To summarize the actual tweets/comments/etc that these videos (there are multiple) are panicking about.
Smaller studios aren't going to be able to replicate the scale and complexity of BG3. So people shouldn't be using BG3 as the bar to compare future titles/RPGs from other studios going forward. Larian is comparable in size (or even larger) to Bethesda when they released Skyrim, and no one has been able to compete directly with Skyrim either.
Not all games and RPGs need to be as complex and long as BG3. Expecting open-ended, 100 hour-long RPGs for every future game/RPG isn't realistic. Not all games require that scope, it's rare to get such a budget for this type of game, and even if you did, most companies won't be able to replicate the game in a meaningful way. Just like how companies other than Rockstar would struggle to replicate the scale of games like GTA and RDR.
There, I've summarized multiple 20 min videos. Just without all the hand-waving and drama.
It seems the summary of most of the posts are "smaller studies can't create games as big as BG3" and "not every game/RPG needs to be as big and complex as BG3".
Are those responses incorrect and how is that being critical of BG3?
If anything, they are critcizing the idea that BG3 is the game all RPGs need to strive to be.
"I would not be surprised if this was more dev effort than the next 2 or 3 games in the genre combined. It's Rockstar-level nonsense for scope.
Only a few studio groups could even try this. I cannot wait to play, but this kind of effort likely won't be replicated this decade"
Yes the original starter of the thread Xalavier Nelson Jr. has a very fair point that this can set a standard for indie games however most people have big problems when these complaints are also coming from other AAA developers. James Berg works for bloody microsoft one of the largest companies that is absorbing huge portions of the gaming industry in a monopolistic pattern. Josh Sawyer is a Design Director for Obsidian who is a company who basically follow a very similar path as Larian, its just they sort of failed with their Pillars of Eternity series especially after Deadfire. Maybe Avowed will turn out well but their recent stuff has not found much favor at least in terms of RPGs.
BG3 is what AAA development should be if it was about making good products but at the end of the day these companies are here to make as much money as possible. I mean there is nothing wrong with making money but its clear many publishers have been pushing quite hard on consumers to paying more for less. As long as gaming budgets are this expensive we should be getting things of this quality more frequently but its not likely. I doubt we will see anything close to BG3 from Bethesda with ES6 a game they have teased for nearly 5 years now with almost nothing beyond that little teaser.
Like gamers especially RPG gamers just want a complete game. Its clear the success of BG3, DOS 1 & 2, and Owlcat's pathfinder games show there is a clear market for this. It just needs to be handled with well.
Plenty of games are "complete" and have a similar or larger scope then BG3, and they're not getting the attention that BG3 is getting now. On the other side of the coin, people really responded to Disco Elysium, and a lot of that had to do with what they did within a small space. If all I wanted was "big" and "complete", I'd be interested in Starfield, not Baldur's Gate 3.
I think you are confusing my term for complete with big and shallow. BG3,DOS2, Disco Elysium did well with their confines. The world felts very reactive to your decisions as a player and there is connecting sinew to most of the game with itself. Starfield and Bethesda's game are in a way glorified puddles they may be miles wide but typically underneath there is very little depth to it. Typically modders are the ones who add the depth that Bethesda didn't want to deal with. So you basically have a game where the puddle dips in an irregular fashion. This was honestly the biggest problem of CP2077. It was just a huge puddle, it had a fantastic writing for its main and side stories but almost everything else was pretty meh. I rather they just had a smaller world but pack it fuller with far more cool stuff than have vast spaces of nothingness.
No, I thought you were saying that a game was incomplete just because they added an expansion pack to it at any point, ever, which is a definition I find to be pretty absurd but plenty of people use. In this case it sounds like you're saying that some games are incomplete just because you prefer a modded, remixed version of the game rather than the one they actually made, which is a definition I'd also disagree with. Large swaths of empty space, particularly in Elder Scrolls and Fallout, is an aesthetic and design choice, among other things, and more or less reactivity may or may not mean that there isn't as much depth in the story, but those games have other strengths, like build variety, exploration, and such.
you're saying that some games are incomplete just because you prefer a modded, remixed version of the game rather than the one they actually made, which is a definition I'd also disagree with.
