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I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very

by mastax 3y ago

I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs. - DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. - There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games (if not time to play them). - The Early Access release for this game was wildly popular beyond the developer's expectations, and maintained interest for years. I definitely underestimated the brand power of DnD and Baldur's Gate because they aren't very important to me, personally. But also there have been a load of really good CRPGs in recent years and there seemed to be a pretty low ceiling to how much interest they could get. Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and a few others were amazing and beloved CRPG games but were lucky to have a tenth of the success of BG3. But those games were generally less accessible, mostly not multiplayer, and again lacked the brand power.

jakebasile 3y ago
I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn. Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  TBH it looks and especially feels much more like a reskinned Divine Divinity OS2 with DnD rules implanted than BG1 and BG2 (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, but I don't feel a lot of BG1 and BG2 nostalgia when playing BG3, instead I'm constantly reminded of OS2). PS: One thing that is a lot better than in BG1 and BG2 is that combat with low-class characters feels a lot more interesting. Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules.
  - jakebasile 3y ago
    The closest game that BG3 "feels like" to me is Dragon Age: Origins, which is great since I loved that game and the sequels just never did it for me.
    - oblio 3y ago
      The sequels just turned it into action games for the sake of 10% extra sales and for console ports.
  - D13Fd 3y ago
    The screenshots definitely look like DOS2.
  - Shared404 3y ago
    Haven't play BG3 yet, but my DM has been and noted a few tweaks that Larian made to 5e, especially around spell durations and moving shoving to a bonus action.
    - squeaky-clean 3y ago
      Potions being a bonus action is the biggest thing for me. I've house-ruled that forever. Glad Larian agrees.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    > Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules. That's entirely on D&D 5e rules. Combat with chars under lvl 5 is essentially 1 mechanic per class, and really boring. Tabletop suffers from exactly the same issue, even if you use all the extra/optional subclasses and backstories. So does Solasta (the other 5e PC game)
  - theoriginaldog 3y ago
    And yet the graphics are obviously better and more immersive than BG 1 and 2. Of course they build their technology from their previous games, but it doesn't change the fact that most other CCRPGs are less immersive for most gamers. I am pretty confident that high fidelity 3D graphics attract more gamers than isometric 2D, no matter if these look like the studios previous game.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  Properly drawn isometric is timeless ...
- imbnwa 3y ago
  >Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help. Yeah, it was hard for me to get into Path of Exile over D3 and D4, despite being a technically 'deeper' game
  - mark38848 3y ago
    Graphics might be good in BG3 but the art style is non-existent. Generic clear skies or scorching red purgatory fantasy setting. People flying around on dragons fighting Cthulhu's aunt. Man I'd love being able to love that.
    - jakebasile 3y ago
      Speak for yourself, I've found the world art assets in BG3 both high quality and well made. The detail on the characters and their arms and armor is intricate, too.
flohofwoe 3y ago
> big cohort of millennials... I feel slightly offended being thrown into the same pot as those weird millenials ;) Absolutely everybody who owned a PC for gaming in the late 90's played BG1 and BG2, no matter the age. Video games are not just for teenagers you know.
- pixelpoet 3y ago
  I'm about 40 and am usually grouped as a millennial (at least for the common purpose of blame, e.g. killing cinemas), though I somehow missed Baldur's Gate; played the hell out of the Ultima series though!
  - torgian 3y ago
    This is something I wish could come back. Ultima was a great series, and I even liked the trash heaps that were Ultima 8 and 9. Unfortunately, EA still holds the rights. The new mmo-ish game that Garriet made is one I have not really dived into yet
    - TillE 3y ago
      The Ultimas were (mostly) wonderful, especially Ultima 7, but I don't think there's anything particularly valuable about the "IP". It was really about Garriott exploring innovative ways in how to translate the tabletop RPG experience into a computer game. You don't need an Avatar or Britannia to pursue ideas like Ultima 4's virtue system or Ultima 7's interactivity.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    > played the hell out of the Ultima series though! this is Wizardry III erasure. (i'm a bit older and solidly GenX)
- aoanla 3y ago
  I had a gaming PC in the late 90s and absolutely did not play BG1 or 2. I briefly tried PlaneScape: Torment several years after its release on the urging of one of its fans, but didn't make it past the early parts due to being annoyed by the random thugs that would assault you if you stood still for too long, and the pseudo-realtime 2e-based combat being Byzantine and off-putting.
handmadeta 3y ago
