I don't really get why developers would be worried. This feels manufactured. Even if players get heightened expectations, so what? There's not going to be a BG3 being released every half year....
I don't really get why developers would be worried. This feels manufactured. Even if players get heightened expectations, so what? There's not going to be a BG3 being released every half year. They're going to play other games and be disappointed until they either adjust those standards or stop playing games.
It is what it is. Some games have always been better than other games - rarely do video game players only play masterpieces.
100%. The usage of the word "panic" is such a hyperbole that it's an obvious red flag this is mostly just bs. No one who's making microtransaction games cares that BG3 did well. Games like fifa...
I don't really get why developers would be worried. This feels manufactured.
100%. The usage of the word "panic" is such a hyperbole that it's an obvious red flag this is mostly just bs.
No one who's making microtransaction games cares that BG3 did well. Games like fifa have been copy pasting code for years and still printing money and they know that isn't changing.
I see a little concern for smaller devs who are worried that expectations might be set too high, but there's not much you can do about it. Unfortunately people don't understand that while I can create a fully 3d rendered space in a fraction of the time it would have taken in the year 2000, I still have to spend basically the exact same amount of time to handle things like dialogue trees.
A human needs to plot those out, write them, and in the case of BG3, voice act them. AI/Modern tools are making the last one much less of a hurdle (in a way that's threatening to voice actors), and chatgpt like AI might help with things like writers block, but at the end of the day it's still an insane amount of hours that even large studios struggle with (which is why you see so many fake choices in games).
The majority of people aren’t that invested in the video games industry too. They are just regular people who own a PlayStation and picked up FIFA because they like the sport. Masterpieces...
The majority of people aren’t that invested in the video games industry too. They are just regular people who own a PlayStation and picked up FIFA because they like the sport. Masterpieces targeting enthusiasts doesn’t do that much to capture the casual audience.
It’s why I don’t really like choices in games - it all just feels manufactured to me, like choose your own story books. Basically just brute forcing as many options as possible. I think it’s good...
It’s why I don’t really like choices in games - it all just feels manufactured to me, like choose your own story books. Basically just brute forcing as many options as possible.
I think it’s good when it’s the only thing about the game, like “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan”. But that’s because there’s a purpose in every choice. When it’s in other type of games, it just feels like they were trying to tack on more gameplay time for the sake of gameplay time and using brute force to do it. Honestly I find it a bit insulting as a consumer of the game - it makes me feel like they think I can’t handle consuming a story without having to hit a button every X seconds, or able to handle a story that doesn’t go the way I want it to go.
I know I’m pretty alone on that with how common they are though, especially it’s popularity in what’s considered some of the best games
I think it's excellent when it's done well, but people underestimate how much development effort has to go into that. Fallout New Vegas is a wonderful example of how it should be done, and how...
I think it's excellent when it's done well, but people underestimate how much development effort has to go into that.
Fallout New Vegas is a wonderful example of how it should be done, and how your choices can affect the world/multiple playthroughs. It's not JUST pick a side (although that's a big one), there's lots of little decisions in there that can change things, and they can play off each other. Some of this feels bigger than it actually is because of how it represents the interactions, and it really makes your character feel unique, and not just generic protag #5.
Really, the little choices are the ones that feel more interesting anyway. Helping the sick orphan and seeing him playing in town vs leaving him and seeing he's lost a leg. Or helping with one...
Really, the little choices are the ones that feel more interesting anyway. Helping the sick orphan and seeing him playing in town vs leaving him and seeing he's lost a leg. Or helping with one small town and getting shut out of another for it. The little choices feel more natural and alive than do you want to save world with blue, red, or green coolaid? Our lives rarely culminate into massive major choices that alter everything. It's always small choices that have small/medium effects, or maybe no visible effect at all.
Having made a fairly short game about choices that was purely text based, I can confirm it takes a lot of effort to plot out the paths. It's a tricky thing to implement well, since you have to...
Having made a fairly short game about choices that was purely text based, I can confirm it takes a lot of effort to plot out the paths. It's a tricky thing to implement well, since you have to account for how all the variances can combine and collide for each following scene and event. The more choices involved, the more you have to keep track of.
If done well, it can be truly spectacular and add immense replay value. If not... Well, it's been years and I still remember people up in arms over Mass Effect 3's ending making basically every choice up to that point meaningless.
Multiple choices that affect the wold give me anxiety in games :) I want to see everything in the game, but if the choices are hidden and unclear, I always feel like I'm missing some content every...
Multiple choices that affect the wold give me anxiety in games :)
I want to see everything in the game, but if the choices are hidden and unclear, I always feel like I'm missing some content every time I make a choice.
Maybe games should have a "you already went this path, maybe try these two dialog options or this type of character to see more" -option for replays?
Gotta click bait. Not even 3 months ago, Tears of the Kingdom did the exact same thing. Even if DLC is inevitable and despite the price hike, I haven't heard anyone say they didn't get their...
Gotta click bait. Not even 3 months ago, Tears of the Kingdom did the exact same thing. Even if DLC is inevitable and despite the price hike, I haven't heard anyone say they didn't get their money's worth.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation, Activision is getting review bombed over Overwatch 2 on steam, but its still the best selling and most played game. This isn't shifting Activision towards good either.
rarely do video game players only play masterpieces.
True, but modern discourse is very polarized. A game like redfall or Forspoken would have been treated as as a disappointment and quickly forgotten, but current discourse treats them in ways only the worst games of the decade would be treated.
Meanwhile, Gollum shows how low the bar can go, so it's not like AAA flops don't happen angmore.
When doing retail comparisons to free-to-play, you have to compare revenue to have the most direct comparison. Play time hours is mildly related but so many free-to-play games are skinner boxes...
When doing retail comparisons to free-to-play, you have to compare revenue to have the most direct comparison. Play time hours is mildly related but so many free-to-play games are skinner boxes that have no ending, so they'll naturally accrue more hours. The worst is installs as it means almost nothing for a free-to-play, though they do love to pronounce their install counts.
Yeah, it's not super clear to me whether they mean revenue or installs by "best-selling." But then with a quick Google I found data on the highest-grossing games in 2023 and Overwatch 2 isn't even...
Yeah, it's not super clear to me whether they mean revenue or installs by "best-selling." But then with a quick Google I found data on the highest-grossing games in 2023 and Overwatch 2 isn't even in the top 20 (while TOTK is #2) so they must mean installs if calling it "the best selling and most played game" makes any sense.
I assume they meant on Steam (where it’s being review bombed). I checked my Steam store - It’s pretty low on the U.S. and Global top-sellers list, and has 30k players playing right now (not bad...
I assume they meant on Steam (where it’s being review bombed). I checked my Steam store - It’s pretty low on the U.S. and Global top-sellers list, and has 30k players playing right now (not bad for 2am my time).
Steam’s top sellers chart is indeed based on gross revenue, not installs.
Overwatch 2 is notably amusingly far below Team Fortress 2 on both metrics (revenue & active player count, on Steam). Although I’m pretty sure a bunch of those players are bots, and of course Overwatch is available on other platforms.
I also assume Overwatch 2 might be available on other platforms maybe? (idk for sure but they might also be on Epic store or smth) whereas TF2 is obviously gonna only be on steam. It is funny...
I also assume Overwatch 2 might be available on other platforms maybe? (idk for sure but they might also be on Epic store or smth) whereas TF2 is obviously gonna only be on steam.
It is funny though that TF2 is beating it lol. That games longevity is kinda amazing.
It was just recently released on Steam, before that it was already on Battle.net. I would assume the vast majority was playing the game on Battle.net already and they wouldn't move platforms?...
It was just recently released on Steam, before that it was already on Battle.net. I would assume the vast majority was playing the game on Battle.net already and they wouldn't move platforms? Maybe.
Steam was an attempt to grow the player base which seems to have failed. No idea since I tried it at launch and that's it.
You’re absolutely correct, and I should’ve been clearer about that part in my original comment. My point was basically your last sentence - it’s pretty funny, even if it’s not apples to apples.
You’re absolutely correct, and I should’ve been clearer about that part in my original comment. My point was basically your last sentence - it’s pretty funny, even if it’s not apples to apples.
A few developers went on Twitter saying that people shouldn't set their expectations high because of BG3, they shouldn't expect games to be that good regularly. It wasn't really widespread but it...
A few developers went on Twitter saying that people shouldn't set their expectations high because of BG3, they shouldn't expect games to be that good regularly. It wasn't really widespread but it did happen.
I don't blame devs for the sorry state of AAA games right now, I blame the executives and publishers, but it's not hyperbole to say that most AAA these days are a mess, overpriced, bloated, full of microtransaction/battle pass crap, and overall lower quality than they used to be.
The major comparison (even if it is flawed) was the content starved crapfest that was Diablo 4 and season 1, which went for more money than BG3 and managed to alienate huge portions of the community with frustrating design decisions
If we made a fuss about anything that 2-3 people on Twitter say, we'd only have time to talk about Twitter. I don't blame anyone. I don't think it's an issue. Different models for different games....
If we made a fuss about anything that 2-3 people on Twitter say, we'd only have time to talk about Twitter.
I don't blame anyone. I don't think it's an issue. Different models for different games. There's plenty of quality, single player AAA games that came out this year. ToTK? Hogwarts? Armored Core is coming out? Starfield is coming out? FF16? The correct monetization model for your game will depend on both the quantity and shape of your demand curve.
So different games have different models. It's OK. I don't think any actual developers are quaking in their boots on the release of BG3. I doubt Diablo 4 will even see a blip in their revenue or playerbase from BG3's release given the extreme differences in every possible way the two games have to each other.
A game developer wrote a thread begging the public to taper their expectations of other studios being able to release complete, functional, and non-predatory games like Baldur's Gate 3.
I don't really get why developers would be worried. This feels manufactured.
A game developer wrote a thread begging the public to taper their expectations of other studios being able to release complete, functional, and non-predatory games like Baldur's Gate 3.
Great to know people without an X/Twitter account can't even see threads. Another reason to stop using the platform. Here's a screenshot of the 10 tweets: https://i.imgur.com/0FqPFt7.png
Great to know people without an X/Twitter account can't even see threads. Another reason to stop using the platform. Here's a screenshot of the 10 tweets: https://i.imgur.com/0FqPFt7.png
The game is a master class on how video games need to be. I'm having an absolute blast, im about 40 hours in and just got to act 2. What a freakin game. I'm not surprised other companies are...
The game is a master class on how video games need to be. I'm having an absolute blast, im about 40 hours in and just got to act 2. What a freakin game. I'm not surprised other companies are scared. Put your game for early access three years before release with a lot of community feedback and you get yourself what could be the greatest pc game of all time. I know it's I think #1 pc game of all time metacritic
Ditto about having a blast. And related, How Long to Beat has the main story completion time at 40 hours, which feels insane to me because I only left Act 1 after about 60 hours of play! And I am...
I'm having an absolute blast, im about 40 hours in and just got to act 2. What a freakin game.