I would argue no, its more the systems in place feel like a first pass. For instance, the civil war of skyrim feels like a very unfinished concept. Its something that was slap together to just say they have it as content. You do a few side missions then a siege and repeat. There is little ebb and flow to it, it is a straight line, you as a player are on a monorail. Your actions have little impact on the world besides what arbitrary flag is being flown. Also build variety of Stealth archer? There is very little reason to change your playstyle compared to DOS 2 or BG3 where your different classes/attributes do have a major factor in how you solve encounters. The teleportation gloves of DOS 2 are the perfect example of how equipment can easily change how people interact with the game. Sure we don't need games where there are exclusive routes but the common Open world approach is keep it as open as possible. Like cyberpunk 2077 suffered from problems with the empty space that Witcher 3 didn't because you are on the hunt for recipes for new armor sets and witcher potions.
Hell even some of the games I recommended do suffer from some mechanics not hitting well. Pathfinder Wrath of Righteousness had some issues like the crusade minigame since it feels like the devs said hey would it be cool if we had a HOMMlike minigame in our already packed crpg. That sounds badass but the minigame wasn't that fun however everything around it was phenomenal like the troop recruitment even though it didn't matter had some very interesting talking points and choices. Like you pick the lich route, should you use death row inmates as undead meatshields to liberate your nation under assault of demons. Like it didn't hit well but it felt like the mechanic was thought about and had effort put into it from other sections of the game. It isn't some isolated system that is just there.
I am not a fool who thinks expansion packs are the devil. Hell I am in favor of hefty expansion packs since I remember when you got 1 or 2 and that was about it for the game.
None of what you said makes those games incomplete though. It's just something about it that you didn't care for. The systems are hardly a first pass; they've been making that game for about 15-20 years before Skyrim, and they're not going to deviate too far from the formula for Starfield either, I'll wager. It doesn't mean they didn't finish making it. They've finished making games that way over and over again.
Those aren't criticisms of Larian or Baldur's Gate 3. They are opinions that creating games at a certain scale isn't something developers can just replicate at will. Just like Rockstar games aren't something any studio can't just go out and put together.
It's like how someone would argue that not all books/novels need to be as long and complex as the Song of Ice and Fire series. Not all books need to be like those books, just like not all games need to be like BG3 (or GTA or RDR to use the other comparison).
BG3 is what AAA development should be if it was about making good products but at the end of the day these companies are here to make as much money as possible.
I think the quality of game, and lack of monetization, is certainly something that AAA games should strive for. I wouldn't agree that all AAA needs to be as big and complex as BG3 though. Just as Elden Ring being a great game doesn't mean that all similar games need to be massive and open-world in the same way.
Those aren't criticisms of Larian or Baldur's Gate 3. They are opinions that creating games at a certain scale isn't something developers can just replicate at will. Just like Rockstar games aren't something any studio can't just go out and put together.
It's like how someone would argue that not all books/novels need to be as long and complex as the Song of Ice and Fire series. Not all books need to be like those books, just like not all games need to be like BG3 (or GTA or RDR to use the other comparison).
Except my point has very little to do with complexity or how long it is. I rather a game be short than waste your fucking time, we don't need 200+ hour games. It is one of those things I hate about modern gaming where if a game is less than 20 hours of enjoyment it is worthless to many. I want quality yet many AAA studios don't pump out the best stuff. Halo infinite ended up as a trash fire that didn't respect its players and has basically been put down because of pointless money grubbing. Every Ubisoft game follows the very same formula make a large empty world where you clear towers.
