If reception to Baldur’s Gate says anything, it’s that people hate microtransactions in their AAA games.
That article completely misses the forrest for the trees.
It’s a complete game. It was created with vision, passion, love, and complete creative freedom. It has a great story and interesting characters. It provides lots of player agency. It is unflinchingly candid, mature, and uncensored. Your choices, actions, and inaction ACTUALLY MATTERS. There is no DRM. There are no live service strings. You can play alone and/or with friends. There are no strangers or PvP to ruin your game. And yes, there are also no micro-transactions.
The lesson that BG3 offers isn’t just one thing… it’s a LOT of things. But the best way to sum it up is: it’s a great game and it treats players/customers with respect.
I think the most important part is that it launched without DRM on GOG and was able to be pirated from day 1 and it STILL was a huge success because people knew that the game isn’t trying anything shady to get even more money from you
It’s just something people actually want to support and not like people feel like even if they buy the game they only have half an experience if they don’t spend more money later
I really hope the next financial report from Larian is making people think differently about the necessity of putting aggressive DRM in their games
People don’t pirate because they don’t want to pay - they pirate because they don’t trust the game to bit pull more shady shit later and not be worth it in the end
-800k concurent player on launch
-no drm and can be pirated on first day
-some exec: that could’ve been higher if you get Denuvo in it.
I have avoided reading much about the game. I am loving it, but I have no idea at what point in the game that I currently am. It could end in the next ten minutes and I’ll be satisfied with my purchase, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another 10+ hours. This is what I was waiting for Bethesda to release as the next Skyrim successor if they hadn’t decided to milk that cow until troll cheese came out. It’s everything I want in a game. Story, gameplay, length, affordability, fun, and no microtransactions making my efforts feel worthless.
So far, every article I’ve seen about Baldur’s Gate 3’s effect on the gaming industry has been horse shit. Other studios and publishers are not “panicking,” they’re not going to rethink microtransactions, and they’re not going to be daunted by this release; some devs have said as much already along the lines of “Yeah don’t expect this breadth and scope from us going forward, because it doesn’t work for our games.”
This game is not the industry-spanning “gotcha” these writers have been trying to make it out to be. AAA devs or publishers are going to continue their nonsense because people will continue to buy their shit anyway, and they know it.
All that said, BG3 is the best game I’ve played in a number of years and hands-down the best cRPG I’ve ever played. It smokes Divinity, Icewind Dale, the previous BG games, NWN, etc. So if any studios do happen to have a positive takeaway from this, maybe we’ll see at least some of that polish in games down the line.
It’s also a rare example of where a massive budget without restrictions (relatively speaking) can lead to amazing results.
Usually one of two things happens: the publisher is tired of dumping money into a project then force it to market too early, or scope creep happens and the developers bite off way more than they can chew and there’s nothing they can do past a certain point.
Larian managed to dodge both of these bullets. Not by luck, of course. But they dodged them nonetheless.
The job of the AAA gaming company is to make money, not good games.
For the same reason McDonalds is never going to serve filet mignon, big gaming companies are never going to release feature-compete passion projects.
Not exactly, though I see your point. I think it would be more accurate if McDonald’s charged for ketchup, mustard, salt, drink cups, lids, straws etc.
The big difference with physical goods is that it’s much harder to steal a McDonald’s burger that it is to crack a single player, offline game. Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.
On the other hand games are prone to piracy, expecially on pc, you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase.
It isn’t strange that developers look at dlc, microtransanction or game as a service with subscription, because they allow a stable flow of income that can support development, and it’s harder to avoid paying when the game is always online and stuff like that.
Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.
The same goes for single-player offline games, though. There’s only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you’ve seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.
you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase
If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust.
Movies and books exist and they are one time purchases that you use once and stop interacting with. Why do games get special excuses for being extremely exploitative and shitty to their players? I don’t have to pay for a book chapter by chapter or pay extra for a character to appear, but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.
The game industry makes lots of excuses for it’s shitty behavior but none of them hold water.
Fun fact: In literally every single analogy that has ever and will ever exist, you can add things to it to make it even more analogous.
Witcher 3, the Last of Us (ps3), Baldurs Gate 3, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Elden Ring, Read Dead Redemption 2 (offline), Zelda, etc…
There are plenty of triple A games that were well received that didn’t involve gambling and mtx.
How many exceptions do you need before it no longer being an exception, 50%?
