With yet another Game of the Year award win by Baldur's Gate 3 also at the DICE Awards, Larian Studio took advantage of the conversation of acceptance of the prize to launch a attack on some aspects of the gaming industry modern, expressing its support for developers who have suffered layoffs.
Between 2023 and 2024 we saw over 16,000 developers lose their jobs, with the last one already being considered the annus horribilis of the gaming industry but this 2024 could even be worse, given how it started amid the layoffs at Activision Blizzard and the others from Embracer.
Faced with such a situation, the Larians wanted to dedicate their speech to the developers, expressing their own support for those fired. “We are very lucky,” said Michael Douse, the studio's publishing director, who is also well known in the social sphere at this point. “Others aren't so lucky. This is an industry made up of humans and we're really in denial sometimes about showing developers what they're worth, that's kind of the elephant in the room, especially when we're surrounded by all this opulence.”
We don't have shareholders and we don't have to care about them
“A lot of people were laid off earlier this year. I want you to know that you all are talented, that you are important and that you are the future of this sector. Don’t let this flame go out because of our collective mistakes… we will persevere as an industry,” Douse said.
Production chief David Walgrave added: “We ask you to pay once for the game, and that's it,” he said, referring to current market trends on microtransactions, DLC and more. “We don't have shareholders and this means that we don't even have to think about shareholders“.
This could be a direct reference to Embracer Group, which recently made clear that it wants to put shareholder satisfaction first in every situation, according to the company's financial report.
“In the long term, building a community, a user base and create games that are actually fun it's what's going to make you the most money, everyone here,” Walgrave added.
To tell the truth, as PC Gamer also points out, Larian Studios has shareholders, in particular a gigantic shareholder who is often pointed out as representing a classic example of what the developers' discourse has focused on: Tencent.
The Chinese giant owns 30% of Larian Studios, however the agreements reached with the team are particular, because they do not allow effective decision-making power, at least in the creative process. Of course, this does not mean that the studio's economic base is still based on Tencent's money, but it is true that the developers of Baldur's Gate 3 still enjoy creative freedom that allows them not to put shareholder satisfaction first.
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