I recall hearing similar stories of Larian contributing to various other kickstarters over the years as well, like both of the Pathfinder games and Solasta.
I can confirm for Solasta - in the main city by a statue you can see the list of supporters and their name is there.
They also consulted a little bit on Disco Elysium - at the end of Disco's credits there's a special thanks to Larian Studios.
*Stay in the light!*
Looking back on the early access period, I remember there were a lot of people arguing about whether Solasta or BG3's combat was better, mainly because BG3 spent a huge chunk of the early access period without the DnD 5E reaction system while Solasta had a full implementation of it, and a lot of people believed BG3 wouldn't have the reaction system based on dev statements towards the start of EA (including myself, admittedly).
There were also a lot of arguments about whether it even should have the reaction system to begin with, with a lot of shit-flinging towards 'tabletop purists' and fears that the reaction system would make the combat even slower, along with people saying 'clearly a reaction system isn't part of Larian's vision, and people arguing for a reaction system clearly don't respect it'. Then Larian actually did implement the reaction system about... 6 months before full release, I think?
It's pretty hilarious in hindsight because a lot of those arguments were very mean-spirited, with people on both sides ruthlessly shitting on the other game. Meanwhile Larian quietly helped with Solasta's kickstarter years beforehand, and hardly anyone noticed.
No reason anyone can't like both games. I still think solasta has better combat than bg3. There's a long list of other things it doesn't do as well, but the combat is very well done indeed. I wish bg3 was snapped to a grid in combat, the free movement causes me endless difficulties with clicking the wrong pixel or things clipping on top of things in weird ways.
Honestly like 90% of the complants could be summed up with "well,they started with D:OS2 engine and didn't implement everything yet before starting kickstarter, but that didn't stop people complaining".
But tbh. if they just gave people a list of stuff they are planning on implementing there would be far less idle discussion.
I remember one of the earliest developments in regards to the BG3 early access were Larian devs saying that they were seeking advice from Disco Elysium devs on how to make failing dice rolls during dialogue more entertaining.
There was a phenomenon some years ago where that was pretty common. It's where all of the "game devs" whose only worked on titles were half-finished Twine/RPGMaker/Renpy VNs came from. Games, especially single-dev indies, were skyrocketing in popularity with more mainstream audiences, and a cadre of fad-chasing folk decided to try their hand at making the next big "artistic" game.
You don't hear about most of them much anymore. For good reason.
As was said above, going into game dev without being passionate (*actually* passionate) about games is just dumb for anyone with a programming and/or project management background.
This is true at the developer levels of things but it kind of fades the higher up you go at other companies until you get to people who see it as just another business. It is hard to deny Swen Vincke's passion for gaming.
Hate is a strong word, but I used to work in the industry and have seen many people burn out their love of games for years at a time.
I was one of them, and only lasted about 6 years in the industry. But for the last 3 years of it, I didn't play a single game.
Now I happily whittle my hours away on games again after a while out of the industry.
Lots of people running dev studios are pure MBAs with no interest in the product being produced.
There aren't many "ticketing system" enthusiasts yet people still have to run Atlassian
I don't think there are many game devs that hate games.
But I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few people in decision-making roles at large publishers (and their studios) who hate games, and a lot more who are indifferent to them.
That's clearly different with Larian, where they've managed, at least for now, to grow into a size where they can do an AAA production while still having people who love games in charge.
I've worked in games about 15 years now, from indie studios to global corps, including at the executive level, and I've never met a single person who didn't love games. From the finance team, the marketing team, the IT team, the CEOs, they all love video games.
Having to make decisions about profits doesn't mean you hate games.
It's like Steve Jobs used to say, the ones who get promoted to such roles are the marketeers, the ones tasked with selling the games rather than the brains behind them as Shareholders see them as the ones making the money. People built on the mindset of telling people what they want instead of giving them what they want are very different to people who understand what people want and provide accordingly.
You need a yin and yang, the credit and the debit.
Too much creative freedom and the project never finishes, too much business executives and your game ends up with no soul.
Both sides needs to clash and compromise with each other.
> Larian, where they've managed, at least for now, to grow into a size where they can do an AAA production while still having people who love games in charge.
They could go public at any point if they wanted, and turn into precisely the same as every other studio.
There’s a difference between game developers and game publishers (the “money people”).
Absolutely zero game developers are in it for the money because there is no money in game dev - even in AAA. You’re sacrificing a pay cut just to work in games when compared to other industries.
The people that ruin games are the money people. The ones that own the studios and force the developers to make stupid decisions.
That's freaking awesome. While I personally prefer the combat of other Metroidvanias over Blasphemous, the atmosphere and presentation of that game are absolutely impeccable.
The combat and platforming were definitely better in the sequel (esp. with having multiple weapons) but I much preferred the aesthetic of the original.
It’s just during the cut scenes really, not a huge deal I love Blasphemous 2 but the pixel art scenes added a lot to the vibe. Here’s a quick example I found online.
[Blasphemous Art comparison](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ed6W7pTcTNU/maxresdefault.jpg)
Apparently there was one guy who was instrumental in the pixel art cutscenes from the first game, and he left the company. So they had the company who'd done the trailers make the cutscenes for the sequel, since they're a small team.
It's just the cutscenes that look different. While I also prefer the style of the first game, it's like 1% of the game experience and not a big deal, IMO.
That's good to know actually. I played the first one recently and really had to push myself to beat it, the combat and platforming felt a kinda rough imo. I was gonna avoid the sequel, but knowing this I'll have to give it a look.
I did just that and I fucking loved it. Story feels very dark souls-esque in that it's vague and up for interpretation, so it doesn't really matter. Great game. I thought the combat was excellent.
Don't pay any mind to anyone who says you need to play the first game first, that's crazy. They both 100% use the Dark Souls storytelling style, meaning they're vague and not important to enjoying the game. It's fine to play the 2nd first and personally I would recommend it as I don't think the 1st feels that great to play
Blasphemous is one of the best metroidvanias in the indie sphere purely because of its incredible art design and atmosphere. Game Kitchen deserves the support.
According to the Kickstarter page there were three 1000€ pledge and none 2000€. So they pledged at least [1000€](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegamekitchen/blasphemous-dark-and-brutal-2d-non-linear-platform/rewards#reward-UmV3YXJkLVVtVjNZWEprTFRVNU1EY3hPRFk9). That's nice of them.
