Baldur's Gate 3 Was A Wake Up Call

I believe that we are being misled misdirected deceived and I believe that it's being done on purpose see we've had this conversation around Baldur's Gate 3 in the state of AAA gaming for quite a while now different content creators that are weighing in Publications as well as different journalists sometimes even tweets but the focus of the conversation continues to shift and it shifts away from the thing that is the most important part of the entire conversation and I believe that that's actually being done on purpose whether some people know it or not see Baldur's Gate 3 was a wake-up call but it's not the first time that we've seen this we saw the same thing with Eldon ring a game that was released to High Praise reviewed well and that the players loved however it was also a game that was highly criticized by developers and journalists judging the game on simple things like UI or its lack of Direction in the world regardless if the players loved those things or not Elden ring was a game that was both Innovative in its game design and also in its World design but more than anything it was a game that provided a significant amount of value to the player and a dense amount of value with that and that's the word that we keep losing track of value and that's the most important thing to us fast forward from Eldon ring to Baldur's Gate 3. a conversation is started about how AAA Studios can't be held to the same standards as an independent Studio journalists PR agencies and other institutions dog piling on the consumer trying to suppress our outrage in response to the state of the AAA industry us asking why can't you make games like larion does and it's not as if we're trying to ask them to do anything new we're just asking them to do what they used to do many of our favorite games favorite franchises started out as larian passionate Studios working on something they love making games that they love playing making something that others wanted to enjoy blizzard Ubisoft EA Microsoft take two Bungie and more used to be known as the companies that you could always buy something from and more times than not it was going to be one of your greatest experiences in a game of value recently I've seen a few others cover an article from gamedeveloper.com titled yelling is not journalism by developer and journalist Brandon Sheffield this is in response to Devin laguirre's video on IGN talking about the shake-up that Baldur's Gate 3 has caused in the developer Community now the point of this video isn't to pick apart the article however I just want to highlight some of the language that's being used because it shows just how far we're getting from the root cause of the issue that's upsetting the customer to begin with and I'm wondering if we're being misdirected on purpose Sheffield's article opens up with there was an opportunity to give players context for WHY games release the way that they do but instead it was designed to incite anger directed at a few devs so Sheffield opens up with a straw man misrepresenting not only Devin laguiri and IGN's video but also the consumer outrage at the same time trying to make us out to be the bad guys as if we're just directing this at people that are innocent and shouldn't be to blame for anything but they know that's not the case our anger our outrage is directed at the companies not at the guys that are working at the desk furthermore this also goes to show just the condescending nature of the industry to begin with that we the consumer need to be educated on how games are made and if we're educated then we'll understand why we don't get finished products why we have to pay full price for an unfinished game why we don't get value for the money that we spend no we don't need to be educated you need to give us what we paid for that's it how is this acceptable in any other industry you don't go to a five-star restaurant only get half of your food and then you're expected to be understanding because oh well there's only one cook that night you don't go to buy a new car and you're told that oh we're still working on the seats in the radio don't worry we'll release those to you later why is it the expectation that we must still pay full price for a game and also be understanding of the pressures of deadlines funding and investor constraints furthermore why is our Focus continuously being reverted to the Polish of a game rather than the value that the customer receives from playing it you can go to a five-star restaurant receive half of the food that you would elsewhere and still get the value for the food that you paid for we see this in Indie single and double A games time and time again Baldur's Gate 3 is a sixty dollar game yet it provides the customer with far more value than many of the games that the AAA industry has released over the last few years and it doesn't ask us for any more money or make any excuses even when the conversation first broke out on Baldur's Gate over on Twitter again the discussion was boiled down to polish and scope rather than valuable experiences why did the players love Elden ring it's because they felt that their time was valued playing it they felt like they got their money worth out of the money that they spent on the game they had fun playing the game time and time again we're told these PR lines from Publishers and AAA