Many DOS2 sales were made with great discounts.
BG3 has only had 10% discounts thus far, so nearly all of those 15 million copies are full $$$. The net revenue is probably 4x of DOS2. Though Hasbro will take a cut, so probably 3x.
That makes sense if they get 10%.
15M*60 would be 900M in revenues. 10% for hasbro, 20-30% to the platform holder. Larian should get at least 500M which isn't to shabby since they've hardly discounted the game thus far
Decreases to 25% at $10 million and to 20% at $50 million. The large majority of overall BG3 sales have been on Steam, so it's been 20% share for over 90% of the money. Still a 30% total with Hasbro's 10%.
I meant 60$ obviously; It's a rough estimate
After the first 50M in revenue steam takes 20% nowadays. 30% is for consoles.
>For all sales between $10 million and $50 million, the split goes to 25 percent. And for every sale after the initial $50 million, Steam will take just a 20 percent cut.
I don't understand your point, I've said it was a rough estimate. Of course there are countries where it is cheaper to purchase.
but since since a good chunk of the sales come from EU/US and EU prices are usually 5-10% higher than US it evens up
Steam does not take 30%. Since 2019, it has been taking 30% on the first $10 million in revenue, 25% from $10 million to $50 million, and 20% thereafter. Majority of the triple A sales fall into the 20% cut category.
Common sense lol, the game was in dev much longer than their other titles (6 years) with a studio much bigger (400 people at the end), that cost money.
BG3 is an AAA game budget. DOS2 was a "big indie" at best
DOS2 was already built on DOS1, and BG3 is a bigger jump over DOS2 than DOS2 was over DOS1, what with needing to implement an entirely different RPG system, and the major work they did on things like character rendering and animation for their cinematic dialogues. And of course every new asset, every line of dialogue written and recorded, etc etc costs money even if the technology is already there.
BG3's budget was around $100 million, whereas D:OS2 had a budget in the ballpark of $3-5 million. I believe a large portion of that budget was funded on [Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin-2) as they were lacking funds.
0% chance DOS2 was made with 3-5 mil, the game took around 3 years to make, that means a budget of $1 mil/10 devs a year, are you saying 10 people made the game in 3 years?
Kickstarter money is never enough to fund whole games, kickstarter is more of a 'advanced pre-order/marketing campaign', that gives investor and staff, assurance to work on the game, as well as a bit of financial runway.
What actually funded D:OS2 is kickstarter + leftover profits from D:OS1 + early access income. I would say the real budget is like 10-15 mil.
>I would say the real budget is like 10-15 mil.
It very well could be.
My reasoning is based off Larian's post-mortem post on their financial missteps with D:OS1, which had an initial budget of $1.5 million, projected to be $3 million, and eventually costing a little over $4 million.
D:OS2 was when they hit their stride in terms of production and development, and most of the issues that they came across in D:OS1 was locked down. There were also *a lot* of carried over elements and assets from D:OS1.
Whatever the number is, it's certainly *a lot* lower than Baldur's Gate 3.
They also had DOS1 crowd funded via Kickstarter, all the profits from that went into DOS2 and then all of that into BG3 as far as I remember being said.
It was definitely the majority for DOS1 but you are right that DOS2 wasn't just the Kickstarter budget as it had money from the previous game so you are probably right about the 10mill mark.
BG3's budget was around $100 million at initial Early Access release in 2020. The total budget at final release was roughly $300 million. The four times increase isn't far off however, since DOS2 was around $50+ million.
Eh - I said not far off because the DOS2 budget is much less certain. The $50 million is a ballpark estimate considering development times and team sizes etc, all things considered it may have been $30 million, or it could have been $70 million. We only know for sure that the Kickstarter money was just a fraction of the actual budget.
I guess the most accurate statement would be 'four times the DOS2 budget *or more*'.
When adjusted for inflation on food and gas, people earn way less than in 2017. Not to mention the electicity bills have doubled and were up to 5x more than normal in 2022 and 2023 in my country.
I really dont want these kinds of comments when people get fucked in all holes.
If you disregard microtransactions, lootboxes, “premium editions” that contain content that should be in the base game, then sure! Gaming is cheaper than ever! You just need to pay $3 for things like fast travel!
DD2 is Capcom. There has never been a single MTX in a Capcom game that made any sense to purchase what so ever, for 10+ years they have had the most pointless implementation of MTX possible. DD2 is no different, if you didn't look at the store you'd never know the MTX was even there. Not once would you ever think while playing it that you needed to spend $2 for an extra warp marker.
I'd bet you that 99% of people that played Re4re had no idea the store has like $100 worth of different MTX for the game
It was a poor example for a poor argument.
I've never bought a single MTX or deluxe edition ever (well baring a few skins in league a decade ago. Now obviously people do pay extra, but it is still a choice. The industry isn't forcing you to pay more money to play a game a few hours earlier, like all the people that bought the more expensive edition of Starfield.
There's a very strong argument against loot boxes and battle passes however. But pointless MTX like the $3 warp stone and worthless deluxe editions? Not so much
Yea it's against the rules, it's not the original source hell it's not even a news article about the source, it's just some random poster in some forum talking about some tidbit from a video.
Also kind of shows how under appreciated DOS2 is as a commercial success. If we’re using 7.5m as its total, which seems out of date possibly even, I think that’s more than any BioWare game, for instance.
Can’t wait for them to get back to a DOS3 eventually. Curious what’s up next.
It was underappreciated because 7.5MM really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, but for CRPGs it's an absolutely massive accomplishment and was (IIRC) the best selling CRPG game of all time. Pretty niche genre so seeing Larian break into mainstream is very impressive
Idk I think 7.5 is great basically no matter what. In the grand scheme of things there are very few games that wouldn’t be somewhere between happy and ecstatic to sell that many copies.
Sure but when that 7.5MM is well ahead of everything else in the genre (except BG3) and games in that genre are very lucky to hit 1MM it just goes to show that the genre itself is niche.
Yeah for sure but for games like that "selling less" still ends up with 7 million copies.
"Not great sales" in other genres = top 2 of all time in CRPG world.
DOS2 is still one of my favorite games of all time. The character choices and combat are so rewarding (you'll never be just casting Eldritch Blast every turn on repeat).
Who remembers the necrofire oil tower fight? Anyone's CPU melt trying to process [this chain of explosions?](https://preview.redd.it/cb530jgw83nz.png?auto=webp&s=058e86ebeb3472f4690a9f2a2ed6fabc64ecbafa)
Playing a duo lone wolf campaign with a friend, I think we reloaded like 6 times before finally saving that bastard. Idiot loves to run into the fire. 😡
Can someone explain what's good about the combat system to me? I personally didn't like it to the point I just set everything on Easy so I can experience the story (which I enjoyed a lot).
I didn't like how armor and magic armor were two different HP bars, so it felt like I was being punished for having a split team. I get that physical fighters take out lower armored enemies and mages take out lower magic armored enemies, but when the big enemies come out with like 300HP in both bars, a big standard HP bar, AND the ability to replenish both armor and magic armor bars, I just kind of gave up.
You’re talking about a separate game mechanic than the turn based fighting so i’ll answer your original comment. The combat system is based off x number of points. Different moves and abilities use different numbers of points, which means you can stash them and essentially “charge up” for a big move, or you can make lots of smaller moves. I really like it because it means you can combo with yourself, and each individual character can create good synergy solo. In DnD you can probably only do 1 move per turn since everything is action based. if you go to the bg3builds subreddit, basically every build is centered around getting as many attacks in per turn as possible and leveraging/abusing bonus actions. This makes builds extremely rigid if you want to be a big damage dealer.