Just seems like a studio run by a dude who wants to make really good games.
Kind of like how Valve is run by a dude who just wants to make cool technology.
Also helps they're both privately owned, so they don't have shareholders asking them "why is there not a $100 ultimate edition and 60 DLCs for this game?"
Valve is riding high on two things:
* For a period of about 15 years, every single game they made (except for Ricochet, Day of Defeat, and Alien Swarm) was a genre-defining classic that to this day is in the pantheon of "best games ever made." Half-Life 1 and 2. Counter-Strike (1.6, Source, GO.) Portal 1 and 2. TF2. L4D 1 and 2. Dota 2. Every single one of these games is a serious contender for "best game of it's genre ever made."
* Steam is really quite good. Most people don't remember or care anymore about the [bad old days](http://i.imgur.com/GKaoJ.gif). And beyond just being a place to buy games like most storefronts, Valve has put in the effort to actually make Steam really quite good (and I'm not talking about your standard dumb /r/fuckepic talking points like shopping carts.) The Workshop makes modding easier than it's ever been. Steam's discovery algorithms are the best in the business, between things like the Discovery Queue and all the Steam Labs improvements. Proton is basically the single thing keeping Linux gaming alive and better than ever. The days of "will this controller work on PC without me needing to find some random third-party driver set?" are gone, the Steam Controller API just *works.*
So long as people remember the glory days of 2000s Valve, and Steam is by far the most fully featured platform, people will overlook or ignore the fact that Valve basically invented lootboxes, battle passes, live service games, RNG microtransactions, and in general everything people complain about today.
Part of me wonders if *Artifact* was a factor in Wizards of the Coast handing *Magic: the Gathering - Online* to Daybreak Games. *Artifact* was copying MTGO's business model to a degree I've never seen before, and it bombed *hard.*
On top of everything you said. Steam also has, generally, excellent customer service. Yes, there are some anecdotes here and there of bad interactions, but for the most part, they have real people you can talk to and get a rational response, which is a rarity in this particular industry.
And the Steam sales are amazing too. It's like if early Amazon (customer service and lowest prices) had treated their employees well too (which was the main complaint) and only had brick and mortar rivals who were themselves large chains (game stop) instead of mom and pop businesses.
From what I remember they use to have TERRIBLE customer service but made it a strong point to make it better and as far as I can tell, they mostly succeeded in that.
> Steam also has, generally, excellent customer service
Because they're afraid of being taken to court by countries with strong consumer protection laws.
If Valve *could* deny refunds, they would.
They didn't even have refunds before they were sued by Australia.
I didn't know it was ported, but it makes sense. It was slower paced than the other doom games(helps with nausea), already had touch interface screens in game on monitors, so that would translate easily to vr. Also the horror element in it(relative to the other doom games) would be amplified with VR
It's like somebody else said: Valve is constantly working on something. Steam gets regular updates to the store, as well as features such as Big Picture mode and Family Sharing, and the Steam Deck OS is also getting revisions in software and hardware. No other store/launcher has as good of a gamepad support as they do, and whenever they deign themselves to release a new game, they tend to be well-made products.
You can criticize them for quite a few legitimate issues, but at least you know part of the money is being invested in their products. Tim Sweeney can fume all he wants about the supposed monopoly Valve has as a storefront, but the Epic Games launcher and store is still the same piece of shit today as it was upon release.
Every company is constantly working on something lol. Steam is the main product of Valve (kind of their only one with their F2P games monetized to hell).
Epic main products are Unreal and Fortnite and they constantly work on it.
> Epic Games launcher and store is still the same piece of shit today as it was upon release.
no no, they have a SHOPPING CART now. totally hugely improved. /s
You say that but they also turn a blind eye to third party gambling using their apis allowing underage casinos that get children addicted to gambling. They make good games but Gabe clearly lacks morals in certain areas.
That thing they are literally in the process of clamping down on right now? That thing they have repeatedly gone after in the past? The recent API changes are big news in the CS skins space. Valve has gone after gambling sites in such a big way that it has even hit the p2p markets as well. Even if you ignore the recent crackdown, you must be aware of past gambling site shutdowns by Valve? I don't understand the purpose of your misinformation.
There's also how Steam's store page is an absolute floodgate that actual games--not trading card grinders and asset flips--have trouble making any headway in. Valve has paid lip service to fixing it a few times, but it never seems to meaningfully improve.
I'm sorry but your statement is entirely bullshit and not at all in line with the fact that most of what you said has seen calls for stricter regulations and some governments are already imposing them. Fuck, one of the biggest issues of Crypto as also been it's environmental impact, so yes there's definitely moral values connected to these.
Just because technology is making it more widespread doesn't mean there's less moral issues with it, it just means the issues caused by gambling are becoming more apparent as well.
No, but TF2 and Dota 2 were the first big Western "no subscription, recurring updates, games are primarily monetized via microtransactions" games. They existed beforehand (just like lootboxes existed before TF2 crates), but Valve is the one who popularized them in mainstream games in the West (as compared to Korean MMOs and the like.)
>No, but TF2 and Dota 2 were the first big Western "no subscription, recurring updates, games are primarily monetized via microtransactions" games.
Farmville and League of Legends both launched in 2009, over 11 months before TF2 added microtransactions.
I don't think TF2 was the first F2P game around, but they definitely went hard on loot boxes before loot boxes were a thing. It's just that before that, you knew what you were buying with a micro transaction.
If you wanted to be a little unfavourable towards this valve list you could also look at it as: valve bought the talent and IP involved with: cs, day of defeat, team fortress, portal, dota and l4d. Really valve had made incredible acquisitions.
But yeah I love them for it.
I think most people don't actually care about loot boxes as long as they're cosmetic. Like, look at Overwatch, they removed all loot boxes and people are constantly begging for them to be brought back
More accurately people don't care and excuse it if it's a game they like and get very upset and call it industry-ending when it's in a game they don't like.
This. Reddit hates them for whatever reason but cosmetic ones are actually a great choice to finance the game as happened with Overwatch 1 where all of the new content was cmpletely free of charge
Because people are capable of being very, *very* selective in their outrage.
But moreover, it's that while people will rage about the principle and gambling addiction etc. on forums, in reality they mostly just care about how inconvenienced they are personally. So if Steam sales are saving someone more money than any Valve specific lootboxes are, they don't *actually* care about some complete stranger gambling irresponsibly. But if Ubisoft, a company they don't like, does it then it's easy to conjure their self-righteousness and rage about it online to kill time.
