Larian Studios, the studio behind Baldur’s Gate 3, won big at the 2024 DICE Awards. The game makers used the speaking time to draw attention to the current problems in the industry and explained their concept for success.
Larian Studios received several awards at the DICE Awards 2024 for Baldur’s Gate 3, including for story, game design and game direction. On top of that, it was named Game of the Year.
When the developers were allowed to give their acceptance speech, they talked about the current state of the gaming industry. Because things aren’t looking particularly rosy for developers there at the moment.
2023 was a year full of layoffs in the gaming industry – and 2024 doesn’t seem to be getting any better. In January 2024, 530 employees were laid off at Riot.
The developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 show the legendary city
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“Elephant in the room, especially in the midst of all this opulence”
Michael Douse, the game studio’s head of publishing, said that Larian Studios was very lucky because they were given a lot of stage time while others weren’t given that attention.
He then continued and explained about the gaming industry in general: “This industry is about people and we are sometimes really bad at showing developers what they are worth […] That’s sort of the elephant in the room, especially in the midst of all this opulence.”
Here you can watch the live stream for the DICE Awards 2024 on YouTube for yourself. To get to Larian Studios’ acceptance speech, skip to 2:48:40.
Michael Douse expressed his respect for all the people who, in his opinion, received too little appreciation.
“At the beginning of this year, many, many people were laid off. I want you to know that you are all talented, that you matter, and that you are the future of this industry. Don’t let our collective failures extinguish this flame… we will persevere as an industry.”
“We don’t have shareholders, but we don’t think about them either”
Not only Michael Douse, but also Head of Production David Walgrave took the floor and emphasized that Baldur’s Gate 3 does not use microtransactions: “We just ask you to pay a price for the game, and that’s it – you can do it for that Have the rest of your life. We don’t have shareholders, but we don’t think about them either,” he explained.
Walgrave went on to say that Larian Studios doesn’t make decisions that it hopes will make the most money. Because that doesn’t help in the long term.
Instead, he sees the secret to success elsewhere: “In the long term, building a community, building a player base, building games that are really fun is what makes the most money, that’s it.”
What is the reaction? There is a lot of recognition and attention for the statement with shareholders and the focus on community instead of microtransactions. Twitch streamer Asmongold is very impressed.
This is what to consider: Larian is in fact not a public company like it was before it was taken over by Microsoft Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts or Ubisoft, but rather privately owned. However, they also have “shareholders”, for example the major Chinese company Tencent holds 30% of the shares.
More about Baldur’s Gate 3 on MeinMMO: Baldur’s Gate 3: “On the battlefield like a god” – players believe the strongest class is one of the least popular