The developers behind last year's breakout RPG Baldur's Gate 3, Larian Studios, have since used the platform allowed by their success to rail against the many ills currently plaguing the video game industry (where possible). CEO and founder Swen Vincke recently called out publishers' greed as being to blame, saying that "they've been fu**ing this whole thing up for so long”. Now, director of publishing, Michael Douse, has given us some similarly spicy quotes to work with.
Speaking to Game File's Stephen Totilo (thanks, IGN), Douse puts things equally bluntly, explaining that "these giant operational failures that we call layoffs…they are an avoidable f*ck up. That's really all they are." He says that these big companies fail to prepare financially for the future and that layoffs come in waves when the market starts to turn because they start to think: "Well, finally. Now we can, too. We've wanted to do it for ages. Everyone else is. So why don't we?' That's really kind of sick. [Layoffs are] a very, very complex and nuanced decision. But the idea that it's an inevitability that has to happen, it's just not true."
The problem is that shareholders of publicly traded companies like EA or even Sony expect a return on investment, and these companies are not "nimble" enough. The secret to Larian Studio's success? Don't sell out, remain private, and squirrel away pennies for the lean times. Douse said that Larian going public might mean more money to work with but would be "antithetical to the quality part of what we're trying to do”.To hear him explain it, the entire thing sounds so straightforward we have to wonder why other companies can't make it work:
"We just took it day by day. As an operation, we created reserves. We scoped up based on what we thought we would need and created reserves and fallbacks, just in case we would have to. Luckily, we don't have to. We're just nimble. Being nimble is key. Big companies are not nimble."
Do you think industry layoffs really are an "avoidable f*ck up"? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source gamefile.news, via ign.com]
Comments 36
These guys have figured it out 🙌🏼 Absolute legends! The gaming industry should take note if it is to survive.
Shift Up is also saving the industry right now 😄
These companies all have their acronyms wrong. While the big companies are all in in R&D and M&A and failing, Larian, Shift Up, and MiHoYo just focus on T&A and pile up the cash.
I quite like these guys approach to just saying it how it is. No ***** just straight to the point. Games development has become a massive,expensive industry and I've witnessed every evolution of how gaming has become part of the norm in just about every household from the humble days of the atari 2600 and intellivision,colleco vision etc all the way through the spectrum,amstrad and c64 eras (I'm still patiently waiting for a remake of armalyte or retrograde.) Budgets and costs have spiralled and it looks as though the industry is becoming unsustainable. I long for the days when we had company's like firebird,mastertronic and codemasters (before they got assimilated by EA.) Larian and shift up appear to have a business model that is working for them and maybe it's time other company's follow suit and learn from their approach.
My honest opinion is that the old world is dying. Consoles are making way for mobile, people are making way for AI, physical is making way for digital. Lay-offs are going to be inevitable and I think 2025 is going to be no different.
Sorry to be so bleak but that's how I see it. Everything ends eventually.
@LifeGirl I disagree except that part about layoffs. Mobile area is one big junkyard and people rather shift back to PC rather than mobile. AI is so soulless people soon start to reject it more than now. And physical will be, in some form, still around as same as books.
I mean his comments are true, soon as one does it the rest follow, unfortunately not just in gaming, it happens in most sectors. They just need one company to make the jump first.
However had BG3 flopped, would larian have been able to keep all their staff?
I thought it was generally accepted that there is reduced demand due to people having less money as a result of covid and war driven inflation. Sure, it’s possible to say that the number of games made, and hiring of workforce required for that, shouldn’t of happened because it was possible to predict the post covid scenario, but are we really saying these people should never have been given work in the first place?
In regards to keeping them on, I’m sure that’s everyone’s prefered option because firing, hiring, and then training again is expensive, but if they feel the economic situation will not improve for potentially several years (which it won’t in fairness), then that becomes impossible.
We are seeing many many games being cancelled after investment has already been put in and, again, it’s fair to ask why these projects were started, but I don’t think the people losing their jobs regret being given them in the first place.
@djlard Total console gaming market: 28.6 billion US dollars.
Total PC gaming market: 42.9 billion US dollars.
Total mobile gaming market: 184.4 billion US dollars.
The mobile market is absolutely huge and growing. And what people keep on forgetting is that Cloud gaming is the future. The day is coming when you will be able to play anything on your mobile.
