Not only quality, but they’ll also expect a released game to be finished at launch!

… proceeds with another yearly installment of game X that could have been released as DLC, but instead built it as “a new game”, selling at 1 cent per bug.

To summarize the actual tweets/comments/etc that these videos (there are multiple) are panicking about.

1. Smaller studios aren’t going to be able to replicate the scale and complexity of BG3. So people shouldn’t be using BG3 as the bar to compare future titles/RPGs from other studios going forward. Larian is comparable in size (or even larger) to Bethesda when they released Skyrim, and no one has been able to compete directly with Skyrim either.

2. Not all games and RPGs need to be as complex and long as BG3. Expecting open-ended, 100 hour-long RPGs for every future game/RPG isn’t realistic. Not all games require that scope, it’s rare to get such a budget for this type of game, and even if you did, most companies won’t be able to replicate the game in a meaningful way. Just like how companies other than Rockstar would struggle to replicate the scale of games like GTA and RDR.

There, I’ve summarized multiple 20 min videos. Just without all the hand-waving and drama.

It was a pretty good video with a good message. All the more surprising is that it was from IGN.

Not advertising. These are the Steam reviews. It’s organic hype. It’s just wierd because we have had such a shit time with AAA games for years.

It might be, but what would that change about the story? Unless Larian is paying other studios to say that they’re panicking (which I doubt, for a million reasons), then I’m not so sure there’s any difference to the situation.

Sites like IGN must follow gaming trends to survive. BG3 is a huge release and I’ve been seeing this story everywhere for weeks, increasing in frequency.