I don't want to attack you personally but I think your post illustrates an common error in thinking that caused gaming to stagnate for the past decade. I can just hear the army of MBAs making spreadsheets and checklist reflecting exactly this "paint by the numbers" style of thinking. This in turn means that the next ten AAA titles starting production are going to check all these boxes and then ... will still fail. In reality there is no formular for making a hit game. You need people who care and know what they are doing and let them do what they love.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Seems like a pointless retort given their first point was that they had just made a great game previously.
- appplication 3y ago
  I think you’re right but also making a good or beloved game is not really the same endeavor as making a massively profitable one. Stardew Valley is beloved. If you described the vision to a 10k employee game studio, they could probably make something that is stardew-like, widely played, and absolutely rakes in cash through micro transactions, $49.99 variegated eggplant DLC, etc. and has the charm and soul of a cold baked potato. Beloved games have heart, vision, and they don’t establish a predatory relationship with their customers. There will always be a place for them to gamers, because these attributes can’t be faked. There will also always be a place for soulless AAA because, as you said, the MBAs can bake these on paper, reliably, and procedurally.
  - spacemadness 3y ago
    The idea of Stardew Valley with microtransactions just ruined my day.
    - mysterydip 3y ago
      havest carrot (10 hrs) [harvest instantly for 5 gems!]
    - 3y ago
lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
> I definitely underestimated the brand power of DnD and Baldur's Gate I think you're trying to put too much of its success on "brand power". Social proof is a thing, but it's not powerful enough to overcome a bad game. Just look at what happened to the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. I think it's doing so well because they nailed the execution. The graphics are great. The game hasn't had any opening week disasters despite getting more than 7x the expected numbers. The intro hook of the game really grabs you and keeps you wanting more (which is why everyone's still so excited about it 3 years later). Also, it's FUN to play. That last one is probably the biggest factor. When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? It wasn't too long ago that online streamers were publishing videos lamenting the lack of good games to play.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  > When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? Tears of the Kingdom, Resident evil 4, Street Fighter 6
  - lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
    Interest in Tears of the Kingdom dropped off pretty quickly. Is that all? edit: I didn't play the other two games. One's a remake of a game I never played (I never owned playstations) and I don't really play fighting games. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ edit2: this is getting ridiculous.
    - spacemadness 3y ago
      If you know nothing of those games, you might want to stop with the gaming critique.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
        Street Fighter 6 literally gave players something they've been dreaming about for years: the ability to customize a character to one's own liking based off of the moves of the existing characters in the game. Want to dragon punch like Ryu, throw a sonic boom like Guile, and kick like Chun Li? You can do that now.
jncfhnb 3y ago
Divinity 2 did about 700k units in the first month. I think this is about on par with expectations with a bigger brand. I think Larian’s approach to multiplayer is the important bit. I would be curious about the stats of how people play it. I feel like once you have done a couple CRPGs you’ve kind of seen it all. I’ve done divinity and kingmaker. I can’t really be motivated to do tyranny or the other pathfinder game by owlcat. It’s just so samey. I will grant, Larian’s divinity 2 did feel a bit different. They managed to make combat feel more interesting. And playing split screen with the wife made it much more enjoyable. Optimistic they’ve done it again here.
- jsnell 3y ago
  > I think this is about on par with expectations with a bigger brand. No, this is wildly beyond expectations. They sold 2.5M copies of BG3 in Early Access (>500k in July alone) which is already amazing, but one might have expected it to eat into their launch day numbers as most of the fans already bought in during EA. Instead it it looks like they probably sold ~10M more copies just in the 3 days after launch.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Hmm interesting. I guess consider me confused then too. I don’t get how a crpg has this much appeal. I’m not expecting this to be substantially better than divinity 2; which isn’t meant to be an insult any way.
    - suryong 3y ago
      Because it is actually an RPG, there is actually choices there, even in Act 1 there are quite few major choices that have big ramifications in Act 2. Take something like Pillars of Eternity, it mostly had the illusion of choice and not much real reactivity, the npcs might say few different lines but it really did not matter much. I am tired of the games that present you with illusion of choice but it actually doesn't matter. In BG3 you can actually be the evil character so that by itself lends the game at least for 2 playthroughs. Personally I am playing it through as Dark Urge first, and later going to do another run with good druid. Also the graphics are really nice, almost everything is voice acted, companions have interesting stories. Story is already much better than divinity 2. I have 39 hours in now and I bought it at launch
meroes 3y ago
