How Baldur's Gate 3 Humbled AAA (And What's Next!)

often at launch day that's when a game actually hits its peak concurrence that is not seemingly the case for Baldur's Gate 3 because after I published our video it kept going now the peak player number is 814 000 and that does mean that it's firmly entered the record books it has displaced Apex Legends a free to play game it has also hit a stream game Goose goose duck as well so now it is the eighth highest concurrent player number game ever on Steam rather hilariously he had told his I.T Department to prepare for 100 000 people playing the game over the weekend well that did not happen but I'll tell you what is happening and it's pretty awesome it's our sponsor boot.dev I mean hell their Founders or viewers of the channel and code ballular news gets you 25 off now boot.davrite is a programming RPG that makes learning back-end development fun I mean it's got XP quests levels achievements a global leaderboard even leaderboards by week so you can like I mean compete with other users now 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which is going to be a different conversation to if it does vary or very very good but we do need some sales if we don't have any it'll be like what you would expect for a studio we'll see we're dependent on the market like any company is and this is a market that has rewarded a lot of things and I think what's interesting is that this is a sort of game that if it were made by a lot of the other larger AAA Studios that one could perhaps say have movie have cinematic Ambitions where everything has got to you know Nathan Drake moving that rope around that tree's gotta look perfect there's a lot of overt gaminess and even a little bit of Jack you're in there of the systems just being very out there and in your face Ballers Gate 3 is not afraid of being a video game and is not afraid of being a digital translation of a tabletop RPG and still with that it has produced some of the highest numbers we have ever seen in this industry now staying with the computer RPG there is an interesting touch Point here here's another quote from their CEO yo we've seen in the past other games we're very successful in Early Access and then on the day of release they didn't sell that much more because they were saturated already it's the idea of like yeah Early Access already reached all of your players he said that was his biggest fear now this is something we've actually talked about with pillars of Eternity to post crowdfunding pillars too God it's crowdfunding but then very notably for obsidian they just didn't really have the follow through and eventually it was Phil Spencer and his big old bag of cash that rescued them out of that hole but ultimately then this is what happens when you dramatically exceed expectations you absolutely blow up past who you originally expected your game to find I think that's what's happened here and rather shockingly even with those insane concurrents it was a fairly smooth launch yes there were problems with moving from Early Access over to the full version in regards to preloading the game that kind of sucks and there were bugs even though for most people it was a very polished experience but with just how big a game this is and how systemically intertwined it is bugs are absolutely going to be a thing and as an example here they have actually pushed two patches to the game nearly fixing 1 000 bugs yeah that's how many absolutely mad now as I move us into the body of this video now that we understand the success here I mean I'll I should just mention it's been very nice seeing many team members of larion kind of getting to have their Victory lap right this has been an absolutely incredible probably career defining moment uh for so many of them but now the things we've got to talk about are essentially one of the core reasons why this game is so successful the power of game systems niching down in specialty and then the micro transaction situation because there is technically one fairly interesting microtransaction in this game just it's one that two and a half million people basically already have and maybe don't even know that they have but beyond that that there are none on going through those Steam Reviews you constantly see people talking about price point and business model OKAY systems driven success how to actually pull off something as Herculean as this when you take a team tools and effort from previous developments and remember they have been making role-playing games of a few different formats but pretty much like this one for a very long time when you take that and you use it to build something new with all of your skill and all of your tools you can make something exceptional that truly resonates with your audience and generates proportionately excellent sales and it's the sort of thing we could talk all day about games where a shift of mechanics or a change in Team Dynamics has resulted in a different experience right one that can't really bring the full weight of a prior success to bear it's the whole thing of maybe you try you know you're the band you're trying to do your follow-up album you want to change your music a bit and oh dear there's maybe some faltering steps but the thing with Larry in here is everything has been aligned for them but on top of that they've had particular strengths number one they were able to license a globally recognized brand in the form of DnD now this is actually quite big for a number of reasons DND has exploded in the cultural Consciousness we've now got as an example stranger things fairly major thing particularly massive I know at least in like American culture we've got David Harbor running around killing a big thing with his big sword that you look at it it's comically large and then you remember oh it's a dungeon's dragons reference d d has been pretty much everywhere not even having to mention the likes of critical role exploding onto the scene and also Larry in benefiting from the very handy thing of having a big