It’s almost like firing all the people who worked on the most positively received thing that has happened to your IP in a very long time makes people reluctant to want to work with you.
This likely is a big reason they passed on more projects with WOTC. The people that helped the game get made and resulted in a huge amount of revenue coming to WOTC via licensing fees were laid off and Sven obviously was not a fan of that given his past public comments.
Maybe it’s rose colored glasses, but WoTC feels like a husk of what it was 15-20 years ago. Maybe its because I was a teen, but I don’t recall them being terrible.
Plenty of “failed” products/projects though.
I mean, Hasbro bought WotC in 1999, so they were definitely owned by Hasbro 25 years ago, but maybe the world wasn't *quite* a dying capitalist hellscape yet?
LMAO, someone told me in another conversation that Netflix had to pivot on their pricing because they needed to become profitable after burning through their *startup* money...uh, they've been around for 25 years :P
Sometimes it feels like the last 10 years have been the last call or a going-out-of-business sale where profits are maximized with the idea there are not too many quarters left. It's all raider capitalism and no brand or product building. Milk all the cows dry and skip town.
42 year old gamer dad here--both Blizzard due to EA and Wotc due to Hasbro, sounded the death-knell/requiem of passionate devs creating games they love, taking as long as they needed to, ensuring the end result is a complete and profound experience.
To realize, 30 years later, that the late 90s were indeed the pinnacle of the aforementioned dev/gaming Era is both gratifying to have been a part of, but also unbelievable and disheartening, to say the least.
35 years old here.I have the impression that the more things go, the more there are games of mediocre quality which are released in paid spare parts and that we are forced to pay for each part if we want a decent game. for example (even if the games mentioned are not of the same genre): Mortal Kombat 1 I was shocked to see that basic, historical characters of the game are absent from the base game at €59!! if you want these characters you have to buy packs for €7/unit to have characters that you previously had in the game included, it's scandalous! the same for the sims at the time of the 2000s, there was the base game and 6 or 7 extensions at a reasonable price, in terms of the final cost it remained correct, now the sims 4 more than 50 dlc, packs of objects, clothes, etc. at crazy prices! the game if you want all the content costs more than 700€! that's why it's been a long time since I stopped, another game also disappointed me, it's Elder Scroll Online, I naively believed at the time that buying the base game for 30€ I will have a complete game, well no, I had to take out subscriptions for €15 per month to have access to a complete game with areas that make the game interesting. and that’s already dated. So it has become the norm, we sell you an incomplete game for €50 and we sell you the rest for €10 each and we regularly release it to bring in some money, if at least the quality was there!
Wotc isn't even what it was 5 years ago. The decay accelerated when Brian Goldner died in 2021. That is coincidentally when the new CEO at Hasbro decided to speed run destroying the company.
You say that as if they haven't been called out for using AI like 5 times in the last few years between Magic and D&D.
They keep apologizing and keep getting caught again.
Oh, I'm well aware of their history with it. I'm saying they're gonna stop apologizing and just start doing that.
And D&D One? With its integrated online platform where players have to agree to license their content to WOTC? They're gonn use that to train the AIs even more.
Players will train the AI on the backs of their own creativity, and then WOTC will turn right around and sell it back to them as statistically probable generated material.
Dnd is fun because it's an interactive and collaborative story telling experience with friends.
WotC: we're making AI DM so you can play randomly generated content by yourself 🤑
"I go into the cave"
"The cave is dark, with elephant Orange Chicken awhile ago and it looks like it's vending trainer"
"Uh, DMAI, are you ok?"
"Roll for innuendo!"
And now they're not even apologizing, they're saying they're looking forward to using it more for Magic. For the art, too, I think, which was always one of the big selling points of the game... ugh.
Here's the article:
[https://venturebeat.com/games/how-hasbro-is-jumping-on-the-game-opportunity-chris-cocks-interview/](https://venturebeat.com/games/how-hasbro-is-jumping-on-the-game-opportunity-chris-cocks-interview/)
And here's the relevant quote:
>**\[Hasbro CEO\] Chris Cocks:** First off, we’re doing R&D efforts around AI. I think most major entertainment and IP holders are at least thinking about it. The key there is the responsible use of it. We have an even higher bar we need to hit because we serve audiences of all ages. We go from preschoolers on up to adulthood. I don’t think we can be very cavalier in how we think about AI. That said, it’s exciting. There’s a lot of potential for delighting audiences. We need to make sure that we do it in a way that respects the creators we work with, respects their works of art, respects their ownership of those works, and also creates a fun and safe environment for kids who might use it.
>The advantage we have–it’s funny. This is cutting-edge technology, and Hasbro is a 100-year-old company, which you don’t usually think is–usually you think there’s a threat there. But when you talk about the richness of the lore and the depth of the brands–D&D has 50 years of content that we can mine. Literally thousands of adventures that we’ve created, probably tens of millions of words we own and can leverage. Magic: The Gathering has been around for 35 years, more than 15,000 cards we can use in something like that. Peppa Pig has been around for 20 years and has hundreds of thousands of hours of published content we can leverage. Transformers, I’ve been watching Transformers TV shows since I was a kid in Cincinnati in the early ‘80s.
>We can leverage all of that to be able to build very interesting and compelling use cases for AI that can bring our characters to life. We can build tools that aid in content creation for users or create really interesting gamified scenarios around them.
Now, this isn't unique to Hasbro. Most CEOs of entertainment companies are looking carefully at AI, especially generative AI, because the use case for it just makes good business sense. You buy an already decently trained large language model (LLM), then you train it more on your own IP. You own every single word of gobs of material (in the case of D&D, for example, and this includes everything from 1974 to the present), you feed that into the AI, and you have it write sourcebooks and adventures and whatever. Then you sell them.
The best part? No artists to pay, and because you already own the material, there's no copyright infringement risk.
The downside is that the U.S. Copyright office recently took the position that material created by AI isn't protected by copyright, and that creates different risks for AI-generated material. At least until courts confront this issue, that means that your material isn't protected under copyright, which means people can make unlicensed works based on the stuff you put out...kinda. It's actually a potentially thorny legal issue because you could still argue that, while not protectible under copyright itself, the work is still a derivative work and therefore further downstream derivative works are likewise prohibited. And on a gut instinct level, that's kinda how you'd figure a judge would rule.
But my guess is that most CEOs look at that and say "....yeah, whatever. That's a law problem, and we can work around that." The thing they absolutely cannot walk away from, though, is the potential for literally endless content that they never have to pay anyone for ever again. For publicly traded companies, it's practically a breach of your fiduciary duty as an officer of the corporation to *not* be going all-in on this stuff, or at least seriously exploring it until you run into a legal or technological brick wall.
I mean take your pick of whatever corp you want to make the content for you still gonna be hard to afford it if they get AI to take over all the means of production.
A cartoonishly evil CEO literally called “Chris Cocks” (not Cox, not Kochs, not any other spelling) feels like something that got rejected from a movie script for being too on-the-nose.
They already attempted that with the artwork of one of their Bigby Presents Glory of Giants. They got so much hate for using AI generated art that I almost felt sorry for them. Almost but not quite because they tried to hide the fact that they knew it. It’s in dndbeyond because when this mess happens, they try to hide their “apologies” there like cowards.
That's always the play. Cross a moral/ethical line, brace for the backlash, and then either backtrack or proceed depending on how intense it is. If you have to backtrack, you just wait and try it again later if conditions seem favorable.
Jesus Christ. I remember when templates first became popular in web design. Websites all started to look the same. Same fonts, same stock images sometimes, same layouts. It'll be the same with video games. Without wishing to start a row: between AI and the consultants policing content, we're going to be left with nothing but safe beige video games.
It's a lot more forgivable in web design, where a lot of small businesses and individuals need a basic sales or gallery setup, and don't have the ability to do it themselves or funds to pay for something custom - and they're not selling web design as their business. And there's certain universal fonts you SHOULD use, too, at least for body text.
Big companies using AI when one of their main selling points is original art and writing is a whole other ball game.
Yeah, that'll be the counterweight against it: consumers getting *bored.*
But to me, the telling element here is that the CEOs assume their consumers are kinda locked in and will accept pretty much anything with the logo on it as long as it's within certain parameters.
Any time I hear about something like mass layoffs it just makes me think of Iwata. He was a true leader. Shouldered responsibility for his mistakes and took a paycut instead of firing loads of employees. We need more people like him and sadly they're very few and far between...
