How Baldur's Gate 3 Has Proven the Games Industry Is Broken

[@easternlights3155]

Every time Baldur's Gate 3 being an eye opener in mentioned, I remember that one tweet that went "BG3 shouldn't be considered norm because Larian received massive funding from Wizards of the Coast" and Larian just replied "what funding" and it turned out they had to pay Wizards for using the Forgotten Realms IP, not vice versa.

[@astranger448]

Well, they are a Studio of few words and big actions. Did a bit with a bear and the whole world was talking about them. Then they delivered the bear.

[@prototypelq8574]

True, but BG3 still is NOT norm and shouldn't be considered one. Not every game or stodio can spend six or more years in development on a project, and more importantly, other studios might know where and when to cut their costs and cut some corners. Larian still haven't learned to do that. And it's been kind of hurting their games for a long time now - cut some side content from every Act of DOS2 or BG3 and the games wouldn't loose much, they're still ginormous, but the player experience would improve and the team would have more time for polish. As both BG3 and DOS2 were kind of raw on release, which is why BG3 is still getting patched, and DOS2, while much improved, is not really refined either even in it's Definitive edition.

[@michasokoowski6651]

@@prototypelq8574 Not every studio? Yeah. Every studio making AAA title? Sure they can. Starfield was in development for 8 freaking years and for what? Cyberpunk was in development for 8 years as well. Elden ring took 5 years (+dlc still in production) AAA titles just can take THAT long (and it's also a part of why they are AAA games)... unless it's a moneyprinter like assassins creed where they just swap some things from the last one. It just doesn't feel like it takes that long, since some things are indeed cut and later added in dlcs, just like larian does right now with patches, like the last one adding epilogue. Now mind you that i think larian also didn't outsource in bg3 development And when it comes to cuting off side content... look at witcher 3, this game is basically a side content game, main storyline is an accessory.

[@prototypelq8574]

@@michasokoowski6651 Agreed, this is not applicable to AAA (4A really) can spare the resources to achieve this amount of content, only if the production is not butchered into devs meatgrinder and forced into a two-year dev cycle or smth. As for content cutting - I meant that Larian's ambitions are much greater than their resources. And it feels like they haven't learned that yet. I'm sure both DOS2 and BG3 could have been even better if some content was cut in production, and Larian had used that time for polishing, or finishing the story instead. Content bloat is very much a problem for the main narrative of these games.

[@michasokoowski6651]

@@prototypelq8574 I don't think their content bloat is as an issue with ambitions as it is an issue with developers working on stuff they want to work. I wouldn't be surprised if they had x hours to work on stuff they have to work and y hours to work on stuff they want to work on.

[@taylorh4501]

The problem with the gaming industry is that they aren't trying to make your favorite game anymore. They are trying to make a profit printer. So disappointing.

[@Techstriker1]

Which as Embracer Group demonstrated, can fail catastrophically.

[@ekki1993]

That's just corporatisation. When the main driver is the profit motive, you get games catering to shareholders wanting to see line go up.

[@starojunes]

the result of capitalism. Art isn't valued. Infinite growth is valued. Art is then made to appeal to the largest audiences to make the most money but this makes the art feel shallow. Larian had a niche and stuck to it. They had a vision and wanted to cater to a specific audience. It's up to consumers to change the tide.

[@kurrwa]

Then vote with wallets I never buying game from Ubisoft again and didn’t buy anything for like 7 years or so. I’m nothing but when a million people will protest like me then they will see something. Stop complaining start making action

[@kurrwa]

I don’t even buy games on sales from Ubisoft. They also collect your data and selling

[@shadeitplease7383]

Game devs coming out saying stuff like “BG3 shouldn’t be the norm don’t expect that from the industry at large” and other nonsensical opinions told me all I needed to know.

[@Cadence-qt2ux]

F those Game devs hard

[@sayLeotardbutsayitChinese]

"But.... but we want to continue being lazy.... This kinda ruins it for us....."

[@TheHectic0ne]

Yeah, it made me feel sick when I was seeing that. The good thing is that Divinity Original Sin 3 will be coming

[@Awoken0]

They tried to find every excuse in the book to justify their criticism, but thankfully it didn't work.

[@davidgriffin9247]

"don't expect us to actually put work into something we love when the low-hanging cash grab is right in front of us"

[@KittyScythe]

BG3 is a great game, and it's so good that everyone excuses the bugs and the jank, because it's not "Bethesda Laziness" jank, it's jank caused by passion and a large vision. You can see the love and care put in to every single part of it that the bugs are just fun and not frustrating. I've put hundreds of hours in to BG3 since I bought it, and hit lots of bugs and lag, but gods has it been the best time I've had with a game in a long time.

[@Primitive_Pug]

And they are still supporting and patching the game. They seem to actually care that their customers are getting a good experience. I didn’t mind the bugs because what they made was ambitious.

[@astranger448]

Even better. It is jank caused by the reality that they are an independent studio. They must work within limits of time and money and release good but not as good as what they are wishing for. Then BG3 happened the way it did, with loads of fresh money is rolling in, and all these devs now can really flex their muscles. They just released the 5th patch to add a lot of extra game play and 2 new gaming modes. And if the past is an indication there might well be a free Definitive Edition with even more goodies.

[@KristianKumpula]

One of the reasons why you can tell the bugs aren't because of the higher-ups DGAF is the amount of effort they're putting in post-launch support. Not only are they releasing patches at a good rate, but those patches include additional content that most other studios wouldn't think is worth making for free. The latest patch added 3500 lines of dialogue and a new epilogue scene. Compare that to Starfield's post-launch support and it seems like a rather shameful display from Bethesda

[@TheJohhnyE]

So now we're praising companies for not finishing their jobs and instead doing so after they took our money? 😂

[@TheJohhnyE]

​@KristianKumpula stop lying and pretending the content we're getting us anything other than cut content they didn't finish when they were supposed to. 😅

[@dougray30]

In a sense, Kira, all you've discovered here is that the gaming industry learned by watching Hollywood. Rather than using original ideas, visionary presentation, and respecting the audience, Hollywood churns out repeats, sequels, and mental garbage. It's easier, cheaper, and safer to follow the bland, tedious formula. Less work, nearly the same result. And many consumers would rather choose a side and be insanely loyal, calling each new release "the greatest of the year" (or decade, or forever), than look honestly at the gruel in the dish.

[@zac-1]

that's clearly what people want lmao just remakes and remasters and sequels of games they played when they were a child with no job and no responsibilities.

[@kidsinafrica3080]

Easy fast money. Doing it right is less effective way of earning money in short term therefor spamming trash in a dress is more favorable for those who finance it.

[@JJJBunney001]

It's not a Hollywood thing, it was going on in music long before. All it is, in a basic sense, is the corporatisation of entertainment. Big money companies, like Amazon or Embracer come in just to make money. They don't care, they buy out companies and try flip em as quick as they can for profits

[@sayLeotardbutsayitChinese]

Which is exactly why small creators are kicking ass right now, and after their long stint of forsaking and ultimately forgetting what makes something quality, people are turning away from certain game studios and Hollywood in general. Homogenization is a great idea for milk. For entertainment, not so much.

