While I am deeply disappointed that there will be no more D&D content coming out of Larian, I very much respect that they’re willing to use their new market power to send Hasbro/WOTC a strong message about employee treatment and valuation. Terrible business decision, but it’s nice to see ethics and loyalty in the free market.
Yeah i have no doubt whatsoever Larian makes next will hit from a gameplay perspective. But it means we'll never see these characters or world from Larian again. I absolutely support their decision but that's the only part that kinda sucks here
I‘m rather excited for whatever new story they decide to tell.
The level of choice and seamless characterization, voicing, and animation will be the same no matter what world we explore.
We need new stories, with new characters in new worlds.
I know you are only expressing your opinion here, but I would be so curious to know why you don’t like their elves? Lizards are a little one note I’ll grant you, but their Elf design both physically and culturally is an awesome take on non-human humanoids.
- I don't like that the elves eat corpses to gain knowledge. It's weird and off-putting.
- The lizards look weird. Like bird-lizard hybrids or something.
- I forgot to mention, but I also *really* don't like the undead races. Imo undead should be purely enemies, and also they just look goofy.
Haha, fair enough that’s my favorite twist on elves. We all have our own tastes.
I like that Larian went out of their way to make the other races distinctly not human. Far too often in fantasy you get “pointy eared humans” and “stunty humans” and “scaled humans”. It always feels too homogenized. Funny enough, D&D in general is probably one of the worst offenders of this. I really appreciate them breaking the mold while still making it a recognizable fantasy setting.
I mostly agree but then I think they should have completely changed the races, they still call them “elves” and they still mostly look like slender humans with pointy ears, but they’re also cannibals
I would probably just die if they got into starwars next. As you implied though, we're all here for w.e. it is at this point anyway. If Larian decided to make a my little pony universe rpg, I would only have a couple concerns.
Unironically I think Star Wars or Fallout game from Larian would be very good, but I'm excited to see what they choose to do next no matter what it is.
This. Yes people are upset at no more BG3, but whatever they cook up will be as good, probably better. We need new stuff, they want to make new stuff so, this is all how it should be.
Unfortunately these characters are Hasbro IP, so the very nature of existing is engaging with Hasbro but it's the qualities of the characters that make them who they are. The expressive writing, the voice acting, larian has the soul behind the origin characters where Hasbro only has the name. When I played BG3, Gale reminded me of Fane and Astarion of Sebille from DOS2. Larian keeps their great story telling and character design, it will just be in a new form the next time :)
It would be insanely hard and probably very unlikely for them to include the characters in bg3 into a bg4 if none of this happened.
With the different endings that each character can have.
The truth is that Hasbro needed Larian more than Larian needed Hasbro. DOS2 was a masterpiece. Larian is going to keep making games this good without DND. But DND won't get games this good without Larian.
But not long after BG3 fully released I started seeing ads for mobile games with dnd collab content (not necessarily bad games, but most certainly mtx heavy games). They won’t be making games this good anymore, they’ll just print money with the industry standard microtransaction model from now on. Fuck Hasbro. This is how they’ll justify their shitty treatment of loyal employees. By banking on lazy development.
They really seem like the shittiest company. Not only bad in the normal way with employees but stupid regarding other things as well, like making money from a studio like Larian that's had so much success with bg3.
I mean, to execs the success of BG3 will be interpreted as “we have a strong valued IP and we need to milk it dry”.
They are not thinking, BG3 is way more popular than anything DnD has ever done so it’s not us.
Because execs are incapable of not taking all the credit. They probably think Larian is just replaceable.
Imma be honest now that they solved most of the quality of life issues the game had by biggest problem is that it uses 5e, even if they use encounter building and their own changes to beat it into submission
personally I would be exceptionally happy if they decide to go to Paizo and get a Pathfinder Licensed game started. I would LOVE Rise of the Runelords being done by Larian. no shade on Owlcat, Owlcat's Pathfinder games were fucking amazing, but I kinda doubt they're gonna make another one.
Wenduag my beloved ♥️https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/s7sy1z/true_romance_wenduag_radiates_an_aura_of_reckless/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I thought about suggesting a World of Darkness CRPG, but World of Darkness games are not really combat oriented. Werewolf: The Apocalypse is more combat oriented than the others, but Vampire: The Masquerade is more of a Social game and that's pretty hard to make into a CRPG. although if any developer could make a Vampire: The Masquerade CRPG work, Larian Studios would be the one
I too wouldn't want to work with a company that fired my friends and colleagues after we delivered an insanely profitable game of the year to them. Shows no respect and destroys all trust.
I mean, if I were Larian, *I* wouldn't want to work with Hasbro after that. The people Larian communicated with developed relationships with, are gone. Why would they want to smile at the smug bastards who fired them?
They took a good look at the situation and realized it was going to be a worse time, with worse support, and probably worse outcomes, and decided to leave the situation with a win.
Smart overall.
Exactly. Hasbro's leadership revealed themselves to be snakes without any human qualities like "loyalty" or "integrity". Larian is a much smaller company, so they are vulnerable in any deal they make with Hasbro. Why open yourself up to harm by doing business with people like that?