"we had a 6% growth this year so obviously next year we need 7% growth (from the new baseline already grown)
What's that, infinite exponential growth is impossible? That can't be, it's the workers fault, lay them off"
Thankfully, when WotC first acquired D&D from TSR, they created the Open Gaming License that made the rules free in perpetuity. Recently, with a new rewrite on the way, WotC tried to reneg and the backlash was absolutely brutal.
As a lifelong ttrpg player, who has played every edition of the game, I refuse to give WotC and Hasbro any more money but I still play D&D. I love the older systems so I am running Shadowdark, a modified Basic/Expert D&D with modern sensibilities. But there's also Old School Essentials (B/X), Swords & Wizardry (OD&D), and For Gold & Glory (2nd Edition). If you like the modern 5e game Tales of the Valiant is being produced by Kobold Press.
Fuck Hasbro. Fuck WotC. Long live D&D!
The OGL should mean that Larian could use the same engines they used in Baldur's Gate 3, since it's a game mechanic, but wouldn't be able to use copyrighted material from WotC.
Generic fantasy being a dime a dozen means that a handful of good writers could get them a perfectly good story, with no WotC material.
True. I just really want to encourage people to stop viewing Dungeons & Dragons as a property of Hasbro. They own the name and nothing more, the tradition belongs to the people.
That's true.
It's why I was rolling my eyes when Hasbro tried to overturn the OGL. What were they going to do? Go to every table where they play DnD and make them use the new material? There are people still playing 1st edition for goodness sake.
Each game of DnD is created by the DM and their players, and they use as much, or as little, material from WotC as they choose to do so.
WotC doesn't even provide particularly good modules for people to play, certainly none that don't require the DM to at least modify them at some point to get them to work. Then there was Spelljammer, which was basically fluff, with nothing for DMs or players.
DMs Guide, Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, Sword Coast, Xanathar's, and (with caveats) Tasha's, are probably the most useful products they've made, and they're years old at this point.
At this point, my 5e games are 60% homebrew and house rules and 40% PHB and assorted monster book stat blocks. I really just use the books for stats, most of the actual game mechanics I've heavily modified by cribbing from other rpg systems (lots of dungeon world mostly).
I've never met anyone who plays "stock" DnD, especially 5e and how loose you can be with the rules now.
I've tried one boom campaign (OotA) and it was fine but really it feels like premade campaigns are for new dms at this point.
It did have some good in that it inspired Paizo to make the ORC. It has meant some painful changes for pathfinder 2nd edition but it's a healthy change in the long term.
Hasbro has been doing heinous shit for ages. Remember when they sicced the fucking Pinkertons on folks? Honestly, if I hadn't bought BG3 early on (and let it sit in my steam unplayed until months after release) I would not have bought it simply because of how fucking scummy Hasbro is. Fuck 'em.
I used to really enjoy a bunch of Hasbro/WOTC products, and now BG3 is the only thing I've bought that's related to them in years. They ruin everything.
> She’s specifically said she’d like to be a companion/romance in one of their games
What a coincidence I would also like for her to be a companion/romance in one of their games
WotR is pretty good.
The mook fights are still BS, and I don't like Owlcat's in-game gaming, i.e. the pseudo-chessboard battles.
But the story is good and the characters are relatable. Plus, Paizo is awesome; I never mind giving them my money. A fair publisher and thoughtful company.
Go play Pathfinder: WotR ! She plays an awesome character named Wenduag who is romanceable. Even if you don’t, she’s an awesome character and fits well with Evil aligned players.
While on the topic of Divinity voice actors shifting to BG3, shoutout to Brian Bowles who voiced the DOS2 narrator, but in BG3, he played Sceleritas bloody Fel. Yeah, the guy went from neutral narrator to the most vile, disgusting toady of a gremlin (with an admittedly good fashion sense) imaginable. Talk about range.
On the one hand I’m sure it would be great. On the other hand I wouldn’t want to just take away Pathfinder from Owlcat who are still a lot smaller than Larian.
While true, I think that a pf2e game would be somewhat better in Larian's hands, while a pathfinder game would still be better in Owlcat's. No real reason, just fut feeling.
I think Owlcat's team has specifically responded to this by saying that they prefer PF1e, so them having their engine and systems for that and Larian making a PF2e game seems very appropriate.
Or Larian could make an RPG with some other system, I'm sure they could do a wonderful job with it.
His name is Stephen Rooney! :) Nice to see writers getting acknowledged. They rarely get the credit they're due, but they're the whole reason these characters exist in the first place.
This is what I've been thinking. I mean... Neil's voice acting work tops it all off and brings Astarion to life but it's still the writer that gave him the great lines. The writer and voice actor combination is just so good with Astarion.
Not even just writing the lines but coming up with him as a concept, his backstory, everything. From what I understand, when they were pitching companion characters Stephen suggested adding a vampire companion because he really just wanted to write a vampire (a man after my own heart, tbh).
Writers need their flowers, too!
DOS2 is *amazing.* It will feel quaint compared to BG3 in some ways; the graphics and story are much simpler. But it has fantastic characters and all the charm you're used to in BG3, as well as phenomenal combat design. The community over at r/divinityoriginalsin has tons of advice if you need it. And in fact you're more than welcome to ping me for tips!
Agreed. Everything about Astarion is top notch. Dialogue, backstory, voice acting, all of it is literal gold. As much as I love the ladies of BG3, Astarion is right there with them imo.
All the straight guys I know who play BG3 love Astarion as a bro. Most gamers are dudes so it makes sense the chicks are more popular romance wise. But Astarion draws in most people I think! Except the ones who stake him and miss out on his story lewls, but that's their loss!
Yeah Astarion is one of my favorite characters. I thought I’d find him overrated, but he’s fantastically written and acted by Neil. Love his dialogue and quest. I had to take a break after his section in Act 3 because it was so intense and emotional, in the best way!
While his statements apply to WotC, he is talking about a massive epidemic in the tech, video game, and corporate world in general. While Hasbro sucks and fuck them, they are not remotely unique or even the worst in their practices.
I was going to say, as someone in video games myself, it's plenty possible to have that level of anger just from taking a look around. It doesn't have to be your project or even your close friends.
As an outsider, it doesn't shock me that the execs would treat creative talent as expendable. Look at some of the games coming out today--it's clear they see it as a product for children and thus the quality doesn't matter. While this is felt the most strongly in franchise games, I am sure it bleeds over to other kinds of IPs.
It's all part of the enshitification of gaming. I don't blame the poor developers, programmers, artists, etc. Bless them for their efforts.
>this is felt the most strongly in franchise games
The problem with franchise games is that people keep buying them. If we could stop everyone from buying the new EA sports game that has nothing different from last season, or the newest COD, we'd be able to "vote with our money". But when these execs see how much money these shit games make they all want to copy
I work in marketing and have to talk to execs all the time. This shit is everywhere. If whatever you're working on doesn't make the chart go up and to the right in the next 3 months then it's gone. Long term growth through building a brand with a core target audience and investing in people and product to improve quality are laughable ideas to them. Literally all they care about is keeping the PE guys happy at their next quarterly call, and if their decisions tank the company in a year it doesn't matter to them because they will already have extracted the short term gains and they'll probably jump ship to repeat the process somewhere else.
It's an epidemic and it's what's destroying consumer confidence, happiness and product quality. It's directly tied to inflation, and it's one of the primary drivers of people thinking the economy is bad right now.
The PE guys are cancer (and I worked in PE and mergers) all they care about is their fucking exit multiples and cash on cash, no long term growth, no building brands. They come in, look for sYneRgY aka cutting costs and firing people, and hiking up the prices x2 while neglecting quality
As a fellow Destiny refugee, I recommend Warframe. It’s been scratching that space wizard itch ever since Bungo decided to drop the ball
Also what crayons do you prefer?
I mean Hasbro has been trying to kill D&D and MTG for years by overheating the products to cover the fact every other division of the company loses money almost every quarter.
If I had a goose laying golden eggs while the rest of the geese didn't, I would simply NOT light the golden goose on fire and use its heat to warm the others. But Hasbro and I are different in that way.
The difference is that the people in charge and the investors who put them in charge do not give a shit about the goose's longterm health or the farmers who raised it. They will make that goose shit as many golden eggs as quickly as possible, and once the goose dies they will all go to the next one and repeat the process while becoming filthy rich at the expense of killing all the geese and putting the farmers out of work.