@Frmknst What you seem to be missing is that ''every year'' we come closer to it. The fact that people have been wrong before is absolutely irrelevant.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner “ However had BG3 flopped, would larian have been able to keep all their staff?”
Was it even possible for the game to flop? BG3 was developed in such a way to always be finically successful for them… There is a reason they relied heavily on 3 years of early access, and a big paycheck from Google.
Having read his comments in full I feel like this, and many other news articles, are taking his comments out of context a bit (shocking, I know). He did make the admission that the vast majority of video game publishers are publicly owned, which means that Larian doesn't have to bow to shareholders. Though he correctly pointed out that publicly owed companies and shareholders do seem to be vering towards short-term growth, as opposed to long-term growth. As always, the situation is a bit more nuanced than simply, Larian brilliant, publicly owned video game publishers bad.
Capitalism is going to far profit is all that matters now not qualified, sustainability or keeping good staff its going to blow up sooner or later.
@LifeGirl
Sorry for the incoming wall of text, but you've touched on something that I used to love researching in college so you'll have to forgive the inevitable babble...
That article was published in January of this year.
Mobile gaming. Is. A. Monster.
Mobile gaming is a different beast to the other two though. It doesn't threaten the others really either. Instead it creates opportunities for publishers to add additional revenue streams and to spread their IP around a massive market outside of the PC and Console space.
Additionally, practices which may or may not be predatory, depending on your own perspectives on such things, drive people to constantly spend on microtransactions.
These practices are in console and PC gaming too but we seem to be a little more resistant to them still, for now.
For PC and Console, it appears, at least based on the information that I'm reading which is somewhat different than yours, that Console is still bigger than PC, but it doesn't really matter as both markets are growing in value still and there's a lot of money on the table there. Nobody who can make the PC or console model work will walk away from that pot.
They may not be growing the actual market size by much in terms of customer numbers, but they are thinking of more ways to get us spending our money.
The console market is more or less the same size now as it was in the 90s. Nobody in publishing other than the likes of Shawn Layden ever really talked about it as much before now because they all assumed/hoped that the future would be dominated by streaming. But now that it turns out there might not be enough customers for streaming to take over in the way the CEOs had all hoped, the number of console and PC players is suddenly a bigger topic of discussion.
Gotta stretch those profit margins.
It's like the objective for some companies is to have all of the money. Being sustainable is not enough. Constant growth is the only marker of success. How many industries would love to see revenue like what Console and PC generate? But it's never enough for the companies with skin in the game it seems.
Personally I have no concerns about Consoles or PC. We'll still be having this conversation in 30 years.
They'll make consoles and gaming PC parts for as long as we want them.
And if we don't want them anymore it's hopefully because something better has come along.
"Well, finally. Now we can, too. We've wanted to do it for ages. Everyone else is. So why don't we?'"
I said this last time, that it's gotten to the point where some are just laying off because everyone else is. It's cruel and they should be held accountable in any possible form.
Game devs are a business after all, bit of a sweeping statement to say it’s all avoidable. Hope this article doesn’t come back to bite them on the behind in a years time when they are the ones making layoffs.
@Balie3000 How is Shift Up saving the industry? Didn't they go public a few weeks back or something? Also if Sony offered to buy them they would know doubt sell.
@GuttyYZ
I totally agree, it's a more nuanced situation, much more than most people might think.
All of the nuances that you mentioned, Plus all the Hiring that was going on with Publishers and their Software Divisions during the Pandemic Gaming Boom.
They had games launching understandably later, due to developers staying at home to finish games at their own pace, so publishers started hiring more developers to help compensate, and so now you have too much employee bloat, that needs to be adjusted for, along with that left over slower paced attitude towards developing games and getting releases out, then couple that with an actual slowdown in the market itself, and there's bound to be Layoffs.
Happy Gaming ✌!
@PsBoxSwitchOwner I think that Larian made a game that they thought Gamers would appreciate, a game that was built for gamers first and foremost which is why it succeeded.
Many other Publishers are pushing the Studio's to make 'live service' games - games designed to keep players spending money on extra characters, cosmetics etc. Take any Live Service 'template', wrap your IP skin around it, chuck it out and hope people buy into it. Marvels: Avengers, Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad, etc.
Even Sony were jumping into Live Service development - something their vocal Playerbase weren't happy about and now we hear they have 'cancelled' a few (inc Last of us Factions), reduced their Console sales expectations and over 900 Jobs lost.