Was nice to see their videos and developer videos in contrast to others like Blizzard/Diablo IV. I know you can’t really tell based on one parameter like this, but you also kind of can. You can tell by this they got the product out they wanted and worked till it was complete. That goes a long way.
remcob 3y ago
It’s also the only high production game with native MacOS & M1 support I could find. I got the early access just to see what M1 GPU can do and was impressed.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  Caveat here being that the full game has yet to release on Mac. The release date for the full Mac game is TBD.
  - actualwitch 3y ago
    They said they are aiming for september 6 mac release date.
nottorp 3y ago
Two things: 1. As it's been said before, if you go at it MBA style you'll end up with a crap soul less design by commitee game. 2. DnD has a lot of brand power? The only thing related to DnD that I did was play some computer RPGs. The Infinity Engine games could have had any other RPG system in the background and they'd have been as much fun. 3. Getting Early Access wrong too. It got popular in early access because some people considered it good. 4. You may be right about Baldur's Gate nostalgia, that is probably the greatest driver behind this. Personally I will get the game because of said nostalgia, but I'll wait for enough reviews to have something to read between the lines and decide if the game is any good.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  DnD literally had a hugely successful movie release starring multiple A list actors not that long ago.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    And I'm a Baldur's Gate (somewhat reluctant) fan and I don't even know there was a DnD movie out recently :)
    - RHSeeger 3y ago
      It's actually a pretty fun movie. It has references to lots of fun D&D history, including the old cartoon. I enjoyed it, my wife enjoyed it, and my daughter (who knows nothing of D&D and doesn't really like fantasy) enjoyed it.
  - Arrath 3y ago
    And it's had a consistent presence in Stranger Things on Netflix, helping expose it to a younger generation who missed out on the D&D moral panic, BG/NWN, the first movie, and so on.
- theoriginaldog 3y ago
  You missed a lot in the last 5 years, DnD has become huge. Not in the video game sector, but thats why the huge DnD fanbase is craving for a good video game and BG3 delivered. I think most buyers are actually driven by that and not BG nostalgia.
dageshi 3y ago
I think a lot of games over the years have borrowed elements from DnD and so there's a massive audience out there of people primed to be interested in the real deal when it arrives. The fact it had such a great reputation from the fanbase who'd been playing it in early access probably pushed a lot of people to go ahead and get it.
CamperBob2 3y ago
They've also done a great job marketing it. I've seen ads and references to it in places that normally wouldn't cover RPGs.
gmerc 3y ago
I think you underestimate GenX/Y and our love for the time when games were not micrtransaction laced dopamine engines BG2 was, for almost all of the 2000s, one of the highest ranked games of all time.
- ls612 3y ago
  A lot of it is also that lots of big AAA non-live-service games were delayed by the lockdowns of 2020 and this year is when their releases have all piled up.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thefz 3y ago
You forget Larian's charisma. Some comical undertones (especially in DOS 1), likeable characters, fun dialogues... the reasons are many. And DOS2 had the best combat in decades.
wlesieutre 3y ago
I've made a habit of not buying games at launch anymore. Most of them are nagging me for microtransactions (rant: don't like that word for repeated $10 purchases on top of a $70 game, that's not "micro" at all), they require an internet connection for single player, or are otherwise full of bullshit that to me makes them not worth $60+. This one doesn't do that, so I bought it! I've never played any of the previous Baldur's Gate games, but I did play Neverwinter Nights (2002) so I have some nostalgia for computer D&D. Haven't tried the multiplayer yet, but I probably will. I heard there are some kinks to work out with drop in/out characters, but maybe that's just how it's going to work and you're expected to commit to one group the whole way through.
- phyrex 3y ago
  Thang’s, that’s good to hear. I’ve been incredibly disappointed with diablo 4 for that reason!
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Yeah there's lots of reasons I didn't buy it, even though I enjoyed a lot of Diablo 3 and thought the Diablo 4 beta was fun enough. I got D3 after the expansion unfucked the loot drop rates that had been tuned super rare to drive people to the real money auction house. Fingers crossed that Diablo 4 will eventually be on sale for $30 and have reached a point where it's worth that much. That's my price cap for anything with always online single player, and I can't see that being fixed. Maybe I can be generous and bump it up to $35 now to give them 50% of the launch price.
- theoriginaldog 3y ago
  I think I just like different genres of games, because all the games I bought at launch in the last years never had these issues you describe. Zelda, Elden Ring, God of War eg.
taurath 3y ago