Ditto about having a blast. And related, How Long to Beat has the main story completion time at 40 hours, which feels insane to me because I only left Act 1 after about 60 hours of play! And I am already at 80 hours now, yet still feel like I've barely even started Act 2 since I haven't even finished exploring the first zone in it yet. :P
However, I am very aware that I am very very very slow when it comes to playing CRPGs for the first time, since I am an absolute completionist, love finding every little hidden secret I can, and also usually savescum (and respec) like crazy as well (not to avoid a bad outcome, I just enjoy seeing all the story variation possibilities!). Hearing that I am not alone in taking that kind of time on the first Act makes me feel a lot better though, so thanks for sharing that. ;)
p.s. To give you an idea of the kind of possibilities I try to fully explore when I play an RPG for the first time:
Act 1 - Grymforge Spoiler
It turns out that there is absolutely no way to save the gnome lady, Meerna, from True Soul Nere. :( Even if you kill all the Duergar before opening the cave and rescuing the trapped people, and even if you manage to kill Nere before the cutscene triggers where he kills her, she will simply vanish from inside the cave as soon as combat starts, and afterwards her husband will still be mourning over the spot where Nere would have thrown her into the lava during said cutscene. :( Apparently the devs didn't think she was important enough, or anyone would make the effort to actually save her, so they didn't provide an alternative resolution to that portion of the story. :(
However, there are some really fun shenanigans you can get up to when it comes to Philomeen and the Sparkpowder barrel. Hint: Steal the barrel and/or the sample in her inventory before you interact with her... or even during said interaction. There are some quite amusing outcomes and dialogue variations depending on what you do and when. :P
And finally, if you dupe the mithril ore, you actually can pump out infinite Adamantine gear for you party at the Adamantine forge. ;)
Yeah, I honestly never pay attention to stuff like "How Long to Beat". The time a game takes to beat is whenever I feel like beating it. I like to explore everything, look for secrets, basically...
Yeah, I honestly never pay attention to stuff like "How Long to Beat". The time a game takes to beat is whenever I feel like beating it. I like to explore everything, look for secrets, basically do everything that can be done before moving on.
I guess that most of the slow players are not tracked on HLTB yet, since they're still playing. :) I have played 70 hours and I'm still in the middle (?) of Act 2. It's probably gonna be 120 hours...
I guess that most of the slow players are not tracked on HLTB yet, since they're still playing. :)
I have played 70 hours and I'm still in the middle (?) of Act 2. It's probably gonna be 120 hours or more for me.
It's good for a rough idea of you want to know how much time you'll likely be investing in a game. Sometimes it is wildly off but I find usually it's pretty accurate
It's good for a rough idea of you want to know how much time you'll likely be investing in a game. Sometimes it is wildly off but I find usually it's pretty accurate
There was a shout-out to all the people that completed the game during launch weekend. That tends to skew the number a bit. I've hit act 2 after roughly 40 hours too, taking my sweet time...
There was a shout-out to all the people that completed the game during launch weekend. That tends to skew the number a bit.
I've hit act 2 after roughly 40 hours too, taking my sweet time discovering all nooks and crannies.
Slightly off-topic question, but I've seen multiple people refer to the game as having Acts. Is there a clear indication when you enter Act 2 (eg, a title a card or something)?
Slightly off-topic question, but I've seen multiple people refer to the game as having Acts. Is there a clear indication when you enter Act 2 (eg, a title a card or something)?
It's a prompt as you leave the Act 1 area for Act 2, and the Act 2 area for Act 3. It doesn't say "leaving Act x", but rather something more akin to "have you done everything you want to do? You...
It's a prompt as you leave the Act 1 area for Act 2, and the Act 2 area for Act 3. It doesn't say "leaving Act x", but rather something more akin to "have you done everything you want to do? You won't be back"
Which is kind of a lie, at least with regards to the transition from Act 1 to Act 2. You can still go back to Act 1 sections after you enter Act 2. Apparently you only get locked out of Act 1...
Which is kind of a lie, at least with regards to the transition from Act 1 to Act 2. You can still go back to Act 1 sections after you enter Act 2. Apparently you only get locked out of Act 1 after a certain point in Act 2 about 75% of the way through it.
The warning the game gives you is still appreciated and generally good advice for most people, who likely won't know about that exact cutoff point though, since it's not obvious unless you research it ahead of time.
The prompt also stops people from going to the crèche. Its placement is a little unfortunate and probably should've been reserved for a later point where it's actually the point of no return.
The prompt also stops people from going to the crèche. Its placement is a little unfortunate and probably should've been reserved for a later point where it's actually the point of no return.
I'm showing it as #1 of all time (tied with Disco Elysium, and 1 point above Half-Life 2 and GTA 5) when filtering to PC: https://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/pc/filtered...
*Edit: Ah I see the difference - the original commenter said #1 PC game, which is true. It's also the #8 video game of all time, which is still damn impressive.
I would like to point out that the developer who posted the tweet in the first place is not a "AAA developer," but has mostly worked on smaller indie titles, such as Space Warlord Organ Trading...
I would like to point out that the developer who posted the tweet in the first place is not a "AAA developer," but has mostly worked on smaller indie titles, such as Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator. I do agree with most of the video, but I feel like the topic as a whole is taking the guy's post out of context. BG3 is an anomaly, for whatever reason, or we wouldn't be freaking out about it so much. I don't think he meant to say that we should have low expectations in general, or be okay with the state of most larger launch titles (loot boxes, day one patches, etc).
It is: Functional, Complete at launch IIRC, and Has no microtransactions. I don't see what heightened standards they're worried about, applying to SWOTS at least.
It is:
Functional,
Complete at launch IIRC, and
Has no microtransactions.
I don't see what heightened standards they're worried about, applying to SWOTS at least.
I feel the rest of that article is pretty correct and on point especially about the danger of inciting rage toward developers who talked about their perspectives and about how 3 years of early...
In the abstract, here’s a big part of it: Games release in imperfect states because devs either run out of money or the shareholders of their parent company mandate that a game must come out in a certain window (which devs have no control over). They run out of money trying to make the best game possible in the least amount of time. Devs rarely control their own budget and they are trying to make as much cool stuff as they can with the time they are allotted.
In short, for one reason or another, they are often forced to start selling the game in order to pay for the completion of the game. This has been done through DLC, patches, early access, and yes, even microstransactions for ages, because of rising expectations of triple-A, and because big studios are beholden to financial year results and reporting to their investors. Devs burn through their life force trying to make this happen and it’s upsetting to see this brought up with absolute incuriosity.
I feel the rest of that article is pretty correct and on point especially about the danger of inciting rage toward developers who talked about their perspectives and about how 3 years of early access being ignored creates an illusion of a clean release, but I do take issue with the two quoted paragraphs above.
My question is, why are statements like the above always part of rebuttals against people expressing frustration and disappointment with the overall state of AAA releases?
I'm talking about pointing out that shareholders mandate a release window or that devs don't have control over their own budget, and because studios are beholden to financial year results for investors.
Why are these things always brought up as if it's a defence of the devs? It's not the devs that need defending, isn't it the shareholders, investors, and publishers that we're mad at anyway?
Like all pointing this out does is serve as an anger redirection towards those who fund the project and pull the strings. I think most reasonable people know that already. Somebody's to blame, and I think most people agree that's who.
Some people might say "devs" as a shorthand for the entire organization publisher and studio included, and it always feels like journalists and commentators (rightfully) define "devs" as literally programmers, artists, and designers and then feel the need to defend them as if we don't all already know that some programmer or designer is not really the root cause of problems. Like maybe the layman needs to just stop saying "devs" all-inclusively and consequently baiting this red herring rebuttal.
Anyway, I just want to see "the rising expectations of triple-A" being pulled back a little bit from the publisher's end. If the publisher doesn't want to fund and schedule according to what a AAA release should be like, they should not be asking developers to deliver one. Scale back, make something a little more AA if that's what the publisher/investors can afford. The people whose expectations developers should be asking to dial back are not the audience but the shareholders and publishers.
I think given that we have a real problem of creators being harassed whenever there's another fuckup release, it's still important to point out who is really at fault. You or I may know that...
It's not the devs that need defending, isn't it the shareholders, investors, and publishers that we're mad at anyway?
I think given that we have a real problem of creators being harassed whenever there's another fuckup release, it's still important to point out who is really at fault. You or I may know that already, but a lot of people are genuinely blaming each of these cases on developer laziness or incompetence or something silly like hatred toward Gamers and act like jackasses because of it.
I do think a point like the one in this article can be used to deflect criticism in some cases if employed in certain ways, but I don't see that here. Not saying you were necessarily saying they were.
Yeah, the problem is perhaps that I just don't spend my time, in response to stories like this one, going and finding the original tweets and their replies and seeing what the enraged gamers are...
Yeah, the problem is perhaps that I just don't spend my time, in response to stories like this one, going and finding the original tweets and their replies and seeing what the enraged gamers are actually saying so I might just be giving them too much benefit of the doubt in assuming that they're mad at corporate overlords and not at the studios' employees. I just know in my own social circles that usually we all understand that the pressures come from the top.
I feel like this is an important rebuttal that everyone should read. While I agree that I prefer less micro transactions and dlcs and also feel like the state of AAA games is lacking these days,...
I feel like this is an important rebuttal that everyone should read.
While I agree that I prefer less micro transactions and dlcs and also feel like the state of AAA games is lacking these days, the IGN video made me somewhat uncomfortable in terms of content and this helped explain why.
It really doesn't say anything but to affirm what everyone feels and show some tweets to take them out of context.
Again, I feel exactly what the IGN video is saying. I agree with it.
But it doesn't feel like journalism and more a video that relies heavily on emotion.
Baldur's Gate 3 isn't going to freak anyone out nor is it going to suddenly change the industry. The game, despite what many rabbid fans and bought for critics will say, has flaws. The fact...
Baldur's Gate 3 isn't going to freak anyone out nor is it going to suddenly change the industry.
The game, despite what many rabbid fans and bought for critics will say, has flaws. The fact there's hotfix after hotfix shortly after release despite 3 years of early access says a lot. I don't know what sort of development was going on during that time but if fans were involved with heavy donations then it tells me it went into things they wanted to see and not what the game needed. Kind of like pillars of eternity development not including changes to the ui or make it usable with controllers and consoles because fans decided it was best for the pc mouse and keyboard only.
It doesn't have denuvo because the investment wasn't worth the possible backlash. It's a smaller studio. They'll dress it up as moral choice though. Same with loot boxes. The type of fan that contributed to the early access program or donated is most likely incredibly vocal about how they feel about loot boxes. The backlash isn't worth the investment.
This game would have sold anyway and it's not because of defying triple A studios. It's a brand name rpg that's built on a successful series that's built on the back of a legendary and we'll known tabletop rpg. It was gonna sell, not sure how else to put it.
All the studio did was earn more loyalty and get good guy points with a vocal demographic. They minimized risk and maximized appeal.
The demographic BTW, like madden or forza, will buy anything with elves and goblins that let's you role play in a fantasy world. They will pre order and buy another LOTR adaptation the minute it's announced and there's no end to that need.
This post has been sensationalized title that misrepresents the video with blind commentators. The Le reddit special.
Disregarding the video itself, I don't think I could disagree with the sentiment of this post more. The Early Access period was restricted to Act 1. The full release opened up Acts 2 and 3,...