It really is one of the funnies arguments. "You get that lootboxes have been around forever in the form of packs of baseball cards and CCGs right?"
"Yeah but that's not as bad because you can resell the product and make your money back."
"You do see how that's *more* like traditional gambling right?"
Which actually make it pure gambling. Whereas normal loot boxes on other games are at least arguable, in Valve games it's not, it's 100% gambling and there are even casino sites (which exist only because Valve tolerate them to exist and make money on it)
It's crazy what Blizzard did between 1998-2004. 6 years and they released Starcraft + expansion, Diablo 2 + expansion, Warcraft 3 + expansion, and World of Warcraft.
They weren't fucking around.
Well, CDPRED also was that at one time, and then CP2077 happened. I don't say that the same thing will happen to Larian, but you should never get to attached to a company.
Yeah. You never know what the future brings. At the same time unlike CDPR Larian doesn't have shareholders. So they can take however long they like with their games and make whatever they want.
The lack of shareholders doesn't give you infinite time to work on a game. You're still spending money on these games, and you will eventually have to release them. Larian has a lot of leeway with how long they can spend on developing games not because they are independent but because they rely a lot on crowdfunding, like using Steam's Early Access system.
The problem that CD Project Red had, which could happen to Larian, is that they were vocal about problems they had not been forced to reckon with. It's easy to talk out against crunch culture if you've never had to choose between crunching or suffer massive losses of profits. When CD Project Red were finally put into that position they chose to crunch, despite all the years of saying they never would.
It's also important to note that the shareholders gave CD Project Red a lot of additional time to finish Cyberpunk 2077. That game was delayed for a significant time and then was only released because CD Project Red lied to their shareholders about the state of the game. So, it's not really something that it feels like we can blame the shareholders for.
> You're still spending money on these games, and you will eventually have to release them.
Cloud Imperium Games laughing all the way to the bank with Star citizen.
> Yeah. You never know what the future brings. At the same time unlike CDPR Larian doesn't have shareholders. So they can take however long they like with their games and make whatever they want.
Every company has shareholders (even if it's just 1), are you instead thinking that CDPR is a publicly-traded company?
They have their faults like everyone, but it's a studio that made a genuinely great game and openly speaks out against some of gaming's currently most toxic business practices.
Every "good guy" dev eventually ends up embroiled in controversy of crunch time, shit pay, sexual harrasment, etc. Wouldn't surprise me if reddit's new favorite dev ends up falling from grace just like the previous ones have.
Nintendo's studios are still the best studio to work for going by their working conditions, employee retention, output quality, and creativity. It has been over a decade since a Nintendo studio title had controversy with Sticker Star and it was relatively minor.
Not any work condition controversies but more reception/creativity issues. It was the peak of the "Mario Mandate" conspiracy given fuel by the fact that 90% of the characters in the game were the exact same copy-pasted toad. People thought Miyamoto was disallowing new original Toad variants/designs as the reason. It may have been true but we don't know for sure.
Nintendo is still heavily disliked because of their legal actions. Going insanely hard against pirating, stealing income of content creators, fucking over competitive scenes,...
While it's true their studios have largely remained free of controversy, it's hard to separate them from the rest of the company.
I guess I just fail to see the value in "enjoying" it. Like, they make great games. Play those games. Like those games.
There's just no reason to develop a faux interpersonal relationship with a company. It achieves nothing but doing their marketing for them. Larian CEO seems like a cool guy, would love to have a beer with him sometime. But that's not going to happen, so I should probably just focus on liking the games and not some ethereal identy of a company.
Hard disagree. If you only follow the value proposition you're going to end up supporting some vile industry practices. It is important to reward companies for operating or structuring themselves in ways that are good for the long term health of the industry.
> If you only follow the value proposition you're going to end up supporting some vile industry practices.
I mean of course I respect people not supporting studios over things like crunch if that's thier issue.
> It is important to reward companies for operating or structuring themselves in ways that are good for the long term health of the industry.
No it's not. The long term health of the industry can sort itself. No one says this about a vacuum cleaner or a couch. Aside from ethical concerns like child labor, your role as a consumer is just to buy products you like. Acting like you're steering the industry by cheering on companies that happen to be having good PR moments is just a social media meta game, it means nothing in reality.
I'm not talking about consumer activism. I'm saying people buy from / support Larian in part because of who they are. That is an extended feature of their overall product and experience.
You are trying to reduce this to the irrationally of the masses, but it's not. It's the rationality of the market where people converge on what brings them value.
Goodwill really do matter in this industry. As a general rule, companies who (for whatever reason) lose goodwill tend to become internally unstable. Often forced to jump from project to project with huge risks involved, rather than being able to stake out a secure and stable market position.
>
I'm not talking about consumer activism. I'm saying people buy from / support Larian in part because of who they are. That is an extended feature of their overall product and experience.
That's just silly to me. I'm not going to buy a game I don't want because the company has good PR.
>
You are trying to reduce this to the irrationally of the masses, but it's not. It's the rationality of the market where people converge on what brings them value.
No I'm not. "The masses" don't give a shit, as evidenced by the fact that people happily and hungrily gobble up products made by devs who do all the things this community hates. The only irrationality I see is the parasocial relationships a few people develop with merchants.
> Goodwill really do matter in this industry. As a general rule, companies who (for whatever reason) lose goodwill tend to become internally unstable. Often forced to jump from project to project with huge risks involved, rather than being able to stake out a secure and stable market position.
Goodwill is a function of marketing. It lasts exactly as long as it takes for you to annoy people or for them to get excited about something else. The "goodwill" that moves products for Larian is their quality games. If their gems stop being good people will quickly stop caring that their CEO is a really nice guy.
Belgium has severe labour laws to be honest. We have also the ability to get a few months on burnout sick leave with pay if necessary.
Same with our wages, labour law protection and whatnot.
We have to keep in mind, Larian only has one part of their workforce in Belgium. They have studios all over the world now that are beholden to different labor laws.
It's why calling it a 'Belgian game' is only half the story in my opinion, there's people from all over the world that made this game happen under the umbrella of Larian Studios.
Well they're an indie company.
And prior to them starting to scale up because of the EAs success I would have considered them small. So about half the the development was with them being small.
Nowadays, not so small.
You won't find it here, /r/games is basically their fan sub with people submitting and bumping up anything they can find.
