Larian Studios have created a giant hit with Baldur’s Gate 3. At this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards, the head of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, spoke in his acceptance speech about the recent layoffs in the gaming industry. He especially condemns the studios themselves.
What is criticized in his speech? Swen Vincke, the director behind Baldur’s Gate 3, received the award for “Best Narrative” at this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards. However, he used his acceptance speech to speak out against other studios and their mass layoffs.
In the last 18 months, there have been mass layoffs in many places in the gaming industry. In January 2024 and February 2024 alone, many employees had to give up their jobs:
- Microsoft Gaming announced 1,900 layoffs
- The engine manufacturer Unity laid off 1,800 people
- Riot Games laid off 530 people
- Sony closed its studio in London and laid off 900 people
Vincke condemned this behavior in his speech with the words: “Greed has made the whole thing terrible for so long since I started.” He further states: “I have been fighting my whole life with publishers, and they make the same, same, same mistakes over and over again.”
He sees the problem mainly in the greed of the studios and that profit comes first for them, and the numbers in the end appear to be the most important. A problem, as he says, that only leads to the next problem. “You all lay off, and next year you say, ‘dammit, we have no developers left,’ and then you hire people again, and then you make acquisitions, and then you put them in the same cycle, and it’s just broken…”
The success of Baldur’s Gate 3 was not a coincidence, says colleague Michael Graf:
Are there other possibilities? In addition to his criticism, Vincke also suggests that one could simply approach the whole thing a little differently.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says. “You can build reserves. Just go a little slower. Tone down your greed a bit. Be resilient, care for the people, don’t lose the collective knowledge that has been built up in the people you lose every time. Just so you have to go through the same cycle over and over again. It really makes me angry.”
For some, this speech probably felt like a severe blow, especially after they chose it themselves.
“People in this room have lost their jobs.”
Were there further reactions? Indeed, after the speech, some approving words followed from other attendees. Alanah Pearce, who works for PlayStation’s God of War
-studio Sony Santa Monica and hosted the evening, also commented.
He pointed especially to the victims behind the many layoffs. “People in this room have lost their jobs,” he says. “People who actually participate every year in the GDC had to cancel because being here is an extravagant luxury when you don’t know when the next paycheck comes.”
Above all, he emphasizes that many people with years of experience have been lost. People who worked on the games that were nominated that evening. In this context, he also points out once again that behind these layoffs are also fates. “We have seen how our friends were laid off and how that affected their families, their children.”
However, the criticism was not the only big news of the evening, as Vincke also announced that there will be no Baldur’s Gate 4 from Larian. DLCs for Baldur’s Gate 3 are also not planned.
