Baldur’s Gate 3 boss says gamers don’t want mass subscriptions
Baldur's Gate 3 director and Larian CEO Swen Vincke reacts to the idea that we should get used to subscriptions, saying content is king.
Always good to see someone in the industry push back on all of these shitty tactics the AAA publishers want to push.
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I'm at 750 hours in this game which I spent $70 on. More games like this please. Even if they're multi years apart I'd rather play a game like BG3 that has immense replayability than some random looter shooter that is trying to mine my wallet using every dark pattern known to humanity.
I swore off buying 'new' games close to their release dates because I was sick of overpriced, unfinished games that are just trying to squeeze every cent out of me. Then BG3 came out and everyone raved how great it was, but I stuck to my principles and said I'd play it a year or so after its release. Then someone pointed out to me that the game plays well, has no charge for online play, doesn't have microtransactions, and is complete. So I bought it, figuring that this is the type of game we should be rewarding, and I've not been disappointed.
To be entirely fair, BG3 has its share of bugs and act 3 is not as polished as the first two.
But still, it is by far the most polished AAA game I've seen in a long time, and very satisfying, too. So I'm ok with some roughness
In fairness, pretty much all games have some bugs, even far after launch. The issue is launching games that are clearly not finished.
I don't even care about the replayability. I can see myself at some point going for another run at BG3, but that's a big commitment and I think I'm going to play BG1 and 2 before then, and plenty of other games.
I care if it's an interesting and enjoyable experience. I'd gladly play another Outer Wilds, even though it's hardly replayable, because it was such a good and unique experience. I don't care to play yet another Assassin's Creed or whatever other garbage that isn't interesting after you've tried it once and also purposefully wastes your time with stuff that is not designed to improve the experience, only playtime.
Yeah I sometimes really don't like the "hours of entertainment" argument because it almost overvalues bloated experiences over tight ones.
I've played <=3 hour games that have left more impact than some 200 hour games
I would say 99% of the time if the game took 100+h to play and was a story focused game then it was a waste of time. BG3 is an exception here. From a quick search, RDR2 takes 50h and it isn't a short game. Would you watch a 100+h movie? Of course not. There's almost no way a well told story is taking that long, unless it's some kind of Immersive experience or something.
That said, plenty of non-story games will take much longer. If the focus is good gameplay, there's a near limitless amount of time it can take. If there's story interwoven, it could take any amount of time. I've put far more than 100h into a ton of indie games that do interesting things with their gameplay. You just don't see that experimentation coming from the AAA space normally because it's not guaranteed profit.
Would you watch a 100+h movie? Of course not.
People do binge watch TV series.
True, but even then it'd have to be 100 episodes if every episode is 1h, which it usually isn't. That's be around 10 or more seasons, depending on the show. I can't think of a show with that many episodes off the top of my head. I'm sure it exists, but it's a hell of a lot. Game of Thrones is apparently 70h14m. If your story is taking more time to tell than GoT, it's probably taking too long.
plenty of non-story games will take much longer
Yup. Satisfactory doesn't have much of a story (although it's still early access) but I think I'm cloae to 1,000 hours on it.
I like the idea of Satisfactory, but I can't enjoy it for some reason. I've played too much Factorio and it has too many quality of life things that Satisfactory is missing. With the number of overhaul mods, there's no end to how much Factorio can be played either.
I bought it when the alpha was released.
Like two years of act 1 had me around 200 hours before it even released. Act 1 did seem bigger back then tho, the intro especially.
I've moved from PC to PS5 since and I'm definitely going to rebuy on PS5 eventually. It's the only game I still play on PC these days.
I'm interested. What made you switch recently? Seems like most migrate over to PC from console and not the other way around. For cozy couch play I've gotten myself a 50' hdmi cable and a wireless controller, with an apk on my phone that let's me control the pc so I don't have to go back to it to start a game or anything.
PS5 controller and missing out on all the PS4 exclusives in addition to this gen.
The controller sounds gimmicky if you haven't tried it, but for racing and shooters it's insanely immersive.
I think there's more support for it on PC now, but I don't know if the haptic triggers work. CoD feels like you're pulling an actual trigger and for racing brake/throttle is realistic in an inexplicabe way.
BG3 is probably the only game I'll double buy tho, and that's just because of how great it is.
Oh. Controller support is great now. Thanks to steam and steam deck, most pc games fully support Xbox and ps5 controllers. I do a large portion of my PC gaming with controllers, although now with my steam deck, most of my gaming has been done on that. Adult life left me with fewer large time gaming blocks to play, so it's been wonderful for me.
I have yet to play it, but I can't wait to get my hands on it.
I'd happily pay, say, $10 for a dlc that adds actual content when the base game is absolutely solid or excellent. What I won't pay for is excessively expensive dlc or dlc that adds very little. I am also heavily unlikely to purchase any dlc that is poorly reviewed, even for a good game.
Shame things like that are so rare. Hoping BG3's success opens the doors again.
FromSoft immediately springs to mind for DLC I'll happily throw cheddar at. They always add a hefty chunk of new weapons/armor, new areas to explore, and spicy new boss fights that fuck my shit up.
Heavily biased, they're one of my favorite developers, but definitely never regret throwing money at FromSoft crew.
Man fromsoft has me kinda mad tho. I paid full price for ds1 (prepare to die ed) years ago and had plenty of fun gittn gud (except pvp i was always a scrub).
Im happy with the money i spent and the time i had, BUT!
When they released the newest version which was basically just the qol improvements, 60fps mod, and dsfix rolled into it they had the fuggen gall to try and charge me 20 bucks to upgrade.
Now, i can't show my friends my favorite version because you can't even buy mine. I have a game deliberately ruined for profit reasons in my steam library, and all the hours ive spent on their games and all the fun ive had, all have this black mark now. I keep thinking as i play elden ring, well they do it to this one too? Will this happen to all my fromsoft titles? I don't know, and can no longer as easily recommend them to my friends. Fromsoft cost themselves a lot of goodwill from me, all for a measly 20 bucks.
people generally dont have the time to go through an rpg, hence why rpgs in general are seen as niche in terms of overall sales as a genre. this includes mmos, where mmos were a lot more plentiful 2 or even a decade ago, compared to now.
Tbh I really enjoy shorter games that are reasonably priced.
I probably only find the time to play 1-2 150+ hr game a year. The rest of my free time is spent socializing, dealing with shit like college, or playing shorter games that I can knock out in multiple 1-2 hour sessions within two weeks
I hate how so many games are demanding of your time today, or feed off that annoying FOMO feeling.
I'm happy that I know Baldurs gate will always be there and I'm really not going to miss out on anything important. Maybe I'll get to it next year lol
The campaign only takes like 40 hours maybe. 60 for your first run if you’re an explorer. I only have so much time in it because I want to see every cut scene and that takes multiple characters. You could definitely play BG3 in shorter sessions. It’s very slow paced if you want it to be.