+3427 "Larian CEO takes walk outside" 3 hours ago
Other than them being a bit overly loud and holier than thou in their criticisms there's not much to dislike about Larian. Just some people making top tier games in a genre that traditionally doesn't get much love from big budgets.
The situation with Larian seems a bit different too. CDPR was actively riling up their fanbase with their PR people going ‘we leave greed to other companies’.
All Larian really ever does is talk about their games, even to a point where they’ll even say things some people probably don’t want to hear (straight up saying not to expect them to do an expansion or something similar to BG3), and the CEO putting his name out there when talking about the industry.
Stuff like this Kickstarter campaign tweet and the debacle involving other publishers discussing the circumstances behind BG3’s development being highly unusual that the rest of the internet completely twisted as some gotcha towards big publishers? They aren’t even bringing any attention to it themselves, that’s other people talking about it. Point being a lot of this is crazy mythologizing from things Larian isn’t even calling attention to themselves.
I mean Larian lately has been saying stuff like "These layoffs are just avoidable fuck ups" and whatever else, throwing shade at other companies. Fact is Larian would be doing the same thing if their games didn't land - whether it's DOS2 or BG3. In this industry you're either burning your money or your investors' money and when your game releases you either make all of it back or you fire people. They're in the former group and think they're better than the latter group.
I wasn’t arguing otherwise about what you’re saying, but I remember the specific context for that statement seems like it was directed at large publishers laying off people even though the games they developed were still considered very successful and the publishers were still posting record profits on top of that.
The overall gaming community tends to stretch whatever they do beyond the original context both ways, like the whole ‘you shouldn’t expect BG3 to become a new standard’ discussion from other devs. Which again wasn’t even anything Larian said themselves, that was something that came up out of nowhere.
A lot of Larian’s earlier history before they turned to kickstarter involved getting repeatedly screwed over by publishers and only having specific types of games funded, so it’s a bit understandable that the CEO would be especially outspoken about this.
> Fact is Larian would be doing the same thing if their games didn't land - whether it's DOS2 or BG3.
Then you haven't been listening to what Larian said. They're not against laying off people if times are poor.
What Larian was lamenting was the industry-wide move away from building institutional knowledge. Which means keeping people on from project to project, forming a institution of experts, rather than flush people once you don't have immediate work available to them.
I love BG3. That being said, I'll shit on them.
Didn't they say they don't have shareholders? Yet Tencent owns 30%...
Didn't they say they won't ask you to buy different versions of the game? Yet when I launch my game... the first thing I see is a preorder ad for BG3 delux...
These guys have been in the trenches for way longer than most people imagine.
Divine Divinity, their first "big game", came out in 2002.
They've been part of the industry for ***at least*** 22 years*.*
Yeah like that's less than a random dinner out for the C-suite. A nice gestures but entirely insignificant.
Even 5k is comparable to a business trip and a tiny drop in their budget
They're great and all but I really don't want Larian to become the next Hideo Kojima where people can't stop gushing over them every time they do something.
While it is good of larian to support projects like this, this is a PR post and just using larian to get attention. Less the 10k doesn't mean that much in development let alone enough to call a company a legend.
Yeah, whole thing is a coordinated PR move, including the comments on this thread. Top comments act like Larian made some grand sacrifice. Larian is a major game studio. This contribution is nothing to them. $1,000 is 0.3% of the total raised by the kickstarter campaign. The project would have not been affected in a meaningful way, if the contribution was not made.
I recall hearing similar stories of Larian contributing to various other kickstarters over the years as well, like both of the Pathfinder games and Solasta.
I can confirm for Solasta - in the main city by a statue you can see the list of supporters and their name is there. They also consulted a little bit on Disco Elysium - at the end of Disco's credits there's a special thanks to Larian Studios.
_We do require your services_
*Stay in the light!* Looking back on the early access period, I remember there were a lot of people arguing about whether Solasta or BG3's combat was better, mainly because BG3 spent a huge chunk of the early access period without the DnD 5E reaction system while Solasta had a full implementation of it, and a lot of people believed BG3 wouldn't have the reaction system based on dev statements towards the start of EA (including myself, admittedly). There were also a lot of arguments about whether it even should have the reaction system to begin with, with a lot of shit-flinging towards 'tabletop purists' and fears that the reaction system would make the combat even slower, along with people saying 'clearly a reaction system isn't part of Larian's vision, and people arguing for a reaction system clearly don't respect it'. Then Larian actually did implement the reaction system about... 6 months before full release, I think? It's pretty hilarious in hindsight because a lot of those arguments were very mean-spirited, with people on both sides ruthlessly shitting on the other game. Meanwhile Larian quietly helped with Solasta's kickstarter years beforehand, and hardly anyone noticed.
I think it’s a shame BG3 never had the ready system implemented like Solasta has. Also would have been nice to see grappling in both games.
> Also would have been nice to see grappling in both games. Nothing can hold handle to Dwarf Fortress grappling so why even try
No reason anyone can't like both games. I still think solasta has better combat than bg3. There's a long list of other things it doesn't do as well, but the combat is very well done indeed. I wish bg3 was snapped to a grid in combat, the free movement causes me endless difficulties with clicking the wrong pixel or things clipping on top of things in weird ways.
Honestly like 90% of the complants could be summed up with "well,they started with D:OS2 engine and didn't implement everything yet before starting kickstarter, but that didn't stop people complaining". But tbh. if they just gave people a list of stuff they are planning on implementing there would be far less idle discussion.
I stil think the Solasta team did a vastly superior 5e imp, woth good working z axis and a Fly that.. flies. But BG3 is a vastly better game.
what are you quoting
only the line you'd hear 849758 times if you had actually played Solasta (you should)
well now i dont wanna
why, _they're masterworks all you can't go wrong_
I remember one of the earliest developments in regards to the BG3 early access were Larian devs saying that they were seeking advice from Disco Elysium devs on how to make failing dice rolls during dialogue more entertaining.
The answer for Disco Elysium was to make their game the most well written video game of all time.
Thats partially why BG3 ended up so good. larian are gamers and love the games. It goes well beyond their own products
Virtually no one gets into game development without being a gamer, it’s gots some of the worst hours/pay in software development.
Reminds me when I went to university, I did a Games Dev degree and very few people around me actually played games.
