Anyone who planned to get the role-playing epic Baldur’s Gate 3 at a low price through a gaming subscription will be disappointed. The boss of Larian, Swen Vincke, has just clearly rejected subscription services like Xbox Game Pass or PS Plus – for ideological reasons.
This is the situation:
- In recent years, “subscription services” have become trendy: You subscribe, pay a relatively small monthly fee, and receive a few fresh games each month without additional costs.
- The most well-known models are “Xbox Game Pass” and PS Plus.
- However, the boss of Larian is now clearly rejecting these models for “his games” like Baldur’s Gate 3 on principle. In a world where this model is “dominant,” he says he does not want to be a gamer.
Larian boss does not want a world where subscription services decide everything
This is what Vincke says: In a series of posts on Twitter, the company head explains:
“You will not find our games in a subscription service, even though I recognize that such a service is an opportunity for many developers to develop their game. I have no problem with that. I just want to ensure that other business models do not die because they are also valuable.”
Why is he saying this? Vincke refers to a statement from a Ubisoft employee: Players should get used to not owning games, but rather borrowing them, as subscription services become increasingly important.
Vincke says: Content remains king. However, it will become increasingly difficult to develop good content if subscription services become the dominant model. Because then a small, selected group of people would determine what comes to market and what does not.
In such a world, one would have to convince the heads of subscription services of their own game, rather than the players. That would be a significant setback.
For him, “directly from the developer” is the right way.
A model where a subscription service decides which games come to market and which do not, is not a world gamers would want to live in. He should be trusted on this.
Larian wants money from players, not from publishers
What’s behind this: As PC Gamer notes, Vincke’s attitude stems from his own painful experience: Larian did not receive funding for their key projects in 2015 through the usual route, via major publishers who were convinced by their own games.
Instead, they went the route of borrowing from a bank, through external investors, and through backers on Kickstarter for Divinity: Original Sin. Nonetheless, they were close to bankruptcy.
If the original Divinity had not been a success back then, it would have meant the end for Larian, and Baldur’s Gate 3 would have never existed.
More on the topic:
Baldur’s Gate 3: Game of the Year will never land in Game Pass – the boss thinks that’s only fair