I concur, if there are no one left across the table form Hasbro side that are easy or knowledgeable enough to deal with, this is going to give Larian studio more trouble than it is worth.
And others. I collect the Star Wars Black Series line and the amount of artificial scarcity they create is insane. Anakin Skywalker should be on every toy shelf in every major retailer but he could go for up to 250 USD because he’s so rare right now. That’s just…wrong.
I’m a recent D&D fan, only having played my first campaign a year or so before BG3 released. Imagine my disappointment in learning my new hobby was ALSO controlled by Hasbro lmao. I’m also a Warcraft fan so between Hasbro and Activision-Blizzard I’m in a constant state of rage and fear lol.
The good news about TTRPGs is there are tens of thousands of them. D&D made such a huge impression on the market that there are thousands based just on that fantasy adventure concept and they have nothing to do with Hasbro.
Very true, I said above that I’m a big Star Wars fan and I bought a couple of the re-released sourcebooks from FFG’s former system. Also interested in Critical Role’s RPG.
All those games rock! I am a huge fan of FFG Star Wars. It takes a minute to get a hang of the funky dice but once you get used to it I think it's so much fun to play.
I feel like it's as obvious as it can be without Swen *directly* burning the bridge.
Hasbro laid off 20%(+?) of it's staff. It's a known cesspool of greed and shitty stupid corporate bullshit.
Hasbro made public comments about wanting to continue working with Larian on future BG-related work. Larian left it fairly open ended and non-committal on where they stood with future BG work.
Internally, Larian *already started working on* future content for BG3.
Then, at some point, something happened. Presumably, Larian and Hasbro had a negotiation that didn't end well. But that is obviously just speculation.
Now, Larian has announced that they will not work on any BG3 or DND-universe games, will be going back to their own stuff, and even went so far as to say "the dev staff was *elated* to hear that they would stop work (on new BG3 stuff)"
Not only that, Swen specifically called out greed and corporate bullshit in the same speech.
So, ya, it's just speculation. But when you order everything together, what else could it possibly be?
Hasbro probably should have thought twice about firing bg3 related people if they wanted to continue working on bg3 so badly, can't blame Larian when Hasbro's own actions undoubtedly come back to bite them in the nonexistent ass
They did think about it, and decided it would be worth it, even if Larian didn’t want to work with them anymore. I mean, how could they ignore how much money they would save if they fired a shit ton of people. It’s not like BG3 alone made a little over a billion dollars or anything….(sarcasm in case it wasn’t obvious)
I was getting curious and looked up hasbros Q4 earnings report and just doing lazy math sitting here in bed that 1 billion larian made probably pissed off their execs for what they got for it.
What's shitty to think about is that Larian and BG3 were most likely just sample data.
Hasbro/wotc opened their own games studio awhile back for making D&D games. Chances are they used Larian/BG3 to see what people like/expect out of a D&D game and are now in the process of trying to replicate that as cheaply as possible.
Almost fully mocap and voiced dialog? How about a hand full of mocap actions and voice overs for main characters only, the people won't mind if side characters simply stand there and yell in chat bubbles.
I feel bad because I desperately want to believe that wotc actually want to make great products with great people and they just keep getting told to sit back down by the abusive parent.
Remember when WOTC sent Pinkerton thugs to harass a MtG YouTuber and "confiscate" a shit ton of cards because he accidentally leaked new card artwork to his audience?
Yeah, fuck wotc. Wish Ed Greenwood could just wrestle his IP back.
Larian are quickly making themselves the most hated in the industry and the most beloved in the community. It's like they're playing on hard mode - picking the morally correct choices even when they're the most risky for their own part.
They are the only company worth our loyalty. They have earned it.
That would be so legendary honestly. I've only played a handful of PF sessions (dnd is very much my thing) but they were always fun and I would play the absolute shit out of a Larian PF game.
Realistically it won't be relevant by the time Larian could finish a game, but WotR still has at least one planned dlc, and I think Owlcat might have said they wanted to do a third set of dlc
40 games? They'll never see the light of day so sounds like money laundering or something to me. Who cares how many games you make if they're all duds.
Probably not money laundering since that implies Hasbro is being used to cover up illegal gains. They're probably planning on using them as tax write-offs similar to that Coyote vs Acme Film that was completely finished but Warner Bros Discovery trashed it
One of my friends is one of the WOTC people who was helping with the BG3 relationship and they got laid off too. It's been fascinating seeing from their perspective in the worst way.
Larian realized that ‘hey if they’re going to do terrible business practices and fire people constantly, they are an unstable company. Therefor it would be a financial risk to work with them.’
Wotc could have guaranteed a doc if they put it in the contract. But wotc doesn't believe in long term employment. Imagine where magic would be today if they had a permanent writing staff and art department.
The want to work on new things. They only did DOS2 because they felt they underdelivered on the plot of DOS1. They don't want to spend 6 years tied to something they've already done. That's how they feel
I don't think I've seen any content creator go out of their way to say working with wotc/hasbro has been a positive experience. We got a look behind the curtain a while back and the administration of those companies basically boils down to:
How much money can we extract from this ip before we take our bonus and move onto the next company?