What Larian are saying is that the Publishers themselves have got themselves into this position by their Greed - all wanting that '1' Live Service game they can milk, bring in millions for little effort of changing the colour on some Cosmetic and selling it for a ridiculous amount, rather than making the 'game' the Players want, writing compelling characters or stories, writing compelling side activities/quests etc. Its all about making something to sell additional content to make as much money as possible - Greed!!
I'm sure it would have been a different story if BG3 flopped, it's easy for devs to criticize others when their own games are doing well but as soon as one of their games flop they will feel the crunch. Also different to publishers as they have to manage multiple projects at the same time whilst larian can focus all their attention/resources and staff on one project at a time.
@LifeGirl The mobile market has increased by grabbing more casual players. The more hardcore market, which is more likely to invest in consoles and PC, is unlikely to concede to playing games on their phone, even if they are streamed to their phone in my opinion. The hardcore market has also been increasing, albeit not to the explosive amount of mobile, so I don’t think it all those people with gaming setups are going to give that up to play on their phones.
@UltimateOtaku91 We don’t know how their reserves work, so who knows. That said, a number of devs were laid off on successful projects. It’s not always associated with flops, hence his point that these tend to come in waves when others take advantage of the turn.
@Northern_munkey "I long for the days when we had company's like firebird,mastertronic and codemasters"
Now you're showing your age! Those Mastertronic tapes were everywhere - our local petrol station even carried them! Thing is they were written by one or two people in their bedroom and those days of presentation are almost over (Broforce is a classic case in point of brilliant game, no AAA budget required)
Odd thing is, with the exceptions of Larian and Shift Up, the PS5 is going to be struggling going forward to have any AAA titles heading its way so where does that leave the exclusives?
Removed - inappropriate
The gaming industry across the board took on many additional staff due to the cough years. With the hopes of so many big live service games that everyone would buy into. Which was a funny pipe dream considering that many spend a lot of time in one or two live service games. So the industry is correcting itself. The gaming industry has always been weary place for anyone seeking a career or longevity.
These other companies just aren't saying "f***" enough when talking to the media about how great they are. They'd be so much more badass and cool if they did.
One day even Larian Studios will have layoffs and will be quite then.
@LifeGirl Ohh, you mean numbers... Of course mobile is huge, because asians are crazy in buying game mtx on mobile. But it doesn't mean gamers want it and mobile games are good.
@BAMozzy @AverageGamer I agree with that. But (im open to correction in this) being in Early Access for 3 yrs is kinda similar to being a live service. Making money while the game evolves from player feedback. It's not a model most studios could successfully follow.
It seems it's not so much that Larian were "smarter" than others but that just had the right circumstances at the right time 🤷🏾♂️
The game industry being so shaky regarding employment right now makes me glad I don't work in it.
@3Above Or you could argue that Larian used their target audience to feed back and help them shape the game for 'gamers' specifically - get feedback on what works and/or what didn't to help them create a Game for 'Gamers'.
It's not like other Studio's where they are known for making Single Player games suddenly having to make an Online game with MTX. Look at Rocksteady and going from Batman to Suicide Squad, Crystal Dynamix from Tomb Raider to Marvels Avengers.
I wonder how many maybe put off from Dragons Dogma 2 because of MTX when BG3 doesn't. Would you buy Horizon if you knew they be selling 'extras' inc Fast Travel and custom outfits, custom weapons etc or be 'put-off' by yet another Live Service model forced into a Single Player and the cost to consumer 'starts' at $70 but could end up costing a LOT more.
When you buy BG3, its all included in that price - no extras. Its not built to 'sell' extras, designed to extract more money from the fans of the IP etc...
@sanderson72 51 and I don't feel a day over 65 🤣
At last someone speaking sense! 👏
Sounds like more industry consolidation is the wrong direction? Too bad it's too late for many companies.
@BAMozzy TBF MTX would not put me off of Horizon if it like DD2 where it's not NECESSARY to buy the extras.
I just meant that the 3 yrs of Early Access (while clearly helping the game to be just what the audience wanted from it) isnt something that most other studios or games could get away with. Monterey Hunter maybe but not a game like Uncharted for example.
Too many companies worried more about social messaging than profit. Makes sense.
Avoidable ***** up? I’ll raise you “criminal intent”
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