> But also there have been a load of really good CRPGs in recent years and there seemed to be a pretty low ceiling to how much interest they could get CRPGs aren't a genre, but RPGs are. wRPGs like Mass Effect, Fallout, TES, The Witcher are some of the most popular franchises in all of gaming. Then you have jRPGs like Zelda, Elden Ring... The ones you listed are similar to Divinity & BG3, but the fact is the games are either on the extreme end of hardcore (Pathfinder especially), or are made without the production values or marketing. You've got examples like The main difference that would still throw a lot of games is that BG3 is turn based combat, but I'd argue that with the dialogue, branching trees etc its more akin to Mass Effect or Fallout. Ultimately its its own thing, and it is a well crafted game, in a setting that many core fans already know and love.
snird 3y ago
Me and my friends (5 in this case) bought the game yesterday. It had nothing to do with "brand power" - we didn't even know it was DnD. We just bought what seems like a great game with no bullshit microtransaction. I think you are overanalyzing it.
lamontcg 3y ago
> DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. I'd say you're understating this and it is actually strengthening a lot. For example google trends shows "dnd" taking off: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22dnd%22&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22dnd%2... It is actively trendy right now.
lacy_tinpot 3y ago
Wasteland 3 seems to be always left out. It's an incredible rpg that deserves more attention imo.
PurpleRamen 3y ago
I would put BG3 easily in the top10 of most anticipated games in 2023. Even if one does not know the franchise, the amount of articles and mentions in the last weeks was a good sign. Especially as it was an Early Access-Game, and not something that just drop from a void. So people already knew for a while that it will be pretty good. But I guess, especially because of this, it was also easy to filter out if one is not in the bubble.
caskstrength 3y ago
> There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games (if not time to play them). I don't think that demographic is driving the sales. Anecdotally I hear/read fans of originals mostly complaining about how this is some turn-based reskinned D:OS with Zoomer-oriented Critical Role-themed writing and VO.
orbital-decay 3y ago
There's a lot more to it than just Larian. It's mostly about a niche community developing into a mainstream one, and the public growing tired of the same stuff. After the golden age of late 90s, CRPGs went into shadows of a very narrow niche until maybe 2012-2013. Larian were unlucky enough to work during that winter, and their games weren't particularly successful, although well known in the niche community. Pure RPGs were always niche, and it was hard for them to survive because the market has been split into AAA and indie, leaving no space for anything in between. Then the non-mainstream communities like RPG Codex produced several indie RPGs like Age of Decadence which also piqued curiosity of the people outside of the niche who grew tired of the constant stream of shallow same-face sandbox action soups with RPG elements like Skyrim. Larian in particular decided to have their presence on RPG Codex and 100% cater to their desires. They crowdsourced Divinity Original Sin development and implemented almost every reasonable advice RPG nerds gave them under their own vision. The result was a solid and fun game that was a breath of fresh air in the context of 2014. Since about that time, pure RPGs formed a much larger following that steadily grew over the years. The current sales are mostly because the genre itself got popular again - without it they couldn't have possibly reached those numbers regardless of the quality of their game, as they never did in the previous 2 decades. 2011-2014 were transformative years after the massive boredom of the "next-gen" treadmill of the mid-late 2000s. CRPG is not the only genre that benefited from that. Military-like sandbox games skyrocketed in popularity, giving birth to various offshoots like Battle Royale; soulslike games multiplied; there was even a short revival of arena shooters, although not really successful.
lobocinza 3y ago
> But those games were generally less accessible, mostly not multiplayer, and again lacked the brand power. Creative Assembly's Total War series had good and popular games but their popularity exploded when they made a Warhammer game despite the original fanbase preferring historical games and many hoping for a TW Medieval 3. Most games with the Warhammer IP at that time were mediocre at best. So brand doesn't carry on it's own and it helps when your target audience has nothing else that they might be interested to play when your game is released. Diablo 4 sucks and Pillars 2 was released in 2018.
raxxorraxor 3y ago
Success can also be relative. I am not a huge gamer anymore, but from what I noticed, this year wasn't really filled with many large releases yet and some that came out, like Diablo 4, are found out to be the soulless crap many more wise consumers expected it to be. So people might just be hungry for some quality games again. Also the studio was already known for quality and some of their own brands were already quite successful, making them more or less the top CRPG developer that also brought a lot of innovation to the genre. Although Baldurs Gate certainly is a brand that draws additional people. I could imagine that their other games will also get in the focus again when people are finished with the new title. That said, all the games you mentioned were a success I believe. Maybe not that large, but I think they all were "surprisingly" successful compared to many AAA titles that wished they were.
albrewer 3y ago
> Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker I nominate adding Torment: Tides of Numeneria to this; I discovered it's a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment (which I never got to play); I had never played a CRPG before and I could not put it down until I was done.