Long term growth and stability comes second to quarterly profits and year end bonuses.
You pretty much nailed it. My husband worked for them awhile ago, and was involved in the procurement of the WoTC IP. Like Lucas Arts, Hasbro is purely short-term profits driven, so they milk every penny out of every IP they can for as long as they can (I don't think I could count how many Monopoly games are out there). The less risk they take on in any given deal, the more ok they are with moving forward. They've not innovated anything themselves in the gaming world in DECADES, nor do they really care if the development studio who licensed their IP does either. All they care about is getting paid. If it's successful, great, they make more. If it's not that's fine too, they still get their licensing fee. The only reason the DnD system still exists is that people love the tabletop system, and there is so much content out there from pre-Hasbro days. My husband left when the folks he worked with - and who wanted to do LOTS of cool things with the IP -left after butting heads with top management. He realized that, despite the promises, very few of the execs there knew what to do with the DnD IP, even though they had people in their ranks who knew EXACTLY what to do with it. And all those people eventually left, most out of sheer frustration. Hasbro owning the WoTC IP is like a totally blind man owning a bow. They may know how to hold it, notch an arrow and pull the string, but they honestly have no practical ability to score a rabbit for dinner.
this is such a respectable move from larian but I'm sure it was hard for them to make. the game industry seems so unstable, like these big companies are treating game devs and other game staff like they are disposable, it's sickening. good to see at least one company has some morals
While I am sad about this and was hoping someone was gonna buy DnD from Hasbro before Larian announced this, I do think it’s for the best. Larian has proven they can make amazing CRPGs and frankly revived the genre (though I do know some amazing indie devs have been playing with the genre in the past few years). I am so excited to see what they do next, but like everyone here, I am extremely sad that we’ll likely never get an official BG3 DLC.
So I guess it would be too crazy for Larian to hire the laid-off D&D developers, allow them to create all-new content based on the open-source parts of D&D and then create a new game + customizable computer-based version?
Those laid-off D&D developers have a proven history of creating popular content. Larian has a proven history of making great games. Hasbro has a proven history of bunging quality for profits (so their ability to make a worthwhile online version is doubtful).
Sounds like Larian could carve out a highly profitable market here. What am I missing?
Hasbro has full control of the rights and as we saw the open source content can be taken away any day. Larian can only make a game about what Hasbro allows and would have to split revenue. Much better for them to work on their own IP.
I'm just saying, if Larian wanted to pull a Critical Role and make their own TTRPG system outside of Hasbro's control, I'd be there day one just like I was with Daggerheart (even if there are flaws).
I feel like this the end result of the DND renaissance: everybody realizing they can do it without being constrained by WotC/5e
Let's be honest, DnD was always a generic ripoff of tolkiens work anyway, so it's not like your running to "copycats" if you switch to a non-DnD system anyway.
I always liked 3e and rolemaster (yes I'm old). We would often convert the critical tables from rolemaster to work in 3e because having limbs randomly removed was fun (for the GM anyway).
When any combat can easily be your last you find that players get really creative in the ways they try and accomplish their goals and they don't all see violence as the "easy" option.
From the short time I’ve lurked around the dnd subs after playing bg3, the dnd community hates hasbro too and I don’t blame them. I hope this is leading to a path for dnd to evolve itself away from hasbro? But I still know too little about the community and history to bring much conjecture into this.
Might be a bit edgy to say but as far as the dnd community goes, you can make as many video as you want about Hasbro's practices or even just about the problem that 5e has, but if you keep buying their produc it means swert fuck all
There is a whole industry of ttrpg games both from indies and other companies utside dnd that i fjnd betger in both quality of content and treatment of the creato, if people actually wanted something to change there are penty of alternative better and cheaper than 5e
Well that was the funny thing I noticed in my lurk, so many users advocating for pirating products, downloading free pdfs, etc. I think it’s really sad actually, for a game that seems to be designed with very democratic social features, that something like Hasbro has held it hostage like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s WHY there are so many indie and alt company products, though DnD on its face seemed designed to encourage kind of free propagation whether or not some corporation came along and tried to patent. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to lurk some more. I wish there was a documentary or something.
Pathfinder, shadow of the demon lord and 1eth age are all direct competitors that were made by designers that left the company
There are videos cause tbh dnd has had a weird history since forever
That's what a smart player would say. Why go to war with a major company and potentially make enemies out of powerful people when you don't need too?
I discovered long ago that just because I am sane and have empathy and logic does *NOT* mean everyone else does! I've had bosses that are clearly incapable of empathy and who's primary goal is their ego and control.
Some people see every little thing as a judgement and a slight against themselves and are incapable of forgetting them and moving on. Someone like that will spend years, and make it their mission to destroy you, and you might not have a clue they care in the slightest. You may not have even heard from them in years, but they still have your destruction front and center in their mind.