[@AllThingsFilm1]

Great points. Like Hollywood, game devs are going for what already works. So, they rehash popular maps from earlier releases of the same game. Like COD's new MW3, they have "War" mode which simply uses maps from older CODs and slaps them down on a large open world environment. Almost making MW3 indiscernible from MW2 or MW (2019). They supposedly spend millions of dollars on each iteration, yet the game looks almost identical to the previous release. Are they really spending all that money? Or just snorting coke off the belly of hookers while laughing all the way to the bank?

[@ashe_]

Gamedev here. My soul and passion has been sucked out by 'leaders' who lead from the back rather than the front, and executives who don't play the damn game. I now coast, have depression and have a binge eating disorder and I've had to put even less effort into my work because I need to focus on myself. My purpose in life, to make other people happy, feels impossible in such an industry. I'm an optimist, I pray that things heal. I don't even like BG3 as much as divinity, nor did I like Elden Ring as much as their prior entries, but I'm so thankful they exist and that they are constantly showing the rest of the industry what success looks like. Thanks for the video :)

[@sandequation2653]

Damn bro, I hope you feel better soon.

[@JustMonikaOk]

Divinity 2 was a better game in my view, so you're not alone. If this isn't making you happy, you should change careers. You can bring joy to people in other ways.

[@TheR6R6R]

I also enjoy Divinity and especially its combat and character building much more than BG3's need to adhere to 5E DnD. In my opinion, Larian can do so much more if they weren't bound by that ruleset, so here's hoping for D:OS3. That said, I can imagine how horrible your experience must've felt. It's a special kind of inner conflict when you're actively being prevented from performing to the best of your abilities in something that you love and are passionate about.

[@AlexiaHoardwing]

Curious, how often do you (personally) deal with crunch?

[@LaMereACaniche]

⁠I'm going to assume you work for a rather big studio. There's still hope in the smaller studios, don't give up. Use the experience in that job to get a good position somewhere else.

[@jopearson6321]

I think the big problem here, and everywhere, is that people don't get nearly angry enough about being lied to. That makes it trivially easy to lie and hype things up and never deliver. And so we get a world run by habitual liars and socioaths. When people lie to us, we need to get angrier.

[@Dante3214]

I had a family member who was a pathological liar. I immediately feel strongly if I am lied to. Recently lost a lot of respect for a buddhist teacher who told a minor fib... but it broke my trust completely. While that is kind of an extreme example, I agree 100% people should absolutely resent being lied to. Generally the people doing the lying hold those they lie to in contempt. I think a big part of the problem is being angry over being lied to would mean admitting you were wrong in the first place and some can't or won't do that. That's how it seems to work in cults. The leader makes a mistake, a fraction of the cult becomes disillusioned while the rest either didn't see through the facade at all, or their mind explains it away to prevent disillusionment (and separation from the group who they typically rely on to survive). I guess trump is a pretty good example of this. Man can lie constantly but most of them just don't see it, and if you point it out to them they will acknowledge his dishonesty, and unsurprisingly, do not care. To steal a line from rick and morty, "People want who they like to be right, that's why stupid people are popular."

[@olafsigursons]

sure because BG is not over hyped right? FO2 was a way better CRPG and it's more than 20 yo.

[@shadesmarerik4112]

And with angrier u mean what exactly?

[@kearseymorton2078]

my dude, there are more important things to get angry about, look at the world around you FFS, it is only video games

[@TheNerd]

The problem is, that people still buy these products (like COD or AC ). If games do not sell, executives listen, otherwise they don't give af, no matter how much you scream about it on Reddit or Twitter. The moment you give them your money, you have lost. THE ONLY solution is to stop buying Tripple A games.

[@hanspecans]

“Late is temporary, suck is forever” -Gabe

[@pixler4208]

explain how they release cs2 today? or csgo? oh wait they like to make money like everyone :)

[@abdou.the.heretic]

"I suck." -Gaben.

[@BeedrillYanyan]

​@@pixler4208yeah no fucking shit. Everyone likes to make money, including you, especially when they're a corporation made for exactly that kind of activity.

[@derekhalcon8287]

@@pixler4208 what are you talking about?

[@senseiii3986]

"life is suck" - toe jogan

[@cernunnos_lives]

I absolutely agree. How games are made currently is way broken. And Larian did this without over monetization. If the company that owns the D&D IP (Wizards of the Coast) had their way, it would've been ruined with every sleazy monetization scheme you can think of. So it's heart warming that Larian pulled this off without the sleaze and greed.

[@olafsigursons]

Larian are the worst DM ever. Their story is boring and all they can do to add tension to the story is to pit the player against OP over buffed enemies. Just like a RTS from 2000. Worst 95$ I spent in a long time.

[@markobucevic8991]

@@olafsigursons go and play pathfinder or learn to min max god damn DnD 5e.

[@Dermetsu]

@@olafsigursons nice bait.

[@byghostlight1]

Source? Because from where I stand it is only because of the freedom WoTC gave Larian in terms of time and scope the game was made. Yes WoTC have a long record of short changing gamers, so why is this different? You think a company as small as Larian simply overpowered a company as huge as WoTC to get complete freedom? hardly. It makes more sense that someone/s are WoTC had faith in Larian and the product, so decided to not do what they did with all their other games.

[@666Daheretic]

​@@byghostlight1I'll give you three reasons why WotC did not give them the freedom they had. 1. Larian paid for the license to make the game. 2. They were not funded by WotC. 3. They independently developed and published BG3 on their own. Those very three reasons are exactly why WotC couldn't put their greedy practices in Larian's game even they tried. The only way was if Larian did it themselves which clearly they do not believe in that nonsense. P.S. I realize 2 and 3 are similar but a game can be developed and published independently and still be funded by the IP holder so I'm counting it.

[@lucasm2344]

I felt a similar way after playing rainworld. Two developers, basically no budget, and yet they make a piece of art. If I want a truly good game, I go to indie developers. The big game companies only care about how much money the lowest common denominator slop they push out makes them. They're corporations now, not game studios.

[@olafsigursons]

BG is not a piece of art. FO2 was a better CRPG and it's more than 20 yo. The only things new is maybe some gay sex scenes. It has a lot of bug. The story is derivative. The intro is basically the same as DOS2 and the story is cp2077 in D&D.

[@lucasm2344]

@@olafsigursons my comment was about a different game. Whether or not you enjoy BG3 is irrelevant. Indie games are still miles above triple A in terms of quality. I think that's inarguable.

[@BoinkrNanis]

Been only on indie games for a few years now and I get more out of my dollar with games that are only 20$ and I'm guaranteed a better finished product.