by mastax 3y ago

jakebasile 3y ago

I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn. Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

flohofwoe 3y ago
TBH it looks and especially feels much more like a reskinned Divine Divinity OS2 with DnD rules implanted than BG1 and BG2 (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, but I don't feel a lot of BG1 and BG2 nostalgia when playing BG3, instead I'm constantly reminded of OS2). PS: One thing that is a lot better than in BG1 and BG2 is that combat with low-class characters feels a lot more interesting. Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules.
- jakebasile 3y ago
  The closest game that BG3 "feels like" to me is Dragon Age: Origins, which is great since I loved that game and the sequels just never did it for me.
  - oblio 3y ago
    The sequels just turned it into action games for the sake of 10% extra sales and for console ports.
- D13Fd 3y ago
  The screenshots definitely look like DOS2.
- Shared404 3y ago
  Haven't play BG3 yet, but my DM has been and noted a few tweaks that Larian made to 5e, especially around spell durations and moving shoving to a bonus action.
  - squeaky-clean 3y ago
    Potions being a bonus action is the biggest thing for me. I've house-ruled that forever. Glad Larian agrees.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  > Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules. That's entirely on D&D 5e rules. Combat with chars under lvl 5 is essentially 1 mechanic per class, and really boring. Tabletop suffers from exactly the same issue, even if you use all the extra/optional subclasses and backstories. So does Solasta (the other 5e PC game)
- theoriginaldog 3y ago
  And yet the graphics are obviously better and more immersive than BG 1 and 2. Of course they build their technology from their previous games, but it doesn't change the fact that most other CCRPGs are less immersive for most gamers. I am pretty confident that high fidelity 3D graphics attract more gamers than isometric 2D, no matter if these look like the studios previous game.
ReptileMan 3y ago
Properly drawn isometric is timeless ...
imbnwa 3y ago
>Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help. Yeah, it was hard for me to get into Path of Exile over D3 and D4, despite being a technically 'deeper' game
- mark38848 3y ago
  Graphics might be good in BG3 but the art style is non-existent. Generic clear skies or scorching red purgatory fantasy setting. People flying around on dragons fighting Cthulhu's aunt. Man I'd love being able to love that.
  - jakebasile 3y ago
    Speak for yourself, I've found the world art assets in BG3 both high quality and well made. The detail on the characters and their arms and armor is intricate, too.

flohofwoe 3y ago

> big cohort of millennials... I feel slightly offended being thrown into the same pot as those weird millenials ;) Absolutely everybody who owned a PC for gaming in the late 90's played BG1 and BG2, no matter the age. Video games are not just for teenagers you know.

pixelpoet 3y ago
I'm about 40 and am usually grouped as a millennial (at least for the common purpose of blame, e.g. killing cinemas), though I somehow missed Baldur's Gate; played the hell out of the Ultima series though!
- torgian 3y ago
  This is something I wish could come back. Ultima was a great series, and I even liked the trash heaps that were Ultima 8 and 9. Unfortunately, EA still holds the rights. The new mmo-ish game that Garriet made is one I have not really dived into yet
  - TillE 3y ago
    The Ultimas were (mostly) wonderful, especially Ultima 7, but I don't think there's anything particularly valuable about the "IP". It was really about Garriott exploring innovative ways in how to translate the tabletop RPG experience into a computer game. You don't need an Avatar or Britannia to pursue ideas like Ultima 4's virtue system or Ultima 7's interactivity.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > played the hell out of the Ultima series though! this is Wizardry III erasure. (i'm a bit older and solidly GenX)
aoanla 3y ago
I had a gaming PC in the late 90s and absolutely did not play BG1 or 2. I briefly tried PlaneScape: Torment several years after its release on the urging of one of its fans, but didn't make it past the early parts due to being annoyed by the random thugs that would assault you if you stood still for too long, and the pseudo-realtime 2e-based combat being Byzantine and off-putting.

handmadeta 3y ago

I don't want to attack you personally but I think your post illustrates an common error in thinking that caused gaming to stagnate for the past decade. I can just hear the army of MBAs making spreadsheets and checklist reflecting exactly this "paint by the numbers" style of thinking. This in turn means that the next ten AAA titles starting production are going to check all these boxes and then ... will still fail. In reality there is no formular for making a hit game. You need people who care and know what they are doing and let them do what they love.

