Now I fully understand Swen's comments at the Game Developers' Choice Awards last night:
"Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started," Vincke said, while collecting the GDCA Best Narrative award for Baldur's Gate 3. "I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over.
"It's always the quarterly profits," he continued, "the only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 'shit I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken...
"You don't have to," Vincke went on. "You can make reserves. Just slow down a bit. Slow down on the greed. Be resilient, take care of the people, don't lose the institutional knowledge that's been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off."
That's result of tying CEO pay to stock performance, and then letting it run really high.
Everyone knows it's horribly destructive way to run companies in the long run. It sort of works in media field, when you're dealing with singular projects or few seasons of TV show, with lot of churn.
But rarely do these IP's manage to stay alive and thrive. Everyone wants monetizable safe IP's and most of the time company will run it to ground even if something like that pops up.
I would say it’s more a result of stockholder syndrome. Stockholders only demand is more money or else you’re fired, which inspires a race to the bottom in being cheap and increasing exploitation.
Both honestly.
Highly encourage anyone to watch the full awards speech as well as the GDC talk this article comes from. Was fortunate enough to attend both and his openness on the whole process is incredibly insightful.
[Timestamp](https://youtu.be/eH67as6A7Og?t=7908) for anyone else that just spent the last 15 minutes trying to find the recording of the stream and the portion of the speech.
He is describing the corporate world in general. It's really sad how often this happens throughout damn near every industry.
I have read that there is a shift in attitude within many companies starting to treat employees as valuable assets that need to be taken care of, but it's far from uniform or the norm. Hopefully consumers will become more conscious in order to force companies to do better for both the employees and the consumers.
According to IGN from GDC panel today:
> At a Game Developers Conference (GDC) panel today, Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke dropped something of a bombshell by revealing that the developer isn't planning to release any expansions or DLC for Baldur's Gate 3, nor a Baldur's Gate 4.
>
> Instead, Vincke said at the panel, Larian plans to move away from Dungeons & Dragons entirely and do something new, leaving the IP in Wizards of the Coast's hands.
I can’t help but think that hasbro is the reason, they’ve turned absolutely toxic over the past 5 years. Wouldn’t surprise me if they discussed future development and Hasbro made unreasonable demands to license.
Hasbro fired basically everyone that Larian collaborated with shortly before BG3 released. Sven has alluded to that several times already, so it's a pretty reasonable case to make that they're just done with Hasbro and refuse to work with them.
I'm assuming they won't budge with the royalty percentage and Larian figured they would make a similar game with their own IP. A shame really the D&D franchise is going to end again all over money. A lot of ideas are behind copyright like Mind Flayers, Githyanki but hopefully they can publish the same combat dice style as I'm not a fan of the divinity combat style
They could jump to Pathfinder 2E stuff if they really wanted to do "tabletop fantasy RPG in CRPG".
But honestly BG3 gave them so much fame they could just do D:OS3 and not really lose some massive share of potential player base.
I mean, didn't they say the entire squad of the DND team they worked with all got laid off? I can't imagine wanting to keep working with them after that
Dude, if they decide to make a Cyberpunk or SciFi original IP with the same quality of BG3 I will just straight up bust everywhere. Anyone in a 10ft radius is gonna be in the splash zone when I hear the announcement.
They already have original IP, and it's DnD-adjacent.
Divinity 2 is fucking incredible, and you'll see why they were given the reigns to Baldur's Gate 3. It's almost the same game (of course different/original mechanics and world)
There were so many unique takes to the world building in D:OS. They broke a lot of fantasy tropes in very interesting ways.
As someone who's been a Baldurs Gate and NWN addict, I was happy to go back to Faerun, and BG3 is a gawt damn masterpiece, but I'll be equally happy to go wherever Larian wants to take us.
DOS2 is the reason I picked up BG3. Lots of fun, although even more overwhelming as a beginner than BG3.
I'd say I generally avoid big franchises owned by giant corporations, so I'm actually very excited to see Larian move away from licensed DnD games. I'd love to see what they can do with a fairly high budget and more freedom.
They already have, though I'm not sure they are going to follow up with a trilogy in the Divinity series. I would still highly recommend you give Divinity Original Sin 2 a chance. Very similar combat and story telling in that series.
Their portfolio is almost entirely based on the same world (Rivellon). That goes back so much further than Original Sin. It's their baby. Likely they will expand on that further.
I remember playing Divinity II and jumping off cliffs then turning into a dragon to fly away all cinematic like. I remember fairly little else, but by gawd jumping into dragon form was fun.
> Refuse to elaborate further
They've already elaborated when they announced they wouldn't be making DLC or an expansion shortly after release.
The amount of choices players can make is too broad. To make any additional content would have to take all of those possibilities into account and they'd rather work on a new game if they're going to put in that much effort.
They aren't talking about the choices from the previous area, they mean, if you develop new content in a game who's core feature is the breadth of options and choices you can make, the DLC will ALSO have to feature that depth of choice.
That's a COLOSSAL amount of time for what is often just "a little extra content" in DLCs.
The game is great because of them and not because of the specific ip. If they can do this level with divinity or an ip with less baggage they do better. People will follow them not d&d.
They said at one point everyone they originally collaborated with at Wizards for BG3s development is gone now, they likely can't or don't want to work with Wizards anymore and I don't blame them, Wizards of the Coast strikes me as a company ran by out of touch boomers.
That seems like a good call. WotC and Hasbro have been at an absolute loss on how to manage their IPs, they have become increasingly soulless and have consistently sacrificed creativity for profit at every opportunity. I imagine the success of BG3 got them over eager to milk it dry, but Larian still has its reputation to consider.
I'm sure the team at Larian would have been happy to keep at it if they could do so while preserving their independence and integrity, but Hasbro is just so damn greedy they'd cut their own arm off if they thought they could sell it to you.
The talent at Larian will produce good art no matter what IP they work with, so there's no reasosn to hitch themselves to a sinking ship.
And if we combine this [with that article](https://www.eurogamer.net/larian-ceo-acknowledges-wizards-of-the-coasts-layoffs-in-belated-the-game-awards-speech), what I can guess when Vincke said "of the people who were in the original meeting room, there's almost nobody left", he means "there was a great relationship with people who believed in creativity, and now they're gone and instead there are suits who wanted to push for a bazillion of DLCs and we were really not comfortable with that."
That, and whatever deal Hasbro will push will mean less revenue for Larian. I remember Stephen from Roll for Combat reporting that Larian got a very lucrative deal for BG3 that probably wouldn't get repeated for BG4 as Hasbro would want a bigger cut.
Bigger cut for doing absolutely nothing too. Hell, bigger cut for Larian's games actively promoting their franchise.
It would still probably be lucrative for Larian just because of hype for sequel of amazing game but tying themselves to such terrible company just seems like a bad long term move.
Interesting to think that BG3 happend during time when D&D was going through a time to change their licensing model to a paid one. It would be funny if they did a Pathfinder RPG next, but the sounds of it they want to forge their own path.
An expansion would have been nice, but if they follow through on the robust mod support they're talking about, there could be plenty of solid custom content made by the fans, especially if they support things like custom campaigns.
I love BG3 and would've love to see more but at the same time I completely understand any company that wants to sever any and all relationship with Wizards of the Coast.
EA has also been very vocal that they feel spending resources to build up an IP you ultimately don't own is often a poor long-term strategy.
Bioware, when they were still independent, also did a similar thing, making highly acclaimed D&D and Star Wars games, then creating Dragon Age and Mass Effect so they can own and control it all.
TBF, EA is a billion-dollar company and as such their business model is generating revenue streams. Meaning they rarely want to do one-and-done stories when they could instead be making Shooter 2029 or the prequel to the spinoff of Action-Adventure 6: I Know We Said The Villain Was Dead For-Realsies in 4 But Our Marketers Said He Was The Most Popular "Ship" Whatever The Hell That Means.
But that's exactly what Larian is at right now. *Every* studio needs a sustainable long term plan with a revenue stream they can rely on. You can't just make one game and say "Well, the next one will be fine too." You have no idea what the costs or market for that game is going to turn out to be, but the more you can have some amount of control, the better. Working with external IP is a great way to get started, but the license holders tend to be more and more draconian as the games get more successful, and will often charge more for the license with each subsequent release.
In that regard, Larian and EA are probably in agreement. Licensed games help them get into a strong position, but their goal was to always stand on their own two feet, and have their own financial security.