Exemplary
Disregarding the video itself, I don't think I could disagree with the sentiment of this post more.
The Early Access period was restricted to Act 1. The full release opened up Acts 2 and 3, players had never touched this content before. You can internally test all you want, but in a game this open and freeform, nothing is going to find bugs like 800,000+ concurrent players. And we're not talking game breaking ordeals here.
Your point on lootboxes is just, not rooted in anything concrete. You're making assumptions based on a rather jaded viewpoint, assuming they would add lootboxes if they thought they could get away with it. That's just pure speculation without anything to back it up. Their prior games don't have microtransactions either.
And lastly, this reoccurring point I see about it being successful because it has the name "Baldur's Gate" on it is kind of silly. BG2 came out almost 24 years ago. It is not the powerhouse name that older gamers think it is anymore. Dungeons and Dragons isn't anywhere in the title. Heck, I had no idea it was based on DnD until after I played it. I am sure I am not alone.
For some reason, it seems like you're just kind of angry that somebody made a good game.
If anything, it feels to me like the title has some serious risk of hurting it, honestly. I know, as someone who has never played Baldur's Gate but knew it was a '90s RPG game series, that I saw...
And lastly, this reoccurring point I see about it being successful because it has the name "Baldur's Gate" on it is kind of silly. BG2 came out almost 24 years ago. It is not the powerhouse name that older gamers think it is anymore.
If anything, it feels to me like the title has some serious risk of hurting it, honestly. I know, as someone who has never played Baldur's Gate but knew it was a '90s RPG game series, that I saw the 3 in the title and let air out through my nose and then never bought it because it can be intimidating getting into any franchise with a continuing story in any medium 25 years late, especially one that has a metatextual story spanning several videogames and dnd game books.
Obviously the popularity of it means they must have made it very easy to get into 25 years late, and I'm more tempted now, but I have to imagine there are people out there who saw that it was the newest entry in a 25 year old franchise (or for a lot of people that it was the direct sequel to a game that looks like this) and figured it was inaccessible to them.
That's a nice bait to derail the argument into how you interpreted what I said as having any anger behind it or not. Instead of doing that and devolving into personal attacks, I'll defend my point...
For some reason, it seems like you're just kind of angry that somebody made a good game.
That's a nice bait to derail the argument into how you interpreted what I said as having any anger behind it or not. Instead of doing that and devolving into personal attacks, I'll defend my point despite you not really addressing them in good faith.
The Early Access period was restricted to Act 1.
Bugs were still addressed in Act 1 per the hotfixes. A gnome's genitals being seen through clothing, clipping, and various other low hanging fruit bugs aren't some rare combination of events that are hard to see. It's time was spent addressing and developing other things, the fixes for bugs were put off. This is how all studios do it with day 1 patches. This game is no different.
Your point on lootboxes is just, not rooted in anything concrete.
It's just business sense. Developers and studios are out to make money. This studio is no different. They have multiple vectors to make money, including loot boxes. They weighed it out, and the risk wasn't worth the investment it would have taken. Or, they had the money to implement loot boxes but ran out of time, who knows, but if you want to say it's because they're a moral company then you forget they're a cold business underneath like everyone else and you didn't learn from the studio behind The Witcher series. They played the nice guy card but in the end it was just a dressing for making money.
Whatever the rationale was for this studio to forgo drm and loot boxes it was political and full of pr to hide the lack of money either of those decisions would have netted them.
BG2 came out almost 24 years ago.
Resident evil 4 remake, Star Wars Battlefront, and others would like a word. The brand being old didn't mean it stopped being relevant for the target demographic otherwise they wouldn't have taken a risk on it. Everyone has heard of Baldurs Gate. It was massive during the PS2 days. And trying to downplay DnD is ridiculous. That's in the Social Conscious as part of pop culture deep in there. Media like Stranger Things didn't even need to explain it, everyone just felt nostalgia watching it.
I'm about as cynical as they come and also tired of continuous sequelitis and reboots. But I think there is room in my worldview for (more or less) artist driven products. Key word being "product"...
I'm about as cynical as they come and also tired of continuous sequelitis and reboots. But I think there is room in my worldview for (more or less) artist driven products. Key word being "product" at the end of that sentence. It is a product for consumption not some avant-garde project . Except for self-publish material some publisher has to recognize that the cost-benefit analysis aligns with empowering artists and devs to have more latitude.
And I think those decisions should be celebrated. I want more creative, interesting, well[0] executed pieces of media. I don't think people necessarily lap up everything that thing that ticks all the boxes in their Google maintained consumer preferences profile. I think people do recognize quality and become tired of overt pandering. See the excellent post in ~moviesSummer of Busts.
[0] there is some latitude given here. Have I encountered some glitches in BG3? Sure. I have in every game I've ever played ever.
It's a good game for sure. Warts and all it's still better than a lot of the garbage pumped out year after year, I agree. I'm glad it's a small studio where they can have some leeway to do things...
It's a good game for sure. Warts and all it's still better than a lot of the garbage pumped out year after year, I agree. I'm glad it's a small studio where they can have some leeway to do things as they wish.
I take issue with paid for reviewers and overzealous fans because when everyone is shouting "flawless" and "perfect" it takes meaning away from those words, doesn't leave room for discourse or constructive criticism and the bar for quality is lowered.
We've seen this happen already in our lifetimes. It's a natural byproduct of capitalism, to give less for more. By defending products that are flawed and not using the wide spectrum of 0-100% properly for ratings and reviews, we shrink and compress something to basically 0 or 1. If it's "good" it gets a 1 (85%+) if it's 0 it's anything less than 80% with no room for nuance or discussion.
Rotten tomatoes died this way and meta critic is showing us how the rest of the internet lost nuance as well. Nobody wants to hear nuance, they just want you to agree with their very strong opinion.
The very strong opinion now is this game is amazing and flawless.
It's a good game, lots of things are awesome, but it has warts and can be criticized. Readers and new players should know about the warts, not just hear the echo chamber clamoring about how it's near perfect.
For example, what's CRPG? Most people don't know that. They just see RPG and don't realize that this game is slow, brutal, sometimes up to chance, requires strategy and a good grip on DnD.
How many people are actually going to finish this game outside of the core demographic and how many people picked it up because everyone is raving about it?
Going to shift gears a bit here, but this manner of commenting is very uncharacteristic for this website, and I'd like to ask that you re-examine it a bit. This line-by-line quotation style is not...
Going to shift gears a bit here, but this manner of commenting is very uncharacteristic for this website, and I'd like to ask that you re-examine it a bit. This line-by-line quotation style is not how people in normal "real life" scenarios talk, and it comes across as unnecessarily combative and argumentative, and that's just not at all the vibe we're going for here. We're having a polite conversation, not trying to race to be the winner of an online argument.
Not trying to shit-talk you personally or show any disrespect to you either. I've seen more and more comments formatted like this lately, and I wanted to take the opportunity to put this out there.
Ignoring the rest of the post for now, this is extremely dismissive of computer RPG players to the point of being insulting. It is also plainly just not true. Solasta: Crown of the Magister (2021)...
The demographic BTW, like madden or forza, will buy anything with elves and goblins that let's you role play in a fantasy world. They will pre order and buy another LOTR adaptation the minute it's announced and there's no end to that need.
Ignoring the rest of the post for now, this is extremely dismissive of computer RPG players to the point of being insulting. It is also plainly just not true.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister (2021) with an 88% approval rating on Steam has sold around 528k copies.
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (2017) with an 87% approval eating on Steam has sold about 663k copies.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (2021) with an 82% approval rating on Steam has sold about 867k copies
Pathfinder: Kingmaker (2018) with a 78% approval rating on Steam has sold about 655k copies.
Meanwhile Larian Studios' more recent games sit at 89% approval and 3.8 million copies between the classic version and the enhanced edition of Divinity: Original Sin (2014), and 95% approval and 4.9 million units sold for Divinity: Original Sin II (2017). These are games from the same publisher, and not with the RPG juggernaut of D&D behind them, and they have near enough an order of magnitude difference in copies sold compared to several other games of similar genre.
I'm a little confused. You said the rpg gamer demographic won't just outright buy another rpg and then you linked a bunch of rpgs that have done well? My point is rpg gamers will buy rpg games....
I'm a little confused. You said the rpg gamer demographic won't just outright buy another rpg and then you linked a bunch of rpgs that have done well?
My point is rpg gamers will buy rpg games. That's not a false statement. I leveraged that fact to explain why a studio would make an rpg, there are many who will dish out cash for another one, good game or otherwise, just like sports fans will for madden.
Edit: oh I see, it's the reviews? They're all "fairly" reviewed? Isn't that they sit below 90 add to my point that rpg fans will purchase rpgs to feed a need that won't go away anytime soon? A need a studio will capitalize to make money? It happens this game has a fantastic writing team but even the writing isn't flawless. The relationships could use some work.
I linked games that have sold only about 10% - 20% of the copies that Larian Studios' two latest games sold (individually) before Baldur's Gate 3. That's a massive difference and shows that if...
I'm a little confused. You said the rpg gamer demographic won't just outright buy another rpg and then you linked a bunch of rpgs that have done well?
I linked games that have sold only about 10% - 20% of the copies that Larian Studios' two latest games sold (individually) before Baldur's Gate 3. That's a massive difference and shows that if anything it's not that "the demographic will buy anything", but rather that the target audience is far larger than you seem to think and the vast majority of the people in it does not just buy every game in the genre.
I think the marketing, advertising, hype, and tons of reviewers rating games as either flawless or trash has something to do with it. I got advertised divinity original sin all over the place. For...
I think the marketing, advertising, hype, and tons of reviewers rating games as either flawless or trash has something to do with it.
I got advertised divinity original sin all over the place. For years. This game went past its target demographic because of massive hype and because people are saying it's awesome.
You linking obscure crpg games shows a more accurate picture of the core demographic that, like madden, will buy any rpg. The fact this studios previous games are popular doesn't really dispute that point. Just means they marketed better.
This conversation is going nowhere. For reference, the games are in the top 10 best sellers of fantasy cRPGs on Steam (make sure to apply the filter for fantasy under theme & mood). Writing them...
This conversation is going nowhere. For reference, the games are in the top 10 best sellers of fantasy cRPGs on Steam (make sure to apply the filter for fantasy under theme & mood). Writing them off as "obscure" is just repeating the same dismissive attitude I commented on to begin with.
I've claimed critics are bought, not implying larian did it. There's evidence that influencers getting advanced copies of games and other gifts have a strong incentive to review a game positively....
I've claimed critics are bought, not implying larian did it. There's evidence that influencers getting advanced copies of games and other gifts have a strong incentive to review a game positively.
Overall though, I think all of us want concrete proof reviewers are often times bought because that would explain how some turds of movies and games managed to get reviewed as highly as thy do.
So no smoking gun, but It's something
It is something many of us suspect is going on.
We do know bots and paid reviewers are used for Amazon, Walmart, and other services to drive the star rating to where everyone wants to see them.
I did try to look for sources but it's not in the interest of the reviewer to ruin their meal ticket and the companies are well known for employing NDAs. Getting someone to admit they got bought with favors, gifts or flat out money would shock no one but I suspect no one wants to come out and admit it.