jncfhnb 3y ago
Seems like a pointless retort given their first point was that they had just made a great game previously.
appplication 3y ago
I think you’re right but also making a good or beloved game is not really the same endeavor as making a massively profitable one. Stardew Valley is beloved. If you described the vision to a 10k employee game studio, they could probably make something that is stardew-like, widely played, and absolutely rakes in cash through micro transactions, $49.99 variegated eggplant DLC, etc. and has the charm and soul of a cold baked potato. Beloved games have heart, vision, and they don’t establish a predatory relationship with their customers. There will always be a place for them to gamers, because these attributes can’t be faked. There will also always be a place for soulless AAA because, as you said, the MBAs can bake these on paper, reliably, and procedurally.
- spacemadness 3y ago
  The idea of Stardew Valley with microtransactions just ruined my day.
  - mysterydip 3y ago
    havest carrot (10 hrs) [harvest instantly for 5 gems!]
  - 3y ago

lylejantzi3rd 3y ago

> I definitely underestimated the brand power of DnD and Baldur's Gate I think you're trying to put too much of its success on "brand power". Social proof is a thing, but it's not powerful enough to overcome a bad game. Just look at what happened to the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. I think it's doing so well because they nailed the execution. The graphics are great. The game hasn't had any opening week disasters despite getting more than 7x the expected numbers. The intro hook of the game really grabs you and keeps you wanting more (which is why everyone's still so excited about it 3 years later). Also, it's FUN to play. That last one is probably the biggest factor. When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? It wasn't too long ago that online streamers were publishing videos lamenting the lack of good games to play.

jncfhnb 3y ago
> When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? Tears of the Kingdom, Resident evil 4, Street Fighter 6
- lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
  Interest in Tears of the Kingdom dropped off pretty quickly. Is that all? edit: I didn't play the other two games. One's a remake of a game I never played (I never owned playstations) and I don't really play fighting games. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ edit2: this is getting ridiculous.
  - spacemadness 3y ago
    If you know nothing of those games, you might want to stop with the gaming critique.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
      Street Fighter 6 literally gave players something they've been dreaming about for years: the ability to customize a character to one's own liking based off of the moves of the existing characters in the game. Want to dragon punch like Ryu, throw a sonic boom like Guile, and kick like Chun Li? You can do that now.

jncfhnb 3y ago

Divinity 2 did about 700k units in the first month. I think this is about on par with expectations with a bigger brand. I think Larian’s approach to multiplayer is the important bit. I would be curious about the stats of how people play it. I feel like once you have done a couple CRPGs you’ve kind of seen it all. I’ve done divinity and kingmaker. I can’t really be motivated to do tyranny or the other pathfinder game by owlcat. It’s just so samey. I will grant, Larian’s divinity 2 did feel a bit different. They managed to make combat feel more interesting. And playing split screen with the wife made it much more enjoyable. Optimistic they’ve done it again here.

jsnell 3y ago
> I think this is about on par with expectations with a bigger brand. No, this is wildly beyond expectations. They sold 2.5M copies of BG3 in Early Access (>500k in July alone) which is already amazing, but one might have expected it to eat into their launch day numbers as most of the fans already bought in during EA. Instead it it looks like they probably sold ~10M more copies just in the 3 days after launch.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Hmm interesting. I guess consider me confused then too. I don’t get how a crpg has this much appeal. I’m not expecting this to be substantially better than divinity 2; which isn’t meant to be an insult any way.
  - suryong 3y ago
    Because it is actually an RPG, there is actually choices there, even in Act 1 there are quite few major choices that have big ramifications in Act 2. Take something like Pillars of Eternity, it mostly had the illusion of choice and not much real reactivity, the npcs might say few different lines but it really did not matter much. I am tired of the games that present you with illusion of choice but it actually doesn't matter. In BG3 you can actually be the evil character so that by itself lends the game at least for 2 playthroughs. Personally I am playing it through as Dark Urge first, and later going to do another run with good druid. Also the graphics are really nice, almost everything is voice acted, companions have interesting stories. Story is already much better than divinity 2. I have 39 hours in now and I bought it at launch

meroes 3y ago

Was nice to see their videos and developer videos in contrast to others like Blizzard/Diablo IV. I know you can’t really tell based on one parameter like this, but you also kind of can. You can tell by this they got the product out they wanted and worked till it was complete. That goes a long way.