Studio Movie certain Dungeons and Dragons uh happened just before this game came out of course they're able to quite naturally piggyback off that General brand awareness and marketing that's all really strong then they were able to risk Early Access right and that meant they were able to make the most of their development time now I don't have the exact numbers but I believe moving from already access to full release was pretty much them putting like two-thirds of the game in like it was a pretty enormous amount of content so that'll mean that even for the people who have been playing through Early Access launch day still felt like launch day so remember their CEO was worried about that kind of thing worried about Early Access cannibalizing their launch I think that's because a lot of games they blow up into Early Access and then they crawl to Laura towards launch and launches a milestone whereas here launch was truly a very very massive content release as well now what's also interesting is this bra genre we've got alcat games of course working on Pathfinder Wrath of righteous as well as the upcoming Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader these are both ttrpg adaptations into modern crpgs right and in both cases these are games that also launch with Early Access periods where players were gradually given additional content while the team got very real feedback about the game and the systems as they build more they test more the game becomes more stable the audience gets a better experience Word of Mouth grows here's a really good example our game the pale Beyond whenever that was coming out like we did a lot of testing beforehand and just whenever you have like 20 000 people playing your game in like a week or two or whatever it ends up being you just learned so much more you get to fix so many bugs now imagine that happens during during Early Access where you're not going to be heavily punished for that in your review score so that by the time you flip it over to launch and have a humongous content release you can pretty much guarantee I won't say a bug-free experience I've had one or two hilarious cinematics where characters have just been talking while they're floating in midair but you know I don't really mind too much but still for a game like this which is an absolute worst nightmare for bugs it is uh crazy just how past the experiences ended up being now it's of course not something unique to crpgs the idea of doing your Early Access period that well you know we've seen sons of the forest do that quite well battle bit remastered Starship Troopers extermination of course Dave the diver another fairly large success here and the thing that binds all these games together is they had development that comes directly out of the work that the studios had performed previously as well as successfully banked audiences and resources to spend on development I think this is absolutely the the big lesson here these are all developers who have kind of I don't want to say they're staying in their Lane that almost seems a bit rude but a really good example a game that I adore is Battlestar Galactica deadlock right and it is definitely a small scoped game but it gave me that slice of the Galactica universe that I'd wanted and the thing is it was really an adaptation of the developers previous game but it turned out all that expertise meant that they could really nail it with Battlestar Galactica deadlock this you know moving from Divinity original sin 2 over to Baldur's Gate 3 it is just that absolutely wrote large the important thing here is that all of these games that I'm talking about are ones that have to be finely battle tested because they are heavily reliant on system based interactions and Rule sets if you're building your game on a lot of systemic interactions and you have your own tool set that supports all of that then you're actually looking at the sort of game that can I don't want to say scale infinitely with your budget that's like a bit of a crazy thing to say but you do get a form of very highly scalable game and I'll shoot an example at you this is one I used earlier in the office right so you know you're playing say a naughty dog game I'll just use Nathan Drake and his rope or Ali in the hose right and you know you're maybe wrapping the hose around a tree or the winch or whatever it is and the level of detail and perfectionism that's went into that's absolutely crazy now what that means for them is if they want to do something it has to reach that quality bar whereas in a game like this because it is so driven by systems and player imagination you think about what you want your player character to be able to do you're able to pretty much go for I don't want to say the bare minimum in terms of animations but the fact that it's all systematized in the way that it is and especially if you're getting to use like your dice rolls and stuff it just allows you to make a lot more content and to deliver on way more elements within the gameplay fantasy I would essentially say that by really leaning so heavily on being a DND adaptation they're able to get like a lot of elements of the immersive Sim into this setting I think that's what people are finding to be particularly joyous in how the game actually lets them Express their creativity through the actions of their party now the thing is that in Early Access larion gave people access to uh act one of the game I'm sure you've seen the tweets people are like I'm 56 hours in and I've just got to act one pretty crazy that's what a game like this actually enables that's dozens of hours of gameplay but of course only a limited portion of the story and that essentially means that the systems that the entire game would hang off those get to be fully tested while they're still able to do a lot of the narrative and the content somewhat in secret and that essentially means the combat the conversations the various different interactions the things that are actually really how you interact with the game those