Report: Obsidian Hit With Layoffs, Unannounced Project Canceled

Well that's just WEIRD. Somthing deeper must be going on here, You don't just fire your lead programmer on a lark.

@BigDaddy81: Hah, despite this awful news that was hilarious.

Real big bummer, I hope the best for those let go.

Fallout new vegas is one of my top games this generation. Naturally I am devastated. I was always secretly hoping they would make another fallout game using the skyrim/fallout engine.

Now those hopes are dashed.

FUUUUUUUUUCCCK

@Cross said:

Quite surprising to me, considering the success of New Vegas, and it's too late for Alpha Protocol to still have ramifications.

Well, this company seems to be run by PURE CHAOS that has manifested in human form or something. They hire somebody and then let them go a week later? Any sane human being would NOT hire anybody if business is bad.

But I guess we are talking about the video game industry here. 80% of it seems to be run by complete morons. A shame that a company responsible for a recent million seller can´t seem to stay afloat.

Nobody reports on the hires.

hey mom I got a new job since last monday :D

hey mom I got fired today :(

@Lemi said:

UPDATE

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/107270-obsidian-entertainment-layoffs-project-cancelled.html

UPDATE: Our tipster has confirmed that it was indeed Project North Carolina that was cancelled, and that the devastating news comes after "the owners weren't paid for 6-7 months" and "401k matching was halted" for employees. Hopefully Obsidian lets us throw our money at a Kickstarter project soon, or I'm going to really start to worry.

fuck :(

Project North Carolina was Josh Sawyer's project, too. this really sucks.

I enjoy Obsidian's games despite them having some flaws. I hope they stay in business.

@Delta_Ass: Nah you're crazy.

In my opinion, Obsidian will always be the company Bioware wishes to be. Janky gameplay? Who cares! Mass Effect 1's gameplay was extremely dry and copy-pasted compared to Alpha Protocol's. You have so many options on how to tackle a mission with AP, whereas Mass Effect boils down to, "Use all skills, use refresh skill, do it again. Maybe shoot a few times if its early."

Also Obsidian's writing is probably their greatest strength and doesn't fall into the Mass Effect Trap of, "Oh god I said to be persuasive why are you point a gun at her head Shepard!!" I enjoyed heckling people in AP well more than any conversation in ME1, which probably has to do with having played both recent enough.

So yes I will be really sad if Obsidian closes up shop and Chris Avellone gets moved into say, Bioware.

Well now I'm sad.

Thanks, games industry.

gonna play through AP a 5th time for them

Always sucks to read this, I hope the best for those effected.

@Allison said:

@Delta_Ass: Nah you're crazy.

In my opinion, Obsidian will always be the company Bioware wishes to be. Janky gameplay? Who cares! Mass Effect 1's gameplay was extremely dry and copy-pasted compared to Alpha Protocol's. You have so many options on how to tackle a mission with AP, whereas Mass Effect boils down to, "Use all skills, use refresh skill, do it again. Maybe shoot a few times if its early."

Also Obsidian's writing is probably their greatest strength and doesn't fall into the Mass Effect Trap of, "Oh god I said to be persuasive why are you point a gun at her head Shepard!!" I enjoyed heckling people in AP well more than any conversation in ME1, which probably has to do with having played both recent enough.

So yes I will be really sad if Obsidian closes up shop and Chris Avellone gets moved into say, Bioware.

if Chris Avellone ever ends up being out of a job, I would hope that Whiskey Media would offer him one :D. that would be so cool, even if it would also be sad. Realistically, though, I could see Bethesda maybe hiring him (and hopefully Josh Sawyer, too). Bethesda's writing has never been very good, and it seems like if Obsidian goes under, Bethesda will be the last company standing willing to make interesting rpgs.

edit: so South Park is the ONLY thing they have on the table right now? a game that most of us don't even want? christ. fuck you, games industry.

That sucks. :(

@BigDaddy81 said:

Here's hoping that Steve, aka the entire QA department, wasn't let go.

:(

@BigDaddy81 said:

Here's hoping that Steve, aka the entire QA department, wasn't let go.