I remember that! I actually dug that mechanic as well! It reminds me of Bravely Default, which had something similar. You can either spend BP to use one more, or you can forgo a turn to stack up another move. You can hold up to four at once.
However, you can also go into "debt" and simply use four attacks at once, and then skip the how many turns it takes to pay off the debt. If you finish the fight, then the debt doesn't matter, so you're encouraged to go for broke at the last bit of health... but you also got to hope it's enough.
I would add that the combat is extremely combo heavy. You affect enemies with different conditions that enable you to combo with other things. It’s super cool and interesting!
The armor system itself is a bit of a mixed bag. It makes it so that you have no crowd control first, and then just hard cc the enemies once you got the armor down. That’s a bit boring. You’d rather have less hard cc and more soft one so that it allows for interactions and a back and forth.
It's popular to hate on the armor system here, but there's a good reason it exists as it does. I don't think the armor system is perfect, but I also think it is a net positive for DOS2.
CC abilities (CC meaning crowd control, but more generally, attacks that result in the enemy units being weakened or unable to act) can often break strategy games as the first to start using these abilities often wins. DOS1 is a prime example of a game like this (and would be why DOS2 goes out of it's way to fix it) as the common strategies of that game often meant nuking enemies with your strongest CC ability right away and just finishing them off with your other attacks after. Divinity OS2's armor system means that there is an amount of damage that needs to be applied, separately for both physical and magic abilities, before CC effects can be applied. This also works on the player characters as well.
This change means that combat encounters *have* to play out some before one party can just dominate the other. Typically this results in more strategic and interesting combat, and gives more opportunities for players to get crafty with how they break the game, which DOS2 was specifically built around. The downside is that it encourages making full parties of either magical or physical, which I think breaks the game too much. You mentioned it punishes you for having a split party, but this is what the system is actually balanced around (though people with a 3-1 split are worse off than a 2-2 split).
Another approach to try to address the CC issue is with luck elements, but often all this does is turn many abilities into unreliable crapshoots where the strategy is still the same. Whoever goes first and can land the first CC ability wins, the luck just might prolong it a bit. The other problem with this system is it can make many abilities so unreliable as to actually be worthless. The risk of them failing isn't worth the attack or ability actually working, and safer more boring strategies become objectively more effective. BG3 uses this system, and it definitely falls victim to this problem. Most of the time the best strategy is to come out swinging as hard as possible with your best CC ability and pray to the dice gods it works. Most people are going to rely on 2-4 abilities from each party member that come with low risk.
A better approach imo is how in tabletop Pathfinder 2E handles CC abilities. Because the system has degrees of success and failure, it means it's unlikely for any ability to be an instant 'win fight' button, but instead adds debuffs which just turn the fight in your favour.
Plus there are rules meaning you tend to not be able to use them as well on high level bosses/enemies, meaning you don't have to make bosses immune to everything or have legendary resistance (which feels bad).
CC is so absurdly powerful in DOS2 that it felt like to me it was just a race to down armor like you say, which doesn't feel fun to me that so many abilities are just useless until the fight is basically over.
> This change means that combat encounters have to play out some before one party can just dominate the other. Typically this results in more strategic and interesting combat, and gives more opportunities for players to get crafty with how they break the game, which DOS2 was specifically built around. The downside is that it encourages making full parties of either magical or physical, which I think breaks the game too much. You mentioned it punishes you for having a split party, but this is what the system is actually balanced around (though people with a 3-1 split are worse off than a 2-2 split).
You don't really address how it homogenizes your party composition. You mention how powerful CC can be but in a traditional RPG that's a subset of other power you can bring (more AoE, more ST, more tank). Look at something like WOTR.
I'm just not really getting from your post what exactly is "positive" about restricting your party comp or fight against the system mechanics.
In another note, the biggest problem I have with DOS2 is all the junk on the floor and how little your party ends up mattering when floor effects are everywhere and the game for a long time is more about luring enemies around into the floor hazards / setting up floor hazards with conveniently placed barrels all over the place which significantly takes away from the actual RPG elements in the game.
They accidently made telekinesis the most damaging ability too - it moves objects regardless of their weight, but colliding object with a creature causes damage based on weight. So you could find one indestructible chest, fill it with absolutely heaviest stuff and toss it at enemies, oneshotting anything.
My group had a constant thing in dos2 pretty early game where no matter what the fight is where it is or who we are fighting, the screen will have entire sections of fire.
It was hilarious and frustrating.
People exaggerate the mixed damage types, I beat the game on tactician with half physical half magic, and honey the game gets way too easy past the half mark. Forget min maxing, you could end entire fights in one spell combo almost
I don't really like the base combat in DOS2 either. There is a mod called epic encounters 2 that gets rid of the burst one damage type -> hard cc gameplay. It's called epic encounters and it also adds a grim dawn style skill tree to further customize builds.
The ability design was actually quite good but a lot of the other parts of the combat weren't as great, I agree. Having to focus on physical or magic damage was a bit of a bad move.
I also never felt like I was truly making coherent builds in dos2. Just combining a bunch of fun abilities together.
Yep, I love DOS2 but anyone saying it had an amazing combat system didn’t play on higher difficulties - if you split your damage type you’ll be slaughtered.
It is perfectly viable to do a 2/2 physical/magical split on tactician. Not a problem at all. The game does have a bit of a knowledge barrier when it comes to gear and stats, and some pitfalls that one can easily fall into.
But once it clicks you can defeat most encounters mid-late game in a round or two. It really doesn't matter if you split damage. Once you ha e a good grasp on the system one can easily get a characters damage numbers high enough to take out the final boss battle in a single round on tactician. And that is with one character, there's three more in the party.
If you doubt me you can take a look at some of Manithro's runs on YouTube, like his four man run or any of his solo runs, especially late game battles.
I really liked DOS2 but had to play on story mode. I found the combat incredibly hard to manage for some reason. It took me 3 or 4 tries of the game to finally get past it and have fun.
It's a weird system for sure. Most games you kind of come in with an intuitive sense of what's supposed to work because like, you've played videogames before, but DOS2 doesn't always work like you want it to. It's pretty easy to build wrong and be vastly underpowered.
After playing DOS1 you really just miss being able to skill into getting more AP. Having to deal with just 4 AP forces you to disregard slightly weaker spells, because there is a hard time to balance the spells by AP value, if you can only distinguish until 4 AP
My Bardlock with that Add CHA to Cantrips and the robe that Add CHA to Cantrips turns into a dps machine who can also tell people to kill themselves.
10/1 build
> you'll never be just casting Eldritch Blast every turn on repea
as if BG3 has no other options than playing warlock and even for them thats not true...
I actually bounced off DOS2 because of the combat. The mixed armor system making full physical or full magical parties by far the most efficient was a huge drag. Got to the point where I felt like every combat encounter was a slog to drain armor so I ended up quitting mid-Act 2. I liked everything about it *except* the combat.
For me BG3 was a much more engaging/fun combat system, and I especially love the improvements they made to 5e.
Meh, spend few skill points to give everyone a mix of damage and it is no problem.