I'm sorry but... ...who else are we meant to believe bought these unnamed critics? I agree that the bot farms generating fake Amazon/Walmart reviews are a huge problem (and something there's real...
I've claimed critics are bought, not implying larian did it.
I'm sorry but...
[Baldur's Gate 3], despite what many rabbid fans and bought for critics will say, has flaws.
...who else are we meant to believe bought these unnamed critics?
I agree that the bot farms generating fake Amazon/Walmart reviews are a huge problem (and something there's real evidence of) but I hardly see how it's relevant to Baldur's Gate 3 -- there's absolutely no evidence that Larian themselves are engaged in buying fake customer reviews en masse.
Regarding everything else... I'm just going to keep it short and say that art and entertainment is wonderfully subjective, and there doesn't have to be some nefarious conspiracy to explain why one group of people liked something that another group didn't. And frankly with how quick the internet is to jump to harassing developers and journalists, I think confidently spreading unsubstantiated claims like this is wrong. I recommend reading up on the awful gamergate fiasco.
The Early Access version isn't the same as the live version and doesn't nearly have the same amount of testing. Launching a new version almost always introduces new bugs and a couple of thousand...
The Early Access version isn't the same as the live version and doesn't nearly have the same amount of testing. Launching a new version almost always introduces new bugs and a couple of thousand folks versus almost a million players means you're bound to find more bugs. Them launching hotfixes is normal and should be seen as good practice in general.
I disagree that a hotfix says anything about the state of the development. It's almost silly to expect a flawless launch. From anyone.
Right. I agree. This game is a normal game launch with the studio being no different or better than others. Trying to herald it as this morally right beacon of hope that's going to change the...
Right. I agree. This game is a normal game launch with the studio being no different or better than others. Trying to herald it as this morally right beacon of hope that's going to change the industry is just fantasy, but I guess that's just par for the course.
I don't think anyone is saying that really, or at least not unprompted. When a launch like this gets massive without the ridiculous cash grab of MTX riddled throughout the design process and other...
I don't think anyone is saying that really, or at least not unprompted.
When a launch like this gets massive without the ridiculous cash grab of MTX riddled throughout the design process and other developers start telling people to calm down it becomes apparent what the goals of these larger studios are (not like it wasn't already); fuck fun, we want your money. It was wholly unnecessary to tell people to stop assuming this is a new standard when in reality a complete game was (and should be!) the industry standard.
Baldur's Gate is the vessel of this message, something people have been feeling for a while now. I don't think BG3 ever positioned themselves as championing the cause, people just used it as a way to show those twitter devs that "see, a good game without MTX is also an option".
It's fantasy only because I don't see larger studios fold under this pressure, the goldmine is still teeming with veins and I'm cynical enough to see that this will not change the MTX cashgrabs, but it should at least give them pause. I hope.
I'll take easy-to-download hotfixes from Larian for BG3 over massive, game-breaking patches from CDPR for Cyberpunk. What a disaster that release was. I'm preparing for the disastrous release that...
The fact there's hotfix after hotfix shortly after release despite 3 years of early access says a lot.
I'll take easy-to-download hotfixes from Larian for BG3 over massive, game-breaking patches from CDPR for Cyberpunk. What a disaster that release was.
I'm preparing for the disastrous release that will be Starfield.
Really great piece from Dustin at IGN on the subject of some discussion about how BG3 is an unfair or unreasonable standard for RPG games and games in general. I don’t watch or read IGN all that...
Really great piece from Dustin at IGN on the subject of some discussion about how BG3 is an unfair or unreasonable standard for RPG games and games in general.
I don’t watch or read IGN all that often but videos like this make me think that I could be missing out sometimes.
Return for money is subjective, unfortunately. I felt FF7R wa phenomenal, but people were complaining because it was on a store they didn't like and had some minor studder issue (which despite...
Return for money is subjective, unfortunately. I felt FF7R wa phenomenal, but people were complaining because it was on a store they didn't like and had some minor studder issue (which despite watching a Digital Foundry video I really could not perceive).
On the other side I've heard issues with Eldin Ring on PC and people don't seem to mind. It all feels so arbitrary
It's not that subjective if you want value for your money. I swore off games from companies like EA and Acti-Blizz because they make you pay merely for the 'privilege' of spending more money on...
It's not that subjective if you want value for your money. I swore off games from companies like EA and Acti-Blizz because they make you pay merely for the 'privilege' of spending more money on digital fluff that will disappear with the next installment. I would rather give $30 to an indie game company who made something that isn't constantly reaching for your wallet.
It is subjective, becsuse value is subjective. I don't care if COD is free forever with no strings attached, I'm not a shooter fan. Regardless, note that my examples were all single full releases...
It's not that subjective if you want value for your money.
It is subjective, becsuse value is subjective. I don't care if COD is free forever with no strings attached, I'm not a shooter fan.
Regardless, note that my examples were all single full releases without any MTX, and GOTY contenders (so it's not like they skimped on quality). People don't need nickle and diming to complain about price.
I would rather give $30 to an indie game company who made something that isn't constantly reaching for your wallet.
And a constant complaint I hear about indie games is that they are too expensive for what they ask, because they don't have the skinner devices the AAA games employ to extend playtime. You can't win.
Is the game really that grand, or is it more the Fresh New Thing hype? I never really been able to get into RGBs, they just felt too grindy I guess, but this one made me curious, despite its steep...
Is the game really that grand, or is it more the Fresh New Thing hype? I never really been able to get into RGBs, they just felt too grindy I guess, but this one made me curious, despite its steep price.
IMO, it's definitely a bit of "the Fresh New Thing" hype, but it really is just that good. This game isn't very grindy at all, it's far more narrative and decision-based. You'll die a lot, but...
IMO, it's definitely a bit of "the Fresh New Thing" hype, but it really is just that good. This game isn't very grindy at all, it's far more narrative and decision-based. You'll die a lot, but that's just because of trial and error, positioning on the map, learning how terrain works, etc. And you can save whenever, so I'm pretty sure the constant dying is intended. I read that one boss encounter that's seemingly very difficult was a way for them to track how players handled boss fights during the alpha, so that's pretty neat.
There's no grinding at all if you're thinking Diablo-like. You can explore optional areas for loot/XP which I would of course suggest, but there's absolutely no grinding. No enemies respawn or...
There's no grinding at all if you're thinking Diablo-like.
You can explore optional areas for loot/XP which I would of course suggest, but there's absolutely no grinding. No enemies respawn or anything like that.
If you haven't played their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 - I highly recommend it as well. Both are incredibly narrative and strategy driven.
Hmm that sounds like a case of "not my problem" especially when the best game I played last year, Signalis, cost me like half the price of a retail release... It's not my problem.
Hmm that sounds like a case of "not my problem" especially when the best game I played last year, Signalis, cost me like half the price of a retail release...
If you don't want to have to roll with a current, don't jump in a river. Standing on the bank telling folks "now ya'll stop looking at that pretty boat those folks made" won't accomplish anything,...
If you don't want to have to roll with a current, don't jump in a river. Standing on the bank telling folks "now ya'll stop looking at that pretty boat those folks made" won't accomplish anything, save perhaps looking really insecure. All there is, is to make your own, sail it, and see how it does. At least that's how I understand it. I'm no professional but I do make things, and it strikes me as insecurity when folks try to prevent comparison/criticism. You can't stop people from doing it, and it doesn't matter that they don't know the craft or whatever, they're going to do it. You just have to take what comes, decide if it matters, and then keep on with it if that's what you wanna be doing.
"H-how can people enjoy a game without microtransactions?! People love spending money on artificial scarcity because that's what we told them they love!" -All AAA publishers and devs
"H-how can people enjoy a game without microtransactions?! People love spending money on artificial scarcity because that's what we told them they love!"
They know micro transactions and artificial scarcity makes games less fun. They don't care because they also make more money. Until people speak with their wallets and stop pre-ordering games (so...
They know micro transactions and artificial scarcity makes games less fun. They don't care because they also make more money.
Until people speak with their wallets and stop pre-ordering games (so they can read reviews and find out of its finished before purchasing), stop spending money on micro transactions, and even stop purchasing games with micro transactions in them, the companies aren't going to stop. They will pursue whatever is profitable until consumers make it no longer profitable.
It's clear that the market will never solve that problem. The only other option then is regulation. And I don't see how that would work without violating free speech rights since a game is still...
It's clear that the market will never solve that problem. The only other option then is regulation. And I don't see how that would work without violating free speech rights since a game is still ultimately a creative endeavor.
Skinner Box manipulation is gross but it's getting implemented in new ways all the time. Loot boxes are out, season passes are in. It's always something. How would we even regulate session passes? Or pay to win? Or in-game cosmetic shops with thousands of dollars of available options?
It's all in how they're done. If you create the game without microtransactions in mind (aside from what's needed to later add them) and the microtransactions don't take away from the game and can...
It's all in how they're done. If you create the game without microtransactions in mind (aside from what's needed to later add them) and the microtransactions don't take away from the game and can be totally ignored then I don't see any issues. It's the P2W, immersion breaking items that don't belong in the world, rigging the game to get you to buy things, gambling for drops, etc.. are all bad, very bad.
Whether or not you can ignore the microtransactions isn't the problem, the problem is this type of predatory business model has become the norm and seems to get rammed into literally all AAA games...
Whether or not you can ignore the microtransactions isn't the problem, the problem is this type of predatory business model has become the norm and seems to get rammed into literally all AAA games regardless of the type of game. Publishers can't bear to potentially leave even a single dime on the table. They've brainwashed an entire generation of gamers to believe that being low-level fleeced on a constant basis is alright.
It used to be literally impossible to spend more than, say, $100 on a game. If I loved StarCraft, all there was to buy was the game and the Brood War expansion. That was it. There was no cash...
It used to be literally impossible to spend more than, say, $100 on a game. If I loved StarCraft, all there was to buy was the game and the Brood War expansion. That was it. There was no cash shop, no season pass... Hell, there wasn't even a second expansion.
You're 100% right that publishers seem to think that that is anathema. There has to be persistent revenue streams and a million different ways for players to spend money beyond the purchase of the game. On full price, AAA games, no less.
As much as I love in game cosmetics, I absolutely refuse to spend money on anything that doesn't give me more story in a game. But I'm in a minority. The market has decided that microtransactions are the way to go.
Yeah, if it's not new maps or something to do, I usually refuse to buy it. Skins mean nothing to me, especially when I can't see them on my own character half the time. I show off through skill,...
Yeah, if it's not new maps or something to do, I usually refuse to buy it. Skins mean nothing to me, especially when I can't see them on my own character half the time. I show off through skill, and nothing burns sweaty players like being soundly beaten by somebody wearing the default skin.
The sad fact is that it's easier to make a game with microtransactions, live service and DLCs planned out profitable than it is to do the same with a game that you just sell once. I don't know who...
The sad fact is that it's easier to make a game with microtransactions, live service and DLCs planned out profitable than it is to do the same with a game that you just sell once.
I don't know who funded Larian Studios, but someone has dropped millions and millions to keep them afloat while making a passion project of a game with insane amounts of spoken dialog and so many differing paths they literally had to increase the save file size because all the variants couldn't fit in the allocated space.