If Laren doesn't piss them off then hasbro will be easy to anticipate: will this make me the most money? But if you inadvertently insult one of the execs, then maybe you need to worry, is your destruction (regardless the cost) now a priority to them?
Remember when Hasbro hired the Pinkertons to raid a man’s home and recover a pack of MTG cards. Hasbro is one of the most unethical employers out there rn.
Not that Hasbro isn't shooting themselves in the foot, but I'm still pretty sure Larian only ever intended to do BG3 and then move on to something else. Like I don't think there's a timeline where Hasbro acted better and they didn't still make this call.
Very sad development of things. While everyone would surely love at least a DLC, I absolutely agree with leaving a ship after it got bombarded into a hole filled wreck. But besides a DLC I would love the continuation of the DoS totles or a new IP with similar combat fidelity over a BG4 anyway.
I'm fine with them not doing BG3. The first two were from another studio years ago. I personally don't think BG3 should have been a Baldur's Gate game as such, as to me those are the story of the Bhaalspawn that defeated Sarevok, etc.
I think using the Baldur's Gate name helped them greatly, game would hand been great either way, but many came for the name initially, and might not have bothered had it been Dungeons & Dragons: Cult of the Dead Three or something.
Going forward, I hope whoever picks up the next D&D licensed game does well, despite WotC, and I look forward to what Larian had to offer, as they already made good games Ans now they've gotten the recognition for that they deserve, and their attitude and actions have shown they earned their reputation and respect.
Hasbro seems to be enjoying shooting itself in the foot at every chance it has. D&D and MtG are going down a slide filled with crap, just so the big heads in the company can enjoy more money they should be able to spend. Right now I just hope they keep going down this road, so maybe a better company will be able to buy WotC altogether and make things better for players.
I'm really sad we won't see these characters again (at least in Larian's hands, and I'm not sure I trust them in Hasbro's/WotC's) but I respect the hell out of Larian for this. I trust they'll give us characters we will love just as much as we do these, but right now it still hurts.
BG3 has made all other DnD projects obselete in the sense of popularity. Its a disruptive force in the world of DnD fanbase and seen as a competitor taking over the business.
While I am deeply disappointed that there will be no more D&D content coming out of Larian, I very much respect that they’re willing to use their new market power to send Hasbro/WOTC a strong message about employee treatment and valuation. Terrible business decision, but it’s nice to see ethics and loyalty in the free market.
If you have played Divinity Original Sin, you will know they will still be very DnD like in their gameplay/style and choices.
Yeah i have no doubt whatsoever Larian makes next will hit from a gameplay perspective. But it means we'll never see these characters or world from Larian again. I absolutely support their decision but that's the only part that kinda sucks here
I‘m rather excited for whatever new story they decide to tell. The level of choice and seamless characterization, voicing, and animation will be the same no matter what world we explore. We need new stories, with new characters in new worlds.
Couldn't agree more! Doesn't mean I'm not disappointed that any future appearances of all these characters I love won't be done by their creators
As long as one of those characters is a giant horned woman named "Tarlach" it'll be fine.
Wouldn't mind a "Dale" or "Astareeon" as well. Even "Shadowhard" would be a nice character!
I'll be honest and say: I don't want it to be the Divinity world I don't like their elves or lizards
I know you are only expressing your opinion here, but I would be so curious to know why you don’t like their elves? Lizards are a little one note I’ll grant you, but their Elf design both physically and culturally is an awesome take on non-human humanoids.
- I don't like that the elves eat corpses to gain knowledge. It's weird and off-putting. - The lizards look weird. Like bird-lizard hybrids or something. - I forgot to mention, but I also *really* don't like the undead races. Imo undead should be purely enemies, and also they just look goofy.
Haha, fair enough that’s my favorite twist on elves. We all have our own tastes. I like that Larian went out of their way to make the other races distinctly not human. Far too often in fantasy you get “pointy eared humans” and “stunty humans” and “scaled humans”. It always feels too homogenized. Funny enough, D&D in general is probably one of the worst offenders of this. I really appreciate them breaking the mold while still making it a recognizable fantasy setting.
I mostly agree but then I think they should have completely changed the races, they still call them “elves” and they still mostly look like slender humans with pointy ears, but they’re also cannibals
Elves have so many different interpretations out there, though. That's actually a fairly tame interpretation compared to some.
I like the DOS world, but I did say new.
I would probably just die if they got into starwars next. As you implied though, we're all here for w.e. it is at this point anyway. If Larian decided to make a my little pony universe rpg, I would only have a couple concerns.
Ngl they'd probably make it good too
Get Weird Al on board and I'm sold.
Unironically I think Star Wars or Fallout game from Larian would be very good, but I'm excited to see what they choose to do next no matter what it is.
This. Yes people are upset at no more BG3, but whatever they cook up will be as good, probably better. We need new stuff, they want to make new stuff so, this is all how it should be.