get to be polished a hundred percent even though they're only being expressed through say 30 of the game's content and that is essentially a large part of why things have been so damn successful and now as somebody who's planning out the budget of a video game um for the thing that we're doing next I'm certainly thinking about do I want to do an early access and if so how can I benefit from doing development like this rather than Early Access immediately and then a crawl to a milestone rather than Early Access and then a humongous explosive launch with an absolute ton of content and so I think the Core lesson is just gameplay gameplay gameplay they were able to focus on that for so much during the war two and a half three years of Early Access and while that of course doesn't guarantee success I think it does guarantee them the best shot that they can realistically do and that's why it's worth going back to that quote from their CEO just making a good game that understands play is not necessarily enough because as he said we're dependent on the market like any company is and even with all of those positive development factors they had banked up they're still a company they still need to sell you a product so what about the business model how that is actually resonating with people and this is at least one of the ways the game has been praised across the board this is what's Been memed Everywhere across the internet you probably saw it in the thumbnail of today's video are there any in-game purchases no there are no in-game purchases in our game we believe in providing a complete and immersive gaming experience without the need for additional purchases enjoy the game to its fullest without any additional costs or microtransactions that's what we want to hear one purchase no extra cost it's all perfect because I think what we're actually getting to is a sense where we just want to buy the game and think we actually own it now maybe that's not the case here right we own a license to the game and steam or whatever it is but fundamentally speaking back in the day you buy Morrowind Morrowind is yours there's nothing else to it you buy whatever you shoot is it's yours there's nothing else to it you pay for your World of Warcraft sub you have the whole thing the amount of nickel and diming that has went on over time and if you want to see some nickel and diming in Activision Blizzard products including World of Warcraft oh we've got a video Coming For You perhaps tomorrow perhaps the day after but we're all just so tired of that that a game like this is so completely refreshing good example I've been absolutely uh loving the brief amount of OverWatch 2 that I've played because I really enjoy how the game actually feels I think the modes are fun I like the characters and I really like that Mythic Tracer skin I think it's really cool but because it's done in a fomo battle pass what initially was set up is oh I suppose I could grind my way through that and get that cool skin that I suppose I would like to have now because a little bit of time has passed because real life got in the way and I think a stick of ram in my computer died so I had a bunch of blue screens I've just abandoned the season because I now cannot realistically hit that goal and that now means that the time that I did spend in OverWatch 2 feel tools wasted because it was framed in that goal that then outside circumstances got in the way of you know me grinding for which now means I can pretty much never get it without ponying up and spending a whole bunch of money on tear skips this is the opposite of that experience and that is why people are so excited but the thing is saying no microtransactions in a way it still is uh it still is marketing and it is a sad sad thing that now we have to Market games based on these things these trappings of the modern industry that they do not have that being said there technically is some DLC in the form of the digital deluxe version now just go over what it has it has the Divinity Bard song pack a PC or PS5 dye skin paintings from Rebellion collection adventurer's pouch collection which is supplies and potions to get you started a digital soundtrack for the game digital art book digital character sheets that go into depth for each character and as well as uh just some like you know cosmetic thing so that's pretty much the situation there I mean even if you look at the reviews of the DLC the reviews are all very positive almost saying hey I'm happy to give you money so yeah you know technically there is a DLC but that's absolutely not to throw them in with Blizzard or whatever this is not a case of nickel and diming I mean imagine a situation where you just got generic Bland armor but then you know if you wanted armor that leaned into a particular aesthetic that's then the cash shop which is exactly what's going on in in Diablo 4. so ultimately then they're in a very strong position right now it's out on PC we believe the Mac version will be on the 6th of September along with PS5 not 100 sure then of course PS5 will be in September now that later date is uh quite interesting they moved the launch of the game forward so they're not competing with star field I think that's undoubtedly a strong move I mean I'm sure more bugs could have been fixed in time for launch if they didn't do it like that but I think they were fairly right and feeling confident now on the top of the PS5 Baldur's Gate is at the top of the PlayStation store by sales so yes suffice to say then I mean it actually kind of makes sense you think of something like this it is more you know it's almost in the name crpg computer role-playing game this is more of a thing in PC right so actually splitting those launches up is probably going to build quite the little hype train for the for the PS5 players which I think is kind of interesting as for future content for the game then it's been quite refreshing what they've said there is nothing in the works now there's a few interesting things there the power cap level 12 