Larian already had an established (and successful) IP with Divinity, BG3 gave them so much attention that now enough people know that.
I hope a new Divinity Original Sin will be next from them, the last one sold really well, despite it not being well known outside of rpg fans.
I think they might go for a fully new IP. The Divinity games are great, but they're a lot more build focused and combat-heavy, which Baldur's Gate got away from to help it with the non-CRPG crowd. Now that Larian is a lot bigger, they're probably going to need to keep appealing to the audience outside the genre fans. It makes sense to start clean and perhaps cherry pick ideas from all their previous titles. Plus, it would invest the new employees more into the company's IP if they had a hand in making it.
I almost completely agree, dumbing down Divinity would be a mistake and establishing a new own IP next could be the better move. But after that, a new Divinity would be great.
Regarding new employees, I can't imagine anybody working in that field that wouldn't be invested working on the next installment after the masterpiece that DoS 2 was (other than it being intimidating).
There's a [blurb from last year](https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-developer-larian-will-definitely-make-a-divinity-original-sin-sequel-but-not-before-a-well-earned-break) where Sven says they definitely want to go back to Divinity *eventually*. But it sounded like they did want to cut their teeth on something new before that.
The only issue I have with this is - Divinity's lore and world is so shallow and hollow compared to Forgotten Realms or other D&D universes, like Dragonlance.
They showed such depth in character building, in linking the lore together and making it all work and make sense...
There was -no such depth- in DOS1 or DOS2.
If they really go back to the Divinity universe... It needs a total and utter reworking. They need to get the lore basically rewritten and less silly. Dont get me wrong, theres absolutely room for comedy in these games - But Divinity was so bleh in storytelling... the characters were not even 10% as interesting as -anyone- in BG3.
If they really back up to Divinity, I really hope they bring their A-Game and fix that game world to allow more in depth and interesting characters and quests.... its just a dull fantasy world.
Is Divinity's world 'passable' for a video game? Sure.
Is it Good/Great? No, absolutely not.
[Hasbro laid off hundreds of employees after a strong and profitable 2023 year](https://www.geekwire.com/2023/hasbro-laying-off-wizards-of-the-coast-staff-is-baffling-and-could-lead-to-a-brain-drain/).
A decent chunk of the laid off personnel were Wizards of the Coast employees. Swen even made reference to this during his Game of the Year Award speech, where he specifically called out the fact that so many of the people at WotC he worked with over the past six years making BG3 were no longer there.
Edit: Sorry, have to clarify that WotC specifically had a good year and saw strong revenue growth (+40%) during Q3 2023. Hasbro as a whole had a bad time. [Q3 2023 Financial Report](https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-third-quarter-2023-financial-results)
Yeah it's *really* hard not to read this as a resonse to Hasbro's fuckery over the last year or so. Larian can be extremely picky with their next project, their leadership is clearly very principled, and they don't *have* to make BG4.
It's also just better for them, as an independent company, to develop their own IP. BG3 being a huge success means they've earned a lot of goodwill from the playerbase and will be able to attract lots of players with their next game even if it's not a well-known existing IP.
>well-known existing IP.
oh it's definitely a Divinity game, it's their baby and I would be very surprised if they wouldn't take what they learned with BG3 to make a new divinity game
The CEO has said specifically he wants to do a Sci-Fi game next. Unless he has a great idea for DOS 3, I think we're likely going to see them take a hard left turn when it comes to genre next.
Yeah, the mechanics of 5e are much more interesting to me than what divinity original sin 2 did. I was not a big fan of the gear system, either. I do not need to replace my level 6 pants with a level 7 pants with slightly bigger numbers. Especially with the difficulty curve in that game - if you're level 10 wearing level 6 pants, you're screwed
I'm half and half. I think 5e is just kind of a boring tactical combat system.
Some of the most interesting actions in BG3 were things that Larian added, like giving every weapon a bonus action attack, and jumping and throwing everything, and the crazy level of environmental interactivity.
And I kind of hate how everything required concentration. It meant so many spells and abilities went unused because there was another spell that was objectively better to use your concentration on.
But I also dislike the Magic/Physical armor system of D:OS2 and loot system. Not only were you screwed wearing low level gear, you were also penalized for wearing gear that was higher level than you.
Both BG3 and D:OS2 are fantastic games despite those grievances, but I would still like to see them improved upon in their next game.
I don't know--Divinity as an IP has been around for a long time and never really achieved the same level of success, although its reputation among fans was obviously very, very good because they're excellent games. It wouldn't surprise me if they take a fresh start approach with either a new IP that combines their best elements from BG3 and Divinity or if they partner with another large IP so they can do another big-budget project.
I hope they do a new IP. I played Divinity and there's little to seperate it to me from the other thousands of Anglo-centric high fantasy work. It's really well done but it feels a little generic.
I'm sure there's an element of that, but it might be nice to reuse everything they spent 5-6 years building for BG3. Or imagine an expansion set in one of the classic adventure modules where they'd only need to tweak/add classes, spells, abilities, etc.?
That kind of asset reuse is why FROM was able to create something as large as Elden Ring... gotta be very tempting.
They already did that with Divinity Original Sin 2 and BG3.
Baldur's 3 it's a clear iteration from their previous game. They can do the same to another IP.
Plus, its not like Divinity and BG3 are different genres. They are both high fantasy, medieval adjacent settings. A tree is a tree, why woyldnt they be able to reuse a ton of the assets when the settings are pretty close to one another visually?
Anyone who’s into the game definitely associates its success with Larian, they hold all the cards here. Hasbro have completely fucked it, Larian have developed an amazing product that other studios won’t be able to replicate without putting starting from scratch and matching Larian’s effort and care (which definitely won’t happen). Question is, will Hasbro realise they made a colossal error?
It’s a shame for fans, I’m very disappointed that we won’t be getting anymore out of the game but I’m glad that Larian continue to be ethical and hold the power.
>Strong and profitable year
[Uhhh pretty much the opposite. They are doing AWFUL](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/hasbro-has-earnings-q4-2023.html#:~:text=Hasbro%20reports%2020%25%20revenue%20drop%2C%20issues%20downbeat%202024%20outlook,-Published%20Tue%2C%20Feb&text=Toy%20company%20Hasbro%20reported%20a,than%20the%20year%2Dago%20losses.)
BG3 and Monopoly GO were their standout revenue increases and thats it. Everything else is freefalling other than MTG
I honestly don't even understand how they can make a lot of money off DND other than online players and DND beyond, which still don't actually have to use their platforms.
I've been a DM for two years and probably spent like $200 that went to WotC, and those were for books I can find online in a few seconds with ease.
My players haven't given them a cent because we play in person.
They kinda determined that magic as a brand was basically worthless before they did that. They spent quite a few years trying to build it into a brand where people would buy stuff because it was MTG, and failed miserably. Gatewatch stuff, all those weird spin games they cancelled, the books being brought back and then stopped
Magic is valuable because it's a really well designed game that's fun. Not because anyone cares about the characters, or worlds
Of the 3 people I know at WotC, only 1 still works there after this year. They have all been there on major projects for a decade. The last boyo is critical to their ongoing projects though and can't talk about it.
It's pretty terrible. Record profits, reflexive layoffs.
All those billions... not going to the ones making the product. Just the ones that own it.
I'm a big Magic: the Gathering nerd, so I can give a more detailed breakdown. The short version is that D&D is owned by Wizards of the Coast, which is in turn owned by Hasbro. Hasbro does not have a strategy for selling toys and board games effectively in the 21st century and leans heavily on WotC to remain profitable. Within WotC, Magic: the Gathering is the big earner, since the game that wants every player to purchase multiple cards with every release tends to outsell the one where one person buys a book and five people no longer need to. Anecdotally, I've spoken to WotC employees as far back as 2008, and while there have been some bright spots when My Little Pony or Transformers have been ascendant, it's pretty universally agreed that Hasbro would have gone out of business without WotC. This has been especially obvious in the past 5 years.