But I do know if BG3 hadn't been an instant mega hit, someone out there would've been stuck holding the bill with no way of getting their money back except for trying to sell the game at a discount during Steam sales hoping to regain some of the cost.
With a game that's designed to get new content at a regular cadence (like Diablo IV for example), there is a way to bring in new players and a long tail of money to offset the costs. If you do well, you recoup the up-front development costs and pay for the live service team's costs too - after that you're making actual profit you can roll over to other projects.
Apparently they have funded BG3 from D:OS 1 & 2 revenue + 30% Tencent stake in the company. They almost went bankrupt while making DOS and it had some rough edges to show initially. But their...
I don't know who funded Larian Studios, but someone has dropped millions and millions to keep them afloat while making a passion project of a game with insane amounts of spoken dialog and so many differing paths they literally had to increase the save file size because all the variants couldn't fit in the allocated space.
Apparently they have funded BG3 from D:OS 1 & 2 revenue + 30% Tencent stake in the company. They almost went bankrupt while making DOS and it had some rough edges to show initially. But their effort paid off, I have enjoyed the game with my wife, paid for the 2nd game as well (that was significantly more polished from the get-go) and now they used our money to make BG3.
So they had millions of revenue from games they made using revenue from games before that AND even more millions from Tencent =) That's kind of my point. It's not impossible to make a game like...
So they had millions of revenue from games they made using revenue from games before that AND even more millions from Tencent =)
That's kind of my point. It's not impossible to make a game like BG3 without any live service, but it's damn hard and an extremely expensive gamble.
Nonsense, games as games was the norm and "live service" is just an additional way of making money. This isn't a gamble, this is normal operating procedure if you ask me. Blizzard has thousands of...
Nonsense, games as games was the norm and "live service" is just an additional way of making money. This isn't a gamble, this is normal operating procedure if you ask me.
Blizzard has thousands of employees and millions more than Larian and they are doing live service too. Amounts of money doesn't seem to be the deciding factor, having another earning vector is.
When it was the norm only a handful of games were coming out a year despite the games themselves being simple enough that the entire development team could fit in a single office. They also cost...
Nonsense, games as games was the norm
When it was the norm only a handful of games were coming out a year despite the games themselves being simple enough that the entire development team could fit in a single office. They also cost enough to where most people could only really afford to get a couple of new games a year if that. I generally got 1 video game for my birthday and 1 for Christmas. The idea that I would one day just get a few new games for free every month through Epic, or that the $60 a year I pay Playstation would entitle me to 2 more free games every month would have blown my little mind.
It's also impossible to compete with a paid-up-front game when you have to compete with F2P games. You're being undercut on price.
I honestly don't know of a time ever that only a handful of games were coming out a year. Even in the days of my old Epson XT with dual floppies I could go to the local mall and get a disc with...
I honestly don't know of a time ever that only a handful of games were coming out a year. Even in the days of my old Epson XT with dual floppies I could go to the local mall and get a disc with half a dozen new games on the regular.
The smaller the studio the faster they could crank out games since they were more focused on cranking things out instead of death by committee.
While price may be A consideration it is hardly the only consideration. I will never install Fortnight, Overwatch or any of those free/freemium skinnerbox games. I'll gladly pay per month to play Elder Scrolls Online and buy games like 7 Days to Die and series like Fall Out and Borderlands where I usually will wait for GOTY editions.
Since these franchises still exist and are doing well that also seems to discount your claim that it is impossible to compete with F2P games.
These would basically be considered toy apps today and most of them were Shareware, which is about as close to a 'freemium' model as you could get away with before the internet. Remember in those...
Even in the days of my old Epson XT with dual floppies I could go to the local mall and get a disc with half a dozen new games on the regular.
These would basically be considered toy apps today and most of them were Shareware, which is about as close to a 'freemium' model as you could get away with before the internet.
Remember in those times, the equivalent of a modern AAA game could only be played in a coin-op arcade which is hardware-based microtransactions to play.
I must be remembering it differently than you. Back in the mid-80s games like King's Quest I, Silent Service, Chuck Yeager Advanced Flight Simulator were top tier games for their time. When a game...
I must be remembering it differently than you. Back in the mid-80s games like King's Quest I, Silent Service, Chuck Yeager Advanced Flight Simulator were top tier games for their time. When a game asked for "Disc 2" it was a MOMENT, lol. Those are titles I had and played just off the top of my head. Maybe they weren't AAA games since I'm sure the term hadn't been coined yet.
The discs I got weren't shareware (in the sense that they weren't limited levels, timed out after a certain period or any other typical shareware limitation). At the most they were nagware (Please send $1 in the mail to this PO BOX if you liked this game, etc). Perhaps some might have been pirated? Some guy had a kiosk in the mall that sold floppy discs with generic labels for like $3-5 full of "games" or "business programs" as well as professionally boxed things like Print Shop 1.0, Broderbund programs, etc.
Judging from the previous games, namely D:OS, I don't believe it was just a business to them. It felt like they actually enjoyed making the games. To me it seems that D:OS and now BG3 were the...
Judging from the previous games, namely D:OS, I don't believe it was just a business to them. It felt like they actually enjoyed making the games.
To me it seems that D:OS and now BG3 were the goals for Swen Vincke, not means as for many others. And I am willing to give him and his company the benefit of the doubt.
Do you really believe that in order to be able to make good games any decent studio must first concentrate on making some exploitative ones? Because that's how they become addicted to making bad games and we never get the good ones.
I am willing to purchase potentially good games in early access to support ideas I enjoy. Even if it sometimes doesn't pan out. I wouldn't dream of supporting studio making gacha games in hopes of it ever creating something actually good.
It doesn't have anything to do with costing money or being a gamble. It has to do with share holders and profits. Period. There are tons of games without micro-transactions that are amazing. You...
It doesn't have anything to do with costing money or being a gamble. It has to do with share holders and profits. Period.
There are tons of games without micro-transactions that are amazing. You just have to choose to go that route.... which most AAA's do not since they want to milk more and more profits.
Not to take away from their achievement, but I was just discussing this with my brother, and one of the things that helped get Baldur's Gate 3 to where it's at today is that they sold early access...
Not to take away from their achievement, but I was just discussing this with my brother, and one of the things that helped get Baldur's Gate 3 to where it's at today is that they sold early access to the game. They allowed people to pay to beta test of the game.
I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. In fact, it might be a very good thing for a double-A studio who doesn't have a giant publisher behind them to front the costs for development. But could they have released this game as it is now without that?
The amount of games wallowing in the Endless Swamps of Early Access on Steam is getting a bit ridiculous now =) Some are good enough already, others seem to be in perpetual EA.
The amount of games wallowing in the Endless Swamps of Early Access on Steam is getting a bit ridiculous now =)
Some are good enough already, others seem to be in perpetual EA.
I don't really get why developers would be worried. This feels manufactured. Even if players get heightened expectations, so what? There's not going to be a BG3 being released every half year. They're going to play other games and be disappointed until they either adjust those standards or stop playing games.
It is what it is. Some games have always been better than other games - rarely do video game players only play masterpieces.
100%. The usage of the word "panic" is such a hyperbole that it's an obvious red flag this is mostly just bs.
No one who's making microtransaction games cares that BG3 did well. Games like fifa have been copy pasting code for years and still printing money and they know that isn't changing.
I see a little concern for smaller devs who are worried that expectations might be set too high, but there's not much you can do about it. Unfortunately people don't understand that while I can create a fully 3d rendered space in a fraction of the time it would have taken in the year 2000, I still have to spend basically the exact same amount of time to handle things like dialogue trees.
A human needs to plot those out, write them, and in the case of BG3, voice act them. AI/Modern tools are making the last one much less of a hurdle (in a way that's threatening to voice actors), and chatgpt like AI might help with things like writers block, but at the end of the day it's still an insane amount of hours that even large studios struggle with (which is why you see so many fake choices in games).
The majority of people aren’t that invested in the video games industry too. They are just regular people who own a PlayStation and picked up FIFA because they like the sport. Masterpieces targeting enthusiasts doesn’t do that much to capture the casual audience.
It’s why I don’t really like choices in games - it all just feels manufactured to me, like choose your own story books. Basically just brute forcing as many options as possible.
I think it’s good when it’s the only thing about the game, like “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan”. But that’s because there’s a purpose in every choice. When it’s in other type of games, it just feels like they were trying to tack on more gameplay time for the sake of gameplay time and using brute force to do it. Honestly I find it a bit insulting as a consumer of the game - it makes me feel like they think I can’t handle consuming a story without having to hit a button every X seconds, or able to handle a story that doesn’t go the way I want it to go.
I know I’m pretty alone on that with how common they are though, especially it’s popularity in what’s considered some of the best games
I think it's excellent when it's done well, but people underestimate how much development effort has to go into that.
Fallout New Vegas is a wonderful example of how it should be done, and how your choices can affect the world/multiple playthroughs. It's not JUST pick a side (although that's a big one), there's lots of little decisions in there that can change things, and they can play off each other. Some of this feels bigger than it actually is because of how it represents the interactions, and it really makes your character feel unique, and not just generic protag #5.
That said, the vast majority of it is a cop out.
Really, the little choices are the ones that feel more interesting anyway. Helping the sick orphan and seeing him playing in town vs leaving him and seeing he's lost a leg. Or helping with one small town and getting shut out of another for it. The little choices feel more natural and alive than do you want to save world with blue, red, or green coolaid? Our lives rarely culminate into massive major choices that alter everything. It's always small choices that have small/medium effects, or maybe no visible effect at all.
Having made a fairly short game about choices that was purely text based, I can confirm it takes a lot of effort to plot out the paths. It's a tricky thing to implement well, since you have to account for how all the variances can combine and collide for each following scene and event. The more choices involved, the more you have to keep track of.
If done well, it can be truly spectacular and add immense replay value. If not... Well, it's been years and I still remember people up in arms over Mass Effect 3's ending making basically every choice up to that point meaningless.
Multiple choices that affect the wold give me anxiety in games :)
I want to see everything in the game, but if the choices are hidden and unclear, I always feel like I'm missing some content every time I make a choice.
Maybe games should have a "you already went this path, maybe try these two dialog options or this type of character to see more" -option for replays?
Gotta click bait. Not even 3 months ago, Tears of the Kingdom did the exact same thing. Even if DLC is inevitable and despite the price hike, I haven't heard anyone say they didn't get their money's worth.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation, Activision is getting review bombed over Overwatch 2 on steam, but its still the best selling and most played game. This isn't shifting Activision towards good either.
True, but modern discourse is very polarized. A game like redfall or Forspoken would have been treated as as a disappointment and quickly forgotten, but current discourse treats them in ways only the worst games of the decade would be treated.
Meanwhile, Gollum shows how low the bar can go, so it's not like AAA flops don't happen angmore.
... doesn't Overwatch 2 use a free-to-play model? Seems like that's very not comparable to other titles, even AAA ones, that cost money upfront.
When doing retail comparisons to free-to-play, you have to compare revenue to have the most direct comparison. Play time hours is mildly related but so many free-to-play games are skinner boxes that have no ending, so they'll naturally accrue more hours. The worst is installs as it means almost nothing for a free-to-play, though they do love to pronounce their install counts.