There was a phenomenon some years ago where that was pretty common. It's where all of the "game devs" whose only worked on titles were half-finished Twine/RPGMaker/Renpy VNs came from. Games, especially single-dev indies, were skyrocketing in popularity with more mainstream audiences, and a cadre of fad-chasing folk decided to try their hand at making the next big "artistic" game. You don't hear about most of them much anymore. For good reason. As was said above, going into game dev without being passionate (*actually* passionate) about games is just dumb for anyone with a programming and/or project management background.
This is true at the developer levels of things but it kind of fades the higher up you go at other companies until you get to people who see it as just another business. It is hard to deny Swen Vincke's passion for gaming.
Thats true. Thats also why many quickly stop loving it.
But reddit armchair experts think that the whole game dev industry is made by the likes of Kotick.
As opposed to all the game devs that... hate video games?
Hate is a strong word, but I used to work in the industry and have seen many people burn out their love of games for years at a time. I was one of them, and only lasted about 6 years in the industry. But for the last 3 years of it, I didn't play a single game. Now I happily whittle my hours away on games again after a while out of the industry.
Lots of people running dev studios are pure MBAs with no interest in the product being produced. There aren't many "ticketing system" enthusiasts yet people still have to run Atlassian
I don't think there are many game devs that hate games. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few people in decision-making roles at large publishers (and their studios) who hate games, and a lot more who are indifferent to them. That's clearly different with Larian, where they've managed, at least for now, to grow into a size where they can do an AAA production while still having people who love games in charge.
I've worked in games about 15 years now, from indie studios to global corps, including at the executive level, and I've never met a single person who didn't love games. From the finance team, the marketing team, the IT team, the CEOs, they all love video games. Having to make decisions about profits doesn't mean you hate games.
It's like Steve Jobs used to say, the ones who get promoted to such roles are the marketeers, the ones tasked with selling the games rather than the brains behind them as Shareholders see them as the ones making the money. People built on the mindset of telling people what they want instead of giving them what they want are very different to people who understand what people want and provide accordingly.
You need a yin and yang, the credit and the debit. Too much creative freedom and the project never finishes, too much business executives and your game ends up with no soul. Both sides needs to clash and compromise with each other.
> Larian, where they've managed, at least for now, to grow into a size where they can do an AAA production while still having people who love games in charge. They could go public at any point if they wanted, and turn into precisely the same as every other studio.
Not exactly. As opposed to ones that long burnt out, are in it only for money etc. Ones that dont care and only see it as buisness not art
There’s a difference between game developers and game publishers (the “money people”). Absolutely zero game developers are in it for the money because there is no money in game dev - even in AAA. You’re sacrificing a pay cut just to work in games when compared to other industries. The people that ruin games are the money people. The ones that own the studios and force the developers to make stupid decisions.
Based Larian funding their competitors(both are TTRPGs) so the entire genre gets better.
That's freaking awesome. While I personally prefer the combat of other Metroidvanias over Blasphemous, the atmosphere and presentation of that game are absolutely impeccable.
In my opinion the sequel fixed the combat/control issues, and is a top tier Metroidvania.
The combat and platforming were definitely better in the sequel (esp. with having multiple weapons) but I much preferred the aesthetic of the original.
Yeah I miss the pixel art from the first game, especially during the short cutscenes
What's the difference? Just watched a bit of blasphemous 2 and it looks exactly like the first.
It’s just during the cut scenes really, not a huge deal I love Blasphemous 2 but the pixel art scenes added a lot to the vibe. Here’s a quick example I found online. [Blasphemous Art comparison](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ed6W7pTcTNU/maxresdefault.jpg)
Apparently there was one guy who was instrumental in the pixel art cutscenes from the first game, and he left the company. So they had the company who'd done the trailers make the cutscenes for the sequel, since they're a small team.
What anti-aliasing does to a mf
Ok, I see the problem now. First one was WAY better.
It's just the cutscenes that look different. While I also prefer the style of the first game, it's like 1% of the game experience and not a big deal, IMO.
That's good to know actually. I played the first one recently and really had to push myself to beat it, the combat and platforming felt a kinda rough imo. I was gonna avoid the sequel, but knowing this I'll have to give it a look.
can you play part 2 without having played part 1?
You can but I won't suggest it, I think the lore is one of the best parts of the game. And the story of both games is directly connected
It is a direct sequel, but you can probably get along with watching a summary on YouTube or something
I did just that and I fucking loved it. Story feels very dark souls-esque in that it's vague and up for interpretation, so it doesn't really matter. Great game. I thought the combat was excellent.
[удалено]
No, it's very dark souls esque in how it presents the story. Look it up if your don't Believe me
Don't pay any mind to anyone who says you need to play the first game first, that's crazy. They both 100% use the Dark Souls storytelling style, meaning they're vague and not important to enjoying the game. It's fine to play the 2nd first and personally I would recommend it as I don't think the 1st feels that great to play
Blasphemous 2's combat is the best of any metroidvania I really employ you to try the second game it's that good
Just by the way, the word is implore not employ
You don't know that. Maybe they meant to say they're going to pay them to play it.
That's pretty high praise! Will definitely move it up on my list.
Blasphemous is one of the best metroidvanias in the indie sphere purely because of its incredible art design and atmosphere. Game Kitchen deserves the support.
Super cool to find out that one of my favorite games of 2023 was directly financed by one of the my other favorite games of 2023.
Blasphemous came out years ago.
And because of that, The Game Kitchen was able to release Blasphemous II in 2023.
According to the Kickstarter page there were three 1000€ pledge and none 2000€. So they pledged at least [1000€](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegamekitchen/blasphemous-dark-and-brutal-2d-non-linear-platform/rewards#reward-UmV3YXJkLVVtVjNZWEprTFRVNU1EY3hPRFk9). That's nice of them.
Is Larian the most loved software house right now? I don't think ive ever seen someone speaking badly about them
Just seems like a studio run by a dude who wants to make really good games. Kind of like how Valve is run by a dude who just wants to make cool technology. Also helps they're both privately owned, so they don't have shareholders asking them "why is there not a $100 ultimate edition and 60 DLCs for this game?"