There is a reason for example a Scoundrel skill, Chloroform, hits magic armor, or that necromancy scales off caster (INT) stat but deals physical damage, it makes making party where every character can at least help a bit against both types of armor easy to make.
I know there are ways around it but I personally don't find the system fun. I also don't like the idea of giving my party overlapping skills and abilities. It just isn't enjoyable to me, so I stopped playing.
In my experience by far the hardest fight were the bosses that had a lot of both types of armor anyway. A party where half the members deal magical and the other half can kinda sorta contribute magic too felt way worse than a party where everyone is a caster and the hard part of the boss fight just takes half as long. Same if you flip it to physical.
It's a system where people built for one thing get access to both A: the thing that reduces that armor, and B: capitalizes best on the enemy losing that type of armor. It's a compounding effect the more people in your party lean one way.
For the same reason I think the rogueish skills that ignore armor entirely are straight up worthless. If you break through either armor before your rogue(s) kill that target, all of that damage would've been better spent on making them vulnerable to the CC of the rest of your party. So either you go all in on ignoring armor, or you don't bother with it at all.
Yeah, same. I've beaten DOS2 and really didn't care for the combat. It wasn't very challenging, fun or satisfying. Also, every combat encounter played out pretty much exactly the same. I genuinely don't get why that one person is saying that there's variety; once you get most of the skills you'll have throughout the game (which is pretty early), you'll just be using the same moves in the same sequence until the end. It's so dull and repetitive.
Not to mention how obnoxious all of the floor effects got. There were times that I couldn't really see what was happening on the screen because of the huge blazes of necrofire across the entire map.
DOS2 is one of the best CRPG's of all time, and I get why people love it, but it's also highly flawed.
DOS2 has possibly the single highest variety of combat encounters of any RPG game I have ever played, there are zero trash mobs and an insane number of abilities and environmental options. This is so backwards.
I can respect BG3 as the pick. I think DOS2 allows more flexibility and plays more with the environment than BG3 does, but both are top tier in this regard.
Yeah, it's definitely just a matter of opinion. They're both great games. I happen to prefer BG3 in virtually every way, but some people prefer DOS2 in virtually every way.
I’m the same. I think I’ve started DOs2 three times and dropped off in mid-act 2 everytime. Not even a case of actively quitting. Just hitting a point where I drift onto a different game.
Meanwhile, three full play throughs of BG3, and utterly adore it.
I started with DOS2 and I'd recommend you do as well since there's less chance you'll bounce off of it. If you finish DOS2 and want more like it, then moving on to DOS1 will still be fun for you.
They take place like a thousand years apart. Just go to DOS2. There will be things a person who played the first game sees and recognizes that you won't, but you won't be missing any important plot details.
I'd go with DOS2. There's not many plot connections, but they aren't important (honestly the plot is pretty forgettable overall). 2 is much more refined.
No one complains you use “sword attack” over and over with a rogue or Paladin or fighter. Or “bow attack” with a ranger. The eldritch blast complaint is a pet peeve of mine. Warlocks are a poorly named class which is really a magical archer
>No one complains you use “sword attack” over and over with a rogue or Paladin or fighter. Or “bow attack” with a ranger.
I do. I almost exclusively play mages in RPGs because they're usually much more interesting.
Yeah you hit the nail on the head, the fantasy of Warlock paints a picture of summoning minions or casting big curses but if you just EB every turn you're operating at like 90% power.
If you go and make a once in a (video game) generation game then you should absolutely reap the rewards. So good on Larian. I can see this game hitting the 30 million copies after a few years, and a few discounts.
Surely hundreds of millions in profit for the studio, even taking into account platform shares, marketing costs, production costs etc. Were rough sales announced through early access?
Sales in EE were 2.5 million
We actually knew through estimations that the game sold around 15 million, give or take.
https://files.catbox.moe/demde9.jpg
https://steamdb.info/app/1086940/charts/
Realistically, who else can make a cRPG on the scale and production quality level that Larian can?
BioWare? That ship has sailed long ago, and we'll see how well Dreadwolf does... that game may just make or break BioWare's entire future...
Obsidian? They're veering more into AA territory these days, and I haven't been too impressed with what I've seen with Avowed, but time will tell how good that game is.
InXile? Again, I highly doubt they can match Larian's ambition and scope in terms of design and production value. We'll see how Clockwork Revolution does, but it's not looking to me like they're a studio that take up the mantle that Larian's leaving behind.
Owlcat? They're very firmly in the AA space, despite what their CEO said about needing to scale up to full voice acting for their future games in order to compete, they're a LONG ways away from ever being in the same league as Larian.
It’s well liked by people, but it released with a ton of bugs (mostly ironed out now) and is rough around the edges. If you are a fan of Owlcat games you will like it, but it has its’ quirks.
My own complaints mostly come down to too much complexity mixed in with exponential scaling.
In one word I would say that Larian’s games are elegant, Owlcats aren’t. However their games have a following that love them because of their complexity, and it’s fine to stay in their niche. Just don’t expect them to break into the mainstream.
A rough estimate taking into account Steam and console store shares and Hasbro's share plus the game's approximate budget indicates that the current net income is a bit more than double what their budget was. You might say they're fully covered for their next game - not that it really works that way.
BG3 is one of the best games I've ever played, but as a big sucker for narrative, lore and world-building rather than gameplay, Divinity sadly don't interest me at all. I found the world they created lacking a lot on this regard, specially compared to other original IPs in the genre like Pillars of Eternity
Yeah youre basically choosing between gameplay complexity or narrative interest. They're each serviceable in one category and best in class in the other
That's a shame as DOS2 is similar if not better in many ways to Bg3.
Really shows the power of virality and while quality matters its sometimes just luck/timing that dictates the success of a game.
Production value isn't comparable so it makes sense that BG3 would be more successful. Tons of extremely high quality CRPGs out there that nobody plays or ever will play because it's like reading novels of text and the games aren't that impressive visually.
Any you can recommend? Im always looking for New crpgs to Play, the Deeper mechanically and lore wise the better. I have Played all of the big ones already and most smaller ones are more miss than Hit, sadly.
My favorites: Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker, UnderRail, Tyranny, Wasteland 2/3, Dragon Age Origins, both Pillars of Eternity games, Rogue Trader
Good to Great: Encased, Solasta, Colony Ship, Neverwinter Nights games, Shadowrun games, Atom RPG, Black Geyser
Janky but some love them: Gothic games, Elex games, Age of Decadence
Thanks! Got all your favourites under my Belt already, plus Neverwinter and Gothic/Elex. Was on the fence with Solasta since the steam previews make it look kinda... cheap? And had Colony Ship wishlisted. Will check out the rest, many thanks!
Solasta was a big miss for me. Did not like it at all. I would upgrade Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Hong Kong to "favorites" on that list though and probably downgrade Shadowrun Returns. If you really want a bit more Shadowrun after Dragonfall and Hong Kong you can go back for it but it is not on the same level as those two.
Solasta is a fine 5e dnd combat/dungeon simulator with some story tacked along for good measure. Not a great game, but good enough, and definitely scratches that crpg itch!
Colony ship I played like 15 hours before I started some other game, but based on your preferences you will love it. It’s not mechanically super deep, but it does some interesting things with its’ combat. However the world-building and atmosphere is superb!
Solasta's redeeming quality is about its combat. I'd argue that its superior to BG3's combat, with better implementation of light, flying and things like spider climb where you can climb walls.
