Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Swen rolled a nat 20 with that bear sex call apparently.

Know your audience.

I found this entire part of the presentation hilarious. I don’t care for RPG romances, so I’ll almost certainly never going to see this play out in game, but I’m here for that level of chaos and absurdity.

He marketed to gay bros, women, dnd players, furries, and people who love crazy randomness in games.

There a good chance that bear fucking may have just solidified Lariens future. Bravo Swen Bravo

It’s definitely one way for a (relatively) smallish, hungry studio with big ambitions to grab headlines. I admire the hustle.

Smallish for now; not smallish for long.

Rolling a natural 20 is indeed a good way to describe it, though the audience being what it was the roll had a +4 from them.

I like how other companies also seem to have benefitted from it; there's posts from GOG and Beamdog simultaneously mocking and using it for easy extra sales.

It was audacious and has certainly generated publicity. It was a well-executed play.

Correlation vs Causality... is there a game that doesn't go up significantly in sales in after the last big reveal event in the month of its release when marketing starts pushing?

But sure, lets just assume everyone was just waiting for bear sex because and make articles about it because that definitely doesn't generate clicks...

Clicks equal exposure. Exposure equals revenue. That is the formula upon which the entire internet is predicated.

Oversimplified. You can't say that that is the best ploy to sell as nobody even bothers to gain the data why people are attracted to the game nor how many actually saw that clip and said no thank you - and far more important on how many of both sides have actually changed their opinion if they will get the game based on the bear sex. Because that's actually what matters in good marketing otherwise its just exposure.

I'd say sales are booming despite that scene. There are so many selling points about the game that they fortunately drown it out.

Personally, I found the Karlach date, tactician mode and multiple paths to Moonrise to be a much better showcases.

I love how TikTok went; "This is an unsanctioned use of Sexual Energy! All involved will be banned, this disturbance is over!"

I will *never ever* pick the Bear Drylls option, but it was fun as hell.

Right, but also wrong. You can't use your personal opinion be any sort of factor on what a company's business would have been.

There was absolutely no doubt a risk/reward discussion on the scene and the possibility of losing potential customers would probably have come up. However any company will take a satisfied customer over a dissatisfied one even at a 1:1 rate. Better word of mouth, better metacritic etc. This scene more or less filtered this out. Lost sales are bad obviously, but sometimes you have to chose what customer you want. This is not a bland, not going to upset anyone game so getting the right player is important first and foremost

This scene had a laser focused purpose though. Player choice. They emphasised this time and time again throughout the presentation. Every video, interview and lots and lots of the comments I see 'bear' this out. If they're this committed to something I'll never see in my or most playthroughs, what other level of choice will I get in my game?

They got lucky with it actually taking off beyond crpg players obviously, but you definitely have to assume they hoped it might. They seem to have a keen eye for adding the sort of meme ability or scene in the game as they've done it for practically every PFH (salami, throwing gnomes, musical performances etc). They obviously have someone switched on in this department

I mean, it was a dice roll and it did put people off, but no-one can argue it wasn't successful, only that it might have been more successful without it. That's something that people can never know tbh, but tbh if they just went the gay sex scene route for that, we all know some people would have refused to buy the game for that too.

I just wanna know how the conversation to use this scene even went. Who suggested it? How did everyone else react? How did they decide to use the scene in the PFH? I want to know that more than almost any other behind the scenes info.

The only 'fact' in this clip is that BG3 was 'outside the top 75 just a few weeks ago' while it is number 4 currently. The Steam page shows the game as having moved up 70 (with 29 weeks in the top 100).

This page shows BG3 at number 7 having moved up 20 places from last week. If I'm reading this correctly this is the US charts.
https://store.steampowered.com/charts/topselling/US


As somebody has already stated, one would expect a flurry of sales after three major video release a few weeks before launch.

EDIT: On the global sales chart BG3 is number 8, up 17 places after 16 weeks in the top 100.

I'd say, it was successful marketing, Halsin bear memes are all over the internet and suddenly everyone knows about BG3.
Maybe the scene and the memes were for many people reason to inform themselves about BG3 and they liked, what they saw.
And of course at the moment you get news about the game every day.

This scene has strong "I roll to seduce the dragon" vibes. It is exactly the kind of over-the-top silliness that many DnD players have fond stories of at their table. I am almost definitely never going to romance Halsin, but knowing the game is audacious enough to even allow you to make a choice like this speaks volumes about how dedicated they are to making sure the player can do whatever they want, no matter how ridiculous.

This is like saying Starfield sold a million copies after Starfield Direct because it has romances lmao.

1. Anyone that thinks the increase in sales in the run up to a AAA game isn't also accompanied by a marketing campaign in ALL cases during the same period, not only doesn't understand the gaming industry at the highest level, but probably also the entertainment industry also. Marketing is the tool that brings these sales, otherwise no-one would do it. I mean, surely everyone knows this by now, right?

2. This was part of Larian's marketing plan. Fact. The plan was successful. Fact backed up by numbers. No-one is trying to quantify that or saying it was the main reason, merely that it had an effect. moistcritikal had a video on youtube with 1.5 million views about it. Seriously, are people so uninformed about a subject that they don't recognise that one clip bringing so many eyes to a crpg is money well spent? Who knows to what extent but it was undoubtable a factor and I imagine Larian were more than happy with the results

3. No-one is suggesting that people paid £59 so they can have bear sex. In fact my point pretty much suggested why the clip actually translated into sales, backed up by the tons of stuff on the internet talking about it. I mean the fact they highlighted choice so much through the whole PFH shows this is exactly what they wanted to emphasise. Surely uncontroversial?

4. Anybody bringing up Starfield just doesn't understand the basics of marketing. To appeal to the most people for what the devs consider to be the features the players will be excited about. In both cases choice and freedom, but very very different in both games. The venn diagram intersection between BG3 and Starfield will be decent, but nowhere near what say Phantom Liberty is. Again basic marketing. They don't just make this stuff up, you know, it is actually people's jobs

My best guess.