remcob 3y ago

It’s also the only high production game with native MacOS & M1 support I could find. I got the early access just to see what M1 GPU can do and was impressed.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
Caveat here being that the full game has yet to release on Mac. The release date for the full Mac game is TBD.
- actualwitch 3y ago
  They said they are aiming for september 6 mac release date.

nottorp 3y ago

Two things: 1. As it's been said before, if you go at it MBA style you'll end up with a crap soul less design by commitee game. 2. DnD has a lot of brand power? The only thing related to DnD that I did was play some computer RPGs. The Infinity Engine games could have had any other RPG system in the background and they'd have been as much fun. 3. Getting Early Access wrong too. It got popular in early access because some people considered it good. 4. You may be right about Baldur's Gate nostalgia, that is probably the greatest driver behind this. Personally I will get the game because of said nostalgia, but I'll wait for enough reviews to have something to read between the lines and decide if the game is any good.

MisterBastahrd 3y ago
DnD literally had a hugely successful movie release starring multiple A list actors not that long ago.
- nottorp 3y ago
  And I'm a Baldur's Gate (somewhat reluctant) fan and I don't even know there was a DnD movie out recently :)
  - RHSeeger 3y ago
    It's actually a pretty fun movie. It has references to lots of fun D&D history, including the old cartoon. I enjoyed it, my wife enjoyed it, and my daughter (who knows nothing of D&D and doesn't really like fantasy) enjoyed it.
- Arrath 3y ago
  And it's had a consistent presence in Stranger Things on Netflix, helping expose it to a younger generation who missed out on the D&D moral panic, BG/NWN, the first movie, and so on.
theoriginaldog 3y ago
You missed a lot in the last 5 years, DnD has become huge. Not in the video game sector, but thats why the huge DnD fanbase is craving for a good video game and BG3 delivered. I think most buyers are actually driven by that and not BG nostalgia.

dageshi 3y ago

I think a lot of games over the years have borrowed elements from DnD and so there's a massive audience out there of people primed to be interested in the real deal when it arrives. The fact it had such a great reputation from the fanbase who'd been playing it in early access probably pushed a lot of people to go ahead and get it.

CamperBob2 3y ago

They've also done a great job marketing it. I've seen ads and references to it in places that normally wouldn't cover RPGs.

gmerc 3y ago

I think you underestimate GenX/Y and our love for the time when games were not micrtransaction laced dopamine engines BG2 was, for almost all of the 2000s, one of the highest ranked games of all time.

ls612 3y ago
A lot of it is also that lots of big AAA non-live-service games were delayed by the lockdowns of 2020 and this year is when their releases have all piled up.
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thefz 3y ago

You forget Larian's charisma. Some comical undertones (especially in DOS 1), likeable characters, fun dialogues... the reasons are many. And DOS2 had the best combat in decades.

wlesieutre 3y ago

I've made a habit of not buying games at launch anymore. Most of them are nagging me for microtransactions (rant: don't like that word for repeated $10 purchases on top of a $70 game, that's not "micro" at all), they require an internet connection for single player, or are otherwise full of bullshit that to me makes them not worth $60+. This one doesn't do that, so I bought it! I've never played any of the previous Baldur's Gate games, but I did play Neverwinter Nights (2002) so I have some nostalgia for computer D&D. Haven't tried the multiplayer yet, but I probably will. I heard there are some kinks to work out with drop in/out characters, but maybe that's just how it's going to work and you're expected to commit to one group the whole way through.

phyrex 3y ago
Thang’s, that’s good to hear. I’ve been incredibly disappointed with diablo 4 for that reason!
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Yeah there's lots of reasons I didn't buy it, even though I enjoyed a lot of Diablo 3 and thought the Diablo 4 beta was fun enough. I got D3 after the expansion unfucked the loot drop rates that had been tuned super rare to drive people to the real money auction house. Fingers crossed that Diablo 4 will eventually be on sale for $30 and have reached a point where it's worth that much. That's my price cap for anything with always online single player, and I can't see that being fixed. Maybe I can be generous and bump it up to $35 now to give them 50% of the launch price.
theoriginaldog 3y ago
I think I just like different genres of games, because all the games I bought at launch in the last years never had these issues you describe. Zelda, Elden Ring, God of War eg.