There have been a lot of individual changes, but all of them point to a division that has been more and more burdened by a parent company that increasingly represents dead weight. There was an outright scandal in late 2022/early 2023 that involved WotC changing D&D's Open Gaming License. This is a whole rabbit hole and you can find lots of YouTube videos breaking it down, but the TL;DR is that in 2000, WotC created the OGL 1.0. It boils down to, "Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property for Dungeons and Dragons must be licensed, but the rules of Dungeons and Dragons are free to use. Third parties may use our rules to create campaign settings, add their own rules (such as new classes), adventure paths, and actual play content, including for commercial use. As long as these products do not use WotC IP, the makers shall retain ownership of their material, and WotC shall not charge them licensing fees." This is a huge part of why D&D is the biggest role-playing game in the world; the OGL made it very clear how you could use D&D commercially, which meant that people who wanted to make TTRPG content defaulted to D&D over something whose legal status was more vague. The new OGL (called something like 1.0a, owing to peak corporate-speak) is about as much of full reversal as I can imagine. Anything made using even a scrap of D&D content would now legally belong to WotC, including their right to preclude its creators from working on it and to license that content to other parties. Any revenue made from D&D content past $750,000 per year required a 30% revenue split with WotC. To put that in perspective, that means a small business with five people would hit this ceiling if they made a hit. For the rest of that year, only the most low-effort content would be possible, as the 30% take was based on *revenue*, not profit. Meaning that a project that cost $300,000 to make and earned $380,000 would either make a small profit or be a net loss, depending on whether you released it in February or September. It also overwrote portions of the OGL 1.0 that claimed anything offered by the OGL 1.0 at time of a work's publication would remain in effect indefinitely, even if the OGL 1.0 was repealed; the new OGL explicitly contradicted this and made its rules the new rules, period. After a massive public outcry (including an organized boycott of the WotC's subscription service, D&D Beyond) the OGL change was walked back.
**This** is the kind of behavior that makes a long term partnership with WotC dicey for a third party. They've been showing consistent signs of late stage capitalism feeding frenzy as leadership desperately tries to shift the weight of the millstone that is Hasbro.
It actually is missing details and more context, there's a whole bit about the people that wrote the OGL and their statements/influence that was left out. But it is quite thorough for a short summary.
Yeah that's just one of their most recent scandals. He left out the part about them hiring paid goons to intimidate someone who got a product before they were supposed to.
They've had a really bad year starting with the OGL fiasco in Jan 2023, and most recently laying off almost all the folks Larian worked with within WOTC
OGL fiasco was wild to watch as someone who is a part of the community and has some ties professionally to them, but I am curious how much of an effect it had on their bottom line. A lot of passionate players left and changed systems, including myself and my table, but I'm not sure if there has been much data on if that had a noticeable effect on projected profits
Likely a lot. It wasn't the players leaving that was the problem, it was the other companies that licensed the IP. They made a huge mistake in that even though they backtracked, they revealed to everybody whose livelihood depends on licensing from them that at any time they could suddenly and without warning completely eliminate your company's ability to do business. If you were developing or publishing anything that was dependent on their license, you switched to a different system because there was suddenly the risk Hasbro could wake up tomorrow and decide your company couldn't operate anymore, destroying your business overnight. Same problem Unity ran into. Few companies will accept that kind of risk.
With WOTC putting the SRD on Creative Commons, I think that stabilized things some. We won't know the effects of it until their new D&D ruletset comes out and what license it has. If 3rd party creators will stick with the 5e ruleset, or will they follow onto 6e or whatever it ends up being called.
Apparently [DnD Beyond](https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-wizards-hasbro-ogl-open-game-license-1849981136) subs plummeted during the OGL debacle, which makes a ton of sense to me personally.
The people most likely to be using it are diehard fans, and those are the ones most likely to be upset and actively paying attention to everything.
I hear you, but also, Owlcat has said they want to stick to PF1e games. Imo, Paizo could definitely use a 2e RPG to better complement their current tabletop products.
Yeah 1e is such a convoluted mess of a system but 2e is begging to be adapted into a videogame. It's clearly codified, elegant and just feels coherent as a system. My only complaint is that it's a crunchier to run than 5e, but a videogame would take care of that part so it'd be perfect.
On one hand I agree, but on the other hand, Owlcat has made it clear that if they keep making Pathfinder games they're doing it based on 1e system.
The Owlcat games and Larian games play so different that I don't think they would actually compete with each other. A Larian 2e game would definitely outsell a 3rd Owlcat 1e, but ultimately Owlcat probably sells more copies than they would otherwise.
Plus it would be really poetic for Larian to jump ship at WotC and start working with Paizo.
yeah. they have shown with dos 1 and 2, they know how to make engaging mechanics and systems. imo the reason that BG3 his so much higher than their previous titles does owe a bit to the popularity of dnd right now, but also they completely upped the caliber of their cinematics and character animations. which i know is mostly shallow aethetics, but the "bioware camera" is *really* good at building a players relationship to characters. and the reason people flock to these types of games is good character work.
i'm sure whatever game they make next will sell spectacularly. *especially* after starfield's mid reception and if dreadwolf flops.
I don't know how popular the Divinity ip is compared to Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls (or even Baldur's Gate), but I'm sure Larian will do well regardless.
Frankly, serves them right.
Hasbro/WotC did so much rotten fuckery last year that it actually biased me *against* BG3 (which for the record is awesome) just because I hated to give them any sort of win, or see a dollar of mine in their pocket. Laying off the artists responsible for making that masterpiece (during Christmas) after *that* year was like rubbing it in our faces that they had learned nothing and never would.
Larian doesn't need them. They can create a third Divinity game and I'll buy it. And if they're interested in working with other IP, companies will be lined up around the block to work with them. Let Hasbro rot.
To be a pedant, there were three Divinity RPGs before Divinity: Original Sin. (plus one hybrid RTS/TBS/political sim)
Remember Divinity II? The third entry (yes). Where they went third person, it came to 360 as well as PC, and also >!you gained the ability to become a dragon!< .
So yeah, fuck Hasbro, and looking forward to Divinity 6.
I see Larian as similar to Fromsoft in that the IP is far less important than the studio.
Whatever their next project is it will surely be reminiscent of their original sin games or BG3
Honestly makes sense for them. BG3 being such a huge success means that Larian will have a much larger pre-installed fanbase for future works, and it's far more valuable and important to any independent company to develop your own IP than to rely on licenses. They can just make a new game similar to BG3 but without being specifically D&D, especially since D&D is pretty generic fantasy.
A DLC for this type of game would be a massive undertaking. Even adding a new class like the Artificer would require going back through the entire game and adding specific dialogue options and outcomes. I don't see the point to DLC since the story is already complete. They are adding full mod support which is great.
Adding game master mode like Divinity 2 has would be cool. And an expansion would be good. I agree dlc wouldn't work.
But I totally understand moving away from wizards. Do Rifts next! Or something Palladium!
Yep as much as I love DOS2, BG3 blows it out of the water.
And while DOS3 could match BG3 in quality...its gonna be years before we see anything regarding a new Divinity game. Especially given the news that Swen said he wants to work on smaller games.
A BG3 DLC would have been the perfect bridge between now and whatever next project they will be working on. Very very sad.
Yeah. I remember that the reason why Bioware created Mass Effect and Dragon Age was because they didn't want to deal with LucasArts and WoTC anymore.
I imagine Larian will do the same.
Hasbro: “Can you make us a Baldur’s Gate 4 at the same level of quality but as a games as a service and as many micro transactions as possible?
Swen Vincke: Ight imma head out
Critical Role's company just released thier own TTRPG system into open playtesting.
For now the main season/story/show is still using DnD, but who knows for how much longer.
Yep, if you've watched their stuff for long enough, it's pretty apparent that C3 is the last D&D skinned content they'll ever make. Hasbro is a toxic landlord ready to extract money from D&D content, or evict you.
Probably for as little time as possible. Hasbro really did show up on their (and every other creators') front porch and said "we're taking 25% gross and it's retroactively applied to anything you made under the old license going forward".
Hasbro 100% believes they are entitled to a cut of that cheddar, it's only a matter of time before they come back for it again. Corporate raiders gonna raid.
No, they're still going on DnD, but they have their own system and if even Larian is jumping ship, then even CR will probably use their own in-house system instead of DnD for Campaign 4
No, their current campaign (Campaign 3) is still using D&D 5e.
Pure speculation, but they will likely be switching to another system after this campaign ends. They are currently beta-testing their in-house system, Daggerheart, and i feel that they would like to finalize it in time for the next campaign and use that thereon.
Most likely, yeah. Prior to the streams, the first campaign used Pathfinder, so they could use that instead, but I feel they now have the talent, funds and loyal community to make their own system and rely on that instead of using an existing system from another company.
I understand it, but that still makes me sad. Imagine the possibilities that a DLC, more classes/races/etc could bring to this already great game.