for d d is to stop players from getting Godlike powers that would be a nightmare to implement but also it's because following up on the thousands of permutations of ending for Baldur's Gate 3 would be a very unsatisfying thing for players unless done well that is extremely hard to do and uh of course also having worked in a game with many different endings it's one of those things as a player it's very easy to see oh I could see what you could do next but then like as the developer sitting there knowing every permutation of the ending of the game that you did you're like oh this is going to cost all the money in the universe just to do a small amount of content because beyond that ending everything is so exponentially more expensive unless you perform some sort of you know quasi-narrative reset conceit such as say the Normandy getting lasered and Martin Sheen shaving command or saving not shaving saving Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 2 which is like their conceit to kind of reset you again you'll note that something that BioWare did in Mass Effect 2 and in Mass Effect 3 and even with that they did have quite a few challenges actually representing all of the particular character relationships and things that a player would actually want now as I've already said then on the topic of DLC and that sort of thing I've learned in the past you need to be careful announcing things but before they're ready because sometimes you have to cancel them because it just doesn't work out we could work on an expansion and it could be boring and we should stop working on it and that's because of the continuing something that's boring then they would have to sell it to people because I mean you spent all those millions of you know millions of dollars you're kind of gonna have to get something out of it anyway and then we'd have to say here's a boring thing and we want you to buy it that would not be cool so we have the freedom to experiment and do our stuff and when we're ready to announce it we will and that is a refreshing thing to hear we have a complete experience and they now have the freedom to follow up on that in whatever way they see fit they certainly are going to have a large burn of cash they have 450 employees that being said this seems to be an unbelievably outsized success and especially because this is a self-published game look and steam developer layering Studios publisher layering Studios now what's kind of interesting here is there's a concept called cost of capital right and that is how much it costs for you to get the beans the beans that you need to develop your game they now are going to have a massive war chest of cash but actually here's the thing you're not going to directly invest that cash what having that very large War chest can actually do is decrease your cost of future Capital because you are now a less risky thing you can perhaps get money at a better interest rate Point here is this is such a big win for them and it's self-published it being self-published and yes there will be licensing fees with Wizards of the Coast of course that'll be a thing um but if this was say a game that they published with Electronic Arts say they're an independent studio right um this would be nowhere near as good for them because with a publisher right you know let's just say you're taking a secured loan from A bank well that's ultimately going to be like all right if you can't pay up we're going to liquidate your assets then they liquidate your assets and you're set with a publisher the game could fail their investment could go to zero right and that means because they're taking on board that risk the cost of capital for you as a as a studio going to a publisher that's actually going to be really really really high you know you are going to be probably paying off the budget of your game a few times over to your publisher um right because of you know just how expensive that money will be right the terms of whatever the deal is and and you see when you're getting into like AAA sized games that still are independently published like oh man some of those deals some of those deals are spooky so the bit here that's really big then is basically for me it's about cost of capital about how they just get to be an independent Studio that can do whatever the [ __ ] they want that's the thing that makes it powerful look at CD projekt Red for them it is the exact same thing now I do think that they've had publishing agreements for some of their games um you know on like different platforms and stuff but I don't think that has actually involved development budget and it will be that large chunk of cap needed for your development budget that you know is really going to make you have to go out there and take on money in a way that's pretty expensive whereas now they'll be able to raise cheat debt against their War chest or even spend some of their War chest I guess um it basically just means that everything that their CEO is saying about the sort of Freedom they can now experience as a studio it really is true so much of that will be allowed for by I mean buy a few things number one they've been likely a very good cash position given that very strong performing two and a half million copies sold Early Access period with the game launch now being so successful I mean I'm sure they had excellent plans anyway now they truly do have a lot of freedom and I think for me that's what's particularly exciting about them so there you have it Baldur's Gate three I think as it stands go out there and enjoy I'm only a few hours in because ah man it's hard to find time and this is a big game so hey enjoy playing that over your weekend I'll try to a few hours in and with that said thanks for dropping by and I'll see you tomorrow [Music] foreign foreign

Channel: Bellular News

Views: 139,621

Keywords: bellular, bellulargaming, bellular news, game industry, industry news, videogames, gaming news, game news

Id: vmX1NLR81-8

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2023