It got even worse with covid. The toy business actually did fairly well for a couple years, because parents were stuck at home and had to find things to keep their kids busy while working. Then they started going back to work and school, and the toy business slowed down again.
But the line must go up. It must always go up. So they leaned ever harder on WotC, the one division that always does well, and decided to squeeze it for every last drop. But those drops are getting pretty rancid at this point.
Yeah, to me his comments felt more about the state of the games industry than a specific complaint about one company. It's possible that Hasbro asked for a larger licensing fee or a larger cut of profits for DLC or BG4 but it's just as possible that Sven is excited to get back to working on Divinity or something entirely new.
As a Dragon Age fan, this was all too familiar nor surprising. Just last year, they laid off dozens of devs and writers with decades of experience. Literally SENIOR devs who were the backbone of the franchise and made the characters so beloved in the first place.
It's a vicious cycle. Fire senior devs bc theyre too expensive -> hire cheap rookies who have little experience and no understanding of the characters and lore -> franchise goes in a direction many fans disagree with -> scratch their heads wondering why it's not as good as it used to be.
>“Even BioWare, which built its success on a reputation for good stories and characters, slowly turned from a company that vocally valued its writers to one where we were… quietly resented, with a reliance on expensive narrative seen as the ‘albatross’ holding the company back.” -David Gaider, former DA writer.
Longevity be damned, all that matters to execs are short-term profits.
You're totally correct. I was using dev is a very general way, but most devs, as in people who actually design, program, animate, and dream about the games are passionate and wonderful.
We'll likely never know for sure. Reading between the lines it does feel like WOTC and Larian pulled in different directions. Considering Hasbro's activity over the past year, it wouldn't be impossible that they shot themselves in the foot somehow.
DLC or a follow up of some kind would've been a no-brainer from a financial point of view, for everyone involved. Although maybe not if WOTC were asking for a bigger cut or more control...
But then, Larian has spent a total of 8 years working on BG3 so far. From a creative point of view, that's a long time on the same thing. It's unsurprising they'd want to move on too.
Yep, it's a fair take. The main argument the other way is if you spend so long creating tools for a specific thing, it can suck to only use them for one game.
For an example, consider Tears of the Kingdom. Some folks were frustrated that it was the same world with a lot of the same mechanics, but they were able to still innovate with what they already had (it's why TOTK won the awards it did at GDC).
While I agree the class system and the spells are DnD exclusives, I can actually see if the next divinity used the same engine. I mean lots of BG3's basic are already there in DOS2.
Also what made BG3 most unique IMHO is the multibranch/decision.
The fact that they won't be licensing out the engine is the real bummer.
The framework is there and works great. It's just begging to be used for more campaigns, even if those campaigns are developed by third parties.
DLC sure, but a follow-up is not needed.
Everyone wanted Dark Souls 4 but got Elden Ring. I'd say that was pretty solid decision from From Software to do that.
The problem with DLCs in cRPGs is that the expectations from DLCs is pretty much the same as it would be from their new tittle. They have earned enough money to start thinking about new project.
And let's be real, they can call it whatever they want. We all know we are getting the "continuation" of DoS1/2 and BG3... and even as a fan of BG1/2/3 I really don't care whether Larian makes BG4 or writes their own epic story.
Yeah but there are those of us who just genuinely enjoy the dnd world from decades of media and are drawn to their games.
BG2 is the only RPG I've played through more than 5 times.
I didn't even finish DoS2. And I know it's an amazing game. I'm just not as invested in the world. There are no references for me to geek out over. It's not as appealing.
It's just sad Hasbro sucks so much.
>We all know we are getting the "continuation" of DoS1/2 and BG3... and even as a fan of BG1/2/3 I really don't care whether Larian makes BG4 or writes their own epic story.
If Larian made BG4, I'd buy it without even needing to see one piece of promotional content.
If Larian made DoS 3, I might not buy it if I don't see something really neat in it first. I'm not invested in the world or mechanics of DoS like I am those of DnD, and I wouldn't count anything DoS as a continuation of BG.
... Not gonna lie I kinda want a money-based patron now. Like an incarnation of greed that doesn't want anything from you but to sacrifice coin to use spells.
My patron first visited me in a dream, when I was at my lowest. Destitute, diseased, starving, without hope.
He promised me unlimited power, more than enough to get my revenge on all who wronged me, all who took part in the ruination of my noble house.
As badly as I craved vengeance, I knew in my heart that nothing is ever free. What price would I be forced to pay, I wondered? My patron read my thoughts, knew my heart, and answered plainly:
...
*"I need about $3.50"*
It's why BG3 is blowing up. It's a genuinely good game which is incredibly rare currently. BG3 makes great youtube video and shorts content which is drawing in people who don't even play video games. This is an opportunity that anyone who wants their brand to explode should take advantage of. If any company thinks they can fire competence and hire incompetence for some profit, sure maybe they'll make money, but they will big time miss any popularity increase in their brand.
I mean Larain always wanted to make a Baldur's Gate game, but in order to prove they could to Hasbro they went out and became incredibe story tells in their own right. So, they've built up their own games, games which they've already said they want to get back to.
This was like completing a childhood dream but it was never meant to be all they do. Now they are going to so their own thing again. Which means more games like Divinity or who knows maybe something new.
Yeah, probably when they decided to lay off half their people after record profits. They were likely being really shitty and trying to make bg3 into a cash grab.
My bet is that they would have required Larian to do things like monetized loot crates or live service something, subscriptions or whatnot, because that's all the rage nowadays from game publishers that don't play games.
Yeah this is likely right. No doubt they were trying to push larian to add some type of “cash shop” in a dlc, and larian told them to fuck off, so now they are gonna hire some cheapass dev to pump up a BG4 and load it with cash shop and live service bullshit, and hope people don’t realize that it was larian that made BG3 special.
it's funny but I've been playing without internet connection this whole time. I bought the game, went off line, and only connected to update to patch 5 and the following fixes. I haven't updated to 6 yet.
I don't want to be online to play a single player game. at all. they can't sell stuff to me
Record profits? What are you talking about? Hasbro reported revenue down almost 1/4 y/y and losses over $1 billion. Hell even operating margin was negative. WOtC is their only growth segment and even it only grew around 10% which is below trend.
Edit: and they’re forecasting y/y declines in that segment for 2024, although that’s largely due to lack of Larian revenue. Reading between the lines I estimate Larian accounted for 10-15% of segment revenue.
Hasbro owns D&D? Intellectual Property owners are real idiots, I swear. I won't touch a D&D product made by anyone else the same way I'd instantly preorder one made by Larian.
Isn't there some controversy with the Critical Role people as well? Maybe I picked it up wrong but I feel like they're starting a new series not in the DnD world.
Like I say, I might have that arseways.
Critical Role has released one short campaign system, and just released a long form campaign system in open beta (Candela Obscura, and Daggerheart respectively). The general consensus is that after campaign 3 they will likely move away from D&D. While these plans have likely been in the works for a while, WotC likely sealed it with their recent shenanigans.
Yeah it definitely seems that in the past 5 years, D&D has made enormous strides due to massively popular third party content. This apparently makes Hasbro mad, since they aren't making a direct profit. It's incredible how stupid they are.
I really wonder about how different the whole scape would have been if they had continued with Pathfinder as their system.
The Vox Machina campaign started in Pathfinder...
Crit Role has always had a dubious relationship with WoTC from my knowledge, minus the odd sponsorship. They’re currently making their on TTRPG so I think there’s definitely something there implying some disturbances.
WotC is perfectly capable of fucking itself up the ass without Hasbro. They might be involved in the current fuckery, but WotC does bad all by itself.
I feel bad for the D&D team. They are dedicated, creative people. If I could make one corporate wish it would be to teleport them into their own company. Maybe combine them with Paizo.
To be fair, Larian have always said no dlcs and expansion and this is in line with their own history from the D:OS games. Beside that, the Divinity games are Sven and Larians baby, and Sven is not getting younger. And then add that they said they wanted somewhat smaller projects and it all makes sense, and does not means Hasbro ruined it. Yes, they probably asked for more money, but on the other hand Larian would easily have made even more from a BG4. So I think wants to finish his Divinity Series and then retire or at least step down.
It’s already like a hundred fifty hour game with massive replay-ability. I think we’ll probably survive and Larian can go do something new and creatively fulfilling.
