Affected devs:
- Arkane Austin (closed)
- Tango Gameworks (closed)
- Alpha Dog Studios (closed)
- Roundhouse Games (absorbed into ZeniMax Online Studios)
These changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades.
> Tango makes a great game
> Put it day one on Game Pass
> Close the studio when it doesn’t meet sale targets
Corp. logic truly is something else.
Meanwhile Larian studio reminding everyone that a good way to make money and avoid layoffs is to be nimble and make good games.
Big Corps sees nimble and good studio making a good game, starts layoffs immediately.
The real murderers are the people that sell their studio to a big publisher. They immediately seal the fate of their teams. They will have layoffs eventually…
I love Larian and am ride or die with Swen et al. Have been ever since Divine Divinity was “we have Diablo at home” but ended up being a shockingly good (for its time) hybrid ARPG/CRPG.
But Larian are very much not the example of “how to do business”. Like Digital Extremes, they are a “legacy” studio that is INCREDIBLY lucky to have survived. Larian themselves had to deal with really shitty publisher deals (Beyond Divinity and I think also Divinity 2?) and games so bad it almost killed the studio (even Mortismal himself will acknowledge that Divinity 2 was a trash fire before the DLC… and was still a mess after). It was mostly “lucking out” and embracing Kickstarter before everyone hated it that saved them. And… Dragon Commander still got close.
And you know what has REALLY made them stable? That’s right. A deal with a major company to work on one of the most famous IPs in gaming (tabletop and video) history.
Larian are smart to try to maintain their size and not overly grow. But, like countless game devs have said and gotten shouted down for, they are far from “typical” and got REALLY lucky. Hell, Swen himself has mentioned the same in between the blurbs that outlets love to reference.
You forgot to mention they sold 30% stake of the company to the world‘s largest game conglomerate Tencent. They‘re also working on a supposedly much larger game than BG3 now and plan to release it within the next 4 years which means they will have to at least double their staff. Honestly, judging a developer entirely by a recent success isn‘t a good practice even when it‘s as massive as BG3. Most people who talk about Larian have a very warped impression. Even when their games are great recently, the tides can change rapidly in this industry.
Hmmm it’s almost like Jim Ryan was on to something when he said gamepass wasn’t good for the industry and publishers didn’t like it during the antitrust trial with Microsoft.
It blows my fucking mind how stupid some people are just to be able to play the next rehashed bullshit CoD on gamepass instead of paying $70 a year for the same garbage.
Yeah did someone just run or interpret reports incorrectly? If a person subscribes to Game Pass and plays Hi Fi Rush for X months, I’d consider that a sale.
If they play it exclusively, sure. But people play tons of games on Gamepass. HiFi Rush and a dozen other games splitting that $15/month/account is a lot less rosy.
I’ve had Gamepass since the beginning, and since it was launched it I’ve bought maybe 1 or 2 Xbox games that weren’t on gamepass, whereas I used to average 2-3 a month. My overall spending on games has dropped massively since getting gamepass - especially on Xbox.
Just the fact that they played some minimum amount should tell them the game contributed to the subscriber’s enjoyment of Game Pass. Otherwise if they are both selling a game and giving it to Game Pass subscribers for free I’m not sure what they are expecting. Can’t have your cake and eat it too, but I’m sure they would like that.
Maybe they are hoping that Game Pass is like extended demos and will lead to more game sales. But there are too many new games all the time for most to hold my interest.