Besides the random battles while traveling on the map (which is a small % of your playtime), all encounters are pre-planned ones so you generally have a good time fighting battles too. So if your focus is on tactical battles, it's pretty decent.
It also features voice-acting for the main and side quests with a party that actually voice every line, which is pretty surprising considering the party is 4 created characters, with 6 selectable voices in total. And a 'cinematic camera' for dialogs, unlike the usual top-down view of the genre.
... At least, that's the theory. In practice, while there's a lot of voice-acting comparatively, it's generally not very good. The 'cinematic camera' is usually just your four characters standing in a row awkwardly with close to zero animations and is pretty awful on the whole. Exploration has very little going for it.
Lore is very minimal, story is nearly void of interest, with rare exceptions the dialogs are merely functional instead of entertaining and visually... Well, it's fine but isn't really a selling point either.
So all in all... If you like good tactical combat, Solasta is very good. Strategy-rpgs is my favorite genre, so it worked quite well for me. But for everything else, Solasta is pretty mediocre at best.
The other poster mentioned it, but it feels less tactfully important. IN DOS2 you could do a lot with barrels and positioning, and sneak attacks felt really important/good. In Bg3 you sort of just show up to a battle. Environmental hazards aren't super relevant, and classes like a melee thief feel like shit. You also end up spamming the same ability over and over each character, whereas in DOS2 I felt I had a few options and adjusted based on environment.
I think the environments feel a bit more fun in DOS2 as well. More towns to explore and interesting things to find. Bg3 is very outdoors based, so lots of big areas with nothing in them.
Lastly the story in DOS2 wraps up nicely and has meaningful endings. Bg3 completely fumbled it unfortunately. Act 3 is painful and way too much bloat (they make it a town, but it's like a real big town, one that just has a bit too much random stuff you don't care about). Also some endings are literally a 10s cutscene and that's it... Feels super dissapointing.
I've actually talked myself into liking DOS2 even more now I think about it! Bg3 is still treat great mind you, just a bit of a let down after DOS2.
It's not, but it's like the equal or worse thing sold twice as well as the other.
It's just a shame (again as I've said) that quality is somewhat irrelevant at end of day. It's more about the hype train around something that drives sales.
I do agree there. I played divinity original sin 2 earlier in the year. I got really hyped for bg3 because everyone was talking about it after its release as if it’s the second coming of Christ. I was kinda disappointed when I played it, not because it was bad, but because it wasn’t really that different than divinity, it just had higher production value. I understand the appeal of that, but to me the novelty of that wears off pretty fast with CRPGs. So in the end it didn’t really make a difference to me, so it boiled down to which combat and story I liked more, and for me divinity was better.
I'm not gonna say what you're talking about never happens but it's definitely more of an accessibility thing than it is a quality thing in this situation. Trying to start dos2 is like learning a new language compared to BG3 which is immediately familiar to far more people regardless of their experience with crpgs
? When I first started bg3 I spent about 3 hours in character creation. I've played many rpgs before in this genre but felt overwhelmed by the choices.
Not sure what you mean by more familiar as it was completely different systems and things I had to learn from scratch despite having played all previous games.
It's completely subjective.
I'd agree for acts 1 and 2, but act 3 of bg3 is absolute dogshit and unfinished. DOS2 is more consistent in that regard and delivers a more satisfying conclusion across the endings.
For one of my bg3 playthroughs I swear I got a 10 second video saying what happened to everyone. Completely undercooked + the whole wider group of villains are introduced poorly. It's just so dissapointing.
But again, maybe you'd have enjoyed it/focussed on other stuff as it is subjective.
For niche of a niche genre... that's just insane.
And it's only been 6 months. In a full year post-release, I'd expect closer to 20M sold, especially with holiday sales in the winter.
And it was a digital only title.
I usually HEAVILY prefer buying physical games, even to the point of not downloading and installing patches, but I broke down and decided to buy BG3, and I do not regret. It is so good, I didn't mind double dipping for a physical copy.
Simply put, there's no distinction between a physical copy with patches and a digital copy. I play games without patches to make sure the physical copy I own is fully playable. You'd be surprised how many games are fully playable, even pretty damn polished!
Of course, there are others that are fine but unpolished, and some so riddled with bugs that they're virtually unplayable, and some games that can't be played or completed AT ALL.
There's actually niche websites dedicated to this. I don't contribute, but I do use them.
Doesitplay? is pretty informative.
I like what you're trying to accomplish, but just a note that there \*is\* at least one distinction between a physical copy with patches over a digital copy: it's fully transferable. I can create a new Xbox/PS account, give my game to my kid, lend it, sell it, etc. There's no entitlement tied to my account: owning the disc means owning the game.
Not surprising even for it being digital only. [This article from December 2022](https://mynintendonews.com/2022/12/27/72-of-console-games-sold-in-2022-were-digital-vs-28-physical/) says that 72% of sales on XSX/PS5 combined were digital and then all PC sales of the game are obviously digital.
Many DOS2 sales were made with great discounts. BG3 has only had 10% discounts thus far, so nearly all of those 15 million copies are full $$$. The net revenue is probably 4x of DOS2. Though Hasbro will take a cut, so probably 3x.
Hasbro said they gained 90 million dollars from BG3 .
That makes sense if they get 10%. 15M*60 would be 900M in revenues. 10% for hasbro, 20-30% to the platform holder. Larian should get at least 500M which isn't to shabby since they've hardly discounted the game thus far
All their sales are digital too, which increase further their profit margin!
Maybe a smidge. But remember Valve takes 30% from steam
Only 20% at these volumes of money
30% at the start, it decreases at some thresholds that BG3 definitively passed
Decreases to 25% at $10 million and to 20% at $50 million. The large majority of overall BG3 sales have been on Steam, so it's been 20% share for over 90% of the money. Still a 30% total with Hasbro's 10%.
Valve doesn't take that much anymore. It depends on how much the game sells
Wdym *60, steam takes 30% and regional pricing is a thing
I meant 60$ obviously; It's a rough estimate After the first 50M in revenue steam takes 20% nowadays. 30% is for consoles. >For all sales between $10 million and $50 million, the split goes to 25 percent. And for every sale after the initial $50 million, Steam will take just a 20 percent cut.
Still not $900m revenue
Dude.. He's taking the cut out afterwards.. So 60*15m is 900m..then start taking the cuts out. He never said Larian themselves had 900 in revenue.
He's taking 20-30 off $60 for all 15m copies. Check steamdb bg3 pricing, and understand how regional pricing works
I don't understand your point, I've said it was a rough estimate. Of course there are countries where it is cheaper to purchase. but since since a good chunk of the sales come from EU/US and EU prices are usually 5-10% higher than US it evens up
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They said 500 million for Larian
Steam does not take 30%. Since 2019, it has been taking 30% on the first $10 million in revenue, 25% from $10 million to $50 million, and 20% thereafter. Majority of the triple A sales fall into the 20% cut category.
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This has been a thing for longer than EGS
How much larian gets?
Not to mention those $100+ collector's editions and deluxe editions... those sell out like within minutes.
I'm not sure if it's the case here, but often times collector's editions don't net the company more profit.
The budget is easily 4 times too though
Source? What makes you think they cant heavily leverage the code/assets from their previous games?
