Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Sounds The Alarm About Gaming Subscription Services

For the devs and pubs not like Game Pass, for the gamerzzz. ;o

lol :P

Anyhoo, thoughts SW?

The Story.

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Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Sounds The Alarm About Gaming Subscription Services

"Direct from developer to players is the way."

By Eddie Makuch on January 17, 2024 at 6:54AM PST

Larian Studios founder and CEO Swen Vincke has reacted to the news of Ubisoft telling fans they might want to get "comfortable" with the idea that people no longer own games but only license them. Posting on social media, Vincke said the rise of subscription services in games could have a negative impact overall. He didn't mention any game subscription services by name, but some of the most popular ones these days include Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, and Nvidia GeForce Now.

"Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king. But it's going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way," he said.

Now Playing: Why Baldur's Gate 3 Is GameSpot's Game Of The Year 2023

If the video game industry becomes dominated by subscription models, the people in charge will inevitably try to make the most money possible and this might come at a quality cost, Vincke said.

"Getting a board to OK a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit," he said.

Vincke went on to say there is "nothing wrong with that," but if even more platforms adopt and embrace a subscription model, "it'll become savage."

"In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made. Trust me--you really don't want that," he added.

Vincke said he respects his fellow game developers and supports their decision to put their games on a subscription service if it makes sense for them. But for Larian, Vincke said, "You won't find our games on a subscription service."

"I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn't die because it's valuable," he said.

Larian's newest release was Baldur's Gate 3, which some expected to come to Xbox Game Pass. Vincke said previously that this won't happen, because there is a "fair price" to pay for big game like Baldur's Gate 3.

Vincke isn't the only video game executive to speak out about subscription services in gaming. Before this, Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick has said the math just doesn't work when it comes to launching new games onto a subscription service.

Microsoft, which operates Game Pass, takes a different view. The company believes launching new releases like Halo Infinite and Starfield into Game Pass is an economically viable thing to do. In the case of Starfield, Microsoft said will absolutely make money off Starfield even if launching on Game Pass led to millions in lost sales. Microsoft has never shared any hard data or detailed specifics on the economic realities of Game Pass.

I agree with him.

Game Pass works in the Netflix model, where Netflix themselves are funding original content to include in the service and licensing others.

GP isn't good for every game, especially for those larger AAA titles.

This is why GP doesn't get many AAA day one releases, it usually takes 6-12mos.

I still think GP (and subscription services) are beneficial to AA and indies and will continue to grow over the next 5yrs. As long as MS continues to produce their own AAA titles it will be viable and continue to grow

I love how its always lems delivering the bad news about their own systems (kvally does this all the time as everyone has already noticed). I think they believe it makes em have a strong backbone, but in reality, this is the best way to cope🤡

I dont mind the subscription model, I'd much rather have that then buy a game I'd never play again and never re-coop a fraction of the cost with any trade ins.

i'd agree that developers and publishers need the freedom to make the best decisions for their games..

I will also so say that we shouldn't pretend that most AAA games these days aren't "safe" sequels, remakes, remasters, and/or formulaic cookie-cutters.. devs and publishers are taking less risks regardless of whatever is happening with subscription services..

games "fueled by idealism" were already few and far between as AAA development costs have continued to exponentially grow.. every AAA project is already a "cost/benefit analysis exercise intended to maximize profit".. so again, this is a fundamental problem with current AAA development; not a problem with subscription services..

if anything, A-AA titles actually get room to breathe on subscription services and can actually be passion projects as evidenced by the many success stories of smaller titles on these services..

He is 100% correct. You can very clearly see a massive quality fall off on games that are built for gamepass in mind.

Subscription services must be why Sony can't put anything out, so he's gotta be right.

I mean, it's obvious that the quality of games falls off a cliff when they are made direct for Game Pass. This is undeniable. For that reason, the shit has got to go, or at the least, devs making top quality releases like BG3 need to stay far, far away from GP.

I agree with him. Look at Starfield, Redfall, and now Forza. All three games are getting bad publicity and I believe Game Pass is destroying the quality of games being put out by MS. Whats the point of devs making sure they are making the best game when it's going to be free on Game Pass?

Odd....I am not the only one that received the notification for Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 Enhanced Edition coming to Xbox Game Pass.

@kvallyx said:

@SecretPolice said:

But for Larian, Vincke said, "You won't find our games on a subscription service."

