Baldur’s Gate 3 developer isn’t interested in being another Hasbro show pony

Larian Studios’ founder Swen Vincke shared harsh words for publishers during the 2023 Game Developers Conference on March 20th. “Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started,” said the director of smash hit video game Baldur’s Gate 3. “It's always the quarterly profits. The only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say, 'shit I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again.”

He’s talking about the devastating waves of games industry layoffs that began last year and crashed directly into this one, affecting a staggering number of big and small companies alike. But he’s likely also talking about Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast’s corporate owner and handler for the Dungeons & Dragons brand. Svenke reasserted to IGN that Larian Studios would not develop any downloadable content or expansions for Baldur’s Gate 3 before adding that the Belgian hitmaker would also not stick around to create Baldur’s Gate 4 (Larian staff were reportedly “elated” to discover a planned sequel would not go forward).

That sharp intake of air you just heard was Hasbro’s shareholders getting punched in the gut. Baldur’s Gate 3 earned a whopping $90 million as of February and was among the few wins that the limping toy and game company could flaunt to its skittish investors. D&D’s physical tabletop presence might have just broken even (Hasbro obfuscates the exact figures), and book revenue from D&D’s 2024 refresh won’t start rolling in until late September.