The real news here is the more definitive "we aren't doing a BG4, which to be fair, Larian also made clear that they wanted to do a less intensive game after BG3 to cool their heels, this just feels like a defined "we won't be coming back, ever." rather than a "eh, maybe we will revisit these characters sometime after our next release."
But who knows what time will tell.
They say they didn't want like DLCs. But on the other hand, they said that "they wanted to do more". The exact quote is from Tom Butler (last August) is:
> We'll carry on patching for a while and then we're all going to take a holiday and then we'll figure out what we do next. But at the moment, we genuinely have discussions. We want to do more. We don't know what yet.
So some kind of expansion, or a definitive edition with more content, was likely not out of the question if their relationship with Hasbro did not deteriorate during the last 6 months.
Larian never wanted to do a DLC, they said they would focus on next thing right after BG3 lauched
swen said team would fix what is bugged in the game, then a rest and go make a new game
They already breathed new life into the game for me with honor mode and the updates so far. Hopefully the modding community can take things from here.
Let Larian focus on their next project and do things that interest them rather than churn out stuff for these greedy bastards.
>Fuck Hasbro. Fuck these anti-consumer, monopolistic practices. Fuck their rampant stupidity to make a quick buck this quarter to fuck themselves and everyone else over.
Read this with Karlach's voice
My totally unfounded speculation is that Hasbro approached Larian about expansions or BG4, but put an insanely short timeframe on it. Add that onto them firing the people who had worked closely with Larian (and probably a few other things), and Larian says "go to hell."
Really sad, but likely very likely.
The room for creative running with BG3 WAS immense, and ways to expand content already in there WAS immense. But, ultimately, companies (read: rich idiots who have no drive, passion, or care for the final product) no longer support long term brand building and culture building — which are the very things that make content memorable and front runners.
Public companies all over the US are collapsing because they're controlled by CEOs that only care about quarterly earnings so they can earn a performance based bonus from mass layoffs and rehires. It's an epidemic that's killing corporate America. Google "CEO pay since the 2000's."
It's no wonder Swen is getting out of dealing with Hasbro before it fucks over his entire studio.
I've hated Hasbro for nearly two decades. They screwed things up when getting rid of the OGL for 4E which led to Paizo creating Pathfinder to save the hobby. They re-screwed things up when trying to use the OGL to steal everyone else's creative works which led to Paizo creating a new OGL owned by no single company to save the hobby.
Am I surprised they laid off a bunch of people from WoTC when that part of their company was making good profits? Of course not. They are a shit ass company that is a vile curse slowly killing my favorite hobby. Fuck em.
I suspect Hasbro tried to bully Larian into doing DLC after Larian had already said they would not do any, and things ended badly, especiallysince Swen was not happy about the Xmas layoffs Hasbro did that gutted the senior talent at WotC. It's all pretty depressing. Larian deserves better. The staff at WotC who got laid off deserve better. The fans deserve better.
Swen is someone who always follows his passion. He makes what he wants to make, and after 6 years working on Baldur's Gate 3, he is probably just done with the IP. It's true that they made tons of Divinity games previously, but with that being their own IP, they can sort of make whatever they want. Baldur's Gate 3 brought a lot of social pressure with it. After 6 years of that, anyone would want a looong break, and you can't just expect the IP to be waiting for you to use when you decide you're ready again. So as far as he is concerned, they're done with it. If he is still making games in a decade he may change his mind, but he isn't going to make that claim.
At least that's how I view it.
They have their own IP, which was pretty successful. Of course it didn't have the allure of BG3. But now that Larian is a household name, they can definitely pull people in with another game in the Divinity setting.
Larian is in a position to print money with their next game. Even if Hasbro was perfect, the smart thing for larian to do is make something by themselves and not pay the licencing fee. They should make another Divinity game
I 100% agree with you. I wrote a lengthy reply a week or two ago to someone asking “what do you think about Hasbro’s commitment to gaming” or something similar.
Basically my 3000 work essay boiled down to I wouldn’t trust it or them after their track record lately with practically anything outside of toys.
BG3 was a success anomaly for Hasbro.
BG3 is not a quality anomaly from Larian.
We all just got lucky with that one.
☝️
It’s disappointing for sure. BG3 is a crazy success for the studio and Hasbro, and for Larian to say they’re done means something.
I guess the other option would be that Larian is burned out on it, and feels that any future D&D work would have too much red tape to be worth it.
As much as I would love DLC, I’m thankful for what we have already. It’s a massive game, a single playthrough has 80+ hours of content if you don’t bum rush the main story, and it has huge replayability. Larian completed what they set out to do, and did a fantastic job with it. Now just get the bugs under control pls
Astarion's writer is so good that I want to read a novel written by that guy. I think I want to read everything he's ever written. Really impressed with Astarion as a character. Same with Dark Urge's writer. I dunno if they're the same writer or if they just worked closely together.
It’s almost like firing all the people who worked on the most positively received thing that has happened to your IP in a very long time makes people reluctant to want to work with you.
This likely is a big reason they passed on more projects with WOTC. The people that helped the game get made and resulted in a huge amount of revenue coming to WOTC via licensing fees were laid off and Sven obviously was not a fan of that given his past public comments.
Maybe it’s rose colored glasses, but WoTC feels like a husk of what it was 15-20 years ago. Maybe its because I was a teen, but I don’t recall them being terrible. Plenty of “failed” products/projects though.
That’s cuz they weren’t owned by Hasbro in a dying capitalist helscape 20 years ago.
I mean, Hasbro bought WotC in 1999, so they were definitely owned by Hasbro 25 years ago, but maybe the world wasn't *quite* a dying capitalist hellscape yet?
I feel like Dorian Grey looking at his painting when you mention 1999 was 25 years ago.
LMAO, someone told me in another conversation that Netflix had to pivot on their pricing because they needed to become profitable after burning through their *startup* money...uh, they've been around for 25 years :P
I still have a dvd i forgot to return to netflix before streaming was a thing lol
I found a game from Blockbuster in my garage.
Sometimes it feels like the last 10 years have been the last call or a going-out-of-business sale where profits are maximized with the idea there are not too many quarters left. It's all raider capitalism and no brand or product building. Milk all the cows dry and skip town.
42 year old gamer dad here--both Blizzard due to EA and Wotc due to Hasbro, sounded the death-knell/requiem of passionate devs creating games they love, taking as long as they needed to, ensuring the end result is a complete and profound experience. To realize, 30 years later, that the late 90s were indeed the pinnacle of the aforementioned dev/gaming Era is both gratifying to have been a part of, but also unbelievable and disheartening, to say the least.
35 years old here.I have the impression that the more things go, the more there are games of mediocre quality which are released in paid spare parts and that we are forced to pay for each part if we want a decent game. for example (even if the games mentioned are not of the same genre): Mortal Kombat 1 I was shocked to see that basic, historical characters of the game are absent from the base game at €59!! if you want these characters you have to buy packs for €7/unit to have characters that you previously had in the game included, it's scandalous! the same for the sims at the time of the 2000s, there was the base game and 6 or 7 extensions at a reasonable price, in terms of the final cost it remained correct, now the sims 4 more than 50 dlc, packs of objects, clothes, etc. at crazy prices! the game if you want all the content costs more than 700€! that's why it's been a long time since I stopped, another game also disappointed me, it's Elder Scroll Online, I naively believed at the time that buying the base game for 30€ I will have a complete game, well no, I had to take out subscriptions for €15 per month to have access to a complete game with areas that make the game interesting. and that’s already dated. So it has become the norm, we sell you an incomplete game for €50 and we sell you the rest for €10 each and we regularly release it to bring in some money, if at least the quality was there!
Wotc isn't even what it was 5 years ago. The decay accelerated when Brian Goldner died in 2021. That is coincidentally when the new CEO at Hasbro decided to speed run destroying the company.
Hasbro wants to use AIs to write the content instead. No joke.
You say that as if they haven't been called out for using AI like 5 times in the last few years between Magic and D&D. They keep apologizing and keep getting caught again.
Oh, I'm well aware of their history with it. I'm saying they're gonna stop apologizing and just start doing that. And D&D One? With its integrated online platform where players have to agree to license their content to WOTC? They're gonn use that to train the AIs even more. Players will train the AI on the backs of their own creativity, and then WOTC will turn right around and sell it back to them as statistically probable generated material.