developers were sorry we're listening we hear you but they're not because if they were listening then they would understand that we're not doing this just because we're trying to complain now we're doing this because we want to save them they're the makers of some of our favorite games of all time but the problem is is that the more profit driven that they become the further they get away from the passion of making games in the first place it's like a gem collector turned mining outfit they used to do it for the love of the gems that they were collecting but now they're just mining for every resource they possibly can get out of it and now all they're going to be left with is rocks until the eventual collapse of the mine Sheffield goes on to explain the rocks that we get saying in abstract here's a big part of it games release in imperfect States because devs either run out of money or shareholders of their parent company mandate that the game must come out in a certain window which devs have no control over they run out of money trying to make the best game possible in the least amount of time devs rarely control their own budget and are trying to make as much cool stuff as they can with the time that they're allotted in short for one reason or another they are often forced to start selling the game in order to pay for the completion of the game this has been done through DLC patches Early Access and yes even micro transactions for ages because of rising expectations for AAA and because big studios are beholden to financial year results and reporting to their investors devs burn through their life force trying to make this happen and It's upsetting to see this brought up with absolute in curiosity and this is it this is exactly what I'm talking about this misunderstanding that we the consumer blame the developers that are working at the desk when in fact it's the company who we direct our dissatisfaction towards we see it for what it is productivity being pushed by overpaid CEOs and the shareholders they answer to that want to provide as little value as possible to the consumer for as cheaply as possible while also selling it for as much money as they possibly can now even Sheffield is sold on the corporate narrative that it is our responsibility as the consumer to soak up the full game price so that they can finish making a full game later just to appease investors make up for their poor planning their misuse of resources and their lack of vision within their leadership moreover why are we giving micro transactions a pass like oh guys you know it's totally wholesome they're just doing it because they need to be able to fund the game and you know keep the servers up and things like that when we know that's not the case otherwise if it was then why are they using such manipulative tactics when they're using microtransactions in the first place things like loot boxes locking valuable items behind battle passes making some of the best cosmetics in the game only purchasable from the shop they know the tricks that they're doing obfuscating different currencies within the game from our actual dollar to make sure we don't know how things actually add up if it was being done for such wholesome reasons then why are you implementing it in such an unwholesome way I think that's a word if that's the case then how about the 1.2 billion dollars that Activision Blizzard made in 2021 on microtransactions alone did that money go into making Diablo 4 a complete game or OverWatch for that matter no it didn't I think Xbox perfectly encapsulates what's wrong with the gaming industry and how it's losing focus don't get me wrong I love Xbox I Love Game Pass I think it's one of the best things that the entire industry could do for consumers however Xbox is putting all of their focus into how they deliver games and stay ahead of the market rather than making sure that they are delivering high quality games great games and games of value they chase the smoke of live service titles pressuring Arcane to make redfall they neglected the oversight of 343 working on Halo infinite just assuming that they would get it right even after consecutive failures to capture the magic of Halo think about that they let Halo become an afterthought in the gaming industry one of the most influential games of all time the game that popularized FPS controls on a controller a game that at one time was a pop culture phenomenon and now what happened how did that happen because they were more concerned with becoming the Netflix of Gaming and it's not just Xbox whose focus is shifted it's almost every single AAA company epic games doesn't even make games anymore they just run off of the fumes of Fall Guys fortnite and Rocket League micro transactions EA pimps out every single game in their Library outside of the rare gems like Jedi Survivor it takes two in the Dead Space remake Ubisoft sells XP boosts in single player open world games and don't even get me started on Activision Blizzard that horse is beat so dead so hard that they call Bug fixes season two in Diablo 4. so while these companies continue to release unfinished games because they can't beat different deadlines that are set by their investors or time constraints or money constraints or whatever it is while they continue to lose focus because they're paying attention to more profit driven incentives than anything