Uhh… today’s AAA studios have THOUSANDS of employees, hundreds of millions of dollars in budgets, and huge IPs on which to draw. Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed, Diablo, Warcraft, Mass Effect, Dragon Age… these studios have VASTLY larger resources than Larian. Like, an order of magnitude larger. This is gaslighting and whining. I’m not having it. Do better, AAA devs. Do a lot better.
That’s why their games suck. Smaller teams and budgets make better products.
Well I wouldn’t say that exactly. GTA 5 had a huge budget and a huge team and it’s objectively a better product if you compare the two (which is only to say they’re both great games but the bigger budget game has and does more).
It’s a matter of the motivations of the developers and their financial backers. If your goal is to make an ok game that maximizes profit focused mechanics, most of these AAA developers are hitting the mark perfectly. If your focus is to make a good game like it seemed to be with the BG devs, they absolutely hit the mark and are being rewarded for it.
This is just a reminder to an industry that is trying to tell us that pay to win mechanics are the standard that they do not in fact get to dictate what those standards are. We do. If a game is shit people will abandon it even if you poured millions into that product. The recent battlefield game is a prime example of this. Even something as guaranteed as a new battlefield game isn’t enough to overcome a shitty leadership team emphasizing the wrong things. The community bailed on their product and they’ll never get them back. All those millions in guaranteed revenue are gone forever.
GTA 5 does not look like a better product to me.
GTA V story mode was an excellent game, but it’s hard to realistically say a game from one genre is better than another, apples and oranges and all that.
GTA V’s online multiplayer, however, at this point is such a shitstain that I think it alone is enough to make the distinction clear.
but it’s hard to realistically say a game from one genre is better than another, apples and oranges and all that.
I agree.
It is. But only in so far as the content and scope of the game far surpasses anything a smaller developer could ever hope to accomplish. You may prefer one over the other, totally fine, but objectively speaking you get way more out of gta 5 content and scope wise than bg3.
As others point out gta online is a dumpster fire but it’s still massive and allows you to do endless amounts of things, racing, heists, owning property, running businesses, etc.
More content doesn’t mean better, especially when that content isn’t the kind that I find enjoyable.
This is just a reminder to an industry that is trying to tell us that pay to win mechanics are the standard that they do not in fact get to dictate what those standards are. We do.
Quoting for emphasis. We control the purse, we have the voting power of the wallet.
The Divinity games are some of my favorites ever made. It makes me giddy that BG3 is doing so well to embarrass big companies 😂
This is partly why I ponied up full price.
I want more games from Larian.
I bought the game 4 times.
Twice for me, and a copy for 2 of my friends.
Pretty cool seeing one of them log a ton of hours in it after working. Like, I gave them that happiness :')
They’re scared. There’s no excuse anymore. And people have become aware of it.
Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed, Diablo, Warcraft, Mass Effect, Dragon Age… these studios have VASTLY larger resources than Larian.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the team that worked on Skyrim was significantly smaller than the Larian team that worked on BG3.
Perhaps? But Skyrim is also 12 years old. Whatever team is working in Elder Scrolls 6 is certainly not smaller than Larian’s.
Skyrim had under 100 employees.
IMO the most important distinction is a game that puts play experience first vs profit.
I have no problem if games reached this via a similar model that Larian used here (lots of experienced staff, pre-built systems, 6 years of development, 3 years of expertly done early-access with a highly engaged player base) but they’re not going to. They’re going to implement more crunch, more abuse, more destruction of the few people who want to work in games in order to get there. And that’s where I have the issue.
I want shorter games, with worse graphics, made by people who get paid more to do less. Because that’s what’s needed to make truly great games. People who are passionate, not burning themselves out just to barely make deadlines, make great games.
Sir… Socialism is already ruining this nation.and you are daring to propose communism?!
Sorry, I’m neurodivergent. Can’t tell if this is sarcasm.
I’m not the person you’re responding to, but the post looks sarcastic to me. Have a good day!
Not the person who said it, but yes, it’s sarcasm
I want shorter games, with worse graphics, made by people who get paid more to do less.
Honestly that’s an excellent summary.
Don’t get me wrong BG3 is probably one of the best games I’ve ever played and I eventually want BG4 or whatever expansion/spin-off/sequel they want to make. However I waited 23 years between BG2 and BG3, I don’t want to wait that long again, but I can wait.