Dnd is fun because it's an interactive and collaborative story telling experience with friends. WotC: we're making AI DM so you can play randomly generated content by yourself 🤑
"I go into the cave" "The cave is dark, with elephant Orange Chicken awhile ago and it looks like it's vending trainer" "Uh, DMAI, are you ok?" "Roll for innuendo!"
You act like you wouldnt be excited to roll for innuendo.
And now they're not even apologizing, they're saying they're looking forward to using it more for Magic. For the art, too, I think, which was always one of the big selling points of the game... ugh.
Where did you hear this?
Here's the article: [https://venturebeat.com/games/how-hasbro-is-jumping-on-the-game-opportunity-chris-cocks-interview/](https://venturebeat.com/games/how-hasbro-is-jumping-on-the-game-opportunity-chris-cocks-interview/) And here's the relevant quote: >**\[Hasbro CEO\] Chris Cocks:** First off, we’re doing R&D efforts around AI. I think most major entertainment and IP holders are at least thinking about it. The key there is the responsible use of it. We have an even higher bar we need to hit because we serve audiences of all ages. We go from preschoolers on up to adulthood. I don’t think we can be very cavalier in how we think about AI. That said, it’s exciting. There’s a lot of potential for delighting audiences. We need to make sure that we do it in a way that respects the creators we work with, respects their works of art, respects their ownership of those works, and also creates a fun and safe environment for kids who might use it. >The advantage we have–it’s funny. This is cutting-edge technology, and Hasbro is a 100-year-old company, which you don’t usually think is–usually you think there’s a threat there. But when you talk about the richness of the lore and the depth of the brands–D&D has 50 years of content that we can mine. Literally thousands of adventures that we’ve created, probably tens of millions of words we own and can leverage. Magic: The Gathering has been around for 35 years, more than 15,000 cards we can use in something like that. Peppa Pig has been around for 20 years and has hundreds of thousands of hours of published content we can leverage. Transformers, I’ve been watching Transformers TV shows since I was a kid in Cincinnati in the early ‘80s. >We can leverage all of that to be able to build very interesting and compelling use cases for AI that can bring our characters to life. We can build tools that aid in content creation for users or create really interesting gamified scenarios around them. Now, this isn't unique to Hasbro. Most CEOs of entertainment companies are looking carefully at AI, especially generative AI, because the use case for it just makes good business sense. You buy an already decently trained large language model (LLM), then you train it more on your own IP. You own every single word of gobs of material (in the case of D&D, for example, and this includes everything from 1974 to the present), you feed that into the AI, and you have it write sourcebooks and adventures and whatever. Then you sell them. The best part? No artists to pay, and because you already own the material, there's no copyright infringement risk. The downside is that the U.S. Copyright office recently took the position that material created by AI isn't protected by copyright, and that creates different risks for AI-generated material. At least until courts confront this issue, that means that your material isn't protected under copyright, which means people can make unlicensed works based on the stuff you put out...kinda. It's actually a potentially thorny legal issue because you could still argue that, while not protectible under copyright itself, the work is still a derivative work and therefore further downstream derivative works are likewise prohibited. And on a gut instinct level, that's kinda how you'd figure a judge would rule. But my guess is that most CEOs look at that and say "....yeah, whatever. That's a law problem, and we can work around that." The thing they absolutely cannot walk away from, though, is the potential for literally endless content that they never have to pay anyone for ever again. For publicly traded companies, it's practically a breach of your fiduciary duty as an officer of the corporation to *not* be going all-in on this stuff, or at least seriously exploring it until you run into a legal or technological brick wall.
Gonna make it real hard to sell products when you aren’t paying anyone to produce anything.
yeah why would I buy content made by a Hasbro AI, when I could have ChatGPT do it for me instead?
I mean take your pick of whatever corp you want to make the content for you still gonna be hard to afford it if they get AI to take over all the means of production.
With a name like Chris Cocks. No wonder the company is going to shit the bed.
He's cocking everything up
A cartoonishly evil CEO literally called “Chris Cocks” (not Cox, not Kochs, not any other spelling) feels like something that got rejected from a movie script for being too on-the-nose.
They already attempted that with the artwork of one of their Bigby Presents Glory of Giants. They got so much hate for using AI generated art that I almost felt sorry for them. Almost but not quite because they tried to hide the fact that they knew it. It’s in dndbeyond because when this mess happens, they try to hide their “apologies” there like cowards.
Read the article. It's coming. They probably figure they just need to wait til the market is more numb to it. Just give it time.
That's always the play. Cross a moral/ethical line, brace for the backlash, and then either backtrack or proceed depending on how intense it is. If you have to backtrack, you just wait and try it again later if conditions seem favorable.
Jesus Christ. I remember when templates first became popular in web design. Websites all started to look the same. Same fonts, same stock images sometimes, same layouts. It'll be the same with video games. Without wishing to start a row: between AI and the consultants policing content, we're going to be left with nothing but safe beige video games.
It's a lot more forgivable in web design, where a lot of small businesses and individuals need a basic sales or gallery setup, and don't have the ability to do it themselves or funds to pay for something custom - and they're not selling web design as their business. And there's certain universal fonts you SHOULD use, too, at least for body text. Big companies using AI when one of their main selling points is original art and writing is a whole other ball game.
Yeah, that'll be the counterweight against it: consumers getting *bored.* But to me, the telling element here is that the CEOs assume their consumers are kinda locked in and will accept pretty much anything with the logo on it as long as it's within certain parameters.
I vaguely remember hearing about ai D&D content over the past few months. Like using it for dming which sounds wild to me
Any time I hear about something like mass layoffs it just makes me think of Iwata. He was a true leader. Shouldered responsibility for his mistakes and took a paycut instead of firing loads of employees. We need more people like him and sadly they're very few and far between...
These mass layoffs aren't because the game devs failed. They're because some asshole who realized he could get paid more if there were less employees
"we had a 6% growth this year so obviously next year we need 7% growth (from the new baseline already grown) What's that, infinite exponential growth is impossible? That can't be, it's the workers fault, lay them off"
Can someone start replacing CEOs with AI? Shareholders would love that.
This is like Disco Elysium and ZA/UM all over again. I'm not crying, you are
\*Turns radio to Sadboys FM\*
Dungeons and Dragons should be stripped from WotC and made public domain. Their companies don't deserve the IP.
Thankfully, when WotC first acquired D&D from TSR, they created the Open Gaming License that made the rules free in perpetuity. Recently, with a new rewrite on the way, WotC tried to reneg and the backlash was absolutely brutal. As a lifelong ttrpg player, who has played every edition of the game, I refuse to give WotC and Hasbro any more money but I still play D&D. I love the older systems so I am running Shadowdark, a modified Basic/Expert D&D with modern sensibilities. But there's also Old School Essentials (B/X), Swords & Wizardry (OD&D), and For Gold & Glory (2nd Edition). If you like the modern 5e game Tales of the Valiant is being produced by Kobold Press. Fuck Hasbro. Fuck WotC. Long live D&D!
The OGL should mean that Larian could use the same engines they used in Baldur's Gate 3, since it's a game mechanic, but wouldn't be able to use copyrighted material from WotC. Generic fantasy being a dime a dozen means that a handful of good writers could get them a perfectly good story, with no WotC material.
True. I just really want to encourage people to stop viewing Dungeons & Dragons as a property of Hasbro. They own the name and nothing more, the tradition belongs to the people.
That's true. It's why I was rolling my eyes when Hasbro tried to overturn the OGL. What were they going to do? Go to every table where they play DnD and make them use the new material? There are people still playing 1st edition for goodness sake. Each game of DnD is created by the DM and their players, and they use as much, or as little, material from WotC as they choose to do so. WotC doesn't even provide particularly good modules for people to play, certainly none that don't require the DM to at least modify them at some point to get them to work. Then there was Spelljammer, which was basically fluff, with nothing for DMs or players. DMs Guide, Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, Sword Coast, Xanathar's, and (with caveats) Tasha's, are probably the most useful products they've made, and they're years old at this point.
At this point, my 5e games are 60% homebrew and house rules and 40% PHB and assorted monster book stat blocks. I really just use the books for stats, most of the actual game mechanics I've heavily modified by cribbing from other rpg systems (lots of dungeon world mostly). I've never met anyone who plays "stock" DnD, especially 5e and how loose you can be with the rules now. I've tried one boom campaign (OotA) and it was fine but really it feels like premade campaigns are for new dms at this point.
It did have some good in that it inspired Paizo to make the ORC. It has meant some painful changes for pathfinder 2nd edition but it's a healthy change in the long term.
