Microsoft put together quite the portfolio last year after it acquired a handful of developers, one of which was Obsidian Entertainment, who is currently working on The Outer Worlds. That said, Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart recently explained why they chose to move forward with being acquired by Microsoft.
Speaking with Game Informer, Urquhart pointed to financial security as one of the driving factors behind the acquisition. “As a company we had to make a decision, when you’re running a business, it’s a little bit all about money,” he said. “We have a 160, 170 people, and we’re thinking about this in early 2018–where do we go? how do we do this?
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“If we want $40, 50, 60, 70 million to make the next big game, where do we get it? And we go to publishers, and we’ve talked to a lot of publishers through the years, but it’s harder and harder as an independent developer, there’s fewer and fewer of us—I guess now one less.”
He then went on to mention how they we deciding whether or not to move forward with their plan from the start, which was to make big role-playing games. “So a part of it we really had to think about: do we change the company,” he continued. “Do we not try to make these big RPGs? Do we do whatever we can to get these publishers to fund us? Do we go and get an investment from a company, or do we look at getting acquired?
“And we started [2018] not really knowing which way we would go, and of course it ended up with an acquisition by Microsoft. But it was to be able to do what we set out to do 15 years ago.”
As for their next title The Outer Worlds, no release date is set in stone, but a recent leak may have revealed that it will be launching this summer for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. For more on the RPG:
“In The Outer Worlds, you awake from hibernation on a colonist ship that was lost in transit to Halcyon, the furthest colony from Earth located at the edge of the galaxy, only to find yourself in the midst of a deep conspiracy threatening to destroy it. As you explore the furthest reaches of space and encounter various factions, all vying for power, the character you decide to become will determine how this player-driven story unfolds. In the corporate equation for the colony, you are the unplanned variable.”
Thanks, GamingBolt!
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