Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis Larian:Our Future Depends On This Game + Demo News

Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke told in an interview that the upcoming RPG's development cost was very high and that they need the game to perform well to afford similar projects in the future

Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis is an upcoming PC/X360 RPG in development by Belgian dev Larian Studios, set for release later this year. In an interview, the CEO Swen Vincke commented about the development costs of the game and the expectations they have set on it, and the future of the company

"Divinity 2 is the biggest project we have ever developed. The cost of investment is excrutiatingly high. If it would flop, the chances are very low for us to develop something like this again. Especially since future projects would need even higher investments.

He also talked about how the development is going, and the chances of a demo

Expectations are high. We notice that our play-testers are having fun and we litterally have to shove them out the door at night. The game has gone gold in Germany and we eagerly await the reviews and the general acceptance of the game there. Before we can start working on a demo, we have to finish up the international versions and the XBox 360 version though."



If the development cost was so high, it's evident they have lots of expectations set on it, so be sure to check it when it releases later this year. Check some of the trailers of the game in the official site



Source: 9Lives (Dutch)
VGChartz

Well. It's not like going "plz plz buy this game cuz it cost us so much effort" is going to change anything. If the game is actually a good game, I'm sure it will sell well. But if the game is a bad game, it will not sell many copies.

Marketing is also quite important if you want a game to succeed. Both "Beyond Good and Evil" and "Sands of Time" were brilliant games, which got raving reviews from the press. But they still failed because most people were not aware of these games

I've been playing Div2 for a while now, and I really love it (especially the dialogs,they just crack me up, they're really funny and well written). I was actually surprised I still liked the game: since I worked on it for about 4 years, I was expecting to be fed up with it. Man, was I wrong ... So buy it peeps, you won't be dissapointed

I think DTP must works hard to have publish more stuff, gameplay videos, interviews of Div2...beacause I haven' t seen much around...; many gamers don' t know it well...

Good luck Larian

Koen's right. I've gotten some amazing games in the past that I'd never heard of and no-one I knew had ever heard of and that definitely didn't set the sales charts on fire. Word of mouth will only carry you so far.

indeed. The cheapest game I ever bought was Evil Islands, and there are few games I've spent more time playing with. But hardly anyone else has ever heard of that game. Some obscure russian developer.

Evil Islands...sounds interesting.
I think we all agree marketing is the KEY.

I have wanted to get Evil Islands for a long time, since I saw the demo. Never released in the UK though, sadly, so I've never quite gotten round to it. Some day, though...

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DivineGamer - I think you are right.

yeah larian kinda fails when it comes to Public Relations.

look at Dragon Age, or Star Wars The Old Republic.

there must be ten of thousends of people preordering this games, just from the PR work while the games where produced.

and ego draconis?

your started your vids way too late.
if someone doesnt have interest in DD and BD he propably wont notice Ego Draconis.

if just seen some ads in the printed Gamestar mag.
actually not very impressing.

people needs hype, and hype can be only generated while the game is made, not after release.

after release theres to many reviews of diffrent people with diffrent kinds of taste.

Ahemm sorry, but I really think you should take the huge differences between Larian/DTP and Bioware into account

Bioware is an internationally acclaimed trademark and well known in every important market. Every game from them WILL result in a hype, regardless of its actual quality, actual known facts, the price etc.
It's just the name that makes the hype.

But Larian is obviously very different. They are much smaller (in terms of financial capabilities) and they are by far not that known in the world.

So, the marketing and hype around Bioware is not at all comparable to Larian's situation.
Furthermore, I think (not sure) that marketing is organized by the publisher. So DTP is to blame, if you think that the game's marketing strategy is flawed

Bioware has nowadays the money of EA in its back, plus, it is well known among (A)D&D players because of their RPGs.

Larian isn't. And Neither has Larian a huge mother company in their back.

Larian is - compared to Bioware & EA - rather like an Indie developer.


Besides, there are examples of failed, but hyped games, too. Paraworld, for example.

The failing of Paraworld drove its developing studio into extinction, literally.

True Alrik.

Bioware and EA are Software Giants.
Were as Larian are a small company.

Well my advice is that If they have enough money left over spend it on Marketing.
Anyway especially DTP and the English Publisher to get the word around.

Well, first the'll concentrate on the German market.

I fear that this will be the "key market", which is used by them as kind of a "view into the future" of how the game might be recieved by the audience.

Of course, it should be kept in mind that national markets differ from one another. Read my last two or three entries in the "RPG Snippets" (in the RPC Chat (English) on that).

Alrik is right. Some companies only have to put out a small announcement and the games press will pick the ball up and run with it on their own. Bioware and Blizzard probably lead the pack, there, although certain franchises are likely bigger than any company (I'm thinking The Sims especially, here).

For the smaller companies, though, they have one heck of a hurdle to leap over and that is the general indifference of the games press to small publishers. It CAN be overcome as CDProjekt (Amongst others) proved, but you need to hit them with one heck of a whammy to do so.

All indications are that Larian have turned out one heck of a game, but they are still a small company with the obvious budget limitations that entails. They can't just casually throw a few million into advertising the way EA would, so they have to work on the slow build and hope to create enough interest that their campaign catches fire.

Alrik is certainly right that Germany will be the first and most important market for D2. One only has to look at the German language sections of this forum to see that...

The idea behind what I said in the interview is not "our future depends on this so buy this game" - it's an honest answer to the question I was asked - how important is the title to you ? In this industry you're only as good as your last game, especially nowadays, so as a company we cannot afford a slip-up, especially if we want to continue developing this universe and attract investors. Fortunately, I happen to believe is actually quite a good game, and I hope soon players and reviewers will come to share this opinion as they experience . Concering PR & marketing, Larian is a developer, not a publisher, and in the games industry, it's the publisher who manages the PR & marketing. In Germany, the place where the game is coming out first, visibility is quite high, and I hope we'll see the same in other territories soon too. The game definitely deserves it.

So, roughly how many copies do You expect to sell?
Or, how many is required to make a desired profit? Just wondering...

I really hope that this game will get the attention it deserves. After all, quality is worth more than some annoying adds popping up every now and then in my internet-browser.
Good luck with German market!

I live in Canada and would like to now when it will be available here. I love the first game> A lot of Canadians and Americans would love to buy your game but can`t get any information on when or where to buy it. I personly deal with E.B. (Electronic Boutique) but they do not have any information or you can`t pre order that game. If you wan`t to sell your game in this area and you wan`t your company to be sucessfull you better advertize better on this side of the ocean. It will be a good seller in Europe but if you don`t advertize on this side you won`t make the game profitable.

No English publisher has been announced yet; that will likely come before September, when the game should be released (DTP, the German publisher, recently mentioned early September for the English release). Presumably pre-order information and more advertising will be available before then.


Welcome to the forum.

psychonauts is another awesome game that did not sell well. kind of sad.

im sitting here in germany and i already have the game preordered via amazon and im looking forward to playing it hopefully this friday. thats all i can do for you guys lol