D&D 5E Dragon Age lead says Baldur’s Gate 3 and Clair Obscur prove publishers wrong as games can crush market trends is they’re “given time to cook”

[CleverNickName]

Woke is such a hugely subjective term it's not particularly useful, but diversity is only a problem if it's put before every other consideration.

BG3 put story and setting and characters first and weaved the diversity in organically in a way. Other games put diversity first and it came off inauthentic.

I think @Charlaquin 's point is that subjectivity you mentioned is often retrospective. Like a game is "putting diversity first" until it proves to be a success, and then that diversity suddenly becomes "organic in a way."

 

[Charlaquin]

Woke is such a hugely subjective term it's not particularly useful,

No, it used to be a pretty specific term before reactionaries co-opted it. Now it’s a dog whistle and a rhetorical tool that is vague by design, because to be specific about what it’s being used to mean would give away the game. Or, rather, it was that until like a year or so ago. The mainstream discourse cottoned onto it, so DEI is currently serving the same rhetorical purpose. I don’t expect that’s going to last much longer, but the grifters still need a little time to line up the next euphemism they’ll start using.

but diversity is only a problem if it's put before every other consideration.

That isn’t an actual thing that happens.

BG3 put story and setting and characters first and weaved the diversity in organically in a way. Other games put diversity first and it came off inauthentic.

No, other games didn’t perform as well as BG3 for reasons that have nothing to do with diversity - see my brief summary of Veilguard’s development for an example. Whereas BG3 had a very long and productive early access period and a ton of resources poured into its development and marketing. The same anti-“woke” crowd were making the same critiques of BG3 prior to its release, but it did well, so they stopped making those critiques and switched tactics to using it as an example of the mythical “right way” to do diversity.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Incidentally, if I don’t generally like JRPGs, will I enjoy Clair Obscur? I know it’s a French game, but it seems JRPG-esque. My main objection to JRPGs is the player’s general lack of meaningful choices/agency/ability to affect the story.

Clair Obscur isn't substantially different from other games in its genre in regards to the story being kind of on rails. There's some relationship mechanics that impact certain scenes, and some big decisions to make near the end that affect the ending you get, so there's a bit of wiggle room and narrative agency, but it's very much spice on top of the main dish that is the story it wants to tell. It's a VERY good story, with a lot of fun twists and turns, but the Je RPG isn't diverging from the JRPG in this sense. The decisions you make as a player are more around party build and combat decisions, which are pretty robust and engaging.

Yeah, graphical fidelity is my lowest priority when it comes to what sells me on a game. Nice to have, but never going to be the factor that makes or breaks a sale for me, and I think a lot of players would agree. Unfortunately, it happens to be a factor that is easiest not draw a correlation with to sales numbers, so it tends to be one of the highest priorities for developers.

Art Design > Graphical Capability, every time.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

No, it used to be a pretty specific term before reactionaries co-opted it. Now it’s a dog whistle and a rhetorical tool that is vague by design, because to be specific about what it’s being used to mean would give away the game. Or, rather, it was that until like a year or so ago. The mainstream discourse cottoned onto it, so DEI is currently serving the same rhetorical purpose. I don’t expect that’s going to last much longer, but the grifters still need a little time to line up the next euphemism they’ll start using.


That isn’t an actual thing that happens.


No, other games didn’t perform as well as BG3 for reasons that have nothing to do with diversity - see my brief summary of Veilguard’s development for an example. Whereas BG3 had a very long and productive early access period and a ton of resources poured into its development and marketing. The same anti-“woke” crowd were making the same critiques of BG3 prior to its release, but it did well, so they stopped making those critiques and switched tactics to using it as an example of the mythical “right way” to do diversity.

I never said Veilguards problem was diversity, I've never played it.

For the record I have loved many LGBT media, Debbs, Agatha All Along, Bird Cage, Heir of Strahd, BG3, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Go Fish, Xena, Spartacus, Fallout 2, etc...,

 

[Campbell]

I think Clair Obscur is much more evidence that if you build the best game you can that you want to play than the audience will come.

 

[Piperken]

I find Detroit: Become Human and BG3 interesting to compare together, though they aren't quite the same type of game: their development cycle was roughly the same (~5-6 years), both had quite significant amounts of money put into their development, quite long scripts in terms of writing, and both were successful (BG3 being massively so).

Both games left impressionable story beats with me.

 

[JConstantine]

I think Clair Obscur is much more evidence that if you build the best game you can that you want to play than the audience will come.

I'd add Black Myth: Wukong and Space Marine 2 to that. But the counterpoint is naughty word Black Ops 6 being the most profitable game of 2024 (by dollar amount).

 

[Charlaquin]

I never said Veilguards problem was diversity, I've never played it.

I never said you said it was either

For the record I have loved many LGBT media, Debbs, Agatha All Along, Bird Cage, Heir of Strahd, BG3, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Go Fish, Xena, Spartacus, Fallout 2, etc...,

Ok…? I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.

 

[GreyLord]

So, I really enjoyed DA2.

If I had to rank them I'd put DA: Inquisition last...possibly because I have found I generally REALLY REALLY dislike open world games, and that first section of DA:Inquisition is....

 

[I'm A Banana]

think Clair Obscur is much mire evidence that if you build the best game you can that you want to play than the audience will come.

Eh, there's enough AMAZING games out there that don't get the audience they deserve that I'm skeptical of this statement (Everyone play 1000xRESIST), but I do think that you need to be good first, to have a chance to appeal to the casuals.

I don't think casual players are really put off much by the niche stuff these days, though. We live in a post-Dark Souls world where a friggin' Monster Hunter game is one of the best selling games right now. Opaque mechanics and weird systems and niche knowledge isn't a put off for a lot of people anymore. Hell, it's probably a bit of an appeal.

But Veilguard's publishers wanted it to be a frickin' live service game at one point. Their expectations for the game's financial success were...probably inflated, at best.