baldur’s gate 3
There’s no greater success story than 2023’s Baldur’s Gate 3. It won a GOTY, was a huge hit on PC and consoles, and set a new standard not only for TTRPGs, but for RPGs in general. And now, when Larian says something, everyone pays attention.
Currently co-founder and CEO of Larian Swen Vinke talks about Ubisoft’s recent comments that players need to be “comfortable” without owning content, and talks about what the future of gaming looks like with subscription models.
Vinke…doesn’t quite believe it. Even when Larian announced that his Baldur’s Gate 3 was coming to Xbox, he simultaneously revealed that it wasn’t, and never would be, coming to Game Pass. Now he’s expanding on it by posting detailed comments on Twitter about the value of the game and the potential harm of subscriptions in the long run. His full comment is below.
“No matter what the future holds for gaming, content will always be king,” Vinke says. “But as subscriptions become the dominant model and select groups decide what goes to market and what doesn’t, it’s going to be much harder to get good content. . Direct communication from developers to players is the way to go.”
“It’s nearly impossible to get board approval for a project fueled by idealism, and there needs to be room for idealism, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription Model is ultimately an exercise in cost/benefit analysis, always with the aim of maximizing profits.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, but it may not become a monopoly on subscription services. We’re already dependent on a select group of digital distribution platforms, and discoverability is brutal. It would be even worse if all these platforms switched to subscriptions.”
“In such a world, the subscription service’s preferences, by definition, dictate what kind of games are made. Trust me, you really don’t want that.”
“We respect that subscription services are an opportunity for many developers to make games, but you won’t find our games on subscription services. We’re fine with that. Other ecosystems are not worth it. That’s why I want to make sure it doesn’t die.”
In Larian’s case, this is clearly true, and it’s hard to imagine that a company like Microsoft would have greenlit a hugely expensive turn-based RPG for day-one release on Game Pass if it hadn’t been independent. Because it’s almost impossible. Instead, Larian built it themselves and released it themselves. And here we are, winning a GOTY award and 5 months after launch, drowning in hundreds of thousands of concurrent players.
This has been used in the console wars debate as a direct attack on Microsoft, but the issue clearly goes far beyond that. In the first place, Vincke is talking about Ubisoft’s comments here, and even though Sony won’t be releasing exclusive titles from day one like Microsoft is, Sony is clearly releasing games that it doesn’t “own” in the traditional sense. It has its own subscription service that it offers to its players. It’s still the same principle.
Vincke says that some games won’t be made without paying large sums of money from the likes of Microsoft to get them on Game Pass and other similar examples, but the industry as a whole has moved on from this model. The point about the dangers of chasing is clear. There will be fewer games like Baldur’s Gate 3, and they will be less sustainable overall.
It is clear that the industry is relentlessly pursuing this model. Microsoft is all about this, and the likes of Ubisoft and EA have already bought into it. Sony is grappling with the limited reach of one-off games, though not to the same extent as PS Plus, and wants to change that. I feel like incidents like Baldur’s Gate 3 will become rarer in the future, and we won’t see a blossoming, diverse industry.
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