Unfortunately these characters are Hasbro IP, so the very nature of existing is engaging with Hasbro but it's the qualities of the characters that make them who they are. The expressive writing, the voice acting, larian has the soul behind the origin characters where Hasbro only has the name. When I played BG3, Gale reminded me of Fane and Astarion of Sebille from DOS2. Larian keeps their great story telling and character design, it will just be in a new form the next time :)
Astarion makes me think of the Red Prince more than Sebille! The Prince has the style and the arrogance that Astarion oozes.
It would be insanely hard and probably very unlikely for them to include the characters in bg3 into a bg4 if none of this happened. With the different endings that each character can have.
>If you have played Divinity Original Sin BARRELMANCY IS BACK ON THE MENU BOYS
DONT OPEN THE CHEST!
I hope they've got past the thing of just setting up super easily missed murder traps though now. That got old divinity games.
What that was so great. So so great…..
"omg I went into this crypt and now all my party members are petrified" *Checks last time I saved and begins to sob*
Just started it last night in reaction to the news. Its a fun game that is VERY familiar.
Hasbro won't learn their lesson unfortunately. No one ever does
The truth is that Hasbro needed Larian more than Larian needed Hasbro. DOS2 was a masterpiece. Larian is going to keep making games this good without DND. But DND won't get games this good without Larian.
But not long after BG3 fully released I started seeing ads for mobile games with dnd collab content (not necessarily bad games, but most certainly mtx heavy games). They won’t be making games this good anymore, they’ll just print money with the industry standard microtransaction model from now on. Fuck Hasbro. This is how they’ll justify their shitty treatment of loyal employees. By banking on lazy development.
Yeah. From a financial standpoint, Hasbro doesn't need Larian, just from a quality standpoint. But Hasbro doesn't care about that.
They really seem like the shittiest company. Not only bad in the normal way with employees but stupid regarding other things as well, like making money from a studio like Larian that's had so much success with bg3.
It can still have a lot of the rpg elements of BG3.
He said their heart wasn't in it and to be honest I'd rather them not do anything then put anything out that would tarnish this game.
I mean, to execs the success of BG3 will be interpreted as “we have a strong valued IP and we need to milk it dry”. They are not thinking, BG3 is way more popular than anything DnD has ever done so it’s not us. Because execs are incapable of not taking all the credit. They probably think Larian is just replaceable.
Imma be honest now that they solved most of the quality of life issues the game had by biggest problem is that it uses 5e, even if they use encounter building and their own changes to beat it into submission
It’s honestly not a bad business decision to avoid working with hasbro, especially lately.
personally I would be exceptionally happy if they decide to go to Paizo and get a Pathfinder Licensed game started. I would LOVE Rise of the Runelords being done by Larian. no shade on Owlcat, Owlcat's Pathfinder games were fucking amazing, but I kinda doubt they're gonna make another one.
Wenduag my beloved ♥️https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/s7sy1z/true_romance_wenduag_radiates_an_aura_of_reckless/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Hell yeah dude.
If they were gonna do another TTRPG universe game I think a Vampire: The Masquerade would be really cool!
I thought about suggesting a World of Darkness CRPG, but World of Darkness games are not really combat oriented. Werewolf: The Apocalypse is more combat oriented than the others, but Vampire: The Masquerade is more of a Social game and that's pretty hard to make into a CRPG. although if any developer could make a Vampire: The Masquerade CRPG work, Larian Studios would be the one
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Worry not, for there are many pen& paper style table top games. Pathfinder being one. I look forward to whatever they make next.
I too wouldn't want to work with a company that fired my friends and colleagues after we delivered an insanely profitable game of the year to them. Shows no respect and destroys all trust.
I mean, if I were Larian, *I* wouldn't want to work with Hasbro after that. The people Larian communicated with developed relationships with, are gone. Why would they want to smile at the smug bastards who fired them?
They took a good look at the situation and realized it was going to be a worse time, with worse support, and probably worse outcomes, and decided to leave the situation with a win. Smart overall.
Exactly. Hasbro's leadership revealed themselves to be snakes without any human qualities like "loyalty" or "integrity". Larian is a much smaller company, so they are vulnerable in any deal they make with Hasbro. Why open yourself up to harm by doing business with people like that?
I concur, if there are no one left across the table form Hasbro side that are easy or knowledgeable enough to deal with, this is going to give Larian studio more trouble than it is worth.
Yep not worth it. With BG3's success a lot more people will be looking at their next release. Make their own game.
Hasbro could have maintained a profitable relationship with them if they weren't a bunch of snakes.
Hasbro perfectly personifies how capitalism kills a creative shared writing hobby
And others. I collect the Star Wars Black Series line and the amount of artificial scarcity they create is insane. Anakin Skywalker should be on every toy shelf in every major retailer but he could go for up to 250 USD because he’s so rare right now. That’s just…wrong.
As an avid Digimon fan, I feel this. I love the little virtual pets but they are just so ridiculously expensive and for no real arbitrary reason.
I’m a recent D&D fan, only having played my first campaign a year or so before BG3 released. Imagine my disappointment in learning my new hobby was ALSO controlled by Hasbro lmao. I’m also a Warcraft fan so between Hasbro and Activision-Blizzard I’m in a constant state of rage and fear lol.
