Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Starfield is lame - Bg3 is going to win GOTY - Taking bets.

Was surprised to see this article: Starfield Is Bethesda's Lowest-Rated Game On Steam (https://www.gamespot.com/articles/starfield-is-bethesdas-lowest-rated-game-on-steam/1100-6518009/)!

I would have thought that would be Fallout 76!

So, apparently, the price is already down to near half. Bethesda oversold and underdelivered.

Though, honestly... I don't understand the thought process of people who expected a different sort of game. I'm yet questioning if I should be surprised at all that interstellar fights are this disappointing, and planet exploration that repetitive. That is exactly how it should be in Fallout 4 in space. If it kept every weakness of Fallout 4, why not these ones?

I stopped being excited about Starfield the moment I learned it's a Bethesda game, and for once I wasn't a Grinch but absolutely right. Critics should have known. -- at latest! -- when they failed to advertise any sort of cohesive story. Instead, it was all hype and no "let's keep expectations low, this will 100% be a lukewarm game". It's not a *bad* game to people who expected nothing. Just thoroughly mediocre. A true 5/10 game, maybe a 6.

It's still the same price on Steam.

As I posted earlier I think it's a result of metacritic "syndrome ". As in some people just look at the score instead of reading or watching a review.

Also a 7 out of 10 is still "good" on most review sites. Also I think it's only video games where some will look at a 7 as a failure. 7 out of 10 for a movie or other forms of entertainment people would still be happy with.

Yes, not everything can or should be a 9+/10. There is no reason to expect an exceptional game as default, especially when the company has a horrible track record in all aspects required for a 9/10 space game. 7/10 is rather generous. Perhaps true for fans. For people not interested like myself to start with, 5/10 to 6/10 is still not "unplayable". Just not something I'd step outside my genre box for.

Sure but the same can be said for most games.

I'd give BG3 a 9 or 9.5 but I really like the gameplay. Someone who might not enjoy the type of game won't regardless of how amazing I think it is. I've seen people call BG3 boring.

Its $35 (Xbox version) on Best Buy. This means they are trying to unload a lot of unsold copies taking up inventory space. Since the game is available on Gamepass, I’m sure this was a deterrent to many purchasers, just because it makes it so much cheaper via subscription.

And I would say for a studio like Bethesda, 7/10 is absolutely a failure of a sorts. The game is probably not a financial failure (though it might be underperforming since they are only telling us how many players and not copies sold, if the copies sold was good they’d say something) but given each of the last 3 games (Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Starfield) has scored lower than its predecessors, that must be an alarming metric for Bethesda. If this continues, it will affect sales.

Which Best Buy?

The ones by me have it at full price. Just curious

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/starfield-xbox-series-x/6548060.p?skuId=6548060

The premium upgrade is $34.99

Icelyn's article gave some links. "Where to buy Starfield". After checking them myself, the claim is, however, false. The premium edition upgrade is 35$ and requires ownership of the base game. You can't buy Starfield itself for 35$.

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

Get Starfield for 35$? Pffft, I know where you can get it for free.

Jokes aside I'll say this, winning GOTY/being popular/selling well was and will never be (on its own) an indicator of quality. There are a lot of things that sold well or were popular but are utter and complete you know what. Transformer movies being a prime example of it.

When it comes to Starfield, I've honestly enjoyed some parts of the game (Ship building and SysDef questline comes to mind) but I don't think its good. Just your usual Bethesda game that will probably be enjoyable in few years when all the DLCs and mods come out for it.

I saw that too. Not sure how Starfield got lower ratings than Fallout 76 since Starfield is clearly the better game.
Anyhow, I've enjoyed my time with Starfield so far. And once Bethesda realase proper modding tools Starfield will reach the next level.

But right now between BG3 and Starfield, BG3 is cleary the better game and more deserving of the GOTY award.

I dont want to comment to starfield because I don't played it.
But if the devs will not do anything with difficulty.
And if Eldenring's expansion will come out and will be as big as the base game. Then BG3 will have a a monster of competition. Hopefully they have some time till Goty to change this.

Sure, you are welcome to speculate, that is what this is about.

- You mentioned the review situation a few times. I always thought the reason was obvious for doing that. If they are being forced to release an unfinished build, and they know Act 3 is where the holes are then slowing down the reviewers is a strategy for getting ahead of that. Seems to have worked but I don't know why it's relevant, I don't think anyone here is arguing that Act 3 isn't unfinished.