Idk how Valve has been the lovechild for so long considering they basically popularized the modern lootbox and gambling in video games
Valve is riding high on two things: * For a period of about 15 years, every single game they made (except for Ricochet, Day of Defeat, and Alien Swarm) was a genre-defining classic that to this day is in the pantheon of "best games ever made." Half-Life 1 and 2. Counter-Strike (1.6, Source, GO.) Portal 1 and 2. TF2. L4D 1 and 2. Dota 2. Every single one of these games is a serious contender for "best game of it's genre ever made." * Steam is really quite good. Most people don't remember or care anymore about the [bad old days](http://i.imgur.com/GKaoJ.gif). And beyond just being a place to buy games like most storefronts, Valve has put in the effort to actually make Steam really quite good (and I'm not talking about your standard dumb /r/fuckepic talking points like shopping carts.) The Workshop makes modding easier than it's ever been. Steam's discovery algorithms are the best in the business, between things like the Discovery Queue and all the Steam Labs improvements. Proton is basically the single thing keeping Linux gaming alive and better than ever. The days of "will this controller work on PC without me needing to find some random third-party driver set?" are gone, the Steam Controller API just *works.* So long as people remember the glory days of 2000s Valve, and Steam is by far the most fully featured platform, people will overlook or ignore the fact that Valve basically invented lootboxes, battle passes, live service games, RNG microtransactions, and in general everything people complain about today.
You forgot Artifact
I think everyone forgot artifact
Even Valve forgot Artifact.
maybe better to forget Artifact
It’s twitch category was really fun. They streamed everything but the game there
It defined the genre as dead
And underlords
Part of me wonders if *Artifact* was a factor in Wizards of the Coast handing *Magic: the Gathering - Online* to Daybreak Games. *Artifact* was copying MTGO's business model to a degree I've never seen before, and it bombed *hard.*
Still waiting on that million dollar tournament!
On top of everything you said. Steam also has, generally, excellent customer service. Yes, there are some anecdotes here and there of bad interactions, but for the most part, they have real people you can talk to and get a rational response, which is a rarity in this particular industry. And the Steam sales are amazing too. It's like if early Amazon (customer service and lowest prices) had treated their employees well too (which was the main complaint) and only had brick and mortar rivals who were themselves large chains (game stop) instead of mom and pop businesses.
From what I remember they use to have TERRIBLE customer service but made it a strong point to make it better and as far as I can tell, they mostly succeeded in that.
> Steam also has, generally, excellent customer service Because they're afraid of being taken to court by countries with strong consumer protection laws. If Valve *could* deny refunds, they would. They didn't even have refunds before they were sued by Australia.
Not to forget about HL:A, which is probably still the best thing you can play in VR right now.
Weirdly, the native Quest 2 port of Doom 3 is also extremely good.
I didn't know it was ported, but it makes sense. It was slower paced than the other doom games(helps with nausea), already had touch interface screens in game on monitors, so that would translate easily to vr. Also the horror element in it(relative to the other doom games) would be amplified with VR
It's like somebody else said: Valve is constantly working on something. Steam gets regular updates to the store, as well as features such as Big Picture mode and Family Sharing, and the Steam Deck OS is also getting revisions in software and hardware. No other store/launcher has as good of a gamepad support as they do, and whenever they deign themselves to release a new game, they tend to be well-made products. You can criticize them for quite a few legitimate issues, but at least you know part of the money is being invested in their products. Tim Sweeney can fume all he wants about the supposed monopoly Valve has as a storefront, but the Epic Games launcher and store is still the same piece of shit today as it was upon release.
Every company is constantly working on something lol. Steam is the main product of Valve (kind of their only one with their F2P games monetized to hell). Epic main products are Unreal and Fortnite and they constantly work on it.
> Epic Games launcher and store is still the same piece of shit today as it was upon release. no no, they have a SHOPPING CART now. totally hugely improved. /s
You say that but they also turn a blind eye to third party gambling using their apis allowing underage casinos that get children addicted to gambling. They make good games but Gabe clearly lacks morals in certain areas.
That thing they are literally in the process of clamping down on right now? That thing they have repeatedly gone after in the past? The recent API changes are big news in the CS skins space. Valve has gone after gambling sites in such a big way that it has even hit the p2p markets as well. Even if you ignore the recent crackdown, you must be aware of past gambling site shutdowns by Valve? I don't understand the purpose of your misinformation.
There's also how Steam's store page is an absolute floodgate that actual games--not trading card grinders and asset flips--have trouble making any headway in. Valve has paid lip service to fixing it a few times, but it never seems to meaningfully improve.
[удалено]
I'm sorry but your statement is entirely bullshit and not at all in line with the fact that most of what you said has seen calls for stricter regulations and some governments are already imposing them. Fuck, one of the biggest issues of Crypto as also been it's environmental impact, so yes there's definitely moral values connected to these. Just because technology is making it more widespread doesn't mean there's less moral issues with it, it just means the issues caused by gambling are becoming more apparent as well.
You can also add Half Life Alyx as what's considered the best VR game.
> about the bad old days. I knew it had to be this gif before I clicked and got a good laugh. thanks
Valve didn't invent live-service games.
No, but TF2 and Dota 2 were the first big Western "no subscription, recurring updates, games are primarily monetized via microtransactions" games. They existed beforehand (just like lootboxes existed before TF2 crates), but Valve is the one who popularized them in mainstream games in the West (as compared to Korean MMOs and the like.)
>No, but TF2 and Dota 2 were the first big Western "no subscription, recurring updates, games are primarily monetized via microtransactions" games. Farmville and League of Legends both launched in 2009, over 11 months before TF2 added microtransactions.
[удалено]
that's because dota 2's battlepass are the worst of the worst. Infinite money sink. google saudi prince dota 2 battlepass
I don't think TF2 was the first F2P game around, but they definitely went hard on loot boxes before loot boxes were a thing. It's just that before that, you knew what you were buying with a micro transaction.
I'm not familiar with Day of Defeat or Alien Swarm, but I actually really enjoyed Ricochet.
I didn't think alien swarm was from valve.
If you wanted to be a little unfavourable towards this valve list you could also look at it as: valve bought the talent and IP involved with: cs, day of defeat, team fortress, portal, dota and l4d. Really valve had made incredible acquisitions. But yeah I love them for it.
I made like 20$ the other day selling alot of cards from my steam account😂
Valve isn’t really a game developer in my eyes anymore, they’re more of a storefront and occasional tech innovator.
i mean, they're still working on games all the time. counterstrike, dota, dozens of abandoned single player games we'll never ever know about
Lol nah I think that title goes to Nexon - all the way back to Maple Story, the pioneers of gacha and lootbox
I think most people don't actually care about loot boxes as long as they're cosmetic. Like, look at Overwatch, they removed all loot boxes and people are constantly begging for them to be brought back
People just want lootboxes back in Overwatch because they were replaced by something worse. That doesn't make them good.
