fronzelneekburm: But I'm absolutely referring to the numbers they pulled on Arkane (setting milestones and withholding payments until Arkane had no choice than to be taken over by them) and Obsidian (withholding royalties). Then there was also this incident where
they screwed over a Russian dev.
Whether they did these things to set the stage for a hostile takeover or if they just did it for the sake of being assholes is a matter of opinion, I guess. The point is that they're by no means strangers to dick moves.
Arkane was not under contract by Bethesda / Zenimax before they acquired them. After Dark Messiah they worked for Valve on Return to Ravenholm (cancelled), their own game The Crossing (failed to find a publisher funding it) and for EA on LMNO (cancelled). So they had to do assisting industry odd jobs (Call of Duty: World at War, Bioshock 2).
After that, they had the core idea for Dishonored and Bethesda / Zenimax straight up acquired them. At no point were they under contract by them working on it.
Yes, they didn't pay Obsidian a bonus because of 1 measly Metacritic point. You can see this however you want, but first we're talking about a bonus here, not half of their salary. Second, if you sign a multi-million contract, you have to accept stuff like that.
And yes, I know about the situation with MADia / Buka. I'm not gonna sugar-coat it - this sucks. But still, that was back in 2001.
What's more though, on neither of these examples do I see any indication for your accusation: bleeding a studio dry and setting it up to be bought up.
