Tencent owns 30% of Larian iirc, so most likely from them
Interesting I didn’t know that, how long have they owned 30%?
This post is a bit reminiscent of r/gamercirclejerk but at least your comment taught me something new and salvaged it
Not sure, at least since 2020 https://twitter.com/GamerTrader1/status/1431899588324175873
Time to kneel down and pray to our future Chinese Overlords, for they are everywhere and everything.
Yeah, don’t expect funding for AAA games!
Wait…
Just ignore the day 1 DLC.
Just clarifying what you meant. I thought I missed something. DLC to my mind is like… an extra race or somthing a bit more relevant than purely cosmetic stuff. Not going to argue semantics here, fair enough to call that a micro transaction and it’s certainly DLC.
That’s a courtesy for people who didn’t pre-order but want the dice cosmetic. It was originally a pre-order exclusive but they changed it when asked to.
Even excluding the cosmetics, this DLC includes the soundtrack. I haven’t purchased it myself (yet), but I’d imagine that a soundtrack to a game with over 200 hours of cinematic would be rather extensive (again, I have not seen it, so I don’t know). Even if it’s only 30 to 40 minutes of music, at $10, that’s at least on par with the cost of most albums anywhere else. I feel it’s got to be more than only 30ish minutes of music, though, so, for the album alone the price seems legit.
You consider DLC a microtransaction?
Edit: Maybe I’m just too old, but I thought microtransactions were something you get prompted to purchase while playing the game. Is that no longer the case?
Microtransactions are ‘small’ purchases made in a game (or via some kind of store that allows you to buy stuff to be used inside of a game).
DLC is any additional downloadable content that is not included with the game (so something like a day 1 patch wouldn’t be considered DLC, I’d say).
All microtransations are DLC, but not all DLC are microtransactions, generally (before someone comes along with some kind of physical microtransaction or something I guess)
I personally just view microtransations as anything that isn’t ‘playable content’. So buying a mount from an in-game store would be a microtransaction, while buying an expansion wouldn’t be. Map packs kind of blur the line in this instance, because one could argue that they’re essentially ‘world cosmetics’, but its a hard and fast rule and not something I’d try to enforce as a law, ya know?
It’s clear that there are multiple different definitions that people have for “microtransactions”. I think it’s safe to assume that larian has a definition similar to mine. No time in the game that I’ve noticed did I get prompted to buy the DLC. In fact, I didn’t buy it; it seems early access people got it for free.
It’s the soundtrack and some DSO2 cosmetics that everyone who bought the game during early access got for free. They’re selling it to everyone else for $10.
Technically it’s DLC, not MTX as MTX almost always entails individual purchases of items, usually in-game. It’s more of a Collector’s Edition than anything. That no one seems to care about, even the people who detest predatory practices.
Do you mean the Mask of the Shapeshifter? That allows, once per long rest, to change appearance to another random character. Effectively a Disguise Self cast.
There’s also the dagger that’s 4-7 weapon. But I replaced that before I even dealt with the goblin camp. There’s so many magic items I wasn’t worried about it.
The biggest coup is the hat and cape. They offer no bonuses but they look so fly I’m probably never taking them off.
Uhh… today’s AAA studios have THOUSANDS of employees, hundreds of millions of dollars in budgets, and huge IPs on which to draw. Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed, Diablo, Warcraft, Mass Effect, Dragon Age… these studios have VASTLY larger resources than Larian. Like, an order of magnitude larger. This is gaslighting and whining. I’m not having it. Do better, AAA devs. Do a lot better.
That’s why their games suck. Smaller teams and budgets make better products.
Well I wouldn’t say that exactly. GTA 5 had a huge budget and a huge team and it’s objectively a better product if you compare the two (which is only to say they’re both great games but the bigger budget game has and does more).
It’s a matter of the motivations of the developers and their financial backers. If your goal is to make an ok game that maximizes profit focused mechanics, most of these AAA developers are hitting the mark perfectly. If your focus is to make a good game like it seemed to be with the BG devs, they absolutely hit the mark and are being rewarded for it.
This is just a reminder to an industry that is trying to tell us that pay to win mechanics are the standard that they do not in fact get to dictate what those standards are. We do. If a game is shit people will abandon it even if you poured millions into that product. The recent battlefield game is a prime example of this. Even something as guaranteed as a new battlefield game isn’t enough to overcome a shitty leadership team emphasizing the wrong things. The community bailed on their product and they’ll never get them back. All those millions in guaranteed revenue are gone forever.
Not AAA devs, they’re doing what they can. The problem is with the AAA CEOs
Not AAA devs, they’re doing what they can.
Blaming consumers, in this instance. You could well be right that the problem is internal but in that case that’s where it needs to solved. Or if they want to get the support of consumers, be honest with their reasoning. Crying that the expectations of consumers are too high doesn’t help at all. It just makes them seem out of touch with reality.
The Divinity games are some of my favorites ever made. It makes me giddy that BG3 is doing so well to embarrass big companies 😂
This is partly why I ponied up full price.
I want more games from Larian.
Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed, Diablo, Warcraft, Mass Effect, Dragon Age… these studios have VASTLY larger resources than Larian.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the team that worked on Skyrim was significantly smaller than the Larian team that worked on BG3.
"what funding?"is a dumb question. all companies have funding. especially software. very few companies legit started in a basement and progressed to international status relying purely on profit and loss sheets.
you are ignorant… you don’t understand what he’s talking about… they are both talking about VC funding… that means Venture Capital, which you did not know… for some reason you are here being ignorant and loud about something you do not understand…
You ain’t wrong but why so smug?
Learn some tact if you are actually looking to educate people
Larian recieved debt funding to found in 2009, late stage VC in 2011 (presumably to offset loan repayments), recieved ongoing support from Arkafund VC and has crowd funded every year 2013–2019. Tencent bought 3006 shares for 30% stake in either 2020 or '21 (not sure exact date).