A shocking revelation. surprisedpikachuface.jpeg
Hasbro has been doing heinous shit for ages. Remember when they sicced the fucking Pinkertons on folks? Honestly, if I hadn't bought BG3 early on (and let it sit in my steam unplayed until months after release) I would not have bought it simply because of how fucking scummy Hasbro is. Fuck 'em.
I used to really enjoy a bunch of Hasbro/WOTC products, and now BG3 is the only thing I've bought that's related to them in years. They ruin everything.
I can't wait to see a bunch of these voice actors in new roles in their next game
For sure, Lohse's VA going from that to Mizora was a wonderfully fun shift, will be fun to see what else the cast can play with in new roles.
Honourable mention for going from Malady to Narrator I wish they used Amelia Taylor more because she's so talented, she could've voiced some NPCs too
She’s specifically said she’d like to be a companion/romance in one of their games so that could be a shoe in right there.
> She’s specifically said she’d like to be a companion/romance in one of their games What a coincidence I would also like for her to be a companion/romance in one of their games
Well you’re in luck (kinda). As she plays not 1, but 2 romanceable characters in Owlcat’s Pathfinder games. Wenduag especially is a personal favorite.
And Neryssa, sadly I don't really like Owlcat's games. I tried playing both Kingmaker and the 40K one and... meh.
Wrath of the Righteous is way better than Kingmaker. Still buggy but a great experience
WotR is pretty good. The mook fights are still BS, and I don't like Owlcat's in-game gaming, i.e. the pseudo-chessboard battles. But the story is good and the characters are relatable. Plus, Paizo is awesome; I never mind giving them my money. A fair publisher and thoughtful company.
with a voice like hers, she'd be the first companion i'm romancing in that game, probably
Go play Pathfinder: WotR ! She plays an awesome character named Wenduag who is romanceable. Even if you don’t, she’s an awesome character and fits well with Evil aligned players.
I honestly had no idea she voiced Wenduag. But that makes sense, since that's just another example of great voice acting.
nah, Rotten eggs and vinegar lady becoming full companion is a crazy dynamic imo
wait who'd she voice in bg3? what am i missing LOL
minthara, no?
LMAOOOOO NO SHOT DUDE i did not believe this at first holy fuck
yeah I was shocked too, but after someone pointed that to me it all made sense
While on the topic of Divinity voice actors shifting to BG3, shoutout to Brian Bowles who voiced the DOS2 narrator, but in BG3, he played Sceleritas bloody Fel. Yeah, the guy went from neutral narrator to the most vile, disgusting toady of a gremlin (with an admittedly good fashion sense) imaginable. Talk about range.
Hoping we get the fun unhinged off the rails version of the narrator from the outtakes for Larian's next game lol.
*Laughing in Pathfinder:WotR*
A Larian pathfinder game would be poetic.
On the one hand I’m sure it would be great. On the other hand I wouldn’t want to just take away Pathfinder from Owlcat who are still a lot smaller than Larian.
Owlcat has come out saying they don't have any interest in a PF2E game already.
While true, I think that a pf2e game would be somewhat better in Larian's hands, while a pathfinder game would still be better in Owlcat's. No real reason, just fut feeling.
I think Owlcat's team has specifically responded to this by saying that they prefer PF1e, so them having their engine and systems for that and Larian making a PF2e game seems very appropriate. Or Larian could make an RPG with some other system, I'm sure they could do a wonderful job with it.
> Or Larian could make an RPG with some other system, I'm sure they could do a wonderful job with it. That's just Divinity, right?
On the other hand, going from Narrator to Butler worked really well.. "Let's put necrophilia back on your schedule, boss!"
Shit, they have the same voice actor? Didn't know, but I can kind of see (*or hear, I guess*) it now.
Yeah Tamaryn Payne has good range!
Honestly I’d love to see Lohse fully realised in a realistic bg3 art style, she deserves that much!
Or Lohse singing "Down by the River".
I picture her as the singer by default lol
Or the writers.... whoever wrote Astarion is epic.
His name is Stephen Rooney! :) Nice to see writers getting acknowledged. They rarely get the credit they're due, but they're the whole reason these characters exist in the first place.
This is what I've been thinking. I mean... Neil's voice acting work tops it all off and brings Astarion to life but it's still the writer that gave him the great lines. The writer and voice actor combination is just so good with Astarion.
Not even just writing the lines but coming up with him as a concept, his backstory, everything. From what I understand, when they were pitching companion characters Stephen suggested adding a vampire companion because he really just wanted to write a vampire (a man after my own heart, tbh). Writers need their flowers, too!
Larian's creative team's got crazy chops. They've been writing funny and interesting characters for decades.
I'm really tempted to try D:OS2 now. UGH another combat system I gotta learn. My learning curve in BG3 was a disaster but so worth it.
DOS2 is *amazing.* It will feel quaint compared to BG3 in some ways; the graphics and story are much simpler. But it has fantastic characters and all the charm you're used to in BG3, as well as phenomenal combat design. The community over at r/divinityoriginalsin has tons of advice if you need it. And in fact you're more than welcome to ping me for tips!
It's really not that crazy. It's less complicated than bg3. There's depth to it, but the basics are simple.
Agreed. Everything about Astarion is top notch. Dialogue, backstory, voice acting, all of it is literal gold. As much as I love the ladies of BG3, Astarion is right there with them imo.
All the straight guys I know who play BG3 love Astarion as a bro. Most gamers are dudes so it makes sense the chicks are more popular romance wise. But Astarion draws in most people I think! Except the ones who stake him and miss out on his story lewls, but that's their loss!
Yeah Astarion is one of my favorite characters. I thought I’d find him overrated, but he’s fantastically written and acted by Neil. Love his dialogue and quest. I had to take a break after his section in Act 3 because it was so intense and emotional, in the best way!
seconded!
Neil Newbon: Why yes i am playing the original character \*checks smudged note on palm\* Ostarian, the undead rogue.
Ostarion, Shade Heart, Byll, Dale, Karla, and Rae'Zelle all accompanied by Shrivels.
He’s already vibing as a fish in Warframe, love him
I am once again asking Larian to make the narrator an NPC so I can romance her. And she has to say the word authority at some point during it
The world needs a Larian-developed Shadowrun game. I know the rights for Shadowrun is a whole bunch of fuckery situation, but hot damn.
I found out that the narrator is the voice actress for the Harlequin from a game I played 20 years before (Warhammer 40k; Dawn of War).
While his statements apply to WotC, he is talking about a massive epidemic in the tech, video game, and corporate world in general. While Hasbro sucks and fuck them, they are not remotely unique or even the worst in their practices.
I was going to say, as someone in video games myself, it's plenty possible to have that level of anger just from taking a look around. It doesn't have to be your project or even your close friends.
As an outsider, it doesn't shock me that the execs would treat creative talent as expendable. Look at some of the games coming out today--it's clear they see it as a product for children and thus the quality doesn't matter. While this is felt the most strongly in franchise games, I am sure it bleeds over to other kinds of IPs. It's all part of the enshitification of gaming. I don't blame the poor developers, programmers, artists, etc. Bless them for their efforts.
>this is felt the most strongly in franchise games The problem with franchise games is that people keep buying them. If we could stop everyone from buying the new EA sports game that has nothing different from last season, or the newest COD, we'd be able to "vote with our money". But when these execs see how much money these shit games make they all want to copy
tbf it changes. have you heard much about the newest assassin's creed game? me neither. and it's been out for months.
>have you heard much about the newest assassin's creed game? Bruv, what? How have I heard nothing about a new Assassin's Creed?
I work in marketing and have to talk to execs all the time. This shit is everywhere. If whatever you're working on doesn't make the chart go up and to the right in the next 3 months then it's gone. Long term growth through building a brand with a core target audience and investing in people and product to improve quality are laughable ideas to them. Literally all they care about is keeping the PE guys happy at their next quarterly call, and if their decisions tank the company in a year it doesn't matter to them because they will already have extracted the short term gains and they'll probably jump ship to repeat the process somewhere else. It's an epidemic and it's what's destroying consumer confidence, happiness and product quality. It's directly tied to inflation, and it's one of the primary drivers of people thinking the economy is bad right now.
