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Larian boss says 'Baldur's Gate 3 effect' "sucks"

Larian boss says 'Baldur's Gate 3 effect' "sucks"

The head of Baldur's Gate 3 maker Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, has said he wasn't happy with some of the more negative effects the game's launch had on other titles.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the development chief lamented what was dubbed 'the Baldur's Gate 3 effect', whereby the eagerly-anticipated RPG dominated the market, leaving little room for both triple-A blockbusters and indie releases.

"It sucks," Vincke admitted.

"There's a game called Stray Gods, and they were affected. They had to move their release date as a result of us. It was this cascading effect, right? It would really have been much better if we would all know each other's release dates up front because there's always that secrecy around them.

"I think there's room for a lot of games, but you don't want them to come out at the same moment in time. You need to try to get a little bit of wiggle room. And it's hard, because it's oversaturated in games. So, yeah, I'm well aware that that is the case and I apologise, actually. It happened to us, so I know exactly how that feels."

Vincke also articulated why he isn't in a rush to grow Larian Studios in the same way that other comparable developers have in recent years.

"I have expressed a strong desire to the teams not to grow," he said.

"The teams have told me in extreme detail why we needed to grow, so there's that fight going on right now. I'm actually the one that is trying to hold it back. And they have legitimate reasons why they want to grow it, because they have ambitions they need to achieve, so we're trying to keep it sane."


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.