[@mbarker_lng]

Having worked in the industry, I can tell you about some of the roots of these practices. One is that typically, but not exclusively, a company profits most off the sequel to a game, not the original. The R+D costs are only a fraction of the original product when you are just adding some features and content. The early poster child for the most extreme form of this, the pioneer if you will, was Madden Football. EA discovered they could basically sell the exact same game every year just by changing some of the data; new players and stats with a 'graphical refresh' only every so often. I've heard it said there is still code in Madden from the early 90s. Fast forward to 2023 and what do we have? Countless sequels to the same IPs. Another factor is "fresh faces". The company I worked for made Civilization among other titles. They discovered if you sell a sequel to Civ every 5 years or so (very roughly), you'll have new players that literally did not exist before because they were 8 or something. So, while Call of Duty 107: Future Schlock is stale as a year-old bagel to us, to some kid hitting 12, it is effectively a new game with no basis for comparison. Finally, and I know I don't have to say this but I will- the power of marketing. The big players now can shout from the mountaintops at 3000 decibels that their latest journey into mediocrity is the "Greatest Game Ever Ever EVER" and some people are going to buy into that propaganda. This is the power of 100M$ marketing campaigns across media platforms. This is very different from having to make a good game and hope it scored high in the latest PCGamer review and word-of-mouth sales.

[@View619]

Seeing Larian's rise from Kickstarter origins (after being a niche CRPG studio) to a standout amongst its contemporaries has been great to experience. Who thought that we would end up here, back during their Divinity: Original Sins campaign?

[@Sirinoeles]

Me😅. I still remember playing Divinity Original Sin 2 thinking: if only we could have Baldur's Gate 3 with awesome mechanics like that. It would be cult classic. And then it got announced.😮

[@nbrown5907]

Yea who would have thought giving them money 3 years before a game release and getting loads of free testers for that time would annoy anyone. Fuck Larian studios!

[@TheJohhnyE]

Even better is that they are just as bad as the companies we pretend to hate, but for some reason we lie for this company and claim they're somehow better. 😂

[@Toactwithoutthinking]

I skipped BG3 because of how lackluster and tedious the gameplay of Divinity 1 and 2 had. Wasn't for me, didn't feel fun. Seems like they just needed a better gaming system to put their own systems into.

[@michasokoowski6651]

@@TheJohhnyE Could you specify anything?

[@14zrobot]

There is a difference between making an art and making a product. You can see it in games and movies, and it applies throughout. If you hire a great artist and make it work on something they do not care about, the result is not expected to be great. And with a huge studio, we are averaging precisely this. So we go from making something great but risky to having average gameplay for common folk. Business people sit and decide to take a safe bet every time. Big companies may have branches that do "art" type of games, but they will never be like this overall.

[@jeffafa3096]

The reason BG3 is so incredibly good is because of the story it tells and the replayability of the game. It's the creativity, immersion and graphics that truly make this a top-notch product, something I haven't found in "triple A" games for years now. For the past few years, I've mostly played games like Baldur's Gate 3, Valheim and Minecraft, because there just isn't any good "triple A" game out there. I've even tried going back to WoW, but it was such a bore and grind that I felt was not worth $10/month at all. Even indie games like Vampire Survivors and Terra Nil are so much more worth it than these games from high-end studios...

[@GrayFates]

It feels like this video could have been made 10 years ago. It's weird that BG3 came out (with a game in a genre almost no one plays, CRPGs) and everyone suddenly awoke from a decade long slumber, slapped their foreheads and went, "Oh right, AAA games suck"

[@Avendesora]

If you don't think people have been pointing out how shitty AAA games are for the last 20 years you haven't been paying any attention at all

[@olafsigursons]

BG3 sucks though. I need more than a few sex scene to declare a game to be a new standard. It has way more bugs and problems than Hogwart Legacy.

[@Avendesora]

@@olafsigursons This comment is so fucking funny, thank you

[@View619]

​​@@olafsigursonsYour opinion sucks, BG3 has been widely embraced for a reason. Meanwhile, nobody cares about Hogwarts Legacy, which does absolutely nothing to set itself apart from every other copy-paste open world RPG. It's fine if you prefer one game over another. But you're wrong about where they rank overall, and should probably just shut up about it.

[@TomJakobW]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@Avendesoracomment history shows he’s a Hogwarts legacy fanboi who doesn’t like that this (let’s be honest, mid - not bad, not trailblazing) game is overshadowed. I don’t even understand the mental gymnastics needed to think, comparing two games in entirely different genres with each other and looking at a couple bugs as defining factor of what is “better”, is a sensible thing to do… Besides: Larian didn’t come out and shit on everyone, yelling “we are better than everyone”. In fact, they were at any point very sensible when the first hype and criticism of the industry came up; very collegiate. They just love what they do and present themselves as very down to earth. So of course BG3 itself has to obey the rules of capitalism and didn’t come down from the heavens. I feel like, some people miss that point a bit. Many Bugs? Sure, they could have waited another year for release; people recommend that very quickly. “We will wait!”, they yell. I recommend those people to calculate the cumulative cost of such a move. We don’t live in Narnia… Can’t fix the industry overnight.

[@sozetsukokai9327]

It had to do with how in CEO handbooks, there's basically a scale of how happy your workers are. Usually something between happy and disgusted. They never want you to be on the happy side but at the same time keep you from being completely disgusted. AAA gaming is basically applying the same model to customers. Never happy because that makes you not pay more but also never disgusted so you keep paying. Thinking like that, I can understand why they release as they do.

[@issamelarmi]

Things will only change if there is an incentive to do so. Once these practices start hurting the bottom line, publishers/devs will change their ways. Until then, nothing will change/ Especially since consumers are still bending over backward to give publishers their money regardless of the quality of the games

[@Cadence-qt2ux]

Sega Shils love Denuvo - so neec more

[@ToonZ_1776]

We need to reinforce devs. Trust is a two way street and we need to support game devs that care, not corporate garbage. It's time to cut out the corporate cancer. Follow good devs.

[@Thedrunkenswede1337]

Problem is when the money starts rolling in greed always become a factor.

[@Ytinasniiable]

I think it's a bit lenient to larian to call BG3 "finished at launch", but what they did do was ensure the first 20-30 hours played was polished to near perfection, giving them way more time to polish act 2&3 since the vast majority of players wouldn't be able to fly through the first act in one or two long sessions and instead would take weeks to reach that point, which gave them time to patch significant issues in later acts well before most people would have a chance to see them (while still taking advantage of players paying to test their game) Larian just used the model that we've seen on several recent releases in a more subtle and effective way that made it far less noticeable than say when CDPR dropped cyberpunk or when Jedi survivor dropped (if the first half of these games were mostly bug free and the second half was patched within weeks to clean up major bugs the press would've been much more positive at launch) However the game is an absolute banger in the cRPG genre, so they deserve all the praise for story depth and immersion as well as general interactivity and improvements to the cRPG gameplay model

[@astranger448]

CDPR went from a Polish studio working on a Polish IP (The Witcher) to being an international studio working on an international IP. That took a lot of growing that did not go well at first. Larian is an independent studio that has a long experience of working on time and within budget. They always make something good that tapers off in the end because they know how far they can stretch the money and thus time. But when a game does well and brings fresh time and money they let rip. They just released patch 5 which brings a lot of new goodies and 2 new modes of game play. Probably all things that were conceptualized a long time ago but dependent on there being the means to make them. It's a bit of Star Citizen in reverse. Instead of promising a bigger ice cream if only you keep giving more money, Larian keeps on giving the free ice cream because they have the money already. And I bet they are already putting the next game(s) in the pipeline.