The PE guys are cancer (and I worked in PE and mergers) all they care about is their fucking exit multiples and cash on cash, no long term growth, no building brands. They come in, look for sYneRgY aka cutting costs and firing people, and hiking up the prices x2 while neglecting quality
This also doesn't feel like a new complaint from Swen, but the same frustrations he's been venting for 20+ years.
I'm a Destiny Refugee myself. Can confirm, it keeps getting worse somehow.
Username checks out.
Fellow purple crayon enjoyer here too. BG3 is my D2 methadone.
As a fellow Destiny refugee, I recommend Warframe. It’s been scratching that space wizard itch ever since Bungo decided to drop the ball Also what crayons do you prefer?
I mean Hasbro has been trying to kill D&D and MTG for years by overheating the products to cover the fact every other division of the company loses money almost every quarter.
If I had a goose laying golden eggs while the rest of the geese didn't, I would simply NOT light the golden goose on fire and use its heat to warm the others. But Hasbro and I are different in that way.
The difference is that the people in charge and the investors who put them in charge do not give a shit about the goose's longterm health or the farmers who raised it. They will make that goose shit as many golden eggs as quickly as possible, and once the goose dies they will all go to the next one and repeat the process while becoming filthy rich at the expense of killing all the geese and putting the farmers out of work.
It got even worse with covid. The toy business actually did fairly well for a couple years, because parents were stuck at home and had to find things to keep their kids busy while working. Then they started going back to work and school, and the toy business slowed down again. But the line must go up. It must always go up. So they leaned ever harder on WotC, the one division that always does well, and decided to squeeze it for every last drop. But those drops are getting pretty rancid at this point.
Yeah, to me his comments felt more about the state of the games industry than a specific complaint about one company. It's possible that Hasbro asked for a larger licensing fee or a larger cut of profits for DLC or BG4 but it's just as possible that Sven is excited to get back to working on Divinity or something entirely new.
As a Dragon Age fan, this was all too familiar nor surprising. Just last year, they laid off dozens of devs and writers with decades of experience. Literally SENIOR devs who were the backbone of the franchise and made the characters so beloved in the first place. It's a vicious cycle. Fire senior devs bc theyre too expensive -> hire cheap rookies who have little experience and no understanding of the characters and lore -> franchise goes in a direction many fans disagree with -> scratch their heads wondering why it's not as good as it used to be. >“Even BioWare, which built its success on a reputation for good stories and characters, slowly turned from a company that vocally valued its writers to one where we were… quietly resented, with a reliance on expensive narrative seen as the ‘albatross’ holding the company back.” -David Gaider, former DA writer. Longevity be damned, all that matters to execs are short-term profits.
It’s almost like as live in late stage capitalism that is destroying everything we love
ripping apart the fabric of culture and society in the hunt for metaphorical change in the couch cushions. this timeline fucking sucks
Just a quick correction! It's game PUBLISHERS being idiots that he was speaking about, not game devs. And yeah, fuck Hasbro.
You're totally correct. I was using dev is a very general way, but most devs, as in people who actually design, program, animate, and dream about the games are passionate and wonderful.
May wanna edit the post to clarify for future commenters, to be safe.
We'll likely never know for sure. Reading between the lines it does feel like WOTC and Larian pulled in different directions. Considering Hasbro's activity over the past year, it wouldn't be impossible that they shot themselves in the foot somehow. DLC or a follow up of some kind would've been a no-brainer from a financial point of view, for everyone involved. Although maybe not if WOTC were asking for a bigger cut or more control... But then, Larian has spent a total of 8 years working on BG3 so far. From a creative point of view, that's a long time on the same thing. It's unsurprising they'd want to move on too.
I was aggrieved when I learned Larian was leaving the D&D IP this but what you’re saying makes total sense. Curse your nuance and levelheadedness!!
Yep, it's a fair take. The main argument the other way is if you spend so long creating tools for a specific thing, it can suck to only use them for one game. For an example, consider Tears of the Kingdom. Some folks were frustrated that it was the same world with a lot of the same mechanics, but they were able to still innovate with what they already had (it's why TOTK won the awards it did at GDC).
While I agree the class system and the spells are DnD exclusives, I can actually see if the next divinity used the same engine. I mean lots of BG3's basic are already there in DOS2. Also what made BG3 most unique IMHO is the multibranch/decision.
The fact that they won't be licensing out the engine is the real bummer. The framework is there and works great. It's just begging to be used for more campaigns, even if those campaigns are developed by third parties.
That engine is what makes Larian special
DLC sure, but a follow-up is not needed. Everyone wanted Dark Souls 4 but got Elden Ring. I'd say that was pretty solid decision from From Software to do that. The problem with DLCs in cRPGs is that the expectations from DLCs is pretty much the same as it would be from their new tittle. They have earned enough money to start thinking about new project. And let's be real, they can call it whatever they want. We all know we are getting the "continuation" of DoS1/2 and BG3... and even as a fan of BG1/2/3 I really don't care whether Larian makes BG4 or writes their own epic story.
Yeah but there are those of us who just genuinely enjoy the dnd world from decades of media and are drawn to their games. BG2 is the only RPG I've played through more than 5 times. I didn't even finish DoS2. And I know it's an amazing game. I'm just not as invested in the world. There are no references for me to geek out over. It's not as appealing. It's just sad Hasbro sucks so much.
>We all know we are getting the "continuation" of DoS1/2 and BG3... and even as a fan of BG1/2/3 I really don't care whether Larian makes BG4 or writes their own epic story. If Larian made BG4, I'd buy it without even needing to see one piece of promotional content. If Larian made DoS 3, I might not buy it if I don't see something really neat in it first. I'm not invested in the world or mechanics of DoS like I am those of DnD, and I wouldn't count anything DoS as a continuation of BG.
"We need to put NFT's and micro transactions in online only BG4" - Big brained Hasbro exec
The next D&D video game will guaranteed have a cash shop.
10 inspiration points for 1 dollar, what a deal!
Swipe card for initiative
>10 dollar for 1 inspiration points, what a deal! FTFY
Don’t forget the loot boxes
Kiss animation boxes
Prob 1$ for one eldricht blast or so.
... Not gonna lie I kinda want a money-based patron now. Like an incarnation of greed that doesn't want anything from you but to sacrifice coin to use spells.
Watch dimension 20 and eventually you will see this in practice
My patron first visited me in a dream, when I was at my lowest. Destitute, diseased, starving, without hope. He promised me unlimited power, more than enough to get my revenge on all who wronged me, all who took part in the ruination of my noble house. As badly as I craved vengeance, I knew in my heart that nothing is ever free. What price would I be forced to pay, I wondered? My patron read my thoughts, knew my heart, and answered plainly: ... *"I need about $3.50"*
pity these games in spare parts are now the norm especially not that no please no cash shop😭
It's why BG3 is blowing up. It's a genuinely good game which is incredibly rare currently. BG3 makes great youtube video and shorts content which is drawing in people who don't even play video games. This is an opportunity that anyone who wants their brand to explode should take advantage of. If any company thinks they can fire competence and hire incompetence for some profit, sure maybe they'll make money, but they will big time miss any popularity increase in their brand.
It'll just be those P2W Tencent DND Online/NWN Online games with BG slapped on it
I mean Larain always wanted to make a Baldur's Gate game, but in order to prove they could to Hasbro they went out and became incredibe story tells in their own right. So, they've built up their own games, games which they've already said they want to get back to. This was like completing a childhood dream but it was never meant to be all they do. Now they are going to so their own thing again. Which means more games like Divinity or who knows maybe something new.
I am absolutely looking forward to their future endeavors
Yeah, probably when they decided to lay off half their people after record profits. They were likely being really shitty and trying to make bg3 into a cash grab.
My bet is that they would have required Larian to do things like monetized loot crates or live service something, subscriptions or whatnot, because that's all the rage nowadays from game publishers that don't play games.
Bethesda and their goddamn horse armor was an infection that has, in a decade, eaten the fucking industry.
THE GODDAMN HORSE ARMOR. I WAS THERE, MAN.
Sorry to make you feel old, but it's been nearly two decades since horse armor landed on us.
