Obsidian misses New Vegas bonus by slim Metacritic margin
was pretty well liked by critics and gamers, despite some of its signature open world jank. But it was just barely not well-liked enough to earn the team at Obsidian bonuses, according to creative director Chris Avellone.
reports that Avellone told a fan that Obsidian's contract with Bethesda only guaranteed bonuses if the game earned an 85 or greater in its score. The tweet didn't reveal a deadline for the score, which has probably long-since passed. The game currently stands at an 84 on PC and Xbox 360 (82 on PlayStation 3).
" was a straight payment, no royalties, only a bonus if we got an 85+ on Metacritic, which we didn't," Avellone said. The tweet has since been removed.
These types of deals are fairly common in the industry, though. Publishers rarely acknowledge the practice, but the reported that publishers like Activision and Take-Two were utilizing it years ago. Critics have that developers have approached them about reviews, since the practice makes their work indirectly responsible for another person's pay.
This comes just a day after the news broke that Obsidian 20-30 staff members, including ones from the team working on . A canceled project code-named "North Carolina" was set to be published by Microsoft for its next console, and was called "desperately needed" for the studio.