Yeah, it's not super clear to me whether they mean revenue or installs by "best-selling." But then with a quick Google I found data on the highest-grossing games in 2023 and Overwatch 2 isn't even in the top 20 (while TOTK is #2) so they must mean installs if calling it "the best selling and most played game" makes any sense.
I assume they meant on Steam (where it’s being review bombed). I checked my Steam store - It’s pretty low on the U.S. and Global top-sellers list, and has 30k players playing right now (not bad for 2am my time).
Steam’s top sellers chart is indeed based on gross revenue, not installs.
Overwatch 2 is
notablyamusingly far below Team Fortress 2 on both metrics (revenue & active player count, on Steam). Although I’m pretty sure a bunch of those players are bots, and of course Overwatch is available on other platforms.I also assume Overwatch 2 might be available on other platforms maybe? (idk for sure but they might also be on Epic store or smth) whereas TF2 is obviously gonna only be on steam.
It is funny though that TF2 is beating it lol. That games longevity is kinda amazing.
It was just recently released on Steam, before that it was already on Battle.net. I would assume the vast majority was playing the game on Battle.net already and they wouldn't move platforms? Maybe.
Steam was an attempt to grow the player base which seems to have failed. No idea since I tried it at launch and that's it.
You’re absolutely correct, and I should’ve been clearer about that part in my original comment. My point was basically your last sentence - it’s pretty funny, even if it’s not apples to apples.
A few developers went on Twitter saying that people shouldn't set their expectations high because of BG3, they shouldn't expect games to be that good regularly. It wasn't really widespread but it did happen.
I don't blame devs for the sorry state of AAA games right now, I blame the executives and publishers, but it's not hyperbole to say that most AAA these days are a mess, overpriced, bloated, full of microtransaction/battle pass crap, and overall lower quality than they used to be.
The major comparison (even if it is flawed) was the content starved crapfest that was Diablo 4 and season 1, which went for more money than BG3 and managed to alienate huge portions of the community with frustrating design decisions
If we made a fuss about anything that 2-3 people on Twitter say, we'd only have time to talk about Twitter.
I don't blame anyone. I don't think it's an issue. Different models for different games. There's plenty of quality, single player AAA games that came out this year. ToTK? Hogwarts? Armored Core is coming out? Starfield is coming out? FF16? The correct monetization model for your game will depend on both the quantity and shape of your demand curve.
So different games have different models. It's OK. I don't think any actual developers are quaking in their boots on the release of BG3. I doubt Diablo 4 will even see a blip in their revenue or playerbase from BG3's release given the extreme differences in every possible way the two games have to each other.
You definitely have a much more charitable outlook than I do.
A game developer wrote a thread begging the public to taper their expectations of other studios being able to release complete, functional, and non-predatory games like Baldur's Gate 3.
Only the first of those ten tweets are visible, in your link.
Great to know people without an X/Twitter account can't even see threads. Another reason to stop using the platform. Here's a screenshot of the 10 tweets: https://i.imgur.com/0FqPFt7.png
It is manufactured because IGN is owned by Ziff Davis. Ziff Davis' businesses including game publishing via Humble Bundle. Where indie games thrive.
The game is a master class on how video games need to be. I'm having an absolute blast, im about 40 hours in and just got to act 2. What a freakin game. I'm not surprised other companies are scared. Put your game for early access three years before release with a lot of community feedback and you get yourself what could be the greatest pc game of all time. I know it's I think #1 pc game of all time metacritic
Ditto about having a blast. And related, How Long to Beat has the main story completion time at 40 hours, which feels insane to me because I only left Act 1 after about 60 hours of play! And I am already at 80 hours now, yet still feel like I've barely even started Act 2 since I haven't even finished exploring the first zone in it yet. :P
However, I am very aware that I am very very very slow when it comes to playing CRPGs for the first time, since I am an absolute completionist, love finding every little hidden secret I can, and also usually savescum (and respec) like crazy as well (not to avoid a bad outcome, I just enjoy seeing all the story variation possibilities!). Hearing that I am not alone in taking that kind of time on the first Act makes me feel a lot better though, so thanks for sharing that. ;)
p.s. To give you an idea of the kind of possibilities I try to fully explore when I play an RPG for the first time:
Act 1 - Grymforge Spoiler
It turns out that there is absolutely no way to save the gnome lady, Meerna, from True Soul Nere. :( Even if you kill all the Duergar before opening the cave and rescuing the trapped people, and even if you manage to kill Nere before the cutscene triggers where he kills her, she will simply vanish from inside the cave as soon as combat starts, and afterwards her husband will still be mourning over the spot where Nere would have thrown her into the lava during said cutscene. :( Apparently the devs didn't think she was important enough, or anyone would make the effort to actually save her, so they didn't provide an alternative resolution to that portion of the story. :(
However, there are some really fun shenanigans you can get up to when it comes to Philomeen and the Sparkpowder barrel. Hint: Steal the barrel and/or the sample in her inventory before you interact with her... or even during said interaction. There are some quite amusing outcomes and dialogue variations depending on what you do and when. :P
And finally, if you dupe the mithril ore, you actually can pump out infinite Adamantine gear for you party at the Adamantine forge. ;)
Yeah, I honestly never pay attention to stuff like "How Long to Beat". The time a game takes to beat is whenever I feel like beating it. I like to explore everything, look for secrets, basically do everything that can be done before moving on.
Then the "completionist" time mentioned on How Long to Beat may be more your speed. They estimate 93.5 hours for your playstyle.
I guess that most of the slow players are not tracked on HLTB yet, since they're still playing. :)
I have played 70 hours and I'm still in the middle (?) of Act 2. It's probably gonna be 120 hours or more for me.
It's good for a rough idea of you want to know how much time you'll likely be investing in a game. Sometimes it is wildly off but I find usually it's pretty accurate
There was a shout-out to all the people that completed the game during launch weekend. That tends to skew the number a bit.
I've hit act 2 after roughly 40 hours too, taking my sweet time discovering all nooks and crannies.
Slightly off-topic question, but I've seen multiple people refer to the game as having Acts. Is there a clear indication when you enter Act 2 (eg, a title a card or something)?
It's a prompt as you leave the Act 1 area for Act 2, and the Act 2 area for Act 3. It doesn't say "leaving Act x", but rather something more akin to "have you done everything you want to do? You won't be back"
Which is kind of a lie, at least with regards to the transition from Act 1 to Act 2. You can still go back to Act 1 sections after you enter Act 2. Apparently you only get locked out of Act 1 after a certain point in Act 2 about 75% of the way through it.
The warning the game gives you is still appreciated and generally good advice for most people, who likely won't know about that exact cutoff point though, since it's not obvious unless you research it ahead of time.
The prompt also stops people from going to the crèche. Its placement is a little unfortunate and probably should've been reserved for a later point where it's actually the point of no return.
The steam achievements are very specific about the acts ending, though.
In addition to the do you want to proceed prompts which don’t mention the acts you get an achievement that explicitly states you left act 1.
It's #1 this year and #8 of all time on Metacritic.
I'm showing it as #1 of all time (tied with Disco Elysium, and 1 point above Half-Life 2 and GTA 5) when filtering to PC: https://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/pc/filtered
*Edit: Ah I see the difference - the original commenter said #1 PC game, which is true. It's also the #8 video game of all time, which is still damn impressive.
I would like to point out that the developer who posted the tweet in the first place is not a "AAA developer," but has mostly worked on smaller indie titles, such as Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator. I do agree with most of the video, but I feel like the topic as a whole is taking the guy's post out of context. BG3 is an anomaly, for whatever reason, or we wouldn't be freaking out about it so much. I don't think he meant to say that we should have low expectations in general, or be okay with the state of most larger launch titles (loot boxes, day one patches, etc).
Yes. Jimquisition had a good take on it.
This was an outstanding game. I don't know what he's worried about.
It is:
I don't see what heightened standards they're worried about, applying to SWOTS at least.
That IGN video: Yelling is not journalism
I feel the rest of that article is pretty correct and on point especially about the danger of inciting rage toward developers who talked about their perspectives and about how 3 years of early access being ignored creates an illusion of a clean release, but I do take issue with the two quoted paragraphs above.
My question is, why are statements like the above always part of rebuttals against people expressing frustration and disappointment with the overall state of AAA releases?
I'm talking about pointing out that shareholders mandate a release window or that devs don't have control over their own budget, and because studios are beholden to financial year results for investors.
Why are these things always brought up as if it's a defence of the devs? It's not the devs that need defending, isn't it the shareholders, investors, and publishers that we're mad at anyway?
Like all pointing this out does is serve as an anger redirection towards those who fund the project and pull the strings. I think most reasonable people know that already. Somebody's to blame, and I think most people agree that's who.
Some people might say "devs" as a shorthand for the entire organization publisher and studio included, and it always feels like journalists and commentators (rightfully) define "devs" as literally programmers, artists, and designers and then feel the need to defend them as if we don't all already know that some programmer or designer is not really the root cause of problems. Like maybe the layman needs to just stop saying "devs" all-inclusively and consequently baiting this red herring rebuttal.
Anyway, I just want to see "the rising expectations of triple-A" being pulled back a little bit from the publisher's end. If the publisher doesn't want to fund and schedule according to what a AAA release should be like, they should not be asking developers to deliver one. Scale back, make something a little more AA if that's what the publisher/investors can afford. The people whose expectations developers should be asking to dial back are not the audience but the shareholders and publishers.
I think given that we have a real problem of creators being harassed whenever there's another fuckup release, it's still important to point out who is really at fault. You or I may know that already, but a lot of people are genuinely blaming each of these cases on developer laziness or incompetence or something silly like hatred toward Gamers and act like jackasses because of it.
I do think a point like the one in this article can be used to deflect criticism in some cases if employed in certain ways, but I don't see that here. Not saying you were necessarily saying they were.
Yeah, the problem is perhaps that I just don't spend my time, in response to stories like this one, going and finding the original tweets and their replies and seeing what the enraged gamers are actually saying so I might just be giving them too much benefit of the doubt in assuming that they're mad at corporate overlords and not at the studios' employees. I just know in my own social circles that usually we all understand that the pressures come from the top.
I feel like this is an important rebuttal that everyone should read.
While I agree that I prefer less micro transactions and dlcs and also feel like the state of AAA games is lacking these days, the IGN video made me somewhat uncomfortable in terms of content and this helped explain why.
It really doesn't say anything but to affirm what everyone feels and show some tweets to take them out of context.
Again, I feel exactly what the IGN video is saying. I agree with it.
But it doesn't feel like journalism and more a video that relies heavily on emotion.
Baldur's Gate 3 isn't going to freak anyone out nor is it going to suddenly change the industry.
The game, despite what many rabbid fans and bought for critics will say, has flaws. The fact there's hotfix after hotfix shortly after release despite 3 years of early access says a lot. I don't know what sort of development was going on during that time but if fans were involved with heavy donations then it tells me it went into things they wanted to see and not what the game needed. Kind of like pillars of eternity development not including changes to the ui or make it usable with controllers and consoles because fans decided it was best for the pc mouse and keyboard only.