We as gamers should strive for games like BG3 because they were quality works that were made for the enjoyment of the player. They aren't meant to fuck with you and hand over your wallet. Hell one of the biggest games this summer was a fucking roblox Battlefield game. People just want to play a good game that isn't trying to always nickle and dime them. Its a plus when there is complexity but its not a requirement for it to work.
Edit: Larian is a studio that has basically been the poster child for "crowdfunding" and I personally am fine with that. This can be what happens when we support studios with an idea. There will be a ton of failure but crowdfunding has brought many top tier indie games especially in genres thought dead in modern gaming (FTL, Divinity Original sin, Shovel Knight, Wasteland 2, Superhot, Yooka-Laylee, Night in the Woods, A Hat in Time, Elite Dangerous, Ready or Not, etc.)
We as gamers should strive for games like BG3 because they were quality works that were made for the enjoyment of the player.
But that's what the comments that people are taking as "criticisms of BG3" are talking about, and is the context for the video from OP. There aren't developers saying "High quality games shouldn't be the standard".
I asked for examples of developers criticizing the scope of BG3, and you replied with examples. I guess I'm confused as to how I was supposed to know you weren't talking about "complexity or how long it is" (aka. scope)?
But yes, if your point is "developers should make good games, and not bad games" (yes, I'm being reductionist) then sure, I agree with that, but that's not really what I was trying to point out, and that's not what the video was about.
I think saying you can make 2/3 games out of the effort of 1 is a more cynical approach of you should be milking your consumers, you don't need to put this much effort into the game when 1/3 of that would have been "worthy" of release in the modern AAA space.
Since yes in a reductive point I'm just saying "Make good games, not bad ones idiot AAA devs" I'm just anti devs (more realistically publishers) trying to milk consumer's wallets.
To give more context, last week, the team behind TurboHUD released a version of this overlay tool/mod for Diablo 4. TurboHUD helps keeping track of your progression, your performance, and allows you to add quality-of-life improvements to the user interface. This mod was also available for Diablo 3, and a lot of gamers were using it.
A UX and progress tracker is getting people banned. How fragile is Blizzard? They're probably afraid this will somehow give people an unfair advantage for those leaderboards that won't exist for at least 6 more months.
I assume its less about what the mods do and how the mods are doing it. It's an always online game (whether you think this is a bad thing is a separate issue) and there is a PvP component, which means things are going to be more locked down from a mod/cheat perspective.
The article itself says the same thing.
In a way, this does not really surprise us. After all, we’ve been constantly saying that you should be using mods only when playing a game in offline mode. And, since Diablo 4 does not have an offline mode, PC gamers should avoid using even simple mods like TurboHUD.
To be "fair", given that for better or worse it's an Always Online game, it's easier to just say "NO MODS ALLOWED, END OF STORY" than to deal with the hassle of strictly defining what is and isn't kosher and dealing with the inevitable rules lawyering from people trying to argue how THEIR MOD is special and doesn't break the rules.
If you want to kill modding you can fuck right off. Mods are not the issue here. Corporations not paying you because they used AI instead of a voice actor is the issue. Modders were never going to pay Victoria here for anything.
I'd call AI-generated mods one of the best applications for AI-generated voice samples. It is extremely unlikely that a fan-made mod is going to ever get the original voice actor onboard, and without those voice actors, any mod necessarily cannot fit in with the rest of the game.
We could have a world where modding just doesn't happen, in general. But if we're going to have mods, that voice synth makes it practical to extend games that otherwise could not realistically be extended by third parties in a seamless way.
It's possible to make textures that fit in with original environments, or to model things that do so. Or to write text. But people are pretty good at distinguishing between voices, and so without the ability to do computer-synthesized voices for mods, one can't really create modified speech for existing characters.