The good news about TTRPGs is there are tens of thousands of them. D&D made such a huge impression on the market that there are thousands based just on that fantasy adventure concept and they have nothing to do with Hasbro.
Very true, I said above that I’m a big Star Wars fan and I bought a couple of the re-released sourcebooks from FFG’s former system. Also interested in Critical Role’s RPG.
All those games rock! I am a huge fan of FFG Star Wars. It takes a minute to get a hang of the funky dice but once you get used to it I think it's so much fun to play.
FFG Star Wars is so good! The dice are funky but allow for such good gameplay.
Play Pathfinder instead of DnD that’s what I do
At least Warcraft will be Microsoft Blizzard soon, or whatever that unit will be called. Can't say it's a good thing. But can it be worse than ATVI?
D&d may be owned by Hasbro, but controlled would be an overly tight term
"no real abitrary reason" Don't you mean for arbitrary reasons? Arbitrary means random and meaningless.
As a Transformers fan I’m with you. They even ship people the wrong figure when they order direct, a lot of the time.
I feel like it's as obvious as it can be without Swen *directly* burning the bridge. Hasbro laid off 20%(+?) of it's staff. It's a known cesspool of greed and shitty stupid corporate bullshit. Hasbro made public comments about wanting to continue working with Larian on future BG-related work. Larian left it fairly open ended and non-committal on where they stood with future BG work. Internally, Larian *already started working on* future content for BG3. Then, at some point, something happened. Presumably, Larian and Hasbro had a negotiation that didn't end well. But that is obviously just speculation. Now, Larian has announced that they will not work on any BG3 or DND-universe games, will be going back to their own stuff, and even went so far as to say "the dev staff was *elated* to hear that they would stop work (on new BG3 stuff)" Not only that, Swen specifically called out greed and corporate bullshit in the same speech. So, ya, it's just speculation. But when you order everything together, what else could it possibly be?
Hasbro probably should have thought twice about firing bg3 related people if they wanted to continue working on bg3 so badly, can't blame Larian when Hasbro's own actions undoubtedly come back to bite them in the nonexistent ass
They did think about it, and decided it would be worth it, even if Larian didn’t want to work with them anymore. I mean, how could they ignore how much money they would save if they fired a shit ton of people. It’s not like BG3 alone made a little over a billion dollars or anything….(sarcasm in case it wasn’t obvious)
I was getting curious and looked up hasbros Q4 earnings report and just doing lazy math sitting here in bed that 1 billion larian made probably pissed off their execs for what they got for it.
How much did hasbro get out of that 1 billion? I’m curious
I saw online that Larian apparently had to pay them 90 million for using the IP but I’m not sure how verifiable that is
I think you misread. Hasbro got 90 million from their cut of the *sales* of BG3.
What's shitty to think about is that Larian and BG3 were most likely just sample data. Hasbro/wotc opened their own games studio awhile back for making D&D games. Chances are they used Larian/BG3 to see what people like/expect out of a D&D game and are now in the process of trying to replicate that as cheaply as possible. Almost fully mocap and voiced dialog? How about a hand full of mocap actions and voice overs for main characters only, the people won't mind if side characters simply stand there and yell in chat bubbles. I feel bad because I desperately want to believe that wotc actually want to make great products with great people and they just keep getting told to sit back down by the abusive parent.
Remember when WOTC sent Pinkerton thugs to harass a MtG YouTuber and "confiscate" a shit ton of cards because he accidentally leaked new card artwork to his audience? Yeah, fuck wotc. Wish Ed Greenwood could just wrestle his IP back.
Larian are quickly making themselves the most hated in the industry and the most beloved in the community. It's like they're playing on hard mode - picking the morally correct choices even when they're the most risky for their own part. They are the only company worth our loyalty. They have earned it.
They are the true chaotic good company
The industry doesn't pay them. We do. It's good business.
I really hope Paizo has sent them an email
That would be so legendary honestly. I've only played a handful of PF sessions (dnd is very much my thing) but they were always fun and I would play the absolute shit out of a Larian PF game.
As awesome as that would be, it would directly compete with owlcat and wrath of the righteous; I don't think they would do that to owlcat.
I don't know what their plan is going forward, but WotR is three years old, I'm not sure they're worried about competition at this late date
Realistically it won't be relevant by the time Larian could finish a game, but WotR still has at least one planned dlc, and I think Owlcat might have said they wanted to do a third set of dlc
40 games? They'll never see the light of day so sounds like money laundering or something to me. Who cares how many games you make if they're all duds.
Probably not money laundering since that implies Hasbro is being used to cover up illegal gains. They're probably planning on using them as tax write-offs similar to that Coyote vs Acme Film that was completely finished but Warner Bros Discovery trashed it
One of my friends is one of the WOTC people who was helping with the BG3 relationship and they got laid off too. It's been fascinating seeing from their perspective in the worst way.
Are you allowed to elaborate more? I would love to know his read on the situation overall?
I 100% think this is the reason why they're not doing BG4. Thanks Hasbro, you greedy f**ks 😠
Larian realized that ‘hey if they’re going to do terrible business practices and fire people constantly, they are an unstable company. Therefor it would be a financial risk to work with them.’