else we the consumer have to soak up their misdeeds by paying into micro transactions battle passes and worse and that's supposed to make our games better but by the time any of these games actually do get to a playable state or God forbid make them enjoyable they're already almost coming out with the next game anyway that doesn't seem like us helping to support them make better games that just seems like us being taken advantage of that seems like the consumer being programmed to continue to pay for things that we're not getting our money out of and it's making it an expectation how many times over the last few years have you expected a game to actually work day one on release without any issues if you're anything like me it's a flip of the coin and when the coin landed on heads and it ended up actually working properly it was a surprise and I think to myself maybe they got it figured out but we know that's not the case if Eldon ring was the flash of lightning then Baldur's Gate 3 was the Thunder that followed a classic turn-based RPG dominated gaming headlines it turned heads and it held attention reviewers applauding the game as a resounding success despite the lack of Polish in the later third of the game why is the game that good that it's so far above everything else that we've ever seen well that's something that's a matter of opinion personally I think it's one of the greatest games that I've ever played but I enjoy tactical combat High fantasy and optional multiplayer but why did it reach such a wider audience simple widespread consumer dissatisfaction players are absolutely exhausted of live service models in-game shops buying skins micro transactions everywhere in the entire game unimaginative design games constantly stealing the mechanics of another game and while that's completely fine in some different ways I feel like every open world game is an Ubisoft game now you wonder why we love Elden ring or Baldur's gay three or tears of the Kingdom it's just because they're well made good games it's as simple as that there's no strings attached it's not some crazy thing that you need to be able to Divine I've seen five or six different apologies from developers or Publishers over the last year just within 2023 trying to figure out guys you know we hear you we're listening uh you know we'll fix things we promise no you're you're not listening because if you were then you would understand why we are praising these games in the first place it's just that they're really good games that's it and we just want you to go back to doing what you used to do which is making really good games you know the thing is is that they can't and the reason why they're apologizing the reason why they're running around with their heads cut off is because they are trying to constantly figure out ways to be able to match the monetization of the game with how the player is going to play the game how we're going to enjoy it act man brought it up in a video of his we talked about how Diablo 4 everything in the game has to be scheduled in a certain way how fast we level up how fast we find items how fast we find gear that we like that looks on us all those things have to match the monetization the battle pass all of those things they all have to coalesce and combine that's incredibly difficult to do especially when you're trying to make something that's actually enjoyable to play earlier I talked about how different institutions and Publications or journalists were pushing back on the gamers and are outcrying our outrage and how they were dog piling on us dog Pawling on our needs and The Narrative of the pushback that we have against the profit incentives of these companies and how we want better games and more complete games according to the business research company the Global Micro transaction Market will grow from 67.9 billion dollars in 2022 to 76.6 billion dollars in 2023 which is over 30 percent of the estimated 200 billion dollars the gaming Market will earn in 2023. it's really profitable being anti-consumer especially when you start cost cutting and you're also not held responsible for the state in which your games are released I mean they have turned our understanding that creative projects are difficult to make and our iterative processes in their design and made it into a normalization that we must buy unfinished products and wait for them to patch it or release more content in the future all the while they're stealing resources from places where they need to go and what customers really end up paying for is the 80 to 100 million dollars that they're spending on marketing budgets for these AAA games and it really doesn't help that our Regulators those in government aren't working to protect the customer mostly because either they're too old to understand or because they're incentivized not to through lobbying to protect the interests of investors and these large publicly traded institutions luckily there are some countries like the Netherlands who are moving to ban things like loot boxes and what's great about that is it makes it really difficult for these companies to be able to release their games and well just about anywhere once other people start giving them even the slightest amount of pushback by prioritizing profits the makers of our favorite games our most beloved games of all time are losing touch with their