taurath 3y ago

> But also there have been a load of really good CRPGs in recent years and there seemed to be a pretty low ceiling to how much interest they could get CRPGs aren't a genre, but RPGs are. wRPGs like Mass Effect, Fallout, TES, The Witcher are some of the most popular franchises in all of gaming. Then you have jRPGs like Zelda, Elden Ring... The ones you listed are similar to Divinity & BG3, but the fact is the games are either on the extreme end of hardcore (Pathfinder especially), or are made without the production values or marketing. You've got examples like The main difference that would still throw a lot of games is that BG3 is turn based combat, but I'd argue that with the dialogue, branching trees etc its more akin to Mass Effect or Fallout. Ultimately its its own thing, and it is a well crafted game, in a setting that many core fans already know and love.

snird 3y ago

Me and my friends (5 in this case) bought the game yesterday. It had nothing to do with "brand power" - we didn't even know it was DnD. We just bought what seems like a great game with no bullshit microtransaction. I think you are overanalyzing it.

lamontcg 3y ago

> DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. I'd say you're understating this and it is actually strengthening a lot. For example google trends shows "dnd" taking off: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22dnd%22&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22dnd%2... It is actively trendy right now.

lacy_tinpot 3y ago

Wasteland 3 seems to be always left out. It's an incredible rpg that deserves more attention imo.

PurpleRamen 3y ago

I would put BG3 easily in the top10 of most anticipated games in 2023. Even if one does not know the franchise, the amount of articles and mentions in the last weeks was a good sign. Especially as it was an Early Access-Game, and not something that just drop from a void. So people already knew for a while that it will be pretty good. But I guess, especially because of this, it was also easy to filter out if one is not in the bubble.

caskstrength 3y ago

> There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games (if not time to play them). I don't think that demographic is driving the sales. Anecdotally I hear/read fans of originals mostly complaining about how this is some turn-based reskinned D:OS with Zoomer-oriented Critical Role-themed writing and VO.

orbital-decay 3y ago

There's a lot more to it than just Larian. It's mostly about a niche community developing into a mainstream one, and the public growing tired of the same stuff. After the golden age of late 90s, CRPGs went into shadows of a very narrow niche until maybe 2012-2013. Larian were unlucky enough to work during that winter, and their games weren't particularly successful, although well known in the niche community. Pure RPGs were always niche, and it was hard for them to survive because the market has been split into AAA and indie, leaving no space for anything in between. Then the non-mainstream communities like RPG Codex produced several indie RPGs like Age of Decadence which also piqued curiosity of the people outside of the niche who grew tired of the constant stream of shallow same-face sandbox action soups with RPG elements like Skyrim. Larian in particular decided to have their presence on RPG Codex and 100% cater to their desires. They crowdsourced Divinity Original Sin development and implemented almost every reasonable advice RPG nerds gave them under their own vision. The result was a solid and fun game that was a breath of fresh air in the context of 2014. Since about that time, pure RPGs formed a much larger following that steadily grew over the years. The current sales are mostly because the genre itself got popular again - without it they couldn't have possibly reached those numbers regardless of the quality of their game, as they never did in the previous 2 decades. 2011-2014 were transformative years after the massive boredom of the "next-gen" treadmill of the mid-late 2000s. CRPG is not the only genre that benefited from that. Military-like sandbox games skyrocketed in popularity, giving birth to various offshoots like Battle Royale; soulslike games multiplied; there was even a short revival of arena shooters, although not really successful.

lobocinza 3y ago

> But those games were generally less accessible, mostly not multiplayer, and again lacked the brand power. Creative Assembly's Total War series had good and popular games but their popularity exploded when they made a Warhammer game despite the original fanbase preferring historical games and many hoping for a TW Medieval 3. Most games with the Warhammer IP at that time were mediocre at best. So brand doesn't carry on it's own and it helps when your target audience has nothing else that they might be interested to play when your game is released. Diablo 4 sucks and Pillars 2 was released in 2018.

raxxorraxor 3y ago

Success can also be relative. I am not a huge gamer anymore, but from what I noticed, this year wasn't really filled with many large releases yet and some that came out, like Diablo 4, are found out to be the soulless crap many more wise consumers expected it to be. So people might just be hungry for some quality games again. Also the studio was already known for quality and some of their own brands were already quite successful, making them more or less the top CRPG developer that also brought a lot of innovation to the genre. Although Baldurs Gate certainly is a brand that draws additional people. I could imagine that their other games will also get in the focus again when people are finished with the new title. That said, all the games you mentioned were a success I believe. Maybe not that large, but I think they all were "surprisingly" successful compared to many AAA titles that wished they were.

albrewer 3y ago

> Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker I nominate adding Torment: Tides of Numeneria to this; I discovered it's a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment (which I never got to play); I had never played a CRPG before and I could not put it down until I was done.