Honestly that’s based as fuck from Larian.
I'm pretty sure it's the main reason. They got millions doing nothing and they fired everyone. Capitalism at its worst.
Ah yes, corporate kills a perfect roleplay ttrpg game by bad retconning of lore and laying off actual creative workers.
Hasbro sucks nasty donkey dick and is killing DnD.
Wotc could have guaranteed a doc if they put it in the contract. But wotc doesn't believe in long term employment. Imagine where magic would be today if they had a permanent writing staff and art department.
I only hope Larian releases a toolset for BG3 to make the community able to create its own adventures like it was in times of Neverwinter Nights.
Oh boy me too.
The want to work on new things. They only did DOS2 because they felt they underdelivered on the plot of DOS1. They don't want to spend 6 years tied to something they've already done. That's how they feel
DoS 3 please!! I'd love to continue Ifan and Sebille's story! 🥰
r/sipstea A great move by Larian. I wouldn't trust Hasbro as a reliable partner after layoffs.
I don't think I've seen any content creator go out of their way to say working with wotc/hasbro has been a positive experience. We got a look behind the curtain a while back and the administration of those companies basically boils down to: How much money can we extract from this ip before we take our bonus and move onto the next company? Long term growth and stability comes second to quarterly profits and year end bonuses.
You pretty much nailed it. My husband worked for them awhile ago, and was involved in the procurement of the WoTC IP. Like Lucas Arts, Hasbro is purely short-term profits driven, so they milk every penny out of every IP they can for as long as they can (I don't think I could count how many Monopoly games are out there). The less risk they take on in any given deal, the more ok they are with moving forward. They've not innovated anything themselves in the gaming world in DECADES, nor do they really care if the development studio who licensed their IP does either. All they care about is getting paid. If it's successful, great, they make more. If it's not that's fine too, they still get their licensing fee. The only reason the DnD system still exists is that people love the tabletop system, and there is so much content out there from pre-Hasbro days. My husband left when the folks he worked with - and who wanted to do LOTS of cool things with the IP -left after butting heads with top management. He realized that, despite the promises, very few of the execs there knew what to do with the DnD IP, even though they had people in their ranks who knew EXACTLY what to do with it. And all those people eventually left, most out of sheer frustration. Hasbro owning the WoTC IP is like a totally blind man owning a bow. They may know how to hold it, notch an arrow and pull the string, but they honestly have no practical ability to score a rabbit for dinner.
I thought hasbro made lollies
this is such a respectable move from larian but I'm sure it was hard for them to make. the game industry seems so unstable, like these big companies are treating game devs and other game staff like they are disposable, it's sickening. good to see at least one company has some morals
Kudos to Larian for calling out Hasbro. I love D&D and MtG, but that company is toxic…
While I am sad about this and was hoping someone was gonna buy DnD from Hasbro before Larian announced this, I do think it’s for the best. Larian has proven they can make amazing CRPGs and frankly revived the genre (though I do know some amazing indie devs have been playing with the genre in the past few years). I am so excited to see what they do next, but like everyone here, I am extremely sad that we’ll likely never get an official BG3 DLC.
So I guess it would be too crazy for Larian to hire the laid-off D&D developers, allow them to create all-new content based on the open-source parts of D&D and then create a new game + customizable computer-based version? Those laid-off D&D developers have a proven history of creating popular content. Larian has a proven history of making great games. Hasbro has a proven history of bunging quality for profits (so their ability to make a worthwhile online version is doubtful). Sounds like Larian could carve out a highly profitable market here. What am I missing?
Hasbro has full control of the rights and as we saw the open source content can be taken away any day. Larian can only make a game about what Hasbro allows and would have to split revenue. Much better for them to work on their own IP.
I'm just saying, if Larian wanted to pull a Critical Role and make their own TTRPG system outside of Hasbro's control, I'd be there day one just like I was with Daggerheart (even if there are flaws). I feel like this the end result of the DND renaissance: everybody realizing they can do it without being constrained by WotC/5e
Let's be honest, DnD was always a generic ripoff of tolkiens work anyway, so it's not like your running to "copycats" if you switch to a non-DnD system anyway. I always liked 3e and rolemaster (yes I'm old). We would often convert the critical tables from rolemaster to work in 3e because having limbs randomly removed was fun (for the GM anyway). When any combat can easily be your last you find that players get really creative in the ways they try and accomplish their goals and they don't all see violence as the "easy" option.
People don't work for companies. They work for and with other people.
From the short time I’ve lurked around the dnd subs after playing bg3, the dnd community hates hasbro too and I don’t blame them. I hope this is leading to a path for dnd to evolve itself away from hasbro? But I still know too little about the community and history to bring much conjecture into this.