[@dzigawalker2368]

Spot on Kira. I hope the CEO's of every game development firm from Indie to AAA watch this. I'm a 45 year old British gamer, going back to the ZX81 days. The ingenuity of those small niche games developers back (e.g. Codemasters for just one example) back then was awesome. Amazing games on very primitive platforms. As processing and tech have come on I have been so excited yet unfortunately, the last 10 years has become horrific. Mass produced nonsense with a price tag and more (DRM/DLC, lootboxes etc). Here's to the future

[@MegaTerryNutkins]

I very rarely have any enthusiasm for big games now, just so used to them being disappointments driven by parasitic decisions to please shareholders. Games like Valheim were huge gamechangers for me, a tiny team of creative people managed to deliver so much for so little just by statying true to their vision and wanting to give us an incredible experience.

[@_Morri_]

It's funny you bring out this video right now! I was just thinking about it, since I discovered this gem of an Indie game a few days ago, that I'm unable to put down because it's so addictive and well made. Funny, great story, you notice the love poured into it with each little easter egg and each tiny detail. Completely made by a solo dev, who has issues getting publicity for his game. It's sad really, like you said, the big studio's bring out repetitive cr*p, but have no problem getting coverage, from the content creators as well, since they know they'll get more views when they cover a game already popular or highly anticipated. While small indie games don't get popular because they can't get coverage, just because they are not popular. It's a vicious circle sadly. (In case anyone is interested; the game is "Final Profit: A Shop RPG". It's really a hidden gem, and it has a free demo to try it out as well. Funnily, it also makes great satire of the loot boxes and battle passes in the gaming industry, since you can decide to start selling them in your shop. :-))

[@l-_-lForkBombl-_-l]

I pirate games and if I like it I always buy it I got sick of getting burned by these huge companies.

[@AlexiaHoardwing]

Why pirate, why even give a bad game the benefit of doubt from the huge companies making it clear they don't care about you?

[@caster269]

The saddest part of all this is watching devs be unanimously used as the scapegoat of player frustration while the shareholders with 100's of millions to their name force executive decisions on them. The recent situation with Bungie and Destiny is probably the first time I got genuinely angry rather than disappointed by it. It was infuriating to find out that the devs everyone called out of touch were genuinely taking feedback for years, only to have nameless executives/shareholders call change risky and endlessly demand more of the same formulaic content that lead players to burnout. The past decade has felt like a rude awakening to the fact that most people on the business side of gaming fundamentally do not care or understand that the medium of video games will unilaterally lead to decline if the only focus is growth without regard to consumers. When even the biggest IP's in history like WoW and CoD are declining because of profit driven management you'd think others would realize the same applies to them. I'd believe it if someone told me a large portion of the industry is seeking unsustainable growth w/o care because the goal is to cash out at the peak and pass the problem of the longterm onto successors.

[@Koolega]

I don't know if it's because the background music or the final speech, but I didn't expect to watch a Kira vid and end with a nice feeling of optimism lol I'm a late buyer, I usually wait months before purchasing the "next big game", but with BG3 I bought it as soon as I read "overdelivering" in those tweets from AAA devs a few days after. And I may get the deluxe edition for the sake of it.

[@wardvandecotte9253]

I bought BG3 in early access on Steam. Now I ordered the Deluxe Edition to support Larian Studios.

[@awgates85]

While the developers do share some blame in this, it really goes a lot deeper. This is happening in more than just the games industry, these monolithic companies choke out or buy out competitors, making it very difficult for new smaller studios to survive, especially without investment. Investors really only care about short term returns, more than company ethics or reputation and have an outsized role in company policy and management.

[@rabbitcreative]

> While the developers do share some blame in this, it really goes a lot deeper. WAAAAAY deeper.

[@ruffynowa580]

Ubisoft and EA are the bane of the industry.. every day i wake up and hope to read both companys are filing for bankruptcy.. so far no luck

[@PxNxWxGxW]

You can include the three Bs as well. Bethesda, Blizzard and Bungie.

[@DualHelix]

I used to be a major beta tester for diverse games. Over the years I have seen true testers phased out. The companies just let the new player base find the bugs while they play. Whether or when the bugs are then patched is a whole other story.

[@PxNxWxGxW]

Passion and time made this a powerhouse. Most gaming companies maybe have half of that and rely on shareholders with their quarterly reports as their standards.

[@ZooDinghy]

You miss that this game has been in the making for decades. It's based on the divinity series AND Dungeons and Dragons. So actually, the opposite is the case. It's the use of known, battle tested game mechanics. If anything, this just shows how difficult it is to make a game that good. You need to make 7 Divinity games and 5.5 versions of Dungeons and Dragons, 6 years of development and 3 years of early access with a team of 300 people in 6 studios around the world that allows them to work 24 hours a day, and a budget of over $100 million dollars. That's very rare.

[@paneth8466]

I've been playing games since the Atari age and have more or less seen the evolution of the gaming industry over the years. Some of those years were amazing years like when the original Doom came out or the first Fallout game. I recall bugs being a thing in some of them but not even close to what they are now. Now they will launch with half a game that is broken and hardly tested, using the consumer as the play tester or they will sit in the purgatory that is Early Access sometimes staying there for multiple years while charging for in game items. 20 to 30 years ago this would not have been a thing. I honestly expected more in all those years but these days its hard to care about any game coming out because you know its just going to be a hot mess or its just going to be some shallow gameplay.

[@Lanoman123]

9:52 Gollum was forced upon the studio that made it, they weren’t prepared to make the game and didn’t want to release it

[@hyperlink95]

This is why Bungie's "Don't over-deliver" statements caused such a stir. FromSoft and Larian are always asking "How do we get better all the time" and live-service slop is trying to mitigate losses by delivering the bare minimum.

[@Javano_]

And then those same devs turn around and wonder why their game is in complete crisis, a couple years later...

[@Cyclone-wolf]

One of the plus sides to this in the last few years is that indie games have gotten so much more attention that otherwise might have been smothered. They tend to be not as long or polished, but the price generally reflects that. We've gotten games in really interesting and almost niche genres

[@42saram42]

I agree with you on this. I know part of it is age and knowing the value of a dollar compared to 30 something years ago when I first picked up a controller but it also just feels like games stopped being made for gamers at some point by the big studios. Now they just make games so shareholders can see their revenue go up a bit. It's really pushed me out of buying big franchises I used to love as a kid and I find most of my hours and purchases go into indie games and smaller studios these days because they feel more like labors of love than the soulless corporate stuff.

[@tepig2828]

For every 1 AAA game I buy, I buy like 10+ indie games. I don’t trust the AAA games industry anymore and wait days before buying a game to make sure it actually works.

[@alexlux3008]

Yes, and I usually never buy a AAA right away. I will wait a year or two for a sale. Less jank, lower price.

[@abdou.the.heretic]

I pirate corp 3A crap. Indie's where my money at.

[@MattM-oe6qs]

Days is not that long.

