To be clear, he seems to be talking about the reboot. I don’t know if he feels the same way about 3 and 4 from the article.
I may argue that going from the reception of the end result he may not be wrong. Whether that would have been true of the team that was making the two games people actually like or why they went from that to Agents of Mayhem is not something I have an informed opinion about.
He’s definitely right that the industry isn’t throwing money at the wall to see what sticks anymore. That kinda sucks for innovation on high end games. You really need a big, established publisher to take a big gamble on a well planned project to even have a shot now. It makes a lot more sense to start small and build through iteration (or just make a million meme games and hope for a REPO or a Lethal Company).
He’s definitely right that the industry isn’t throwing money at the wall to see what sticks anymore.
Depends on what you mean by “the industry”. The indie scene is doing exactly that. Every flavor of game in every type of combination is being done right now, all at the same time.
That’s exactly the state of the industry I’m referring to. Indies are effectively brute forcing creativity with a firehose of smaller games, either self-funded or supported by a few indie publishers, but nobody is funding efforts along those lines with higher budgets. Unless your name is Kojima, I suppose.
AAA studios are bleeding money out of every orifice because nobody gives a shit about their bland and boring games. BG3 was where the potentials started to show, but it’s going to take another few years of studios tripping over themselves before the ones with actual cash are going to start investing elsewhere.
BG3 is the triplest of triple-A. It’s a four studio game with a budget in the hundreds of millions, a major IP license and half a decade of development. If we’re going to use the term we’re going to have to agree on what it means.
Also, everybody is bleeding money right now. It’s not a creative issue. The financial situation has changed. If anything, the AAA guys are still raking it in. Fortnite and Call of Duty are making tons of money. It’s the middle of the pack that is suffering most.
BG3 is the triplest of triple-A. It’s a four studio game with a budget in the hundreds of millions, a major IP license and half a decade of development.
The budget was $25 million for BG3, not hundreds of millions. It is not a “four-studio game”. It’s ties to D&D are far far easier to license than most IP, since it’s literally called the Open Game License.
Concord cost $400 million. The latest CoD game cost $600 million. Starfield was $200 million. The latest Assassin’s Creed was $300 million.
If anything, the AAA guys are still raking it in.
Ubisoft is in trouble. EA is in trouble. Games divisions for Sony, Microsoft, and WB are in trouble. These are all AAA studios, not the “middle of the pack”.
They went from a hundred to four hundred devs across a five year dev cycle. Unless Baldur’s Gate was developed by minimum wage workers it was NOT done for 25 mill. Depending on what the average salary on the seocndary locations is, it’s more likely anywhere between 3-5x of that at least, not counting marketing budget and other costs. I guess you’re correct about it not being four studios. Larian actually has studios in seven locations. And it is NOT developed unilaterally by Larian under the Open Game License, it’s a WotC-backed game on a licensing deal years in the making.
Larian isn’t small and BG3 is a HUGE goddamn project of gargantuan scope. It’s as AAA as they come. It’s amazing, I love it, but it’s a AAA game or the term has no meaning.
I’m also pretty sure the Concord and CoD figures are inflated. Concord was stuck in development hell for a long time, but some of the numbers out there are way too high. For one thing people are claiming it was in development much longer than it was (the studio didn’t even exist at the time some of the reports claim it started development). That thing took about as long to make as BG3, best I can tell. It’s also, incidentally, originally an independent game. The studio only got purchased by Sony after they ran into issues. It wasn’t a first party game for most of the time it was in development.
People are stuck in the 2010s when they think about how the games industry is put together, where the money is going and what “AAA” means. It’s leading to this weird mismatch where they think the only things coming out are five franchises from traditional publishers that are driving a fraction of the revenue and playtime across the industry. You want to know what the majority of the games industry is in 2025? Fortnite, Roblox, GTA Online and Call of Duty. Minecraft on a good day. It is insanely top heavy right now and players are sticking to forever games and not moving to anything else for a decade.
It is getting increasingly exhausting to see the online narrative rant and rave and dogpile over whatever punching bag they’ve decided arbitrarily is the big bad moneybags of the week based on who knows what while the real userbase consolidates around a handful of games they won’t even acknowledge existing. The general feeling around the industry is of depressed desperation and with the userbase as stuck in random hatefests as it’s always been (because man, has gaming’s fanbase always been toxic as hell) I don’t know what reverses things.
This idea that anybody with a few million of funding can just turn around and make Baldur’s Gate is not going to destroy all of gaming, but it sure as hell won’t help. There are many good lessons to take from BG3 (and a few bad ones), but the reality is the investment is gone, is not coming back in the same way anytime soon and it’s going to be Balatros all the way down until something changes. IF something changes. Gaming as we remember it may have a comeback, but it’s no guarantee. It could also just become the next comics industry or music industry, and depending on how it goes, my patience with this line of argument will likely shift as well.
That is at least plausible, even though they don’t mention a specific source so it’s impossible to know if it’s accurate and whether or not it includes marketing or just development.
But however you want to cut it, nine figures is absolutely triple A territory. I was a well grown man when we were scandalized at games starting to break 50 mill during the PS3 era.
That said, I don’t believe the numbers in the billions being quoted for some games are accurate, either. At the very least people are being quoted the entire studio overhead, not just the cost of the game, and in some cases almost certainly just reporting incorrect numbers.
