Moon Studios (Ori developers for Xbox) are ditching Microsoft, so future games can be multiplatform.

Color me surprised!

As the title states, Moon Studios (dev for the Ori games) is saying "Good Bye!" to Microsoft (as a publisher), because they want their video games to be available multiplatform, for everyone.

Source: https://gamerant.com/xbox-not-publishing-moon-studios-new-game/

It's a very good, short article and worth the read.

I imagine their next game still comes to Game Pass at some point.

They want to get on that Amazon's Luna platform, who can blame them?

@wardcleaver: Of course it will, but more importantly their next game (at the very least) will be coming to all platforms*, e.g. Playstation, Switch, etc., they want to develop for and not have to beg Microsoft to do so.

Rereading the article, it definitely sounds like what Microsoft said vs. how they behaved as a publisher didn't line up with what Moon Studios was expecting.

It seems like over a decades time they either outgrew Microsoft or just got big enough over two fairly well known games to desire to reach out.

One does wonder if they MIGHT have had the same sort of contract language that allowed so many other studios the MS felt it have leave. Like say Bungie. Moon Studios was in teh same environment in 2010, so many of those deal MS made have crumbled as Microsoft shut down studios or just let them go. Sure since 2018 Xbox and Microsoft have been on a buying spree because they figured out they NEEDED games, but Moon Studios was not part of that 'new' concept. Moreover, if you want you parent company buy ten huge developers it really woudl seems like Microsoft has no interest in helping you they little guy who has a craftsmanship ethos.

I hope their new project is successful for them. The Ori 'universe' was really good, and well conceived. I hope in a few years Ninja Theory again goes independent too.

I am not sure what he was expecting, as Phil Spencer said that MS would not totally do away with exclusives. Was Mahler expecting MS to fund the publishing of the game, and make it available on other platforms?

Also, to point out the obvious: one of the most popular games in recent decades, Minecraft, was purchased by MS in 2014. If there was ever an incentive (or "takes guts", to paraphrase the CEO of Moon Studios) for MS to make something exclusive to their platform, Minecraft is that game. Yet, it is available on almost every platform out now.

I don't understand why people are saying that Microsoft didn't let them go multiplatform. The Ori games are out on Nintendo Switch and Steam. They just didn't put them on PlayStation, but that doesn't mean they're not multiplats. They are!

How many Nintendo or PlayStation published games make it to PC let alone Xbox?

If Moon Studios wants to put stuff on PlayStation and would rather go with another publisher that's their business and more power to them, they're a great studio, but this doesn't really reflect on Xbox at all. If they thought that Microsoft was going to let them put their games on PlayStation then we'd need to know more about what exactly was promised before we know if that thought was reasonable, but as far as being multiplatform...the Ori games are!

@bigsocrates: Reading the article, it definitely sounds like Nintendo got Ori, in part, because it wasn't a AAA platform exclusive (i.e. "it was small enough"), and even then the deal brokered between Microsoft and Nintendo wasn't without a "cost," so it's not "Good Guy MS / Xbox" (TM) allowing Moon Studios to port Ori out of the goodness of their hearts.

And until Linux gaming on PC is a viable alternative to Windows PC gaming, wherein Microsoft has a de facto monopoly share, I don't consider PC as separate from Xbox, especially not when everything Xbox is available on PC.

That certainly sounds like the case, that whatever language was used to secure Moon Studios with Microsoft Publishing gave Moon Studios that impression, otherwise why would Moon Studios publicly drag Microsoft like they did???

@nameredacted: I mean...the Ori games are the games that Moon made for Microsoft so I don't really understand how this is relevant. And the fact that Microsoft made a deal with Nintendo where they got something in return also seems...normal for business.

Your considering "Windows" as not being separate from Xbox isn't the point here. The point is that most of the PC money is made on Steam and games that sell only on the Windows Store (as some Microsoft Studios exclusives have in the past) make a lot less money. So from a developer perspective being able to put a game on Steam has a lot of value. A lot more value than getting a Linux port would in terms of additional sales and exposure. Importantly Microsoft makes less money from Steam sales than from Windows Store sales or Xbox sales because Steam takes a cut. So it actually is something of a concession to put a game on Steam (though obviously it profits them too because they sell more copies.)

I have no idea what the actual deal is or why Moon thought whatever they thought or why they are doing what they are doing now. It's possible that their lawyers are bad, it's possible that they misunderstood something, it's possible that they were lied to in some way. It's certainly odd to attack Microsoft, considering that there are a lot of situations where they might want to do business with them again outside being published by them, but it doesn't mean that one side is right or wrong when we don't have the specific facts.

My point is not that Microsoft is the good guy it's that "Microsoft said we could go multi-platform and then they didn't let us" is strange when the two games they made for Microsoft were, in fact, multi-plats. The actual issue here is about publishing on PlayStation specifically, not publishing on non-Microsoft platforms, and that makes the whole thing murkier.

It's quite possible that Microsoft just said "this won't be an Xbox exclusive" and Moon interpreted that to mean it would go to PlayStation and is mad that it didn't, in which case I'd kind of say the fault belongs to Moon and its lawyers rather than Microsoft, but I don't know what happened specifically here. None of us do!

ETA: Actually the article doesn't even say Moon felt misled. It says it feels that Microsoft didn't live up to its "mantra" not the deal they made with Moon, and that they don't bear Microsoft any ill will (which presumably they would if they felt they got cheated or lied to.) It looks like there's not a lot of drama here and nothing to suggest Microsoft did anything wrong.