[@StephenMcGregor1986]

May the companies that keep screwing us either end up as Volition did this year or turn their ways around. Absolutely fantastic video Kira 😀

[@tomastuharsky]

Amazing commentary, Kira! I want to make two Indie games for Amiga next year and this has put a healthy amount of fear/responsibility in my heart. I better try to make them real good!

[@CatFish107]

I get the feeling that if you're making a game for Amiga, you're not doing it out of greed, and are likely to care about what you produce. Any of these big name games that turn out as trash could be forgiven their quality if they were priced accordingly. If the decision makers cared, they could pay folks to keep working on them until they've fixed up most of the bugs, and polished them up well before selling the game to the public.

[@dmitrisemenoff6455]

Another banger from my favourite basement dwelling brit. Keep them coming you make my day every time

[@toolittletoolate]

I too love every basement dweller from a country that mostly don't have basements, keep up the glorious work my brother

[@Peleski]

The big plus with BG3 is it's squarely aimed at the adult market. Similarly with movies that are "family friendly", adults find the obvious, generic storytelling dull and predictable. The adult level storytelling and moral complexity in BG3 is engaging and thought-provoking.

[@LocrianDorian]

There is just very little passion left in this industry, it is ran by executives and data analysts that don't care about games whatsoever. There are only very few shining exceptions to this.

[@h.s.6037]

This is not true. Indie devs is where the passion is. Big companies are just in for the money.

[@olafsigursons]

This game has been in early access for a long time and they couldn't fix the inventory or the path finding system. Or find a way other than fighting OP enemies to add tension? Or write an original story? Why is this game suppose to set a new standard when Hogwart Legacy was a way better game.

[@williammoore5081]

There is still passion there, it's just not at the top. But with AI coding I think we will see a lot of the barriers begin to break, letting those with passion flourish. Also going to see way more trash on steam, so I hope there is some quality control going on.@@olafsigursons

[@laurelkeeper]

But like Kira says, those few with passion are consistently outperforming those without. What happens when the executives start seeing that? What happens when the almighty data says "Hey bro, just make a good game ffs"? Hopefully, something good.

[@williammoore5081]

But the indies are not outperforming them where it counts most. Money. How much do you think the yearly FIFA games make? @@laurelkeeper

[@SamuraiMerrick]

The funny thing here is their previous game that launched in 2018/2019 is just as good. Divinity Original Sin 2 That game was considered one of the best PC games, but didn’t get much praise outside that community.

[@ekurisona663]

I can only imagine what's going to happen with steam when Gabe leaves

[@jmjedi923]

Oh God I forgot Gabe isn't an immortal being

[@avramnovorra]

Ive only been able to play a few titles released recently, and a good number of them were the indies like Signalis and Trepang², and though i am not finished playing i have to say got my money's worth with what ive experienced so far. I agree that as indie devs get better at making good games, then they'll be making more and more bangers the current triple A devs can only wish they could make.

[@iguiste23]

BG3 is one of the best games of the century!. There needs to be more games like this every year.

[@wardvandecotte9253]

I'm afraid we can't expect a masterpiece like BG3 every year.

[@Aveeguides]

I love BG3 and Larian Studios, but it’s important to remember that the core game design is based on D&D 5E. D&D 5E had 50 years of development and iteration behind it. It was play tested by players for years, and was already finished and polished when Larian started making BG3. If you’ve never played D&D before, then you probably don’t know just how much of the game is a direct 1:1 correlation to the paper mechanics. All of the HP and attributes of races, classes and subclasses, multiclass mechanics, leveling, damage types, resistances, magic system and spells, all of the ability proficiencies and modifiers, skill and ability checks, every single dice roll, including modifiers, advantage requirements, expendable item mechanics like potions and scrolls, monster stats, turn-based rounds and initiative etc. *was all taken exactly from the D&D 5E Player’s Handbook.* Hell, even the economy is based on the Dungeon Master’s Guide. A lot of items have 1:1 gold costs as described in the DM Guide. And all of the lore was already designed. The very base of the entire game was already designed and polished. I’m not saying Larian doesn’t deserve the praise it’s getting, but they took an already established game with numerical mechanics and systems, and implemented it into a video game. It’s like Magic Arena, based on the Magic The Gathering card game. Magic Arena isn’t winning awards, because it’s not as technically advanced, but the entire basis of the game and its mathematical mechanics were already designed. I think BG3 deserved all of its accolades. But if Larian had to design D&D 5E from the ground up, it would have taken 50 years. Because that’s how long it took over the course of 5 editions to get to 5E.

[@malcolmhodnett8874]

@@Aveeguidesin the same way other studios could choose to creatively build onto an existing genre/framework but they don’t build anything, they just recycle over and over

[@Aveeguides]

@@malcolmhodnett8874 No, I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. *All* of the foundational mechanics and statistics in BG3 were pre designed in D&D 5E. The *only* way you can expect other games to be designed similarly (in the same time frame) would be to base them off of other tabletop RPGs. So maybe you could get a video game based on the Star Wars tabletop RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, etc. But it isn’t something you can realistically expect from many studios. D&D is by far and large the most popular tabletop RPG. It is the biggest, in terms of published lore and mechanics, and it is the most diverse. What makes BG3 amazing is that the lore and world is really well established. If you’re someone who has never played D&D, it will feel very original. But if you’ve played D&D, it’s very familiar in the sense that it is mostly a 1:1 translation of the game. What I see your argument as is, “This video game version of Monopoly™ is amazing. Other studios need to learn how to make games like this.” There’s something off with that statement. That’s all I’m saying. In summary: *BG3 is just a recycling of an older game.*

[@nbrown5907]

The thing that annoyed me with Baldur's Gate 3 is they took money almost 3 years before release so they had customer's money and free beta testers to try to finish the game. I just went to the forums and saw postings about when will it be finished. SO now I am still waiting to play it again when it is truly finished. I am done with Larian studios pre-purchase of any type.

[@Nerazmus]

Yeah. Maybe once they releas Ultimate Edition the game will be ina finished state.

[@dougray30]

Kira decides to make my Saturday MUCH better.

[@Joric78]

I've mostly shifted to playing VR, because in itself VR still feels new and in constant development. The level of immersion and world building being something I've rarely experienced with PC gaming as an adult. Although as a kid in the '80s I could get fully immersed in Elite with CGA wireframe graphics and text, or simplistic top down RPGs, Wargames and Space exploration games like Ultima III, Empire or Starflight and adventure games like Kings Quest and Maniac Mansion. I guess I'm old, jaded and my imagination isn't as active as it once was. The degree of commercialisation and consumerism doesn't help either of course. Sadly the brilliant entries for VR are even fewer and further between, presumably due to the increased hardware demands and comparative market size.

[@corey2232]

I feel like the same things can be said for TotK too. The difference is BG3 came from a 3rd party, which is something we don't often expect.

[@Verloren167]

I think a big part of the problem is that 90% of the pay in EA and such is going to people who know nothing about games. That's why they're complaining about budgets

[@ekki1993]

Art is always hurt by corporatisation. That much has always been true and indie gaming being the only space that consistently innovates tells you all you need to know about what the profit motive does to creativity.

