Baldur's Gate 3 director and Larian CEO Swen Vincke reacts to the idea that we should get used to subscriptions, saying content is king.

Always good to see someone in the industry push back on all of these shitty tactics the AAA publishers want to push.

  • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
    12·
    10 months ago

    I don’t even care about the replayability. I can see myself at some point going for another run at BG3, but that’s a big commitment and I think I’m going to play BG1 and 2 before then, and plenty of other games.

    I care if it’s an interesting and enjoyable experience. I’d gladly play another Outer Wilds, even though it’s hardly replayable, because it was such a good and unique experience. I don’t care to play yet another Assassin’s Creed or whatever other garbage that isn’t interesting after you’ve tried it once and also purposefully wastes your time with stuff that is not designed to improve the experience, only playtime.

    • thoro@lemmy.ml
      111·
      10 months ago

      Yeah I sometimes really don’t like the “hours of entertainment” argument because it almost overvalues bloated experiences over tight ones.

      I’ve played <=3 hour games that have left more impact than some 200 hour games

      • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
        31·
        10 months ago

        I would say 99% of the time if the game took 100+h to play and was a story focused game then it was a waste of time. BG3 is an exception here. From a quick search, RDR2 takes 50h and it isn’t a short game. Would you watch a 100+h movie? Of course not. There’s almost no way a well told story is taking that long, unless it’s some kind of Immersive experience or something.

        That said, plenty of non-story games will take much longer. If the focus is good gameplay, there’s a near limitless amount of time it can take. If there’s story interwoven, it could take any amount of time. I’ve put far more than 100h into a ton of indie games that do interesting things with their gameplay. You just don’t see that experimentation coming from the AAA space normally because it’s not guaranteed profit.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
            11·
            10 months ago

            True, but even then it’d have to be 100 episodes if every episode is 1h, which it usually isn’t. That’s be around 10 or more seasons, depending on the show. I can’t think of a show with that many episodes off the top of my head. I’m sure it exists, but it’s a hell of a lot. Game of Thrones is apparently 70h14m. If your story is taking more time to tell than GoT, it’s probably taking too long.

        • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
          2·
          10 months ago

          plenty of non-story games will take much longer

          Yup. Satisfactory doesn’t have much of a story (although it’s still early access) but I think I’m cloae to 1,000 hours on it.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
            2·
            10 months ago

            I like the idea of Satisfactory, but I can’t enjoy it for some reason. I’ve played too much Factorio and it has too many quality of life things that Satisfactory is missing. With the number of overhaul mods, there’s no end to how much Factorio can be played either.