How could you learn anything about what people think of microtransactions from the success of a game that doesn’t have them? If a beloved franchise added a sequel with microtransactions in it and that sequel tanked, then maybe you’d have a case. From the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 the most you could conclude is “people will still buy a game that doesn’t have microtransactions,” which is not particularly revelatory.
A bunch of AAA games that heavily feature microtransactions are smash hits and made millions of dollars. Sure, people complain about it, but they also purchase tons of them (may not be the same people, mind you). I’m pretty sure we can conclude that not all people hate microtransactions. Hell, publishers will look at Baldur’s Gate 3 and probably go “man, this game is good but if they put some paid cosmetics in there they could have made even more money.”
And it’s probably true.
All 100% correct unfortunately. These companies put in micro transactions because they make a boatload of money off of them. End of story. Til that changes, they will continue to shoehorn them into games to sustain the unsustainable infinite growth/profit model. Until pissing us off costs them more than they gain from it, it ain’t gonna change.
Then fuck it. All the people who want microtransactions, or don’t care about the quality of the medium enough to stop engaging with shitty practices, can have them. There are plenty of developers making games that care enough about the things they make that I’ll be happy to buy from. We’ve reached a point where the big studios will spend three years and a quarter of a billion dollars putting out 7/10 games that look great in trailers and don’t function on PC that exist alongside solo devs who make the games that look at home on PS1 and offer a better experience than anything Blizzard has made in the last decade. Even if my wallet’s vote doesn’t matter to the big guys, it doesn’t have to as long as it’s enough to support people whose passion isn’t exploited to make a just barely par product.
Don’t get hyped, don’t preorder, don’t buy games until they’re fixed. You can’t change the industry but you don’t have to support it.
Didn’t we also learn this from Tears of the Kingdom, or God of War, or Horizon Zero Dawn, or Dark Souls, or indeed hundreds of great selling AAA single player games?
But we also learn from the repeated success of Call of Duty, FIFA, Fortnite or any successful multiplayer games that people fucking love microtransactions.
Different players? Maybe, but I’d suggest there’s also a lot of overlap. I know lots of people that play both. People consume. Some games support the microtransaction model better than others, and those are typically the ones designed to be played in fits and starts all year, rather than completed and shelved.
or indeed hundreds of great selling AAA single player games?
It’s important to note that the amount of single player AAA games has greatly diminished overtime. Most of those “hundreds” you’re referring to are not in the last 10 years, and the big bucks have been in live service. So yeah BG3 did great but it was a huge, 6+ year gamble ultimately. I WANT those gambles, but businesses would rather push out cheaper games at a faster clip because they make money. People still buy them and they still pay for DLC/MTX like crazy. It’s hard to compete against that.
I mean tears of the kingdom make $700 million + and Diablo Immortal made 525 million in it’s first year despite being almost universally rebuked online. Really seems like micro transactions have a really solid, if maybe not top tier return. Lots of companies try to make something like Horizon Zero Dawn and it totally flops instead.
There’s a lot of games that go with the free with mtx model that flop as well. eFootball comes to mind. They had decades of experience with Pro Evo Soccer, their only real competitor costs $70 and is still laden with microtransactions, and it still couldn’t get off the ground.
None of these games are cheap to make, and they’re certainly not cheap to market.
I have not heard of it yet. Sounded intriguing. But a quick search of “eFootball” took me to a mobile game, with in-app purchases - not looking good and I am staying the fuck away. If they really don’t have mtx then they are doing something very wrong.
I’m gonna say yes, different people, just based on my own play habits. I’ve played and enjoyed most of the big single-player franchises, but the multiplayer games don’t appeal to me much. I gave Overwatch a try because a bunch of my coworkers were raving about it, but the experience just felt shallow and hollow. They might be great if I was playing with friends in the same room (like back when I was in college), but playing with a bunch of strangers is no fun for me.
I mean I stay away from the mtx games as well. But then I was raised in an age where you paid the price on the box and that was it.
New gamers don’t know better. And kids especially have all the time and hardly any of the money, they’re happy to throw $10 pocket money at a “free” game they already enjoy for an outfit now, rather than save $70 for a new game they might not like in a few months.
People hate them so much that it became the most lucrative way of monetizing games ever.
Yeah, that statement is so dumb. Even if it’s hugely successful, a game of this type is made for a niche audience. That niche audience does hate microtransactions but they’re in no way representative of the mainstream.
I think, with 700k concurrent players, we need to recognize cRPGs may not be as niche as we previously thought. However, your point stands: this isn’t going to hurt anyone’s revenue from MTX.
