It makes no sense.

As we know Toys for Bob gained its independence from MS and for that they walked out with no IP's as they belong to MS, so they have nothing, not even money.

And yet it's been reported that they have signed a deal with MS to fund their first game. Why even bother in going "independent" if you're signing a deal with your former owner to fund your games.

The game will be on Gamepass day 1 and they won't make any money from it, I think they will make 1 game and they will fold, it makes no sense.

Something to do with them having more control over what they make, maybe?

Before it was like,
MS: "Hey Toys for Bob, make this."
Now it's more like:
Toys for Bob: "Hey, MS. Look what we are doing. You wanna fund?"
MS: Looks cool, sure.

Just one problem, Toys for Bob has never made a game under MS leadership. And then there's the multiple stories on MS being hands off with it's devs. So that theory doesn't hold much if any water.

I find the whole situation baffling.

🤷 Beats me, man.

There's talk that MS didn't want to take the PR hit of shuttering the studio (not that it matters at this point), so they "cut them loose" because it's cheaper to give them funding to make a single project than keeping them on the payroll.

Who knows what the fate of TFB will be after this game.

But they will.

They won't.

They will just like the other devs have.

Perhaps it's easier to get the project off the ground dealing with MS directly rather than going up the chain under the ABK umbrella.

It may make no sense from the outside but that doesn't mean it is true

I don’t really see that being strange myself. Toys for Bob wants to be independent so now they are and Microsoft liked whatever they are working on so they made a deal to help fund it. They’ll also pay them money for the game to come to Game Pass. Seems like a win-win situation to me.

Agree, they won't make anything because its on gamepass, and after this happens, they might just close down. This is what you get from day one on gamepass, it kills studios.

Game sales will always beat fees for rentals.

Devs that want to put their games on the renting service should do it exactly the same way the cinema industry does it. For the first 2-6 months (depending on the game. titles like GTA6 will never need to be on GP for example), the game is sold. This is where the most profit comes from, and being able to rent it shouldn't be an option. But after a few months, when sales begin to slow down, you put it on GP, and receive your $6 check from Microsoft.

@Archangel3371: So you're saying MS liked what they were making, and yet they let them go independent, and then negotiated a deal to fund said game, that makes no sense because if they were making a game it would be funded by MS.

Because they can't of went independent and a week later they came up with a game and then MS decided to fund it, as that also makes no sense.

@last_lap: Sure why not? Maybe there was a clause in the Activision/Blizzard/King purchase that gave developers an option to leave? Maybe Microsoft didn’t want to force a developer to stay around if they didn’t want to and have them all be unhappy or just quit anyway? Lots of sensible scenarios for this to have happened.

@Archangel3371: I agree there could be multiple reasons for this in clauses and the like, and we will most likely never know. All Ii'm saying is that the one you initially presented made little sense to me, not having a dig at you.

The way this whole ordeal with both parties has panned out makes little sense.

@last_lap: Well different people will have different perspectives and all that. To me this just isn’t a weird situation at all.

Hmm, I hope it's that rumored Banjo & Kazooie 3.

And yeah what Litchie said makes sense: under ABK they were forced to make trash like a Crash Bandicoot DOTA game.

Its actually common where u find opportunity set up a company and collaborating with your former employer, later expanding beyond. I don't really know the legality of it or if there is any non competing agreement (i.e exclusively producing for competing platforms) but it allows Toys for Bob to stabilize. Game industry is a very volatile industry and they do need cash.

@R4gn4r0k: But he said MS not Craptivision, and MS have been known to be hands off. So it makes no sense.

It's like splitting up with the girlfriend but you still live together.

Friends with benefits.

Yeah MS seems to be pretty hands off, but that can be a bad thing too. If MS is hands off with Bethesda we can get more great games like the upcoming Indi, but we can get games that are being shold in shambles like Redfall.

Even worse still, something has to change over at Activision as Diablo, Overwatch and COD are no longer games, they are dressed up storefronts.

So in these cases MS can't be hands off.

@R4gn4r0k: Redfall was in production before MS bought Bethesda. But this has nothing to do with Bethesda.

It's just doesn't make sense to allow a dev you own go out on their own only to put up the money for their next gane.

Nobody said otherwise 🤷

I'm speechless now lol.

You being speechless is a good thing.