Odd....I am not the only one that received the notification for Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 Enhanced Edition coming to Xbox Game Pass.

Neither one of those is developed or owned by Larian.

@SecretPolice: this is interesting to me. Honestly gsmepass is great to build awareness for small devs and indie games. Games like palworld I would never have played otherwise, or lies of p and so on.

Of course the large developers who make millions of dollars on direct sales will be against subscription model. They want to maximize that money and milk people as much as possible. Sure, that's up to them, but I personally won't be buying these games for $70, just so some scumbag can buy his mcmansion and drive around a Ferrari.

Gamepass or bust. These guys can **** right off.

In a subscription setting, you don't know how things will eventually change with the subscription terms and service. Besides my desire for physical games and the ease of family members playing and lending/borrowing with family and friends, it's still relatively new to gaming and I have too many questions. I also have a lot of hesitation because of the way subscription services have already been run.

- They get your money up front for the prospect of future games which may or may not materialize the way you want. You aren't guaranteed when the games will release or what quality they are, you don't vote with your wallet on the individual game. If they announce stuff you don't like, too bad, you're subsidizing it anyway. It's either that you're subscribed or you're not, and you decide whether to cut yourself off from games you do like even though the new ones aren't so great.

- The subscription fee can be raised, stopping your subscription can eventually come with penalties, there could eventually be garbage fees tacked on like other services. Maybe they want to introduce ads if you don't want to pay a higher price, so then you just get kited along as things progress.

- They could end up crying about the subscription being abused down the road, where people in different time zones share a subscription, or people across the country, or maybe just your family living in the same city but a different house, and you have different play schedules. Who knows how they stop that, they could limit it to a certain device, or maybe to a certain IP.

- Maybe certain platforms don't want to allow subscriptions like Switch, so does that mean they want you to buy another console just so you can subscribe? What if they start having arguments with other platform holders and the threat of dropping the service comes up? Or maybe both parties will only be able to agree on a limited version of the service.

- Maybe games go in the Disney Vault, or maybe they are removed entirely because of some license. You're probably not guaranteed access to specific games on the subscription terms.

- Maybe other publishers will also move to a subscription service, and we end up having to be subscribed to multiple catalogs like with streaming, each with their own BS.

- Do they eventually keep your save file on their servers and delete it if you stop your subscription and hold you hostage?

- And maybe microtransactions on top of this.

The only hopeful thing I can see about this kind of future is that maybe someone will set the standard on all of this to follow with a very fair and reasonable customer first type of service.

I'm not into all that, I just want a straightforward one and done transaction, I know the scope of what I can do with it, I have it and can put it into any compatible device and play it. If they don't want me as a customer, that's OK, I have a lot of games I can play already.

@daredevils2k said:

@SecretPolice said:

If the video game industry becomes dominated by subscription models, the people in charge will inevitably try to make the most money possible and this might come at a quality cost, Vincke said.

"Getting a board to OK a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit," he said.

"In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made. Trust me--you really don't want that," he added.

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I agree with him. Look at Starfield, Redfall, and now Forza. All three games are getting bad publicity and I believe Game Pass is destroying the quality of games being put out by MS. Whats the point of devs making sure they are making the best game when it's going to be free on Game Pass?

The GOTY critics must be high on something for selecting a buggy racing game as racing game of the year in 2023. GOTY is a retard hype train.

Seems reasonable that not all games are best served by the subscription service model and that’s fine with me. It’s just another option for both consumers and developers.

@fedor said:

@kvallyx said:

@SecretPolice said:

But for Larian, Vincke said, "You won't find our games on a subscription service."

Odd....I am not the only one that received the notification for Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 Enhanced Edition coming to Xbox Game Pass.

Neither one of those is developed or owned by Larian.

I had no idea. Thank you for putting me in my place 😮

I agree with him mostly. At the end of the day content is king. The games industry is a content business. Not services. Not even hardware. Content. You don't have the right content then you will face pain.

The big concern for me when it comes to services though is it's effect on the types of games made and how they are made. I am a single player guy. I buy content, play it, move onto the next game. This is how i like to play games. BG3 is right up my ally (on the backlog). Buy content, play content, have fun hopefully, move on.

But games subscription models (as with all sub models in entertainment) rely on engagement and keeping that as high as possible and that affects how games are made and what is made.