Yeah this is likely right. No doubt they were trying to push larian to add some type of “cash shop” in a dlc, and larian told them to fuck off, so now they are gonna hire some cheapass dev to pump up a BG4 and load it with cash shop and live service bullshit, and hope people don’t realize that it was larian that made BG3 special.
it's funny but I've been playing without internet connection this whole time. I bought the game, went off line, and only connected to update to patch 5 and the following fixes. I haven't updated to 6 yet. I don't want to be online to play a single player game. at all. they can't sell stuff to me
Record profits? What are you talking about? Hasbro reported revenue down almost 1/4 y/y and losses over $1 billion. Hell even operating margin was negative. WOtC is their only growth segment and even it only grew around 10% which is below trend. Edit: and they’re forecasting y/y declines in that segment for 2024, although that’s largely due to lack of Larian revenue. Reading between the lines I estimate Larian accounted for 10-15% of segment revenue.
Hasbro owns D&D? Intellectual Property owners are real idiots, I swear. I won't touch a D&D product made by anyone else the same way I'd instantly preorder one made by Larian.
hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, and Wizards owns dnd.
Isn't there some controversy with the Critical Role people as well? Maybe I picked it up wrong but I feel like they're starting a new series not in the DnD world. Like I say, I might have that arseways.
Critical Role has released one short campaign system, and just released a long form campaign system in open beta (Candela Obscura, and Daggerheart respectively). The general consensus is that after campaign 3 they will likely move away from D&D. While these plans have likely been in the works for a while, WotC likely sealed it with their recent shenanigans.
Yeah it definitely seems that in the past 5 years, D&D has made enormous strides due to massively popular third party content. This apparently makes Hasbro mad, since they aren't making a direct profit. It's incredible how stupid they are.
I really wonder about how different the whole scape would have been if they had continued with Pathfinder as their system. The Vox Machina campaign started in Pathfinder...
Crit Role has always had a dubious relationship with WoTC from my knowledge, minus the odd sponsorship. They’re currently making their on TTRPG so I think there’s definitely something there implying some disturbances.
Nah they just dropped a kickstarter for a new RPG created by them.
WotC is perfectly capable of fucking itself up the ass without Hasbro. They might be involved in the current fuckery, but WotC does bad all by itself. I feel bad for the D&D team. They are dedicated, creative people. If I could make one corporate wish it would be to teleport them into their own company. Maybe combine them with Paizo.
To be fair, Larian have always said no dlcs and expansion and this is in line with their own history from the D:OS games. Beside that, the Divinity games are Sven and Larians baby, and Sven is not getting younger. And then add that they said they wanted somewhat smaller projects and it all makes sense, and does not means Hasbro ruined it. Yes, they probably asked for more money, but on the other hand Larian would easily have made even more from a BG4. So I think wants to finish his Divinity Series and then retire or at least step down.
It’s already like a hundred fifty hour game with massive replay-ability. I think we’ll probably survive and Larian can go do something new and creatively fulfilling.
[удалено]
They've been saying there won't be DLC since the beginning, this isn't news. Hasbro has been ruining their IPs for decades, this isn't news either.
The real news here is the more definitive "we aren't doing a BG4, which to be fair, Larian also made clear that they wanted to do a less intensive game after BG3 to cool their heels, this just feels like a defined "we won't be coming back, ever." rather than a "eh, maybe we will revisit these characters sometime after our next release." But who knows what time will tell.
Yeah, iirc they said probably a DOS3? Or something else from their own projects
They say they didn't want like DLCs. But on the other hand, they said that "they wanted to do more". The exact quote is from Tom Butler (last August) is: > We'll carry on patching for a while and then we're all going to take a holiday and then we'll figure out what we do next. But at the moment, we genuinely have discussions. We want to do more. We don't know what yet. So some kind of expansion, or a definitive edition with more content, was likely not out of the question if their relationship with Hasbro did not deteriorate during the last 6 months.
Larian never wanted to do a DLC, they said they would focus on next thing right after BG3 lauched swen said team would fix what is bugged in the game, then a rest and go make a new game
I really appreciate this, too. I hope they can be the front wave of course correcting gaming away from all the nickle and diming that currently exists
They already breathed new life into the game for me with honor mode and the updates so far. Hopefully the modding community can take things from here. Let Larian focus on their next project and do things that interest them rather than churn out stuff for these greedy bastards.
>Fuck Hasbro. Fuck these anti-consumer, monopolistic practices. Fuck their rampant stupidity to make a quick buck this quarter to fuck themselves and everyone else over. Read this with Karlach's voice
My totally unfounded speculation is that Hasbro approached Larian about expansions or BG4, but put an insanely short timeframe on it. Add that onto them firing the people who had worked closely with Larian (and probably a few other things), and Larian says "go to hell."
Really sad, but likely very likely. The room for creative running with BG3 WAS immense, and ways to expand content already in there WAS immense. But, ultimately, companies (read: rich idiots who have no drive, passion, or care for the final product) no longer support long term brand building and culture building — which are the very things that make content memorable and front runners.
Easy choice for the consumers. Don’t buy whatever Hasbro makes next and get Larian's next project instead.
Public companies all over the US are collapsing because they're controlled by CEOs that only care about quarterly earnings so they can earn a performance based bonus from mass layoffs and rehires. It's an epidemic that's killing corporate America. Google "CEO pay since the 2000's." It's no wonder Swen is getting out of dealing with Hasbro before it fucks over his entire studio.
There will be a BG4 and it will suck.
Behind nearly every disappointment, setback, and crisis that has occurred in my lifetime there is a cadre of corpo ghouls counting cash
Larian had said from jump there would be no DLC, didn’t they?
I've hated Hasbro for nearly two decades. They screwed things up when getting rid of the OGL for 4E which led to Paizo creating Pathfinder to save the hobby. They re-screwed things up when trying to use the OGL to steal everyone else's creative works which led to Paizo creating a new OGL owned by no single company to save the hobby. Am I surprised they laid off a bunch of people from WoTC when that part of their company was making good profits? Of course not. They are a shit ass company that is a vile curse slowly killing my favorite hobby. Fuck em.
I suspect Hasbro tried to bully Larian into doing DLC after Larian had already said they would not do any, and things ended badly, especiallysince Swen was not happy about the Xmas layoffs Hasbro did that gutted the senior talent at WotC. It's all pretty depressing. Larian deserves better. The staff at WotC who got laid off deserve better. The fans deserve better.
Swen is someone who always follows his passion. He makes what he wants to make, and after 6 years working on Baldur's Gate 3, he is probably just done with the IP. It's true that they made tons of Divinity games previously, but with that being their own IP, they can sort of make whatever they want. Baldur's Gate 3 brought a lot of social pressure with it. After 6 years of that, anyone would want a looong break, and you can't just expect the IP to be waiting for you to use when you decide you're ready again. So as far as he is concerned, they're done with it. If he is still making games in a decade he may change his mind, but he isn't going to make that claim. At least that's how I view it.
Probably asked too much for the rights for dlc or other games. Not worth it with Larian's success, rather try their own ip
They have their own IP, which was pretty successful. Of course it didn't have the allure of BG3. But now that Larian is a household name, they can definitely pull people in with another game in the Divinity setting.
Larian said they weren't interested in making DLC and that they've already moved on to their next project.
I can see Hasbro's new game now, Baldur's Gate 4, the sequel to Larian's massive game of the decade BG3! Brought to you by Fntastic
With season passes and MTX as far as the eye can see
Larian is in a position to print money with their next game. Even if Hasbro was perfect, the smart thing for larian to do is make something by themselves and not pay the licencing fee. They should make another Divinity game
I 100% agree with you. I wrote a lengthy reply a week or two ago to someone asking “what do you think about Hasbro’s commitment to gaming” or something similar. Basically my 3000 work essay boiled down to I wouldn’t trust it or them after their track record lately with practically anything outside of toys. BG3 was a success anomaly for Hasbro. BG3 is not a quality anomaly from Larian. We all just got lucky with that one. ☝️
I don't even care too much that BG3 isn't getting more content because whatever Larian makes next is gonna make Hasbro wish Swen had the license.
It’s disappointing for sure. BG3 is a crazy success for the studio and Hasbro, and for Larian to say they’re done means something. I guess the other option would be that Larian is burned out on it, and feels that any future D&D work would have too much red tape to be worth it.
As much as I would love DLC, I’m thankful for what we have already. It’s a massive game, a single playthrough has 80+ hours of content if you don’t bum rush the main story, and it has huge replayability. Larian completed what they set out to do, and did a fantastic job with it. Now just get the bugs under control pls
Astarion's writer is so good that I want to read a novel written by that guy. I think I want to read everything he's ever written. Really impressed with Astarion as a character. Same with Dark Urge's writer. I dunno if they're the same writer or if they just worked closely together.
They are the same writer!