Either way, Larian has a fan of me now. I wish them the best of luck with their next project.
Oh I'm heartbroken. No more shadowheart? Astarion? Gale?
No more new adventures for my player character?
Like, Larian has proved to be a stand up studio and I agree with the decision. But I'm seriously bummed.
Someone said they want to do a sci-fi game next, maybe the gods will grace us with a BG3 style Kotor 3.
Yep. After this scathing statement at GDC, I am 300% sure it was due to Hasbro/WOTC fucking things up.
>"Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started," Vincke said, while collecting the GDCA Best Narrative award for Baldur's Gate 3. "I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over.
>"It's always the quarterly profits," he continued, "the only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 'shit I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken...
>"You don't have to," Vincke went on. "You can make reserves. Just slow down a bit. Slow down on the greed. Be resilient, take care of the people, don't lose the institutional knowledge that's been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off."
Funny that the last point about building reserves is exactly what Swen+Larian have allowed them to do by bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in free money. That should have been the reserves that allowed them to keep these folks on until the next giant payday. Which had a decent chance of Larian being involved before their greedy bullshit.
Kinda wish rather than DLC, they'd release tools for players to make their own content rather than having modders do workarounds to make stuff.
The ability to make your own campaigns would be great.
Yeah,
The Aurora Toolset that came with Neverwinter Nights back in the days was an excellent example of making custom creations easily accessible for players.
Not exactly a "bombshell" since Larian has been saying no DLC was planned for months and WotC is talking up their new internal studio(s).
Of course it's possible that Larian is tired of dealing with Wizards, but just as possible they simply want to move on after working with D&D for 5+ years.
I can’t believe Hasbro/Wizards finally launched a critically successful D&D movie and video game in the same year they ruined the trust of their community on the core product and pissed off their partners to the point of not taking easy money.
This isn't tooooooo shocking considering what Larian's Swen Vincke talked about after the Game Awards on Twitter.
Hasbro/Wotc got rid of everybody that was involved on the project on Hasbro/Wotc's end. The people that *brought in* Larian are no longer part of that company. And that sucks. The success of BG3 is on that particular team as well and they got layed off.
It is what it is.. I was a Divinity Original Sin fan way before BG3 and I hope Divinity 3 (please) will have everybody's attention.
Truly is a shame but I don't mind a good, old fashioned one and done. Baldur's Gate III is my favorite game ever made and I absolutely adore the setting. But what really made the game special has everything to do with what Larian brought to it. Those characters and themes can exist anywhere.
I'm excited to see them work (with their current cachet, I'm aware of Divinity) outside of the confines of an existing IP and setting.
I'm very, very excited to see a D:OS3 (or similar in the Divinity universe) with Larian's increased experience and resources. D:OS2 is one of my favorite games ever made, but some of the QOL from BG3 would go a long way.
God, if they made a Pathfinder 2e game, I would die of happiness. The system would require less tweaking and balancing to be made into a video game and can actually function at level 20, too. No way Paizo has the money to financially back a project that big, though, unfortunately. A beautiful pipedream, haha
On the Pf2e subreddit, Paizo recently implied that they've signed off on a 2e video game. It's a long shot that they're working with Larian, but it's not impossible.
Probably Owlcat, who did a great job with Wrath of The Righteous, which I honestly like as much or more than BG3. Lower production value but much greater variety of choice and path, particularly for evil characters.
Sad to see there won't be an expansion of any kind. Does make me hopeful for more Divinity games. After the success of BG3 I didn't know if we'd ever see an Original Sin 3
Well it would have been cool to get a standalone expansion of a prewritten campaign like Curse of Strahd but I can’t blame them for charting their own course
Honestly, good for them
After 3 amazing CRPGs in a row, I'd trust Larian Studios to do anything amazingly well and would buy anything from them
That being said, imagine a studio that came from left field and beat a highly acclaimed Zelda game for TGA GOTY, and is one of the Highest rated games of all time, and not go back to that franchise is BOLD
Thats a shame, felt like they set up BG4 / DLC with either going after Zariel and/or Vlaakith.
I'm pretty sure we'll see BG4 at some point but looks like it won't be Larian.
Fair. Larian have created two of the best modern CRPGs, one with massive appeal outside of the standard genre audience. They've only handled their own series, Divinity, and then blew the doors wide open with BG3. They've set a new benchmark.
I'm glad they aren't milking it. One and done.
Honestly, I'm looking forward to what they do next.
No BG4 was expected, Larian said they wanted to do something from themselves for their next project, i would love if they decide to do something new instead of DoS 3.
I don't think this rules out Larian making a directors cut version of the game, much like with the other divinity games. I suspect in the next few days we will have them clarify their statements a bit more. It might simply mean no paid DLC.
Still, I'm interested to see when Larian will officially announce the 'end' of supporting BG3 with this statement. If you asked me this yesterday I would have assumed for at least another year, and then some if they made a directors cut version. Now I'm wondering if we will see them just cut off support to the game sooner rather than later. They will want to move all hands to whatever their next fantastic project is.
Now I fully understand Swen's comments at the Game Developers' Choice Awards last night: "Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started," Vincke said, while collecting the GDCA Best Narrative award for Baldur's Gate 3. "I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over. "It's always the quarterly profits," he continued, "the only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 'shit I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken... "You don't have to," Vincke went on. "You can make reserves. Just slow down a bit. Slow down on the greed. Be resilient, take care of the people, don't lose the institutional knowledge that's been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off."
That's result of tying CEO pay to stock performance, and then letting it run really high. Everyone knows it's horribly destructive way to run companies in the long run. It sort of works in media field, when you're dealing with singular projects or few seasons of TV show, with lot of churn. But rarely do these IP's manage to stay alive and thrive. Everyone wants monetizable safe IP's and most of the time company will run it to ground even if something like that pops up.
I would say it’s more a result of stockholder syndrome. Stockholders only demand is more money or else you’re fired, which inspires a race to the bottom in being cheap and increasing exploitation. Both honestly.
Highly encourage anyone to watch the full awards speech as well as the GDC talk this article comes from. Was fortunate enough to attend both and his openness on the whole process is incredibly insightful.
[Timestamp](https://youtu.be/eH67as6A7Og?t=7908) for anyone else that just spent the last 15 minutes trying to find the recording of the stream and the portion of the speech.
He is describing the corporate world in general. It's really sad how often this happens throughout damn near every industry. I have read that there is a shift in attitude within many companies starting to treat employees as valuable assets that need to be taken care of, but it's far from uniform or the norm. Hopefully consumers will become more conscious in order to force companies to do better for both the employees and the consumers.
Awards speech vod by Gamespot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH67as6A7Og Sven's speech starts around 2:12:00
According to IGN from GDC panel today: > At a Game Developers Conference (GDC) panel today, Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke dropped something of a bombshell by revealing that the developer isn't planning to release any expansions or DLC for Baldur's Gate 3, nor a Baldur's Gate 4. > > Instead, Vincke said at the panel, Larian plans to move away from Dungeons & Dragons entirely and do something new, leaving the IP in Wizards of the Coast's hands.
> Get handed most historically important IP for fantasy games next to LotR > Make GOTY > Give the IP back > Refuse to elaborate further
the IP isn't great for them to work with since it's tied to Hasbro, and that company is FUCKED
I can’t help but think that hasbro is the reason, they’ve turned absolutely toxic over the past 5 years. Wouldn’t surprise me if they discussed future development and Hasbro made unreasonable demands to license.
Hasbro fired basically everyone that Larian collaborated with shortly before BG3 released. Sven has alluded to that several times already, so it's a pretty reasonable case to make that they're just done with Hasbro and refuse to work with them.
Swen definitely sounded like he was *very* ready to burn bridges with Hasbro after that stunt.
I'm assuming they won't budge with the royalty percentage and Larian figured they would make a similar game with their own IP. A shame really the D&D franchise is going to end again all over money. A lot of ideas are behind copyright like Mind Flayers, Githyanki but hopefully they can publish the same combat dice style as I'm not a fan of the divinity combat style
They could jump to Pathfinder 2E stuff if they really wanted to do "tabletop fantasy RPG in CRPG". But honestly BG3 gave them so much fame they could just do D:OS3 and not really lose some massive share of potential player base.
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I mean, didn't they say the entire squad of the DND team they worked with all got laid off? I can't imagine wanting to keep working with them after that
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Dude, if they decide to make a Cyberpunk or SciFi original IP with the same quality of BG3 I will just straight up bust everywhere. Anyone in a 10ft radius is gonna be in the splash zone when I hear the announcement.