It doesn't have denuvo because the investment wasn't worth the possible backlash. It's a smaller studio. They'll dress it up as moral choice though. Same with loot boxes. The type of fan that contributed to the early access program or donated is most likely incredibly vocal about how they feel about loot boxes. The backlash isn't worth the investment.
This game would have sold anyway and it's not because of defying triple A studios. It's a brand name rpg that's built on a successful series that's built on the back of a legendary and we'll known tabletop rpg. It was gonna sell, not sure how else to put it.
All the studio did was earn more loyalty and get good guy points with a vocal demographic. They minimized risk and maximized appeal.
The demographic BTW, like madden or forza, will buy anything with elves and goblins that let's you role play in a fantasy world. They will pre order and buy another LOTR adaptation the minute it's announced and there's no end to that need.
This post has been sensationalized title that misrepresents the video with blind commentators. The Le reddit special.
Disregarding the video itself, I don't think I could disagree with the sentiment of this post more.
The Early Access period was restricted to Act 1. The full release opened up Acts 2 and 3, players had never touched this content before. You can internally test all you want, but in a game this open and freeform, nothing is going to find bugs like 800,000+ concurrent players. And we're not talking game breaking ordeals here.
Your point on lootboxes is just, not rooted in anything concrete. You're making assumptions based on a rather jaded viewpoint, assuming they would add lootboxes if they thought they could get away with it. That's just pure speculation without anything to back it up. Their prior games don't have microtransactions either.
And lastly, this reoccurring point I see about it being successful because it has the name "Baldur's Gate" on it is kind of silly. BG2 came out almost 24 years ago. It is not the powerhouse name that older gamers think it is anymore. Dungeons and Dragons isn't anywhere in the title. Heck, I had no idea it was based on DnD until after I played it. I am sure I am not alone.
For some reason, it seems like you're just kind of angry that somebody made a good game.
If anything, it feels to me like the title has some serious risk of hurting it, honestly. I know, as someone who has never played Baldur's Gate but knew it was a '90s RPG game series, that I saw the 3 in the title and let air out through my nose and then never bought it because it can be intimidating getting into any franchise with a continuing story in any medium 25 years late, especially one that has a metatextual story spanning several videogames and dnd game books.
Obviously the popularity of it means they must have made it very easy to get into 25 years late, and I'm more tempted now, but I have to imagine there are people out there who saw that it was the newest entry in a 25 year old franchise (or for a lot of people that it was the direct sequel to a game that looks like this) and figured it was inaccessible to them.
That's a nice bait to derail the argument into how you interpreted what I said as having any anger behind it or not. Instead of doing that and devolving into personal attacks, I'll defend my point despite you not really addressing them in good faith.
Bugs were still addressed in Act 1 per the hotfixes. A gnome's genitals being seen through clothing, clipping, and various other low hanging fruit bugs aren't some rare combination of events that are hard to see. It's time was spent addressing and developing other things, the fixes for bugs were put off. This is how all studios do it with day 1 patches. This game is no different.
It's just business sense. Developers and studios are out to make money. This studio is no different. They have multiple vectors to make money, including loot boxes. They weighed it out, and the risk wasn't worth the investment it would have taken. Or, they had the money to implement loot boxes but ran out of time, who knows, but if you want to say it's because they're a moral company then you forget they're a cold business underneath like everyone else and you didn't learn from the studio behind The Witcher series. They played the nice guy card but in the end it was just a dressing for making money.
Whatever the rationale was for this studio to forgo drm and loot boxes it was political and full of pr to hide the lack of money either of those decisions would have netted them.
Resident evil 4 remake, Star Wars Battlefront, and others would like a word. The brand being old didn't mean it stopped being relevant for the target demographic otherwise they wouldn't have taken a risk on it. Everyone has heard of Baldurs Gate. It was massive during the PS2 days. And trying to downplay DnD is ridiculous. That's in the Social Conscious as part of pop culture deep in there. Media like Stranger Things didn't even need to explain it, everyone just felt nostalgia watching it.
I'm about as cynical as they come and also tired of continuous sequelitis and reboots. But I think there is room in my worldview for (more or less) artist driven products. Key word being "product" at the end of that sentence. It is a product for consumption not some avant-garde project . Except for self-publish material some publisher has to recognize that the cost-benefit analysis aligns with empowering artists and devs to have more latitude.
And I think those decisions should be celebrated. I want more creative, interesting, well[0] executed pieces of media. I don't think people necessarily lap up everything that thing that ticks all the boxes in their Google maintained consumer preferences profile. I think people do recognize quality and become tired of overt pandering. See the excellent post in ~movies Summer of Busts.
[0] there is some latitude given here. Have I encountered some glitches in BG3? Sure. I have in every game I've ever played ever.
It's a good game for sure. Warts and all it's still better than a lot of the garbage pumped out year after year, I agree. I'm glad it's a small studio where they can have some leeway to do things as they wish.
I take issue with paid for reviewers and overzealous fans because when everyone is shouting "flawless" and "perfect" it takes meaning away from those words, doesn't leave room for discourse or constructive criticism and the bar for quality is lowered.
We've seen this happen already in our lifetimes. It's a natural byproduct of capitalism, to give less for more. By defending products that are flawed and not using the wide spectrum of 0-100% properly for ratings and reviews, we shrink and compress something to basically 0 or 1. If it's "good" it gets a 1 (85%+) if it's 0 it's anything less than 80% with no room for nuance or discussion.
Rotten tomatoes died this way and meta critic is showing us how the rest of the internet lost nuance as well. Nobody wants to hear nuance, they just want you to agree with their very strong opinion.
The very strong opinion now is this game is amazing and flawless.
It's a good game, lots of things are awesome, but it has warts and can be criticized. Readers and new players should know about the warts, not just hear the echo chamber clamoring about how it's near perfect.
For example, what's CRPG? Most people don't know that. They just see RPG and don't realize that this game is slow, brutal, sometimes up to chance, requires strategy and a good grip on DnD.
How many people are actually going to finish this game outside of the core demographic and how many people picked it up because everyone is raving about it?
Going to shift gears a bit here, but this manner of commenting is very uncharacteristic for this website, and I'd like to ask that you re-examine it a bit. This line-by-line quotation style is not how people in normal "real life" scenarios talk, and it comes across as unnecessarily combative and argumentative, and that's just not at all the vibe we're going for here. We're having a polite conversation, not trying to race to be the winner of an online argument.
Not trying to shit-talk you personally or show any disrespect to you either. I've seen more and more comments formatted like this lately, and I wanted to take the opportunity to put this out there.
Thanks for the heads up! I'll keep that in mind going forward.
Ignoring the rest of the post for now, this is extremely dismissive of computer RPG players to the point of being insulting. It is also plainly just not true.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister (2021) with an 88% approval rating on Steam has sold around 528k copies.
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (2017) with an 87% approval eating on Steam has sold about 663k copies.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (2021) with an 82% approval rating on Steam has sold about 867k copies
Pathfinder: Kingmaker (2018) with a 78% approval rating on Steam has sold about 655k copies.
Meanwhile Larian Studios' more recent games sit at 89% approval and 3.8 million copies between the classic version and the enhanced edition of Divinity: Original Sin (2014), and 95% approval and 4.9 million units sold for Divinity: Original Sin II (2017). These are games from the same publisher, and not with the RPG juggernaut of D&D behind them, and they have near enough an order of magnitude difference in copies sold compared to several other games of similar genre.
I'm a little confused. You said the rpg gamer demographic won't just outright buy another rpg and then you linked a bunch of rpgs that have done well?
My point is rpg gamers will buy rpg games. That's not a false statement. I leveraged that fact to explain why a studio would make an rpg, there are many who will dish out cash for another one, good game or otherwise, just like sports fans will for madden.
Edit: oh I see, it's the reviews? They're all "fairly" reviewed? Isn't that they sit below 90 add to my point that rpg fans will purchase rpgs to feed a need that won't go away anytime soon? A need a studio will capitalize to make money? It happens this game has a fantastic writing team but even the writing isn't flawless. The relationships could use some work.
I linked games that have sold only about 10% - 20% of the copies that Larian Studios' two latest games sold (individually) before Baldur's Gate 3. That's a massive difference and shows that if anything it's not that "the demographic will buy anything", but rather that the target audience is far larger than you seem to think and the vast majority of the people in it does not just buy every game in the genre.
I think the marketing, advertising, hype, and tons of reviewers rating games as either flawless or trash has something to do with it.
I got advertised divinity original sin all over the place. For years. This game went past its target demographic because of massive hype and because people are saying it's awesome.
You linking obscure crpg games shows a more accurate picture of the core demographic that, like madden, will buy any rpg. The fact this studios previous games are popular doesn't really dispute that point. Just means they marketed better.
This conversation is going nowhere. For reference, the games are in the top 10 best sellers of fantasy cRPGs on Steam (make sure to apply the filter for fantasy under theme & mood). Writing them off as "obscure" is just repeating the same dismissive attitude I commented on to begin with.
You've claimed Larian "bought" critics a couple times in this thread. That's a serious accusation so I assume you have proof -- which ones?
I've claimed critics are bought, not implying larian did it. There's evidence that influencers getting advanced copies of games and other gifts have a strong incentive to review a game positively.
Overall though, I think all of us want concrete proof reviewers are often times bought because that would explain how some turds of movies and games managed to get reviewed as highly as thy do.
So no smoking gun, but It's something
It is something many of us suspect is going on.
We do know bots and paid reviewers are used for Amazon, Walmart, and other services to drive the star rating to where everyone wants to see them.
I did try to look for sources but it's not in the interest of the reviewer to ruin their meal ticket and the companies are well known for employing NDAs. Getting someone to admit they got bought with favors, gifts or flat out money would shock no one but I suspect no one wants to come out and admit it.
I'm sorry but...
...who else are we meant to believe bought these unnamed critics?
I agree that the bot farms generating fake Amazon/Walmart reviews are a huge problem (and something there's real evidence of) but I hardly see how it's relevant to Baldur's Gate 3 -- there's absolutely no evidence that Larian themselves are engaged in buying fake customer reviews en masse.
Regarding everything else... I'm just going to keep it short and say that art and entertainment is wonderfully subjective, and there doesn't have to be some nefarious conspiracy to explain why one group of people liked something that another group didn't. And frankly with how quick the internet is to jump to harassing developers and journalists, I think confidently spreading unsubstantiated claims like this is wrong. I recommend reading up on the awful gamergate fiasco.
The Early Access version isn't the same as the live version and doesn't nearly have the same amount of testing. Launching a new version almost always introduces new bugs and a couple of thousand folks versus almost a million players means you're bound to find more bugs. Them launching hotfixes is normal and should be seen as good practice in general.
I disagree that a hotfix says anything about the state of the development. It's almost silly to expect a flawless launch. From anyone.
Right. I agree. This game is a normal game launch with the studio being no different or better than others. Trying to herald it as this morally right beacon of hope that's going to change the industry is just fantasy, but I guess that's just par for the course.
It's the Witcher 3 and cyberpunk all over again.
I don't think anyone is saying that really, or at least not unprompted.
