Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Anyone interesting in talking about BioWare going kaput? It’s very much a culture war item. I have to think any honest broker would see this is a clear case of go woke/go broke. Andromeda, Anthem, and Veilgard were total disasters. Even if Anthem wasn’t overtly political like the other two, it’s clear that the company started hiring people that were not good at developing video games. It’s really remarkable since market theory should incentivize the exact opposite. But perhaps this closure is the market correcting and other developers will take note.
Separately, I couldn’t help but check in on Jason Schrier’s coverage. He released a YouTube video this week going over the closure. Early in the video he reminds the viewer that EA was recently taken private by Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner. Ah hah! I said to myself, that’s how he will spin this! And sure enough he gives a nuts and bolts overview of the poor sales over the years. And he spends an awful lot of time getting into the nitty gritty on leveraged buyouts and unreasonable meddling publishers.
I’ll remind everyone that when Veilgard came out, Jason posted “Go woke / go to the top of the charts?”. What a hilarious turn of events. The game literally killed the company. It would be funny except for the fact that I think a very large part of the blame for the state of the games industry can be laid at Mr Schriers feet. This guy does nothing but launder the industries perspective as fact and add credibility to the party line.
One thing you will see a lot on Reddit is people blaming publishers and corporate executives for bad releases that are total failures. I’m not one to defend these mercenary executives, but I think the actual rank and file game developers deserve the lions share of the blame. The executives can be blamed insofar as they are the ones making hiring decisions. But the actual developer and artist talent is bad. I’m glad they’re out of a job.
While it's certainly true that Veilguard had some atrocious writing which was just there to advocate for the right politics, I don't think Bioware's fall is as simple as "get woke, go broke". Bioware has been sucking for over a decade at this point. ME3 was a disaster, and so was every game since (with the possible exception of DA:I, which seems to have been pretty positively received). But ME3 was released in 2012, years before there was a general trend of game devs making artistic decisions based on politics rather than what made for a better game. Bioware's games may have suffered from political activism (Veilguard certainly did), but they had already gotten bad at making games even before that.
I think Baldur's Gate 3 might be an exception too? I haven't played it personally, but I hear a lot of good sentiment about it despite it sounding like they actually did put activism in there.
It's a Larian game so of course they did, but they're almost hilariously upfront about it. You don't get lectures. If Larian did the Veilguard scene there, you wouldn't get "pulling a Bharv", you would get male character you/female character you having sex with the they/them character and male you might well bottom for them and like it.
When playing Divinity: Original Sin II, I wanted to see just how far they'd go with the Lizard Courtesan and well, that's how I, Ifan ben-Mezd, ended up as the side-chick (male) to the Red Prince after unlocking my hitherto unsuspected lizard-fucking side. Believe me, I was surprised. But it was all on me, I dared them to put up or shut up and they sure did put up 😁
BG3 is great fun. It's not particularly deep, I don't think it really follows in the track of the preceding games in the series (for one thing, Larian don't believe in none of them gods or heroes so they do some hefty lore-breaking or lore-rewriting), but it's a blast to play (once you sort out the turn-based beepin' combat system). They just go gloriously over the top because they're having fun and they want you to have fun, too.
My understanding is that BG3 transparently does not give the slightest crap about either BG1 or BG2, or the wider Forgotten Realms canon.
It's Divinity: Original Sin III. From what I hear it is competent at that and perhaps even a good game, but one thing it is definitely not is a sequel to Baldur's Gate II.
That's my impression. I've never played any of the original Baldur's Gate games, I had played some of the Divinity ones, so when BG3 came out as "Next game from Larian Studios" I said I'd give it a whirl.
Looking up the lore of previous games, it does seem that BG3 went its own way, which is what I would expect of Larian and if you love the previous games, you probably won't like this. Play it as a different game 'in the same setting' and that's how you'd enjoy it (or not).
I'm a huge fan of BG1 and BG2, which I consider some of the best RPGs ever made, so it would be fair to say that BG3 crapping on BG2 is a deal-breaker for me.
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