But to your point I want good games. I don’t need 100+ hour adventures. In general I don’t want 100+ hour adventures. Those should be rare. I want games that I can finish (at a casual pace) in a weekend or two.
Portal 1? Braid? Both are short puzzle games that are absolutely fantastic.
Stanley Parable? Gone Home? Excellent story games. You can beat them in about as much time as it takes to watch a movie.
It’s disappointing that AAA studios don’t recognize this. I don’t want a bloated game that takes 300 hours to experience most of it. I don’t want a giant map. I want a good game. I want a small map filled with life, not a large one with soulless procedurally generated dungeons.
I’m just putting it out there that I have finished almost 3 different playthroughs and I would 300% purchase DLC.
If the initial game is a full game and satisfactorily so, I would gladly fork over more money for additional content.
DLC is not inherently bad. It’s just the way most companies have done it is.
What’s particularly notable about this well above average gaming year is that the clearly top two games so far aren’t using state-of-the-art graphics.
Given how messy PC gaming has been lately, with a recent history of GPU shortages followed by an underwhelming new generation and some very poor game optimization, I wouldn’t mind seeing a trend of game development slowing down on graphics tech for a bit.
We have to go back!
But also legitimately. Like remember how good games would get near the end of a console’s lifecycle? Then a new console generation would drop and the games would look sharp, but also a bit wonky, until enough years has past, and thennn… another new console generation would drop, and the constraints would disappear again. Always too soon, I thought - just as the games were getting truly good again!
Heh, yes, I still have fond memories of the late 16-bit generation and early fifth-gen games that didn’t get on board the 3D bandwagon. Sprite-based games started to look mighty sexy until everyone decided that untextured polygons were the way to go for a while. 😑
Always preferred Duke 3D to Quake. The later is way more sophisticated from the technical standpoint (though Build does allow some neat tricks) but Duke is just so vibrant and fun. Destructible environment, original weapons, large enemy variety and proper bosses… Meanwhile Quake is just… brown.
Educate a pleeb here, I’ve been out of the gaming loop. What’s the notable exceptions of great games this year and what two that are not state-of-the-art graphics do you mean?
This thread’s on Baldur’s Gate 3, that’s one of them. I should have specified the other of the two most highly-rated games this year; it’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Both games are more or less running last-gen graphics tech and are ahead of the pack on review scores. Zelda looks good for a Switch game, though.
You could probably ask a dozen gaming enthusiasts and get a dozen different answers on why this year has been exceptional. I’d say it’s because we have a lot of big releases from venerable franchises arriving all in the same year (Baldur’s Gate is one, plus Diablo, Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, Resident Evil, Star Wars, Street Fighter). There are hits from new IPs like Cassette Beasts, Dave the Diver, Hi-Fi Rush, and maybe Starfield in a few weeks if it’s not a disaster.
It’s a nice mix of old and new worlds and plenty of surprises. On top of all that, it’s only August. I think there’s a sense that the industry is starting to leave the pandemic behind, too.
I don’t think demanding quality games is inherently at odds with wanting studios to not abuse their workers. What we really should support is broad labor protections and labor unions for developers. Because clearly the AAA studios don’t need the excuse of high demand for features from gamers in order to abuse their people since they have been doing that for years while churning out trash titles.
Completely agreed. The issue is that gamers™ aggressively advocate for better quality, and do not care about workplace abuse or worse products with more features. This creates the current feedback loop we have where games that are longer, have flashier features, and aren’t finished at launch.
Labor unions and protections would be excellent, but isn’t something that I, a non-game developer, can do much to advance, besides avocation.
and do not care about workplace abuse
I think the recent ActiBlizz situation proves that one incorrect.
Not saying that 100% of Gamers care, just saying it’s not 0% of Gamers who care.
Why are they getting so much attention for it?
Nintendo does the same with BoTW and ToTK. Long dev cycles that releases a functional game without micro-transactions.
FromSoft does the same with most of their games. Where people actually beg them to release DLCs.
But no… it’s Larion they seem to go after.
Nintendo is huge. FromSoft has their own cult. But Larion? What’s can they blame there? Nothing. Most big studios that bitch about this is larger than Larion. Maybe because they are more scared that if Larion can do it. There’s no excuse anymore.
Most of the Sony exclusives are the same. God of War, Spiderman, Ghost of Tsushima.