customers while they may not see the immediate effects of this because the silent majority continues to buy their games and interact with microtransactions we're seeing a slow shift spurred by the vocal minority when you see a classic RPG based on Dungeons and Dragons explode onto the market breaking all-time records on Steam you're seeing a greater shift in the market social media is much stronger than the AAA industry some of the most popular videos on YouTube and Tick Tock are those complaining about the state of Diablo 4 OverWatch war zone Destiny 2K and more the virality of that movement goes past the vocal minority and into the wider Market as economic strife and Rising inflation make it more difficult for people to buy luxury goods they're far more careful with their spending they do their research and when a simple Google search reveals how people just don't trust your game or your company customers are far less likely to make purchases regardless of how you try to manipulate the market through Nostalgia or through marketing I brought this up many times on my podcast which is every Sunday 2 PM PST right here on YouTube by the way but crypto games never stood a chance and they never will and the reason why is because they are based on monetization no matter what they do they have to start from the monetization first because well it's in the name it's a crypto game it's not a game it's a crypto game and because of that they'll never actually be anything because what game what great game do you ever remember that they ever started from how are they going to sell it how are they going to monetize it the inspiration for most games that we've all enjoyed have always been somebody's great idea that it was something that they themselves were going to have fun playing a valuable experience that they would enjoy and that's the whole point of this video that's the whole point of what this conversation should be is that we just want to have valuable experiences and have our time valued for playing the games that we get now I've seen a lot of people try to parse out and say you know I give a dollar per hour value for the games that I play you know if it's a 70 game and I get 70 hours out of it then yeah you know that's that that was that was a good game no it doesn't necessarily mean that did you actually value the time that you spent in that game will you remember it was it enjoyable there's tons of games you can spend 60 and 70 dollars on and not enjoy doesn't mean you got your money out of it it's not how that works I just want good games that's all we want we just want our time valued we want the money that we spend for the game but we want it to actually mean something in the first place it's really not that complicated and I don't understand how it's so hard to be able to communicate that to the developers and all these different conversations that we've had I want to experience what it was like playing Halo for the first time again or adventuring in Eldon ring or Ocarina of Time it's really not that hard and I don't understand why they're making it that hard other than they just want to make it seem that way so that we just keep giving them money and that they can take advantage of us and if that's the case and that's what they're going to continue to do and that's the path that they want to choose to take that's fine but they will fail because we will go places to actually get valuable experiences your Call of Duty will stop being purchased once somebody makes a game that has a far more valued design something that the players enjoy more and doesn't take advantage of them same thing goes for RPGs arpgs strategy games puzzle games it doesn't matter every single genre that's out there the next time that there's a game that comes out from somebody else that's not taking advantage of the players that provides a better experience because you have lost the vision of what it's like to make good games and not think about how you're going to drain the player for every cent They have you'll lose business and if you continue you'll lose yours that's all I got today I just want to kind of clear this up I wanted to talk about this for a little bit I hope you guys enjoyed the video um I got some more articles and stuff that I'm going to probably cover maybe next week I have a review for Baldur's Gate 3 that I'm going to do I'm calling it a casual Gamer's review that's my thing I'm gonna make the Casual Gamer um make sure you guys follow me on Twitch if you guys haven't before subscribe to the channel if you guys haven't I hope you guys have been enjoying the videos lately I hope you guys have been having a great day or have a great day uh stay cool stay righteous stay safe my friends and uh yeah peace

Channel: Legendary Drops

Views: 215,757

Keywords: Baldur's Gate 3, baldur's gate 3 gameplay, baldur's gate 3 review, baldurs gate 3, baldur's gate 3 обзор, baldur's gate 3 story, балдурс гейт 3, baldur's gate 3 прохождение, baldur's gate 3 ps5, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, baldurs gate 3 review, baldur's gate 3 геймплей, bg3, baldurs gate, baldur's gate, larian studios, baldurs gate 3 classes, baldurs gate 3 ps5, baldurs gate 3 pc, baldur's gate iii, baldurs gate iii, bg3 review, bg3 classes, bg3 gameplay

Id: -aEQ2E3XSl8

Length: 22min 6sec (1326 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2023