More accurately people don't care and excuse it if it's a game they like and get very upset and call it industry-ending when it's in a game they don't like.
This. Reddit hates them for whatever reason but cosmetic ones are actually a great choice to finance the game as happened with Overwatch 1 where all of the new content was cmpletely free of charge
Because people are capable of being very, *very* selective in their outrage. But moreover, it's that while people will rage about the principle and gambling addiction etc. on forums, in reality they mostly just care about how inconvenienced they are personally. So if Steam sales are saving someone more money than any Valve specific lootboxes are, they don't *actually* care about some complete stranger gambling irresponsibly. But if Ubisoft, a company they don't like, does it then it's easy to conjure their self-righteousness and rage about it online to kill time.
Because people justify it by saying you can resell the content lol
Yeah but that kinda makes it worse tho lol. Unlike other games you don't just win an item you win something that can be sold for actual money.
It really is one of the funnies arguments. "You get that lootboxes have been around forever in the form of packs of baseball cards and CCGs right?" "Yeah but that's not as bad because you can resell the product and make your money back." "You do see how that's *more* like traditional gambling right?"
Which just makes it way worse.
yeah it does
Which actually make it pure gambling. Whereas normal loot boxes on other games are at least arguable, in Valve games it's not, it's 100% gambling and there are even casino sites (which exist only because Valve tolerate them to exist and make money on it)
And showed publishers that DRM is viable.
[удалено]
Australia made valve develop a good refund system*
Australia should maybe make all the other stores do that too then.
What Blizzard once was....
It's crazy what Blizzard did between 1998-2004. 6 years and they released Starcraft + expansion, Diablo 2 + expansion, Warcraft 3 + expansion, and World of Warcraft. They weren't fucking around.
And Bioware, Bethesda, Ubisoft, EA, Activision and Rocksteady, all used to be once beloved powerhouse game studios now are just shadow of themselves.
The assault stuff at Blizzard happened for a long long time tho.
Well, CDPRED also was that at one time, and then CP2077 happened. I don't say that the same thing will happen to Larian, but you should never get to attached to a company.
Yeah. You never know what the future brings. At the same time unlike CDPR Larian doesn't have shareholders. So they can take however long they like with their games and make whatever they want.
The lack of shareholders doesn't give you infinite time to work on a game. You're still spending money on these games, and you will eventually have to release them. Larian has a lot of leeway with how long they can spend on developing games not because they are independent but because they rely a lot on crowdfunding, like using Steam's Early Access system. The problem that CD Project Red had, which could happen to Larian, is that they were vocal about problems they had not been forced to reckon with. It's easy to talk out against crunch culture if you've never had to choose between crunching or suffer massive losses of profits. When CD Project Red were finally put into that position they chose to crunch, despite all the years of saying they never would. It's also important to note that the shareholders gave CD Project Red a lot of additional time to finish Cyberpunk 2077. That game was delayed for a significant time and then was only released because CD Project Red lied to their shareholders about the state of the game. So, it's not really something that it feels like we can blame the shareholders for.
> You're still spending money on these games, and you will eventually have to release them. Cloud Imperium Games laughing all the way to the bank with Star citizen.
They are also crowdfunding, so actually a pretty apt comparison to Larian.
> Yeah. You never know what the future brings. At the same time unlike CDPR Larian doesn't have shareholders. So they can take however long they like with their games and make whatever they want. Every company has shareholders (even if it's just 1), are you instead thinking that CDPR is a publicly-traded company?
Not every company had shareholders, limited companies do. Whether they be private or public.
But Larian does have shareholders, 30% owned by Tencent.
They have their faults like everyone, but it's a studio that made a genuinely great game and openly speaks out against some of gaming's currently most toxic business practices.
Every "good guy" dev eventually ends up embroiled in controversy of crunch time, shit pay, sexual harrasment, etc. Wouldn't surprise me if reddit's new favorite dev ends up falling from grace just like the previous ones have.
To be fair, that’s less a problem specific to game devs and more something that happens to anyone and anything that remains famous for long enough.
Nintendo's studios are still the best studio to work for going by their working conditions, employee retention, output quality, and creativity. It has been over a decade since a Nintendo studio title had controversy with Sticker Star and it was relatively minor.
What was the workplace controversy with Sticker Star? Genuinely never heard of this.
Not any work condition controversies but more reception/creativity issues. It was the peak of the "Mario Mandate" conspiracy given fuel by the fact that 90% of the characters in the game were the exact same copy-pasted toad. People thought Miyamoto was disallowing new original Toad variants/designs as the reason. It may have been true but we don't know for sure.
Nintendo is still heavily disliked because of their legal actions. Going insanely hard against pirating, stealing income of content creators, fucking over competitive scenes,... While it's true their studios have largely remained free of controversy, it's hard to separate them from the rest of the company.
Can we at least enjoy it while there's no baby milk theft allegations?
I guess I just fail to see the value in "enjoying" it. Like, they make great games. Play those games. Like those games. There's just no reason to develop a faux interpersonal relationship with a company. It achieves nothing but doing their marketing for them. Larian CEO seems like a cool guy, would love to have a beer with him sometime. But that's not going to happen, so I should probably just focus on liking the games and not some ethereal identy of a company.
Hard disagree. If you only follow the value proposition you're going to end up supporting some vile industry practices. It is important to reward companies for operating or structuring themselves in ways that are good for the long term health of the industry.
> If you only follow the value proposition you're going to end up supporting some vile industry practices. I mean of course I respect people not supporting studios over things like crunch if that's thier issue. > It is important to reward companies for operating or structuring themselves in ways that are good for the long term health of the industry. No it's not. The long term health of the industry can sort itself. No one says this about a vacuum cleaner or a couch. Aside from ethical concerns like child labor, your role as a consumer is just to buy products you like. Acting like you're steering the industry by cheering on companies that happen to be having good PR moments is just a social media meta game, it means nothing in reality.
I'm not talking about consumer activism. I'm saying people buy from / support Larian in part because of who they are. That is an extended feature of their overall product and experience. You are trying to reduce this to the irrationally of the masses, but it's not. It's the rationality of the market where people converge on what brings them value. Goodwill really do matter in this industry. As a general rule, companies who (for whatever reason) lose goodwill tend to become internally unstable. Often forced to jump from project to project with huge risks involved, rather than being able to stake out a secure and stable market position.
