I hope the lesson they take is "selling complete games with no online bull or micro transactions is popular and profitable"
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3
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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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Steam could absolutely tamp down on this, by changing early access refund policy to be more restrictive.
Early access money should not be guaranteed. If someone wants a refund outside of the two hour or whatever game time they should get most of their money back. The timer should also reset at release, and players get a full refund if the gameplay isn't what was promised.
The lesson they'll actually take is "money? MONEY!! MONEEEEEYYYYYYY!!!"
"this game is a gold mine! It's being underutilised at the moment, let's improve the profitability with some in-game purchasable items and a subscription for bonus content"
I’m hoping a lesson they take is “let Larian make BG4” as well.
I love BG3 to death. But I also don't want Larian to become the next EA under the yoke of some Hasbro/WoTC for BG4/5/6/7. I hope they continue to make their own games and forge their own path, with little to no reliance on megacorps. Their Divinity series is a treasure in it's own right, and they said their next small projects are getting them excited.
Watch them milk it to death, thereby ruining the franchise
I don't think they really can. Larian has creative control over the project itself, Hasbro can't do much beyond input regarding DnD-specific things. Hasbro can try to milk DnD (as they have been doing), but this won't affect BG3.
Who has merchandising rights though? Who's going to be pumping out Astarian FunkoPop knockoffs for the next several years?
This is an interesting question actually. From what I read, larian has been screwed by producers many times in its past, so they should be aware of these kind of problems. It all depends 9n the contract hasbro and larian have. And if hasbro is as stupid as Microsoft, larian probably has a favorable deal.
Sometimes good things are just good things my man.
"We own something popular and profitable with a large userbase that hasn't had every penny milked from it? Hold my beer."
- Hasbro
"I hate when companies make money. Like when they licensed out this balls-out awesome video game"
They’re going to suck it dry like a vampire till it’s dry, not cultivate it year round like a farmer.
It sucks, because I want to buy this game, but I refuse to give WotC/Hasbro money, and I don't want to pirate it because I want to support Larian.
It really sucks.
Look man, initially WotC didn't move on with Larian's pitch and only changed their minds later on. I get it, you don't like WotC but you're robbing yourself of a fantastic experience because of this stance you've held. Baldur's Gate 3 oozes with passion and creativity, you only do yourself a disservice by ignoring it.
It's probably my favourite game of all time and loads of people refuse to play it because they know it'll make other games feel bland by comparison. You have nothing to lose but your money.
I will continue to buy stuff that Hasbro has licensed to people who care about the games they make even if Hasbro indirectly profits from it to show support for doing it right. Like the DnD movie and BG3, but not Beyond or the tabletop stuff until they reverse course on those.
If nothing else there is an opportunity for Hasbro to catch on at some point and the people they license to get to make quality stuff to enjoy in the meantime. It isn't like Hasbro is Nestlé and ruining countries.
Do Larian deserve your money less because they licensed trademarks from a company that considered and then backed down from a license change? And for this you'll rob yourself of a fantastic experience? What a strange value system. Wait until you find out how they made sausages, or your phone.
Wait, you mean if it is good and worth the money it sells and if it is a cheap worthless cash grab it does not????? Someone call Corporate!
I won't lie. I flew the black flag on BG3. I'll pick it up when it goes on a Steam sale, but I'm just not going to spend $60 on a video game no matter how good.
Let's not forget it has no DRM either. AAA studios told us that no game can do well without DRM
The funny thing is I (and probably many others) didn’t even consider pirating it. It had great reviews and was readily available pretty much everywhere without any obvious drawbacks. So I spent full price for it.
My point; DRM doesn’t matter if you produce and sell your game in a consumer friendly way.
Corporate isn't going to take away the lessons we might hope. Folks at corporate at going to ask things like, "how much money was left on the table?" They can only fuck things up through paying attention.
The takeaways that will make it to the steering group PowerPoint:
- VideoGames based on our IP sell better than expected.
- Sales of our other digital products follow suit
- Larian Studios did this with minimal oversight
- No reason to assume any and all VideoGame products based on other IPs would not follow similar pattern
- Call to action: Fund additional Hasbro IP based VideoGames.
I didn't realise Hasbro were the publisher, now I feel a little dirty. Those bastards ruined Super Soaker.
They didn't publish it, but they licensed the DnD brand to Larian
Wait, Hasbro owns DnD? It feels weird to me that a company can own DnD rights.
Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) was originally incorporated by Gary Gygax in 1973. It went bankrupt and got bought out by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 1997. That purchase gave us D&D 3.0 and the original OGL, which was intended to encourage third-party publications of a game set WotC wasn't overly confident in. This, after a decade of aggressive litigation by TSR's VP Lorraine Williams who'd engineered Gygax's ouster from the firm.
Hasbro acquired WotC two years later, in 1999, but was generally apathetic towards its administration outside of it being another revenue source. So WotC ran more-or-less independently until 2020 when the CEO noted on an earnings call that WotC was something like 40% of the company's overall revenue. This triggered a sizable realignment of focus onto the various WotC brands (Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon card games being two other big players).
Now we're seeing a much more traditional corporate refocusing on the WotC product line (movies and cross-promotions), a return to aggressive litigation against competitors, and a sharp increase in the price of WotC products to justify the increased expenses.
Hasbro owns wizards of the coast, which is the owner of the D&D trademark.
wizards of the coast
Of the "sent the literal Pinkertons after a streamer" fame.
Tbf there's a good chance that story was massively exaggerated and overblown. Like, supposedly they didn't threaten him at all, and he willingly gave them the cards in exchange for something else. They were after whoever leaked the cards from their supply chain.
I don't know the story, but if it's something that wasn't supposed to be released, it's pretty much definitely stolen property. You're not entitled to keep stolen property because you think it's cool, and sending PIs to recover stolen property instead of the police is the nice route.
Showing property that belongs to someone else online and can't be acquired legitimately is absolutely grounds for an actual police search warrant.
sending PIs to recover stolen property instead of the police is the nice route.
Exactly. However being in possession of stolen property is not itself a crime, you just don't have any right to keep it. If you paid for it, then your claim is against whoever you paid.
They could have got the police to reclaim the stolen property, however perhaps that might not have been as effective for them in investigating the leak. In any case, the stories about the Pinkertons threatening him might not be true, and he'd have every right to refuse them entry or even to speak to them. The fact that he did suggests he willingly complied.
Knowingly being in possession of stolen property is a crime.
If there's no legitimate source and a reasonable person would recognize that it's stolen by default, you can definitely go to jail.
I'm curious to see if other CRPGs also had big revenue increases from BG3's success. After beating it I've bought Divinity Original Sin 2, Disco Elysium, Pathfinder WotR, and Pillars of Eternity II so far. I had never paid attention to the genre before and now I am deep into it.
Larian are really the only ones that play nice with a controller.
I understand that a lot of people play at literal desktops and prefer mouse/keyboard, but a lot more (regardless of PC split, it's also almost all console owners) would rather play with a controller. Having an official control scheme for one is meaningful to broad adoption.