Obsidian has one of the oddest reputations in the industry. A lot of people look forward to their games, many end up loving them and praising them, but no one expects polish, technical quality, or a smooth experience playing them.

Well this is unfortunate. I've said mess about Obsidian in the past, mostly pertaining to KotOR 2 and Alpha Protocol, but at least they are willing to take risks within their publisher-mandated sphere. There is too much talent in that studio, most of it Black Isle and Troika alumni, to be squandered on just a South Park game.

They hired a guy and then laid him off a few days later?

Alright then.

@Brodehouse said:

Man, Obsidian has the best writing in games. Like, period. This is a bummer. They have the rights to Alpha Protocol. Avellone mentioned Kickstarter is interesting. I will give them 200 dollars, and I make minimum wage.

This.

Also dammit.

and there goes my hope for the southpark rpg

I hope this isn't the beginning of the end although Obsidian games have their issues they are still very enjoyable alpha protocol being one that could have been epic had they got the combat better.

I love Obsidians games, I absolutely fucking love them.

They are never incredibly polished, they are always janky and have flaws but they are incredibly ambitious. The dialogue and choices in Alpha Protocol really made a huge difference to the ways that game could play out and I believe many RPG developers could learn a lot from that game.

It's just like the Black Isle/Troika days. If you want games which are safe and highly polished you won't get them but if you want something different, a game that actually tries to have meaningful choices/consequences and great dialogue they are are always worth playing.

I can completely understand why many people would play their games and not like them, they are an acquired taste but I think I can safely say that the fans who love them really do appreciate what they try to do in their games, warts and all.

Don't you dare die Obsidian.

@kurtkless said:

wonder what that project was

Fallout 4

Dammit, I just read lat week that Tim Cain had just joined on as a perment team member and now they're losing pretty high level people.

That sucks. Obsidian has made outstanding but technically problematic games like alpha protocal and new vegas, but they also recently made dungeon siege, which looked great and was not buggy at all. Their writers are some of the best in the industry. I hope they can continue to be sucessful despite losing personel.

Matt Rorie got out while he could.

Considering how buggy their games are, losing their lead programmer might not be such a bad thing.

With all the constant news of layoffs, I figure the games industry will be about three guys on TRS80's in the middle of Nebraska in about 5 years time. If Obsidion falls, and Bioware going vanilla, there won't be much other than CDProject Red in the RPG department.

And yet Bioware have a new studio.

@Gabriel said:

Matt Rorie got out while he could.

+1

@Superfriend said:

@Cross said:

Quite surprising to me, considering the success of New Vegas, and it's too late for Alpha Protocol to still have ramifications.

Well, this company seems to be run by PURE CHAOS that has manifested in human form or something. They hire somebody and then let them go a week later? Any sane human being would NOT hire anybody if business is bad.

But I guess we are talking about the video game industry here. 80% of it seems to be run by complete morons. A shame that a company responsible for a recent million seller can´t seem to stay afloat.

What the hell's wrong with you? The project got cancelled by a publisher. The guy who hired that guy would have had no way of knowing. It's like if you bought a new TV and then got fired a week later. You would have had no idea that you were about to be put in a financially tough situation until after you made the purchase. Whenever you think the people in charge are morons take another look at yourself. You'll almost always find that you are the idiot for not understanding what is actually happening or why it's happening.

Edit: Another person here said their friend was the hiring manager and also got fired.

I knew this was coming but i don't like it Obsidian is sold the the best but they can take a property and make a good game out of it. I really liked fallout new Vegas and was looking forward to that south park game this is sad news.

DAMMIT. They're my favorite western developer at the moment. I was hoping they'd get that South Park game out of the way and it'd pay for other games. Ugh, still hope but this is a big setback.

Damn, I like Obsidian. They're supposed to be the secret highest tier of video game story telling. Whereas most companies are summer blockbusters churned for cash, Bioware are the esteemed professionals putting out products that have genuine thought put into what story they convey but can get caught in their own formulaic trapping. Obsidian is the next tier up, putting out scarce but unique high quality games that while may be bad in other sections tell their story flawlessly. Their the obscure artsy European film, they're The American, they're Drive, they're- Okay actually I'm probably overstating they're quality, well fuck the haters, they're my favorite developer and I hate to see them wounded by finances.

ah well. maybe it was for the best.

