While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good. In th...
Yes I know its IGN but I thought it was a pretty decent vid in regards to some industry reactions to Baldurs Gate 3.
But all that predatory monetization and worker exploitation at ActiBlizz is necessary to make the wholesome treats!
Disclaimer: It'll break my heart if it turns out that Larian is as bad as ActiBlizz to its workers on the downlow, but for the box price, there is a lot to Baldur's Gate 3 and there's no season pass bullshit, just one promo upgrade that's free if you were an early supporter.
One of my best friends told me that I really should update my blog. I explained to him that I’m literally working from six in the morning until midnight trying to get Dragon Commander out of the door and that the last thing I want to do in my current schedule is spend what little free or sleeping time I have left writing about work. He shrugged, repeated three times that I should update my blog, and then proceeded on another topic.
Net result: I’m updating my blog. He can be convincing.
So, we’re in crunch. Not because we’re in panic mode or because a publisher is threatening us with whatever legal nonsense, but because we still have a ton of small things we want to finish before the game goes live *and * because we selected a release date we swore we wouldn’t miss (August 6th 2013 for those interested)
The current situation is that there’s still some stuff on our task list and there’s a whole bunch of stuff on our bug/suggested features list, but most of it still all feels possible.
To put that last statement in perspective – of course, the lists are getting longer now that we launched the beta, and of course, we find ourselves forced to be selective, and of course we’d prefer to put everything in that still makes sense, and of course realization is dawning that we won’t manage to do it all. Still, morale remains high, because we think that what’ll be in will be sufficient to please a significiant large enough part of our audience and I hope wholeheartedly that that indeed becomes the case.
meanwhile, the complaints I (remember seeing) in linkedin reviews are along the lines of 'larian magic entails reiterating ad nauseaum which can be very frustrating' and 'what really matters is convincing sven a feature is important, and the leads often brag of their ability to do so'.
without talking to a larian employee in private i kinda assume the crunch situation at larian is a) not good, but also b) possibly not the worst amongst game developers since this industry is somehow worse than holywood's treatment of 3d artists.
From what I've heard there was (voluntary) crunch but mild by comparison, along the lines of what you'll find at any job around a major project release or tax time.
But all that predatory monetization and worker exploitation at ActiBlizz is necessary to make the wholesome treats!
Disclaimer: It'll break my heart if it turns out that Larian is as bad as ActiBlizz to its workers on the downlow, but for the box price, there is a lot to Baldur's Gate 3 and there's no season pass bullshit, just one promo upgrade that's free if you were an early supporter.
this is from a blogpost of sven's 10 years ago
meanwhile, the complaints I (remember seeing) in linkedin reviews are along the lines of 'larian magic entails reiterating ad nauseaum which can be very frustrating' and 'what really matters is convincing sven a feature is important, and the leads often brag of their ability to do so'.
without talking to a larian employee in private i kinda assume the crunch situation at larian is a) not good, but also b) possibly not the worst amongst game developers since this industry is somehow worse than holywood's treatment of 3d artists.
From what I've heard there was (voluntary) crunch but mild by comparison, along the lines of what you'll find at any job around a major project release or tax time.