Just solid AAA single player games, no nickel and dime bullshit.
Every F2P model is predatory as fuck, and relies on taking advantage of whales over a prolonged period.
…but I paid full price for D4 and still got a half baked game with an invasive in-game shop.
Not to victim blame, but if you looked at everything Blizzard have done over the last 10 years, and thought “maybe this one will be different” then perhaps the problem is you.
Not to X, but…
[Proceeds to X]
[Proceeds to X]
Sometimes, if the subject is important enough, you just have to X.
Sure but don’t lead by saying you are not going to do x.
I don’t think this comment really deserved this discourse, it seems pretty clearly tongue in cheek to me.
Not everything needs to be so dire.
Don’t forget the battle passes.
Ironically I’m less concerned with battle passes as long as they don’t sell power. The actual mtx itself doesn’t bother me, I’ve easily spent hundreds in path of exile. But I prefer to enjoy the game first, and then at some point decide that I want to support the devs, and then maybe I buy something.
Yeah it blows my mind how much I’ve spent on league supporter kits as well. Not sure if it is because I enjoy the game or I respect the business model.
I’m not against battle passes, but there are plenty of examples of how they fall under the predatory monetization category. Not selling power is hardly a justification that they aren’t unethical.
I realized I had overdone it when two weeks in they were going to send me a free hoodie shipped from a different continent.
At least I ran out of things to buy there.
Dota 2 did it really well, it was and still is an amazing game, and you couldn’t pay to get any gameplay advantage.
I sank a lot of money into it just to support such system.
I think it’s due to the little guy making a huge wave that other people don’t feel they’re “allowed” to make. These other devs work on “AAA” companies working on big name titles from studios everyone has heard of so. But now a small, indie studio comes along with a grand slam and they don’t like it kind of makes them look bad by comparison. Showing you can release a big complex game without it being an absolute buggy mess, doesn’t need microtransactions, doesn’t need to sell millions of copies to be considered a success, and isn’t just a copy paste of the previous game with a handful of modifications made to slap a new “FOR SALE” label on it…
But now a small, indie studio comes along with a grand slam and they don’t like it kind of makes them look bad by comparison.
Larian is similar in size, if not significantly larger, than Bethesda when they made Skyrim.
“AAA” in price tag only.
(Content may vary. Please purchase premium battle pass to see more details.)
You’re not referring to Larion as a small indie studio right? They are not a small indie studio.
I agree with you, thing is: Nintendo produces Nintendo exclusives, so it doesn’t affect the gaming space as much as other games might
There was plenty of distaste for Elden Ring when it came out – devs at Ubisoft I believe ridiculed how the UI wasn’t informative and such.
I think AAA studios are terrified because they’re seeing just how much consumers value quality over quantity and MTX bullshit. Games that should be in self contained bubbles are now hitting mainstream and becoming absurdly popular.
Lmao Ubisoft of all folks should shut the fuck up about UI, they are literally the source of the meme about cluttered and overly complicated UI. If Ubisoft is complaining about a UI I have to automatically assume it is a good UI.
Also, if AAA developers have been paying attention for the last decade, they would know that consumers have valued quality and shown disdain for MTX since MTX started becoming pervasive. MTX overall can generate a lot of revenue, but it isnt sustainable, hence why there is always some sort of FOMO characteristic included with the MTX system, making things limited time and constantly shovelling low effort “new content” to fill out the MTX system.
They’ve been working for almost a generation now on changing the mindset of gamers as to what they should expect from a game, and here comes a really good game from a little known studio doing exactly what games used to expect before the mind changing was attempted.
I personally think this is because gaming journalism isn’t real journalism. They don’t actually care, they just want clicks and perceived relevancy when people repost their tweets to reddit
“They don’t actually care, they just want clicks and perceived relevancy when people repost their tweets to reddit”
Kinda sounds like real media to me then lol they all suck if they’re major corporate media.
A lot of journalists do care, but they also have a job to do and a boss that tells them which articles to write.
Like I don’t care about whatever business my company is competing in, but I’ll keep working for them because they pay me.
but I’ll keep working for them because they pay me.
That’s just it, you can move to a different company that has a better working situation in environment. You just have to be a brave enough to fight the inertia that keeps you where you’re at.
And in fact, if you want your salary to steadily increase over your career, you’re supposed to move from company to company every couple of years.
Yeah I’m thankful to have got that advice pretty early in my career. Generally get itchy feet around 3 years now.