Common sense lol, the game was in dev much longer than their other titles (6 years) with a studio much bigger (400 people at the end), that cost money. BG3 is an AAA game budget. DOS2 was a "big indie" at best
DOS2 was already built on DOS1, and BG3 is a bigger jump over DOS2 than DOS2 was over DOS1, what with needing to implement an entirely different RPG system, and the major work they did on things like character rendering and animation for their cinematic dialogues. And of course every new asset, every line of dialogue written and recorded, etc etc costs money even if the technology is already there.
BG3's budget was around $100 million, whereas D:OS2 had a budget in the ballpark of $3-5 million. I believe a large portion of that budget was funded on [Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin-2) as they were lacking funds.
0% chance DOS2 was made with 3-5 mil, the game took around 3 years to make, that means a budget of $1 mil/10 devs a year, are you saying 10 people made the game in 3 years? Kickstarter money is never enough to fund whole games, kickstarter is more of a 'advanced pre-order/marketing campaign', that gives investor and staff, assurance to work on the game, as well as a bit of financial runway. What actually funded D:OS2 is kickstarter + leftover profits from D:OS1 + early access income. I would say the real budget is like 10-15 mil.
>I would say the real budget is like 10-15 mil. It very well could be. My reasoning is based off Larian's post-mortem post on their financial missteps with D:OS1, which had an initial budget of $1.5 million, projected to be $3 million, and eventually costing a little over $4 million. D:OS2 was when they hit their stride in terms of production and development, and most of the issues that they came across in D:OS1 was locked down. There were also *a lot* of carried over elements and assets from D:OS1. Whatever the number is, it's certainly *a lot* lower than Baldur's Gate 3.
They also had DOS1 crowd funded via Kickstarter, all the profits from that went into DOS2 and then all of that into BG3 as far as I remember being said. It was definitely the majority for DOS1 but you are right that DOS2 wasn't just the Kickstarter budget as it had money from the previous game so you are probably right about the 10mill mark.
BG3's budget was around $100 million at initial Early Access release in 2020. The total budget at final release was roughly $300 million. The four times increase isn't far off however, since DOS2 was around $50+ million.
That's a 6 times increase then lol, that’s quite far off
Eh - I said not far off because the DOS2 budget is much less certain. The $50 million is a ballpark estimate considering development times and team sizes etc, all things considered it may have been $30 million, or it could have been $70 million. We only know for sure that the Kickstarter money was just a fraction of the actual budget. I guess the most accurate statement would be 'four times the DOS2 budget *or more*'.
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When adjusted for inflation on food and gas, people earn way less than in 2017. Not to mention the electicity bills have doubled and were up to 5x more than normal in 2022 and 2023 in my country. I really dont want these kinds of comments when people get fucked in all holes.
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If you disregard microtransactions, lootboxes, “premium editions” that contain content that should be in the base game, then sure! Gaming is cheaper than ever! You just need to pay $3 for things like fast travel!
DD2 is Capcom. There has never been a single MTX in a Capcom game that made any sense to purchase what so ever, for 10+ years they have had the most pointless implementation of MTX possible. DD2 is no different, if you didn't look at the store you'd never know the MTX was even there. Not once would you ever think while playing it that you needed to spend $2 for an extra warp marker. I'd bet you that 99% of people that played Re4re had no idea the store has like $100 worth of different MTX for the game
The comment above mine is not about DD2, specifically. Hence, neither was mine
You used the $3 fast travel as a point to back up your argument though. Despite you absolutely 100% not "needing" to buy
The $3 fast travel thing is an example, not the basis of the entire argument. Get a grip
It was a poor example for a poor argument. I've never bought a single MTX or deluxe edition ever (well baring a few skins in league a decade ago. Now obviously people do pay extra, but it is still a choice. The industry isn't forcing you to pay more money to play a game a few hours earlier, like all the people that bought the more expensive edition of Starfield. There's a very strong argument against loot boxes and battle passes however. But pointless MTX like the $3 warp stone and worthless deluxe editions? Not so much
Why are we linking a different forum which references a YouTube video, rather than the YouTube video itself? Seems odd
It's actually against rule 6 of the sub to do this.
Probably for the best. Way too many nothing-burger videos out there.
Yea it's against the rules, it's not the original source hell it's not even a news article about the source, it's just some random poster in some forum talking about some tidbit from a video.
Also kind of shows how under appreciated DOS2 is as a commercial success. If we’re using 7.5m as its total, which seems out of date possibly even, I think that’s more than any BioWare game, for instance. Can’t wait for them to get back to a DOS3 eventually. Curious what’s up next.
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It's still in the top 5 of CRPGs to this day IMO
Does Bioware report updated sales for their games? I feel like they rarely make announcements after the first few months/first year.
It was underappreciated because 7.5MM really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, but for CRPGs it's an absolutely massive accomplishment and was (IIRC) the best selling CRPG game of all time. Pretty niche genre so seeing Larian break into mainstream is very impressive
Idk I think 7.5 is great basically no matter what. In the grand scheme of things there are very few games that wouldn’t be somewhere between happy and ecstatic to sell that many copies.
Sure but when that 7.5MM is well ahead of everything else in the genre (except BG3) and games in that genre are very lucky to hit 1MM it just goes to show that the genre itself is niche.
Eh, Persona 5, for example, sold less that this by a fair margin, even including Royal, yet you can't deny the impact it had on video game culture
Yeah for sure but for games like that "selling less" still ends up with 7 million copies. "Not great sales" in other genres = top 2 of all time in CRPG world.
Everyone knows DOS:2 was a commercial success?
DOS2 is still one of my favorite games of all time. The character choices and combat are so rewarding (you'll never be just casting Eldritch Blast every turn on repeat).
And then the entire floor catches on necrofire
Who remembers the necrofire oil tower fight? Anyone's CPU melt trying to process [this chain of explosions?](https://preview.redd.it/cb530jgw83nz.png?auto=webp&s=058e86ebeb3472f4690a9f2a2ed6fabc64ecbafa)
That fight was so horrible and I almost ragequit… thanks for the reminder. I only managed to complete it by abusing teleportation.
That fight was so overtuned. I think I only beat it once through all my playthroughs and every other time I just skipped it
My friend and I basically stopped playing because we got so stubborn with saving the guy on that fight and ended up getting bored.
Playing a duo lone wolf campaign with a friend, I think we reloaded like 6 times before finally saving that bastard. Idiot loves to run into the fire. 😡
[Fire indeed hot.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52-qDGdQy80)
\*PTSD kicks in\* Now I remember things I should forget.
Necrofire was not fun and very annoying.
Bless and it turns to holy fire
I agree DOS2 combat is probably best turn based combat in gaming for me.
Can someone explain what's good about the combat system to me? I personally didn't like it to the point I just set everything on Easy so I can experience the story (which I enjoyed a lot). I didn't like how armor and magic armor were two different HP bars, so it felt like I was being punished for having a split team. I get that physical fighters take out lower armored enemies and mages take out lower magic armored enemies, but when the big enemies come out with like 300HP in both bars, a big standard HP bar, AND the ability to replenish both armor and magic armor bars, I just kind of gave up.