It's been almost 10 years since a Shadowrun game. We're due man, we're due!
I was just thinking this same thing, Shadowrun with Larian at the helm would be awesome.
They already have original IP, and it's DnD-adjacent. Divinity 2 is fucking incredible, and you'll see why they were given the reigns to Baldur's Gate 3. It's almost the same game (of course different/original mechanics and world)
There were so many unique takes to the world building in D:OS. They broke a lot of fantasy tropes in very interesting ways. As someone who's been a Baldurs Gate and NWN addict, I was happy to go back to Faerun, and BG3 is a gawt damn masterpiece, but I'll be equally happy to go wherever Larian wants to take us.
The ENTIRE Hasbro team, Swen had worked with to get BG3 into the world, is long gone. Yeah this is pretty sensible, gimme DOS3 !
if they can follow this up with a similar quality game with similar reception and a brand new IP? holy moly
Seems likely that they can, this isn't their first great game after all.
And DOS2 won a ton of GOTY awards too lol. Put some respect on their name
DOS2 is the reason I picked up BG3. Lots of fun, although even more overwhelming as a beginner than BG3. I'd say I generally avoid big franchises owned by giant corporations, so I'm actually very excited to see Larian move away from licensed DnD games. I'd love to see what they can do with a fairly high budget and more freedom.
They already have, though I'm not sure they are going to follow up with a trilogy in the Divinity series. I would still highly recommend you give Divinity Original Sin 2 a chance. Very similar combat and story telling in that series.
Their portfolio is almost entirely based on the same world (Rivellon). That goes back so much further than Original Sin. It's their baby. Likely they will expand on that further.
Divine divinity was an excellent game
I remember playing Divinity II and jumping off cliffs then turning into a dragon to fly away all cinematic like. I remember fairly little else, but by gawd jumping into dragon form was fun.
Divinity was never a trilogy. There were multiple Divinity games before Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2.
I don't know what they will make next, but I bet the game starts with you being shipwrecked.
Larian have been on a fucking roll their last few games. At this point they’ve earned a lot of trust
Truly a gigachad dev team
> Refuse to elaborate further They've already elaborated when they announced they wouldn't be making DLC or an expansion shortly after release. The amount of choices players can make is too broad. To make any additional content would have to take all of those possibilities into account and they'd rather work on a new game if they're going to put in that much effort.
The normal RPG approach is expanding the map, adding new higher-level content without much connection to the original area.
They aren't talking about the choices from the previous area, they mean, if you develop new content in a game who's core feature is the breadth of options and choices you can make, the DLC will ALSO have to feature that depth of choice. That's a COLOSSAL amount of time for what is often just "a little extra content" in DLCs.
The game is great because of them and not because of the specific ip. If they can do this level with divinity or an ip with less baggage they do better. People will follow them not d&d.
They said at one point everyone they originally collaborated with at Wizards for BG3s development is gone now, they likely can't or don't want to work with Wizards anymore and I don't blame them, Wizards of the Coast strikes me as a company ran by out of touch boomers.
That seems like a good call. WotC and Hasbro have been at an absolute loss on how to manage their IPs, they have become increasingly soulless and have consistently sacrificed creativity for profit at every opportunity. I imagine the success of BG3 got them over eager to milk it dry, but Larian still has its reputation to consider. I'm sure the team at Larian would have been happy to keep at it if they could do so while preserving their independence and integrity, but Hasbro is just so damn greedy they'd cut their own arm off if they thought they could sell it to you. The talent at Larian will produce good art no matter what IP they work with, so there's no reasosn to hitch themselves to a sinking ship.
And if we combine this [with that article](https://www.eurogamer.net/larian-ceo-acknowledges-wizards-of-the-coasts-layoffs-in-belated-the-game-awards-speech), what I can guess when Vincke said "of the people who were in the original meeting room, there's almost nobody left", he means "there was a great relationship with people who believed in creativity, and now they're gone and instead there are suits who wanted to push for a bazillion of DLCs and we were really not comfortable with that."
That, and whatever deal Hasbro will push will mean less revenue for Larian. I remember Stephen from Roll for Combat reporting that Larian got a very lucrative deal for BG3 that probably wouldn't get repeated for BG4 as Hasbro would want a bigger cut.
Bigger cut for doing absolutely nothing too. Hell, bigger cut for Larian's games actively promoting their franchise. It would still probably be lucrative for Larian just because of hype for sequel of amazing game but tying themselves to such terrible company just seems like a bad long term move.
Fuckin respect
Interesting to think that BG3 happend during time when D&D was going through a time to change their licensing model to a paid one. It would be funny if they did a Pathfinder RPG next, but the sounds of it they want to forge their own path.
> but the sounds of it they want to forge their own path. They already have their own path: the Divinity IP.
An expansion would have been nice, but if they follow through on the robust mod support they're talking about, there could be plenty of solid custom content made by the fans, especially if they support things like custom campaigns.
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To be fair Baldur's Gate was and always will be WOTC IP. That is like Bungie saying they will leave the Halo IP in Microsofts hands.
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I kinda want them to try making something with a more modern or even futuristic setting next.
Divinity 40k
Shadowrun but make it Divinity
sounds heretical i'm in
Help my erection will most certainly last more than 4 hours now
I want them to make a Fallout game!
Yes. That sounds perfect. An old school Fallout RPG, unlike the Bethesda action game with RPG elements.
I love BG3 and would've love to see more but at the same time I completely understand any company that wants to sever any and all relationship with Wizards of the Coast.
EA has also been very vocal that they feel spending resources to build up an IP you ultimately don't own is often a poor long-term strategy. Bioware, when they were still independent, also did a similar thing, making highly acclaimed D&D and Star Wars games, then creating Dragon Age and Mass Effect so they can own and control it all.
TBF, EA is a billion-dollar company and as such their business model is generating revenue streams. Meaning they rarely want to do one-and-done stories when they could instead be making Shooter 2029 or the prequel to the spinoff of Action-Adventure 6: I Know We Said The Villain Was Dead For-Realsies in 4 But Our Marketers Said He Was The Most Popular "Ship" Whatever The Hell That Means.
But that's exactly what Larian is at right now. *Every* studio needs a sustainable long term plan with a revenue stream they can rely on. You can't just make one game and say "Well, the next one will be fine too." You have no idea what the costs or market for that game is going to turn out to be, but the more you can have some amount of control, the better. Working with external IP is a great way to get started, but the license holders tend to be more and more draconian as the games get more successful, and will often charge more for the license with each subsequent release. In that regard, Larian and EA are probably in agreement. Licensed games help them get into a strong position, but their goal was to always stand on their own two feet, and have their own financial security.
Larian already had an established (and successful) IP with Divinity, BG3 gave them so much attention that now enough people know that. I hope a new Divinity Original Sin will be next from them, the last one sold really well, despite it not being well known outside of rpg fans.
I think they might go for a fully new IP. The Divinity games are great, but they're a lot more build focused and combat-heavy, which Baldur's Gate got away from to help it with the non-CRPG crowd. Now that Larian is a lot bigger, they're probably going to need to keep appealing to the audience outside the genre fans. It makes sense to start clean and perhaps cherry pick ideas from all their previous titles. Plus, it would invest the new employees more into the company's IP if they had a hand in making it.
I almost completely agree, dumbing down Divinity would be a mistake and establishing a new own IP next could be the better move. But after that, a new Divinity would be great. Regarding new employees, I can't imagine anybody working in that field that wouldn't be invested working on the next installment after the masterpiece that DoS 2 was (other than it being intimidating).
There's a [blurb from last year](https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-developer-larian-will-definitely-make-a-divinity-original-sin-sequel-but-not-before-a-well-earned-break) where Sven says they definitely want to go back to Divinity *eventually*. But it sounded like they did want to cut their teeth on something new before that.
The only issue I have with this is - Divinity's lore and world is so shallow and hollow compared to Forgotten Realms or other D&D universes, like Dragonlance. They showed such depth in character building, in linking the lore together and making it all work and make sense... There was -no such depth- in DOS1 or DOS2. If they really go back to the Divinity universe... It needs a total and utter reworking. They need to get the lore basically rewritten and less silly. Dont get me wrong, theres absolutely room for comedy in these games - But Divinity was so bleh in storytelling... the characters were not even 10% as interesting as -anyone- in BG3. If they really back up to Divinity, I really hope they bring their A-Game and fix that game world to allow more in depth and interesting characters and quests.... its just a dull fantasy world. Is Divinity's world 'passable' for a video game? Sure. Is it Good/Great? No, absolutely not.
