Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3 potential sales and what this means for D&D and CRPGS

I think there will be....

*an increase in the number of people interested in CRPGs, which is f***** great,
*an increase in developer interest to make such games, in spite of all the fearmongering, which is also great,
*maybe an increase in the number of people interested in tabletop roleplaying, which is also great, and
*an increase in the number of people interested specifically in D&D, both for tabletop games and videogames, which is not so great.

It's all "great" so long as other major RPG studios don't decide to turn their games into BG3 clones. But the good news for me is that I have supreme confidence none of them will do so.

Here's the bottom line. The very tiny group of you here in this forum who love Larian's games as the greatest ever made and who love to hate on certain other big RPG studios and their games are not even close to being representative of the millions of self-identifying RPG fans out there. There are literally millions of people who LOVE the RPGs made by such studios as CDPR, Bethesda, and even Bioware <gasp>. Games like Starfield, TES6, Witcher 4, and Dragon Age 4 will not just sell millions, but tens of millions. And those games will have very high player satisfaction ratings and will also earn good reviews and awards. Those studios (to include even smaller studios like Obsidian and inXile) are not going to change their game formulas to mirror BG3 just because of a few people's momentary BG3 craze. And thank God for that because I, just like those many millions of other gamers, am so looking forward to games like Starfield, Witcher 4, and yes even very much DA4.

If that "you" was meant to include me, you're very much mistaken. I love all those games (obviously, only those that already exist from your list) and in general, I'm not a big fan of the way Larian does things, except for location design. I like variety and I certainly won't limit myself to games from one or two studios. I just don't think that D&D specifically is a good rule system for a roleplaying game. Tons of people start with it, and so did I, but it is among the systems I like least.

Edit:
I don't think that DA4 will break the 10 million mark, and I doubt it will be good enough to deserve it. I would love to be proven wrong, but I doubt it. Bioware appears to be, rather sadly for this old fan from the time when they made BG2, DAO or ME1, long beyond their time. They survive on old glory, and from the tweets of their staff it appears they don't even know any more what made their old games so successful. We're more likely to get politically loaded non-statements out of them these days.

I think you are building a strawman there. No one pretended that Larian games or even CRPG will become the single and universal standard for gamers. At the very least I am happy that BG3 is bringing those kind of games at the same level than other popular RPGs instead of trying to reproduce deprecated or convoluted systems for a niche.

Lol Bio rpgs have never sold 10 million +. Absolutely zero evidence that awful division will start now.

Um you doo know CDPR basically lost all of its goodwill, right?

All it takes is one bad game.

Starfield will be interesting, I don't think it's going to be a smash hit. It seems to have the issues of the old Bethesda games cracked up to 11. Dead feeling open world zones, weird doll like character models/bad cinematic dialogue.

I dint think the later bioware projects have gotten to the level your talking about here. Maybe all of the re-released of Mass Effect 3? But none of the others are close to that a cursory look showed Andromeda and inquisition sold around 5 or 6 million.

Its also stolen the news cycle from Starfield.

Unless it somehow replicates 76's flaws (very very very unlikely given it is singleplayer experience in Bethesda's ballpark), Starfield will undoubtedly be a hit. A huge hit. Starfield will, at minimum, perform as well as Fallout 4. At maximum, it could dethrone Skyrim. Let's remember that Bethesda makes a specific type of game that virtually no other studio can make. TES is THE highest grossing RPG franchise of all time, and no one else even comes close. Anyone who thinks Bethesda is not a juggernaut in the RPG space does not look at their sales numbers or the sheer size of the legs on individual releases by Bethesda. These games have huge sales and have extremely long lifespans.

CDPR lost a lot of goodwill, but not all. They could make a comeback. They are up there as well.

DA4 I am very skeptical. I think there is a high likelihood that the company is dead. At the very least, Bioware has been Ship of Theseus'd for YEARS, and whatever made first age Bioware (CRPGs) and second Age Bioware (Dragon Age + Mass Effect) "Good" has long been removed.

Did they? I have been getting an impression that public has been turning positive toward CDPR after the anime show, with Cyberpunk being "fixed" and all.

I don't agree, I think all patched up C77 is still not a great title, but I feel like I am in the minority. Just recently I read an article how C77 was never bad, and it was just cool to hate on it

Idk man Toddy's last few lauches have been pretty negative. Both 76 and to a lesser extent 4.

Between Laian and FromSoftware they kind of lost their status as the sweetheart rpg dev. Modern gamers really don't take kindly to bugs these days either.

I wasn't too worried about Starfield till a couple weeks ago when it dropped completely off the popculture radar infavor of bg3 and diablo 4

Cyberpunk always was a good game, its only crime was that it was overhyped during the many years of development. At release, I don't think any product would have satisfied the ambition that was teased. Anything less than perfect was a massive disappointment. People realized that it was actually ok when the hype died down.

