Baldur’s Gate 3 dev reveals the real reason the “games industry is in the s**t right now”

Many analysts and industry professionals have claimed that the games industry is nearing critical mass as budgets balloon and massive projects — such as PlayStation’s Concord — become record-breaking failures. Speaking on social media, Baldur’s Gate 3 director of publishing Michael Douse explained the true issue with the industry right now. 

Baldur’s Gate 3 dev on the state of the industry 

With many publishers hoping that GTA 6 will result in game prices increasing to as much as $100, Douse joked that publishers aren’t “supposed to say this out loud!” 

However, the Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing director explained that “game prices haven’t risen with inflation”. In fact, games are still cheaper on the whole than they were during the SNES era, although sales are typically much higher in quantity. 

Douse explained that the real reason for raising game prices would also result in higher wages for individual developers. However, with the constant demand for higher profit margins from shareholders, this will never happen. 

“A good company raises salaries in line with inflation so that their staff don’t die or something, but games prices haven’t risen with inflation,” Douse explained. “This isn’t the reason the industry is in the shit for now, but it is an uncomfortable truth.”

Douse also explained that the result of higher game prices should also give developers a bigger “responsibility for a game developer is to make sure that the game they show lives up to that promise” as players’ investments increase. 

At the time of writing, Baldur’s Gate 3 has an RRP on PC of $59.99, almost half of what publishers are wanting to charge for new AAA releases. With thousands of hours of content and more on the way, BG3 is a massive hit that has managed to recoup its costs, but Douse explains that chasing a big hit is sometimes pointless. 

“The industry is very aware that it’s a hit based industry, but living up to ‘a hit’ is statistically impossible for everyone,” he explained. “This was much easier to manage when there were retail middlemen and people had less access to information, but for now it’s created chaos.”

While GTA 6 could survive at a $100 price tag, many other games could not. In fact, the majority of titles attempting to charge $100 for entry would fail, especially as services like Xbox Game Pass cheapen the barrier of entry for AAA experiences.

“That is indeed the problem. We are at a strange moment where retail is not defining output & content, but now nobody is. There’s no standard. It’s difficult to parse. It’s ’the wild west’. The point is that perhaps Rockstar have enough clout to lay down the new law. And with that others will sink or swim?” Douse explained. 

Additionally, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been praised for being a complete package with no microtransactions and very minimal DLC. In AAA gaming, many companies crowbar microtransaction content into every possible facet of their titles — for example, the NBA 2K sports games — to make more money. Douse explains that even with a price hike to $100, games “wouldn’t”  leave this additional revenue on the floor. 

For now, there’s no confirmation that GTA 6 will cost $100 or even $80 at launch. In fact, despite the game’s massive budget, the title is expected to launch at a now-standard $70, and it’s already expected to be the biggest entertainment launch ever at this price. 

Baldur’s Gate 3

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  Platform(s):
  macOS, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series X
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  Genre(s):
  Adventure, RPG, Strategy

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