The lesson here is you can trust most big Japanese publishers/developers and it’s the opposite for American/European ones. Christ, Death Stranding was almost ruined by all the “subtle” product placements they put
Kojima got away with his product placement in mgs3 because nobody in the west knew calorie mate was a real product lol.
Complaining about it having funding… AAA… lol. Thats the fucking point of AAA. Big fucking budget.
- A - Big
- A - Fucking
- A - Budget
I read this in stereotyped Italian fuckin Mario voice.
AAA stands for “Abig Afuckin’ Abuget”
Imagine whining about how people prefer to play good games that work on launch.
From what I gather, there is a real fear in develper spaces that executives will take the wrong lessons from BG3. They will want the same scope, choice, narrative, & mechanics but through crunch, shutting down smaller projects, & homogenized visual & narrative focus. IE all the shiny bits without the time, work culture, & creativity that came with creating BE3. It isn’t developers just being pissy this is their way of trying to stop their idiot boss from ruining their current project or making massive projects without enough time or staff.
That’s because these executives don’t care about learning. They want examples that they can use to rationalize their shitty decisions.
They want money and everything else is ammo to use in that pursuit.
So the answer is for the ones who make nice things because of a nice system they have to just stop because the other crabs can’t get out of the bucket. Maybe their beef should be with their idiot boss, not with the guys who do the work.
Whatever happened to companies learning from other’s successes instead of trying to keep others down?
The above post isn’t saying that Larian or other devs shouldn’t make games like BG3. It’s saying that we shouldn’t expect the massive amount of content and options in BG3 for every game
My bad, I have interpreted it as apologetic for the people yelling at Larian for ‘ruining it’ for everyone.
I agree that we should not expect this sort of quality from everything, after all Gauss’ curve applies universally and this is quite far from the mean as I see it. We would just maybe like… less shite.
But it’s not like Larian are the first to raise the bar. I remember the days when Blizzard was an awesome company. Then I remember Bethesda being awesome. Now it’s Larian on the spotlight. I may not have followed the news back when the others were good, but I don’t remember such attitudes around as mentioned in the original post, to basically discredit instead of leaving it alone.
I mean, we didn’t have nearly as much social media back then and a 24/7 news cycle that causes random tweets to be blown up into IGN articles. I think the initial tweet was just a random thought that got spun way out of proportion
It isn’t developers just being pissy this is their way of trying to stop their idiot boss from ruining their current project or making massive projects without enough time or staff.
Unions.
Also releasing on PC first is practically unheard of. It’s usually the afterthought platform if it gets a release at all.
Yeah, to the OP in the posted tweet… I did put a lot of thought into it. If a game that’s just $60 can do this, then all new games are measured against it. Go compete. If your business model is outdated, convince your investors to change or be downgraded to B tier game dev.
Don’t come me, the consumer, complaining about your poor ability to hedge business markets. You saw BG3 in early access for 3 years, you knew it was coming.
Yeah, don’t expect funding for AAA games!
Wait…
To the contrary, they had to pay to have the IP
AAA companies: Makes bad game and releases apology promising to make good games now
Also AAA companies: We are not capable of making good games, stop expecting to much.
Remember fellow gamers, you hold the power of the purse, you get the final vote with your wallet.
If some studio head or developer manager tries to tell you that you have to accept micro transactions and such, just say no thank you, and move on.
There are plenty of other games from other good studios out there for you to give your hard-earned money to.
Dont say no thank you, give them the middle finger and tell everyone to not buy it
Dont say no thank you, give them the middle finger
You could also do both, for that slightly comedic type of reply. Keep them guessing.
Here’s my thing: I don’t necessarily care what sort of game you make, I just want it to be feature-complete and technically solid (I.e. mostly bug-free). Whether that’s a small indie game or a massive AAA game, those two things should be true.
I think what most people find frustrating is that the in-game store is the most well developed part of most AAA releases nowadays, which often ship riddled with bugs.
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Ah, the contrarian.
If you let other people ruin something for you, that’s on you, not them. Especially if they “ruin” it by celebrating and enjoying it.
“I won’t try this game because it’s too highly reviewed!” What a weird hill to die on.