- I don't have data on Starfields demographics or Bg3's demographics - but that is where I would start to make a point that Starfield was a threat to the release of BG3. I am betting the marketing team at Larian would know if this was the case. I only saw Starfield as the last possible contender for GOTY based on multi-platform, long development time, huge resource pool and a company that had made games that won GOTY in the past.

- One of the things I am trying to get at here is showing there was motive, and leverage for Hasbro to be the one to insist on the accelerated release date and that Larian may not be happy with the relationship between them or at least the licensing agreement.

- At this point whether we see another FR game from Larian is going to depend on Chris Cocks being able to sit down with Larian and work out a better agreement.

- The other thing I was trying to show is that Larian has a lot of leverage right now. Hasbro needs Larian more than the reverse. This is GOOD news because it could result in the kind of changes that would allow Larian to develop the platform along the pathways they want. A licensing agreement is a contract that can contain all kinds of restrictions when it comes to development of the property. Larian really wanted that IP and I think that put Hasbro in a superior negotiating position when they first made the agreement.

- Hasbro has clearly struggled to monetize the D&D IP much to their frustration. Explains a lot about how TSR behaved.

Bethesda went into the F76 launch with more goodwill than they went into the Starfield launch with. This time around they had eroded that "benefit of the doubt" and goodwill to the point that people were fed up.

The negative reviews - in part - are a condemnation of Bethesda as a whole and their past failure.


Having played Starfield, it really feel like the correct valuation of the product would be around $29.99. That it's $60-$99 is a travesty.

*cracks knuckles*

In context to that post, it was showcasing the different ways pushing the release a month early was made for financial reasons. If you know the last Act is shaky, ensuring that you 'get ahead' of reviews and patching quickly is a financial decision. You said both that you saw no reason for Larian worry about Starfield and had enough money to not need to release BG3 early for financial reasons. Clearly, their sales numbers DID matter when it came to the impact reviews might have on it, so the assumption that the other moves MUST be caused by something else like a license agreement or 'just because' independent of Starfield is an assertion with no basis.

I say 'just because' as you previously stated that you saw no reason why Larian would move up the date to avoid Starfield. Now you have apparently done a 180 on your stance saying that Starfield was a threat to BG3. There is no point for you to make here. It is MY point that I made already. Please pick a position and stick to it so I can avoid posting redundant messages in the future.

I know what you are getting at. However, Occam's Razor is a thing.

1) Sven is on record for expecting vastly more modest numbers from BG3. It makes 0 sense for Hasbro/WOTC to be pushing Larian for a 'win' that the head of the company has no problem admitting they didn't expect.

2) Unless we're assuming both Larian's and WOTC's legal teams are wildly incompetent to not set expectations for release, and I don't see why we should, you are left with the fact that by law, Hasbro/WOTC cannot arbitrarily cut Larian's time short on the development of BG3 to boost revenue numbers. It makes no sense for them to even ask for it, given point 1).

3) If Hasbro/WOTC had a release date that they needed BG3 out by, that would have been stipulated in the contract from the very beginning. That is how it worked for Obsidian making Fallout: New Vegas, for example as well as other contract work (and Larian would also be paid for it with funding provided). It's been in development for 6 years. You went to a lot of effort of reminding everyone that the current CEO has only been in his position for 1.5 years. There is no 'win' he needs to show, because the agreement was not done under his watch. In fact, Sven said that they would release it 'when it is right' back in 2019.
For a bonus round
There was also the announcement that it wasn't leaving EA until 2022 at the earliest since the game needed more time. All signs point to Larian already had the control they wanted over the production side of the project, including the release date. They did their own marketing, their own funding and I don't see a reason why Larian would agree to anything that signs the control they clearly wanted over the project away and less reasons that WOTC would have been in a position to demand it. The 2019 interview includes Merles, the WOTC rep who describes the partnership and it was things like going over maps of the area, lore, classes, etc. Not what engine Larian was using, or game design decisions or milestones.

4) An IP license agreement has restrictions on the usage of the IP, permissions for how the IP can be used and royalties for using the IP. It would be a strange world where it also crossed over into dictating the development pipeline. Obsidian's contract was not an IP license agreement. They were hired for contract work.