I'll also add that I'm skeptical that at least the US is going to treat AI models trained on something as intrinsically creating copyright-infringing derivative works, though I don't know for sure what the EU will do. However, even if one assumes that some jurisdiction does decide to treat models as a derivative work, there's a fairly straightforward way to continue to distribute mods that I would expect should remain legal, and has happened in the past to avoid distributing copyrighted assets: distribute them as a patch against the original work.
It is legal for the end user to modify a copyrighted work that he owns. So if I distribute a patch that takes in Voice Actor X's base-game audio as an input and then takes them as input to generate new ones, well, that's not a legal problem for copyright. Copyright only deals with distribution from one person to another. I can create all the derivative works I want myself -- as the end user -- as long as I don't myself distribute them.
In fact, while it's probably not a very CPU-efficient way to distribute it -- going to waste the world's electricity, do another Bitcoin -- one approach might be to just distribute Tortoise TTS or whatever it is that people are using to generate the audio, as well as any marked-up text to regenerate, then just have the regeneration run on the end-user's computer to generate the mod using the original voice assets. Tortoise TTS has expensive generation, but unlike, say, Stable Diffusion, where the training process requires a lot of computational capacity, has very rapid training time on a new voice. Would be bandwidth-efficient, at any rate.
But point is, that is unquestionably legal, and still winds up in a place where the end user has the mod with the same new voice data on his computer.
And given that, I don't really see the point in trying to prohibit distributing the AI-generated speech files, from the standpoint of someone who is trying to block someone from playing a mod for a game using AI generated voice, because that player is going to wind up in basically the same place regardless of which route they take. It's maybe marginally more-obnoxious to take the full regeneration route, maybe have to run the "regenerate the mod voices" process overnight, but it's not going to generally stop the player from getting and playing the mod.
With how shitty Blizzard has been the past few years, this may be a positive. I'm not saying I trust Microsoft but I certainly don't trust Blizzard to anything outside of Warcraft anymore. They even mess that up every other expansion.
Just like Cyberpunk 2077, I will wait for this game to be worked on and get it for a discount later. I learned my lesson long time ago, not to buy big AAA games at launch.
Same. I think cyberpunk is almost done, so I’ll probably grab it when it gets down to half off. We’ll see if Starfield is any good after they finish it in 5 years or so.
Of course, it’s not just like cyberpunk. Cyberpunk had excellent writing, good pacing, and an overall fascinating story with technically good writing. It just was immersed in a game that had many issues for many people.
Star field is almost the exact opposite, it’s technically functional, with a hollowed out uncooked unseasoned potato for a story.
I wasn't saying both games are similar, but more comparing the situation both games not worth buying day 1. Developers adding new functionality, features and iron out bugs and performance issues. If I like the core gameplay and story, that's another story. But just like with Cyberpunk, I will wait for the game being worked on and buy it later for a cheaper price.
Unfortunately considering how many of these gamers are willing to pay extra $30€ just to get 1 week earlier access to a game, I'm afraid you are wrong in this regard and we're going to see prices go up even more. Piracy is also dying, either because of groups disbanding or getting sued, or because of DRM getting better and more widespread, and once that is gone it's going to let publishers jack the price even higher up.
I'm pretty much resigned to just play indie and AA games at this point, there's no way I'm paying 60 or more for these broken, bloated and often overpriced products. There are few exceptions but even they will be driven to higher prices eventually.
I pretty much exclusively buy AA at this point, with the rare AAA nintendo 1st party title that I'm happy to pay $60 for. Most AAA games though just aren't worth it. Some of those games coming out you couldn't pay me to play.
There are so many tbh, really depends on what type of games you're interested in. I've really enjoyed remnant 1 and 2, owlcat pathfinder games, VRising, Riftbreaker, Timberborn, Against the Storm for example. All made by good dedicated studios that deserve your money more than EA, bioware, actiblizz or other corpos like that. Of the older titles, FTL, Into the Breach, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, Factorio, Project Zomboid etc are classics - polished games made with love that put pretty much every AAA title to shame in comparison.
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