Owlcat Games knows not to expect Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader to be as successful as Baldur’s Gate 3
No, almost no developer is independent and not beholden to some profit monger. Larian could do that because they didn’t have shareholders breathing down their neck telling them to ship the game now.
That’s an excellent and salient point.
It also cuts to the very core of my deep frustration around finance types more or less calling the shots entirely throughout the entirety of my career as a software engineer. The choice is very, very often between building good, reliable, well-thought-out systems that are genuinely helpful and barely scraping by (or in some cases, not) financially… or creating crappy, slapped-together, ad-riddled, society-destroying bullshit while taking a paycheck that’s decent enough to support your family.
When people talk about wage slavery, this is exactly what they mean.
Edit: revised awful wording
Woe be to man, struck down by his own invisible hand. As Oroborous, we consume, orchestrating our own doom.
Ok that’s a fantastic quote. Are those lyrics to a song? Where did it come from?
This isn’t exactly true as tencent has a 30% stake in Larian. I imagine it definitely helps to have an owner like Sven and his wife that are fully bought in though with 70% stake.
