The boss of Larian Studios, the studio behind Baldur’s Gate 3, talks about the gaming industry and which developers should never be lost: experienced technical artists. Anyone who fires them is simply an idiot.
This is what Vincke says about mistakes in the gaming industry: In an interview with Eurogamer, Swen Vincke talks about the gaming industry and how important it is to have and keep experienced developers.
He responds to the question of what the secret is to keeping experienced developers in the company:
By not firing them. That’s very clear. I mean: Sometimes you lose experienced developers – that happens, there are many reasons: people leave the company, they have partners who are relocating – it’s not like you can keep everyone forever. But you can usually keep most of them if you treat them with respect.
Clueless managers firing key employees
This is what Vincke says about layoffs: As we know from many reports, a wave of layoffs is sweeping through the gaming industry, costing thousands of developers their jobs.
Vincke explains that when he looks at who is currently losing their jobs in the gaming industry, he can’t believe it. It is completely senseless.
Companies are losing people who are a source of knowledge within a company.
Managers look at Excel sheets that they don’t understand and decide to fire someone without knowing what they are actually doing:
It will cost them much more in the long run. They just don’t realize it yet. But it will cost them dearly.
Whom would Vincke definitely not fire? Vincke says he has heard of a group of technical artists who were laid off:
I can tell you this. I am a developer: If you fire a technical artist, you are an idiot. Because they define the entire pipeline, which in turn determines the cost of your assets. They can determine so much and they know your games – especially when they are experienced, it makes no sense to fire them. Either way, we will hire them to work for us.
What kind of people are they? A “technical artist” sits at the interface between the artists and programmers of a project. They ensure that the artists have the necessary programs and techniques to work well.
Their task is to ensure that the artistic vision of a game is preserved and operates within the technology that the game uses. They also develop new tools and techniques.
In companies, they form the interface between programmers and designers.
Technical artists are people who do not stand in the spotlight like the game director or a lead producer, but who take on an extremely important role within a team.
Is the crisis sustainable? Vincke says he spoke with an experienced agent who believes that the current layoffs are part of a cycle that constantly repeats itself. By the end of 2024, the same managers and companies will realize that they need people again to develop new games to present new projects to their investors.
Then the managers who are currently laying off people in droves will start hiring again. Because they need to develop games to make money.
According to Vincke, this cycle could be avoided by not constantly chasing aggressive growth.
The head of Baldur’s Gate 3 recently made headlines because he did not do what everyone expected of him:
Team of Baldur’s Gate 3 was even working on a DLC – the boss explains why the work was halted