[@doughboy_6439]

That's not really true. What's true is that real, genuine, passionate art is rare, and corporate copies of it expand the volume of art but not the volume of exceptional art, thus diluting it.

[@ekki1993]

@@doughboy_6439 It's not dillution that's the problem, but management's intrusion that will push anything they think will maximise profits. It artificially limits creativity. Genuine, passionate art doesn't maximise profits. Corporations are structurally designed to give profits to shareholders. Nobody inside a corporation would give full freedom to an auteur no matter how famous they are (look at Kojima and Konami). Only in the indie (up to AA devs like Larian) space you can have a level of freedom that is actually conducent to genuine, passionate art being truly unleashed. Which is why all of the gaming revolutions in the past two decades have come from indie or amateur devs (MOBAs and PUBG were free mods, current roguelikes copy their best ideas from indie games like Slay the Spire). All the while, AAA is failing to create any "revolution" by trying to mainly make remakes/sequels, push useless tech like blockchain (and fail), force all of their games into genres that already exist (extraction shooters, MOBAs, etc.) or that they think will make more money (live service, esports, lootboxes)... This rot runs deep, and corporativism hasn't provided anything but scale, at the price of making everything it touches have less of a soul.

[@ekki1993]

@@doughboy_6439 (apparently my original comment got shadowbanned, youtube comment system is weird, I'll try to drop a shorter comment now) It's objectively true. Not even world-class auteurs like Kojima could get their artistic freedom inside of a corporation. The corporate bottom line is money. And that means taking away anything too risky, which ultimately makes art worse. And it's also ahistoric to claim otherwise. Look at any of the videogame revolutions in the past 20 years: MOBAs started as free mods. Extraction shooters started as free mods. Roguelikes were pushed hard by indie studios that made games like Slay the Spire back when the genre appeared to be unprofitable. On the other hand, AAA devs will only pump out remakes/remasters, sequels or games that jump on already existing bandwagons. Because they are less risky and that's the way to please shareholders.

[@Zthewise]

A indie team I have huge respect for is Yacht Club gaming. When Shovel Knight met its Kickstarter stretch goal and then some, they gave out two equal sized DLC campaigns for FREE.

[@danoeel3909]

Thank you, I hope more and more voices start calling out these companies for churning out slop for the sake of executive bonuses rather than for a good product.

[@thestatusjoe9949]

I think it’s becoming clear in every medium that the profit motive kills art. Unfortunately for us, chasing profit is pretty much the only way to successfully get a large project like a movie or a video game made in our society. That’s why indie devs make the best games, because they don’t have the same financial needs nor do they have the shareholders demands, so they can focus on art for art’s sake, although it may not be viable as a business model except in the most successful cases

[@MrHalstedt]

The Creative Assembly debacle hurt(s). We kinda knew we were cash cows and accepted it to a degree, but hearing the whistleblowers talk about how it was built to rinse us really stung

[@kitrakitarunaki]

I told everyone I know as soon as I tried the game, even if you don’t like turn based rpg, this game sets a new standard of quality. High end graphics, voice acting, animation, content, mechanics beyond just the turns, it’s major revolutionary quality. It’s sad most won’t touch it bc of the turn based but never in my 20 years of gaming have I ever binged a game to 100hrs in less than 3 weeks. Great video, good points, you’ve really articulated my feelings at least on this subject. Much like how Journey won the most game awards for an indie game years ago, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but that’s the nature of a masterpiece. Not everyone loves the Mona Lisa but we can most all agree it’s high art

[@carsonhawley8838]

Got into gaming after the AAA golden age. I almost exclusively play indie because the offer experiences that capture my imagination and I'm rarely disappointed.

[@BoinkrNanis]

Pay 70$ for a game that maxes out at 25 hours of play? Or, pay 20$ and let me check, yeah, 2k hours on PZ, I know what decisions I need to make.

[@CatFish107]

My secret to always being happy with my games purchases is to lag the state of the art. That way I can catch sales, only buy games that people have a good impression of after plating a while, occasionally get physical copies of hidden gems from ebay (pandemic and "retro collector boom" killed this). I bought snowrunner for switch during a sale a couple weeks ago, and now I'm hooked and also have hundreds of hours of mud truckin ahead of me. For an affordable price, too!

[@3ASY355]

A video essay on the second channel? ayo I like that.

[@KindredBrujah]

Look at Valheim as well. I bought it for something ludicrous like £15. That is staggeringly good value for that game. If it had been priced like a AAA game at maybe £60, I quite possibly would never have paid for it.

[@Datlynx]

The art and passion is just gone from video games - Larian did something incredible and I hope the rest of the gaming industry will open their eyes.

[@jpsuper]

Kong: Rise of Skull Island (or something), Gollum, The Walking Dead recently released, all examples where the studios are setting a bar to see with what they can get away with. Lower the bar and still asking 60 USD or 70 USD.

[@TheShachimaru]

Great video Kira. Please stay like this forever: the hard truth teller that you are.

[@jetlagged3645]

It's a far worse thing when nobody pirates your game, because it is so bad that it isn't even worth getting for free.

[@usosaito.namahage]

I said before when that one AAA dev said that BG3 was some sort of rockstar unheard of game I was like "no they're focusing on making a good game as opposed to making these shitty p2w microtransaction hellscape the gaming industry has become". They didn't raise a bar per say as it was more of going back to the original bar games needed to meet in order to get gamers to buy it.

[@candidbayproductions]

Baldur's Gate is beyond beautifully cinematic, especially in the intro, but they had the budget in the double digit millions, the same as a major Hollywood film. That seems pushing it to still be considered an "indie" game.

[@WorLadCiz]

You don’t know how long I have been waiting for you to cover BG3 😍

[@101spacecase]

I'm still trying to reach moon rise towers...This game beyond amazing with depth and it's characters also the Voice acting is spot on.

[@bobowon5450]

I restarted the game probably 4-5 times before i got to moonrise and every attempt felt completely different

[@BrottenGuy]

I’m now in my early-40s, & I’ve been a lifelong gamer. I’ve had phases of putting it down, but it was never by choice. It was typically more due to “life getting in the way” type of thing(s). That is…until now. I’ve been choosing to not be the gamer I used to be. I just find better uses of my time now. I’m not sinking so much money into something they’ll just replace within a year of two, & still have to pump money into it throughout its entire lifespan…just to buy the new one & do the same. It’s sad & pathetic. The most I have played are like indie unique platformers &/or side scrollers. Look at Blaphemous, for instance. I’ve yet to play the second one (I can’t wait). It’s a Souls-like packaged & even guises as a side scroll 2D platformer. It’s freaking amazing! That’s just one example.

[@BritishTom]

Take south parks Canadian devil's dev process for "freemium games" and apply that to AAA games but with a pay to enter model and that is the state of the AAA industry. BG3 and Voices of the void are fun to play in comparison to most AAA slops.