A basic example is something like Forza/GT not having as many tracks as older versions. Not finished. So they released an unfinished game. Bad for us: but they release it later as a free update. That increases engagement over time since people come back to play the new track on Forza/GT. Increased engagement means less likely to cancel your sub. Easy money for the service provider.

Story driven games? End them on cliff hangers, keep them relatively short and release more often (sure it's a sub..so it doesn't actually cost you, the gamer, anything right?). Keep doing 3 parters. Get that hype going like the ending to Halo 2/Start of Halo 3...wonderful wonderful engagement...people keep coughing up sub money. Doesn't make for better games though.

Basically even SP games will be taking far to many notes from MMOs in order to keep engagement as high as possible for as long as possible. That's a really really bad road for many types of games.

It's not as bad as MTX in terms of the negative affects it has on games...but it's not an improvement over the old model of "Pay X, get X". It's a regression. It puts more restrictions on the developer as, instead of thinking about entertaining the player for 30 hours or whatever, they need to think in years. That's how you end up in the diablo situation....which is crap.

Watch as Larian's words fall on deaf ears.

I also prefer the crowd-finding, early access model. Does it work every time? No. When it does it's responsible for most of my favorite games.

Big money publishers can go **** themselves.

You cows are crazy. Can you name games AND define what makes those games made with Gamepass in mind?

With Gamepass in mind makes no sense, and I say this as someone who will never pay for Gamepass and see its pluses and minuses.

Couple a years they'll be churning out live service garbage for some big company.

@danishanwar said:

@daredevils2k said:

@SecretPolice said:

If the video game industry becomes dominated by subscription models, the people in charge will inevitably try to make the most money possible and this might come at a quality cost, Vincke said.

"Getting a board to OK a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit," he said.

"In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made. Trust me--you really don't want that," he added.

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I agree with him. Look at Starfield, Redfall, and now Forza. All three games are getting bad publicity and I believe Game Pass is destroying the quality of games being put out by MS. Whats the point of devs making sure they are making the best game when it's going to be free on Game Pass?

The GOTY critics must be high on something for selecting a buggy racing game as racing game of the year in 2023. GOTY is a retard hype train.

You weren't complaining when Spiderman 2 a buggy mess got nominated for 7 awards, but you sure did complain when it didn't win anything. You cows need to stop being hypocrites.

And a word of advice, the R word is frowned upon (and rightfully so) here.

Spiderman 2 has a universal acclaim with 9.0 User Score and 90 critics score on Meta Critics.

Majority of gamers love SP2 as the bugs are not game breaking that does not affect the gameplay in anyway. But Forza has a lot of issues reflected by the lower User and Critics score (7.5 and 84) as a lot of gamers including myself are not SATISFIED with the game. On Steam the ratings of the undercooked game is Mostly Negative.

Horizon 5 was such a quality game. The latest Forza is a bad quality game, and the game winning GOTY defies logic.

I didn't attack anyone, but the nature of the award with the R word. Also, I think saying the R word is allowed..unless the forum is run by a group of nuns, rabbis, or muulas.

Its very surprising how messy this new forza is. Took em over half a decade, and this is the game? Then again, built for gamepass in mind, so it makes sense.

"Getting a board to OK a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit," he said.

Eh? Xbox has released and promoted a larger variety of games than most this gen.

I would have thought the higher costs of say £70 games does that more so. How are you going to make an expensive and costly game, which will receive barely any marketing and risk doing something different? There's no way.

There are tons of devs who love and make good money with GamePass but using SW antilogic they don't count. ;o

Also, GP offers many of the finest high scoring 1st and 3rd party AAA games on the planet.

But it's cool if this and other devs would rather skip GP....... For now.

Thank you, Uncle Phil. lol :P

@danishanwar said:

Spiderman 2 has a universal acclaim with 9.0 User Score and 90 critics score on Meta Critics.

Majority of gamers love SP2 as the bugs are not game breaking that does not affect the gameplay in anyway. But Forza has a lot of issues reflected by the lower User and Critics score (7.5 and 84) as a lot of gamers including myself are not SATISFIED with the game. On Steam the ratings of the undercooked game is Mostly Negative.

Horizon 5 was such a quality game. The latest Forza is a bad quality game, and the game winning GOTY defies logic.

