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.
I remember for Destiny 1 there was a figure of roughly 1 billion thrown around. That figure included like 8 years of server costs and future development costs for expansions, which ended up also including Destiny 2. Probably a similar situation for other games nearing that total.
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.
I remember for Destiny 1 there was a figure of roughly 1 billion thrown around. That figure included like 8 years of server costs and future development costs for expansions, which ended up also including Destiny 2. Probably a similar situation for other games nearing that total.
Yep, that tracks. Probably some people mixing up how much funding a studio was raising with the budget of the game’s production.