Clearly, something went awry and while you are free to blame Hasbro/WOTC, I would like to make it clear to the thread that this is a position full of holes and given the lack of sources for financial numbers when asked multiple times, it is clear that it is also simply untenable. The simplest answer is that eventually BG3 had some manner of scope creep where they could no longer afford to continue development and had to set a release date, necessitating in hasty cuts and continuing their 'last act-itis' trend with an unpolished Act 3. Manipulating reviews and hoping to patch quickly is a band aid on the wound that is a latter half of the game tripping over it's own feet and being unable to stick the landing.

Sure, that's great, again you are welcome to speculate. You think I am trying to win an argument, but I am just introducing an alternate point of view based on solid data points. My biggest challenge was really getting to the point here where I would be allowed to introduce that alternate point of view without interference. That has been accomplished, so I am done.

I don't think you have the full picture of things any more than I do, and the thing is I am comfortable with the ambiguity.

Also, you make a lot of emotional accusations in the above about I said this or that which I am not in agreement with, as well as a lot of statements without any proof - anecdotal versus empirical - but I think it would be a mistake to engage with that anymore, and would just cause more drama. So given that there is nothing more to discuss I would say it's best to leave it as is and continue with our separate points of view.

Is there something preventing you from keeping what you said straight? I did notice your lack of response earlier to the last time I had to quote you saying what you said you didn't say.

We can read the thread.

As for my statements, I have a lot more proof than you do. Anecdotal vs empirical is for statistics, qualitative and quantitative data. The reason why BG3 released early is not an experiment. I also did not claim to know everything, just that my explanation is a lot more likely than yours. I do not believe you can say 'speculation is fine' and then attempt to say what I was providing was "anecdotal" and not empirical and therefore didn't count, while not matching the level and quantity of support for your view point.

You have yet to produce these solid data points. Considering your history of just forgetting about your arguments when pressed about evidence, I am very skeptical about how solid they are. Your data points is that Hasbro/WOTC is not doing well financially = they pressured Larian into releasing early and Sven's statement. If said statement implied anything about Larian's relationship with Hasbro, someone on the internet would have picked up on it already that you could post. You have not, therefore I can only conclude that it doesn't exist and I am not inclined to believe it on your say so that this is a valid interpretation. If you have nothing further to contribute, then yes, we are done here.

Also, please stop referring to every argument you have no rebuttal for as 'emotional'. Not only is it wholly unfounded, it's bad faith.

Just take the L.

Maybe true, as I understand it, the most egregious problem with FO76 on launch was the complete lack of NPCs with stories, dialogue and reasons for you to care about anything in the world.

IMO, FO4 was quite barren in that respect as well. Outside the main story and faction stuff, I remember there not being a lot of side content with real stories and dialogue. Whereas Starfield has a huge amount,ranging from very simple tasks to multistage quests, but all involving talking to characters and getting their perspective on things so you can decide if helping them suits your character or not. I’ve spent almost no time wandering aimlessly on planets or picking up generated missions to go and kill a bunch of dudes in some random base (tried it a couple of times).

As with Skyrim, it seems the best plan is to do a little main story and then sod off to have your own adventures. The formula isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Shipbuilding is a thousand times more fun than settlements in FO4. Since it just costs money (with better modules unlocking by level and to a lesser extent, the relevant skill), it gives you an actual reason to earn cash that was missing in their previous games.

Also their version of NG+ and how it links with main story is quite interesting IMO. I don’t usually bother with NG+ and usually prefer to start from scratch, but I’m enjoying taking the same character back to start to doing different things with or occasionally repeat the same quest with foreknowledge.

In short, it’s a Bethesda game that does things the Bethesda way, but it’s good one IMO.

This has been EVERY Bethesda game ever made so the fact people keep acting surprised to me shows a disconnect with reality. Further this is the same issue seen with pretty much any game released in the last few years, even to some extend BG3. They over sold the amazing depth of potential endings and then Act 3 seriously under delivers.

Yeah, F76 on launch was also a buggy nightmare. The No NPC's thing was a really bad design decision though.

I came back to F76 a few years later and tried to play it co-op but it just wasn't designed for that either it seems. F76 didn't know what it wanted to be and that's one of the reasons it failed despite incredibly good sales numbers. It also had ALL the exploits and trolling.

If they had focused on making it a solid Co-Op Fallout game that could also easily be played single player then it would have worked great.

I'm glad you like Starfield and I hear Ng+ is interesting at least.