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Obsidian Missed New Vegas Bonus Payment By A Single Metacritic Point

by Matthew Kato on Mar 15, 2012 at 05:05 AM

Obsidian is reportedly in trouble due to the cancellation of an upcoming project and the layoff of some of its employees, and it's tempting to think what could have been if Fallout: New Vegas had scored just a tad better.

The game's lead designer at developer Obsidian, Chris Avellone, has tweeted that Fallout: New Vegas missed its potential bonus payment from Bethesda by a single point at aggregate review site Metacritic.

"FNV was a straight payment, no royalties, only a bonus if we got an 85+ on Metacritic, which we didn't."

To be clear, Avellone makes no connection between the bonus payment and any current troubles the studio is having. However, this situation only reinforces the importance of review scores (including us, obviously) and Metacritic to publishers and developers.

What do you think of something like a bonus payment being dependent on review scores?