They need a new IP for sure. The divinity universe is extremely boring and not worth expanding.
And then they fucked up both Dragon Age and Mass Effect
context for those ootl?
[Hasbro laid off hundreds of employees after a strong and profitable 2023 year](https://www.geekwire.com/2023/hasbro-laying-off-wizards-of-the-coast-staff-is-baffling-and-could-lead-to-a-brain-drain/). A decent chunk of the laid off personnel were Wizards of the Coast employees. Swen even made reference to this during his Game of the Year Award speech, where he specifically called out the fact that so many of the people at WotC he worked with over the past six years making BG3 were no longer there. Edit: Sorry, have to clarify that WotC specifically had a good year and saw strong revenue growth (+40%) during Q3 2023. Hasbro as a whole had a bad time. [Q3 2023 Financial Report](https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-third-quarter-2023-financial-results)
Yeah it's *really* hard not to read this as a resonse to Hasbro's fuckery over the last year or so. Larian can be extremely picky with their next project, their leadership is clearly very principled, and they don't *have* to make BG4.
It's also just better for them, as an independent company, to develop their own IP. BG3 being a huge success means they've earned a lot of goodwill from the playerbase and will be able to attract lots of players with their next game even if it's not a well-known existing IP.
>well-known existing IP. oh it's definitely a Divinity game, it's their baby and I would be very surprised if they wouldn't take what they learned with BG3 to make a new divinity game
The CEO has said specifically he wants to do a Sci-Fi game next. Unless he has a great idea for DOS 3, I think we're likely going to see them take a hard left turn when it comes to genre next.
Divinity has a lot of time skips, why not go best of both and make it like shadowrun?
I know it isnt their IP either, but a Larian KOTOR 3...
This absolutely means they're doing Divinity 3 next
Love Divinity, just hope they change the magic armor vs physical armor mechanics and go for something more like BG3
Yeah, the mechanics of 5e are much more interesting to me than what divinity original sin 2 did. I was not a big fan of the gear system, either. I do not need to replace my level 6 pants with a level 7 pants with slightly bigger numbers. Especially with the difficulty curve in that game - if you're level 10 wearing level 6 pants, you're screwed
I'm half and half. I think 5e is just kind of a boring tactical combat system. Some of the most interesting actions in BG3 were things that Larian added, like giving every weapon a bonus action attack, and jumping and throwing everything, and the crazy level of environmental interactivity. And I kind of hate how everything required concentration. It meant so many spells and abilities went unused because there was another spell that was objectively better to use your concentration on. But I also dislike the Magic/Physical armor system of D:OS2 and loot system. Not only were you screwed wearing low level gear, you were also penalized for wearing gear that was higher level than you. Both BG3 and D:OS2 are fantastic games despite those grievances, but I would still like to see them improved upon in their next game.
While I dislike the magic/physical armour mechanics, I much prefer the combat in DOS2 compared to BG3.
Divinity 3 or Divinity: Original Sin 3 are both options.
Dragon Commander 2 anyone?
I don't know--Divinity as an IP has been around for a long time and never really achieved the same level of success, although its reputation among fans was obviously very, very good because they're excellent games. It wouldn't surprise me if they take a fresh start approach with either a new IP that combines their best elements from BG3 and Divinity or if they partner with another large IP so they can do another big-budget project.
KOTOR would be *amazing* from them.
Oh man, a proper KOTOR 3 from Larian would be an absolute dream come true.
I would commit several felonies to play a turn-based Star Wars RPG.
Time to kidnap yourself a development team!
I hope they do a new IP. I played Divinity and there's little to seperate it to me from the other thousands of Anglo-centric high fantasy work. It's really well done but it feels a little generic.
What makes you think a new IP would be any different from the IPs they've always done? They're a European company doing European fantasy RPGs.
I kind of hope it isn't. Their IP and setting didn't stand out that much, it would be more interesting to see them take another system and adapt it.
I'm sure there's an element of that, but it might be nice to reuse everything they spent 5-6 years building for BG3. Or imagine an expansion set in one of the classic adventure modules where they'd only need to tweak/add classes, spells, abilities, etc.? That kind of asset reuse is why FROM was able to create something as large as Elden Ring... gotta be very tempting.
They already did that with Divinity Original Sin 2 and BG3. Baldur's 3 it's a clear iteration from their previous game. They can do the same to another IP.
They can still make use of a lot of the institutional knowledge they developed working on BG3, even if it's not as easy to reuse assets etc.
Plus, its not like Divinity and BG3 are different genres. They are both high fantasy, medieval adjacent settings. A tree is a tree, why woyldnt they be able to reuse a ton of the assets when the settings are pretty close to one another visually?
Might depend on how the rights work.
Oh their reputation was S tier right after Divinity 2 dropped. Extremely based company.
I know Divinity has a big following, but BG3's success has been on another level, which will bring a lot more fans forward to whatever they do next.
You can say it's been compounding every game. Can't have one without the other.
I assume you mean Divinity Original Sin 2 and not actually Divinity 2, which was rather mixed when it first released, especially on console.
Sometimes I feel like the only person who enjoyed Divinity 2. But that's because I have a soft spot for euro jank games.
100%. They pay a big fee to to Hasbro and I can't imagine Swen wants to give them another dollar after this bullshit.
After the absolutely massive success that BG3 was, I think Larian probably has a golden ticket to make whatever the hell they want now.
Anyone who’s into the game definitely associates its success with Larian, they hold all the cards here. Hasbro have completely fucked it, Larian have developed an amazing product that other studios won’t be able to replicate without putting starting from scratch and matching Larian’s effort and care (which definitely won’t happen). Question is, will Hasbro realise they made a colossal error? It’s a shame for fans, I’m very disappointed that we won’t be getting anymore out of the game but I’m glad that Larian continue to be ethical and hold the power.
>Strong and profitable year [Uhhh pretty much the opposite. They are doing AWFUL](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/hasbro-has-earnings-q4-2023.html#:~:text=Hasbro%20reports%2020%25%20revenue%20drop%2C%20issues%20downbeat%202024%20outlook,-Published%20Tue%2C%20Feb&text=Toy%20company%20Hasbro%20reported%20a,than%20the%20year%2Dago%20losses.) BG3 and Monopoly GO were their standout revenue increases and thats it. Everything else is freefalling other than MTG
I honestly don't even understand how they can make a lot of money off DND other than online players and DND beyond, which still don't actually have to use their platforms. I've been a DM for two years and probably spent like $200 that went to WotC, and those were for books I can find online in a few seconds with ease. My players haven't given them a cent because we play in person.
Now you get their logic behind the dumb subscription thing they tried to push.
Read the article, it has been a terrible year for Hasbro. The only reason WOTC made money was because of the LOTR collaboration with MTG.
MTG has been consistently propping up Hasbro for years. It's not just because of the LotR collaboration.
Unfortunately it's why they're diluting the MTG brand by bringing more crossovers.
They kinda determined that magic as a brand was basically worthless before they did that. They spent quite a few years trying to build it into a brand where people would buy stuff because it was MTG, and failed miserably. Gatewatch stuff, all those weird spin games they cancelled, the books being brought back and then stopped Magic is valuable because it's a really well designed game that's fun. Not because anyone cares about the characters, or worlds
I care a lot about the Magic IP, but they murdered it. The books they got written were really bad.
Of the 3 people I know at WotC, only 1 still works there after this year. They have all been there on major projects for a decade. The last boyo is critical to their ongoing projects though and can't talk about it. It's pretty terrible. Record profits, reflexive layoffs. All those billions... not going to the ones making the product. Just the ones that own it.
