this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)

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Not a great look for Microsoft

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (5 children)

“This is really a disaster situation for us given all we’ve invested in content across studios at our GP [Game Pass] content fund,” ... “We set a very high bar in 2021 on quality and pacing of content which was awesome to see,” he continued. “But to come off of that year with no big exclusives launching in 2022 is a portfolio planning miss that we can’t afford. If we need to delay launches (understanding there is a financial impact of that) to create more regular beats for us we need to do that. We have to all understand that the situation we are in now is a failure of our planning and production execution.”

My corporate speak is a little rusty, but if I understand the gravity of this statement correctly, is Spencer implying that GamePass is a house of cards that is only supported by the regular timing of new exclusive releases? It seems like that's a very risky business model then, and the consequences of GamePass folding would be consumers lose access to a truly massive number of games. This statement would basically make me lose a ton of confidence in the service, and I'd be looking to take my library (and money) elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The way I would perceive it is that mega-hjts in games are very profitable. A hit sells like 200k-300k at launch. But from time to time, a game hits the cultural zeitgeist and can 3x that. Those are you're BOTWs and such.

Platforms bank on having those because they are the big bang for their buck. In Microsoft case, an exclusive like that would move a lot of gp subs. I think that is the idea behind making starfield elusive, and then getting rid of the reduced price trial.

So when people are busy playing BG3, and then ign gives starfield a 7, and people decide its not worth dropping everything to go and play, it can really mess up a company's tire venue projections. Poor babies.

[–] SkyezOpen 25 points 1 year ago

Guess the execs will have to cut back on the avocado toast.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

That's just how most streaming services work. You need the constant easy to make junk to keep people in, but it's the big hits that get people to subscribe for the first time or come back.

[–] Klear 11 points 1 year ago

take my library

You won't be taking anything anywhere if it goes tits up. It's their library.

[–] schmidtster 8 points 1 year ago

It’s no secret that they are “hemorrhaging” money into gamepass just to be competitive. Would have a tough time finding the article, but there was something about them doing it JUST to keep some games out of the hands of other companies.

[–] rambaroo 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How does this guy still have a job? Xbox has just been failure after failure.