I didn't attack anyone, but the nature of the award with the R word. Also, I think saying the R word is allowed..unless the forum is run by a group of nuns, rabbis, or muulas.

Spiderman 2 is a mess, it has bugs that break the game forcing you to reload, all these are all over Youtube, there is no need to lie. As for user reviews, never use user reviews, they are irrelevant.

You are ok with using critics giving high scores to Spiderman 2 never mentioning the bugs, but then criticise the same critics for voting for Forza winning racing GOTY, you can't have it both ways, that just makes you a hypocrite.

Lastly, You can use the R word if you want, but you will also get a well-deserved holiday, you can't say you haven't been warned.

Why are you avoiding my last post? It's because you don't have a legitimate answer, that's why.

I didn't read your last post. You're desperate, and it shows.

That's the future we're going into

@last_lap:

Making a blanket assumption that the majority of Forza game reviewers on Steam and Metacritic are lying is oversimplifiation or twisting of facts.

Just look at reviews of the game at Redditt. It's full of negative comments. Here's an example:

It doesn’t feel like a step up from the old Gen game at all. And in some ways feels like a regression. No leaderboards, weird upgrade system, graphics are horrendous, and you have to do math in your head when deciding which parts to put on your car. Just feels like a beta.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/forza/comments/1741pfy/how_do_you_all_feel_about_the_new_forza/

I played SP2 from the start till the end with no bugs. The latest patch had patched up all bugs. Most gamers are satisfied with the game reflected by the Universal Acclaim of the game on Meta critic. The same is definitely not true for Forza that has a horrible rating at Steam and a measely MetaCritic ratings.

BTW, I am active in multiple forums. So, I don't care about the R word. lol. GOTY is nothing more than a hype train that does not celebrate quality games.

This thread became a Forza meltdown...odd.😂

You're getting confused. Where did I say anything about Forza's reviews? I simply stated that the using of user reviews is about as bad as it gets for any/all games, also I don't care about Reddit comments about any games, they are simply not worth anyone's time, and those who use such reviews/comments are cherry picking at its worst. I mean i'm 99.9% sure (as I don't use Reddit or other sites where the community can post about games without actual proof of purchase) that there is a bunch of Spiderman 2 bug threads also too right?

Oh, look what we have here a quick Google search nets you a search results about Spiderman 2 being a buggy mess, people not enjoying the game, saying its woke and so on. See now how this goes? but you want us to believe that you didn't experience a single bug, yeah right. But you acknowledge the game has/had bugs by saying they were all patched out, how would you know as you never experienced NOT ONE SINGLE BUG lol.

Yes i've read that Forza has bugs as well, and I have the game on my console but am waiting for them to fix the progression system before I start it. And it too will be patched just like Spiderman 2.

So if Forza shouldn't be nominated then neither should have Spiderman 2. You're just bitter that Forza and Xbox/MS won something and Spiderman/Sony didn't, that's what it really boils down to here.

Now for the last part which is funniest of all. You were complaining that Spiderman 2 didn't win any awards, and sat that the GOTY awards don't celebrate great games, don't forget Spiderman 2 was nominated for GOTY, so you're saying Spiderman to is not a great game now lol. dude you need to hold one stance and stop flip flopping all over the place.

On a side note I had to check Metashitic to see Forza's score and it's 84, and Measley means ridiculously small of few, and Forza score isn't that, in fact its 6 shy of Spiderman 2 so I guess its score to is Measly.

Look I get it that you're a cow and must protect Sony at all costs and attack MS, but you're failing miserably.

Everyone here knows you read it, it's just that you're trying to ignore just like Nod because you two don't have a reasonable explanation of your BS comments.

Yes, we do have explanations, but you must have an IQ on par to understand it.

Wtf? I played through the game and the worst I saw was some enemies ragdolling into a wall when you knock them out and they fly away. Same for my kids. You might be right that it happened, but I can see how people could finish the game and not experience that.

On PS you can check in Settings > System > System Software > Error History. Only crashes I have had were with Minecraft and RecRoom (maybe due to user generated content?)

There are videos of people falling through the map and getting trapped in buildings and have to reload the game, if that's not game braking then i don't know what is.

Also not everyone experiences the same bugs, so while you might not have experienced any game breaking ones others have.

They are many more examples.

@last_lap: I don't doubt the videos are real but maybe it doesn't get mentioned much because it isn't very common?

