Obsidian Lay-Offs: Studio Lost Bonus Due To Low Metacritic Score

Fallout New vegas failed to hit a metacritic score of 85, so Obsidian Entertainment lost its bonus for the game, according to a tweet by studio co founder Chris Avallone. Read more here.

[coolbeans]

New Vegas' score on metacritic (across all three platforms):

360-84
PC-84
PS3-82

I never thought the day would come where a developer loses a bonus for making a 80+ rated, multi-million selling game.

[fastrez]

It's shocking, but I want to know what Obsidian were thinking to agree to those terms. It's just a real shame :(

[coolbeans]

I think the main reason was certain Black Isle guys being so enamored by the fact of working on one of their old series again that they would sign under any arbitrary terms.

[Persistantthug]

And that game sucked.

[RedDead]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Black isle, Obsidians developers are one of the best group of devs ever imo. It's a shame how some members broke off and came back, it really ****ed up their company. These guys are simply the most unlucky developers in the games industry because they have talent. Kotor 2 was almost amazing and the got screwed over by lucasarts. BS for them. Fallout new vegas is my favorite 'bethesda' game/ These guys own the Fallout series not crappy bethesda

And it's even worse that this crap happened over a few points(edit-1 point sorry) on metacritic.

[Persistantthug]

unreasonable.

OBLIVION, FALLOUT 3, and recently SKYRIM have all scored into the 90's. So if they demand that obsidian scores at least an 85 before issuing any bonuses......while that sort of sucks...considering BETHESDA's proven track record with their other IPs this generation...an 85 is not asking too much nor is it unreasonable, at least not in this case.

[Lazy_Sunday]

It's fine, Fallout New Vegas didn't live up to it's predecessor and flopped on the innovative side. Layoffs are sad but it's not like we won't get over it. I mean, we say in our heads "oh no this is awful..." and then we post that here like others will band together and care, but if we really did care then it wouldn't have happened in the first place. And it wouldn't have happened in the first place if Fallout New Vegas was "good" instead of "decent."

[coolbeans]

"...but if we really did care then it wouldn't have happened in the first place."

I argue that wouldn't be the case. I personally care because it shows that Obsidian is basically needs to make one game at a time just to stay afloat. Most gamers do care about jobs because most gamers can sympathize with those people hitting a huge speedbump in their careers.

[Revolver_X_]

"but if we really did care then it wouldn't have happened in the first place"
@Lazy_Sunday
That statement is invalid. It sounds like your saying if we cared more then its metacritic score would be higher. The sum of website reviews is calculated for a metacritic score. Fans affection for a game would not sway a reviewers score. I personally like New Vegas better then 3. There was more content in the game and more to do, something Skyrim lacks imo.

[Lazy_Sunday]

Well we didn't really hate on them for most reviews being "meh" because it was indeed a "meh" game. Our current score review system holds the standard equivalent of a typical middle school grading scale, where an A+ is great, an A is good, an A- is okay, a B+ is "mmm" and a B is "meh."
It'd be easier to do A, B, C, D, and F, but it must be easier to use the same two letters over and over again.

[Lazy_Sunday]

Well we didn't really hate on them for most reviews being "meh" because it was indeed a "meh" game. Our current score review system holds the standard equivalent of a typical middle school grading scale, where an A+ is great, an A is good, an A- is okay, a B+ is "mmm" and a B is "meh."
It'd be easier to do A, B, C, D, and F, but it must be easier to use the same two letters over and over again since they're still doing it.

[TimmyShire]

It's always sad to see developers get treated this way. Okay, so they didn't reach their target but if it sold so well (and I believe it did sell well) then surely that should be rewarded.

[mantisimo]

What an awful way to award a bonus if all studios worked like this there would only ever be clones of top scoring games as devs chased the next high critic.

Although for some reason they accepted the terms.

[NYC_Gamer]

That shows Bethesda didn't have much faith in the NV project.

[fastrez]

Which is a shame really :(

[wallis]

What!? It's the BEST of bethesda's fallouts though! The only reason it came short of that is because fallout nv followed fallout 3 and seemed a bit more like a rehash but if NV had come before fallout 3 then it would have been the supreme bethesda fallout game. It had everything fallout 3 had but with actual references to fallout's mythology and sense of humour.

This right here is exactly why we need to get rid of the publishing industry for games. I really hope kickstarter represents the future of the industry because I've had enough of crap like this. I wouldn't mind if the game didn't sell well but to fall short because of two freaking points on a review website!? And sure Bethesda will cut the Brink devs a break but not Obsidian, seriously?

Obsidian deserved MUCH better than this. To wind up collapsing because of poor sales is one thing but to get screwed because of metacritic? That's just not right.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I hate to see any developer struggle but Obsidian seems destined to fade away or at best be a dev house that supports other devs and not one for full blown development.

I hope they survive, and hope they learn some lessons about agreements like this.

[Vladplaya]

I got Fallout New Vegas with all its expansion packs fking years after release, and I still can hardly play that broken junk. I have friends who love the game, but even they say that sometime its unbearable because of technical problems, I can only imagine what it was like on the release date. If they would took time and made polished product, then I bet not only more people would have liked it, but it obviously would have gotten better score.

[BattleTorn]

it was a nightmare at release.

Usually bethesda games favor Xbox 360, and even it was a horrid mess.

I can still ramble off the numberous quest-breaking bugs.

Cpt.HSU not having dialog options to redeem bounties.
EDE going permanently hostile
The Metro Bomb never appeared
having items, and yourself fall through the floor of the BOS safehouse
quest items getting stuck permanently in inventory
Cavavans getting stuck in location. (they're finite too)
"wheathered" 10mm (pre-order bonus) turned into a giant red-box then a weapon-mod was equiped.
The freezing.

shit the list goes on.

@NYC_Gamer
lol, my EDE went on a hostile rampage through Primm, and killed most of the residents, including the Mojave-Express trader. (I was able to revert, and lock him into the Mojave traders' house)

[NYC_Gamer]

I couldn't even finish the ED-E My Love mission due to bugs

[TheColbertinator]

Damn Metacritic

[PooEgg]

And yet the so called professional reviewers will stand by an undeserved review score by stating it is just their opinion and shouldn't be taken as more than that. I am sorry, but when companies lose bonuses based on review scores it is time for reviewers to put more thought and time into there reviews.

On the other hand NV was a buggy mess so perhaps this had something to do with it as well. Still it must be hard to be a game developer if metacritic scores are taken this seriously.

[Christopher]

One, these are the terms they agreed to so it isn't Bethesda's fault that Obsidian is in this position.

Two, I question to determine who's fault it is that the game failed to get a score of 85 or higher on metacritic. The mass majority of bugs in the game are native to the engine being used, which is managed and programmed not by Obsidian but by Bethesda, including during the development of FNV.