To be clear, he seems to be talking about the reboot. I don’t know if he feels the same way about 3 and 4 from the article.
I may argue that going from the reception of the end result he may not be wrong. Whether that would have been true of the team that was making the two games people actually like or why they went from that to Agents of Mayhem is not something I have an informed opinion about.
He’s definitely right that the industry isn’t throwing money at the wall to see what sticks anymore. That kinda sucks for innovation on high end games. You really need a big, established publisher to take a big gamble on a well planned project to even have a shot now. It makes a lot more sense to start small and build through iteration (or just make a million meme games and hope for a REPO or a Lethal Company).
We’ll see where that takes the industry, I guess.
Depends on what you mean by “the industry”. The indie scene is doing exactly that. Every flavor of game in every type of combination is being done right now, all at the same time.
Nobody is “throwing money” at them, though.
That’s exactly the state of the industry I’m referring to. Indies are effectively brute forcing creativity with a firehose of smaller games, either self-funded or supported by a few indie publishers, but nobody is funding efforts along those lines with higher budgets. Unless your name is Kojima, I suppose.
Soon.
AAA studios are bleeding money out of every orifice because nobody gives a shit about their bland and boring games. BG3 was where the potentials started to show, but it’s going to take another few years of studios tripping over themselves before the ones with actual cash are going to start investing elsewhere.
I guess we’re doing this again.
BG3 is the triplest of triple-A. It’s a four studio game with a budget in the hundreds of millions, a major IP license and half a decade of development. If we’re going to use the term we’re going to have to agree on what it means.
Also, everybody is bleeding money right now. It’s not a creative issue. The financial situation has changed. If anything, the AAA guys are still raking it in. Fortnite and Call of Duty are making tons of money. It’s the middle of the pack that is suffering most.
The budget was $25 million for BG3, not hundreds of millions. It is not a “four-studio game”. It’s ties to D&D are far far easier to license than most IP, since it’s literally called the Open Game License.
Concord cost $400 million. The latest CoD game cost $600 million. Starfield was $200 million. The latest Assassin’s Creed was $300 million.
Ubisoft is in trouble. EA is in trouble. Games divisions for Sony, Microsoft, and WB are in trouble. These are all AAA studios, not the “middle of the pack”.
They went from a hundred to four hundred devs across a five year dev cycle. Unless Baldur’s Gate was developed by minimum wage workers it was NOT done for 25 mill. Depending on what the average salary on the seocndary locations is, it’s more likely anywhere between 3-5x of that at least, not counting marketing budget and other costs. I guess you’re correct about it not being four studios. Larian actually has studios in seven locations. And it is NOT developed unilaterally by Larian under the Open Game License, it’s a WotC-backed game on a licensing deal years in the making.
Larian isn’t small and BG3 is a HUGE goddamn project of gargantuan scope. It’s as AAA as they come. It’s amazing, I love it, but it’s a AAA game or the term has no meaning.
I’m also pretty sure the Concord and CoD figures are inflated. Concord was stuck in development hell for a long time, but some of the numbers out there are way too high. For one thing people are claiming it was in development much longer than it was (the studio didn’t even exist at the time some of the reports claim it started development). That thing took about as long to make as BG3, best I can tell. It’s also, incidentally, originally an independent game. The studio only got purchased by Sony after they ran into issues. It wasn’t a first party game for most of the time it was in development.
People are stuck in the 2010s when they think about how the games industry is put together, where the money is going and what “AAA” means. It’s leading to this weird mismatch where they think the only things coming out are five franchises from traditional publishers that are driving a fraction of the revenue and playtime across the industry. You want to know what the majority of the games industry is in 2025? Fortnite, Roblox, GTA Online and Call of Duty. Minecraft on a good day. It is insanely top heavy right now and players are sticking to forever games and not moving to anything else for a decade.
It is getting increasingly exhausting to see the online narrative rant and rave and dogpile over whatever punching bag they’ve decided arbitrarily is the big bad moneybags of the week based on who knows what while the real userbase consolidates around a handful of games they won’t even acknowledge existing. The general feeling around the industry is of depressed desperation and with the userbase as stuck in random hatefests as it’s always been (because man, has gaming’s fanbase always been toxic as hell) I don’t know what reverses things.
This idea that anybody with a few million of funding can just turn around and make Baldur’s Gate is not going to destroy all of gaming, but it sure as hell won’t help. There are many good lessons to take from BG3 (and a few bad ones), but the reality is the investment is gone, is not coming back in the same way anytime soon and it’s going to be Balatros all the way down until something changes. IF something changes. Gaming as we remember it may have a comeback, but it’s no guarantee. It could also just become the next comics industry or music industry, and depending on how it goes, my patience with this line of argument will likely shift as well.
The best source I could find on this was IGN and they claim a $100 million budget for BG3.
That is at least plausible, even though they don’t mention a specific source so it’s impossible to know if it’s accurate and whether or not it includes marketing or just development.
But however you want to cut it, nine figures is absolutely triple A territory. I was a well grown man when we were scandalized at games starting to break 50 mill during the PS3 era.
That said, I don’t believe the numbers in the billions being quoted for some games are accurate, either. At the very least people are being quoted the entire studio overhead, not just the cost of the game, and in some cases almost certainly just reporting incorrect numbers.
Yeah cheap loans are done worldwide which always hits the midweights the hardest.