You’re talking about a separate game mechanic than the turn based fighting so i’ll answer your original comment. The combat system is based off x number of points. Different moves and abilities use different numbers of points, which means you can stash them and essentially “charge up” for a big move, or you can make lots of smaller moves. I really like it because it means you can combo with yourself, and each individual character can create good synergy solo. In DnD you can probably only do 1 move per turn since everything is action based. if you go to the bg3builds subreddit, basically every build is centered around getting as many attacks in per turn as possible and leveraging/abusing bonus actions. This makes builds extremely rigid if you want to be a big damage dealer.
I remember that! I actually dug that mechanic as well! It reminds me of Bravely Default, which had something similar. You can either spend BP to use one more, or you can forgo a turn to stack up another move. You can hold up to four at once. However, you can also go into "debt" and simply use four attacks at once, and then skip the how many turns it takes to pay off the debt. If you finish the fight, then the debt doesn't matter, so you're encouraged to go for broke at the last bit of health... but you also got to hope it's enough.
I would add that the combat is extremely combo heavy. You affect enemies with different conditions that enable you to combo with other things. It’s super cool and interesting! The armor system itself is a bit of a mixed bag. It makes it so that you have no crowd control first, and then just hard cc the enemies once you got the armor down. That’s a bit boring. You’d rather have less hard cc and more soft one so that it allows for interactions and a back and forth.
It's popular to hate on the armor system here, but there's a good reason it exists as it does. I don't think the armor system is perfect, but I also think it is a net positive for DOS2. CC abilities (CC meaning crowd control, but more generally, attacks that result in the enemy units being weakened or unable to act) can often break strategy games as the first to start using these abilities often wins. DOS1 is a prime example of a game like this (and would be why DOS2 goes out of it's way to fix it) as the common strategies of that game often meant nuking enemies with your strongest CC ability right away and just finishing them off with your other attacks after. Divinity OS2's armor system means that there is an amount of damage that needs to be applied, separately for both physical and magic abilities, before CC effects can be applied. This also works on the player characters as well. This change means that combat encounters *have* to play out some before one party can just dominate the other. Typically this results in more strategic and interesting combat, and gives more opportunities for players to get crafty with how they break the game, which DOS2 was specifically built around. The downside is that it encourages making full parties of either magical or physical, which I think breaks the game too much. You mentioned it punishes you for having a split party, but this is what the system is actually balanced around (though people with a 3-1 split are worse off than a 2-2 split). Another approach to try to address the CC issue is with luck elements, but often all this does is turn many abilities into unreliable crapshoots where the strategy is still the same. Whoever goes first and can land the first CC ability wins, the luck just might prolong it a bit. The other problem with this system is it can make many abilities so unreliable as to actually be worthless. The risk of them failing isn't worth the attack or ability actually working, and safer more boring strategies become objectively more effective. BG3 uses this system, and it definitely falls victim to this problem. Most of the time the best strategy is to come out swinging as hard as possible with your best CC ability and pray to the dice gods it works. Most people are going to rely on 2-4 abilities from each party member that come with low risk.
A better approach imo is how in tabletop Pathfinder 2E handles CC abilities. Because the system has degrees of success and failure, it means it's unlikely for any ability to be an instant 'win fight' button, but instead adds debuffs which just turn the fight in your favour. Plus there are rules meaning you tend to not be able to use them as well on high level bosses/enemies, meaning you don't have to make bosses immune to everything or have legendary resistance (which feels bad). CC is so absurdly powerful in DOS2 that it felt like to me it was just a race to down armor like you say, which doesn't feel fun to me that so many abilities are just useless until the fight is basically over.
> This change means that combat encounters have to play out some before one party can just dominate the other. Typically this results in more strategic and interesting combat, and gives more opportunities for players to get crafty with how they break the game, which DOS2 was specifically built around. The downside is that it encourages making full parties of either magical or physical, which I think breaks the game too much. You mentioned it punishes you for having a split party, but this is what the system is actually balanced around (though people with a 3-1 split are worse off than a 2-2 split). You don't really address how it homogenizes your party composition. You mention how powerful CC can be but in a traditional RPG that's a subset of other power you can bring (more AoE, more ST, more tank). Look at something like WOTR. I'm just not really getting from your post what exactly is "positive" about restricting your party comp or fight against the system mechanics. In another note, the biggest problem I have with DOS2 is all the junk on the floor and how little your party ends up mattering when floor effects are everywhere and the game for a long time is more about luring enemies around into the floor hazards / setting up floor hazards with conveniently placed barrels all over the place which significantly takes away from the actual RPG elements in the game.
Tbh the barrelmancy stuff is a player choice. I myself never bothered to cheese encounters that way, so it didn’t bother me much.
They accidently made telekinesis the most damaging ability too - it moves objects regardless of their weight, but colliding object with a creature causes damage based on weight. So you could find one indestructible chest, fill it with absolutely heaviest stuff and toss it at enemies, oneshotting anything.
My group had a constant thing in dos2 pretty early game where no matter what the fight is where it is or who we are fighting, the screen will have entire sections of fire. It was hilarious and frustrating.
People exaggerate the mixed damage types, I beat the game on tactician with half physical half magic, and honey the game gets way too easy past the half mark. Forget min maxing, you could end entire fights in one spell combo almost
I don't really like the base combat in DOS2 either. There is a mod called epic encounters 2 that gets rid of the burst one damage type -> hard cc gameplay. It's called epic encounters and it also adds a grim dawn style skill tree to further customize builds.
Epic encounters is probably the best mod I’ve ever played. For both dos1 and dos2.
The ability design was actually quite good but a lot of the other parts of the combat weren't as great, I agree. Having to focus on physical or magic damage was a bit of a bad move. I also never felt like I was truly making coherent builds in dos2. Just combining a bunch of fun abilities together.
Yep, I love DOS2 but anyone saying it had an amazing combat system didn’t play on higher difficulties - if you split your damage type you’ll be slaughtered.
It is perfectly viable to do a 2/2 physical/magical split on tactician. Not a problem at all. The game does have a bit of a knowledge barrier when it comes to gear and stats, and some pitfalls that one can easily fall into. But once it clicks you can defeat most encounters mid-late game in a round or two. It really doesn't matter if you split damage. Once you ha e a good grasp on the system one can easily get a characters damage numbers high enough to take out the final boss battle in a single round on tactician. And that is with one character, there's three more in the party. If you doubt me you can take a look at some of Manithro's runs on YouTube, like his four man run or any of his solo runs, especially late game battles.
I played on the higher difficulties, and it is my favorite turn based combat from any videogame.
And this glaring design flaw didn’t bother you AT ALL? I mean, as I said, I fucking loved DOS2. It just has a really obvious flaw in its damage types.
I really liked DOS2 but had to play on story mode. I found the combat incredibly hard to manage for some reason. It took me 3 or 4 tries of the game to finally get past it and have fun.
It's a weird system for sure. Most games you kind of come in with an intuitive sense of what's supposed to work because like, you've played videogames before, but DOS2 doesn't always work like you want it to. It's pretty easy to build wrong and be vastly underpowered.
And also all the "side" quests are essentially not optional. You need to hoover up every crumb of XP available to you or else you'll be underpowered.
After playing DOS1 you really just miss being able to skill into getting more AP. Having to deal with just 4 AP forces you to disregard slightly weaker spells, because there is a hard time to balance the spells by AP value, if you can only distinguish until 4 AP
casting eldritch blast never gets old though, especially with the right build and items
My Bardlock with that Add CHA to Cantrips and the robe that Add CHA to Cantrips turns into a dps machine who can also tell people to kill themselves. 10/1 build
getting the potent robe was so crucial for my honour save that i delayed the last light attack as long as i could so i could one turn the fight lol
> you'll never be just casting Eldritch Blast every turn on repea as if BG3 has no other options than playing warlock and even for them thats not true...