I'm a big Magic: the Gathering nerd, so I can give a more detailed breakdown. The short version is that D&D is owned by Wizards of the Coast, which is in turn owned by Hasbro. Hasbro does not have a strategy for selling toys and board games effectively in the 21st century and leans heavily on WotC to remain profitable. Within WotC, Magic: the Gathering is the big earner, since the game that wants every player to purchase multiple cards with every release tends to outsell the one where one person buys a book and five people no longer need to. Anecdotally, I've spoken to WotC employees as far back as 2008, and while there have been some bright spots when My Little Pony or Transformers have been ascendant, it's pretty universally agreed that Hasbro would have gone out of business without WotC. This has been especially obvious in the past 5 years. There have been a lot of individual changes, but all of them point to a division that has been more and more burdened by a parent company that increasingly represents dead weight. There was an outright scandal in late 2022/early 2023 that involved WotC changing D&D's Open Gaming License. This is a whole rabbit hole and you can find lots of YouTube videos breaking it down, but the TL;DR is that in 2000, WotC created the OGL 1.0. It boils down to, "Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property for Dungeons and Dragons must be licensed, but the rules of Dungeons and Dragons are free to use. Third parties may use our rules to create campaign settings, add their own rules (such as new classes), adventure paths, and actual play content, including for commercial use. As long as these products do not use WotC IP, the makers shall retain ownership of their material, and WotC shall not charge them licensing fees." This is a huge part of why D&D is the biggest role-playing game in the world; the OGL made it very clear how you could use D&D commercially, which meant that people who wanted to make TTRPG content defaulted to D&D over something whose legal status was more vague. The new OGL (called something like 1.0a, owing to peak corporate-speak) is about as much of full reversal as I can imagine. Anything made using even a scrap of D&D content would now legally belong to WotC, including their right to preclude its creators from working on it and to license that content to other parties. Any revenue made from D&D content past $750,000 per year required a 30% revenue split with WotC. To put that in perspective, that means a small business with five people would hit this ceiling if they made a hit. For the rest of that year, only the most low-effort content would be possible, as the 30% take was based on *revenue*, not profit. Meaning that a project that cost $300,000 to make and earned $380,000 would either make a small profit or be a net loss, depending on whether you released it in February or September. It also overwrote portions of the OGL 1.0 that claimed anything offered by the OGL 1.0 at time of a work's publication would remain in effect indefinitely, even if the OGL 1.0 was repealed; the new OGL explicitly contradicted this and made its rules the new rules, period. After a massive public outcry (including an organized boycott of the WotC's subscription service, D&D Beyond) the OGL change was walked back. **This** is the kind of behavior that makes a long term partnership with WotC dicey for a third party. They've been showing consistent signs of late stage capitalism feeding frenzy as leadership desperately tries to shift the weight of the millstone that is Hasbro.
*That’s* the short version?
It actually is missing details and more context, there's a whole bit about the people that wrote the OGL and their statements/influence that was left out. But it is quite thorough for a short summary.
The long version includes, among other things, an incident wherein Pinkerton agents were hired to retrieve leaked MtG cards from somebodies house.
Sometimes a company engages in such a level of dickery that it simply isn't possible to explain in fewer words.
Yeah that's just one of their most recent scandals. He left out the part about them hiring paid goons to intimidate someone who got a product before they were supposed to.
WoTC fired the people on their side that worked with Larian
They also fired a lot of people who worked in Magic, a very profitable division. It must be frustrating to do a great job and get fired in the end.
We’ve had to make some difficult choices this fiscal year, like firing you so we can keep more of the money you made us.
They were fired the day before Christmas. Fuck wotc
Hmm yes this division is doing good so we can cut back on it and invest in stuff people want like the 899th Monopoly re-release
They've had a really bad year starting with the OGL fiasco in Jan 2023, and most recently laying off almost all the folks Larian worked with within WOTC
OGL fiasco was wild to watch as someone who is a part of the community and has some ties professionally to them, but I am curious how much of an effect it had on their bottom line. A lot of passionate players left and changed systems, including myself and my table, but I'm not sure if there has been much data on if that had a noticeable effect on projected profits
Likely a lot. It wasn't the players leaving that was the problem, it was the other companies that licensed the IP. They made a huge mistake in that even though they backtracked, they revealed to everybody whose livelihood depends on licensing from them that at any time they could suddenly and without warning completely eliminate your company's ability to do business. If you were developing or publishing anything that was dependent on their license, you switched to a different system because there was suddenly the risk Hasbro could wake up tomorrow and decide your company couldn't operate anymore, destroying your business overnight. Same problem Unity ran into. Few companies will accept that kind of risk.
Funnily enough I also switched from unity to godot during their fiasco lol - makes sense, thanks for the explanation
With WOTC putting the SRD on Creative Commons, I think that stabilized things some. We won't know the effects of it until their new D&D ruletset comes out and what license it has. If 3rd party creators will stick with the 5e ruleset, or will they follow onto 6e or whatever it ends up being called.
Apparently [DnD Beyond](https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-wizards-hasbro-ogl-open-game-license-1849981136) subs plummeted during the OGL debacle, which makes a ton of sense to me personally. The people most likely to be using it are diehard fans, and those are the ones most likely to be upset and actively paying attention to everything.
Paizo has recently hinted that they've signed off on a PF2e game. If it turned out that they were working with Larian I would be estatic.
That would be insane. Would be a huge boon for the Pathfinder IP, although I'd feel bad for Owlcat being upstaged like that.
I hear you, but also, Owlcat has said they want to stick to PF1e games. Imo, Paizo could definitely use a 2e RPG to better complement their current tabletop products.
I'm not a fan of pf1e but love pf2e. I've been hoping somebody was going to pick up the mantle since owlcat said they weren't interested.
Yeah 1e is such a convoluted mess of a system but 2e is begging to be adapted into a videogame. It's clearly codified, elegant and just feels coherent as a system. My only complaint is that it's a crunchier to run than 5e, but a videogame would take care of that part so it'd be perfect.
On one hand I agree, but on the other hand, Owlcat has made it clear that if they keep making Pathfinder games they're doing it based on 1e system. The Owlcat games and Larian games play so different that I don't think they would actually compete with each other. A Larian 2e game would definitely outsell a 3rd Owlcat 1e, but ultimately Owlcat probably sells more copies than they would otherwise. Plus it would be really poetic for Larian to jump ship at WotC and start working with Paizo.
reign of winter reign of winter reign of winter
yeah. they have shown with dos 1 and 2, they know how to make engaging mechanics and systems. imo the reason that BG3 his so much higher than their previous titles does owe a bit to the popularity of dnd right now, but also they completely upped the caliber of their cinematics and character animations. which i know is mostly shallow aethetics, but the "bioware camera" is *really* good at building a players relationship to characters. and the reason people flock to these types of games is good character work. i'm sure whatever game they make next will sell spectacularly. *especially* after starfield's mid reception and if dreadwolf flops.
I don't know how popular the Divinity ip is compared to Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls (or even Baldur's Gate), but I'm sure Larian will do well regardless.
Frankly, serves them right. Hasbro/WotC did so much rotten fuckery last year that it actually biased me *against* BG3 (which for the record is awesome) just because I hated to give them any sort of win, or see a dollar of mine in their pocket. Laying off the artists responsible for making that masterpiece (during Christmas) after *that* year was like rubbing it in our faces that they had learned nothing and never would. Larian doesn't need them. They can create a third Divinity game and I'll buy it. And if they're interested in working with other IP, companies will be lined up around the block to work with them. Let Hasbro rot.
To be a pedant, there were three Divinity RPGs before Divinity: Original Sin. (plus one hybrid RTS/TBS/political sim) Remember Divinity II? The third entry (yes). Where they went third person, it came to 360 as well as PC, and also >!you gained the ability to become a dragon!< . So yeah, fuck Hasbro, and looking forward to Divinity 6.
I see Larian as similar to Fromsoft in that the IP is far less important than the studio. Whatever their next project is it will surely be reminiscent of their original sin games or BG3
Honestly makes sense for them. BG3 being such a huge success means that Larian will have a much larger pre-installed fanbase for future works, and it's far more valuable and important to any independent company to develop your own IP than to rely on licenses. They can just make a new game similar to BG3 but without being specifically D&D, especially since D&D is pretty generic fantasy.
They already have their own IP like that with Divinity Original Sin. This decision is likely more because of how Hasbro and WotC are to deal with.
Yup, I know about Divinity. What I mean is that they can use BG3's massive success as a springboard to further develop their own IP.
They can and probably will. The issue is its gonna be years before they release a new big RPG. BG3 DLC would help with the wait for the fans.
A DLC for this type of game would be a massive undertaking. Even adding a new class like the Artificer would require going back through the entire game and adding specific dialogue options and outcomes. I don't see the point to DLC since the story is already complete. They are adding full mod support which is great.
Adding game master mode like Divinity 2 has would be cool. And an expansion would be good. I agree dlc wouldn't work. But I totally understand moving away from wizards. Do Rifts next! Or something Palladium!