[@xivteco]

I think it's just the natural evolution of things. In any new field/ industry you will have pioneers who have a passion to create, innovate, and push the standard forward. They do this not for monetary reasons, no primarily, but to satisfy the creative. As time passes and things become mainstream you'll have more opportunistic mindsets. Wether that be wealth, facilitating other ambitions, security, stability, etc... The pool gets bigger but it also becomes shallower.

[@emilcost8613]

Really a great opinion video on the state of gaming in 2023. My general rule of thumb is this... fine art can never be rushed. I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3 with almost 300 hours in. I am in awe just as much with hour 271 as I was with hour 1. Definitely a top ten game of all time. I never thought I'd like turned based gaming until I started BG3. I must say that your opinions expressed in this video are well received by people who love gaming. Well done!

[@standlethemandle]

you hit the nail on the head change must happen soon

[@seeinred]

1:15 Thing is, it WAS the way industry operated, when it was young. Every game was ripe with creativity, but even more important - every game pushed the limits of hardware, of genre, of the very concept of video-game at the time. Innovation is the word that was forgotten by industry. Or rather, sold out for easy quick buck. And worst of it, people allowed it. We, customers, allowed things like Bethesda churning out the same game *for 15 years in a row* to be a thing. There were precious few of such games in the past years. Doom Eternal and BG3 certainly are such games. Arguably Elden Ring with its open world, but i didn't played that game, so can be 100% sure for that. Look how something like Cyberpunk 2.0 patch clearly took a look at the Doom Eternal, with their perk system rework pushing the concepts out of that games, such as dash, incredible mobility, action resource managements, finishers, etc. Because those innovations make not one of - but *best* action combat out of all we've seen so far. I can only hope that future games in RPG genre will look at BG3, and learn a thing or two. And more such games will be made.

[@joshuayung5158]

I wouldn't quite say that it was, because in its infancy the games industry had such issues with broken low-effort shovelware that the Nintendo seal of quality was spawned in response to know your purchase actually... worked. That lesson was learned for a while, but complacency has revived the old mistakes.

[@randomidoit9605]

I would play Baldur’s Gate 3, but the community is doing a fantastic job of making me not want to.

[@hennyzhi2261]

The problem with engagement is that I think at some point, which differs for everyone, you become sick to the idea of a company constantly trying to sell to you after the base game happens - especially as an adult with now limited time and money. I've become far more apathetic to most games especially from developers I have zero hope for like Bethesda or Blizzard. If people still love their games than great - I just don't have that in me anymore which makes surprising exceptions even more exciting. Even old games that were made during the leaps of innovation from 2D to 3D and other such shifts I can go back to with fondness. And at least from many indie games some of those design concepts that fell out of favor prove their merit by persisting in that sphere - even something as mundane as a short, single player game that can be replayed allot with no real money incentive beyond initial purchase. And as for as doom and gloom as this topic could be, AI does have the potential to even the playing field with doing rudimentary yet time-consuming tasks so the excuse of "games are too expensive, pay us more before and/or during making x" becomes less compelling.

[@AlisteirCrowley]

I hate turn based combat with a passion, but god damn this game blew me away. It's honestly amazing, where only your creativity is the limit when it comes to how you want to solve a problem in the game.

[@wardvandecotte9253]

All the possibilities in this game, it's just insane.

[@somejerk5662]

You could be normal... or you could be a naked dwarf with a handlebar mustache who attacks primarily by throwing dead spiders at people. It's amazing.

[@CassandraHouse]

I was such a Bethesda fan girl… until I played Baldur’s Gate. I now understand what everyone’s been saying about them

[@Roboshi2007]

I see gamepass and other game subscriptions as the singularity of this problem. When you're under pressure to provide "content" all year round to give the subscribers something new, you end up NOT giving them something new, you give them the same thing in a different skin. Just look at the nightmare TV and movie streaming has become, it had it's hayday, but now it's a case of having 7 subscriptions to watch a good show that dies in one season, or a tonne of bland tripe that gets swallowed into the pile.

[@JazzzRockFuzion]

I get the gist of what you’re saying, but it’s not nearly so simple. Because of my GamePass subscription, I experienced phenomenal small titles like Norco and Pentiment that I frankly would have passed on (or missed entirely) through traditional purchase.

[@Hopwire]

Wanna know something interesting? When BG3 got its full release, I borrowed from a friend on Steam. I installed and played offline. Guess what happened when I realized how good it was? I bought it. DRMs hurt more than they do good, I'll die on this hill.

[@Easyflux]

DRM is like gun laws; Criminals don't care, you're only punishing honest costumers.

[@rozemilkteaz371]

As someone who was a big fan of the Sims Franchise, it is so refreshing to see so much care and effort put into Baldurs Gate. I have put so much time into that game, and I’m not even close to finishing it! It is such a high quality game and I will not buy another game unless it is of the best quality.

[@firstnamelastnamesb]

Really don't get the fapfest over BG3 not including microtransactions. It's not even the only major AAA title to exclude them this year, and people are acting like it's the first game in eons not to have them. Makes no sense whatsoever.

[@chriswhinery925]

15+ years ago I used to pirate A LOT of games. Like, all the games I played almost. And the reason wasn't because I enjoyed chuckling to myself while thinking about how I was sticking it to those greedy game companies. It was because I was unemployed and BROKE. Precisely zero of the games I pirated were lost sales because if piracy wasn't an option I simply wouldn't have played them at all. And some of those games, like Galactic Civilizations 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, I later bought when I had gainful employment because I had pirated them and knew I liked them. I think the number of people who can afford games but pirate them anyway is vanishingly small, for the most part. UNTIL you add in horrible DRM schemes. There have been a few games over the years that I pirated even though I could afford to buy them specifically because the purchased version had DRM that was essentially systemic spyware and the pirated version didn't. Gabe's quote is 100% spot on. Buying games through a service like Steam or GOG Galaxy is easy. It's way easier than piracy. As long as that remains the case I'll happily pay for games even if I ultimately end up disappointed in those games (Starfield, looking at you!). When devs add unreasonably anti-consumer DRM technology that promises to fuck with legitimate users as much or more than pirates, that's when I'll sail the high seas.

[@geofff.3343]

I wish I hadn't bounced so effing hard off Baulder's Gate 3. I love CRPGs, I love XCOM, I love D&D, but this game just does not click with me to the point where I really think it's very, very overhyped.

[@OrbObserver]

It's almost universally beloved. Not everything that you don't personally click with is "overhyped", that's a narcissistic lens to view the world through. I personally can't stand Minecraft but I'd never say it's overhyped, I recognize the real cultural impact it's had. This game made a massive impact, whether you want to play it or not.

[@geofff.3343]

@@OrbObserver Wow, what's next, you're going to misuse gaslighting? It's not narcissistic to think something is overhyped. It's an opinion. It might be myopic of me, but I really feel like this is just one of those things that people latch onto because it's serving some need that traditionally underserved, but it's not narcissistic. The fact that you even used that word just shows how badly this armchair psychology problem has gotten on the internet. I know it's not a popular opinion, but you're literally calling a stranger on the internet narcissistic, over a video game because it's not the majority opinion. I don't even care if you agree or not, it's just so baffling that everyone jumps on this abuse of psychological terms like they even know what they mean. Is this arguing semantics? Absolutely! But if you're not going to use the word right it has to be done.