D4 seemed to have been great at launch, but the seasons and battle pass stuff ruin it for me (though you can like it if you want, I don’t care). I don’t like the idea of a game being on a timer and asking me to play the way they want me to play it. This is what BG3 does right. It’s a game with many options and many ways to play. It never tells you how you should and you also don’t need to pay extra for other crap. You get a complete experience from start to finish with no timers and nothing extra asked of you.
This is why I dropped Destiny, despite loving it to pieces.
I liked D2 in the beginning until I realized it was CoD’s multi-player put into its single player.
Maybe part of the issue is I left and came back, but I couldn’t make sense of any sort of storytelling and “go here, shoot this” stopped being fun.
Which sucks because Destiny has some amazing worldbuilding ideas.
Still salted that they removed my boi Xol
…what?
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He opened with praising Diablo 4, feels low effort and should net a penalty, with a bad finish too. I’ll go with 4/10.
If he’s an actual shill from ActiBlizz I would vote a lot lower than 4/10, for having done such a poor job, based on that ratio.
Needs a bigger bait. If he opened with slamming Baldur’s Gate 3 right away or “as a gamer” it might have been a 7
I dunno the part where they try to make themselves out to be some kind of hero over racism randomly because they didn’t play a game has gotta decrease the score by at least a couple. Just feels like they’re trying too hard I dunno. Feels basic
Jesse, what the hell are you talking about?
You know, you’ll go through life a lot happier if you stop restricting yourself from experiencing something just because it’s a popular thing.
Huh? The game literally lets you play any way you want.
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New expectations? Lol. These were always the expectations!
That’s what I don’t get. These are expectations that I’ve had for years. The indie space has kinda proven that creativity will take a game a hell of a lot farther than cash ever will. With few exceptions I simply don’t buy AAA games anymore because honestly I just don’t expect the same level of effort will be put into making them.
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This isn’t a pissing contest and no one is acting like this is unique. We saw the same excitement for the last 2 Zelda games, God of War, Spiderman, Elden Ring etc. (post more examples, I don’t pay as much attention to the industry anymore so I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch). Let’s celebrate them if that’s what you’d like to see more of. They’re all awesome and they all add to the evidence that there is a large population that still want to experience games this way.
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Xenoblade 3 is a Nintendo exclusive. Baldur’s Gate is unique to me because a game like this hasn’t clicked with me since Dragon Age Origins.
That waifu/husbando enslavement game was AAA??
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- psych
How does it go?
I want smaller games, with lower quality graphics. Made by happier developers who are paid more to work less. And I’m not kidding!
I mean we can have large games with detailed graphics and have employees treated well. We just need to accept 10+ year timelines for releases on big games which I’m ok with as long as we get quality results and the team is treated well.
I follow star citizen though so I could be the weird one here lol
Dreaming of riding an army of unicorns to battle.
Does this include Hollow Knight? Because I want more of that. I can’t wait for Silksong!
Hollow Knight is the definition of “Rockstar-level nonsense for scope”
I can’t believe the large majority of it was made by two people. I have 70 hours in that game and still have a couple things I haven’t beaten yet.
Also cannot wait for Silksong!
Cry some more, corpos.
Wizards of the coast paid $0 to fund this game, that’s why it says Larian in the publisher field on Steam and not WoTC or Hasbro.
Although they probably got some good sweet Nvidia dollars.
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Exactly. Every new game doesn’t have to be an instant classic that breaks new ground. But they should be functional, playable, and have enough polish to be considered finished. That doesn’t necessarily mean bug free, but we all know what a finished game looks like, and what one doesn’t.
The worst one I’ve ever personally played was the Lego Hobbit game. My wife and I used to line up kamikaze shots and play Lego games, figuring a child and a drunk adult were about the same level. The game stops when Smaug flies out of the mountain. Roll credits. I guess the last movie did so poorly that they never bothered making the rest of the game.
For ages, AAA games were classed as such by brand recognition, not by quality. Inevitably, they devolved into being just a platform to sell microtransactions. The shareholders want their dividents and the CEO needs a new yacht with coke and hookers.
It’s too easy to exploit the dopamine rush playing the new, official installment of a well-known series. Even if it’s terrible, the customers get their joy by ranting about how trash the game is and how they hope the next one will be better. BG3 being an actual game does not change anything and will not reset expectations.
That’s sad because TT’s games were quite good, I think they hit their apex at Lego Marvel Superheroes 1. Awesome open world, a ton of characters, and lots of exploration in addition to the normal level quests.