@TheGorilla said:

@Superfriend said:

@Cross said:

Quite surprising to me, considering the success of New Vegas, and it's too late for Alpha Protocol to still have ramifications.

Well, this company seems to be run by PURE CHAOS that has manifested in human form or something. They hire somebody and then let them go a week later? Any sane human being would NOT hire anybody if business is bad.

But I guess we are talking about the video game industry here. 80% of it seems to be run by complete morons. A shame that a company responsible for a recent million seller can´t seem to stay afloat.

What the hell's wrong with you? The project got cancelled by a publisher. The guy who hired that guy would have had no way of knowing. It's like if you bought a new TV and then got fired a week later. You would have had no idea that you were about to be put in a financially tough situation until after you made the purchase. Whenever you think the people in charge are morons take another look at yourself. You'll almost always find that you are the idiot for not understanding what is actually happening or why it's happening.

Edit: Another person here said their friend was the hiring manager and also got fired.

I would hope that the decisions that are made in any kind of business don´t just happen out of thin air. The publisher doesn´t fucking airdrop some lawyers through their roof that then make a split-second decision to cancel the project. They probably knew there was a big chance this project would be cancelled and still they decided to hire. Not judging Obsidian as a developer.. but this stinks of baaaaad decisionmaking on some people´s parts.

Too bad to hear this & guessing that my resume sent to Obsidian recently will just get ignored completely if they're laying people off.

Sucks for them, but not too shocking. I loved KOTOR2 and thought FONV did a lot of things right, but they put out a lot of janky games that flopped. I'd love to see their writers move on to bigger and better companies but everyone else... I don't know. They kinda weren't good at what they did.

Shit... I'm so used to seeing news about layoffs at companies that I honestly don't care for much, so this kind of hits hard. Obsidian really knows how to design great RPGs, it's a shame that they just aren't always executed as well as they should be. I feel like maybe there is some kind of problem with their QA process, or maybe they just have a hard time getting a good handle on the technology they are using. It's hard to feel like a little extra focus in that department wouldn't have prevented this. Either way I really enjoyed New Vegas despite its flaws, and I was really looking forward to their next project.

@mr_woo said:

I love Obsidians games, I absolutely fucking love them.

They are never incredibly polished, they are always janky and have flaws but they are incredibly ambitious. The dialogue and choices in Alpha Protocol really made a huge difference to the ways that game could play out and I believe many RPG developers could learn a lot from that game.

It's just like the Black Isle/Troika days. If you want games which are safe and highly polished you won't get them but if you want something different, a game that actually tries to have meaningful choices/consequences and great dialogue they are are always worth playing.

I can completely understand why many people would play their games and not like them, they are an acquired taste but I think I can safely say that the fans who love them really do appreciate what they try to do in their games, warts and all.

Don't you dare die Obsidian.

Amen brother! Glad to see I'm not alone in my fanism towards Obsidian. A guy at work asked me the other day what game company I'd most want to work for and without hesitation I said Obsidian. They bring innovation to games that other developers only dream of.

Well... This is unfortunate. I really loved New Vegas. I mean REALLY loved it. I hope they can bounce back.

Hope everyone at obisdian get betters and still work at games =(

Terrible news. Alpha Protocol was one of the most memorable experiences of this generation.I hope at the very least Avellone gets that Kickstarter he's been toying around with off the ground. A reasonably successful original IP would do Obsidian a world of good and provide some actual security between all the mercenary work.

I wish those guys would make KOTOR 3. A shame to see that company in such a bad shape.

But...but Obsidian...you promised me we'd be best friends forever. :(

Dammit, I just read lat week that Tim Cain had just joined on as a perment team member and now they're losing pretty high level people.

lets be honest the company died when they shitted (not shipped) New Vegas, that buggy buggy piece of poo