inXile Entertainment joins Microsoft Studios

[_noblesse_oblige_]

I love it! MS has a great company culture.

??!

As someone who lives a few miles south of Redmond and works in the software industry in the Seattle area, I would beg to differ that Microsoft has a great company culture. I have plenty of neighbors and coworkers who are ex-Microsoft and they are nearly unanimous about the toxic culture of that company. I could see it the one time I went on-site to interview with them, as well. (Decided to stay at Amazon back then rather than switch to Microsoft - and Amazon has a high attrition rate among its engineers for reasons of its own.)

Maybe Microsoft Studios is different, but I wouldn't call the culture of that company great overall....

[shmerl]

Maybe Microsoft Studios is different, but I wouldn't call the culture of that company great overall....

Judging by their attitude, they remind me MS of the '90s. Some parts of MS today work with Alliance for Open Media and Open Invention Network. That's a clear improvement. But their gaming division is as bad as it was in the past. Same push for lock-in, DRM and the like. The indicator of change will be them joining Vulkan working group IMHO and releasing their games DRM-free.

[Akachi]

I don't think embracing vendor lock-in tech like DX12, DRM, exclusiveness, etc. would be the only way to make their games commercially successful. If they will go that route I guess openness were never part of inXile's DNA.

Well, we need to wait and see how this will go.

Look how long Quantum Break was UWP. Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, mstore exclusive, was imho amazing, but sold so poorly we might never get AOE II : DE.

[kanisatha]

Yeah the "Microsoft exclusive" is what worries me the most. I will not buy XBox and I will not buy my games from the Windows Store. It would be good to hear from inXile if this then means I cannot play any of their future games.

[Milamber33]

Personally, while I like the idea of DRM free I can understand that it's not necessarily a popular decision for publishers. And since I play games on Windows and own an xbox I'm less affected by lock-in than some other people here. But since I got BTT through GoG, what I'm worried about personally is whether or not the DRM free releases of existing games will continue to receive updates in tandem with Steam, etc. I've seen other games from other developers (Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak comes to mind) where patches were released for DRM versions of the game but people who bought the GoG version had to wait months (from Nov 2017 to Jun 2018 for Homeworld) to get the same patch.

[BurningBright]

Some of you haven't really been paying attention to Microsoft Studios, E3 2018, etc. Go say all that to Undead Labs. The Coalition. Rare. Mojang. 343.

You may not agree, you might not like some of the games put out by these studios before or after, but the point is, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to support smaller, indie dev houses, and not gotten in their way.

And say what you will about Activision, Blizzard, etc.... but most can only hope to achieve that kind of success. If this move means inXile will be around to continue pushing its RPG IPs... we all win in some way or another, even if BT5 is unfortunately a clone in style/mechanics to BT4 (which many of us wouldn't want)... because without this move, I suspect we wouldn't see much more from that kind of thing in any format.

To each their own, it's hip to hate on M$, I get it.

Its not about hating on Microsoft. I only hope the best for this acquisition/merger/partnership.....what ever you want to call it. Inxile and Brian Fargo probably had to do what they did to stay afloat. Better that then the company going under or struggling to make ends meet. I want to view this as an exciting time for InXile and that they will continue to make the same type of games they always have. But I cant shake the feeling that we wont see any more DRM free games, ones that are not locked behind a console, or PC Microsoft store front.

I agree with one thing you have said for sure. That with out this move we may not have seen any games from inxile in the future. So, this will help with that for the time being. I wish them luck going forward and hope to see good things from them in the future.

Also, one thing I have gathered from a lot of the commentary is that a lot of the console players are super excited for this move and yet many have not played the previous Inxile games. So, their expectations for what types of games will come from the wasteland, Numenera, and Bards tale IP might be more like Skyrim RPGS is my guess. But maybe I will be surprised. I am leery of consolisation of games. I hope you are right and that "Microsoft has [genuinely] made a concerted effort to support smaller, indie dev houses, and not gotten in their way." If they do i will be very happy with this merger outcome.

PS I am not familiar with any of those studios you have mentioned or most Microsoft Studio games.....so that might tell you where my interests lie.