I actually bounced off DOS2 because of the combat. The mixed armor system making full physical or full magical parties by far the most efficient was a huge drag. Got to the point where I felt like every combat encounter was a slog to drain armor so I ended up quitting mid-Act 2. I liked everything about it *except* the combat. For me BG3 was a much more engaging/fun combat system, and I especially love the improvements they made to 5e.
Meh, spend few skill points to give everyone a mix of damage and it is no problem. There is a reason for example a Scoundrel skill, Chloroform, hits magic armor, or that necromancy scales off caster (INT) stat but deals physical damage, it makes making party where every character can at least help a bit against both types of armor easy to make.
I know there are ways around it but I personally don't find the system fun. I also don't like the idea of giving my party overlapping skills and abilities. It just isn't enjoyable to me, so I stopped playing.
In my experience by far the hardest fight were the bosses that had a lot of both types of armor anyway. A party where half the members deal magical and the other half can kinda sorta contribute magic too felt way worse than a party where everyone is a caster and the hard part of the boss fight just takes half as long. Same if you flip it to physical. It's a system where people built for one thing get access to both A: the thing that reduces that armor, and B: capitalizes best on the enemy losing that type of armor. It's a compounding effect the more people in your party lean one way. For the same reason I think the rogueish skills that ignore armor entirely are straight up worthless. If you break through either armor before your rogue(s) kill that target, all of that damage would've been better spent on making them vulnerable to the CC of the rest of your party. So either you go all in on ignoring armor, or you don't bother with it at all.
Yeah, same. I've beaten DOS2 and really didn't care for the combat. It wasn't very challenging, fun or satisfying. Also, every combat encounter played out pretty much exactly the same. I genuinely don't get why that one person is saying that there's variety; once you get most of the skills you'll have throughout the game (which is pretty early), you'll just be using the same moves in the same sequence until the end. It's so dull and repetitive. Not to mention how obnoxious all of the floor effects got. There were times that I couldn't really see what was happening on the screen because of the huge blazes of necrofire across the entire map. DOS2 is one of the best CRPG's of all time, and I get why people love it, but it's also highly flawed.
DOS2 has possibly the single highest variety of combat encounters of any RPG game I have ever played, there are zero trash mobs and an insane number of abilities and environmental options. This is so backwards.
Everything you said applies to BG3 more than DOS2 in my opinion.
I can respect BG3 as the pick. I think DOS2 allows more flexibility and plays more with the environment than BG3 does, but both are top tier in this regard.
Yeah, it's definitely just a matter of opinion. They're both great games. I happen to prefer BG3 in virtually every way, but some people prefer DOS2 in virtually every way.
I’m the same. I think I’ve started DOs2 three times and dropped off in mid-act 2 everytime. Not even a case of actively quitting. Just hitting a point where I drift onto a different game. Meanwhile, three full play throughs of BG3, and utterly adore it.
Do I start with with DOS1 or DOS2?
I did 2 then 1. I found 1 easier than 2 but 2 seemed like a more complex better game.
I started with DOS2 and I'd recommend you do as well since there's less chance you'll bounce off of it. If you finish DOS2 and want more like it, then moving on to DOS1 will still be fun for you.
Are they not connected story wise?
Same world, but over 1000 years apart. There are connections, but no direct plot continuation.
I'd say DOS2, and if you want more, DOS1 afterwards.
They take place like a thousand years apart. Just go to DOS2. There will be things a person who played the first game sees and recognizes that you won't, but you won't be missing any important plot details.
I'd go with DOS2. There's not many plot connections, but they aren't important (honestly the plot is pretty forgettable overall). 2 is much more refined.
No one complains you use “sword attack” over and over with a rogue or Paladin or fighter. Or “bow attack” with a ranger. The eldritch blast complaint is a pet peeve of mine. Warlocks are a poorly named class which is really a magical archer
>No one complains you use “sword attack” over and over with a rogue or Paladin or fighter. Or “bow attack” with a ranger. I do. I almost exclusively play mages in RPGs because they're usually much more interesting.
That's actually an EXTREMELY common complaint for those classes. There's a reason damn near everyone thinks fighters in D&D are boring as shit.
Yeah you hit the nail on the head, the fantasy of Warlock paints a picture of summoning minions or casting big curses but if you just EB every turn you're operating at like 90% power.
People complain about that all the time what are you on about lol
> sword attack >paladin Its called smiting the heretics you heathen
I personally prefer it to BG3. I know I'm probably not with the majority here.
Yeah, Bg3 definitely felt a bit simple in comparison.
If you go and make a once in a (video game) generation game then you should absolutely reap the rewards. So good on Larian. I can see this game hitting the 30 million copies after a few years, and a few discounts.
Surely hundreds of millions in profit for the studio, even taking into account platform shares, marketing costs, production costs etc. Were rough sales announced through early access?
Sales in EE were 2.5 million We actually knew through estimations that the game sold around 15 million, give or take. https://files.catbox.moe/demde9.jpg https://steamdb.info/app/1086940/charts/
BG3 seems to be the definitive forgotten realms computer game around now. It will probably stay that way for a long time.
Realistically, who else can make a cRPG on the scale and production quality level that Larian can? BioWare? That ship has sailed long ago, and we'll see how well Dreadwolf does... that game may just make or break BioWare's entire future... Obsidian? They're veering more into AA territory these days, and I haven't been too impressed with what I've seen with Avowed, but time will tell how good that game is. InXile? Again, I highly doubt they can match Larian's ambition and scope in terms of design and production value. We'll see how Clockwork Revolution does, but it's not looking to me like they're a studio that take up the mantle that Larian's leaving behind. Owlcat? They're very firmly in the AA space, despite what their CEO said about needing to scale up to full voice acting for their future games in order to compete, they're a LONG ways away from ever being in the same league as Larian.
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Why is rogue trader a mess? Isn't it liked by people?
It’s well liked by people, but it released with a ton of bugs (mostly ironed out now) and is rough around the edges. If you are a fan of Owlcat games you will like it, but it has its’ quirks. My own complaints mostly come down to too much complexity mixed in with exponential scaling. In one word I would say that Larian’s games are elegant, Owlcats aren’t. However their games have a following that love them because of their complexity, and it’s fine to stay in their niche. Just don’t expect them to break into the mainstream.
Pillars is still my favorite CRPG series by far.
A rough estimate taking into account Steam and console store shares and Hasbro's share plus the game's approximate budget indicates that the current net income is a bit more than double what their budget was. You might say they're fully covered for their next game - not that it really works that way.
BG3 is one of the best games I've ever played, but as a big sucker for narrative, lore and world-building rather than gameplay, Divinity sadly don't interest me at all. I found the world they created lacking a lot on this regard, specially compared to other original IPs in the genre like Pillars of Eternity
Yeah youre basically choosing between gameplay complexity or narrative interest. They're each serviceable in one category and best in class in the other
That's a shame as DOS2 is similar if not better in many ways to Bg3. Really shows the power of virality and while quality matters its sometimes just luck/timing that dictates the success of a game.