Well, there are a few videos on YT with all sorts of glitches/bugs etc. So the game does have game breaking bugs among other ones, how frequent they are is anyone's guess, my point is that they are there.

The less control Publishers have the better.

They are sharks who work round the clock brainstorming ways to **** you.

@SecretPolice: This is sad old boomers ca not understand the new way of the games industry - this is the future and Big Brain Phil bring it to Xbox first with success!! 😎

What makes you think that? Their last few games have been massive hits, and they've been in the business for almost 30 years.

Even if their next game was a Cyberpunk-tier failure, I don't see them completely changing course.

Unlikely, what Swen said implies they will continue focusing on providing quality over quantity. With the subscription model not really being compatitable with their goals.

(Just because I thought BG3 was a sleeping pill and the second worst game of last year doesnt mean I can't respect the developer).

I agree

I also agree

@Maroxad: @Planeforger: Just seen many people and studios fall from grace. Nothing against them. He's right. Too dumb for their games, anyway. It's a negative 'tude, but not a fan of what this industry can do over the years.

Least something good came out of this country.

@last_lap said:

@danishanwar said:

@daredevils2k said:

@SecretPolice said:

If the video game industry becomes dominated by subscription models, the people in charge will inevitably try to make the most money possible and this might come at a quality cost, Vincke said.

"Getting a board to OK a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit," he said.

"In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made. Trust me--you really don't want that," he added.

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I agree with him. Look at Starfield, Redfall, and now Forza. All three games are getting bad publicity and I believe Game Pass is destroying the quality of games being put out by MS. Whats the point of devs making sure they are making the best game when it's going to be free on Game Pass?

The GOTY critics must be high on something for selecting a buggy racing game as racing game of the year in 2023. GOTY is a retard hype train.

You weren't complaining when Spiderman 2 a buggy mess got nominated for 7 awards, but you sure did complain when it didn't win anything. You cows need to stop being hypocrites.

And a word of advice, the R word is frowned upon (and rightfully so) here.

I take it you didn't watch any of the videos. there is a difference between Forza and Spider-Man. Even though both were released with bugs, Spider man 2 didn't release features missing from the previous game. That is what the Forza community is mad about. They feel that the latest Forza game is missing tons of game modes and features that the previous game has. so @last_lap you can bring up bugs all day long, but doesn't change the fact that the latest Forza is just an empty shell of a game.

ok high graphic fatality games are short. hellblade 50 bucks.

sea of thieves took 2 years to be complete.

grounded beta form for over a year.

gamepass fill ins.

what gamepass has what maybe 4 AAA quality high profile games.

were sony makes every first party title huge and 5 year developing cycle.

look at the list of the top games from xbox and then look at sonys.

@daredevils2k said:

@last_lap said:

@danishanwar said:

@daredevils2k said:

@SecretPolice said:

If the video game industry becomes dominated by subscription models, the people in charge will inevitably try to make the most money possible and this might come at a quality cost, Vincke said.

"Getting a board to OK a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit," he said.

"In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made. Trust me--you really don't want that," he added.

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I agree with him. Look at Starfield, Redfall, and now Forza. All three games are getting bad publicity and I believe Game Pass is destroying the quality of games being put out by MS. Whats the point of devs making sure they are making the best game when it's going to be free on Game Pass?

The GOTY critics must be high on something for selecting a buggy racing game as racing game of the year in 2023. GOTY is a retard hype train.

You weren't complaining when Spiderman 2 a buggy mess got nominated for 7 awards, but you sure did complain when it didn't win anything. You cows need to stop being hypocrites.

And a word of advice, the R word is frowned upon (and rightfully so) here.

I take it you didn't watch any of the videos. there is a difference between Forza and Spider-Man. Even though both were released with bugs, Spider man 2 didn't release features missing from the previous game. That is what the Forza community is mad about. They feel that the latest Forza game is missing tons of game modes and features that the previous game has. so @last_lap you can bring up bugs all day long, but doesn't change the fact that the latest Forza is just an empty shell of a game.

yup and its going to take 2 years or so to get that complete game.

just like grounded and sea of thieves and halo.

just release them to get that money that releasing it as a full price would of gotten at launch.

there is a reason movies love the movie theater in stead of straight to subscription.

there is reason nin and sony still release there games without a subscription.

xbox fans love to ignore that.

Good thing none of that is true ^.