D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 Sells Over 20 Million Copies

According to Bloomberg, Larion Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 has sold over 20 million copies. CEO Sven Vincke confirmed that 15 million copies were sold in 2024, and another 5 million in 2025.

Larion Studios, a Belgian company with over 500 staff worldwide, announced in March 2025 that the team was 'elated' not to sign up to make a sequel to Baldur's Gate 3 -- “I thought they were going to be angry at me because I just couldn’t muster the energy. I saw so many elated faces, which I didn’t expect, and I could tell they shared the same feelings, so we were all aligned with one another."

The company is now working on a title in its own Divinity series of games. Vincke also brought up the topic of AI, indicating that attempts to incorporate AI into that game were not successful and that there would be no AI in the upcoming Divinity title.

 

[Bae'zel]

Awesome game, rekindled my interest in D&D, made me care about the Forgotten Realms for the first time in decades.

Played it to death, now I'm bored with it, but still cherish my memories with my beloved Gith Warrior Babe.

 

[payn]

If you think companies won’t mess with successful formulas, then you haven’t been paying attention.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, and generate negative publicity for toy company Hasbro. The 80s moral panic wasn’t just driven by people who thought the demons were real, it was as much to do with parents who didn’t like their kids looking at pictures of boobies.

Oh, no, NOT BEWBS!

The target audience for D&D books is about 12. Which is probably about the age most of us were when we got started.

Do 12 year olds have $150 in ready cash these days.

That's a long paper route.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Hasbro has to be very happy not only the money they have earned but a lot of brand power and now they should be more willing to different titles like a LEGO: Spelljammer within Fortnite, a survival of Dark Sun, a Total War: Dragonlance, Port Royal: Radiant Citadel. The new Falkovnia seems perfect for a zombie survival horror.

The books may be expensive for a 12y boy but videoconsoles are more expensive, but the entertaiment and the fun aren't only when the group of players is together but when the DM is worldbuilding with his imagination.

 

[TwoSix]

The easiest way for a company to not have success is to slavishly copy previous success, leading to rapidly diminishing returns.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

BG3 has an “18” certificate. Everything WotC puts out in print has to be “PG” (don’t offend the parents).

And none of that has made anywhere close to over a billion dollars. They aren't going to risk the backlash by making BG4 PG-13. And WotC also green lite BG3 knowing it was going to be more adult, so clearly they had no problem with that. When something makes a billion dollars, you don't mess with the formula.

 

[Maxperson]

The easiest way for a company to not have success is to slavishly copy previous success, leading to rapidly diminishing returns.

That's highly dependent on the specifics of the success. Food brands for instance rely on the same taste year after year after year. With the OP here, the success that he suggests be copied isn't specific enough to really count as slavishly copying. He just said that R rated content and options did very well, and they did. R rated content does well all over the place.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The easiest way for a company to not have success is to slavishly copy previous success, leading to rapidly diminishing returns.

Turning BG4 into PG is not going stop dimishing. Only thing that will cause it to dimish is terrible writing.

 

[J-H]

Yes, and generate negative publicity for toy company Hasbro. The 80s moral panic wasn’t just driven by people who thought the demons were real, it was as much to do with parents who didn’t like their kids looking at pictures of boobies.

The target audience for D&D books is about 12. Which is probably about the age most of us were when we got started.

Yep, I'm having to use the monster cards instead of the monster manual for my 11yo because of some of the art. Not so much the sexuality (I think one of the fairies and the succubus are about it) as the grossness and bad dreams that could come from zombies, dretches, ghasts, flesh golems, etc. Kids don't mind fighting them, but seeing what they look like is a bit much for their comfort level. He's even kicked back some of the cards I thought were fine.

I keep Tasha's upside down because I'm not comfortable with the witchy cover art. Some of the more recent books (Hellfire club) would never enter my house even if I was switching to 5.24.
The sex/etc. is one of the reasons I have never looked seriously at BG3 and will skip future games that go that route as well. Sin sells but not everyone is going to buy it.

 

[mamba]

if PHB is R-rated, would it really drop in sales much?

most likely yes, WotC has nothing to gain from this. If a table wants R-rated they can add it themselves, no need for WotC to create Lamentations of the Flame Princess, the corporate take