[shmerl]

I've seen other games from other developers (Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak comes to mind) where patches were released for DRM versions of the game but people who bought the GoG version had to wait months (from Nov 2017 to Jun 2018 for Homeworld) to get the same patch.

Well, inXile's own satirical The Bard's Tale never received latest resnarkled edition on GOG, it's only available through Steam. Now I suspect it became even less likely.

[Zadkiel]

Who now owns your IPs?

Still waiting for an answer to this CRITICAL question.

Bard's tale, Wasteland, Planescape etc - who now owns the rights to these properties?

[shmerl]

Bard's tale, Wasteland, Planescape etc - who now owns the rights to these properties?

I also wonder how this worked out for Pillars of Eternity and Obsidian.

[vv221]

I also wonder how this worked out for Pillars of Eternity and Obsidian.

Then you might find this interesting: Obsidian doesn't own the Pillars of Eternity franchise
I think we don’t know yet if Microsoft bought the rights to the Pillars of Eternity IP alongside Obsidian Entertainment.

[shmerl]

Then you might find this interesting: Obsidian doesn't own the Pillars of Eternity franchise
I think we don’t know yet if Microsoft bought the rights to the Pillars of Eternity IP alongside Obsidian Entertainment.

That's indeed Interesting. May be something survived the grasp of MS in such case.

[ZiN]

Ah, so they finally listened to professional advice. This guy told Brian years ago, that their Kickstarter model won't work and they need to get into the Microsoft "family". He's a genius, I hope he will be in charge of leading future InXile projects at Microsoft! Good luck and have fun!

[ET3D]

I am leery of consolisation of games.

Given the PC-ation of consoles, perhaps it's not that terrible. Keyboard / mouse support is arriving for Xbox. So we will likely continue to get games which are console games but also support a PC style interface.

[Jozape]

Who now owns your IPs?

Still waiting for an answer to this CRITICAL question.

Bard's tale, Wasteland, Planescape etc - who now owns the rights to these properties?

Fargo never never had the trademark for Planescape. He was only able to get the trademark for Torment.

[Zadkiel]

Fargo never never had the trademark for Planescape. He was only able to get the trademark for Torment.

Well, yeah. I wrote this at 4:30am my time, brain wasn't working.

[Wintermute_of_Cof]

Some of you haven't really been paying attention to Microsoft Studios, E3 2018, etc. Go say all that to Undead Labs. The Coalition. Rare. Mojang. 343.

Go say all that to FASA, Digital Anvil, Ensemble, Lionhead Studios, Press Play. Oh wait, you can't.

Digital Anvil - Closed 2006
FASA - Closed 2007
Ensemble - Closed 2009
Lionhead - Closed 2016
Press Play - Closed 2016

[Themadcow]

I know Microsoft pretty well and have worked with their Xbox division quite recently. The culture is pretty "Top Down" in the sense that performance is always being reviewed and you're always answerable to someone. However, they're also pretty good at developing ideas and letting people have freedom to get on with their vision... as long as it delivers. They know full well that gaming is the biggest growth market for PC, but that Xbox is losing the console war to Sony AND Nintendo on the basis of it's exclusives and studios (hence the huge buying spree).

Given what must look like a commercial disaster for recent titles, I think this is a very good move for the future of inXile.

[shmerl]

I know Microsoft pretty well and have worked with their Xbox division quite recently

So you'd know first hand their toxic lock-in attitude I suppose. What stops them from helping developers and collaborating on the common graphics API like Vulkan? Nothing, besides trying to drive up the cost of cross platform development with lock-in tax.

[Themadcow]

So you'd know first hand their toxic lock-in attitude I suppose. What stops them from helping developers and collaborating on the common graphics API like Vulkan? Nothing, besides trying to drive up the cost of cross platform development with lock-in tax.

I didn't say they weren't pushing specific commercial goals, one of which is getting as many people as possible to use their latest platforms. Just to be clear, I don't work FOR Microsoft, and I'm not a games developer.

[SuAside]

News such as this will always be met with mixed reactions from the fans. My personal hope is that it will indeed enable InXile to improve the polish of their games and lift them to the next level. In the short term, the benefits are obvious, but the long term consequences are impossible to predict.