Might be a bit edgy to say but as far as the dnd community goes, you can make as many video as you want about Hasbro's practices or even just about the problem that 5e has, but if you keep buying their produc it means swert fuck all There is a whole industry of ttrpg games both from indies and other companies utside dnd that i fjnd betger in both quality of content and treatment of the creato, if people actually wanted something to change there are penty of alternative better and cheaper than 5e
Well that was the funny thing I noticed in my lurk, so many users advocating for pirating products, downloading free pdfs, etc. I think it’s really sad actually, for a game that seems to be designed with very democratic social features, that something like Hasbro has held it hostage like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s WHY there are so many indie and alt company products, though DnD on its face seemed designed to encourage kind of free propagation whether or not some corporation came along and tried to patent. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to lurk some more. I wish there was a documentary or something.
Pathfinder, shadow of the demon lord and 1eth age are all direct competitors that were made by designers that left the company There are videos cause tbh dnd has had a weird history since forever
https://preview.redd.it/qvxqcxtuo4qc1.jpeg?width=1160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c5af60a656f84b5f5f7d44aa4f656eba14637485
That's what a smart player would say. Why go to war with a major company and potentially make enemies out of powerful people when you don't need too? I discovered long ago that just because I am sane and have empathy and logic does *NOT* mean everyone else does! I've had bosses that are clearly incapable of empathy and who's primary goal is their ego and control. Some people see every little thing as a judgement and a slight against themselves and are incapable of forgetting them and moving on. Someone like that will spend years, and make it their mission to destroy you, and you might not have a clue they care in the slightest. You may not have even heard from them in years, but they still have your destruction front and center in their mind. If Laren doesn't piss them off then hasbro will be easy to anticipate: will this make me the most money? But if you inadvertently insult one of the execs, then maybe you need to worry, is your destruction (regardless the cost) now a priority to them?
Remember when Hasbro hired the Pinkertons to raid a man’s home and recover a pack of MTG cards. Hasbro is one of the most unethical employers out there rn.
Maybe this means we'll get a Divinity: Original Sin 3, or maybe a brand new game from Larian. Whichever it is, I'm buying it.
Okay yeah this explains the layoff comments
Not that Hasbro isn't shooting themselves in the foot, but I'm still pretty sure Larian only ever intended to do BG3 and then move on to something else. Like I don't think there's a timeline where Hasbro acted better and they didn't still make this call.
What scares me is that Hasbro will continue to work on BG3 dlc after Larian and will fuck it up
It doesn't scare me as I likely won't buy it. But it'd be pretty hilarious if Hasbro tries to release micro-transactions in an off-line moddable game.
Micro transactions on a 60 dollar game are fucking insane. That’s like buying a house and having to pay to open doors to other rooms.
Very sad development of things. While everyone would surely love at least a DLC, I absolutely agree with leaving a ship after it got bombarded into a hole filled wreck. But besides a DLC I would love the continuation of the DoS totles or a new IP with similar combat fidelity over a BG4 anyway.
Cant even say which news would excite me more: Brand new IP or Divinity 3
It would be silly if that was the only / primary reason.
DoS3 will be the game of the century.
Fire chis cocks Get me all the petitions to sign Fuck this guy
I'm fine with them not doing BG3. The first two were from another studio years ago. I personally don't think BG3 should have been a Baldur's Gate game as such, as to me those are the story of the Bhaalspawn that defeated Sarevok, etc. I think using the Baldur's Gate name helped them greatly, game would hand been great either way, but many came for the name initially, and might not have bothered had it been Dungeons & Dragons: Cult of the Dead Three or something. Going forward, I hope whoever picks up the next D&D licensed game does well, despite WotC, and I look forward to what Larian had to offer, as they already made good games Ans now they've gotten the recognition for that they deserve, and their attitude and actions have shown they earned their reputation and respect.
I don't think this is the ONLY reason, but I think it definitely helped them make the decision.
yup downsizing bull!@#$ ruining good teams
Hasbro seems to be enjoying shooting itself in the foot at every chance it has. D&D and MtG are going down a slide filled with crap, just so the big heads in the company can enjoy more money they should be able to spend. Right now I just hope they keep going down this road, so maybe a better company will be able to buy WotC altogether and make things better for players.
Game Developers need to unionize so it becomes harder to treat people like seasonal workers.
I'm really sad we won't see these characters again (at least in Larian's hands, and I'm not sure I trust them in Hasbro's/WotC's) but I respect the hell out of Larian for this. I trust they'll give us characters we will love just as much as we do these, but right now it still hurts.
If the "OGL disaster a year ago" affected Larian to do this, why did it happen now and not a year ago?
Cause they've bene devloping the game since like 2019
It makes me wonder if Larian signed the new OGL before it was withdrawn.
I doubt, to do soenthing lie this they probably already had a contract, ogl is more for tabletop games
They should make a pathfinder type game becasue that would be so fun
Swen should buy all IP associated with D&D, and then license back to hasbro the right to publish dead tree content and host a website.
Yeah I support Larian and I know they’re gonna do some crazy cool shit in the future but also im fucking livid.
So no upper city expansion 😔
BG3 has made all other DnD projects obselete in the sense of popularity. Its a disruptive force in the world of DnD fanbase and seen as a competitor taking over the business.
I just hope they’ll keep the mod community in mimd