Tbf, a lot of people misjudged it, including Larian. I don’t think a lot of people really believed the “choices and decisions matter” would work as well as it did. Prior to release, I read an article that talked about how it was gonna be neat that the in-game news would update based on your actions. Like, that was the noteworthy function to discuss about the game. “NPCs might talk about your actions in passing to each other”.
Did Microsoft underestimate it more than others? Sure. But pretending like every corporation, including Larian, didn’t underestimate it a whole lot is a bit crazy.
Edit: and isn’t the game Divinity: Original Sin II? Did it have other names in other international markets?
Edit: this was submitted as a response to https://lemmy.world/comment/3615435 but Kbin didn’t seem to actually tie them together. It shows me that it was written as a reply on Kbin, but seems to have lost connection to the comment hierarchy.
The degree of success couldn’t be predicted, sure. But larian is not a new studio, BG is a big ip, DOS2 was a big success, the witcher 3 was a tremendous success, and the game was in early access for 3 years so you could very easily gauge how it was going.
If a decider can’t see that coming at least as a significant possibility, they’re all clowns who don’t deserve more than the lowest wages.
easily gauge how it was going.
Except virtually everyone got it wrong still. Even the head of Larian thought it’d top out at 100k max. That’s currently it’s average now with it’s max being more than 800% higher.
BG is a big IP, but it’s never had this level of success. Look at Diablo III’s release (similar IP with a long break between games). It had better advertising campaign and still kind of became noise fairly quickly. Game news sites barely covered BG3 until it hit it big.
Microsoft definitely undershot, but it was likely basing it on a lot of the aggregated news as well. It had barely any coverage prior to its official release. This is usually a sign that the game will be mediocre.
Larian is a big studio but its last expected game from its really only known IP was cancelled after being put on hold for four years (granted BG3 was also being developed during this time). It’s biggest games prior to this got at least partially funded on Kickstarter (not a knock against KS, but it’s not generally seen as the sign of a strong studio to exec-types).
I don’t blame an executive for not seeing this coming.
Executives obviously didn’t see this coming. But neither did game journalists or even gamers.
Its a mistake in hindsight, but with what everyone generally knew at the time, it was the expectation of most.
There is a difference between misjudging the success and betting on the failure.
Did you read the paper? BG3 was assessed far below just dance or let’s sing ABBA! It was at the very bottom of the list!
I bought the game blind a year before release. Not to test it but because I knew were I was going. Of course I had big fears about it because many games pretended to be BG successors and I didn’t want to get my expectations too high. But I didn’t know anything about it because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.
The information was there. I don’t know why journalists to whatever didn’t saw it coming but I was prepared for it being a big thing for me. It is litteraly their job to assess whether a game will work or not. They bet on failure. They couldn’t be more wrong, and I don’t think there was any sign of failure.
It was expected to be a second release after being a Stadia exclusive. This isn’t judging quality, just impact.
Edit: and let’s not pretend by adding “far below” when it was in the same group. And the ranking isn’t even totally based on expected sales. The asking prices and the levels aren’t in order. You’re misinterpreting one quote entirely incorrectly and trying assuming too much from a chart.
Looks like someone did not play Divinity of Sin 2 and so did not know about Larian´s potential …
DOS2 had very weak sales on the Xbox.
Considering they only care about money, that is indeed a good point!
To be fair I think Polygon have misunderstood the email.
Calling it “second run Stadia PC RPG” implies Microsoft thought it was going to launch as a Stadia exclusive for it’s first run. This was back in 2020 when Stadia was still a thing, and trying to sign up exclusives.
That doesn’t mean Microsoft underestimated it, but that it thought it’d already have had a run on Stadia which would make it less likely to be an important title for Microsoft.
To be fair I think Polygon have misunderstood the email.
They surely misunderstood the second run Stadia/PC RPG mention.
That doesn’t mean Microsoft underestimated it
What does mean Microsoft underestimated it is that part: Expected partner range: ~$5M range
Their publisher also expected the game to have about one-tenth of the actual players. I don’t think anyone knew how big it would be.
The $5M also refers to what they thought Larian would want for it to be included on Game Pass.
Their publisher also expected the game to have about one-tenth of the actual players. I don’t think anyone knew how big it would be.
Absolutely.
The $5M also refers to what they thought Larian would want for it to be included on Game Pass.
Yes and that’s precisely my point. Because they didn’t see how successful the game would be. Otherwise, they would have thought of a much bigger number.
Are we even surprised? Microsoft clearly doesn’t know how to judge a game’s quality.
They do, they just define “quality” by something that can be measured in Dollar. You and I don’t.
True, and it’s depressing
BG3 is an outlier. I completely understand why it wasn’t on the radar. Pent up DnD demand + decent execution sent it to the moon.
What I want to know is will we ever see a new Champions of Norrath game? Does anyone remember that game?