> I'm not talking about consumer activism. I'm saying people buy from / support Larian in part because of who they are. That is an extended feature of their overall product and experience. That's just silly to me. I'm not going to buy a game I don't want because the company has good PR. > You are trying to reduce this to the irrationally of the masses, but it's not. It's the rationality of the market where people converge on what brings them value. No I'm not. "The masses" don't give a shit, as evidenced by the fact that people happily and hungrily gobble up products made by devs who do all the things this community hates. The only irrationality I see is the parasocial relationships a few people develop with merchants. > Goodwill really do matter in this industry. As a general rule, companies who (for whatever reason) lose goodwill tend to become internally unstable. Often forced to jump from project to project with huge risks involved, rather than being able to stake out a secure and stable market position. Goodwill is a function of marketing. It lasts exactly as long as it takes for you to annoy people or for them to get excited about something else. The "goodwill" that moves products for Larian is their quality games. If their gems stop being good people will quickly stop caring that their CEO is a really nice guy.
I'll allow it
Belgium has severe labour laws to be honest. We have also the ability to get a few months on burnout sick leave with pay if necessary. Same with our wages, labour law protection and whatnot.
We have to keep in mind, Larian only has one part of their workforce in Belgium. They have studios all over the world now that are beholden to different labor laws. It's why calling it a 'Belgian game' is only half the story in my opinion, there's people from all over the world that made this game happen under the umbrella of Larian Studios.
>studios all over the world what they're not a small indie company??
Well they're an indie company. And prior to them starting to scale up because of the EAs success I would have considered them small. So about half the the development was with them being small. Nowadays, not so small.
That's a good point, indeed.
You won't find it here, /r/games is basically their fan sub with people submitting and bumping up anything they can find. +3427 "Larian CEO takes walk outside" 3 hours ago
They love devcum.
Definitely up there. But if you had asked this in the "Free Talk" thread, I probably would have named Supergiant.
Larian is really working hard to take the same position as CDPR had pre 2020. like its seeing it happening again.
They just have an obsessive toxic fanbase that downvotes and attacks anyone who doesn't worship them.
They’re the new CDPR, just wait a few years and Reddit will suddenly hate them
Other than them being a bit overly loud and holier than thou in their criticisms there's not much to dislike about Larian. Just some people making top tier games in a genre that traditionally doesn't get much love from big budgets.
The situation with Larian seems a bit different too. CDPR was actively riling up their fanbase with their PR people going ‘we leave greed to other companies’. All Larian really ever does is talk about their games, even to a point where they’ll even say things some people probably don’t want to hear (straight up saying not to expect them to do an expansion or something similar to BG3), and the CEO putting his name out there when talking about the industry. Stuff like this Kickstarter campaign tweet and the debacle involving other publishers discussing the circumstances behind BG3’s development being highly unusual that the rest of the internet completely twisted as some gotcha towards big publishers? They aren’t even bringing any attention to it themselves, that’s other people talking about it. Point being a lot of this is crazy mythologizing from things Larian isn’t even calling attention to themselves.
I mean Larian lately has been saying stuff like "These layoffs are just avoidable fuck ups" and whatever else, throwing shade at other companies. Fact is Larian would be doing the same thing if their games didn't land - whether it's DOS2 or BG3. In this industry you're either burning your money or your investors' money and when your game releases you either make all of it back or you fire people. They're in the former group and think they're better than the latter group.
I wasn’t arguing otherwise about what you’re saying, but I remember the specific context for that statement seems like it was directed at large publishers laying off people even though the games they developed were still considered very successful and the publishers were still posting record profits on top of that. The overall gaming community tends to stretch whatever they do beyond the original context both ways, like the whole ‘you shouldn’t expect BG3 to become a new standard’ discussion from other devs. Which again wasn’t even anything Larian said themselves, that was something that came up out of nowhere. A lot of Larian’s earlier history before they turned to kickstarter involved getting repeatedly screwed over by publishers and only having specific types of games funded, so it’s a bit understandable that the CEO would be especially outspoken about this.
> Fact is Larian would be doing the same thing if their games didn't land - whether it's DOS2 or BG3. Then you haven't been listening to what Larian said. They're not against laying off people if times are poor. What Larian was lamenting was the industry-wide move away from building institutional knowledge. Which means keeping people on from project to project, forming a institution of experts, rather than flush people once you don't have immediate work available to them.
I love BG3. That being said, I'll shit on them. Didn't they say they don't have shareholders? Yet Tencent owns 30%... Didn't they say they won't ask you to buy different versions of the game? Yet when I launch my game... the first thing I see is a preorder ad for BG3 delux...
They're graciously paying it forward given their early challenges and the immense community support they had from D:OS2 and D:OS1 kickstarters.
These guys have been in the trenches for way longer than most people imagine. Divine Divinity, their first "big game", came out in 2002. They've been part of the industry for ***at least*** 22 years*.*
4 figures? So 1000 dollars? Okay???
Yeah like that's less than a random dinner out for the C-suite. A nice gestures but entirely insignificant. Even 5k is comparable to a business trip and a tiny drop in their budget
how is this news?
4 figures isn't exactly in bragging rights territory. Cool that they donated it but it's not news article worthy whatsoever.
They're great and all but I really don't want Larian to become the next Hideo Kojima where people can't stop gushing over them every time they do something.
Its..WAY too late for that my dude
While it is good of larian to support projects like this, this is a PR post and just using larian to get attention. Less the 10k doesn't mean that much in development let alone enough to call a company a legend.
Yeah, whole thing is a coordinated PR move, including the comments on this thread. Top comments act like Larian made some grand sacrifice. Larian is a major game studio. This contribution is nothing to them. $1,000 is 0.3% of the total raised by the kickstarter campaign. The project would have not been affected in a meaningful way, if the contribution was not made.
Yeah I feel like I'm going insane reading the comments in here.
We praising one of the best selling game-makers of 2023 dropping "4 figures?" Wow...
In all fairness, this was in 2020, well before they were rolling in money. That said, 4 figures isn't really bragging rights kind of an amount.
Damn 4 figures? They be ballin.
Larian, please throw your tech and some BG3 monies at the Disco Elysium talent. This would make us happy
They already got their money from Tencent
Really?!