[@OrbObserver]

It is in fact narcissistic to think something is overhyped if the only reason you can come up with is you personally don't like the game even if you admit it's a good game. I said it was a narcissistic lens to view the world through, I didn't call you a narcissist. I was speaking about how you formed your opinion, not you as a person. You even admit it's myopic. You're not even arguing the point, you're just offended at the language I used even though you actually agree with me. You're very defensive. @@geofff.3343

[@Alarios711]

@@geofff.3343 He is telling you that it can't be overhyped if everyone loves it... I mean, yeah... Obviously. Want to see overhype ? Watch entire essays about Starfield sucking huge ass after people finished the game vs before release where it was insanely hyped. The game being "overhyped" is not your opinion, it's an assessment of other people opinions, you poses that people actually don't like the game that much in hindsight. They do.

[@geofff.3343]

@@Alarios711 Unless it feels like it was over hyped to me personally, which was what I was getting at.

[@klapauzius]

I played BG3 for like an hour because i'm not in the right mood right now, but i _still_ enjoyed spending the 70,-€ for the deluxe edition because it was such a honest deal, which is so rare nowadays.

[@Jayy997]

I've said this for almost a decade now. The only games worth a damn these days are either from Nintendo, select Japanese studios, and indies/AA. The western AAA industry has been a depressing cesspit for a while now and a reason why I haven't bought a AAA game in years.

[@karloveliki5373]

BG3 was one of the very few games I actually bought after pirating it first. I believe there are far more important things to spend money on, but Larian deserves every single penny imo. If other devs want to stop piracy, they should perhaps consider making a good product to begin with...

[@Eranderil]

What You've just explained is what I call "trust equity." Kind of like the equity you get buying a house, by investing into your fanbase with solid content you build up trust equity. This is your buffer against a bad game, your safety new when you do screw up. Corporate structure doesn't recognize trust equity because it isn't an instant payout. Publishers see gamers as an obstacle between them and the money the gamers don't deserve. This is why I play almost exclusively indi games now.

[@Caitlin_TheGreat]

Recently having watched a couple "dissections" of older games from the 90's era, it's became evident that although the technology has progressed (and by sooo much!) the actual artistry of making games has mostly gone backwards. I don't blame the people getting their hands dirty with the code or the artwork or the writing. I think those people have all done amazing jobs -- often under nightmarish conditions, too. The problem has been and continues to be in the structure of the industry, with the rich bastards in charge of stuff but without any talent and usually without any care about making something good. But this is not some epiphany for me. I have been aware of this because I've watched it happen. I was a kid playing video games in the early 90s and loving them. And I've seen them advance technology while also degrading. And it's been completely due to the pursuit of profit. In the early 2000s we saw extremely talented and highly respected studios get bought up and then gutted and shutdown again and again and again. Today you're hard pressed to find any independent studio that isn't brand new and/or just a couple people operating on a shoestring budget. There is no mid-tier, there are no B-tier games -- or nearly so. Now and then some stragglers still pop out, but they are exceedingly rare instead of being actually the most common type of game. And those the rich companies -- who also were the ones that told us we're supposed to call the Triple A... for no more reason than they just thought it made them sound better -- those companies are just seeking profit for profit's sake. Sure, and why not. Quality products are meaningless if the CEOs and shareholders aren't getting rich. And in fact they can get rich just fine by release unfinished garbage and treating their employees like soulless property to be used up. Art? No, that's not profitable. Online store platforms in the disguise of a game, that's profitable. Do just the bare minimum to get people to buy your stuff and then also buy more useless additions to that stuff.

[@Oni1975]

There are many reasons why the video game industry finds itself in its current state, but I'll argue to the end that consumers have failed to do their part. Somehow, video games gets a pass from typical customer criticism because, oh golly, look at how cool that game looks! Pre-ordering was always a shady sales tactic, but it's even more problematic now with the widespread use of digital distribution. If gamers simply held onto their money until each game proved itself, developers, publishers, and even media (yes, they are part of the problem too) would suddenly find themselves more accountable for the products they shill.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

This is actually something known by economists. A firm is said to wield monopolistic power if they are CAPABLE of using the "suck every last cent from the consumers" tactic, because any non-monopolistic entity literally loses money if they try to do so.

[@BlueEclipse2305]

the big companys dont make games. They use the medium of gaming to make as much money as possible

[@garnth6594]

Kira, thanks for the excellent video. You did something here that was perhaps subconscious, but which demonstrates your point very well. It's not universal, but often, when you talk about places like Ubisoft and Infinity Ward, you refer to them as companies, but when you talk about Fromsoft and Larian, you refer to them as studios. That kind of says it all. On the balancing scale of making art vs. making profit, the Companies are leaning almost entirely toward the profit side and neglecting the art form, whereas the studios are making great (or at least very fun) art and accepting lower (per-unit) profits. It's now becoming obvious that taking the studio approach does NOT actually mean making less money, as shown by Fromsoft and Larian, and that's upsetting the whole worldview of some Companies.

[@rorrim0]

BlackFlag isn't considered the best Assassins Creed because of what they did differently, but what they did well. People come to this series for the take downs, and Blackflag has a lot of takedowns. The collectibles feel like they add to the game play experience, and the new thing they did add which was ship combat wasn't half assed and traversing the ocean is actually a pleasant scenic ride. If you look at games after blackflag they dont approach the same gameplay variety or even polish blackflag did. Slapping a number based rpg health system and making a pseudo Shadow of Morder did not revivtilize the series.

[@ThalesWell]

Definitely a problem not confined to the gaming industry.

[@runtimus5743]

I think this take is applicable to most company's in and out of gaming. The company I worked for just went under, the board, none were from the industry and just bled it dry.

[@subtlewolf]

It really depends whether we focus on capability or sus business practices. The video put an emphasis on the stark contrast between what a company has the resources for and what they actually put out. That's almost certainly a minority. However companies with questionable (at best) business practices are also very likely the majority overall. Most game developers aren't passionately punching above their weight but rather saturate the mobile game market with junk. The mediocrity of AAA developers certainly provides some cover for the mediocrity of little guys with far fewer resources if you're inclined to justify it. However that's not a good position to take as the widespread mediocrity on the bottom also gives cover to the guys on top because against that backdrop their product still stands out. Unfortunately there simply aren't enough standout developers to cover the demand. Without that there's not enough competitive pressure. Directly shifting demand by shaping public opinion is about the best customers can do and I'm not sure singling out the AAA side is the most effective approach.

[@jerodwolf5582]

This is not only the way of video games, but really modern life in general. Goods and services are made cheaper, built to be repaired or replaced, and filled with some form of data leeching to spam advertisements left and right. Modern consumerism has become less about selling quality products, and more about selling products

[@viper160075]

its also important to note that BG3 was developed through Covid *and* Larian studios literally flooded at one point. Yet they still released the absolute banger that is BG3. Theres zero reason for the giant companies to be pushing out the literal garbage they have been.

[@Thelos90]

Im without words. Sadly you hit the needle on the point. Great video.