Fortunately BG3 has a headstart with its early access. We already know what to expect from it. I am pretty sure everyone would be happy with what we currently have stretched to 3 acts. Maybe CDProjekt should consider trying early access too? It would help them settle expectations. Too bad not every studio has as much freedom as Larian...

Agreed. I thought Cyberpunk was a great game (with the obligatory, though flawed) at launch. It's even better now.

I love Mass Effect and like some of the older Dragon Age games! I will wait and see for DA4, but I hope they pick up the class and race reactivity and quest design from Larian! There are only 3 classes and 3 or 4 races in Dragon Age, so it seems like they could have even more reactivity there! I hope BG3 pushes Bioware back into making high-quality games and gives them the confidence and focus to make great rpgs!

Bethesda’s games aren’t my style of game. They are games for people who like exploration rather than story. I am sure Starfield will sell well. For future games I would love them to have the story and character focus of BG3! I doubt they will, though.

Obsidian seems to be going into AA first-person games. I would love them to take inspiration from Larian and do a AAA third-person rpg with lots of reactivity!

I am, aside from waiting for BG3, currently interested in Starfield (once it got mods) and probably DA4 (if they don't completely mess it up).

But to be honest, Starfield is not really something I see as a competitor for BG3, they are too different. It feels to me like saying Warcraft 2 is a big competitor for Heroes of Might and Magic, since they are both strategy games.
Way too different, scratch a different itch.

It is absolutely a competitor to BG3 in the sense that both are games that are basically black holes with people's free time and it's going to be massively popular among a very similar target audience.

Larian did the wise thing moving their PC release date out of the way because they would have been slaughtered otherwise.
And to be clear, it's not even a matter of which game will be more popular (spoiler: it's Starfield). They would cannibalize each other regardless of which comes on top (still Starfield, by the way).

Please note that I say this as someone who
A) is far more interested in BG3
B) was never really particularly fond of ANY previous BGS game (in fact, I consider an anomaly the fact that so much about Starfield is appealing to me, from concept to aesthetic).

Yeah, this is the one I doubt. One is an action RPG with a strong focus on exploration and that open-world sandbox feel, the other is a tactical RPG with a strong focus on Story and Characters.
Their similarity is that they are both in the same, overly broad genre of RPGs. Which should have way more subgenre.


If this would be TES6, I would fully agree. But with Starfield I am not so sure. It is a new IP and a SciFi one on top of it - and Fantasy tends to outperform Science Fiction most of the times. I think it may actually be a bit closer. Especially with the head start and the successful media campaign of BG3.
Starfield may still win, but not by a landslide, at least in my opinion.

I guess it comes down to whether or not you think the people who bought Skyrim four times are going to play Baldur's Gate or Starfield.

I think theme is a not inconsiderable aspect to take into account for RPGs, more so than most other genres, but I have to believe that to the layman Starfield will be as easy a transition as RDR2 was for GTA players.

The RPG nerds can be relied upon to play both, for the casual player, I guess it comes down to marketing, hype, and track record. I think those are all breaking for Starfield. But I don't have a great perspective

I think you might be underestimating bg3 right now.

Asmongold had a video 13 days ago that has 888k views right now over the AAA studios freaking out over how good bg3 will be, his last video on starfield was a month ago and only has 681k* views. Starfield is #11 on steam, BG 3 is #3.

Diablo bros are hungry for a new game, especially while they wait for their new patch. And they are probably going fantasy

Meanwhile Starfield has had really all it's media hype evaporated between Armored Core 6 Diablo and Bg3 controlling the cycle.

Armored core 6 is another big issue for Bethesda as it competes with the gritty space asthetic and is within weeks of Starfield.

Between Star Citizen Bg3 and Armored Core 6 Toddy should be afraid.

I think Tuco is right on this.
While genre and mechanics may differ, both games are immersive, vicarious experiences at a mega project scale so as to fully immerse their consumers in an RPG experience. They are time and attention sinks that offer the “other life” of adventure and discovery. There is absolutely a mutual cannibalism component here, and Larian made the sound decision to scale back the release date to get a jump on the PC playerbase, social media cycle, and overall level of commitment.

I've never understood the need for gamers to get into specific game tribes and compete with other game tribes. I just want good games period. Why would I care if BG3 tops 1 million concurrent users and Starfield doesn't or reverse? That won't affect me in the slightest. I just want both to be good.

This, in a nutshell. That said, Bethesda needs a *serious* win after the Fortnite 76 debacle, and they know it. I actually expect it to be pretty good. But. BG3 I have more faith in. And it just might be that BG3 shines a negative light on Starfield. I hope Starfield is awesome, though and it scratches the need of everyone that paid for Star Citizen. Those poor people deserve at least something to play while they wait another twelve years for the money to run out.

Edit:
Oh, definitely this. I'll play both for years to come.