cain and Leon Boyarsky co-directed it).
But it turned out to be an ok, 7/10 smaller scale RPG with 30 hour playtime that did not inspire huge and passionate fanbase, so the sales of second game reflect that.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
The games dont resonate with gamers. Grounded, Avowed or Outer Worlds are all games that have a odd combo or being too quirky/DEI-ish/cartoony. But if you look at their earlier games you had better and gritter adventure/RPG games like SW, NWN, Fallout Vegas.
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So being cartoony is a flaw? Makes the games bad? So.......based on your logic Fortnite should be a failure?

Graphics don't make a game good or bad.

Must be a Gen Z'er
 
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