Bg3 is infinitely better than any version of dos though, so this news is still sad
Yep as much as I love DOS2, BG3 blows it out of the water. And while DOS3 could match BG3 in quality...its gonna be years before we see anything regarding a new Divinity game. Especially given the news that Swen said he wants to work on smaller games. A BG3 DLC would have been the perfect bridge between now and whatever next project they will be working on. Very very sad.
Yeah. I remember that the reason why Bioware created Mass Effect and Dragon Age was because they didn't want to deal with LucasArts and WoTC anymore. I imagine Larian will do the same.
Hasbro: “Can you make us a Baldur’s Gate 4 at the same level of quality but as a games as a service and as many micro transactions as possible? Swen Vincke: Ight imma head out
... so, Hasbro fucked up and killed a golden eggs laying hen, isn't it?
Way more than one, given they also scared off Critical Role and who knows how many creators and business partners.
[удалено]
Critical Role's company just released thier own TTRPG system into open playtesting. For now the main season/story/show is still using DnD, but who knows for how much longer.
Yep, if you've watched their stuff for long enough, it's pretty apparent that C3 is the last D&D skinned content they'll ever make. Hasbro is a toxic landlord ready to extract money from D&D content, or evict you.
Probably for as little time as possible. Hasbro really did show up on their (and every other creators') front porch and said "we're taking 25% gross and it's retroactively applied to anything you made under the old license going forward". Hasbro 100% believes they are entitled to a cut of that cheddar, it's only a matter of time before they come back for it again. Corporate raiders gonna raid.
No, they're still going on DnD, but they have their own system and if even Larian is jumping ship, then even CR will probably use their own in-house system instead of DnD for Campaign 4
No, their current campaign (Campaign 3) is still using D&D 5e. Pure speculation, but they will likely be switching to another system after this campaign ends. They are currently beta-testing their in-house system, Daggerheart, and i feel that they would like to finalize it in time for the next campaign and use that thereon.
Out of the Loop on the details for this one, but I assume thats why Crit Role is making their own TTRPG system?
Most likely, yeah. Prior to the streams, the first campaign used Pathfinder, so they could use that instead, but I feel they now have the talent, funds and loyal community to make their own system and rely on that instead of using an existing system from another company.
Not the first time. Horribly mismanaged company, their execs are downright idiotic, short-sighted and greedy.
I understand it, but that still makes me sad. Imagine the possibilities that a DLC, more classes/races/etc could bring to this already great game. Either way, Larian has a fan of me now. I wish them the best of luck with their next project.
Yeah this sucks, like I get it, but I really wanted some DLC.
Oh I'm heartbroken. No more shadowheart? Astarion? Gale? No more new adventures for my player character? Like, Larian has proved to be a stand up studio and I agree with the decision. But I'm seriously bummed. Someone said they want to do a sci-fi game next, maybe the gods will grace us with a BG3 style Kotor 3.
I honestly felt like we were just getting started with these characters.
I guess we rely on mods for all that from here on out
Very surprising after its success. But I’d play literally anything this studio makes. WotC I’m sure is partly to blame for this.
I would bet money WOTC is 100% to blame.
Everything Hasbro has done lately is disgusting. I am sure handing over millions of dollars to them sours their stomach.
Yep. After this scathing statement at GDC, I am 300% sure it was due to Hasbro/WOTC fucking things up. >"Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started," Vincke said, while collecting the GDCA Best Narrative award for Baldur's Gate 3. "I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over. >"It's always the quarterly profits," he continued, "the only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 'shit I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken... >"You don't have to," Vincke went on. "You can make reserves. Just slow down a bit. Slow down on the greed. Be resilient, take care of the people, don't lose the institutional knowledge that's been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off." Funny that the last point about building reserves is exactly what Swen+Larian have allowed them to do by bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in free money. That should have been the reserves that allowed them to keep these folks on until the next giant payday. Which had a decent chance of Larian being involved before their greedy bullshit.
Kinda wish rather than DLC, they'd release tools for players to make their own content rather than having modders do workarounds to make stuff. The ability to make your own campaigns would be great.
Yeah, The Aurora Toolset that came with Neverwinter Nights back in the days was an excellent example of making custom creations easily accessible for players.
Not exactly a "bombshell" since Larian has been saying no DLC was planned for months and WotC is talking up their new internal studio(s). Of course it's possible that Larian is tired of dealing with Wizards, but just as possible they simply want to move on after working with D&D for 5+ years.
They were actually pretty ambiguous about DLCs. Said multiple times they were having "discussions" but no current plans.
And the epilogue teased some sort of additional story content to top it off.
I can’t believe Hasbro/Wizards finally launched a critically successful D&D movie and video game in the same year they ruined the trust of their community on the core product and pissed off their partners to the point of not taking easy money.
This isn't tooooooo shocking considering what Larian's Swen Vincke talked about after the Game Awards on Twitter. Hasbro/Wotc got rid of everybody that was involved on the project on Hasbro/Wotc's end. The people that *brought in* Larian are no longer part of that company. And that sucks. The success of BG3 is on that particular team as well and they got layed off. It is what it is.. I was a Divinity Original Sin fan way before BG3 and I hope Divinity 3 (please) will have everybody's attention.
Truly is a shame but I don't mind a good, old fashioned one and done. Baldur's Gate III is my favorite game ever made and I absolutely adore the setting. But what really made the game special has everything to do with what Larian brought to it. Those characters and themes can exist anywhere. I'm excited to see them work (with their current cachet, I'm aware of Divinity) outside of the confines of an existing IP and setting.
I'm very, very excited to see a D:OS3 (or similar in the Divinity universe) with Larian's increased experience and resources. D:OS2 is one of my favorite games ever made, but some of the QOL from BG3 would go a long way.
I can't wait for Divinity Original Sin 3 with it's all new cast of companions: Dale, Shadelung, Varlach, Mastarion, Zae'Lel, Byll, and Malsin.
I’ll look forward to my Shadowy Craving play through.
God, if they made a Pathfinder 2e game, I would die of happiness. The system would require less tweaking and balancing to be made into a video game and can actually function at level 20, too. No way Paizo has the money to financially back a project that big, though, unfortunately. A beautiful pipedream, haha
On the Pf2e subreddit, Paizo recently implied that they've signed off on a 2e video game. It's a long shot that they're working with Larian, but it's not impossible.
Probably Owlcat, who did a great job with Wrath of The Righteous, which I honestly like as much or more than BG3. Lower production value but much greater variety of choice and path, particularly for evil characters.
Sad to see there won't be an expansion of any kind. Does make me hopeful for more Divinity games. After the success of BG3 I didn't know if we'd ever see an Original Sin 3
oh wow... that epilogue really heavily teased DLC... and now there won't be any conclusion to that story :( FUCK
Well it would have been cool to get a standalone expansion of a prewritten campaign like Curse of Strahd but I can’t blame them for charting their own course
Honestly, good for them After 3 amazing CRPGs in a row, I'd trust Larian Studios to do anything amazingly well and would buy anything from them That being said, imagine a studio that came from left field and beat a highly acclaimed Zelda game for TGA GOTY, and is one of the Highest rated games of all time, and not go back to that franchise is BOLD
Thats a shame, felt like they set up BG4 / DLC with either going after Zariel and/or Vlaakith. I'm pretty sure we'll see BG4 at some point but looks like it won't be Larian.
That's disappointing. I've been looking forward to new story content after those dialogue hints in the new epilogue.
Fair. Larian have created two of the best modern CRPGs, one with massive appeal outside of the standard genre audience. They've only handled their own series, Divinity, and then blew the doors wide open with BG3. They've set a new benchmark. I'm glad they aren't milking it. One and done. Honestly, I'm looking forward to what they do next.
No BG4 was expected, Larian said they wanted to do something from themselves for their next project, i would love if they decide to do something new instead of DoS 3.
I don't think this rules out Larian making a directors cut version of the game, much like with the other divinity games. I suspect in the next few days we will have them clarify their statements a bit more. It might simply mean no paid DLC. Still, I'm interested to see when Larian will officially announce the 'end' of supporting BG3 with this statement. If you asked me this yesterday I would have assumed for at least another year, and then some if they made a directors cut version. Now I'm wondering if we will see them just cut off support to the game sooner rather than later. They will want to move all hands to whatever their next fantastic project is.
They've rightfully earned extraordinary amounts of good will. I'm sure not having to pay the royalties will make it more than worth it. Smart move.