When a launch like this gets massive without the ridiculous cash grab of MTX riddled throughout the design process and other developers start telling people to calm down it becomes apparent what the goals of these larger studios are (not like it wasn't already); fuck fun, we want your money. It was wholly unnecessary to tell people to stop assuming this is a new standard when in reality a complete game was (and should be!) the industry standard.
Baldur's Gate is the vessel of this message, something people have been feeling for a while now. I don't think BG3 ever positioned themselves as championing the cause, people just used it as a way to show those twitter devs that "see, a good game without MTX is also an option".
It's fantasy only because I don't see larger studios fold under this pressure, the goldmine is still teeming with veins and I'm cynical enough to see that this will not change the MTX cashgrabs, but it should at least give them pause. I hope.
I'll take easy-to-download hotfixes from Larian for BG3 over massive, game-breaking patches from CDPR for Cyberpunk. What a disaster that release was.
I'm preparing for the disastrous release that will be Starfield.
Really great piece from Dustin at IGN on the subject of some discussion about how BG3 is an unfair or unreasonable standard for RPG games and games in general.
I don’t watch or read IGN all that often but videos like this make me think that I could be missing out sometimes.
There's nothing unreasonable about expecting a game in return for your money, and not a cynical virtual slot machine made up to look like one.
Return for money is subjective, unfortunately. I felt FF7R wa phenomenal, but people were complaining because it was on a store they didn't like and had some minor studder issue (which despite watching a Digital Foundry video I really could not perceive).
On the other side I've heard issues with Eldin Ring on PC and people don't seem to mind. It all feels so arbitrary
It's not that subjective if you want value for your money. I swore off games from companies like EA and Acti-Blizz because they make you pay merely for the 'privilege' of spending more money on digital fluff that will disappear with the next installment. I would rather give $30 to an indie game company who made something that isn't constantly reaching for your wallet.
It is subjective, becsuse value is subjective. I don't care if COD is free forever with no strings attached, I'm not a shooter fan.
Regardless, note that my examples were all single full releases without any MTX, and GOTY contenders (so it's not like they skimped on quality). People don't need nickle and diming to complain about price.
And a constant complaint I hear about indie games is that they are too expensive for what they ask, because they don't have the skinner devices the AAA games employ to extend playtime. You can't win.
Is the game really that grand, or is it more the Fresh New Thing hype? I never really been able to get into RGBs, they just felt too grindy I guess, but this one made me curious, despite its steep price.
IMO, it's definitely a bit of "the Fresh New Thing" hype, but it really is just that good. This game isn't very grindy at all, it's far more narrative and decision-based. You'll die a lot, but that's just because of trial and error, positioning on the map, learning how terrain works, etc. And you can save whenever, so I'm pretty sure the constant dying is intended. I read that one boss encounter that's seemingly very difficult was a way for them to track how players handled boss fights during the alpha, so that's pretty neat.
Thanks, sounds quite worthwhile. Think I'll give it a go!
There's no grinding at all if you're thinking Diablo-like.
You can explore optional areas for loot/XP which I would of course suggest, but there's absolutely no grinding. No enemies respawn or anything like that.
If you haven't played their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 - I highly recommend it as well. Both are incredibly narrative and strategy driven.
Hmm that sounds like a case of "not my problem" especially when the best game I played last year, Signalis, cost me like half the price of a retail release...
It's not my problem.
If you don't want to have to roll with a current, don't jump in a river. Standing on the bank telling folks "now ya'll stop looking at that pretty boat those folks made" won't accomplish anything, save perhaps looking really insecure. All there is, is to make your own, sail it, and see how it does. At least that's how I understand it. I'm no professional but I do make things, and it strikes me as insecurity when folks try to prevent comparison/criticism. You can't stop people from doing it, and it doesn't matter that they don't know the craft or whatever, they're going to do it. You just have to take what comes, decide if it matters, and then keep on with it if that's what you wanna be doing.
"H-how can people enjoy a game without microtransactions?! People love spending money on artificial scarcity because that's what we told them they love!"
-All AAA publishers and devs
They know micro transactions and artificial scarcity makes games less fun. They don't care because they also make more money.
Until people speak with their wallets and stop pre-ordering games (so they can read reviews and find out of its finished before purchasing), stop spending money on micro transactions, and even stop purchasing games with micro transactions in them, the companies aren't going to stop. They will pursue whatever is profitable until consumers make it no longer profitable.
It would be easier if they hadn't conned an entire generation into thinking such behaviour is okay.
It's clear that the market will never solve that problem. The only other option then is regulation. And I don't see how that would work without violating free speech rights since a game is still ultimately a creative endeavor.
Skinner Box manipulation is gross but it's getting implemented in new ways all the time. Loot boxes are out, season passes are in. It's always something. How would we even regulate session passes? Or pay to win? Or in-game cosmetic shops with thousands of dollars of available options?
It's all in how they're done. If you create the game without microtransactions in mind (aside from what's needed to later add them) and the microtransactions don't take away from the game and can be totally ignored then I don't see any issues. It's the P2W, immersion breaking items that don't belong in the world, rigging the game to get you to buy things, gambling for drops, etc.. are all bad, very bad.
Whether or not you can ignore the microtransactions isn't the problem, the problem is this type of predatory business model has become the norm and seems to get rammed into literally all AAA games regardless of the type of game. Publishers can't bear to potentially leave even a single dime on the table. They've brainwashed an entire generation of gamers to believe that being low-level fleeced on a constant basis is alright.
It used to be literally impossible to spend more than, say, $100 on a game. If I loved StarCraft, all there was to buy was the game and the Brood War expansion. That was it. There was no cash shop, no season pass... Hell, there wasn't even a second expansion.
You're 100% right that publishers seem to think that that is anathema. There has to be persistent revenue streams and a million different ways for players to spend money beyond the purchase of the game. On full price, AAA games, no less.
As much as I love in game cosmetics, I absolutely refuse to spend money on anything that doesn't give me more story in a game. But I'm in a minority. The market has decided that microtransactions are the way to go.
Yeah, if it's not new maps or something to do, I usually refuse to buy it. Skins mean nothing to me, especially when I can't see them on my own character half the time. I show off through skill, and nothing burns sweaty players like being soundly beaten by somebody wearing the default skin.
The sad fact is that it's easier to make a game with microtransactions, live service and DLCs planned out profitable than it is to do the same with a game that you just sell once.
I don't know who funded Larian Studios, but someone has dropped millions and millions to keep them afloat while making a passion project of a game with insane amounts of spoken dialog and so many differing paths they literally had to increase the save file size because all the variants couldn't fit in the allocated space.
But I do know if BG3 hadn't been an instant mega hit, someone out there would've been stuck holding the bill with no way of getting their money back except for trying to sell the game at a discount during Steam sales hoping to regain some of the cost.
With a game that's designed to get new content at a regular cadence (like Diablo IV for example), there is a way to bring in new players and a long tail of money to offset the costs. If you do well, you recoup the up-front development costs and pay for the live service team's costs too - after that you're making actual profit you can roll over to other projects.
Apparently they have funded BG3 from D:OS 1 & 2 revenue + 30% Tencent stake in the company. They almost went bankrupt while making DOS and it had some rough edges to show initially. But their effort paid off, I have enjoyed the game with my wife, paid for the 2nd game as well (that was significantly more polished from the get-go) and now they used our money to make BG3.
So they had millions of revenue from games they made using revenue from games before that AND even more millions from Tencent =)
That's kind of my point. It's not impossible to make a game like BG3 without any live service, but it's damn hard and an extremely expensive gamble.
Nonsense, games as games was the norm and "live service" is just an additional way of making money. This isn't a gamble, this is normal operating procedure if you ask me.
Blizzard has thousands of employees and millions more than Larian and they are doing live service too. Amounts of money doesn't seem to be the deciding factor, having another earning vector is.
Edit: some spelling
When it was the norm only a handful of games were coming out a year despite the games themselves being simple enough that the entire development team could fit in a single office. They also cost enough to where most people could only really afford to get a couple of new games a year if that. I generally got 1 video game for my birthday and 1 for Christmas. The idea that I would one day just get a few new games for free every month through Epic, or that the $60 a year I pay Playstation would entitle me to 2 more free games every month would have blown my little mind.
It's also impossible to compete with a paid-up-front game when you have to compete with F2P games. You're being undercut on price.
I honestly don't know of a time ever that only a handful of games were coming out a year. Even in the days of my old Epson XT with dual floppies I could go to the local mall and get a disc with half a dozen new games on the regular.
The smaller the studio the faster they could crank out games since they were more focused on cranking things out instead of death by committee.
While price may be A consideration it is hardly the only consideration. I will never install Fortnight, Overwatch or any of those free/freemium skinnerbox games. I'll gladly pay per month to play Elder Scrolls Online and buy games like 7 Days to Die and series like Fall Out and Borderlands where I usually will wait for GOTY editions.
Since these franchises still exist and are doing well that also seems to discount your claim that it is impossible to compete with F2P games.
These would basically be considered toy apps today and most of them were Shareware, which is about as close to a 'freemium' model as you could get away with before the internet.
Remember in those times, the equivalent of a modern AAA game could only be played in a coin-op arcade which is hardware-based microtransactions to play.
I must be remembering it differently than you. Back in the mid-80s games like King's Quest I, Silent Service, Chuck Yeager Advanced Flight Simulator were top tier games for their time. When a game asked for "Disc 2" it was a MOMENT, lol. Those are titles I had and played just off the top of my head. Maybe they weren't AAA games since I'm sure the term hadn't been coined yet.
The discs I got weren't shareware (in the sense that they weren't limited levels, timed out after a certain period or any other typical shareware limitation). At the most they were nagware (Please send $1 in the mail to this PO BOX if you liked this game, etc). Perhaps some might have been pirated? Some guy had a kiosk in the mall that sold floppy discs with generic labels for like $3-5 full of "games" or "business programs" as well as professionally boxed things like Print Shop 1.0, Broderbund programs, etc.
Regardless, I hope you have a great weekend!
Judging from the previous games, namely D:OS, I don't believe it was just a business to them. It felt like they actually enjoyed making the games.
To me it seems that D:OS and now BG3 were the goals for Swen Vincke, not means as for many others. And I am willing to give him and his company the benefit of the doubt.
Do you really believe that in order to be able to make good games any decent studio must first concentrate on making some exploitative ones? Because that's how they become addicted to making bad games and we never get the good ones.
I am willing to purchase potentially good games in early access to support ideas I enjoy. Even if it sometimes doesn't pan out. I wouldn't dream of supporting studio making gacha games in hopes of it ever creating something actually good.
It doesn't have anything to do with costing money or being a gamble. It has to do with share holders and profits. Period.
There are tons of games without micro-transactions that are amazing. You just have to choose to go that route.... which most AAA's do not since they want to milk more and more profits.
Not to take away from their achievement, but I was just discussing this with my brother, and one of the things that helped get Baldur's Gate 3 to where it's at today is that they sold early access to the game. They allowed people to pay to beta test of the game.
I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. In fact, it might be a very good thing for a double-A studio who doesn't have a giant publisher behind them to front the costs for development. But could they have released this game as it is now without that?
The amount of games wallowing in the Endless Swamps of Early Access on Steam is getting a bit ridiculous now =)
Some are good enough already, others seem to be in perpetual EA.