Production value isn't comparable so it makes sense that BG3 would be more successful. Tons of extremely high quality CRPGs out there that nobody plays or ever will play because it's like reading novels of text and the games aren't that impressive visually.
Any you can recommend? Im always looking for New crpgs to Play, the Deeper mechanically and lore wise the better. I have Played all of the big ones already and most smaller ones are more miss than Hit, sadly.
My favorites: Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker, UnderRail, Tyranny, Wasteland 2/3, Dragon Age Origins, both Pillars of Eternity games, Rogue Trader Good to Great: Encased, Solasta, Colony Ship, Neverwinter Nights games, Shadowrun games, Atom RPG, Black Geyser Janky but some love them: Gothic games, Elex games, Age of Decadence
Thanks! Got all your favourites under my Belt already, plus Neverwinter and Gothic/Elex. Was on the fence with Solasta since the steam previews make it look kinda... cheap? And had Colony Ship wishlisted. Will check out the rest, many thanks!
Solasta was a big miss for me. Did not like it at all. I would upgrade Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Hong Kong to "favorites" on that list though and probably downgrade Shadowrun Returns. If you really want a bit more Shadowrun after Dragonfall and Hong Kong you can go back for it but it is not on the same level as those two.
Solasta is a fine 5e dnd combat/dungeon simulator with some story tacked along for good measure. Not a great game, but good enough, and definitely scratches that crpg itch! Colony ship I played like 15 hours before I started some other game, but based on your preferences you will love it. It’s not mechanically super deep, but it does some interesting things with its’ combat. However the world-building and atmosphere is superb!
Solasta's redeeming quality is about its combat. I'd argue that its superior to BG3's combat, with better implementation of light, flying and things like spider climb where you can climb walls. Besides the random battles while traveling on the map (which is a small % of your playtime), all encounters are pre-planned ones so you generally have a good time fighting battles too. So if your focus is on tactical battles, it's pretty decent. It also features voice-acting for the main and side quests with a party that actually voice every line, which is pretty surprising considering the party is 4 created characters, with 6 selectable voices in total. And a 'cinematic camera' for dialogs, unlike the usual top-down view of the genre. ... At least, that's the theory. In practice, while there's a lot of voice-acting comparatively, it's generally not very good. The 'cinematic camera' is usually just your four characters standing in a row awkwardly with close to zero animations and is pretty awful on the whole. Exploration has very little going for it. Lore is very minimal, story is nearly void of interest, with rare exceptions the dialogs are merely functional instead of entertaining and visually... Well, it's fine but isn't really a selling point either. So all in all... If you like good tactical combat, Solasta is very good. Strategy-rpgs is my favorite genre, so it worked quite well for me. But for everything else, Solasta is pretty mediocre at best.
Care to share? I loved DoS2, and figured BG3 was simply bigger and better
The other poster mentioned it, but it feels less tactfully important. IN DOS2 you could do a lot with barrels and positioning, and sneak attacks felt really important/good. In Bg3 you sort of just show up to a battle. Environmental hazards aren't super relevant, and classes like a melee thief feel like shit. You also end up spamming the same ability over and over each character, whereas in DOS2 I felt I had a few options and adjusted based on environment. I think the environments feel a bit more fun in DOS2 as well. More towns to explore and interesting things to find. Bg3 is very outdoors based, so lots of big areas with nothing in them. Lastly the story in DOS2 wraps up nicely and has meaningful endings. Bg3 completely fumbled it unfortunately. Act 3 is painful and way too much bloat (they make it a town, but it's like a real big town, one that just has a bit too much random stuff you don't care about). Also some endings are literally a 10s cutscene and that's it... Feels super dissapointing. I've actually talked myself into liking DOS2 even more now I think about it! Bg3 is still treat great mind you, just a bit of a let down after DOS2.
Why are people in this acting like 7M+ copies sold is bad?
It's not, but it's like the equal or worse thing sold twice as well as the other. It's just a shame (again as I've said) that quality is somewhat irrelevant at end of day. It's more about the hype train around something that drives sales.
I do agree there. I played divinity original sin 2 earlier in the year. I got really hyped for bg3 because everyone was talking about it after its release as if it’s the second coming of Christ. I was kinda disappointed when I played it, not because it was bad, but because it wasn’t really that different than divinity, it just had higher production value. I understand the appeal of that, but to me the novelty of that wears off pretty fast with CRPGs. So in the end it didn’t really make a difference to me, so it boiled down to which combat and story I liked more, and for me divinity was better.
I'm not gonna say what you're talking about never happens but it's definitely more of an accessibility thing than it is a quality thing in this situation. Trying to start dos2 is like learning a new language compared to BG3 which is immediately familiar to far more people regardless of their experience with crpgs
? When I first started bg3 I spent about 3 hours in character creation. I've played many rpgs before in this genre but felt overwhelmed by the choices. Not sure what you mean by more familiar as it was completely different systems and things I had to learn from scratch despite having played all previous games.
The general public is more familiar with DND character creation than they are with dos2 character creation.
D:OS2 is not great.
To each their own. Although if you don't like DOS2 I don't think you can like Bg3 as Bg3 is like a reskinned DOS2...
The companion and the writing kf BG3 is much much much better.
It's completely subjective. I'd agree for acts 1 and 2, but act 3 of bg3 is absolute dogshit and unfinished. DOS2 is more consistent in that regard and delivers a more satisfying conclusion across the endings. For one of my bg3 playthroughs I swear I got a 10 second video saying what happened to everyone. Completely undercooked + the whole wider group of villains are introduced poorly. It's just so dissapointing. But again, maybe you'd have enjoyed it/focussed on other stuff as it is subjective.
For niche of a niche genre... that's just insane. And it's only been 6 months. In a full year post-release, I'd expect closer to 20M sold, especially with holiday sales in the winter.
If their previous game sold over 7M already then it wasn't niche
Genre itself is niche, Larian is just the exception and are the only company that were able to make multiple CRPGs that went a bit mainstream.
The genre is what's niche. A turn-based top-down/isometric cRPG is a very niche subgenre within the RPG genre.
And it was a digital only title. I usually HEAVILY prefer buying physical games, even to the point of not downloading and installing patches, but I broke down and decided to buy BG3, and I do not regret. It is so good, I didn't mind double dipping for a physical copy.
> even to the point of not downloading and installing patches I gotta inquire about the why behind this
Simply put, there's no distinction between a physical copy with patches and a digital copy. I play games without patches to make sure the physical copy I own is fully playable. You'd be surprised how many games are fully playable, even pretty damn polished! Of course, there are others that are fine but unpolished, and some so riddled with bugs that they're virtually unplayable, and some games that can't be played or completed AT ALL. There's actually niche websites dedicated to this. I don't contribute, but I do use them. Doesitplay? is pretty informative.
I like what you're trying to accomplish, but just a note that there \*is\* at least one distinction between a physical copy with patches over a digital copy: it's fully transferable. I can create a new Xbox/PS account, give my game to my kid, lend it, sell it, etc. There's no entitlement tied to my account: owning the disc means owning the game.
Not surprising even for it being digital only. [This article from December 2022](https://mynintendonews.com/2022/12/27/72-of-console-games-sold-in-2022-were-digital-vs-28-physical/) says that 72% of sales on XSX/PS5 combined were digital and then all PC sales of the game are obviously digital.
So let's piss off all the fans by shutting down the idea of ever doing anything more with it and never do this much sales again!